When the title no longer fits
For more than 30 years, people have called me Pastor Al. I have heard it in hospital rooms and church hallways, at weddings and funerals, around dinner tables and in conversations I would rather forget. I have worn the title long enough that I am not sure where "Pastor" ends and "Al" begins.
And now, for the first time in a very long time, I am finding out. I recently stepped away from serving as the senior pastor of a local church and into a new ministry role as an associational mission strategist for the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association. I am not leaving ministry. In some ways, the circle of ministry God has given me has become larger. But something is changing, and I have discovered that changing what you do has a peculiar way of making you question who you are.
So lately I have found myself asking a deceptively simple question: Who is Al? I thought I knew. Then, at almost exactly the right moment, Søren Kierkegaard complicated things. I came across an article discussing Kierkegaard's understanding of despair, particularly the ideas he develops in The Sickness Unto Death. Kierkegaard's despair is not simply sadness or unhappiness. It is something deeper, a sickness of the self. One of its most disturbing possibilities is that a person might pass through life without ever truly becoming the self that God created him to be, and perhaps never even realize it.
That thought has bothered me. Not because I consider myself particularly unhappy. I don't. God has given me a good life. But Kierkegaard's question is more unsettling than whether I am happy. The question I find myself coming back to is: am I becoming the man God created me to be? Or, perhaps even more uncomfortable, have I spent my life becoming the man I thought I was supposed to be? There is a difference.
I have always been hungry. I love learning. I love books. I love theology, philosophy, science, history, and questions that refuse to behave themselves. I have spent much of my life feeding my mind. I have degrees and will probably pursue another. I write. I teach. I build things. I lead. I am almost instinctively looking over the next hill. Years ago, I was talking about this with my friend and mentor, Dr. Jim Hamilton. I told him that one of the characteristics I saw in leaders was that they never seemed satisfied. There was always another hill, another challenge, another possibility. Jim gently turned my language around. "Maybe leaders aren't never satisfied," he suggested. "Maybe leaders are always hungry." I liked that better. I still do. But Kierkegaard has made me ask another question: Hungry for what? That question reaches into uncomfortable places.
There have been seasons when titles mattered more to me than I wanted to admit. Years ago, while pastoring the International Baptist Church in Jurbise, Belgium, I ministered among accomplished military officers and leaders. Their names were frequently surrounded by titles, ranks, degrees and accomplishments. I had education and experience, but I sometimes felt small in those rooms. I was Pastor Al. And over the years, I became comfortable with that. Maybe too comfortable.
"Pastor" told people something about me before I ever opened my mouth. It gave me a place in the room. More importantly, somewhere along the way, I think it became part of the way I explained myself to myself. Now that title is changing, and I am discovering how much weight I allowed it to carry. That has sent me back to the beginning. Before Scripture tells us what humanity accomplished, it tells us who we are. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," God says in Genesis 1:26. Before Adam cultivated the garden, before he named the animals, before marriage and children, before accomplishments or failures, God established man’s identity. Image-bearer.
Then Genesis 2 slows the story down. God forms Adam from the dust of the ground and breathes into him the breath of life. There is something beautifully intimate about that picture. Adam does nothing to earn his first breath. He has no résumé. No degree hangs on the garden wall. No one calls him pastor, doctor, president or anything else. He is formed by God. He receives life from God. Then God gives him something to do.
I wonder if I have sometimes reversed that order. Maybe many of us have. We spend so much of life constructing identities from what we do. Pastor. Teacher. Mother. Father. Executive. Missionary. Doctor. Business owner. Retired. Successful… Needed. None of those identities is inherently wrong. Some represent sacred callings. But they cannot bear the weight of telling us who we ultimately are.
That brings me back to my hunger. I still want to learn. I still want to lead. I want to help churches become healthier and pastors become stronger. I want to write more books. I may finally finish that doctorate. There are still hills I want to climb, and I hope I never lose the desire to see what God has placed beyond the next ridge. But I am beginning to wonder whether the important question is not simply whether I am running. It is what I am running toward. And perhaps, sometimes, what I am running from. Have I been running toward the man God is forming me to become, or have I occasionally been running from the fear that who I already am isn't enough? I don't know.
That's not a very satisfying conclusion for an article, but it is an honest one. I am writing this from the middle, not the other side. I haven't solved the identity crisis. I haven't discovered the three easy steps to becoming your authentic self. Frankly, I am increasingly suspicious of people who have three easy steps for anything important.
What I am discovering is that Christianity offers something deeper than discovering my "true self." Paul writes that our lives are "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). He tells the Galatians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Maybe the goal, then, isn't finally to discover some pristine version of Al buried underneath thirty years of ministry. Maybe the question is: Who is Christ forming Al to become now? I don't know exactly who that man will be, but I know he will still be hungry. He will still ask too many questions. He will probably still dislike unnecessary rules. He will still read books, build things, dream about what could be, and occasionally wonder what is beyond the next hill.
But I hope he is becoming increasingly comfortable with something that was true long before anyone called him Pastor Al. He is made in the image of God. He is known by God. He belongs to Christ. And he is still being formed. Perhaps that is enough identity for the next step of the journey.
