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A SHORTCUT TO HELL: RED FLAG WARNINGS FOR THOSE IN MINISTRY

At some point during my seminary experience, I vividly remember being shocked by a statement from well-known UM pastor David Seamands. He had taken a bunch of us young, soon-to-be preachers aside and made one of the more outlandish statements I had ever heard: “The moment you answered the call to preach, you reduced your odds of going to heaven by at least fifty per cent.”

Both because of its bizarre nature and because of my huge respect for David Seamands, his off-the-wall comment seared itself into my memory. When he shared that audacious statement back in the ’70s, I had no point of reference for understanding what he meant. But now, 23-plus years later, I realize that this was a deadly accurate assessment of the very real and serious spiritual dangers inherent to ministry.

We tend not to post “warning labels” on vocational callings within the church. Even if we did, I am not sure people would pay much attention to them, at least not in the early stages of their ministries. But we are foolish to ignore what the saints and spiritual masters “red flag” as lethal hazards within the life of Christian ministry. This is such an urgent issue that E. Peterson warns that ministry can all too easily degenerate into “a shortcut to hell.”

What is so dangerous about ministry? And how could doing something so “good” end in spiritual death? 

Shutting out God
Obviously, no genuine minister of the gospel sets out to shut God out of their lives. But remember, the enemy is crafty and deceitful. The evil one will subtly push us to substitute “ministry for God” for God as the primary pursuit of our lives. But the work of ministry—however good and well-intentioned it may be—makes a poor substitute for the pursuit of the Holy. As wonderful as our ministry to God’s church may be, the Word tells us that it should not be our primary love. God should be. “‘You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment” (Matt 22:37-38).

When our energies are primarily directed toward pursuit of ministry rather than the pursuit of God, then from early in the morning until late at night we find ourselves engaged in doing, doing, and more doing. Within this often hassled and agitated state of hyperactivity, there seems to be little actual room for God. Ministry becomes primary while God is pushed to the periphery. The result? Our lives become “noisy gongs” and “clanging cymbals” which clash with what God is actually seeking to unfold in the world.

How do we know if we have lapsed into this clamorous pit? It is quite simple. First, we devote very little time to prayer and meditation. Second, study of the Word becomes merely functional. There is little dwelling in the Word for our personal growth in Christ. Third, we are driven by the huge responsibilities on our backs.

Within this musty trap there is usually no value placed on spiritual friendship and no real desire for accountability with the saints. We find ourselves tired all of the time and dreaming about our next vacation or even retirement. Soon resentment for the church begins to well in our hearts, and all we really want to do is bail out of our “impossible” calling.

Anxious People-Pleasers
Others of us are driven to leave God out of the picture by forces about which we have no clue. For instance, many are what K. Horney called “anxious people pleasers.” Within the area of church professionals, these tend to be persons who have been so terribly hurt in life that they need almost continual affirmation and love from others. Thus, when they find themselves surrounded by people in a ministry setting, the fuel for the engine of their lives turns out to be not so much their love of God, nor their love for God’s people, but rather a screaming, inordinate need to be affirmed and needed by others. In such cases ministry hardly ever gains the footing necessary to go beyond the sad pursuit of self-need.

The anxious people-pleaser becomes trapped in a world of serving others for what those others will give in return. God becomes a means to an end. Prayer, the Word, and compassion become dull tools all enlisted to garner the admiration or even indebtedness of those served. In that the empty self can never seem to receive enough praise, and is ever tossed with fear and concern over displeasing others, the game becomes impossible. No ministry house stands for long on such soft and shifting sand.

Religious Career
On the other hand, some ministers brazenly stoop to use God overtly through the pursuit of a religious “career.” In career God is tossed aside as the primary objective of one’s life in favor of the alluring pursuit of position, status, or self-aggrandizement. Ministry is prostituted for the sake of what others will think and reward.

I witnessed a tragic example of this in one of the annual conferences in which I served. A truly gifted and promising young man in the conference threw himself into the work of his local church and witnessed some spectacular results in terms of numbers in attendance at worship and new members joining his congregation. Rather than be thankful for the growth and give glory to God for it, this “rising star” became obsessed with increasing his fold sufficiently to insure that he received the evangelism award at his annual conference. After one particularly fruitful year, this man was deeply disappointed that he failed to be recognized with the reward and recognition he coveted. After several more years, it was not surprising that he left the ministry under a dark cloud of disappointment and conflict.

Our true vocation as pastors and ministers of the gospel can only be known within the greater context of seeking God first in all areas of our lives. Peterson puts it sharply: God must constitute our work. “The moment we drift away from dealing with God primarily (and not merely peripherally), we are no longer living vocationally, no longer living in conscious, willing, participatory relation with the vast reality that constitutes our lives and the entire world around us” (Living the Message, 143).

