when are you going to be a real pastor?

You know, in the last 10 months since Mike left me, I’ve never heard that so much. It usually is strongest around the time that I do something that everyone likes.

Person: Oh Adam, we just loved your sermon last week.

Adam: Oh, well thank you. [secretly knowing to himself that he just reworked/rewrote/added to an old sermon from Spurgeon or maybe a chapter from a book I like]

Person: Yeah, it was really interesting and you really kept my attention.

Adam: Well, I don’t know what that means, but thanks again.

Person: Say, have you ever thought of being a real pastor.

Adam: Well, I know what you are saying [biting my tongue so I don’t say anything stupid] but I am really happy with what I am doing now.

Person: Yeah, but I mean later on… when you’ve done this a few years… are you going to be a pastor?

Adam: I really feel like what I am doing now is the best way for me to reach lost people. I plan on doing this forever. I know guys in their 50s-60s that still work with the youth. It’s what I plan to do forever.

Person: Oh… so you don’t want to be our senior pastor?

Adam: It’s not like that. It’s just that I’m really happy with what I do.

I swear, I have that conversation 3 times a week. And you know what. It’s getting to the point where it’s a little uncomfortable. For the first time in a long, long time I am at a position where everything is going my way and Kris and I love it here, we love the students and aren’t even passively looking or listening to other church… and it seems like people are just desperate to get me somewhere I don’t feel called to be. How can something be both flattering and frustrating at the same time? It’s an oxymoron. It’s getting on my freakin’ nerves.

The vent part in my mind goes like this. Let’s change professions to teaching. If I was a really good teacher, how many times would a parent go up to a favorite teacher and say “when are you going to become a professor or the principal?” It would be rare. It’s understood that a teacher is in a profession and that a teacher can pursue becoming the best teacher in the world and still not be constantly hounded about being a principal.. but a youth pastor is expected to become a senior pastor simply by being there are being good at what he does? I don’t get it.