In this episode, I have a meaningful discussion with Scott Benhase, the former Episcopal Bishop of Georgia, where we delve into his perspectives on pastoral leadership as outlined in his book, Done and Left Undone: Grace in the Meantime of Ministry. We examine how the role of clergy is changing in response to modern challenges, highlighting the importance of grace, community, and our shared human imperfections. Scott shares insights from his own experiences in various ministry contexts, encouraging a transition from a 'fix-it' approach to one that emphasizes walking alongside individuals in their spiritual journeys. We touch on the pressures that pastors face, the significance of foundational spiritual practices, and the necessity of recognizing our shortcomings in a society that often expects perfection. Additionally, Scott offers guidance for new pastors, stressing the value of spiritual discipline and genuine relationships with their congregations. This conversation underscores the essential role of grace in ministry and the unique joys and challenges that come with leading a faith community.
* British author Francis Spufford describes sin as the human propensity to fuck things up.
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[0:06] Music.
[0:34] Hello, everyone, and welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. So, what does it mean to be a pastor in this day and time? Being a pastor means in some way that you're going to be a leader, but what does it mean, especially in this modern time, to be a leader? So, to answer that question today, I'm speaking with Scott Benhays. He is the former Episcopal Bishop of Georgia. Our talk today is going to be based on his 2018 book, Done and Left Undone, Grace in the Meantime of Ministry. We'll talk about the role of grace, the importance of St. Benedict in clergy leadership, and And we'll also talk about a reminder of what the British author, Francis Spufford, has said about us in relation to Christianity.
[1:35] That is, the human propensity to mess things up. Except he didn't say mess. Scott Ben-Hayes was the 10th Bishop of Georgia from 2010 to 2020. He has served in parish ministry for about 27 years. During his time in parish ministry, he actually served in a pattern of calls that led him to places to parishes where they were longing for some type of development, but not just that. They were also kind of trying to refocus towards a deeper life of grace and also a more robust engagement in the community. Now, he retired from active ministry in 2020, but kind of returned in some ways as the assistant bishop, which is kind of, I guess, an interim position of Florida in 2023.
[2:34] So, please join me in this great conversation about clergy leadership and grace with Scott Benhase.
[2:44] Music.
[3:02] Well, thanks for joining me today. I wanted to kind of start off by knowing a little bit more about you, your history. I know that you were, for many years, the bishop in Georgia, and you're kind of the bishop in Florida. That could take two hours of a podcast. I, yeah, I have, I follow a lot of church news and even though, yeah, it's, it's, that's a little complicated, but just to know about a little bit about who you are and your background. Yeah. I grew up in Appalachia, uh, in Southeastern Ohio and, um, went to college on a football scholarship and, uh, uh, blew up my knee and, uh, I wasn't very good anyway, so it didn't really matter to the team, that's for sure. And that's where I kind of re-met Jesus.
[4:01] It really was through the college chaplaincy there, which was ecumenical, but kind of Methodist-based, but ecumenical. And went on two mission projects over January terms. Went on three, actually, sophomore year, junior and senior year, to Guatemala and Honduras. And there, in Guatemala, met a young Episcopal priest. I had never been in the Episcopal Church before at that time. I was raised kind of a hybrid form of Roman Catholicism and hard-shell Baptist, which, you know, you get the guilt from both sides. I was going to say, yeah. Yeah, it's like a double whammy. Double whammy. But Sylvester Romero was there. He led a little Episcopal mission where I was living that January term and had a profound effect on me. Came back and joined the Episcopal Church in college and then did another—, a year of mission work in Honduras after graduation. That's where I perceived the call, and my bishop in Indianapolis, Indiana, because I went to DePaul University, which is a university in that geographical diocese, sent me to seminary, and I got ordained and had no idea what I was doing.
