a provocatively gracious relationship

This has something to do with the relationship between "a young pastor" and "a church."  For the time being, I'll allow this post to remain anonymous in regards to the particular people involved.  :)

I wrote this because it's a personal challenge that seems to surface again and again and again.  If I'm honest, sometimes I don't want to remember parts of what I'm about to say.  It's too challenging.  It's too convicting.  It even messes with my ego.  Nonetheless, every once in a great while I get a glimpse of what humility looks like.  When I do, I want to write it down as fast as I can so I can remember it later after I forget.








There are several challenging aspects in following a young pastor and also in being a young pastor. Having to communicate and lead a mass of people who have more life experience, further education, better leadership qualities, and who are more emotionally stable is quite a conundrum for many young pastors.  Likewise, having to listen and be led by a young leader who has less life experience, less education, less leadership exposure, and less emotional maturity is quite a conundrum for many faith communities.    

It's not like any of that is a secret, though.  Big deal, right?    

Of course it's a challenge to be a young pastor.  Of course it's challenging for a faith community to follow the lead of a young pastor.  I could have told you that before I became a pastor.  

What I couldn't have told you was what those challenges may have specifically looked like.  Although there are many challenges, below is a particular challenge that I've become more and more aware of.  

An incredible challenge in being a young pastor is the responsibility of teaching what isn't yet “known.” I don't mean "known" from an intellectual standpoint; rather from a life experience standpoint.  Young pastors haven't "known" life in the same way that older people in the faith community have "known" life.  It may seem easy to stand up and share theological bullet points with people; it's a much different ballgame when you realize that because of your age and experience, you haven't really come to “know” what you're talking about in the same way others have - yet you have to teach/preach anyways.

Intellectual theology and experiencing theology are two different worlds. When a young pastor has to teach theology with the recognition that much of his or her audience attains more experience in that same theology; that is a humbling realization.  


And this realization makes the light bulb come on in regards to two truths...

Young pastors must generously give grace to their faith community.  

Although this may be true, there is something else that is true also.  

There are two sides to the coin.

Young pastors must generously receive grace from their faith community.  

However ahead one may think they are on their intellectual theology, they are often far behind in their experiential theology. 

It goes both ways.  

A young pastor having to give grace is hard enough

but a young pastor having to receive grace is even harder.  
And that's the sort of thing that messes with your ego.  

So the voice of ego asks,
"Aren't they the ones that need my grace?"
"Why do I need grace from them?"


And the voice of humility replies,
"Joel, you aren't the superhero you thought you were."
"You're the one that requires the most grace of all."

Living in the tension between intellectual theology and experiential theology is provocative for all parties involved. Yet, somehow and somewhere in that place among that tension, the giving and receiving of grace generates and demonstrates Christ's community.  To put it another way, as the young pastor extends grace in the faith community's slow intellectual growth, the faith community must also extend grace to the young pastor's slow experiential growth.

Growth happens together.

A responsibility for the young pastor is to faithfully teach what isn't yet experienced - “known.” It takes giving grace and receiving grace. It takes pride and humility.  It takes intellect and experience. It takes leadership and servantship. Following a young pastor is incredibly hard. Being a young pastor is incredibly hard.

Success in the giving and receiving of grace is miraculous.
That is where growth happens.
Growth happens together.