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Central to the plot of Ayn Rand’s classic 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, is the repeatedly posed question, “Who is John Galt?” The novel is about an increasingly tyrannical government undermined by a mysterious individual who workes to sabotage the bureaucracy by helping entrepreneurs and business owners vanish from the workforce; Galt covertly subverts the system by robbing it of its best minds and starving it of its greatest resources.

In hushed tones and with sideways glances, that question, “Who is John Galt?” spreads and evolves into a kind of counter-propaganda, a spirit which harasses incessantly at the establishment and invigorated the oppressed with the possibility of hope. I have a congregant who has the question—a kind of statement—on the back window of his truck.

All this came to my mind last week when having overheard a conversation before our men’s bible study, my dad asked, “Who is Jordan Peterson?” Go ahead, you can laugh at the association, but the mention of Peterson’s name—just as often whispered—has become almost as controversial, almost as propagandized as Galt’s.

Who Is Jordan Peterson?

While Galt worked in the shadows, Peterson appears more frequently on the stage, yet their influence on shaping our national conversations are strikingly on par. It’s still hard to answer the question. Who is Jordan Peterson? A psychology professor, having taught at Harvard and the University of Toronto. A Youtube celebrity. A No. 1 best-selling author in almost every country. Or as David Brooks of the New York Times has called him, possibly “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.”

I get questions about Peterson every week, and for the most part, I’ve stayed quiet. I’ve been digging and doing a lot of thinking. Like others, I have read Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life; I’ve streamed hours of his Biblical presentations, subscribed to his podcast, watched his past classroom lectures, and I’ve read countless articles categorizing him as everything from a right-winged misogynist to the savior of Christianity in the West.

For all the controversy, some things are undisputed. Peterson works hard. He’s everywhere right now, on a world book tour and dominating the Youtube algorithms. He also has his pulse on culture. From politics and psychology to classic Russian novelists and cold war ideologies, Peterson thinking feels universal—it feels religious. Mixed with a hard-to-place Canadian accent and a meteoric rise to public attention, it’s as if Peterson is a personality simultaneously from our past and our future. He seems to know things we’ve all felt but never been able to articulate. He seems to grasp something about where it’s all heading. And, contrary to some of the media’s best attempts at vilifying him, much of his advice has been immensely helpful. His promotion of individual responsibility and the often quoted, “learn to clean your room before you criticize the world” is refreshing and resonating.

But when it comes to reading Peterson as a Christian—or, particularly, as a 30-something evangelical pastor—that’s when my brain starts to hurt.

Attempting to Sort it Out

Peterson is often described as, using a line from The Federalist, a gateway drug to Christianity. Maybe a more tactful title would be as “religious apologist.” It’s a term he feels comfortable using to describe himself. Take for example his highly anticipated two-night debate/discussion with atheist Sam Harris. Peterson is a constant defender of the power of religious belief, the deep significance of the Biblical narrative, and the inherent worth of the Judeo-Christian value system for supporting Western culture and liberty. There is no disputing that Peterson has people considering faith and the Bible in much deeper ways than they had before. You might go so far as to say, Peterson is making it cool for twenty-two-year-old guys to talk about the Bible in their college dorm rooms. That’s an achievement worth taking note of.

But don’t mistake Peterson for a modern Lewis or Chesterton. Peterson’s religious apologetics refuse to bend a knee to the traditional tests of Christian orthodoxy, much to the frustration of many an interviewer. For Peterson, complicating seemingly simple “yes or no” questions is intentional. He’s not interested in being a theologian or becoming a mouthpiece for legitimizing evangelical dogmatics.

Take, for instance, each time he has been pushed to acknowledge whether he believes Jesus physically and literally rose from the dead. Peterson has responded, “I can not answer that question.” Given another opportunity, he explained that he would need forty hours to try and answer. Elsewhere he’s requested three more years to further develop his thinking on the issue.

I want to be careful here. Too many Christians have reached this point and decided to stop listening. Peterson is trying to avoid being boxed in. There is a part of his hesitancy I understand and respect—though certainly, I would answer the question with a simple yes. Peterson understands what is at stake. He recognizes the historical complexity of the moment. He knows that nearly everyone is hoping to finally label and categorize him—some for the sake of an opponent, others hoping for a savior. His refusal to be reduced is part of his appeal. He knows that words we freely throw around can be understood in surprisingly different ways. He wants to start new conversations not be forced into the form of existing household idols. He may be a religious apologist, but he is not a typical Christian apologist, nor certainly not an Evangelical one.

