Final thoughts from a great summer

Let me start this post by saying that the summer I had in Duluth working for Youthworks was wonderful. I loved the work that we did and even more I loved the 3 people that I worked with every day. If I was guaranteed having a staff like the one I had this summer I would sign up for Youthworks again in an instant.

With that in mind I've been wanting to post for a while what I think is the most significant thing I feel I've learned this summer. As I talked to my staff at the end of the summer they expressed that this was a summer of growth for them. While I think that I grew this summer, I realize that my growth was less traditional than I would have anticipated. I think that my growth was through a few realizations I had this summer about my personality and about ministry in general.

The most profound thing that I realized was something that I already knew in part but nevertheless something that became part of a fuller realization. Throughout the summer I struggled a lot with feelings of loneliness and thus times of depression. While my staff was wonderful there were still countless times that I didn't quite feel that I fit in for various reasons but the most significant being merely the fact that I was the Site Director and thus I was, for lack of better description, "their boss."

Being the introspective person that I am, I thought about this for the summer and realized that this loneliness is, and will ever be, part of my life. While I have great friends and will likely make friends wherever I go, I will never fit in entirely. If I continue to pursue the calling that God has placed on my life (which I fully intend to do) I will perpetually be "Pastor Ben" and will never just be "Ben," just as during the summer it was not possible for me not to always live as "Site Director Ben." There will always be this sort of not fitting in as part of my life. Given this knowledge and my personality I also can infer that there will always be some form of loneliness in my life.

While I don't want to make the case that this is a part of ministry for all people, I do believe that this is the case for me. Does it suck? Yes! But, in my opinion, it's part of what I'm called to. While I don't believe that I'm called to loneliness and depression, I do believe that I am called into full-time ministry and for me and my personality it may just entail perpetual times of loneliness and hints of depression. And with this realization I still gladly say, "so be it, Lord have mercy."

Even in this the Lord has given me peace and still know without a doubt that I am called into ministry and it is good. This is what the Lord was speaking into me through the summer. He was allowing me to realize bits and pieces of the ramifications of the service into which I'm being called. Maybe this won't be the case my whole life but it seems to be part of who I am and how my personality deals with being in ministry.

I penned this in my journal this summer:

...I will always be "Pastor" and not just friend, just like now I am perpetually Site Director and not Ben. I have lost my identity...Is this the loneliness to which I am condemned? or rather not condemned, but called to rejoice in.

It seems to me that this was an essential realization of part of the cost for me of the ministry to which I am called into. While I learned a lot through these thoughts one of the best things was being able to end my time as Site Director and just relate to my staff as their friend. I can't wait until I can see them again and be able to just be friends and not have to be their Director. True, I will never be able to fully lay aside my heart for their spiritual growth as I saw myself as a Pastor to them this summer, but it will still be nice to have some of the baggage removed.

So I'm not sure if any of this makes sense. Maybe it's just hard to articulate since it's been a while since I was in Duluth, but either way it makes sense in my mind.

I dialogged a lot with Ryals on this issue over the summer. He has a few posts concerning foreseeable Pastoral loneliness on his blog. There are a few posts specifically about this issue and then some thoughts weave through his other posts.

Blessings,

Ben