One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my ministry is opening myself up to criticism. I try to have time when my adult and youth leaders can openly criticize whatever they think I am doing wrong. With all there is to do in this job, it cannot be an open channel at all times. It is too hard to do what God calls you to do, against the machinations of the evil one, with people constantly harping on what you are doing wrong. But if you are never told what you are doing wrong, then you will never grow as a minister. My solution, and I think it's a good one, is to have specific times when I gather people together to critique my overall job.
While major criticisms are rare, real course corrections are sometimes necessary. There have been many times when my ministry has waned in vigor or in terms of numbers, and the critique meeting leads to some change in strategy or behavior on my part, and this leads to invigoration of the ministry. This is how a church allows the prophetic voice to operate within it's walls. Every prophet is a critic, and rightly so. There are two sides to God's outreach to us. On the one side you have the priesthood, which sees in human endeavors a symbol or sacrament which points to a deeper reality. Most of what we do is partially of God, for humanity has the image of God within them. So only the most heinous of acts completely voids out God's presence within the moment (and even at that time, God remains present in the victims of the act). Priests, ministers, they see the partial good in the human experience and present God's 'yes and amen' to those acts. In the priestly voice, God says 'yes' to what we do.
However, this yes must always be qualified. For the same human heart that houses the Image of God also houses the sin of Adam. All human acts are filtered. There are very few purely godly acts. We can rarely even worship God purely. Much of the time what we pretend to be God is really just God+our own ego. I think idolatry can be transcended, but only for moments, and not as often as we'd like to see. Thus the 'yes and amen' of the priestly voice is only a partial 'yes and amen'. The prophet speaks God's voice as well, and that voice is a much less qualified 'no'. The no is more important than the yes, because idolatry and egotism are always greater dangers for sinful man than despair and self-negation. Most people will find islands of meaning in the darkness, and we are good at locating them, generally. But it is much harder to see past the light of our own souls and to recognize the shadows they cast. The 'no' of God must be present for every person in every generation. The 'yes' of the present generation must always be held lightly, for we know that even the best human endeavor has the seeds of sin within it and those seeds and germinate and corrupt easily. So, pace Reinhold Niebuhr, God's word is to humanity a partial 'yes' but an eternal 'no'.
Yet the minister's role is to encourage and build up, more than to destroy and break down. Prophets can stand at the pulpit, but they cannot dominate it. For the sinful human suffers in his sinfulness, and the minister breaks down and prophecies at the risk of passing judgment, and this cannot be done endlessly without beating down the sufferer, and the ministerial role must always be one of succor and grace. But without a prophetic voice, the priest is subject to the worst kind of egotism. It threatens to sacralize even that which God hates. So, generally speaking, the minister speaks the divine language of the priest, but cannot maintain his place without the critique of the prophet. The winds stand at cross-purposes.
The best prophets come from within the community, and outside the proper minister position. Thus every good minister must seek the prophetic voice from within the community. When that voice comes, it must be considered and listened to. But it is hard. Ministers are people too. Who wants to hear what they are doing wrong? I have no illusions about myself. I know I am prone to people-pleasing and perfectionism. I don't want to hear about my mistakes. It is just because I don't want to hear about them, however, that reveals how important it is to listen. The prophetic critique must never be pushed out of the way. One must listen and be willing to change. Evangelicals talk about the heart being 'convicted' and it is a good vocabulary and useful theology. We must be ready, willing, and able to have our heart 'convicted'. If we are not, we are truly lost.
This principle must not be taken too far, however. For sometimes one must listen to God's voice through experience and within the heart over and above His voice in the community. How does one draw this line? No one can tell you that for sure. No perfect map can be drawn. It must be worked out over time, with 'fear and trembling', prayer, reflection, and study of scripture. What is sure is the confidence that what one has received one has received 'from God' cannot always over-ride the voice of the community. After all, Christ is present in the Church body in total, not solely in the heart of the pastor.
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