Clergy at Rest

Tom Bandy

             The phrase “clergy at rest” is an oxymoron … a contradiction in terms … an anomaly so extraordinary that if a clergy person ever experienced it, or a clergy spouse ever witnessed it, they would be dumbstruck. It would feel like an ecstatic moment or like death, and therein lays the terror.

 “Rest” can change everything apocalyptically. Constant activity rarely changes much, for all its seeming productivity. Unless clergy learn to “rest”, they will run faster and faster, do more and more, achieve less and less, feel poorer and poorer, and ultimately remain the same … forever. God have mercy on their souls.

 Of course, this is precisely what most congregations want, and so the congregation has as much terror of clergy at rest as the clergy do. Keep the clergy going, never allow them to rest, and the church can be sure that programs will multiply and nothing will ever change. The congregation will remain essentially the same … smaller or bigger, busier or quieter, wealthier or poorer, but essentially the same. Forever. God have mercy on their souls.

 There are advocates for eternal sameness, of course. They distort the true meaning of “tradition” to protect it, and warp the true meaning of “faithfulness” to justify it. More to the point, they use these terms to burden the clergy with “guilt”. This is not any particular remorse over a mistake of commission or omission, but an all-pervasive, constant, hidden feeling of inadequacy that clergy are taught to mistake for “spirituality”. Guilt is a kind of software-platform-for-the-soul, which runs constantly behind all the other applications of preaching and visiting and meeting. Guilt whispers continuously, day and night, and especially at 5:00am when you unaccountably keep awakening and cannot get back to sleep:

 “If only you could visit one more person, take one more class, attend one more meeting, spend one more minute in the study, talk to one more controller, counsel one more bereaved person, connect with one more newcomer … then the church, and the world, and God’s realm would be better off. Then you can rest.”

 Only, you can’t. There is always something else after that. There will always be another phone call, another denominational obligation, and another sternly compassionate board member ready to present you with another list of all the people you should visit this week.

             Churches talk a great deal, and very convincingly, about their concerns for their pastor. They rarely mean it. Increasing the vacation or study leave time, or swearing to respect the “day off” each week, are really just “breathers” to allow the clergy to lower their blood pressure in order to sprint all the harder in the next leg of the race. It’s not just that something “important” will always come up (a funeral, a wedding, a hurt feeling) justifying the interruption of clergy rest. It’s that both clergy and church limit their appreciation of true “rest” by reducing it to “mere leisure”. They all want to believe that rest, real rest, is simply a matter of finding time for family, hobbies, vacations, exercise, and entertaining diversions. There is personal time, and church work time, and nobody is willing to surrender to God’s time because if they did everything might change overnight.

            Most church discussions about clergy rest (personnel and pastoral relations committees, clergy support groups, etc.) are a waste of time because nobody has the courage to go deep enough into the meaning and significance of “rest”. They get stuck around policy development or tips for relaxation and stress management. By the time clergy are in their third week of summer vacation permitted by policy, and have begun to master an exercise discipline, a meditation technique, or enjoyment of the garden, it’s over.

            Here are the aspects of “rest” which cannot be legislated, but which should be the real focus of conversation in the personnel committee.

 Waiting

 Clergy need time for waiting. This is often solitary time, beyond the context of the church and association with church members. It is a non-specific time. It is not time spent thinking about any particular thing or even time spent thinking. It is time simply experiencing pregnancy. Something, anything, is emerging from the womb of the spiritual life.

 Hoping

 Clergy need time for hoping. This is more specific. It is like stolen moments, or lapsed activity, when in the midst of all the business you suddenly find yourself staring out the window, looking down the road expectantly, looking for something or someone for which you yearn to suddenly appear on the doorstep.

 Brooding

 Clergy need time for brooding. Once the hope becomes clearer, clergy need time to look at it from all sides, ponder its significance, stare into the tealeaves, and imagine the possibilities (and liabilities). Clergy need to value moodiness … and churches need to accept their atypical irritability, unexpected laughter, and sudden disappearances from meetings.

 Poising

 Clergy need time to poise themselves for risk. They need time to collect their thoughts, focus their strategies, toughen their bodies, and harden their hearts to inevitable conflict. It’s that moment on the high diving board, which may be seconds, minutes, days, or even weeks, when the swimmer looks motionlessly downward, tests each muscle, and pictures the leap.

 Sharing

 Clergy need time to share, not in a meeting, but with personally chosen open hearts, the risks they are running. They need someone to confess their fears and doubts, and articulate their hopes. It’s not time to play with your spouse, but to really talk with your spouse. It’s not time for marketing an idea, but for bleeding the spirit.

 Experimenting

 Clergy need time to experiment with an idea, before ever initiating a program. This is not time in the study or the library, but time in the mall and the bar and the unemployment line and lifestyle group across the street or around the world. They need time to test, and fail, and listen, and learn. They need time to be anonymous with the public God loves so much.

 Reflecting

 Clergy need time to evaluate what is happening. They need to retreat to a vantage place from which they can observe the whole sweep and flow of congregational life … from newcomer to veteran servant, and from changed lives to mission movements. They need time to see where ministry is stuck, or mission is wayward, or energy is wasted.

 Worshipping

 Clergy need time to worship. This is not about leading, planning, or facilitating worship, but about experiencing it in whatever form they find it most meaningful. That definitely isn’t going to be in the worship service of their own church, because if the clergy are doing their job, your worship service is never designed to please the clergy but always designed to connect with strangers. But clergy crave worship just like normal people!

            The next time your personnel committee meets … and the next time clergy plan their summer holidays … move beyond policy negotiation and relaxation techniques. Ask yourselves how much time your clergy leaders take (or are allowed) to do these things.

            If clergy can “rest” in these ways, throughout the year, then clergy will be able to enjoy “leisure” more readily, more profoundly, and more enjoyably than ever before. And if that leisure is interrupted by some emergency, clergy will respond more effectively, and with less resentment.

            But congregation beware! If you allow your clergy to rest … if you allow them to wait, hope, brood, poise, share, experiment, reflect, and really worship … your church may never be the same again!