I Am a Pastor: The Danger of Cynicism

Seventeen years ago, I aspired to write a book entitled “I Am a Pastor: Some of the Things I Forgot to Learn In Bible College.” It was an audacious presumption that, with only two years’ experience as a pastor, I was even remotely qualified to draft such a thing, but I was audacious back then.

Initially, I thought the book would contain eleven chapters covering everything from the nature of the call to ministry to how difficult life as a pastor could be.

Yeah, I laugh at that last one, too. My wife and I had not yet changed a single diaper (of our own children), let alone dealt with teenagers. It would be another five years before I officiated a funeral for someone who had committed suicide, and our church was still a long way from cracking our community.

Anyway, I may yet write that book someday. When I am older and wiser. But in the meantime, I have come to realize that there are far more than eleven things that I forgot to learn as I prepared for vocational ministry. Therefore, I decided to blog about these things.

Today, I want to talk about cynicism. It is incredibly easy for a pastor to become cynical. Every week, we are closing churches that could have – should have – thrived if they were willing to take seriously the “Go” part of the Great Commission. Every week, we hear from parishioners who know the godly thing they should be doing but choose instead to do something entirely contrary. Every week, we are confronted again by a world that sounds like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It is therefore easy to understand why pastors would wrestle with cynicism. I have wrestled with cynicism.

But it should not be this way!

Cynicism is the antithesis of hope. Whereas doubt suggests that a thing might not happen, cynicism assumes that the thing will not happen. It is believing that the world is irredeemably selfish, these “saints” will never embrace the promise and power of grace to overcome temptation and sin, and there is no way a church like that can turn around. It is, in essence, a lifestyle of pessimism.

Yet Christians, and pastors, in particular, are called to hope. Consider St. Paul’s words to the young Pastor Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:10: “For this reason we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”

If anyone had reason to be cynical, it was St. Paul. After he was saved on the road to Damascus, he was falsely imprisoned, beaten to within inches of his life, and shipwrecked for the cause of Christ. He had dealt with the problem parishioners and congregations (have you ever read 1 Corinthians?). Yet he had the audacity to implore Timothy to labor and strive “because we have put our hope in the living God.”

Why should Timothy have hope? Because his God was alive and well. While, certainly, there were things in Paul’s life that did not go as planned, the apostle had nonetheless seen him move and work in power. Because God is the Savior of all people. He is fully capable of saving every human being from the consequence and ongoing power of their sin, and he is resolved to do it! And because, for every problem saint such as Euodia and Syntyche (see Philippians 4), there is one or two or three who do earnestly believe.

You see, Paul knew that, without hope, pastoral ministry is a long, gruesome slog that will, inevitably, wear someone out and break someone down. Consider, for example, the prophet Elijah. Despite his profound success at Mt. Carmel in 1 Kings 18, when Jezebel threatened him in 1 Kings 19:1-2, he became convinced that failure was inevitable. As a result, in vss 3-4, he was fearful, ran for his life, and ended up under a broom tree praying to die.

And this is after a single incident, a momentary lapse of hope. Consider how much worse it is when such pessimism becomes our modus operandi. Why try something new to save a church that is going to die anyway? Why pour ourselves into a sermon that people are going to forget as soon as they walk out the door? Why endeavor to help people who are utterly insatiable?

If cynicism does not paralyze us, it leaves us marching grimly toward certain death for a dubious cause. At least, if the cause was worthy, we would be martyrs.

It is no wonder churches do not turn around and people do not come to faith. No one wants to be cannon fodder.

Pastor, our cause is nothing short of the salvation of mankind! There can be no greater cause! And we are more than conquerors through Jesus! The war is already won!

All we have to do is start acting like it.

In my next post, I will consider how we can start doing that.