Last fall I was watching TV one evening and came across a show on Travel Channel called No Reservations featuring an older gentlemen (Anthony Bourdain) that simply went to different corners of the globe, ate interesting food, and drank like a coed on spring break while sharing his life narrative. Fast forward 6 months and I often find myself perusing the TV guide hoping for an episode in the coming hours. I love watching as he explores cities in ways that normal travel periodicals ignore. But the real star of the show is the host himself. His happy-go-lucky, tell-it-like-it-is attitude is always in plain view. Best of all, he talks to the camera like it’s a good friend enjoying another round of drinks and reminiscing on old memories.
The authenticity and “real”ness that Bourdain brings to No Reservations is the same that is desired in youth ministers. Everybody wants someone who is like-able, relevant, “cool”, honest, genuine, real, and authentic. After serving in youth ministry positions for almost 4 years, I’m not fully convinced that authenticity is really as desired as much as liked for the way it reads on a job description.
Authenticity means telling the truth and being who I am. This is in no way acceptable in the church as I have discovered when it comes staffing. If it did, my resume would include the following:
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Loves Jesus
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Eats unhealthy
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Loves sports
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Drinks beer
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Enjoys cigars
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Occasionally lazy
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Can be quite critical
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At times selfish
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Loves most people with the exception of Christians who are always “great and happy”
If I actually put included this information on my resume, I would probably wouldn’t have to worry about a second interview. But in the “Church, Inc.” culture that exists in many of our congregations, being anything less of Jesus makes you unqualified.
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (of which I am a member) has a wonderful system for connecting church workers with congregations. It is dubbed “the call process” and is exactly what it sounds like. We believe that God calls individual church workers to a specific place for a specific time to do what they were created for in that time. In many days past before transportation was so efficient, interviews were rarely conducted. The search team would simply pray over the list of names they had been given by the governing church body and issue a call to ministry for the person as they were led by the Holy Spirit. That’s it! They prayed, listened, and followed God.
I sometimes wonder if we have become so interconnected and overloaded with information that we are no longer sensitive to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit in our calling of church workers. In the search for the “right person” for the job, many search committees ask too much of candidate and too little of God. And the same is true for many church workers. In the search for the “right job” we ask too many questions about buildings, budgets, and bodies and too little of our God. Too often both congregations and church workers are seeking something that has relatively nothing to do with God.
There’s a great saying in the LCMS that “the person does not seek the call, the call seeks the person”. There is great beauty to this statement that suggests that we are to be authentically about God above all things. In the discussion of interviewing I often hear comments like “they sound like a great candidate” or “they have great references”. I can’t wait for someone to say “they don’t sound like they walk with God” or “I didn’t sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in their life”! Not that those should become the new interview buzz-phrases, but that we would be at the very least authentic to the heart of God that judges the heart rather than appearance.
From church workers, we need to be honest about our own lives. We aren’t perfect and are fools to try and convince anyone otherwise. Most of us can’t stand when people gesture and position themselves to appear “great” and “happy” when we are looking. Why should we expect a different response of anyone else? Above any of this, we need to seek God’s desire and call for our life.
Churches need to stop looking for the perfect fit or skill set in their workers. They need to seek the counsel of the Lord. They need to stop exhausting themselves trying to offer every program that might appeal to everyone without taking into account who is in their midst. Churches need to understand who they are and what God has called them to do (here’s a hint: it’s not everything the big church down the street is doing).
I think we can learn some things from Mr. Bourdain (other than how to chain-smoke and do jager bombs). This show successfully appeals to a specific audience because it understands its identity and keeps it at the forefront of production. We (church workers and churches) are about Christ the risen savior and we are at our best when He remains our focus.
