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So I’m sitting at the edge of my bed after our first Church School event and a thought crosses my mind. “Del, you’re a senior pastor now.” That thought was quickly followed with me mentally whispering to myself, “What the heck?!”
I’m a naturally confident person, but for the first time in ministry, the burden of what God has called me to do has lead me to a humble and thoughtful place of insecurity. Now when I say the word ‘insecurity,’ I’m not referencing an identity issue. I know who I am and I’m very confident of what I’ve been called to accomplish. However, this new level in my call requires so much new learning, new patience, and new humility. In many ways the newness of this calling to be a senior pastor is exciting and thrilling, but I must vulnerably admit that I have no clue what I’m doing and that makes me sick. My confidence was left somewhere in the plans of yesterday.
I’m what you call a control freak. I’ve had a strategy for our church plant for the last year, but when COVID hit, it made it impossible to execute those plans. For example, I spent most of 2019 raising pledge support for our church plant. I had raised over $100,000 in commitments from churches and partners, which I had scheduled to collect in May of this year. Within weeks of COVID affecting our worship gatherings, I received emails from all except one church, letting us know that their giving had drastically gone down, and they would no longer be able to make good on their financially commitments. I totally understood, but that left me consumed with worry because I had planned to use those finances to pay for our mandatory expenses for our church. I understand that these things happen in ministry at times and it’s no one’s fault, but I was left having to regroup and that was difficult. Every week I was creating new strategies, and every week something major would happen where I had to shift my plans yet again.
These constant changes have left me feeling very incompetent. I want to look like a strong leader who has it all together, and normally I do, but this season has made it impossible to lead with the confidence I normally lead. Change is the only consistent thing in ministry right now. Every week, it has felt like the rug gets pulled from under me and with each new problem comes a new anxiety of whether things will work out or not.
There's so many things that they don't tell you about in preparation to becoming a senior pastor. Because of our country being shut down, I’m currently planting a church with no funding, no building, and no immediate game plan. And I’m left looking at God saying, “What the heck.” I believe God has intentionally put me in a place where can I not rely on my gifts, leadership skills, or planning abilities when it comes to this church. In taking away my confidence in other things, I have been convicted to grow in my confidence in God and His direction.
On top of the constant changes, I’m planting a new church with people who come with past hurts and trauma. One of the struggles of being a senior pastor, is that often times without meaning to, we can be quite triggering to our members. I’ve already had many meetings where people have innocently misinterpreted the heart and intent behind something I’ve said or done. That’s not a bad thing. We can expect that when new groups of people do life together, there’s going to be a lot of misunderstandings, because it takes time to learn and trust each other. Typically these meetings start with the other person telling me, “Pastor, that hurt me because, well at my old church…” or even, “Pastor it hurt when you did that, because when my other pastor did that…” And though I’m never offended by what they communicate, I want to grab them each time and say “I’M NOT YOUR OLD PASTOR. THIS ISN’T YOUR OLD CHURCH.” I don’t say that with a tone of anger or frustration, but rather with a tone of joy and excitement. I want people to have a space where they can hash out their baggage. But there’s a difference between working out your baggage and then blaming others for your baggage. Those preconceived notions, so often get in the way of healthy relationships with our spiritual leaders. Those unhealed filters will cause us to see everything through lens of our past experiences.
Collide City Church is a new church, and though I’m not new in ministry, I am new to the role of a senior pastor. I explain this to our church family often, because I need them to know that I don’t have it all together, and I’m humble enough to admit my imperfections and strong enough to make changes. But please release me from the burden of having to pay for the hurt that your last church and pastor caused.
These are just a few of the new things that I’m juggling as a church planter, that I’ve never had to navigate through before. It’s been a huge learning curve, and I find myself overcompensating in my leadership.
With all of these different plates spinning, I can remember sitting on my bed two weeks ago, and it hits me that I’m a senior pastor. Thoughts flooded my mind as I tried to come to grips with this new role that I’m stepping into. And as I sat there in a plethora of overwhelming thought, I was reminded of two separate conversations I had with two different leaders in our church. They had each asked me a question that shook me to my core as I sat reflecting.
The two questions I was left pondering were “Why do you continue to say, ‘as your pastor…’?” and, “Do I need to call you Pastor Del.”