For now, at least, I am learning to answer to just, Al.
And now, for the first time in a very long time, I am finding out. I recently stepped away from serving as the senior pastor of a local church and into a new ministry role as an associational mission strategist for the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association. I am not leaving ministry. In some ways, the circle of ministry God has given me has become larger. But something is changing, and I have discovered that changing what you do has a peculiar way of making you question who you are.
So lately I have found myself asking a deceptively simple question: Who is Al? I thought I knew. Then, at almost exactly the right moment, Søren Kierkegaard complicated things. I came across an article discussing Kierkegaard's understanding of despair, particularly the ideas he develops in The Sickness Unto Death. Kierkegaard's despair is not simply sadness or unhappiness. It is something deeper, a sickness of the self. One of its most disturbing possibilities is that a person might pass through life without ever truly becoming the self that God created him to be, and perhaps never even realize it.
That thought has bothered me. Not because I consider myself particularly unhappy. I don't. God has given me a good life. But Kierkegaard's question is more unsettling than whether I am happy. The question I find myself coming back to is: am I becoming the man God created me to be? Or, perhaps even more uncomfortable, have I spent my life becoming the man I thought I was supposed to be? There is a difference.
I have always been hungry. I love learning. I love books. I love theology, philosophy, science, history, and questions that refuse to behave themselves. I have spent much of my life feeding my mind. I have degrees and will probably pursue another. I write. I teach. I build things. I lead. I am almost instinctively looking over the next hill. Years ago, I was talking about this with my friend and mentor, Dr. Jim Hamilton. I told him that one of the characteristics I saw in leaders was that they never seemed satisfied. There was always another hill, another challenge, another possibility. Jim gently turned my language around. "Maybe leaders aren't never satisfied," he suggested. "Maybe leaders are always hungry." I liked that better. I still do. But Kierkegaard has made me ask another question: Hungry for what? That question reaches into uncomfortable places.
There have been seasons when titles mattered more to me than I wanted to admit. Years ago, while pastoring the International Baptist Church in Jurbise, Belgium, I ministered among accomplished military officers and leaders. Their names were frequently surrounded by titles, ranks, degrees and accomplishments. I had education and experience, but I sometimes felt small in those rooms. I was Pastor Al. And over the years, I became comfortable with that. Maybe too comfortable.
"Pastor" told people something about me before I ever opened my mouth. It gave me a place in the room. More importantly, somewhere along the way, I think it became part of the way I explained myself to myself. Now that title is changing, and I am discovering how much weight I allowed it to carry. That has sent me back to the beginning. Before Scripture tells us what humanity accomplished, it tells us who we are. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," God says in Genesis 1:26. Before Adam cultivated the garden, before he named the animals, before marriage and children, before accomplishments or failures, God established man’s identity. Image-bearer.
Then Genesis 2 slows the story down. God forms Adam from the dust of the ground and breathes into him the breath of life. There is something beautifully intimate about that picture. Adam does nothing to earn his first breath. He has no résumé. No degree hangs on the garden wall. No one calls him pastor, doctor, president or anything else. He is formed by God. He receives life from God. Then God gives him something to do.
I wonder if I have sometimes reversed that order. Maybe many of us have. We spend so much of life constructing identities from what we do. Pastor. Teacher. Mother. Father. Executive. Missionary. Doctor. Business owner. Retired. Successful… Needed. None of those identities is inherently wrong. Some represent sacred callings. But they cannot bear the weight of telling us who we ultimately are.
That brings me back to my hunger. I still want to learn. I still want to lead. I want to help churches become healthier and pastors become stronger. I want to write more books. I may finally finish that doctorate. There are still hills I want to climb, and I hope I never lose the desire to see what God has placed beyond the next ridge. But I am beginning to wonder whether the important question is not simply whether I am running. It is what I am running toward. And perhaps, sometimes, what I am running from. Have I been running toward the man God is forming me to become, or have I occasionally been running from the fear that who I already am isn't enough? I don't know.
That's not a very satisfying conclusion for an article, but it is an honest one. I am writing this from the middle, not the other side. I haven't solved the identity crisis. I haven't discovered the three easy steps to becoming your authentic self. Frankly, I am increasingly suspicious of people who have three easy steps for anything important.
What I am discovering is that Christianity offers something deeper than discovering my "true self." Paul writes that our lives are "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). He tells the Galatians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Maybe the goal, then, isn't finally to discover some pristine version of Al buried underneath thirty years of ministry. Maybe the question is: Who is Christ forming Al to become now? I don't know exactly who that man will be, but I know he will still be hungry. He will still ask too many questions. He will probably still dislike unnecessary rules. He will still read books, build things, dream about what could be, and occasionally wonder what is beyond the next hill.
But I hope he is becoming increasingly comfortable with something that was true long before anyone called him Pastor Al. He is made in the image of God. He is known by God. He belongs to Christ. And he is still being formed. Perhaps that is enough identity for the next step of the journey.
For now, at least, I am learning to answer to just, Al.
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