eMusing Series: Globalization and Its Implication In Asian-American Church Ministry

Part Five – Envy, Insecurity and Collegiality Among Asian Pastors

Pentecost 2004 - John L.Ng © Copyright 2004

Some time ago, my students asked our guest lecturer what discoveries he had found in pastoral work that he did not know in his earlier ministry years? He thought for a moment, then replied, i didn’t realize how lonely being a pastor can be. I have many pastor-friends but we are not close. We are too competitive toward one another to be close friends.

This seasoned pastor is on to something. We clerics feel lonely and are isolated because we are competing with one another in ministry. Some competition is in the guise of jealousy. Jealousy is that unspoken fear of losing what we think we have to others. A pastor i know would not allow his predecessor to preach in his church. Apparently his predecessor has nurtured some wonderful relationships in that church and is still well loved and respected. This pastor’s jealousy for his congregants’ admiration will not permit him to share his pulpit with someone who is more admired than he. When asked why their former pastor has not been invited to preach, my colleague manages a halting excuse. But most people know the true reason is jealousy.

Jealousy erects walls around our ministry to preserve what we have worked for. These walls may keep what we want to protect inside, but they also keep those we are jealous of outside. In public, we exchange pleasantries cordially, but we secretly want nothing to do with one other. Jealousy insulates fellow ministers from one other.

Then there is envy. We pastors feel lonely and are isolated because we are envious of one other. When we are envious, we desire to have what others have. A prominent non-Asian pastor in New York has attracted many Asians to his church. His post-modern sensitive preaching has resulted in many Asian pastors losing their members, some key leaders, to him. Many of us talk unashamedly about how envious we are of him.

One form of envy is admiration. We genuinely admire this pastor’s success among Asians. If they do not attend his church, they may not go to church at all. It is obvious that God has touched his ministry marvelously. When he is speaking somewhere on church issues, if it is convenient, we want to go and listen to what he has to say. A colleague of mine frankly admits that this pastor is his “hero” and wants to emulate him.

Then again, our other form envy is not so healthful. When his name comes up in our conversations, some of us swell up in anguish and turn resentful. We wonder quietly why God seemingly is unfair. Why should he be so successful when we think we are just as good or better than he. Some of us like to make fun of how nerdy he dresses or how out of shape he is. A few blame him for their low church attendance. One angrily concludes that what this pastor has done to the Asian churches is “reprehensible.”

Our envy is not only reserved for clerics of notoriety. Many are envious of one another. When I came back to New York City in the early 1990’s, i joined a pastors’ fellowship that met monthly. On a typical weeknight meeting, we gather in some church basement. Over dinner we shop chitchat. Every once in a while, someone may dish out a discussion on a ministry related topic. Whatever we are doing, our intention is to create an inviting environment for full-time ministry workers to find encouragement in collegiality.

Our monthly pastors’ fellowship has stayed relatively small as a pattern emerges. There are three types of participants. There are a handful of pastors who come consistently. They see that our fellowship scratches a certain itch among pastors. As colleagues, we gather to encourage one another, compare notes with one another, pick one another’s brain, share a joke or two with one another, and be with one another. These conscientious pastors make it a priority in their schedule to show up.

There is a second group of pastors who come iregularly. At times they promise to attend but never show; other times they show up when they say they are not coming. Some come late and leave early; some come early and leave before the meeting begins. Some come just to grab a plate of food then leave; some come but keep to themselves. Although many in this group agree that the fellowship has been personally helpful, they show no strain to support it.

The majority of Asian church pastors in New York do not attend our meetings. Most are from smaller churches; a few are from established churches. All are on our announcement e-mail list. Yet they have no real urge to attend. Reasons are many and vary. Not all is prompted by envy. Some pastors do not come because they have young families. They want to keep their free evenings from church free for their family. Some pastors cannot come because there is too much to do and not enough day hours to do it so they steal from their evenings. They would rather do work in their study than attend fellowship with other pastors. Some pastors do not come because they are loners and keep to themselves. Their parish is their whole world, and they seldom want to leave it.

Of all the reasons why most Asian church pastors do not attend our fellowship, the most pervasive is probably professional envy. I think most pastors do not mingle with other pastors because they see one another as competitors. They sincerely believe that other ministers are rivals. If their rivals have better preaching ministry, they feel dumb. If their rivals have larger churches, they feel small. If their rivals have more spectacular ministries, they feel inept. If their rivals have a greater reputation, they feel ordinary. Few prominent pastors, in a strange reversal of envy, do not come because they feel that they are above the fray. In their busyness, they have no time for us.

Not by any means am i suggesting that what we have experienced in New York was what St. Paul described in his letter to the Philippians: It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry. . . . The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up for me while I am in chains (1.15-17). Apparently these rival preachers were envious of Paul. Their contention was not theological but personal. They had enjoyed some prominence among the churches. Then Paul’s larger reputation eclipsed theirs. Now it was their primary endeavor to out do the Apostle Paul in preaching the Gospel. I do not think that is the attitude of most pastors i know in New York. We are not mean spirited; most of us are well meaning. We do want to work in a concerted effort for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But our unguarded envy get in the way.

