The Inescapable Identity
The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility … to keep the community attentive to God.
Eugene H. Peterson
I became my own only when I gave myself to Another.
C. S. Lewis
The minister's shortcomings simply cannot be concealed. Even the most trivial soon get known.… However trifling their offenses, these little things seem so great to others, since everyone measures sin, not by the size of the offense, but by the standing of the sinner.
John Chrysostom
Once I was down at Kentucky Lake in Paducah, Kentucky, and I saw several white plastic milk jugs floating on the water. When I asked what they were doing out there, I learned that a fish line was tied to each of them, with a baited hook attached.
The method worked like this: When a fish takes the bait and finds itself hooked, it tries to get away, but the jug follows right along. The fish may weigh twenty pounds and be full of fight, but the floating jug keeps a slow, steady, upward pressure that eventually wears out even the strongest fish.
Several times in the pastorate, I remember feeling as if I'd been hooked by one of those jugs. I could never get away from the pressure.
Doctors sometimes joke about the people who approach them, even in social contexts, and ask for medical advice. "I've got this rash — right here. What do you think it is?" Such people don't recognize the doctor's desire to be "off duty."
Likewise, ministers also feel the scrutiny, the pressure, of an inescapable identity. ...
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