Strengths and Weaknesses

So we were sitting around staff meeting a few weeks ago … probably close to a month and we were discussing the scripture that was going to be used for Sunday service. I can’t remember the context exactly. I remember we were in a series on faith and getting to the last couple before the sermon series would switch. One of the things that came up was a comment that in examining our self realized strengths we sometimes loose sight of the other things that God might want to teach us and prefer to fall back on our strengths, which become a crutch rather than a powerful movement.

This has been stewing in the back of my head for a while and I have been trying to decide if I am leaning on my own history and unwilling to learn new skills through internships that have much I can learn from. I think I might have become something that I was afraid of when I went into seminary. I have become more academic that practical in my mindset.

There I said it … I’m not happy about it … and a part of me is weeping inside.

This isn’t to say that I don’t know how to be pastoral in any given situation, but the thoughts running through my head end up being some messed up sociology experiment rather than trying to see and meet the needs of the person in front of me. I think I miss doing ministry for the sake of ministry, when there wasn’t the issue of what is the right way to examine a doctrine, but rather to just care for people (or in my past life JH/HS students). Where the message of the gospel was not spoken in words but in actions. I think more than anything I would just like to remember the basics of ministry and throw most of my seminary education out the window.

I think I need to examine some of the baggage I’m carrying around … trying to prove that I am strong enough for ministry … and instead surrender. Or maybe I'm just thinking too loud over here ... God only knows.