Effective or Holy?

I just read a great list of ten pastoral essentials on another site.

I won’t quote them all here, but have copied a couple of the ones that hit me the hardest:

I will only have as much spiritual authority as I am willing to submit to myself. Independence will destroy me, but there is power in submission.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Challenge people to go deeper even when the message is unpopular.

Spiritual authority and submission:  The life-long process of conversion of my will to the will of God must shape me and anyone else who seeks to serve as pastor with holiness. Right now, there is a huge amount of pressure on United Methodist Clergy to be “effective.” No where in that pressure or in the many documents written trying to define effectiveness is a word about being holy, being in full submission to the will of God, being willing to follow Jesus to the cross and lay down our lives for our enemies.

I wonder why? Could it be that a holy pastor is not particularly effective when it comes to measuring money and people? Could it be that a pastor living in full submission to God may struggle with the push to be “successful” as defined by corporate America with that definition co-opted by the church?

As the second statement says, “if it were that easy. we’d all be doing it.” I do not know one single person who, having devoted himself or herself to living out our understanding of Jesus being the way, the truth and the life who found it easy. Transformational?  Yes. Fulfilling? Amazingly so. Joyful? Yes, but often through tears of sadness, compassion, and frustration at wickedness and oppression. But easy? I don’t think so.

I will walk this path, no matter what it costs me. It’s why I savor the moments of joy and rest and even cleaning out my email inbox. Mostly, however, I sense a stronger and stronger call to spend great lengths of time in prayer, in that invisible work that changes the world. But I don’t get to check that box off in my list of “effective practices.” An interesting conundrum.