[5:21] I knew, as all of us who went to seminary had the basic training, but my first parish by myself was in the inner city of Cleveland. I realized that while I did know JEDMP and the Synoptic Gospels and the apocalyptic images in Paul's writings, I didn't know how to, relate to people in community in that kind of setting. So I went on and got first a master's and then all but dissertation PhD in urban leadership, urban organizational leadership, and fell in love with Benedict at that time and the rule of St. Benedict because he was the first really great organizational theorist out there. So I served congregations in Cleveland and Charlottesville, Virginia for a long time in Durham, North Carolina, then briefly in Washington, D.C. Before being elected bishop in Georgia, and kind of semi-retired in 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, which is a horrible time to retire. Because you're so used to having everybody do what you ask them to do when you're a bishop and then now my dogs won't even do what i want them to do.
[6:40] Kind of cold turkey and having all these people around you to having nobody around you um my wife has been wonderful we've been married for 40 almost 42 years um just an amazing person english professor, Three children, grandchildren now, and as you mentioned at the beginning, I'm serving part-time as the assisting bishop in the Diocese of Florida, which has gone through a lot of trauma in the last couple of years with some failed elections for a new bishop and a lot of healing that needs to happen amongst the clergy and leaders of that diocese. So I'm privileged to walk alongside them at this time. That's me. I wrote the book that you refer to as a love song to clergy.
[7:32] I love clergy. I love working with them. I do some coaching now as well. And I really wanted to help them see that they can survive and thrive and not just get by and not be focused on the latest fad or the latest trick that comes down the pike. I guess, Dennis, that's the best I can do for a real quick summary. Well, I think that's actually a really good summary. And I think reading the book, it's kind of been important to see that whole thing of the challenges that pastors face, but also how pastors can kind of live in the midst of all of the things that happen in leadership. I think one of the things that I came away with in reading the book, and you actually say it at the end, and actually I've experienced it in my own life, is really the struggle of being a pastor. In that, in some ways, you even say this, that no one really wants what you have to give. And I think that that's true.
[8:45] They come to you.
[8:48] Usually with a solution in mind in your pastoral care, go tell so-and-so to stop doing what he's doing, or please tell my spouse this or that. So they immediately want to triangulate you into that. And what I think so many clergy fail at is they get, not in the triangulization process, but they get it in the fix-it mindset. Maybe that comes out of seminary or whatever, the sense that, well, I'm the spiritual leader, I need to fix people's problems for them. And that actually is a way to infantilize people and not treat them as adults, but to rather be to walk alongside them and love them, but love them enough to nudge them in a better direction without fixing their problem. There's a wonderful book, I forget the name of the author now, she she's a childhood expert and she years ago wrote a book and one of the uh stories she tells in there is of her own uh son who uh who fell down and scraped his knee and it was a lot of blood she said he wasn't upset by the blood but when i went to get the the bacitration and and the and the gel stuff i had to put on it he freaked out and she said something made her sit down and not force him, you know, like, I'm going to do this. You're going to have to sit still. Just take it, take your medicine.
[10:16] She sat down next to him and just kind of left the gel out there and said, well, what are we going to do about this? I mean, your knee has to be cleaned, otherwise it's going to get infected.
[10:29] So what are we going to do? And he asked some questions, but she didn't push him. And finally, she said he just picked up the bacitracin and started dabbing it on his own knee. And I think that's a metaphor for good pastoral leadership.
[10:49] Rather than come in with a solution or here's how you can fix your problem, kind of throw it out there and say, what are we going to do about this? It's a we, it's not an I'm not going to fix this, you're not going to do this by yourself, I'm going to be with you, but how are we going to do this? And that's true also in a session or a vestry or parish council, whatever a church calls it. Too many clergy try to say, well, I have to have the solution. It's up to me. This is what they pay me for. This is why I went to seminary, et cetera, et cetera. Rather than a friend of mine says, you got to throw all the snakes on the table. Just put it out there and say, okay, we have been chosen by God to lead these people in this congregation. what are we going to do about this particular challenge or this particular issue? And let the wisdom in the room shake a response rather than the.
