Imposed Hypocrisy (by Keith O’Neal)

I asked permission from Bro. Keith O’Neal to repost this very timely and very powerful message he had shared with his followers on Facebook. In light of recent discussions with fellow bloggers on the book ‘Mad Church Disease’, I really thought his insights were worth sharing.

When you are a pastor just who do you go to when your personal life is a mess? It is common knowledge that religious people (not true Christ-like believers) can be some of the cruelest people on the planet and that makes it tough to be open or transparent. That has fostered an environment where struggling believers cannot be open or transparent about their personal struggles.

Hypocrisy comes from the word comes from Greek Theater. In ancient Greek plays, the actors held masks in front of their faces to play a part. Of course in the theater everyone knows who the actor is. But in the faith community it is often tough to see who is “masking” the issues of their heart and living a hypocritical life.

James 5:16 teaches us that we should confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. You see, it is not God’s plan that His people be alone during tough times. Members of Christ’s body should be able to count on others for support and prayer during difficult times. This is hard to do when you fear “the system” that is made up of far to many carnal believers who are spiritually immature.

Retribution, ridicule, and rejection, along with gossip mongers and judgmental attitudes, make it near impossible to “come forward” for help. For that reason storing our areas of struggle in the basement of our heart has become a common practice amongst believers because it is out of sight and unseen by those who are and are not close to us.

When you know you will be treated so poorly by so called “Christ-like” believers how do you muster the strength to come out into the open? If you struggle with lust who do you go to? If you have a drug or alcohol problem who do you call? If you are bound by gambling or a host of other vices that grab you by the throat and won’t let you go, just who do you turn to knowing that you will experience the “fall-out” that comes when your “dirty laundry” is available for all to see?

If you are in ministry and you are under personal attack, or your marriage is in serious trouble, what do you do when you know it will cost you your place in the congregation and your standing in the community? Too many times facing the system is just too difficult, thus, “imposed hypocrisy.”

So what do we do and how do we avoid falling prey to this spiritually fatal trap? The choices are rather simple. You can do as I and millions of others have done and try and ignore the fact the basement of your heart is rapidly filling up with “junk” that will ultimately be exposed. Or, you can come clean and allow God into your basement for a thorough cleaning. Both paths take courage, because one means confronting pride and the other involves confronting our people-pleasing tendencies.

I have personally walked both roads and I can tell you that the best option by far is humbling yourself and allowing God access to those things that have you bound. King David’s Prayer of “Create in Me a Clean Heart” (Psalms 51:10) isn’t an easy road to take, but it is the fastest road to right standing with God and to spiritual health.

Be sure of this, the rumor mills will run rampant once you open up. You will need to close your ears to the hurtful words that are spoken by enemies, friends, and yes, even family.

King David, a man I have come to relate to very well, seemed to know about this subject. He wrote these words in Psalms 31:13-18:

13 I have heard the many rumors about me, and I am surrounded by terror. My enemies conspire against me, plotting to take my life.
14 But I am trusting you, O LORD, saying, “You are my God!”
15 My future is in your hands. Rescue me from those who hunt me down relentlessly.
16 Let your favor shine on your servant. In your unfailing love, save me.
17 Don’t let me be disgraced, O LORD, for I call out to you for help. Let the wicked be disgraced; let them lie silent in the grave.
18 May their lying lips be silenced–those proud and arrogant lips that accuse the godly. NLT

Finally, hypocrisy cannot be imposed on you if you can get delivered from pride and approval addiction. Once that freedom comes, God will have free access to the basement of your heart and you can experience freedom from living a lie and masking the real issues that you deal with. That will make that long walk to the judgment seat of God a lot easier to make!

Thank you for your honest and much needed reflections, Bro. Keith!

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Friendship….it’s complicated.

Friendship + ministry = complicated.

That’s the short version of my take on friendships in my life.  As a child you choose your friends and they choose you and it’s all based on simple things like being in the same class at school, or being in the same girl scout troop, or having the same interests.  I don’t think I really understood how complicated friendship could really be until I was married and graduated from college.

Being in full-time ministry as David and I have been our entire married life makes having long-term friendships very difficult.  Moving from town to town while most people live their entire lives in one place makes friendship – deeper ones anyway – much more difficult.  I remember when my best friend in college told me once when I suggested that I hoped we would always have the kind of friendship we did then:  “That sounds nice, but in my experience, you let a few miles and a few years get between you, and no matter how good your intentions, you won’t be as close as you used to be.”  Oh, I argued with him at the time, pretty vehemently if I recall correctly.  But I soon found his words were true.  No matter how much you want a friendship to last long-distance, it is very hard to maintain in practice. Maybe that’s just because of my personality.  I hate talking on the phone – always have.  The only exception to this rule I married, so that tells you all you need to know about that.  Email and more recently Facebook have helped in the occasional bridging of the broken connections….but it just isn’t the same.  I need friends I can go out to eat or shopping with, people I can hug on a weekly basis.  I want  them know where my glasses are in my cabinets without having to ask.  I want Petra to talk to them without hiding and David to actually feel like he can be himself and not have to put on the ‘Pastoral Front’ that he has to wear with so many people who do not equate the words “minister” with “human being”.

I think that’s the other factor in my lack of long-term friendships.  Pastoral ministry can create such a false reality between the congregation and the ministry family.  I mean, here we are, regular people who just happen to have a calling on our lives to something much greater than ourselves; we uproot ourselves from our own biological families and the support system they offer, head out into the wilderness of an unknown community and who do we interact with night and day?  The church people…so that should be where we draw from to form friendships, right?  I’ve lost count of how many minister’s retreats and seminars have warned against that concept.  “Keep your distance from your congregation.”  “You are their shepherd, not their buddy.”  “Don’t get to close.”  “Don’t trust too much.”  These same seminars suggest we should form friendships with our fellow ministers – the people we get to see….well….once or twice a year at these seminars.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are two or three ministry couples that David and I only see once in a blue moon, but when we do get together, it’s like we’ve never been apart.  We laugh and talk and enjoy each other’s company every moment we get….almost desperately, knowing how long it will be again before we have such kindred spirits to commune with.  So 360 days of the year my friendships are with…whom?  If I break the conventional wisdom (as I have done many times over – I just refuse to be an island) and form friendships among the congregation, what then?  How do you keep the other church from feeling slighted or from feeling like you have ‘favorites’ or a ‘clique’?  How do you stay impartial?  What happens to those friendships when an unforeseen move has to occur?  I’ve seen a gambit of reactions – everything from hysteria, to depression, to denial, to anger, to downright hatred.  Only in a few rare cases do I see the individuals I became close to at a church really get it, not take the decision to move on personally, and actually pray for God’s blessings upon us as we move on to other things.  And then of course, there is the unspoken taboo of trying to maintain any contact with your former congregation.  If you do, you are encroaching on the new guy/girl.  If you don’t, you must have never really cared about those people in the first place to drop them so easily.  It makes you gun-shy.  David is even more wary than I am, partly from his own introverted nature, partly from being hurt one too many times.

So here we are again…really getting settled finally in a new community.  We know our way around town (mostly) and know where all the good restaurants are.  Most of our boxes are unpacked, though I still haven’t gotten my address changed on my driver’s license….really need to DO that!  And I’m wading out into those sometimes shark filled waters of friendship finding again.  Got some good prospects…maybe this time we’ll be here just a little bit longer….maybe this time those friendships can get just a little bit deeper.  I need that.

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