Last night at my 3Story training we ended up talking a lot about our humanity. The principle I taught in closing was that it is better to be real than anything else when sharing Christ with folks. The idea is that when we expose how imperfect we are, others see us in the same boat as they are… In desperate need of being saved.
This got me thinking… isn’t it amazing that a great big God loves little me? I mean, I am a failure in so many capacities… I think the thing I struggle with the most lately is that I don’t see myself as being very faithful to what I am leading people towards. It seems like the more I try to teach others about Jesus and God’s Word… The further from Jesus and God’s Word I feel. I could theologicize it by saying that I am just in full knowledge of my imperfection… But the reality is that I am a failure and I am overcome by feeling like a fraud. People have a radar for insincerity and duplicity and sometimes I feel like people look right through me.
Here’s another thought. There seems to be a real shift in ministry. There used to be a school of thought that told ministers “you need to be Jesus to those who don’t know him.” I remember hearing that coming up. I also remember thinking…. “Yeah, but if I really look at myself I know I could never be perfect… So why call myself a minister?” Now there is a paradigm shift to the other side. Now it seems like we are being taught to tell others what a mess we are. I mean, it seems like in order to be a good minister I need to be disclosing my failures all the time.
Here are a few pluses to that from where I sit in the boat.
– Failures are disarming.
– Acknowledging failures is part of dealing with them.
– Disclosing failures shows that I haven’t arrived yet.
– Letting people see my struggles makes me more human.
Here are some minuses.
– Some people aren’t looking for other humans, they are looking for people to help them!
– We assume that people care what’s going on in our lives.
– Acknowledging failures makes it seem like we aren’t working on fixing stuff.
– Disclosing too much can take over a conversation.
At the end of the day… I’m just working on this myself. I know I am a failure. I know that I am in need of Jesus every day. I know I can do nothing outside of his grace and mercy… But I am just not yet sure I want to go around disclosing all of that!
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