Artistry in music inspires me, but country music doesn’t typically thrill me. In 2003, CMT proclaimed Johnny Cash the “greatest man in country music,” and I honestly didn’t notice. Then something surprising happened.
On a gorgeous afternoon, while I was driving with all my windows rolled down, I stumbled upon a cover version of Nine Inch Nail’s song “Hurt” playing on a local alternative station. The song was raw. It was beautiful. It was Johnny Cash. And I loved it.
Long before he received the nickname “the man in black,” Johnny Cash was born and raised in the same state where my wife and I are raising our four children. Arkansas is both beautiful and rugged, much like his final recordings. This is exemplified in the fantastic music video he shot for the cover of “Hurt,” not long before his death.
In “Saint Johnny and the Artist’s Pilgrimage,” Rustin Smith essentially says that a main reason Johnny Cash had a musical career comeback at the end of his life was that Rick Rubin first helped him get back in touch with who he was as an artist. Johnny had to strip down to the basics and spend time recreating there.
I believe there is great need for Rick Rubins to coach pastors who have lost their way. I’ve known many ministers who started out in ministry with a bang of enthusiasm and lofty yet loosely defined goals for making disciples for Jesus. They may have even experienced some early success, but many have gotten off track, though they may not be sure how and where. This leads either to burnout or comfortable ineptitude that can span a career of insecurity.
Pastors often get stuck in a sanctioned rut, a busy religious routine where they passionlessly go through the motions of ministry, a rut that runs counter to actually building the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
I have friends who get stuck in that rut. Maybe you do too. When I connect with them, I find myself asking questions like:
• Is this really what you envisioned when you were first embracing a call to ministry?
• How are you really fulfilling the Great Commission? Where is the fruit of your labor?
• If there is fruit someday, how will you know what it looks like when it shows up?
• If there isn’t fruit, are you willing to change your thinking, your schedule and your methods?
• Are you encumbered by busy work that keeps you from pouring out the love and grace of Jesus in a way that actually reaches lost souls and builds disciples?
These questions, while personal and potentially threatening to a ministry leader, are important. They can help unlock chains of frustration that come with ministry burnout, and enable pastors to move forward and, like Smith says, “get this and get going.”
Mistakes
In 1996, I was a youth pastor in the suburbs of Detroit, rapidly failing my way forward in learning how to effectively recruit, train and maintain a team of adult volunteers. I was armed with an undergraduate degree in youth ministry with thoughts of someday taking a couple of seminary classes. I was pretty sure I had the secret formula for how to reorganize our team of adult volunteers into a more effective ministry team. Well-intentioned volunteers did what I told them; everybody knew their roles; and off we rapidly sped toward burnout.
A lot of cool things happened. Un-churched teens joined our group and got excited about Jesus. However, the most dedicated and focused adult volunteer was a mother of five whom I unwittingly kept extremely busy. At one point I noticed her looking completely exhausted because of my unrealistic ministry expectations. I had her assigned to serve in areas where she wasn’t naturally gifted, and I wasn’t letting her serve in areas she enjoyed and was good at. She did everything I asked. And it sapped her of energy and passion.
I failed. She nearly quit volunteering. By God’s grace I realized that my secret formula was naive, unhealthy and counterproductive. Soon after, I apologized to her for my unrealistic expectations. We began to reassess how we placed volunteers into roles of leadership and began to search for resources outside my head. It didn’t happen overnight, but my failure spurred me toward finding workable solutions.
In his article Smith says, “Failure is necessary… Failure is an essential part of pilgrimage, not a distraction from it. Rather than avoid it, we would get farther by embracing it, marking it, even celebrating it.” What? How do we do that? How can we embrace failure or celebrate it and not lose our place of servant leadership? How is this possible?
Smith is right. Like the authors of “The Church Sticking Together” article in this same issue, all readily admit that there is no silver bullet in ministry. Bullets sometimes misfire or are fired in the wrong direction with unintended consequences. That’s failure. That doesn’t mean we should stop shooting to fulfill the Great Commission. Rather, we need to embrace failure by humbly acknowledging its presence. We must learn from it so as not to keep failing in the same way at the same thing. We also need to celebrate the things we get right and ask why they work. We don’t need tragedy to learn and change while keeping our focus on fulfilling the Great Commission.
As ministry leaders, we should be informed by our failure without having to be defined by it. Like Johnny Cash’s career comeback, I’d like to see more pastors get back in touch with why they got into ministry. More pastors need to sacrifice their pride and hire ministry coaches or other qualified consultants who will help them get back to why they lead ministries. We need to find our Rick Rubins to help us cut out the unnecessary noises and make beautiful art in ministry.
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