Yesterday, a sobering event.
I sat with an older gentleman as a customer. He looked like I felt. Tired, ready to move along. In being faithful to my job, I asked him a number of questions, made suggestions.
He seemed squeamish as I continued. Averting eye-contact. I had pushed too far. This is my daily fear.
Finally he made it clear. He was only worried about “getting his house in order” and taking care of his hospital bills so his wife won’t have to worry about them. He made it clear he had gotten a diagnosis from the doctor putting all monetary concerns for himself at bay.
A few days ago I began reading Eugene Peterson’s memoir. I haven’t read it since being a pastor ceased to be my job. The night before I read the story of the artist who taught him the difference between vocation and a job.
Peterson learned from artists the two do not have to be the same.
One can have a job and have a vocation that is entirely separate. The job keeps the lights on and fills the stomach. The vocation brightens the life and sustains the soul. Both are important, but they are not, nor need be the same.
So yesterday, this all became very real for me as the two intersected. They were not running parallel like when I was paid to pastor people. I knew what to say as a pastor, instinctively. But as someone with a customer in front of me, with sales goals hanging over me…I don’t know, the two stood in stark relief before me like never before.
I stuttered and stammered and simply did my best to put at him ease as he rose and told me he’d let me know if he needed anything else.
The job was glad for him to go. The vocation wished for more. the job had nothing else to sell him. The vocation wanted to comfort him on the edge of eternity.
I hear from a number of men who deal with this tension. It’s not easy and sometimes has all the psychological drama of the Scylla and the Charybdis. And we veer always towards one or the other and rarely are ever able to keep the two in balance. Some are bivocational. Some are on their way to paid ministry. Some long for it.
And there are others of us, who were once pastors only, and now have a job set apart. We wanted to escape the tension but it has followed us.
Maybe we are supposed to feel it. Maybe the ideal is to always feel the tension between what we get paid to do and the vocation.
Makes it hard to leave the pastoring behind. No matter how hard you try.
Echoes and Stars 
The amazing thing is this: would you have encountered people like that when you Pastored? Many people will never go to church or open up to someone they don’t know about doubt, problems, health issues, addictions, and difficulties. When many people respond with doctrine, and having such certainties does that really help? But those people that you wouldn’t encounter in church are those that you are running into now. You are outside the bubble. Inside the bubble one knew what to say, how to respond, how to live and what to do. There was an answer for everything. Outside the bubble things are not as black and white. Often times there are difficult questions with even harder answers. Many situations are gray and harder to work through. Or life could throw you a wrench and you don’t know how to respond. Whatever the situation I would think the way to respond is love and grace. But many people will never get this because its often too much work to love certain people. And others are hesitant to give grace because they feel like they will be enabling or giving someone a license to sin. But love and grace is the best way to respond.
I believe you are where more of the “ministry” is heading. I see it and hear it more and more. Vocational ministry is much like military intelligence; oxymoronic!
One of the most freeing talks I’ve ever heard was from John Stanko, former director of the Come And Worship division of Integrity Music. He said we may have to work 50 weeks out of the year to do our “calling” for 2 weeks!
You are a minister. You work at a bank. It’s ok.
You bless us by sharing your struggles. You voice what many feel, and we find comfort and encouragement in what you have to say. Keep sharing!