Where Everybody's Crazy

This may be a little too honest for some people.

Working as a full-time religious professional is a blessing and a curse.

It's a blessing because it gives you a role, a social contract that identifies who you are and what you are doing. Not just for other people to understand you, but for you to understand yourself.

For example, I really don't like evangelism. I used to find it embarrassing for both parties. But actually since becoming a missionary, it's now my job. And other people know it's my job, so they expect it of me. That makes it so much easier.

The curse is that where volunteers do things out of love when they feel like it, professionals have to do things out of duty when they don't feel like it. And to be sure, there are times when they don't feel like it. Everyone has off days, whether they're preachers, or programmers, or brain surgeons. Everyone has days when they wake up and think "What the hell am I doing this for?" - it's just that the true believers are better at hiding and denying it.

There have been occasions when I've known that, come next Sunday, I'm getting up to the pulpit and giving a sermon whether I like or it not. And this is the scary bit - whether I hear God or not. I can't just turn up and say "Sorry, no sermon this week, it didn't happen for me." It has to happen for me. I just has to. It would be a lot more honest if I could get up and saying something like that, but I can't. (Actually, I did do this once. I don't know if I could get away with it again though.) The downside of having a social contract is that you have to uphold your part of it.

I have to come up with something, week in, week out. Whether I hear God or not. Whether I even believe what I'm saying or not. Now that sounds hypocritical, but I try very very hard to acknowledge my own weaknesses in my sermons. I will say "I think this is true but I struggle with it myself." And I believe that God is gracious enough to speak to people even through stuff I personally can't accept. But I can't really say "I think we should all believe this, but right now I don't."

I have to come up with something meaningful. Every week, the show must go on.

Maybe I'm overemphasising this. This is not something which is particular to preachers, even though there is an added responsibility for those who are carrying out a public job of teaching others. Actually, at some point everyone has to face the reality of having to do stuff that they sometimes don't feel like. It's called growing up.