“A diseased tree cannot produce good fruit.” Matthew 7:18
After serving as an associate pastor, pastor, vocation director, in a seminary and as a retreat leader, I have concluded that the church is blessed with many heroically generous, multi-talented and genuinely holy ordained and lay ministers. In many places, they are doing amazing ministry often against great odds and with minimal pay and appreciation.
I have concluded, as well, that one of the biggest needs in the life of the church are ministers with the capacity for critical self-awareness — the ability to own their own personal histories, wounds and motivations; the ability to understand what makes them tick; and the ability to understand why they think the way they think and believe what they believe.
Sometimes, needy people are drawn to ministry and end up acting out of their own needs and hurts rather than the demands of the Gospel or the needs of the people they attempt to serve. In ministry, less than ideal motivations eventually get purified, but sometimes at great cost to the people who have a right to benefit from their ministers.
Without critical self-awareness, ministers sometimes engage in obnoxious certitude and call it “the truth.” Behind obnoxious certitude is an insecure person who believes that if he can just insist loudly enough and long enough on his “truth,” he might corral enough support to believe it himself.
In religion, obnoxious certitude on steroids can lead to some pretty awful atrocities. Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French philosopher said: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Without critical self-awareness, instead of looking within, some pastoral ministers look for scapegoats onto whom they can pin blame for all that’s wrong with the church and world. Such self-righteous projections are deadly in ministry.
Other pastoral ministers are drawn to ministry because they see it as an easy way to satisfy their cravings for affirmation and feelings of importance. They are called “narcissists.”
The church has often allowed needy people who don’t know who they are to be entrusted with leadership positions. Sooner or later everything revolves around their neediness, rather than the message they carry or the needs of people they serve. Ministers without self-awareness can end up devouring the energy, time and focus of a whole parish.
Healthy ministry seldom comes from unhealthy ministers. Nowhere is “purity of heart” needed more than in pastoral ministry!
Often those in institutional leadership do not have the guts to tell such people the truth.
They are simply shuffled. Other times, pastoral ministers simply do not have anyone in their lives who love them enough to tell them the truth. Pastoral ministers without critical self-awareness and without someone to speak the truth to them in love are a danger to themselves and others.
To read more from Father Knott, visit his blog: FatherKnott.com.
Father J. Ronald Knott
