We Want People to Think We’ve Got It All Together.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in Matthew 21 when, I’ll just say it, Jesus loses it for a second. He enters the Temple, sees the money changers making a quick dime in God’s house and flips out. He begins turning over tables and throwing chairs and screaming at money changers. I imagine the disciples huddled up together in a corner wondering if Jesus was going all Charlie Sheen on them.
I love this story because Jesus is real, He’s upset and He’s vulnerable.
All too often, we preachers think of the pulpit as a place to be presentable and respectable. We share our success stories and make sure everyone knows that we support not one, but two Compassion International kids. We don’t talk about how we flunked out of Bible college or that we still have no clue how to pronounce Zerubbabel.
Thus, we miss opportunities to really connect with our congregations, which are full of people who also don’t have it together.
We Table Touch.
Some time ago, my wife worked as a general manager at a little breakfast restaurant. Once a month, the restaurant would have what was called secret shoppers — people who were incognito and there to critique the restaurant. One of the areas under surveillance was whether the manager did “table touches,” meaning did the manager go by each customer’s table and ask how their meal was?
This is a regular practice in most restaurants, but unfortunately it’s a regular occurrence in many churches as well.
All too often, instead of building deep and meaningful relationships with those in our churches, many ministers keep their distance, all the while maintaining the illusion of being relationally invested in people’s lives.
This may sound like an outlandish claim, but I know many ministers who are so concerned with preaching and teaching that they see very little value in building relationships or being pastoral. One of the great bits of advice I’ve received in my life was from a mentor who reminded me that good leaders don’t just lead from the stage, but through relationships and connecting with people one on one.
This is, after all, how Jesus started this little movement of His: by connecting with people and genuinely loving and caring for them.