Of all the professions, i would have never suspected envy among professional pastors. I mean, if you crave for power, fame and wealth, the pastorate is not the vocation to get into. The April 26, 2004 issue of Time magazine lists the 100 most powerful and influential people in the world. With the exception of the Catholic Pope, no other professional cleric is mentioned. Awhile back, a pastor friend griped about his meager paycheck that had stayed the same for four years. Without his wife’s supplement salary, he would not be able to afford professional ministry.

Yet this envious malaise is real among pastors. It has made us more insulated in who we are and what we have be called by God to do. Why are pastors so competitive with one another? After much struggle with this question, i have some tentative observations: One, there is a link between emotional health and true spirituality. Enough of us are educated beyond our spirituality. Who we are and what we do, feel and believe do not match our theological knowledge. Pastors may be hold positions of church leadership but may not be emotionally mature enough to handle its demands. In some sense pastoral work is a lose/lose proposition. If we do well, congregants give God the glory; if we do badly, they blame us. Whether we do well or badly in pastoral work, we do not get any credit. No wonder pastors are less than healthy emotionally in ministry (read The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero). Suffering this emotional malady, we touch no one and allow no one to touch us.

Two, there is imbalance in our social life. Enough of us do not have a life apart from church life. We seldom see fellow pastors and their spouses socially. A friend complains that he has tried every way to reach out to his colleagues in ministry. When they come to his home for dinner, they often arrive and leave promptly. The worst part is that his dinner invitations are never reciprocated. After awhile, he stops trying. Social isolation feeds envy, and envy feeds social isolation. I do not know which came first. But i do know that both are harmful. The more we do not know one another socially, the more we struggle with envy; the more we struggle with envy, the less we want to be with one another socially.

Three, few pastors have few meaningful friendships. Most pastors i know are Asian. And Asian men are notorious for being mono-relational (read the fourth article of this series). It seems we do not know how to nurture intimate relationships with other men. A colleague has worked with his senior pastor for more than five years. They meet weekly at the church office. Apart from that, they have never seen each other outside the church. At their office meeting, either shares any thing personal. My friend groans, “I don’t know this guy, how do you expect me to trust him.” Lack of meaningful friendships makes us distrustful of one another. Without real friendships, we see others as a threat to our true self.

Four, enough of us also scuffle with this overwhelming sense of ineptitude in pastoral work. Its demands are always more than the tools we possess. Not wanting others to see our inadequacy, we would rather not see them at all. Some time ago, i spoke at a men’s conference on the subject of failure. In the talk, i recalled samples of failure in ministry. Afterwards, a long time acquaintance stopped me and said, “I can’t believe you. You always looked so competent.” From a distance, we all look better than we really are. But the closer we get, the more glaring our true deficient self becomes. So we do not allow proximity with those who do what we do. We really do not want people to see how inept we really are.

These reasons for envy contrive a vicious cycle. We are forever socially isolated and feeling professionally inept without the fellowship of other ministers. We will always feel lonely and inept when we touch no one and allow no one to touch us. Here are a few simple solutions are obvious to many of us:

One, we all need to cultivate mentoring relationships with more mature pastors who can touch us with their experience. Life is tough and ministry is tougher. This sensation of ineptitude is real. Without the wise guidance of a finger-pointing mentor, it would be nearly impossible to find our way home in ministry. At the moment, i am grateful that i enjoy several mentoring relationships with pastors. Two are mentoring me, and i am mentoring others. All these fellow ministers help me learn, grow and gain wholeness in pastoral work. Some meet with me once a month; others more often. I always walk away from our encounter feeling good being in my own skin and better in my pastoral task.

Two, New York City is probably the best place to live and do pastoral work. The Big Apple is a world-class city. It has more than 400 neighborhoods, 150 museums, 400 art galleries, and scores of concert halls and theaters. It is the home of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, Lincoln Center and more than 500 parks, including Central Park. The New York winter is not fun. But the rest of the year is almost heaven. What the city has to offer can enrich our lives and our relationships with one another. The God who has called us to church work is also inviting us to enjoy the place in which we do church work.

Three, we should make it a priority to cultivate meaningful friendship with one or two pastors. Only another pastor can understand what a pastor stumbles through in church. As the Negro spiritual goes, no one knows the troubles I’ve seen, except another pastor. When i was twenty-something, in the morning light of ministry, nothing looked too difficult. I felt invincible and needed no one. Now that i am pushing sixty, in the twilight of ministry i see a very vulnerable reality. As that Beatles song goes, I get by with a little help from my friends. What few pastor-friends i have are invaluable. I crawl to them every chance i get – when I am upset or confused, defeated or lost, when i read a good book or get a good student evaluation. Without these few good friends, i probably would have left the pastorate long ago.

Four, there is something to be said about being with other pastors. Since we are in the same boat, there is safety in numbers. Our circumstances may stay the same, but i always go home from fellowship feeling better about myself and others. To seek meaningful fellowship with other pastors, we have to make peace with envy and competitiveness. Go get some counseling if we must. Do what we need to do to get over this competitive spirit. Be sensible enough to admit that there will always be others who are better or worse than we are in ministry. Once we make peace with that, i think we will see others not as competitors but as companions in a long journey of the same direction.