For context, these are not just leaders of our church that asked me these questions. Before being leaders at Collide City Church, they were and still are friends. So these questions weren’t asked with a tone of accusation, but rather for the purpose of clarifying and understanding.
I’ve never been one who cares about titles, so I found it strange how quickly I responded to second question of whether they should call me ‘pastor’ or not. I explained to that leader that it was important for him to call me pastor, because we believe that role is significant and carries weight. In our church culture we will call our pastors by their title, because it says that as a community, we affirm their calling and we are aligned with their leadership. Obviously titles have been misused and have served as a way to establish one’s own identity. But I explained to my friend that here at our church, we work with the premise that we are able to redefine and reshape something that has been abused in previous church communities. For me that was an easy question to answer, because there’s nothing in my heart that cares when people don’t call me pastor. I know who I am whether anyone else acknowledges it or not.
It was the first question that took me time to process. In our leadership meetings, I would often find myself prefacing tough words with, “As your pastor…” For example, if I had to correct someone, I would say, “You know, as your pastor, I want you to know that I love you.” Finally, one of my leaders pulled me to the side and asked, “Why do you keep saying, ‘as your pastor?’ We know you’re our pastor.” My jaw dropped. It wasn’t until I had taken time to pray through my thoughts that I was able to understand why she was so perplexed. I thought that by saying, “As your pastor…” my leaders would become more comfortable with my new role in their life, when in reality I was the one attempting to make myself comfortable with the new role I play in their lives. In this season of leadership I’ve felt so out control and so out of step. I allowed that insecurity to affect my leadership and cause me to feel unsure about my new call and role.
You have to understand that I have spent countless days fasting and praying. I sought the Lord in coming up with the vision for Collide City Church. I even spent months carefully praying and inviting the right people to be apart of that vision. I raised money, and rallied support. There was just one problem. I had not come to grips with the fact that God had chosen me to lead this church. Without knowing it, I had allowed questions in my heart about my role as a senior pastor go unanswered. I had not affirmed within my own heart that God had called me to be a senior pastor. I prefaced everything with as your senior pastor… because I was looking for someone to say, “Yes, you are my senior pastor.” I wanted someone else to affirm me, because I had not allowed the affirmation of God to sink in.
It's not a bad thing for me to want affirmation from others. We are built with the desire and need for affirmation from our community. The problem comes when I use the affirmation of others to validate what God has already called me to. The affirmation of others should only be an addition to the validation that I have already received from the Lord. My problem was that I hadn't done the work of allowing God to heal all of the insecurities and feelings of incompetence that had recently developed. If I don’t rest in His affirmation, I can easily become the type of pastor who becomes triggered at the brokenness of others. Here’s what I mean.
I’ll be honest with you. I’m not the most confident or competent leader in this season. But I refuse to timidly walk into my calling. No sir! I have embraced and affirmed my calling. So in spite of feelings of incompetence, I am confident that God has called me. I’m confident that no issues of funding, leadership, demons, or deacons can stop what God has ordained. So though I’m not confident in myself, I can lean confidently on the Lord. I refuse to walk on eggshells around my calling. I will walk with confidence, because my confidence is really rested on what God says about me and not how I feel about me.
I’m still processing and working through my own baggage, but I’ve come to rest on Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;”
This journey is so unknown, and I’ve stopped trying to figure it all out. I’m choosing to roll with the surprises, and be comfortable with what I cannot control.
You may be reading this and wondering how any of what you’re reading can apply to your life, because you may not be a pastor. Is there an area in your life that God’s called you to step into, but you lack confidence? Well this word is for you. Your struggles might be different than mine, but you, like me, are fighting to believe and confidently walk in God’s call for your life. When we rest our confidence on our own talents, resume, or past experiences, we rest our confidence on unsure ground. We’re left wondering if we measure up or if we’ll ever be good enough. It’s only when we’re confident in God’s character in calling us that we really come to embrace and affirm that call. Our confidence is birthed from God’s confidance in our call. So let your heart rest. Let God do all the heavy lifting in your call. Don’t go around proving yourself and looking for affirmation from others. Constantly look to Jesus and allow Him to remind you that He was the one that called you. And if He’s the One who called you, He’s the on who will keep you.
