This Ministry of Balance
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Art of Ministry
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I begin with a confession.
Compelling ideas are a side affect of my strokes. When an idea hits, when a concept comes home, when a thought takes wing, it lodges itself in every cell of my body, mind, and soul. Perception runs around the bases not once but three times.
I was interviewing the president of Methodist Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee when such a thing happened. The painting on a wall of his office utterly captivated me. A column of stones, far more beautiful than the one I have sketched out here, framed the reality of his profession. Move any one stone and the entire column would fall. The balance of the strong stones was fragile.
Hmmmm, I thought to myself. The stones of a hospital . . . how many are there? Medicare? Insurance? Employee moral? Infection rates? The cost of equipment? Chronic conditions? The health of the foundation? A recession in which people still get sick? Through the interview I kept thinking about those stones, and the responsibility of finding the line of gravity that would keep them in balance.
What’s true of hospitals is also true of ministry.
If one preaches too strongly about this, that or the other thing, somebody will be offended. If one doesn’t preach about this, that or the other thing, somebody will be offended. We may call ourselves the United Methodist Church, or the United Church of Christ, but in actuality we aren’t all that united about . . . the kinds of chairs that should, and should not, be in the sanctuary; the kinds of prayers to be offered; what hospitality means; what should be opened to discussion and what is off-limits. Barbers know that while everyone would like to talk about religion and politics, one keeps customers by appreciating what they say but not crossing boundaries.
Ministry.
Like healing, it is an art. Like law, it is a practice. It is always searching for what good can be done, and what things are best tolerated.
One should care about principles, not feelings, but any ministry worth its salt cares a great deal about feelings that help us read the heart and makes sense of life. Ministry without feeling isn’t much of a ministry. And that keeps us off balance. In a wonderful, meaningful, useful way, it keeps us off balance.
Jesus “read” the lepers who wanted to be healed. He “read” Zaccheus who wanted to meet him. He “read” Mary and Martha. Pastors learn to “read” people in the blink of an eye, and then find out just where it is these feelings lead. Indeed we often carry those feelings home with us, wondering how to make sense of them. It is both a burden and a blessing.
“Oh our church,” an elderly woman in Wisconsin said to me last week, as I looked for stones a billion and a half year old in a field beside her farm. “I love small churches,” she said as I explained our small church is looking to refurbish a big old church. “But we’ve got problems,” she said. It’s nice on the outside, but we’re not getting along.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Churches are challenging. In the end that’s what keeps us alive. I hope you’ll make it.”
“We will,” she said.
The the plumb line of life always calls us. And so I say, “Thank God for the art of ministry, that keeps us a little off balance as we lay a new foundation each and every day.