[11:43] The individual priest or pastor trying to, you know, again, this is what they pay me to do, this is why I was trained, just get out of the way and let me do my job, that's not helpful. That's not helpful at all. At least that's been—I learned that the hard way over decades, you know? Yeah, you know, that's something that I feel like I'm learning now as well, and I think it feels like it's a struggle between two things that are going on. One, I think that pastors have been trained to almost be CEOs or things of that. And that's struggling against another way of being, which is really to allow the spirit to work.
[12:27] But that's hard because I think we feel like we have to, no, this is why we're here. And it's like, no, that's not really why we're here. That's, that's not, we're not here to be the fix-it person. No, no. Yeah, and I think that, you know, CEO, sometimes some of the things a pastor do, especially a senior pastor in a large congregation, has some CEO qualities to it. Some of it has, you know, good community organizing skills in that. And I'm all in favor of those secular skills. And sometimes there's a little bit of a therapist that comes in. But ultimately, our prime vocation is to build up the people of God in that congregation. And for us to set aside that primary role for these other roles is, I think, an abdication of our calling. It really is. What do you think, though, in our culture has made us feel that that's what we have to do, that we do set aside kind of what is our role for all of these other roles?
[13:41] Well, we're classified as a member of the helping profession. And most of the time, I don't give people much help. I actually add to their problems by asking them, what is God calling you in this situation to do? Let's pray about that. That brings a whole other level of anxiety sometimes into play in their relationship. So I think part of the problem is that clergy have, we've accepted the role thrust upon us as being a member of the helping profession. And as soon as we can clear that out of our heads and begin to focus on what our real ordained task is, and that is helping the people that God has put in front of us and around us in this particular place deepen their faith and trust in the mercy and grace of God in their lives, both individually and collectively.
[14:36] It's so much easier to get involved in partisan politics or whatever. And I have my political views, and they're probably somewhat to the left of Che Guevara sometimes, but that's not our primary role. And when we abdicate that for all these other things that could be, of course, we're going to lose the one thing that we have with people. And that is, we are, as I mentioned in the book, we're stewards of the great narrative of redemption. That's the story we need to be telling people, not who should vote for on Tuesday, you know.
[15:20] It boggles my mind that clergy so quickly leave that aside. Why do you think that that happens? I mean, I've seen that a lot more recently, especially pastors, even sometimes just leaving, feeling like they should be doing things like community organizing. And I don't want to slam community organizing. Well, I'm all in favor. That's a great thing to do. Yeah, I think it's important. But it feels like, at times, people feel like the message or the thing that we're supposed to do isn't enough.
[15:56] So why do people feel that way? Well, I think Americans are primarily schooled in meritocracy and earning your way. And the gospel is totally counterintuitive to that. So the idea of grace and forgiveness for sinners is such a foreign concept for so many people that clergy feel like, well, they're not going to really resonate with that, so I need to try something else in my bag of tricks to talk about community organizing or political action or all those things. again, that's important work to do. But I think because the culture is based on meritocracy and progress and achievement and getting your best self now, that kind of stuff. And we worship a God who died on the cross. I mean, we worship a God who sacrificed, who forgave 70 times 7. And that is so countercultural that clergy feel like, well, I can't connect with people with that message. But what I've actually found is that that's the bomb in Gilead that people really want and need.
[17:22] I've never seen a church that led strongly with the proclamation of the unmerited grace of God for sinners. I've never seen that church decline in membership.
[17:34] It's when we try to do other things. And, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, God loves us. Oh, yeah, yeah, God forgives us. But we don't make the, as Paul said, we preach Christ and him crucified. I mean, if that's not at the center of the charismatic witness of that congregation, then it's going to have to find some secondary thing to do to hang its hat on to get people to show up in the pews. And, you know, the Rotary Club and other wonderful service organizations out there do a much better job in many ways than the church does at bringing direct help to people. The Red Cross, I mean, the Red Cross is doing miraculous things in Los Angeles County right now. You know, it doesn't mean the churches can't have a role in that, but that's not our primary task.