Peterson has also indicated that he needs more time to come to a decision about his personal beliefs in the historical events of Jesus. That honesty is profoundly refreshing, and for me, garnishes him with more respect. In a world that expects theological declarations in 140 characters, maybe forty hours of thinking through the resurrection would do us all some good.

My Approach to Peterson

So as a Christian, I read Peterson recognizing I’m entering into a complicated and evolving middle ground, down a rabbit hole into a world dizzied with archetypal myths, subconscious impulses, evolutionary intuitions, bottomless piles of academic citations, and words which suddenly have much deeper meanings than I have previously given them. And I’m attempting to understand all of this without a doctorate in psychology, any technical experience in a clinical setting, or much knowledge with the literature that underpins Peterson’s thinking—mostly Jungian psychology. I’ve been reading quite a bit of Jung lately, and am humble enough to admit, I might only be grasping around 10% of it. Before you go quoting Peterson on lobsters or using archetypes to prove your points about the patriarchy, you would do well to make a list of what you aren’t clear on; it should be longer than what you are. I think Peterson would confess to the same humility.

The complexity means that all reading and discussing of Peterson should be done with humbleness, patience, and extreme prudence. But it should be done. It must be done, especially by Christians. Joe Carter, an editor at The Gospel Coalition, quotes Augustine to make this point.

Augustine once wrote that if pagan writers have “said things which are indeed true and are well accommodated to our faith,” their insights “should be taken from them as from unjust possessors and converted to our use.”

“Just as the Egyptians had not only idols and grave burdens which the people of Israel detested and avoided,” Augustine said, “so also they had vases and ornaments of gold and silver and clothing which the Israelites took with them secretly when they fled, as if to put them to a better use.”

Peterson’s work is full of such vases and ornaments of gold. Take and read. Read and take. There is much to like. But read carefully enough to recognize there is a reason Peterson’s book is 409 pages, and his biblical lectures are usually more than 2 hours long. There is a lot to consider. Christians should be the most discerning in reading and discussing it.

Forming my Own Questions

So, my conclusion on Jordan Peterson? I’d probably need forty hours to answer that.

Instead, I’ll give you this list. Four questions I wish I could ask Jordan Peterson about faith and Christianity. Caveat, I’ve done my best to avoid yes or no questions. These aren’t religious tests—no trial with the stake already kindled in the background. These questions are things I would like to understand better.

Also, I’m not done thinking about or listening to Peterson. I may, from time to time, add questions to this list. Feel free to comment with your own questions or point out what I’m missing.

In addition to the questions, I include a list of articles and videos worth your time. Most are centered around the topic of Christianity and Peterson’s teaching. I’ll continue to add future links to the list.

Questions for Jordan Peterson:

1. In your Biblical lectures, you often point out that you are not a theologian and are attempting to limit your comments to “The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories.” What are the boundaries of psychological insight? How do you distinguish between a psychological insight and a theological one? Are there Biblical questions, outside your public consideration, that people should be asking?

2. Church tradition holds that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. You often use “Being” to describe the aim of living. What do you see as the chief end of man?

3. Many Christians have associated Jung’s teaching, and by extension yours, with Gnosticism—the idea that salvation is attained by means of acquiring a deeper knowledge. The second-century church wrested with Gnostic teaching that understood the resurrection to be an inner process and not necessarily literal. Irenaeus wrote that Gnostics “claim to be constantly finding something new, and working out what no one ever thought of before.” He confesses, “it is hard to describe their views.” The early church developed creeds as a tool for defining Christianity. In claiming to be Christian, where do you derive your definition of Christian?

4. The Biblical narrative, as a whole, moves towards the hope of a new creation, a restoration of all things. Or as Revelation puts it, “all things made new.” Christ’s call for his followers to share in his suffering and to bear their crosses finds it’s resolve in Christ’s resurrection as the first fruits of a resurrection to come. Christian optimism is shaped by a hope beyond pragmatic self-improvement. You’ve argued for, “faith in the sacrifice of a current self for the self that could be.” You seem to find optimism in the potential of Being through suffering. Is there a discernable hope beyond what can be achieved for the self?

