Job's wife

We base our entire picture of Job's wife on her one line in the story, and Job's rebuke that follows.

But she says no more than many of the prophets in their bitter moments, and to condemn her because she speaks out of her heart is to forget that she's undergone much of the pain which Job himself experiences. He's by no means alone in his sorrow.

Daniel Darling calls her The Most Misunderstood Woman in the Bible - that may be overdoing it a little, but there's no doubt that she's received more than her fair share of condemnation over the centuries, Augustine labelling her "the devil's accomplice" and Calvin calling her "a diabolical fury." Both men who were at times prone to overstating things...

Darling's article on Job's wife is an example of how to think outside the obvious, and is worth reading for that aspect alone.

Richard Floyd on Burnout, work, and more

In a provocative yet wise blog post, Richard Floyd writes: 

I think the whole category of “burnout,” although quite real, is also a bit of a red herring. All the articles agree that clergy are overworked. And when cast in terms of “work” that is undoubtedly true.

My question is simple: “Should clergy really be working?” Or to put it another way, “When did what clergy do come to be understood as work?” Clergy have always been busy doing what clergy do, visiting the sick, attending to the dying, preaching and administering the sacraments and the scholarly preparation for same. The “work” clergy are now expected to do is a category drawn from the industrial and post industrial West, and seen in terms of their terms of efficiency, productivity, and professionalism.

Further down the page he writes:

Years ago one of my GE manager types got on my oversight board and hounded me into doing detailed hourly logs of what I do as part of a compensation review (I know this sounds like Dante, but it really happened.) I was insecure enough to hold my doubts and my tongue, and dutifully filled them out, but a good deal of the time I found myself in comic reflection. For example, when I was thinking about whether Paul’s radical theology of justification in Romans led to antinomianism while soaping up in the shower, was I “working?” Or am I working right now while I ruminate, for I have no position and am not being compensated for it?

and....

We....have guidelines for how many hours (divided into parts of days called “units”) that pastors should be “working.” Like so many things in our churches these suggestions are right-minded but wrongheaded. Because ministry can’t be cut into tranches like pate.

The category of burnout is a symptom of what happens when you take on these models. If your criteria for “success” is efficiency and productivity you will always fall short, because ministry is neither efficient nor productive in the terms of the world.

Read the whole post.   Whether you agree with his analysis or not, it's worth reflecting on, and may assist in your own avoidance of burnout....

Vocation vs Job revisited

An extract from a post by Bob Hyatt in the Out of Ur blog, again on the topic of where 'job' ends and 'vocation' begins - or vice versa.

First, as always, I need more fully to embrace the Gospel at a personal level. My failure at turning off ministry and making true rest a part of my weekly rhythms reveals within me a basic disbelief of the Gospel truth that Jesus is enough and that my identity can and should be rooted in his finished work for me--not the results I get, the church I pastor , how well (or poorly) it’s doing, or whether I think people are approving or disapproving of me based on the amount of access I give them to myself and my time. The only way we pastors will ever find sustainability and longevity in ministry is if we do what we tell other people to do ALL THE TIME: Rest our souls in the finished work of Christ. Stop getting our identity from our job/ministry. Take some time to unplug, unwind and, more importantly, connect with God, our families and our own souls again.

Vocation vs Job

The following paragraphs are extracted from a post by Brandon O'Brien on the Out of Ur site.

The struggle for pastors today, says Eugene Peterson, is to “keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description.”

According to Peterson, a job is “an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated.” Most jobs come with job descriptions, so it “is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not…whether a job is done well or badly.” This, Peterson argues, is the primary way Americans think of the pastor (and, presumably, that pastors think of themselves). Ministry is “a job that I get paid for, a job that is assigned to me by a denomination, a job that I am expected to do to the satisfaction of my congregation.”

A vocation is not like a job in these respects. The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, “to call.” Although the term today can refer to any career or occupation (according to Webster), the word (vocatio, I imagine) was coined to describe the priestly calling to service in the church. So vocation=calling. This is how Peterson is using the word, anyway. And the struggle for pastors today, he continues, is to “keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description.”

When I was a boy, and growing up in the Catholic church scene, there was always talk of 'vocations' - so and so has a vocation to be a priest, or a nun, or.... It was like certain people were handpicked by God to go and do something the rest of us klutzes couldn't quite manage.

And in a sense, that's correct. While we're all ministers (in the sense that Protestant churches use the word), only some of us are called to be ministers, to take on a vocation. That's not to say, of course, that we don't have a vocation elsewhere, as Peterson mentions in relation to the artists he worked with at one time.

How will churches react?

How will your church react?

Nearly one fifth of New Zealanders in employment fear they may lose their jobs this year and half of those worry they may not quickly find another. That was the outcome of a survey commissioned by the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development that polled 2852 respondents online and found the worry about job loss was greatest amongst those in low-paid jobs and in hard-hit areas like construction,
transport and storage, and forestry/agriculture. Those feeling most secure are farm owners and managers, followed by police, nurses, teachers, service workers and
public servants.
By age, those most worried about their future work prospects are in the 25-34 and 55-64 age groups.

from the NZIM Managers’ Update, March 2009

Bonhoeffer & Slagle

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes ... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
German pastor and philosopher (1906-1945) imprisoned and executed for his attempt to overthrow Adolf Hitler.

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[God speaks]; And what about your tantrums? I never took them seriously. They certainly never offended Me. As is often the case with My children,, the frustration expressed by your lips had nothing to do with the deeper faith of your heart, expressed by your will. When you told Me you were trusting Me and then willed to walk on with Me, I took you at your word. I admit, you did askyour fair share of hard questions. But consdier My servant Job. Did he not do the same/ my assessment is this: in all your railing and falailing you never sinned, though We both know your patience did wear thin at times. Dangerously thin. But after, all you were being stretched to your very limits, were you not? I think so.

From, From the Father's Heart, by Charles Slagle, pg 47.

John Ortberg

John Ortberg writes about not having had a particular call, and one day sensing God was saying the following:

John, take your being at this church as my call on your life. Don't waste energy asking if someone else could do the job better. Don't waste energy asking if some other place could be more fulfilling. If you put your hand to the plow and don't look back, you will grow in ways you otherwise never would.

Leadership Magazine: God’s Call Waiting.