Nobody told me that going to church services after having pastored would be a difficult thing, but that is exactly what I have found.
Seven years ago, I began a small church replant in a rural town. I stepped in as the lead pastor and the only pastor, and I began leading a group of twelve, all over the age of seventy. Seven years later, by God’s power, that little group had grown into a big, hungry, thriving group that included all ages.
And then I left.
At the peak of our ministry, my family and I moved across the continent and started over.
One of the first things on our starting-over list was finding a new church, and honestly, that did not take very long. Our second Sunday in our new location we found a community of believers that we aligned with theologically and missionally in every way. On top of that they had excellent Sunday school programs for our kids and had an interest in and need for biblical counsellors, of which my wife is. Done deal.
We began attending, connecting and even serving. And yet, it didn’t feel the same as attending church before I pastored, or while I pastored. Sunday after Sunday, I squirmed in my seat. I had a hard time engaging in worship, I had a hard time focusing when we prayed, and I had a hard time remaining still through the sermon.
Six months later, it is has shifted slightly, but it is still not easy, and I am still figuring out exactly why. One might reasonably think it’s because I am being hypercritical of the preacher, but that’s not it. It is also not a lack of desire for the Lord, or a shaking up of my faith.
If I could name the feeling, I would say it is a kind of contrariness. The feeling that I feel week after week reminds my soul of a few lines from Wendell Berry, in his poem, “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer.” He writes,
“Dance,’ they told me, and I stood still, and while they stood quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced. ‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan. When they said, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,’ I told them, ‘He’s dead.’ And when they told me ‘God is dead,’ I answered, ‘He goes fishing every day in the Kentucky River.”
Those words resonate with me because I think this is what is going on: from the position of pastor, I observed many times through the years people who would show up on Sundays and pray hard, sing loud, and listen intently, but who then would pay little to no attention to the ways of Jesus the rest of the week. I realized as a pastor, even more than I had realized as a layperson, how easy and common it was, whether intentionally or not, to have an inauthentic faith. To do things on Sundays for show or because of the feeling in the room, and then to have a chasm between church life and the rest of life.
Now, as I sit in church services, having been the pastor and observer for so many years, I think I just feel so aware of this possibility. What if I pray just because I am told to pray? What if I worship just because there is a room of worshippers? What if I put on a face that makes those around me think I am listening to the sermon when I am not?
All this to say, the struggle that is in me right now feels like a resistance to anything that could be inauthentic and a longing for and drawing into private moments and prayer closets where I can know that nothing is for show, and nothing is a product of external forces.
Of course, I say struggle, but it’s a good struggle. I think it’s a good thing. I think my discomfort is going to be transformative in a good way in the long run, as long as I stay connected to, engaging with, and serving the church, even when my spirit might resist.
Still, it’s weird. It’s a weird season, and I didn’t see it coming because nobody told me that going to church after having pastored might be a difficult thing.
But maybe they should have. Maybe it’s more than just me that has a hard time in this post-pastor season. And maybe for more reasons than just mine.