More To Come

Peterson admits that many of his ideas are evolving as he continues to wrestle through his lectures on the Bible. He is currently still in Genesis and planning on picking up where he left off after his current book tour. What follows for Peterson could be incredibly insightful to watch unfold. It’s possible, that as Peterson works through the Biblical narrative, his own conclusions may develop along with the story. Thanks to the democratized nature of online publishing, we all have a front row seat to that process—assuming Youtube doesn’t lock him out again.

As the Bible patiently unfolds its narrative theology how might Peterson’s views develop? Consider his definition of sacrifice from his lecture on Cain and Able, “The idea is that you could sacrifice something of value, and that would have transcendent utility. That is by no means an unsophisticated idea. In fact, it might be the greatest idea that human beings ever came up with.” That definition sounds very much like the world of Genesis—the human utility of sacrificing something of value for something greater—but that hardly captures the full Biblical magnitude of the sacrificial theme.

I wonder how Peterson’s definition will evolve when he reaches David’s great psalm of repentance, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.”

Or what about when he reaches Hebrews 4, “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Consider Peterson’s point to Sam Harris about the importance of reading the whole story, of considering the end before you conclude about the beginning. “Here is the problem with complicated texts, especially ones that actually constitute narratives, imagine you’re at a movie, and its a movie with a twist at the end. So the entire movie is set up to make you think one particular way, to have one set of experiences. But when you put the twist in at the end, it changes the entire structure. The Bible is a series of books, and they had an influence on one another, and they were sequenced with a very complex editorial process, and there is actually a developmental narrative that links all the chapters together. And what that means is that you have to read the beginning as if it’s also influenced by the end.”

So, what will Peterson do with Revelation, when John associates the return of Christ with the image of a sacrificed lamb. Or, how about the temptation to worship the beast who appears to have been mortally wounded, who only appears to have been sacrificial. Which sacrifice do we trust? Does what is pragmatic tempt us away from what is foolish? Is sacrifice ultimately something of utility or something of defeat? Is the ultimate nature of sacrifice to lead us to the inevitable need of one greater than we can make?

Like each of us, Peterson is on a journey. His narrative has not reached its end. For better or worse, his story is now public. We should be careful to remember that a person is not a position. More than almost anyone else in our culture, Peterson has stood for the virtue of speaking only what one truly believes. I trust him to continue.

“The true leader is always led.”
― C. G. Jung

Things to Read

Things to Watch

What questions would you add to the list? Leave a comment.

(Photo used under Creative Commons Liscense: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Jordan Peterson)

It’s hard to overestimate the impact Eugene Peterson has had on me as a pastor and as a writer. This video is a conversation with Peterson and Dean Nelson at the Point Loma Nazarene University’s Writer’s Symposium by the Sea in 2007.

More than writing, Peterson offers deep wisdom into the lifestyle of the pastor writer and the value of the writer’s calling. It’s worth watching several times.

Listen on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaaIui7cESs

John Piper discusses how to sense if you are being called to write.

If you have ever thought God was calling you to write, Piper offers sound advice on evaluating that call. He describes the levels of awareness that helps us solidify and build confidence in our writing and call.

Listen on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RLTZ9RLGZU

I’ve recently been working through Craig Keener’s 4-part commentary on the Book of Acts. I’ll be preaching through the Book of Acts this summer and fall. Keener’s book is remarkable and massive. I once heard a scholar suggest that it will be the most important work on Acts for at least the next 100 years.

I came across this interview, in which Keener explains his approach to research and writing. Having written more than twenty books, his advice is insightful and inspiring.

There is a round rock that sits on my desk between my screen and the keyboard. Honestly, it’s a little strange because it could easily be mistaken for a small potato. But it’s a rock. A good friend brought it back from a service trip to Iraq. He was part of a team taking food and supplies into Mosul during the Iraqi push to liberate the region.

For me, that rock has a consecrated duty. It sits on my desk to remind me of a question, a decision that is made over and over. My friend picked up this rock near the ancient city of Nineveh. Don’t worry; no ancient sites were robbed. In all reality, my rock is probably some construction rubble picked up by the side of the road. It’s not worth any more than a rock in my own backyard, but knowing its origin makes it an important reminder for me.

