Resetting the Board
“Our story is unique. Our story is special. Our story is one of death and resurrection. Our story is messy. Our story is full of rejoicing. In short, our story is a story of God’s grace.”
Dear People of Grace Community Church, Cordova, TN,
The main thing that drew Kathryn and me to Grace Community Church six and a half years ago was the story of God’s grace at work in this church and the community of loving people that we found had grown out of that story. When I remember the process of accepting this call to be your pastor, God’s opening of that door, and your opening of your hearts to me and my family, I am thankful beyond measure. Kathryn and I knew from the beginning, that GCC was a church we wanted to be a part of because your story was our story too. The Dusenbery story is unique. The Dusenbery story is special. The Dusenbery story is one of death and resurrection. The Dusenbery story is messy. The Dusenbery story is full of rejoicing. In short, the Dusenbery story is a story of God’s grace.
This March I will have been ordained sixteen years. After sixteen years of working in the church as a pastor, the words “unique,” “special,” “death and resurrection,” “messy,” “rejoicing,” and “grace,” are more fitting than ever. It feels like Kathryn and I have been riding a wave of our own insufficiency in this calling for all that time. We’ve loved it, we’ve been overwhelmed by it, terrified by it, grown from it, and we’re thankful for it.
Do you remember the board game, Stratego? In Mrs. House’s fourth grade class, we had a serious Statego competition going. Many days when it was too rainy to go outside for recess, we would stay in our classroom and play Stratego. If you don’t know the game, just think checkers, meets rock-paper-scissors, meets capture the flag. Each player moves their pieces around the board attempting to capture their opponent’s pieces and, ultimately their flag. You never know what type of piece you’re attempting to take until you commit to your move. You might be successful or you might just get blown up by a bomb. That’s what the last three years have felt like to me. The board has gotten cluttered. Everything feels like it’s a bomb. I can’t even remember where my own bombs are. I need to reset the board.
I can’t really explain why it feels this way to me. Understanding how I got here is part of my long-term plan for being a healthier pastor, but I haven’t gotten here because of anything malicious done by you or anyone else in the church. It’s not because the people of GCC are especially hard or broken. I can’t really explain why I feel what I feel, but I can give it a name: burn-out. Burn-out is a scary term. It sounds terminal. It sounds like the end. It’s not, or, at least, it doesn’t have to be. I don’t think it’s terminal to the story of the Dusenberys in Ministry. I believe the Lord is going to turn the story of my burn-out into a story of his grace. This is another example of “death and resurrection” that the Lord seems to specialize in.
It’s not that being a pastor is a harder job than any other. Many of you work much longer hours than me, are under more stress, have just as much or more weight on your shoulders, but It is hard for us pastors to put the burden of our vocation aside. A typical week or two off in the summer isn’t sufficient time to really step out of our role as pastors and stop carrying the cares and hurts of the church. New shepherding needs arise and old ones follow you to the beach or the campground.
Preaching through 2 Corinthians recently was a special blessing for me. Paul’s weakness is a comfort to me. This period of ministry life has kept before me the inescapable truth that I am a clay jar, easily broken and not so easily put back together. I need this sabbatical because I’m human and not infinite. I need it because I want to keep doing this vocation at GCC. I need it because I need to remember that I need to heal and find a more sustainable path.
I’ve been reading Telling Secrets by Fredrick Buechner – a pastor, theologian, and author. He wrote these words that really resonated with me and helps explain some things going on inside of me, some things I have neglected, and wrong ways I have been thinking about ministry.
“Love your neighbor as yourself is part of the great commandment. The other way to say it is, Love yourself as your neighbor. Love yourself not in some egocentric, self-serving sense but love yourself the way you would love your friend in the sense of taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, trying to understand, comfort, strengthen yourself. Ministers in particular, people in the caring professions in general, are famous for neglecting themselves with the result that they are apt to become in their own way as helpless and crippled as the people they are trying to care for and thus no longer selves who can be of much use to anybody. If your daughter is struggling for life in a raging torrent, you do not save her by jumping into the torrent with her, which leads only to you both drowning together. Instead, you keep your feet on the dry bank-you maintain as best you can your own inner peace, the best and strongest of who you are-and from that solid ground reach out a rescuing hand.”
We all need to hear this as every Christian is called, in some measure, to ministry and a life of serving, loving, and caring. We all need time to cease and rest. This is hard because we think the Lord can’t do it without us. “So death is at work in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:12).” Rest gives us time to be observant to the ways in which we have reached the terminus of our own abilities and energy. The ways we have died. Rest gives us time to be observant to the resurrection power at work all around us, at work in us. The ways he has brought us and others back to life.
He’s there. He’s at work in me, and he’s at work in you. I believe this. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be taking a sabbatical. What would be the point? The Dusenbery’s are still down for this Ministry Life. Thank you for the gift of this sabbatical, for the time and resources you are pouring into it – into me and Kathryn and our kids. I am looking forward to being reunited on the other side ready to begin a new chapter of ministry at GCC that will go on for another sixteen years.
Blessings,
Ashley