Restoring Kingdom Builders

I’ve heard thousands of sermons during my lifetime, and preached thousands myself.  Whenever I hear someone preach – whether it’s a pastor, guest speaker, TV evangelist, or seminary professor – the uppermost question in the back of my mind is: “What are you really like?”  If a speaker admits his or her humanity in a message, then I can connect with them.  But if a speaker acts like he or she is perfect while the listeners are imperfect, I usually tune out.  Angels make lousy preachers.  I want to see divinity (the Word of God) delivered through humanity (a real live person).

This is one of the primary reasons that Bill Hybels from Willow Creeek Church (near Chicago) has long been one of my favorite preachers.  He shares things at such a deep level that you as a listener feel liberated.  The book on marriage that he wrote with his wife Lynne, called Fit to be Tied, is a great example of Christian authenticity.  Both Bill and Lynne share their marital struggles in a way that is both real and redemptive.  Bill and Lynne have publicly acknowledged their need for marriage counseling, and I once heard Bill admit in a seminar for pastors that he was currently in counseling to address some issues from his past.  At the time, Willow Creek was the largest church in America, and I was amazed at his courage in candidly sharing his humanity with us.

For those of us who went to church in the 1960s and early 1970s, we rarely if ever heard our pastors admit they had problems in their lives.  They kept telling us that we had issues but they acted like they didn’t have any.  Maybe it was the way they were trained in seminary, or maybe authority figures back then were not permitted to admit they had foibles.  (For example, the press covered up nearly all of JFK’s indiscretions.)  For this reason, many of us grew up thinking that our pastors were “three feet above contradiction” (referring to the height of the platform from which the pastor spoke).

For this reason, I still remember trivia about Christian leaders that showed me they were human.

Dr. Charles Feinberg, dean of Talbot Seminary, once referred to the TV show Get Smart in an Old Testament class.  (I thought, “You watch Maxwell Smart too?)

Mr. William Ebeling, who taught at Biola for decades, once dropped something on the floor and said, “I’m always this shaky after the Dodgers lose.”

Dr. David Augsburger, one of the world’s foremost authorities on conflict, showed our class an episode of Seinfeld to illustrate the importance of confidentiality in counseling (it’s the one where the rabbi reveals on television things Elaine told him in private).

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline and other great books (I’m reading Streams of Living Water right now) is such a big baseball fan that he asked my father-in-law to give him regular updates of the World Series score while he was teaching a night class.

John Stott, the great British teacher and scholar (and I think I have every one of his books) – the closest thing Protestants have to a Pope – has always loved James Bond movies.

During my last class at Fuller, Kim and I were sitting in the back of Leith Anderson’s class on leadership, and his wife (who was seated behind us) told me they needed to get back to their room in time to watch 24.

And during a two week Doctor of Ministry class at Fuller, Dr. Archibald Hart held a pizza night for all the students and showed Mr. Bean (the beginning of my love for the guy) as well as a John Cleese movie.

These kinds of small revelations seem rather commonplace today, but for years, they were not.

For example, J. Vernon McGee, the famous radio preacher, once wrote that he couldn’t attend a professional baseball game because of all the smoking, drinking, and cursing.

One of my professors in seminary put his television in his garage and only hauled it out for the World Series.

I distinctly remember hearing a pastor speak at a missionary conference when I was in seminary, and the pastor was the hero in every story that he told.

Pastors used to chide their people for staying home from church one Sunday night a year to watch the Super Bowl.  (I would have hated to be a pastor on July 20, 1969, when the moon landing was televised.  That happened on a Sunday afternoon/evening and most people stayed home from evening services to watch history being made – but the pastor still had to show up for church!)

When pastors fail to reveal they are human, they seem to live in celestial places, not on earth.  They descend from heaven, present God’s Word, and then float back up again, living on a cloud until the next time they speak.  They don’t seem to understand the people they teach.  And they certainly lack empathy and compassion for those who struggle with sin or life.

This is why I believe it’s important for pastors to consistently share their humanity with their congregations.  Twenty years ago, as I was preparing to relearn how to preach so I could better reach unchurched people, one of my pastoral colleagues – who was doing a phenomenal job of reaching those without Christ – told me that he made sure to tell at least one story during every message that demonstrated he was human.  That kind of sharing is essential in our day.

Years ago, I had lunch with a Christian leader who attended a mega church in Silicon Valley.  While we were talking, he began to cry.  He told me that he wished his pastor would share stories from his life rather than from books.  He loved his pastor and wanted to know him better, but his pastor was trying so hard to convince everyone (and maybe himself) that he was perfect that he just couldn’t let down his guard in public.  I was privileged to spend three hours with that pastor one time at lunch, and he shared his humanity with me, but for some reason, he couldn’t do it with his congregation.  He had to protect his image.

I’m reading through the Psalms in my quiet time right now (in The Message), and the authors (including David, who wrote roughly half the Psalms) are very open about their thoughts and feelings.  Read II Corinthians again and see how Paul opens up a vein and pours out his heart to his readers.  And note how frustrated Jesus could be on occasion and how angry He got (without sinning!) on other occasions.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, He was clearly undergoing a bout with depression as He faced the loss of every anchor He held dear in His life on earth.  Yes, Jesus was fully divine, but He was also fully human – made “a little lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:9) in His incarnation.

Because of Jesus’ humanity, I can relate to Him.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.”  The result?  We are drawn to Christ.  “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (verse 16).  I can relate to Him because He first related to me.

So please don’t make a mental list of all your pastor’s mistakes and share that list with others to make yourself look good.  And never think that your pastor is perfect.  He isn’t.  If you hear him say something stupid, or you see him doing something questionable, don’t come unglued.

Remember that he is not an angel – and never will be.

He’s just like you – he’s  human.  And God made him that way.