Nineveh, you might remember, was the divinely ordered destination of Jonah, though Jonah showed little interest in actually going. Jonah’s reasons for abandoning his call were plenty. Nineveh was a ruthless and violent civilization. They had poured bloodshed and conquest into Jonah’s homeland. It’s not hard to imagine the possibility of Ninevites having killed members of Jonah’s own extended family. Who hadn’t suffered from the Ninevites and who would want to serve these people? It’s like being called into the company of drug lords. Jonah wanted no part of it. Nineveh may have been a big city, but it was a dark and boding place. Worse, it was next door. Nineveh was the town around the corner, close enough to have lost any curiosity or appeal.

Jonah knew plenty about Nineveh, what had captured his interest was Tarshish. Tarshish was the opposite direction by an extreme, some 2,500 miles away. Tarshish might have been the most distant point Jonah could have imagined. I think that distance gave it just enough mystery and allure to feel like another world, another life, another future.

When we dream of how God will use us, it’s usually Tarshish that comes to mind. The adventure, the travel, the sites and sounds, the draw of something new, something better. Solomon’s fleet was said to have brought back from Tarshish gold, silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks. Shangri-la, Atlantis, El Dorado, The West. What is unknown—possible—is always far more enticing than the noisy neighbor’s house around the corner. The sounds that drifted in from Nineveh were crass, but the distant whisper of Tarshish was hope—a dream.

And so Jonah chose the ideal over the real, the daydream over the actual day. Jonah chose to chase a dream and abandoned his real call. Eugene Peterson writes in Under the Unpredictable Plant:

“It is necessary from time to time that someone stand up and attempt to get the attention of the pastors lined up at the travel agency in Joppa to purchase a ticket to Tarshish. At this moment, I am that one standing up. If I succeed in getting anyone’s attention, what I want to say is that the pastoral vocation is not a glamorous vocation and that Tarshish is a lie. Pastoral work consists of modest, daily, assigned work. It is like cleaning out the barn, mucking out the stalls, spreading manure, pulling weeds. This is not, any of it, bad work in itself, but if we expected to ride a glistening black stallion in daily parades and then return to the barn where a lackey grooms our steed for us, we will be severely disappointed and end up being horribly resentful.”

This Nineveh rock sets on my desk to remind me of Jonah’s choice. It sits on my desk to remind me of a similar choice, one which always lays before me. Which way should I go? Every so often I pick up that rock and toss it between my hands, feeling the weight of it. It’s real. This choice, so often tossed between the same hands carries its own weight. Stay or go? As a pastor, in writing, in being a father and a husband. It makes no difference there is always the choice of what is real, what is in front of me and the dream, the ideal.

This rock reminds me to choose Nineveh. I choose what is in front of me. I won’t sacrifice it for a mirage or the song of sirens. Strap me to the mast. I’m going to Nineveh.

With my eyes turned away from the glistening reflections of Tarshish, as my eyes adjust back to the shadows of Nineveh, the neighborhood, something happens. I begin to see things I had missed. Nineveh looks different than I had imagined, different than I had assumed. I begin to see God at work. God is at work in Nineveh, how small of me to wish for Tarshish. How blind to presume adventure can’t be had just as easily here. How shallow to think Tarshish any better. For where God calls, there is my hope and my identity.

“What we have to remember is that our eyes are not all we have for seeing with, maybe not even the best we have. Our eyes tell us that the mountains are green in summer and in autumn the colors of flame. They tell us that the nose of the little girl is freckled, that her hair usually needs combing, that when she is asleep, her cheek is flushed and moist. They tell us that the photographs of Abraham Lincoln taken a few days before his death show a man who at the age of fifty-six looked as old as time. Our eyes tell us that the small country church down the road needs a new coat of paint and that the stout lady who plays the pump organ there looks a little like W.C. Field and that its pews are rarely more than about a quarter filled on any given Sunday.

But all these things are only facts because facts are all the eyes can see. Eyes cannot see truth. The truth about the mountains is their great beauty. The truth about the child is that she is so precious that, without a moment’s hesitation, we would give our lives to save her life — if that should somehow ever become necessary. The truth about Abraham Lincoln is a humanness so rich and deep that it is hard to stand in his memorial in Washington without tears coming to our eyes. The truth about the shabby little church is that, for reasons known only to God, it is full of holiness. It is not with the eyes of the head that we see truths like that but with the eyes of the heart.”

Frederick Blechner, The Eyes of the Heart, Shouts and Whispersmei

Below is a 4-part video series of Walter Brueggemann interviewing author and ordained minister, Frederick Buechner. The interview covers a wide range of topics from Buechner’s seminary experience to the importance of the pastor’s voice.

