‪When Being An American Pastor Conflicts With Following Jesus

What Would Jesus Look for in a Pastor…?

If Jesus cared about degrees he wouldn’t have chosen fishermen or tentmakers to be responsible for carrying His message; if He cared about social status He wouldn’t have chosen women (Mary and Martha) to be His first witnesses to the Ressurection…

What we should want from a pastor is not an education or seminary degree; it’s not a license from the state or an institution giving their backing; it’s an up close and personal understanding of what it means, from experience, to truly suffer at the hands of injustice. It’s a pastor that has witnessed the depths of evil and yet maintained a soft heart. A pastor that has repeatedly been beaten down by life yet continuously shows up to work the next day.

Maybe Jesus wouldn’t look for anything in a pastor so much as He would just create a culture of freedom (Galatians 5:1).

It’s a culture in which we acknowledge the humanity and imperfection of our pastors and leaders; it then creates the safety to actually be imperfectly human. It lends itself to the ability (read: energy or motivation) to resist injustice. It moves us away from the religiosity that shows itself in this “moralistic therapeutic type of deism,” and lastly, it brings us closer to what Christ intended us to be, as the Church.

The Darkness of our “Churches” is nothing but a blank canvas for God’s light to shine (through us).

If darkness cannot exist where there is light then literally, just light a fucking a candle.

In an upside Kingdom contextualized for today, the Church would consist of individuals resisting the culture of abandoning ship when times get just a little bit tough.

In an upside-down Kingdom, “we would stop diminishing the dialogue among the church at large, and our leaders demonstrated their trust for us rather than insisting that we trust them[4].”

In an upside-down Kingdom, we would take just as much responsibility for the Church as does our pastor (“bearing each other’s burdens” and “sharing with whoever is in need”).

Christ, in his upside-down Kingdom took those of us who are incapable and made us capable; He empowered us to do what others said couldn’t be done.

But, I could care less about whether or not my pastor is seen out and about drunk af; I could care less if my pastor was having consensual safe sex with someone they’re not legally married to; in fact, it’s a red flag if a pastor isn’t comfortable enough to say “fuck,” when stubbing their toe.

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