[18:27] But a lot of clergy believe it is. Yeah, I think you had said something in a recent interview that you had one time met a pastor who thought that his role was to fight climate change. And, you know, I heard that and thought, there are other people that are more, I mean, have better handle on climate change than any of us do. I mean… It was actually a bishop of my church. Oh, okay. And I also knew that the congregations and the clergy of that diocese were suffering from lack of attention, lack of empathy and direct support by the bishop because he was always off fighting climate change and solar panels. Again, there hasn't been a church I served as a pastor that I did put solar panels on. I'm all in favor of that. Climate change is real. I'm not arguing any of that. But there are, as you said, there are better people to do that, more qualified people to do that. What has God called you to do? Read your ordination vows if you need a reminder.
[19:39] We get distracted by the urgent thing in front of us, and we don't focus on the first things that God has called us to.
[19:51] So, kind of getting back to the book, which is Done and Left Undone, one of the things that you say throughout the book, and there is a phrase that you use throughout the book, and that is achesis, which I hope I'm pronouncing correctly. Could you kind of explain what that is and how does that kind of roll into kind of spiritual or pastoral leadership? It comes out of ascetical theology from the church fathers early on. And that is that.
[20:26] And this is not really a definition, much of an explanation. It is the practices that you and I and others can put in place in our daily lives, personally and vocationally, that are going to nurture us and help us fulfill, what we believe God has coined us to do. So what are those aschesis that you can be practicing on a regular basis? It's not going to hermetically seal you off from every problem, but it's going to ground you in that which is life-sustaining, and help keep you from being distracted by those things that aren't. And within the tradition of St. Benedict, those are stability, obedience, and conversion of life. So that's the primary promise of one who takes life vows in some community of St. Benedict. And so that's the primary excuses that I was working with in the book is, you know, stability is that, is the capacity not to run away.
[21:35] You know, the problems of the day are in front of you, don't run away from them. You have to face into them. But if all you do is respond to the problems of the day and never spending time listening, which is, in Benedict's understanding, obedience. Obedience is not following orders, yes, sir. Obedience is deeply listening to God, listening to your own heart, listening to the cares and concerns of the people around you. So if that stability is not also mixed in with that deep listening to what God is calling you to, and the conversion of life, the capacity to be open to the new thing God is doing in your life, then that stability becomes frozenness, becomes stuckness, okay? So, how can we inculcate, and if stability, obedience, conversion of life don't work for somebody, fine, choose some other things that are similar to that that resonate from your own tradition and say, how are these things helping me be more faithful to my vocation? And what are those things that are going to be bringing me life? And it might mean all sorts of things. For me, every morning I wake up, pat the dogs on the head, and I say my morning prayers to the daily office, which is a long Anglican tradition.
[23:01] I stay connected to the scriptures and to the prayers of the church, knowing that millions of people are praying these same prayers every day, and they've been prayed for millennia, okay? So that helps me ground myself. That's an eschesis that grounds myself in the faith and tradition of the church. That doesn't mean I'm not ever going to be distracted, or I'm never going to do stupid stuff or say stupid stuff or get my rear end in trouble, of course I will. But the more we ground ourselves in these spiritual practices that we know for millennia have brought Christians life and vitality.
[23:44] There's it it it lessens the potential of those things distracting us and getting us off on some sort of wild hair tangent which again as we've said before so many clergy do so yeah all the the spiritual practices that ground us in our vocations and our our identity and purpose in christ i guess is the best way to put it or maybe it's it's also to help basically keep the main thing, the main thing, it sounds like. Right. But, you know, if part of our eschesis is eating a pint of ice cream every night before we go to bed, you know, how does that reflect the claims of Christ? So, you know, people talk about a rule of life or spiritual practices, and I hear things, and some of them are going, how in the world is that even remotely related to our tradition or to the practice of Christianity? And it's not, but it feeds them. I say, well, that's fine, If that feeds you, you know, if you eat a pint of ice cream before bed, you're going to be fed in a lot of ways.