Projecting a False Self
There is another serious warning that must be raised for those of us who have given our lives over to service of the church. It is the danger of projecting a false self. Those whom we serve will ordinarily assume that we are persons of integrity, that we (1) pray and live devotionally out of our particular faith tradition (as opposed to “prayerlessness”), (2) guard the well-being and best interests of all persons (as opposed to preying on their vulnerability), and (3) lead our flock with increasing competency (as opposed to stumbling with incompetence).

The tragedy is that we can go for years, even decades, with no substantial devotional life and still be in charge of the spiritual lives of God’s people, with no concept that because we are shepherds God holds us much more accountable (cf. Ezek 34:8). And because we are automatically held as “trusted” and given exalted positions in the community of faith, we can all too readily manipulate, even abuse, the people of God for our own demented purposes (cf. 1 Pet 4:17). As for competence, all too many come out of seminary with an elitist mentality that makes impossible a genuine lifetime pursuit of growth and learning as an apprentice of Jesus and servant of his church (cf. 2 Pet 3:18).

The dangers of prayerlessness, preying, and incompetence are real. Their greater tragedy, however, is that they not only destroy the haphazard pastor who is collapsing behind them, but that they also inflict heavy collateral damage on the innocents around. For those of us who have had to help clean up after a shattered pastor, we know all too well that the collateral damage can often be fatal.

Spiritual Laziness
All of us who have been given ministry tasks of any consequence know the heaping demands and draining requirements that are at times inherent to servanthood in and for Jesus’ church. What we have to separate out, however, is the dangerous inclination we may have to acquiesce our course direction to those demands.

Let me give a personal example. I can vividly remember sitting in my study in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working on a sermon early in the week. Sermon preparation is a difficult task. Despite having that time set aside for preparation of the holy responsibility of feeding the flock, I started to allow my mind and heart to wander onto easier ministry paths. While jittering around in my chair, I began to wish that the telephone would ring or that someone would drop by—anything to distract me from the tough task at hand!

I wanted to be busy for the Lord at that crucial moment, but I did not want to be employed in the Lord’s task of the hour. Herein lies one of the greatest issues of ministry in the church today: We tend to be busy—far too busy—with the functional, outward affairs of the church, while neglecting the crucial inner matters of the Spirit. It is as if we have produced several generations of Martha’s (Luke 10:38-42). The deepest need of the day, however, is for us to put first things first by sitting attentively and lovingly at the feet of Jesus.

Peterson writes that we church professionals “are particularly imperiled in this area because of the compulsive activism, both cultural and ecclesiastical, in which we are immersed simply by being alive at this time in history.” He goes on to warn, “It takes wary and persistent watching to avoid falling into the activist trap” (101).

We must face our fallen inclination to allow circumstances to lead us rather than seeking God first and plotting a course according to his purposes. Intentional discipleship is always the tougher road. But it is the most fruitful way of the kingdom.

Keep Alert!
Pastors and seminarians, there are real dangers to your calling. Indeed, “it is hard for the righteous to be saved” (1 Pet 4:18). You will need to cloth yourselves daily in “the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:11). And as Peter wrote, you will need to “discipline yourselves” in order to “keep alert.” Why? Because our adversary is prowling around like a lion “looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

Yet none of us need be casualties of ministry. To raise these warnings is at the same time to raise the call to resist them. We have the promises from God that with Christ we can overcome the evil one (1 John 2:13). In the power of the Holy Spirit, we can move through the temptations that threaten to derail our ministries (1 Cor 10:13) and be overcomers in Christ (1 John 2:14).

Yes, we can lose our souls in ministry. Or, we can lose our self-centered pride and ambition, our anxious fear of people and of life itself. We can lose our idolatry, our hypocrisy, and our scatteredness. And in this death to that which is false, we can gain Christ and his true vocation for our lives.

What Now?
So where do we start? In our lifelong battle against our own sinfulness we must also include the pursuit of the virtues. Neither will our sinful nature be transformed, nor will we be clothed in the righteousness of Christ without setting aside time every day—intentional, unhurried time—to spend with God. How? John Wesley still remains our guide here: through prayer, study of the Word, worship, broader study of Christianity, accountability to the saints, and service. A good place to begin is with S. Harper’s Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition (Upper Room, 1983).

When we seek God first in all things, the church will be blessed, and we will experience deep fulfillment, profound joy. And you can be assured that in the end you will hear those treasured words: Well done, my good and faithful servant.

By Stephen L. Martyn, Ph.D., John Wesley Fellow, now Pastor, St. Luke UMC, Lexington.