It Can Get Personal

Hello Emmanuel,

My wife Kim preached to me yesterday.  This time it was from the pulpit (hehe).  I might be biased, but I think she did a very good job, other than the part where she revealed my odd obsessions.  I also must admit that it felt odd to be at Emmanuel on a Sunday morning and not be preaching.  However, the United Methodist Women led a quality worship service.  It’s good to know that the church is being led by many more people than just me.  This leads me to this week’s MMP.

I’ve always felt a big part of my untapped potential was in the realm of family counseling.  It’s been untapped mostly because, as a pastor, the many hats that I wear keep me from putting all my energy into any one area.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’ve learned over the years that I would need to be good in many areas instead of excellent in any one area in order to be an effective pastor.

I’m not sure that it is AS true at Emmanuel.  A church that establishes itself as Vision-driven rather than Pastor-driven changes the dynamics of how a pastor can interact with the church.  A Vision-driven church that has Vision-driven leaders doesn’t need a pastor to micromanage every program.  This frees me up to do other things.  Like what?

On Sunday I had more than a couple of people wanting to talk to me about personal matters.  In my younger years, I would have also gladly scheduled to talk, but knowing that it would be on top of the many duties I had at the pastor-driven church.  Now?  I realized yesterday the blessing I have to dive a bit deeper into my untapped potential without worrying about getting curriculum, doing the bulletin or preparing music.  Now I have a little bit more freedom to talk one-on-one with people regarding many different issues, but all pertaining to striving for healthy relationships.  Sometimes it is about family.  Sometimes it is about Church.  Always it is about relationships.  And I’ve always felt this was the meat of my Call:  striving toward healthy relationships.

I still don’t feel like I’m close to being as good as I could be as a counselor.  A part of me wants to pursue my Masters in Social Work and get a whole lot better.  But helping equip Emmanuel to ‘make disciples of Christ’ is a whole lot of fun.  If there is any a time you need a listening ear, let me know. 

God is Good,

Pastor Joe