July 8, 2018July 8, 2018 jathan

The Curse of Being the Son of a Preacher Man

Faith

Chapter 1

I’m the son of a preacher man. That can be both a blessing and a curse. I’ve often thought the “curse” part is that the son of a preacher man has a great chance of becoming a preacher man himself.   

Don’t get me wrong, preaching is great. It’s the living that will kill you.

I watched a scene in a medical drama once that explains what I mean by that.

The Con of Preachers

The main character of the show was a gifted diagnostician. He was one of those brilliant, yet rude and cynical types. We’ll call him Dr. Perfect.

The good doctor had been in the profession long enough to hear people tell just about every lie imaginable in order to keep their secret vices hidden from their families. Furthermore, he was so intellectually gifted that he stayed two and three steps ahead of everyone with whom he crossed paths.

God included.

As a result, the doctor believed the worst about humanity and trusted absolutely no one all of the time. You can imagine how he felt about preachers. Even young, seemingly innocent ones like the one admitted to his care in this particular episode.

As the show continued to move along, each interaction between these two disparate characters saw the young, fresh-faced, man of God trying patiently and piously to influence Dr. Perfect to embrace the virtues of giving his heart to of a loving, omnipotent, invisible God.  

Every pro-faith argument by the young preacher, however, was swiftly swatted back across the net by one of Dr. Perfect’s witty, condescending comebacks. The thing that seemed to irk Dr. Perfect about Christians the most wasn’t the silliness of believing in a God they couldn’t see, but the shamefulness of believing in a preacher they could see.

This, more than the virgin birth, the feeding of the five-thousand, and the resurrection, made Christianity, in Dr. Perfect’s eyes, the biggest con in the whole of human history.   

And by the end of the show, quite predictably, Hollywood made sure that the atheist was proven right.

Sort of.

“It’s Possible To Believe Something and Still Fail to Live Up to It.” 

Imagine the good doctor’s delight, when, during the show’s climactic moment, he dramatically disclosed that the young preacher’s mysterious illness was, in fact, an STD.  

Yep. Just as Dr. Perfect predicted, another snake oil salesman preacher, claiming to be a beacon of morality indulged in his own sin privately. Just like everyone else.

Their last interaction ended with the fallen teenage preacher hanging his head in shame and turning to amble down the long, lonely hospital corridor toward the exit, with a prescription for herpes in hand.  

Not soon after the kid left, however, a fellow doctor took some of the smugness out of Dr. Perfect’s demeanor by delivering a line I’ve never forgotten

He said to Dr. Perfect, “Well nobody’s as perfect as you are. It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.”

Dr. Perfect was speechless. Finally.

And rightfully so.

Because, jaded though he might have been, Dr. Perfect wasn’t unreasonable. And any reasonable person knows that believing in principles is one thing, but to live a principled life is another thing altogether.

That goes for doctors, preachers, presidents, and shoe salesmen.

The Hardest Thing About Preaching

To believe in sound principles can be accomplished by simply applying effortful thinking to the right amount of good information. To be a person of principles – one who actually lives what he or she professes to believe – however, requires that one sacrifice himself or herself for said beliefs.

This is a problem because if there’s one thing we human beings avoid like the plague, it’s sacrifice. The self-preservation strand of human DNA never goes down without a fight.

And when it comes to vocations, I can’t think of one that is more sacrificial than that of a preacher.

This is so because a preacher must not only undergo the soul-wrenching, counterintuitive, self-denying act of putting his or her life on the altar of the lordship of Jesus Christ, but they must also do so very publicly, very consistently, and for the whole of a lifetime.

In ministry, you don’t get to be a one-hit-wonder and there’s no falling apart on the back nine

You’ve got to start at the sound of the gun, run with patience, and finish well. In the end, not only must Jesus say, “Well done”, but those who followed your example must be able to say the same.

My father often taught us this principle in ministerial training class by using the following verse.

Brace yourselves.

The Convenience of the Coward

The apostle Paul told his young protege, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 4:12, “…Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.” (NLT)

What an inspiring verse. What a pressure-cooker verse.

Look at that list. Are you kidding me!

To be sure, consistently leading a 1 Timothy 4:12 lifestyle tests the far limites of God’s grace in the life of any Christian. But to do so in such a public way that enables others to find the strength to do the same raises the stakes dramatically.

This is what preachers mean when they talk about how exhausting it gets to constantly feel like they have to be “on” all the time. 

What ministers mean by this is that there is a built in pressure to constantly put the impeccable lifestyle of 1 Timothy 4:12 “on” display, day after day, season after season, year after year.   

And don’t think that preachers get a reduced sin-sentence in order to accomplish this task. Not on your life.

The preacher’s temptation is just as fierce as that of any other Christian. Satan’s tactics against him or her are just as low-down and dirty, and the childhood scars and baggage from the past are just as limiting.  

Cut us open and we all bleed redeemed fallenness.  

This is why I’ve sometimes looked at being the son of a preacher man with more than a little resentment. Because the task of trying to be an example to others while stumbling beneath the weight of my own brokenness just doesn’t seem fair sometimes.

This is probably why so many people, like the good doctor, take the coward’s way out and choose not to believe in a moral standard at all. If they don’t believe it, they don’t have to face the possibly failing to live up to it.

It’s easier that way.

But easier doesn’t mean better.

The Courage of the Preacher

I’m sure glad my parents, who have been in ministry forty-four years and counting, didn’t take the easy way out. Sure, they’ve made mistakes, and because ministry is a public display of inner beliefs, they’ve been criticized for their mistakes.

I’m sure there were times when they felt like they were frauds as they struggled, themselves, to live up to the moral standard they were preaching to others.

Forty-four years of pastoral ministry, and not a day of it easy.

But also not a day of it wasted.

Imperfect though they were, however, the eternal impact they’ve had on the lives of those who have looked to their imperfect example is impossible to measure. But God has kept score. And the scoreboard shows them routing Dr. Perfect and every other preacher-heckler in the cheap seats by a landslide.

And when I look at ministry from this perspective, I think a lot differently about what it means to be the son of a preacher man.

Because when all the dust settles, I’m the son of a preacher man and that sure was a blessing. It’s a blessing because it increased the chances that I became a preacher man myself.

 

What About You?

Are in the position that requires you to be a positive role model to others – maybe a parent, teacher, community leader, minister?  How do you deal with setting an example for others while dealing with your own share of personal mistakes?

Has repeated personal failure caused you to choose the convenience of the coward over the courage of a role model? What would it take for you to get back on track and be the type of role model that our shepherd-less world needs?

Shoot me a reply in the “comments” section below. I would love to hear from you.