Working for your church may, in fact, kill your family (revisited)

Several weeks ago I referenced an Arcade Fire song, Intervention, which contains the lyrics:

Working for the church
While your family dies
You take what they give you
And you keep it inside
Every spark of friendship and love
Will die without a home
Hear the solider groan, "We'll cry alone"

It's a very moving, powerful, haunting song. High church organ playing in the background, yet the lyrics hold much hatred for the entity of the church body. In the blog, I asked what you thought. Several readers have commented or e-mailed responses: Anti-war, Anti-Bush, Anti-Communism... reading the comments I felt like I was back in college working on my Literature Minor. Props to those who did research.

My wife, however, gets the prize. Rather than exploring the one song, I need to dive into the entire album (Neon Bible) and explore that. Stupid iTunes... $0.99 tracks are the death of Album enjoyment... Sorry, I'm back now.

Reading the album lyrics, and listening to the music, I discovered that much of the album is written in a first person narrative describing a person who's father was working for the church, and while doing that evidently didn't do a good job doing the family thing. I'm the first to say there's two sides to the story, and while I'm sure daddy did everything possible, evidently it was so scarring that Arcade Fire felt like they had to devote a good part of an album ripping their family life.

Hatred. We never seem to escape it.

RUNwithGOD has been experimenting experiencing huge traffic numbers, almost 10 times usual numbers. Why? People Googling, searching for answers to the Juanita Bynum issue, or the Paula White situation. Rarely will the world praise us for our successes, but they're always on hand to spectate our failures.

I can see it in my own life. Serving God requires you to have a different set of priorities. In our Media Small Group this past week we talked about aligning our will to God's instead of standing on our own. Well, what if that alignment doesn't match up with your family's desires? The best we can do is pray for the family to stay focused on it, but realistically it doesn't always happen that way...

So, here I am. Striving to work towards a goal of serving God through employment at a church, realizing that if I am not careful, if my family does not learn to align as well, my family can suffer. Not much comfort there. Ask Haggard. Ask Bynum. Ask White. Things can get out of control. I can see it. I believe it. Working for the church may, in fact, kill your family. But, it doesn't have to. And so I do what I can... I pray.

God, help me to radiate the goodness of who you are.

Comments

[Ted]

An interesting argument for the Catholic way of vowed religious life, not as the only piece to the Body of Christ, but an important piece, acknowledging the all-consuming nature of ministry. Protestantism doesn't have anything like that, and I think it suffers for it, as do the kids.

[ttm]

I've known a lot of people who dress up their own desires, agendas, and ego-driven visions in the "God's Will" costume. I've known some borderline sociopathic religious folk who have used "God's will" as an invisibility cloak for anything they want to do or any way they want to manipulate others.

I think most Christians today are trained to be busy, nice, and in control. But maybe that isn't God's will...

The thing is, Christ wasn't always busy. Sometimes He walked right past needy people, got in a boat, and went to the other side of the lake for some time alone. He didn't even rush to be with Mary and Martha when His good friend Lazarus died.

Christ wasn't always nice either. Once He called his friend "Satan." He compared his friends to one another. He used some pretty harsh words toward those Pharisees. And what teenager doesn't get a kick out of the passage where He pretty much told off an overprotective mother when she worried about where He'd been for a few days?

In control? Not always. He openly wept. Once He went ballistic turning over tables and making a mess in the temple! Scripture is full of paradox. But Christ was always smack dab in the center of God's will because He was God.

We humans DO NOT have the mind of God. And though we ought to be seeking His will, I'm not sure we can be so sure that we know it. We don't always interpret Scripture correctly, we don't always hear the Spirit's whispers correctly, and we are really, really good at just asking for God's stamp of approval on what WE think is best.

I think God's will for all of us is that we continually walk with Him and commune with Him. But when it comes to the decisions of life like where we work, what church we attend, how involved we are in ministry, how we spend our money, whom to marry, whether we have children, etc., we often just do what we want and then stretch it into being "God's will."

Sometimes our family members see clearly what we ourselves do not. They might see our selfishness dressed up in the "God" attire. I think it's extremely important to remain humble and open to the ideas/insights/concerns of other believers (family or not) instead of proclaiming that our way is "the right way or God's way."

By the way, this comment is in no way an aimed attack at anyone in particular. I am speaking about all of us in general--none of us are immune from arrogance, pride, and self-delusion. My own former Phariseeism cost me my marriage because I realized too late that "God's will" was only mine dressed up to look divine.

You're right. We absolutely need to pray. And we need to listen. And we need to continually seek God's face. The older I get, the more I realize there are WAAAAAAY more questions than answers on the Christian path. (Personally, I think God did that on purpose so we would stay close to The Guide.)