Posted by CB on February 11, 2011 at 08:30:24
In Reply to: Re: What works for me posted by OT2 on February 10, 2011 at 14:49:59:
Something Jeff (our pastor, who I love dearly) talks about often in his sermons is the inevitability of interpersonal conflict among people who are committed to growing in emotional and spiritual intimacy. The big idea for him is that we come together to share our broken humanity, which is fertile ground for healing and forgiveness. In all the messiness of being a church, learning to forgive and lift each other up is evidence of God's love.
I try to keep that in mind, because I find it easy to be critical of the assistant pastor, who, in my opinion, goes way off track sometimes in his zeal to make the gospel culturally relevant. He does a lot of reading in pop social science & psychology, and sometimes I want to "pop" him for his superficial points and erroneous conclusions. To give you an idea of what I mean: He had been reading about some research on generational narcissism, the culture of narcissism, etc., and connects it to a gospel passage (I can't remember which one) where the spin is Jesus/God, the ultimate narcissist. He didn't come right out and say it in so many words, but his conceputal linkages were disturbing, to say the least.
I don't participate in his small group for my own good as well as his. I try to give him encouragement when he's on the mark and pretty much pray fervently and keep my mouth shut unless he's really off the beam, as in the sermon on Jesus the narcissist. Even there, I was careful. "Um, I did my graduate studies in social psychology, and what I learned is that trying to fit a modern, secular concept into the context of a first century Biblical text is really problematic. Also, you might want to be careful about generalizing something to a whole population from a study based on a convenience sample."
He didn't really hear me on that business about generalizing from a small sample to the larger society, because not too long ago he was making some sweeping generalizations about the way the world works (again, based on some pop social science he'd been reading and not so much on what scripture reveals), when I hear one of the young bucks in the row behind me mutter: "You lie!" So I turn and say to the guy, who I know from small group: "J---- certainly has an optimistic take on things, doesn't he?"
I try to cut J---- as much slack as I can, because I'm certain he gets plenty of grief, as well as cudos. There are folks who love what he has to say and are muttering "Amen" while I'm sitting there wincing. Since he's on target at least 70% of the time, I just pray for him and look for opportunities where I can be helpful.
Sorry to hear that some folks have been uncharitable in their dealings with you. Good to hear that you're practicing forebearance.