Enchanted Forest
I’m pretty sure I could fill a book with all the ways parenting prepared me for the pastorate. I’m a PK (pastor’s kid), I had superb and exhaustive seminary training, and I got to sit in a front row seat to watch, from the inside, church done well and church done poorly. All of those were powerful training for me when I became a pastor for the first time at 41. Another piece of helpful pastoral training was experience in the trades as a business owner. But I believe all of these fall second to what I learned, and am still learning, from parenting my kids. Parenting is a full-contact sport, and you make more mistakes than decisions you’re proud of, so don’t hear me saying here that A) I have parenting figured out, or B) that I was a model parent. I’m saying that the older I get as a pastor, the more I think parenting and pastoring are almost a 1:1 comparison.
Here’s one theory I’ve been formulating for many years now on parenting: responsibility and respect must be given before the child earns it and even if she doesn’t deserve it. In my mind’s eye, you’re reading this and either saying “I agree,” or, especially if you’re a current parent of teens, it’s much more likely that your blood pressure just spiked and you’ve lost all respect for me. Responsibility and respect must be given before the child earns or deserves it. What’s more, this is far more than a theory—it’s actually a life-and-death non-negotiable. I looked around at other families I knew, and pondered the prevailing consensus among them. Everybody knew that any wise parent would have a firm, unmovable requirement for dispensing responsibility, freedom, authority, and respect: “once you’ve proven to me that you can handle it, once you’re actions prove to me that you’ve earned it, then I’ll give you more responsibility, more trust, more leash.”
“It’s imperative, pastor, that you and I learn the lesson. We’ve got to hand off power, authority and respect to younger people in our church even before they’re ready or deserve it.”
I grant you, it sounds wise. It sounds like what our parents would approve. And their parents before them. And maybe back then it worked. But I don’t think it does today. In today’s climate, there are an awful lot of downsides to it. Probably the most profound and unredeemable is that your child believes your unintended message: “You’re not good enough, at least not yet, but who knows? If you perform really, really well, at some fuzzy point in the future, you just might be ‘enough.’” A related downside? Your child decides not to play that game, exits your system, and does it their own way (I just described teenage rebellion, I think). There are a plethora of other downsides as well. But for this blog, there’s only one that interests me.
You believe your own unintended message. And, very tragically, you never actually hand off responsibility. Or, if you do, it’s too late. Just consider, reader, in this moment, all the examples of this you’ve experienced, watched, perpetrated, or read about. The trail of destruction is the stuff of nightmares. And, at least to an extent, unredeemable. No amount of repair or reparations will ever quite fix it. And this is where the pastoring comparison comes in.
“Don’t get caught in the Enchanted Forest of self-assurance that you’ll hand over responsibility when they’re ready. You never will, or it will be too late.”
When I was a child, I was fascinated by the dangers of the Enchanted Forest, or the Sirens, or the Forest-of-No-Return. “Those who stumble in, those who fumble in, never can get out.” I couldn’t shake the thought that the poor souls who got caught in their pull no longer even saw it in themselves. The very first part of their entrapment was the wiping of their memory and self-awareness that they were stuck.
It’s imperative, pastor, that you and I learn the lesson. We’ve got to hand off power, authority and respect to younger people in our church even before they’re ready or deserve it. Is it irresponsible on our part to do so? You betcha. But it’s more irresponsible not to. Create a church culture for all those in authority under you to do the same thing. Hand off your own lead pastor role before “it’s time.” Be the Philippians 2 pre-history hymn. Don’t get caught in the Enchanted Forest of self-assurance that you’ll hand over responsibility when they’re ready. You never will, or it will be too late.
Shawn Keener is the pastor of Brookville Bible Church in Holbrook, MA, a member of the www.revitalizingchurches.com consulting team, and the author of Nimble Church.
