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On Significance in Ministry

John the Baptizer said it best and with the fewest words (not a bad lesson on sermons!).  He must increase and I must decrease.

Easy to say; hard to do.

As a pastor you will always struggle to tame your ego.  Weekly people will greet you warmly at the end of services and assure you that you are doing a great job, that you are a blessing to many, a real treasure from God.  Watch it. 

Home bound visits will end with people saying that you made the day.  Watch it.

Little children will think you are Jesus.  Catechism students will quote you in their public school classes as the voice of God.  Young people will look up to you and tell you what a big difference you have made in their lives.  Watch it.

Few other occupations garner the kind of regular and positive feed back that parish pastors receive.  It can be so encouraging.  It can also be disastrous… if you believe everything people say about you.

John Schmidt was a swell guy.  That’s not his name; I do not remember what it really was, but I do remember the event with great clarity.  He was an older gentleman at my vicarage church who not only was always positive and encouraging—“never a discouraging word,” like the old song goes, but he also always sat in the front row. 

During one of my stellar vicar sermons, the only kind vicars preach, John slept.  He did not doze.  He did not nod off.  He slept—right there in front of me!  He made no pretense of trying to stay awake.  The lights were off and no one was home.  Whatever was going through his mind it had lots more to do with visions of sugar plums than it did with any theological insight coming from me.

As he left service that day I half expected a chagrined, “Sorry about that Vicar.  We were out late last night.”   I mean he was sound asleep—right there under my nose!  Instead I got this, “Vicar Davis, what a wonderful sermon!” 

You’ve got to be kidding me!  He had not heard a word I said.

Now here’s the scary part.  I believed him.  There was no reason to believe him, except he said what my ego always wants to hear.  I believed that it was a wonderful sermon and that I was a wonderful preacher.  Nothing but good things ahead for a guy like me!   Sure it was clear to me that he had not heard a word of the sermon, but I heard his word of affirmation… and applied it to my ego.  Insidious.  Dangerous.

Be careful.  He must increase and I must decrease.

There are two wonderful, and related, Bible passages that can serve to keep a pastor’s ego in check.  Always remember Balaam, or better, his donkey.  When your ego starts to get out of check, when you start to increase instead of Jesus, remember that you are a vessel only, and if God tires of using you he can find any old donkey and do the same thing.  

Remember the other donkey too, the Palm Sunday donkey.  Jesus sent his disciples into the village to secure that donkey with the words, “The Lord has need of it.”  The thing that was special that day about the donkey was not the donkey, but the Christ he carried.  That’s you, fellow pastor, and me.  We could just as easily be donkeys carrying Christ to people.  It is not about us.  It is about Jesus.

This is not to denigrate the encouragement you will receive.  You will receive it, and you will need it. The Office of the Public Ministry is hard, hard work.  But do not let the encouragement elevate you above Jesus.

Write it down.  Say it often.  Burn it into your heart.  The keystone to significance in ministry is this:  He must increase, and I must decrease.