YouTube has a lot of really dumb stuff on it. Mostly involving cats. :D (I watch anyways)
But sometimes you see a Youtube video that shakes you to your very core. In the below video, a comedian talks about a tragic situation in his life that involved his two year old daughter. At the same time, he was being invited to the Tonight Show to be the comedian and then invited back because he did so well. So on one hand his professional life is booming - he's funny, he's moving up in the comedy world. On the other hand, his personal life is falling apart - his daughter is sick with cancer, he has medical bills to pay, his car is about to repossessed. So he talks about how his material started getting darker and darker due to what was going on in his life but his agent told him he needed to keep it light and funny because that's what people want to hear.
It's a heartbreaking story. And it's hard to watch a man break down when he's supposed to be "entertaining" the audience. The audience is kind to him though, which makes things better.
All of this reminded me of the ministry "profession." In a similar fashion, a minister who is up on stage, whether preaching or leading music or whatever, is supposed to keep it together. They are seen as the experts in God and how to live the Christian life, so their job is to reassure the congregation that it can be done, that all you need to do is follow these certain steps or read this certain Bible passage or sing these kind of songs, and everything will be just fine. Keep it light, keep things joyful, point to the blessings and the promises in the Bible.
We don't want to see the person up on stage struggling. We certainly don't want them to let us down by showing that they aren't perfect, that not everything in their life is peachy, that they wrestle with doubt, that bad things happen to them, that they don't have all the answers, that their prayers sometimes seem to fall on deaf ears, that their family members get cancer, that they have fights with their spouse, that they are tempted, that they take medication for depression, that some days they don't feel like praying, that they question their calling, that they have insecurities...that they are human.
Is it any wonder that the pressures of acting like one has everything together all the time leads to an alarming number of ministers quitting their profession, leaving the church altogether?
Just some thoughts rattling around in my brain. I don't have the answer. But I do know that I struggle with some of the above stuff. And I try not to let those things leak into what I do on Sunday mornings. But sometimes they do. And I think that it is as much my responsibility to not act like a superhuman Jesus Junior as it is for people to let me be who God has called me to be: a flawed human who is looking to Jesus for strength, hope, healing, and redemption.
