For those who have had experience in pastoral leadership within evangelical churches, the September start-up season can really be a lot. Most evangelical churches, like a good portion of larger society, structure their calendar according to the school year, so September is not only back to school, but also back to regular programming at church.
Many pastors feel pressure to present an idea, accurate or not, that they are “really excited” about the fall season and about the programmes starting again. This excitement can be real, but the truth is, there can also be dread. I have been thinking about this because, having been a pastor for many years myself, I find myself praying for fellow ministers who are deeply enmeshed in that “here we go again” rhythm.
There is, perhaps, little else as soul-crushing as having to feign excitement when what is really being felt is fear or dread.
Having said all of this, being a pastor comes with many blessings. Most of these are related to people rather than programmes. It is a gift to be engaged in meaningful work, connecting with individuals and families at times of great celebration and real loss.
Susan Cain, in her book, Bittersweet, addresses the larger cultural push to maintain a positive, happy, even excited kind of presentation and demeanour. Cain mentions a term called “effortless perfection” that was coined at Duke University in 2003. It was originally used in reference mostly to young women and described the oppressive cultural mandate to have everything right and upbeat with little or no effort evident. The term has since taken on a larger scope over university culture as a whole, and then beyond the walls of the academy. The University of Pennsylvania has its own term for the same phenomenon. There it is called “Penn Face.” At Stanford, the term is “Duck Syndrome,” which, as Cain points out, refers to the image of a duck moving on the water with no visible effort above water, but frantic movement below.
Cain also examines the changing use and meaning of the word “loser” in the history of the United States. She mentions that its historical meaning was simply, “one who suffers loss.” Later, it came to mean, “a hapless person, one who habitually fails to win.”
All of this relates back to the pressure within evangelical culture to say that things are “really exciting.” Churches, even in times of difficulty or decline, can feel a pressure to present themselves as winners rather than losers. No one wants to be a loser.
This is all quite curious, given the honesty of the Bible itself. You may recall some Psalms in which such honesty is expressed: “I am weary with moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drown my couch with weeping” "(Psalm 6). Or, there is the devastating 88th Psalm that ends with despair: “Darkness is my only friend,” “Darkness is my constant companion.”
Many readers will have heard of Walter Brueggemann’s identification of the Psalms as those of Orientation, Psalms of Dis-Orientation and New Orientation. This is a framework more aligned with the reality of the human condition. Orientation is something like that eagerness of positivity that declares how wonderful everything is. Dis-Orientation is when that world falls apart. New Orientation is another move, beyond hopelessness to a more mature acceptance of the reality of sorrow and suffering, but also to a sense of thanksgiving and gratitude.
The 30th Psalm is one of New Orientation. It is a prayer of thanksgiving after loss and sorrow. “You have drawn me up. You have healed me. You have lifted me up. You have restored me to life.” This is followed up by the evocative, “You have turned my mourning into dancing.”
There was mourning.
The truth is that sometimes we suffer great loss and sometimes we feel something close to despair even without a clear cause. Allowing one another, particularly in spaces of shared faith, to not be excited and to not be happy and to admit loss or fear turns out to be a gift of great hope.