Friday, February 26, 2021

We Were Pastors Once (a Poem)

 To the Reader: this poem is an attempt to reflect on and redeem a very painful season of my story. I have been trying to tell the story for months (almost a year) but only this week felt free to let these words hit the page. I was one of three volunteer Pastors serving with a Lead staff Pastor for a period of about 2 years. All three volunteer Pastors resigned around the same time in the Spring of 2020.

We Were Pastors Once 


We were pastors once

Full of hope and vision

Though lacking experience

We leaned on each other.


We had friendship

A working partnership

The seeds of kinship

That never had a chance

To grow into trees


When our people 

Were limping and leaving

Bleeding and broken

Through the side door

Too scared to say why


Our burdened curiosity 

Weighted with questions

Our thoughts

Our questions 

Became unwelcome

Our friendship

vaporized


You became fixed

Immovable

Unwilling 

To have any other view

To consider your assumptions

To consider your theology

To consider your demands


The friendship 

It turns out

Was a sham

A mere functionality

To complete tasks


The cost 

Was becoming too high

As the carnage grew 


For integrity’s sake

For our own health

And those we loved


We left,

Devastated 

Destabilized


What sense 

Could be made of this?

Rubble, ruin

How could this be?

Why this story?


The saddest thing

Most painful part

Was how quickly you turned


Against us

Labeled us

Disloyal

Irrelevant 


All we had lived 

All we had planned

All we had prayed

It was now worthless to you


I hope you have what you wanted

A church all for yourself

Sadly your only reward


I fear the Lord left

Long before we did.

Lampstand removed?


Though you wrote us off

Once friends, now enemies


I would welcome you, I think

If you began to reach out

And seek to know

more than 

Your Theology

Your Control

Your Influence.