I have seen so many well-meaning people in ministry let their families down while they ministered to others needs. While it sounds all holy to spend all ones time meeting others needs and working on the Church, if this comes at the costs of your, or my, family then its sin.
The proper alignment for priorities is;
God
Family Life
Financial Support of your family (Work or business)
Ministry
I have re-aligned my priorities, so I am back now. Every since I started with the Church and in working with Avoidants, I have struggled with how honest to be. Its hard to be in ministry. Often I feel like as a Pastor, I are supposed to blow smoke and ignore reality. I feel like its our job to be Pastoral cheerleaders. Just ignore what is going on in our lives and in the lives of others and just keep telling ourselves and everyone else that all is fine and dandy.
I see this example in so many other Churches and Pastors. I guess I fell into the same trap And perhaps to a point, it is what we need to do. People on the outside need hope and coming to Church is what they do in order to get told that things will be ok.
Perhaps that is the difference. Its ok to tell is how it is as long as you end with hope that God is in control and all will be fine. Well, from here out, I am going to try hard to do just that. I will try to tell the truth of how things are going and where I am at. And if that openness and honesty gets me in trouble with the Christian world, then so be it.
So here is my first attempt at more honesty.
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Passions, if you want to call it that, run very very deep. I tend to think that its not passion when it leads to anger, fear and yes, even violence. It has turned from being something of God to something of that dark place. But this is what I find so very often. Especially from Pastoral Church leadership. I am not sure if its all intentional or just bad leadership.
But for whatever reason, this is what I have found. So many Pastors that seem all nice when it comes to their Church membership, and to those that raise their hands to get saved, but to outsiders and especially other Pastors, they can be down right mean.
Churches that I have dealt with are very competitive and jealous. They run their Churches more like businesses, and very fiercely defend themselves against anyone that would want to come into their Church, or maybe share in their marketing strategies.
Now, in saying this, I know there are exceptions out there. I know there are good Churches and good Pastors out there that love to share, love to help others, love helping young Churches, and think little to nothing of their own financial health. But these Churches and Pastors seem to be few and far in-between.
I am hoping and praying for each and every Avoidant out there as well as myself. Its been tuff. But hang in there. God is blessing my family and will bless you if you are working according to his purposes. Stay tuned for more later
Pastor Phillip
NeedsMetChurch.com
This is my log of my issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder and others like it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyKSgW-IeaK851gvIjjthije0kOwg3tZxVqKXSC1xXg/viewform I am trying to get more information on this disorder so that we can find commonalities. Perhaps if we can learn more about this, we can figure out how to combat it and get better lives for us all.
