Professional Christian Struggles

I am a professional Christian.

Note, that I’m not saying I’m a superior Christian, or even a good one.

Just professional.

Meaning: as my primary and secondary sources of income, I do stuff that normal Christians are supposed to do (talk about Jesus, pray for people, study theology, etc). Considering the fact that most other Christians do this stuff for free, it’s a pretty sweet gig. Anyone that teaches at a Christian school is at least semi-pro, and anyone who works as a Bible teacher or in any church role called “ministry” is probably a professional Christian as well. And while there are a lot of cool benefits to being a professional Christian, there is a unique set of challenges that comes with being a professional Christian.

Opinions can change… unless you’re a pro.

When students spend 5 hours a week in your Bible class, or parishioners spend 1-2 hours a week listening to your sermons, they begin to expect a certain line of thinking that points to the underlying beliefs of any given professional Christian. One may begin to be known for those beliefs, and maybe even lauded as a champion of that mode of thinking. Some of these expected beliefs may be assumed as essential Christian beliefs, depending on how [un]ecumenical the church or Christian school is. So, if you are hired as a Calvinist that believes in divine causal determinism, you better continue affirming that position… or you might lose a following, lose credibility, or lose a job.

Other than clergy and politics, I don’t know of any other career that’s like this. I worked in landscape and irrigation repair for about 7 years. When I started, I preferred RainBird products, and thought that it was important to use that smelly purple primer stuff on all PVC repairs. By the end of my career, I found the spring and head on Hunter pop-ups to be more sturdy, and only used purple primer on mainline repairs on pipes over ¾” diameter. Could you imagine if this change of opinion could make an irrigation tech worried about losing their job? But… I know plenty of professional Christians who are afraid to express their true current thoughts about the rapture, the first 11 chapters of Genesis, or homosexuality.

Here’s the good news… if changing and revising opinions is an important part of growing in maturity, shouldn’t professional Christians be modeling a healthy way of doing this? By pretending to have beliefs that are eternally set in stone, we are likely to be setting up those in our care for a life of insecurity or staunch hard-headedness. By being open and honest about the process of belief-revision, we may be doing people a big favor.

It’s okay to doubt… unless you’re a pro.

While still not universal, it seems as though there is a growing acceptance of doubt, questioning, and uncertainty in many Christian circles. I’ve heard a lot more references to “wrestling with truth” or “embracing tension.” I’ve even heard people quote theologians affirming the importance of doubt for growth in Christian maturity. This doubt can be affirmed from the pulpit, a RightNow Media video with [insert megapastor name], or even a daily devotional of some sort. However, the affirmation of this doubt seems to stop with leaders, teachers, and clergy. Sure, a professional Christian can talk about their past doubts, or a really rocky period of their life in the past where they wrestled with doubts… but to explicitly talk about current doubt still is a behavior dwelling in the world of taboo.

While it seems obviously contradictory to say that the laity is allowed to have doubt and the clergy is not, there is an apparent discomfort that surfaces when the shepherd of a flock expresses their own current doubts. It’s almost as if the sheep require the steadfast belief of the shepherd in order to have the freedom to fully own their journey through their individual questions and doubts. This puts a burden on the shoulders of pro Christians, since this “natural” and “important” part of the life of a follower of Christ is off limits for those who are in leadership roles. And although a certain level of maturity is expected of Bible teachers, pastors, and ministers, to say that one must completely escape the need for doubt and questioning to attain these roles seems a bit unreasonable.

The good news is that professional Christians are not the true Good Shepherd. There is another Person that gets to be the steadfast grounding point for the sheep, and that is Christ. While pastoring may be a gifting that some have in the church, the title of the Good Pastor belongs to none other than Jesus (who had some of his own dark moments: Mat 26:39 and 27:46). Even people who have the title of “pastor” are still His sheep… just like the rest of the flock.

Be honest about how you’re doing… unless you’re a pro.

Everybody has bad days, but you can’t have a bad day when you’re on stage in front of your class or church. So even if a professional Christian is not in the midst of doubt, and they have kept the same opinions since birth, there is still an understanding that when on duty, one must be an unchanging beacon of peace, joy, hope, and love.

Most will readily affirm that everyone is human, that everyone has struggles, and everyone needs to lean on others for strength. However, there is a discomfort that becomes manifest if professional Christians do that outside of the privacy of their own home. There is a strong correlation between the roles of professional actors and professional Christians. If you break character in the wrong moment, you lose credibility, your performance is ruined, or you get fired. You have to always be in character when the camera is on. And for professional Christians, it seems that the camera is almost always on.

The good news is that Scripture (the Gospels, wisdom literature, etc) seems to expect (even encourage) a wide range of emotion. So, while a professional Christian ought to not be a compulsive airer of their own dirty laundry and mood swings, there needs to be some space made for the same range of emotions and expression that reflect the real, lived, human experiences of God’s people.

 

If Christianity is caught, not taught, then we want to make sure that professional Christians aren’t causing their students and parishioners to “catch” stubbornness, falsehood, or repression.