“With a religious book it is less what we see in it than what we see through it that matters.” — Frederick Buechner

This summer will be our fifth anniversary of planting Bent Oak Church. For the entire five years, I have been a bi-vocational pastor. It might be more accurate to say, for most of it, I’ve been a volunteer. A year ago the church began to pay me for one day a week. Of course, Sundays end up being work days too and most weeks there are plenty of other appointments that get scattered across evenings, lunches, and morning coffee.

When I’m not working for the church, I am a freelance web designer and also teach a couple classes at a local Christian school. My father-in-law refers to it as being tri-vocational. Some days it’s too-many-vocational, but it’s the best way I’ve been able to piece together feeding the family.

I never planned on being bi-vocational. Most pastors don’t. Before planting the church I worked for two large churches on full-time staff. Even as we planted, I would have guessed that five years into it, the church would be my soul focus. But it isn’t and I don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon. More surprising, the church could probably afford for me to be full-time. But I have been reluctant to do it.

Over the last few years, something unexpected has happened. I have started to really enjoy being bi-vocational. I’ve actually discovered some benefits that, for the moment, make it the best possible place of ministry I could imagine.

I need to put a big caveat here. I want to share some of the things I have come to appreciate about being bi-vocational. Most of these have to do with what I sense God doing personally in my life. These aren’t theological convictions. They aren’t reactions to some perceived wrong in everyone else — this is just me trying to find purpose and significance in the place where I woke up this morning. This is the place God has me and I’ve come to deeply appreciate it.

“The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the …moment.” — Eugene Peterson

My goal in writing this is pretty simple. I just want to offer some dignity for those who might not be feeling it. Hopefully what I’m learning can be an encouragement to you. There are far more living this calling than our church leadership culture has acknowledged. I just want to offer it a little respect.

The following are some of the things I’ve been learning…

1. Being Bi-Vocational Has Focused My Priorities

Our church is simple — I mean really simple. We rent a meeting room at a local community center. Most Sundays I carry in a cardboard box that contains everything we use: an iPad, an Apple TV, an offering box, and a recording device. One of our musicians usually comes with a keyboard. That’s about it.

That simplicity is partly intentional and partly just the way things have evolved. I don’t have time to develop anything more complex or sophisticated. For the first four years, I worked five days week outside of the church. I spent evenings and early Sunday mornings working on my sermon and organizing worship.

I could dream up all sorts of ideas. Banners, invite cards, sermon graphics, maybe a stage with lights, and for sure better coffee. I’m a designer after all; I know exactly how to get it done. I got paid to help other church with banners and websites. But I honestly didn’t have time for ours. Like the plumber with leaky pipes or the lawyer without a will.

Pretty quickly I had to come to terms with what I could do. Eugene Peterson’s memoir, The Pastor was a big help in setting my priorities straight. If I didn’t have time to do everything, I wanted to be intentional about what I did do. I wanted to study and preach well. I wanted to spend time honestly knowing the people I pastored. And I wanted to pray — for my congregation and for myself. For the last five years, that’s all I’ve tried to do.

We now have small groups which other people initiated and organized. We have a benevolence committee which I don’t chair. A widow in our church even bakes the bread for our communions.

I haven’t been idle. My wife and I have had every church family in our home for a meal. I’ve made hospital visits. I’ve officiated weddings. I’ve disciplined new members. I’ve preached. I’ve tried to take people seriously. I’ve prayed. I’ve been a pastor.

I don’t know if I would have found this focus on my own. I think I needed the constraints of time and energy to really pinpoint which priorities were most important.

Over the last few months, I’ve had lunch with several pastors and leaders in my area, all of whom lead larger churches — they are all full-time. We always end up talking about how things are going at my church. I usually describe how much my wife and I are enjoying it. In 2016 the church was able to give 21% of our revenue to missions. I don’t ever have to worry about the church’s finances. We’ve recently welcomed new members. And I’m really enjoying preaching through 1 Samuel.

It’s been fascinating. All of them have given me the same piece of advice. “Don’t stop doing what you’re doing.”

Bear with me for a moment and hear my heart in this — they all seem to say it with a kind of nostalgia. One leader told me about a time when he was first pastoring and worked five days a week for the city planner’s office. He described it as his most fulfilling time of ministry. Another told me to avoid hiring staff as long as possible. “Some days I feel more like a manager than a pastor,” he explained.

