Pastor's Confession: Part 2

If you haven't read yesterday's post, you should in order to understand today's a little more clearly. In the place God has brought me as a pastor (reflected yesterday), here is a letter I have written to my leadership team. How willing would you be to write a similar letter to your students, your people, your leaders?

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Hey you guys! I have been thinking about some things a lot lately, and I'd appreciate your feedback here if you could.

I'll come right out with it. Do you think we (I) am missing it by just preaching through ______ right now?

By that question I mean that I want to be more present in where the group itself is. I don't want to be so wrapped up in the study of things that we completely miss where the members of the group are spiritually.

That is not an issue of being spiritually mature or not. I mean more whether this is even something that this group is thinking about or needing right now? Would we be more true to leading and pastoring this group by coming to different issues than our current study?

I keep getting glimpses of the window that night we wrote our prayers on them. I remember seeing a lot of "failure" and "fear" and "lacking connection to God" and things of that sort.

Are we missing "it" by just plugging away at ______? And if so, what, in your conversations, in your own life, in your growth groups are the things that are continually coming up? What is a way we could find out more to hear where members of FUSION really are spiritually and in life?

DISCUSS!!! (click "reply all" so it is a discussion)

-------- Seriously! Discuss, please!!! 

Pastor's Confession: Part 1

I confess that it is easier for me to avoid your life in a few ways even though I certainly do not wish to. I confess that it is easier for me to remember that you have no idea what my day to day looks like outside of Sunday, but to be fair, I do not often know what your day to day looks like either.

I confess that scripture and truth are more natural to me than the soul and prayer, and I can be more focused on soldiering through a topic while missing your soul and your life.

I confess that I lack presence in your life when I can spend an enormous amount of time in scripture and study.

I confess that I can allow my own scholarship of the word to drive my study instead of allowing what I know of your life and struggle and questions to drive my study of scripture.

I confess that I have not been pastorally present to you and with you.

I confess these things not because scripture and truth are not as important, but because your soul and your life and your heart require an equivalent demand on my attention as scripture and truth...and I have not held that balance.

I confess that these things have left me at a distance from your day to day.

I confess these things SO THAT I might reveal to you what I am seeing clearer and clearer, but also because I hope to see God close that distance between us that we may be 'congregation' and not just 'pastor + people'.

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Pastors and leaders, would you offer a similar confession? Why or why not?