About once every two or three months I experience what I could probably describe as a "little mid life crisis." Usually these aren't of the buy-a-sports-car-and-hairpiece variety, but more of the I-should-do-more-sit-ups variety. Invariably these little crises have to do with reconciling what I am with what I thought I would be by now.
Not everyone can be an astronaut when they grow up.
But it's not like I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I was never really sure
what I wanted to be when I grew up. When people asked, I would usually respond, "An artist. I want to be an artist." But I never really had any clear idea how an artist made a living. All I knew was that artists made art. I liked to make art, therefore I wanted to be an artist.
This was not the most satisfactory response for those adults in my life with a greater appreciation of the necessity of gainful employment. But I didn't care. Not really. I just had this kind of impressionistic idea in mind of what working for a living would look like when I got older.
In fact, it wasn't until about the ripe old age of 27 that I finally had a clear idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I wanted to be a pastor.
No. A preacher.
I wanted to talk to people about the Bible and help them understand what it said. I wanted to help them live out the teachings in the Bible, and embrace its outlandish claims about life, death, and the nature of reality. I was excited.
Until I became a pastor.
That's when I became familiar with the very real and inescapable rule of self worth that is almost universally embraced by every single person who has gone into the pastorate in North America over the last 100 years.
Size matters.
Not just a little, but a lot. A whole lot. SIze really, really matters. A lot.
Really.
We gauge the worth of our pastors by their effectiveness, and we measure their effectiveness by how many bodies fill our building. The bigger the church, the more significant the pastor. The smaller the church, well...you can see where this is going.
As expected, this almost universally accepted standard of pastoral significance works in the favor of large church pastors and not so much in favor of the rest of us.
If you are endowed with a big church, you are significant. If you are not, you are not.
So, to make peace with the feeling of insignificance that creeps in when I encounter my more significant co-labororers, I tell myself a version of the same condolement that less-than-well-endowed men have ben telling themselves for years.
"Size doesn't matter."
Or, "This is a good size."
And this is where the little crises creep in. As much as I tell myself that size doesn't matter, or that what I have is a good size, I secretly suspect that I am mistaken. I mean, it certainly does seem like big church pastors are more signifiant than small church pastors.
On top of this, I always expected that my good size would be slightly larger than the good size I have now. I thought that by now, I would be slightly more significant than what I am.
But that's OK, the first will be last, the last will be first. The least will be the greatest. Smaller is better.
Size doesn't matter.
But it sure feels like it does.