I don’t want to push this point too far. These men are doing good work at good churches. There is no doubt in my mind that God is using them. We need them doing what they are doing. Someday I may be in their place.

What I heard them saying was, “appreciate where you are.” My wife and I say something similar every time we deal with a toddler meltdown or try yet another time with potty training. “We’re going to miss this.” I don’t want the stress of the moment to take away my appreciation of what is happening in front of me. Being a dad is a gift. Being a pastor is also one. Even when they don’t seem to be going according to plan. Even if I’m forced to be bi-vocational.

I’m enjoying it. And every day I try to remind myself, don’t take this for granted.

2. Being Bi-vocational Has Helped Keep Me In Touch With My Congregation

One of the deepest convictions I have about being a pastor is living in the same world as my congregation. I’ve met too many pastors that gradually climb the social ladder far beyond the people they preach to on Sundays. I don’t want to do it. I want my feet on the ground.

I want to keep my perspective. I want first-hand experience in the world my congregation lives in. I want to share it with them. Being bi-vocational has given me a huge advantage in staying grounded.

My congregation knows that I put in 40 hours, just like they do. When I ask someone to show up to a meeting or volunteer, I know what that costs. It’s helped me to not ask too much of my people. And they know what I am sacrificing to lead them. My congregation has also learned why I’m a pastor — it has nothing to do with the paycheck. That’s been a good thing.

Paul does something similar while he is preaching in Corinth. Corinth was packed full of itinerant speakers and spiritual leaders. They drew large crowds with their rehearsed oratory and they profited well from it. The Corinthians were obsessed with that kind of spectacle. Plenty of them found Paul to be highly disappointing compared to the professional lecturers in the city square.

Paul was determined not to be measured by their scales. He simply refused to be paid and participate in the system. He wouldn’t work for them. He wouldn’t be evaluated by them. Too much was at stake. As Paul put it:

“In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.”
That’s Paul’s way of saying, “Pastors should get paid, but I don’t want you to miss understand why I’m here doing this. I’m your pastor because I’m serving Christ. Not just lining up for a paycheck.”

Paul specifically forfeit a salary because he thought it would help him better pastor those particular people in that particular place of Corinth.

Thankfully, my congregation is not nearly as difficult or demanding as Paul’s. But my willingness to serve them for years without pay laid a foundation I have never regretted. I earned their respect. I became their pastor for all the right reasons. In fact, I started taking a part-time salary because the congregation basically demanded it at a business meeting. There is nothing more encouraging than people who give out of genuine gratitude.

It wasn’t always easy. Our finances were tight. But for me, I have no doubt it was the right decision.

3. Being Bi-vocational Continues To Be A Check On My Ambition

This is a big one. And a hard one to be honest about. Being bi-vocational has taught me a lot about personal ambition and the depth of my own sins.
If I were honest, there are plenty of times I want more. A bigger church, a building, a better reputation, a little more respect. Most of it has little to do with what God is doing and almost everything to do with how I tend to dream about ministry.

I started realizing something like this was going on when I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer small book, Life Together. He makes a point that hit me harder than any paragraph ever has before.

“Beware of visions for church. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own laws, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of the brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.”

It’s hard to follow that up. I have thought about those words hundreds of times. I’ve quoted them at myself more than I can count. For me, they have served as an antidote for so much of the leadership obsession that has been eroding our identity of pastor. (I’ll save that one for another post.)

Bonhoeffer suggests that much of what we describe as “vision casting” might actually be our own ego filled daydreaming. Slowly our obsession with a personal vision robs us of gratitude and leads us to start using people, using our position, and demanding things from God. The people we have been called to shepherd become resources we manipulate and use to reach our goals.

I slowly came to realize that the vast majority of what I imagined myself being as pastor and what I dreamed about the church becoming had very little to do with faith or God and almost everything to do with my own ego.

I started practicing a mental exercise every Sunday when I stepped into the pulpit. I would look out at the 30 people in my congregation, most of which are twice my age, and ask myself this question. “If God asked me to pastor these same 30 people for my entire life — the same people, the same rented building, the same paltry pay — could I do it with gratitude? Could I honestly get to the end of my life and not feel like a failure?

For a long time, that answer was no. I don’t know if I could do it. Slowly my answer is becoming, I think so — I want to. I’ve made it a weekly discipline to start saying thank you to God for the people he has entrusted to me. Thank you for these particular people. Thank you for this church — exactly the way it is right now.

