Very often, I feel like a failure as a minister.

This blog is a blog that makes me wonder.  Problem is....not sure what it is I'm wondering about?

This blog is borrowed, but befitting.....
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Very often, I feel like a failure as a minister.

Not all the time, obviously. Much of the time I feel pretty good about the way that I do my job, and there are even some things that I almost always feel good about. I'm not fishing for compliments here; I wouldn't trade the past six years for anything, and I know that I'm not the worst minister on the planet. It's just that sometimes it really feels like it.

I feels like it days that people ask for things I simply can't give them, and on days when people come to me for advice and support and I have absolutely no idea what to say.

It feels like it on days that the Sunday morning attendance is particalurly dismal.

It feels like it on days I'm told that something I said is the reason that a family is looking for a new church, on days that someone complains about 'the church' with a long list of things that are really about me, and on days that I ask a question in bible study about something I say every week on Sundays and no one knows the answer.

It feels like it when I tell a story with eight jokes in it and no one laughs, and conversely, when I tell a story that's supposed to be serious and everyone laughs.

It feels like it when I spend a week beating my head against the way writing a sermon, only to preach on Sunday that 'I don't know.'

It feels like it when there are several weeks in a row where no one is baptized at ACC, and it feels like it when someone is baptized and we never see them again.

It feels like it when I have to bail on plans I've made, and it feels like it when there are no plans to bail on.

It feels like it whenever I see my minister-colleagues Facebook pages (that are always filled with bible verses and happy messages), and websites (which are always flashy and state of the art). I feel like it every time I see one of those minister-colleagues and I hear about how wonderful their ministry is going. And I especially feel like it whenever I read a book on ministry that has all the answers to why it is that I fail at my ministry.

The truth is, I feel like a failure quite a bit. But I think also that I'm not alone in this. After all, nobody's perfect, and frankly, nobody's close. And whether it has to do with their job or their parenting or their marriage or simply the way they view themselves, I've learned that most people are walking around with some level of insecurity. No matter how much good that we do in our lives, it's rare that we focus on the positive aspects of our lives more than the negative ones.

That's why it's so encouraging to see who exactly it is that God has used to impact this world. From Abraham to Jacob to David to Daniel to Moses to Samson, the Old Testament is littered with those who, frankly, sucked as human beings. And once Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God through His disciples, they failed over and over again as well. It didn't matter if they were in the 'inner circle'or if they were simply the 'other guys'; at the end of the day, they all failed in all sorts of ways at following Jesus.

But amazingly, God understands. He gets that we will, very often, suck at being the people He made, and He understands that even when we try our absolute best that we won't be able to be perfect. That's why the beauty of the gospel is in God's grace, and why Jesus said that the true triumph of discipleship in not in our victory over evil, but in the day to day, consistent involvement in our lives of God.

I say each week at Central Christian Church that we aren't a perfect church, and that starts with me - someone who feels, more often than not, like a ministerial failure. But the truth is that with God's grace and God's involvement in our lives, perfection - or even us being adequate - isn't necessary. Where we fail, God succeeds.

And in the end, that's all the success that we'll ever really need.