It would be the worst kind of lie to suggest that being bi-vocational has eliminated all ambition and turned me into a perfectly humble servant — it hasn’t. It would be pathetic to suggest that only bi-vocational pastors have a true shot at humility — we all wrestle with ambition.

Here is the best image I know for how being bi-vocational has helped me deal with my ambition. My wife and I bought a 1950’s home that I have been slowly remodeling. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. Right now, I’m working on our bathroom and sitting in the middle of the room is my air compressor.

I use it to power nail guns and all sorts of tools. It’s basically a metal tank that uses a compressor to build up air under extreme pressure. You can then use that air to drive nails into wood. On the bottom of the tank is a safety valve. If the pressure were to get too high in the tank, this valve would intentionally fail. The safety valve will blow open and keep the whole tank from blowing apart. It is an intentional weak point in its design. A weakness built in to protect the tank and the person using it.

I’ve thought about that air compressor before when I think about being bi-vocational. I know that the ambition in me builds. I know that if I’m not vigil, my ambition will grow stronger than this simple lifestyle of pastor can sustain. I’ll start using people and God. Things will start blowing apart. My job as a free-lance designer functions like that safety valve. It’s a place that my competitiveness and ambition can escape before it starts putting stress on the congregation I lead.

I want to learn to quiet ambition in all parts of my life, but I’ve found it much easier to identify and deal with outside of pastoral ministry. Sins have a particular way of obscuring themselves in our religious duties.

“There is no one we swindle more than we swindle ourselves.” — Paul David Tripp
There are plenty of other ways to deal with ambition. Some pastors take up hobbies or personal side projects. Sabbath is supposed to be an intentional opportunity to release some of the pressure building. Being bi-vocational has been an important way I’ve learned to deal with it. It has been a check on my pastoral ambitions. It has helped me discover things in my heart I was completely unaware of. Worse, things I thought were holy that in reality were subversive. I don’t think God is done teaching me through it.

4. Being Bi-vocational Has Helped Me Develop A Sense of Vocation

In Bible College, I remember hearing people use the word vocation. I’ve never been confident in what that word means. It’s something like a career but seems deeper. I started picking up on the idea from by brother who is a Marine officer and my dad who recently retired from the State Police.

If you know any Marines, they have a deep sense of vocational identity — one my brother has reminded me of before. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” You never “used to be” a Marine. You are always one. Even after you have long since retired.

My dad would never ask for the title, but after 35 years of police work, he is still a police officer. He may be retired, but what made him a good cop is still there. My brother and my dad have vocations. Who they are is shaped by the careers they practice. Their careers have given way to an identity bigger than just a job.

For a long time, I struggled with feeling a personal sense of that kind of identity. I never felt like I could claim being a pastor.

I had attended Bible College and earned a master’s degree from seminary; I could toss around a few Greek words and had even won short sermon at National Fine Arts. Everything looked like it was shaping up to put me in a pretty good position as pastor. But four years out of seminary, I had twenty people meeting in a basement and I was making every dollar of my income from building websites not writing sermons. I felt 5% pastor and 95% web designer.

I wish my sense of vocation had changed in some miraculous moment. It didn’t. It took a long time to change. But slowly, in ways I can’t really pinpoint — a card on pastor’s appreciation day, a late night phone call from a college student wrestling with temptation, a congregant asking me to visit and pray with them before surgery — little by little, I became a pastor.

I still make most of my money building websites. But making money is just a prerequisite for living. Like taking out the trash or keeping the grass mown. How I go about writing a check to the utility company each month doesn’t define who I am. It doesn’t describe my vocation. It doesn’t limit my calling.

Being a pastor has nothing to do with the source of your checking account.
Being bi-vocational has helped me develop a deeper sense of my vocation. I am a pastor. It is who I am. It is who God has called me to be. Getting paid is just the logistics of making life work.

Wrap It Up Already

That’s probably way more than you have ever wanted to know about being bi-vocational or me. Here is the big point; God is doing something personal — particular. Don’t miss it. He is doing it right now, wherever you are.

Dreaming about what you wished ministry looked like is robbing you of what God is doing right in front of you. Don’t let a day go by that you aren’t thankful just for the opportunity to participate in it. I am in on salvation. God, at work around me.

If you can wake up tomorrow morning feeling that — grateful — you’re going to be okay. Regardless of how many vocations it takes to pay the bills.

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