[24:49] At my age, if I did that, I'd be in real trouble. But when I was younger, I could get away with it. But, you know, the eschesis have to have some connection to the claims of Christ in our lives and in the life of the church. But they also have to be manageable. I mean, if a clergy says, I'm going to have a spiritual practice of praying five hours a day alone in my study, okay, that's unrealistic, and you're not going to be able to do your vocation if that's the case. So, it has to be manageable, it has to be realistic, but it also has to reflect the claims of Christ on our lives. So, whatever, again, I don't want to foist my tradition on anybody else if you come from disciples of Christ or Methodist or Presbyterian, whatever. My hunch is your tradition has those practices in it. Do them.
[25:43] Do them faithfully, and that will help insulate you from the stupid stuff out there that just grabs your attention and forces you, yeah, you got to do this. You got to do this. And that's just not helpful. Actually, to be honest, I do do a version of The Daily Office through podcasts. Yes. It's kind of the way that I can best really relate to that. So, but, but I think it is something that helps you. It does help you be grounded. And it's, it's one of those weird things you kind of wonder, does this really work or how is it happening? But it does, it has an effect. It may not work in the way that people expect, but I think it does keep you at least grounded and reminding yourself of what, what matters. But even the question we ask ourselves, is this working, is a question of the meritocracy. Exactly. It's commodifying prayer and discipline by saying, well, I'm only going to do this because it works. No, some days it's not working. Some days it doesn't, nope. Right? But….
[27:00] Though the mountains melt into the sea, I will say my daily prayers. Whether it works or not, I'm going to do that because that is part of my identity and purpose in this world. So they're first things that take precedent for everything else. Or we're lost. Then we're literally making it up as we go along. And everything is a situational ethic choice for us. And it's just, well, all things are up for grabs. let's just do what feels right in the moment. That is our culture, and that is killing us as a culture. Yes, it is. So, I mean, one of the things that, you know.
[27:42] With the role of a pastor, but also then how this leads into spiritual leadership is, I think you have, you know, talked about the life of a church, especially are there things happening that are things like Bible study and regular prayer and how important that can be. But it also seems like, and we, in just talking about this, running up against a culture that makes us feel, does this work? And again, it doesn't seem like that's the point, but it seems like in churches, we don't always put as much emphasis on these things like reading scripture or regular prayer. Why do you think that is? I mean, what is it in the culture that's making us do that? But also, what is happening within the church that's making us do that, that feels like these aren't the, these don't really matter as much. That's a great question, and that alone could be a conversation we could have for a couple of hours. I think it's always been there because it's human nature. So there were ways to distract people in the 17th century.
[29:02] So human nature is whatever is the latest bobble in front of us, we will sometimes go to. It's like that animated movie years ago, Up, where the dog always looking for the squirrel. There are a lot of squirrels out there that draw our attention. So some clergy recognize that, and so they kind of focus on entertainment or what will draw people in. So let's get the laser light show. Let's get the rock band.
[29:35] Let's have trivia night in the parish hall on Wednesdays. And again, I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm simply saying if that's the focus, then people that show up to those things can get a wrong idea about why we're here as a church. You know, what is the mission of the church? The mission is to reconcile all people to God through Christ. I mean, that is the primary directive. If you're a Star Trek fan, that's our prime directive, right? So I think it's so easy to get frustrated in the short term because, you know, we're offering Bible study or we're offering prayer groups or we're actually having groups that teach people how to pray or how to develop spiritual disciplines and not enough people are showing up.
[30:25] So we get antsy. We've tried it for a couple of weeks. It's not working. So let's go on. What else is in my bag of tricks I can pull out? to try to bring people in. So, whether it's seasonal stuff around Halloween or whatever, I get all that, the blessing of the animals for St. Francis Day, all those things can be wholesome and good for the life of a church as long as it's directed to the primary task. But if it's directed primarily to entertaining people or just getting butts in the pews because it's entertaining. Sunday morning worship is entertaining.
[31:08] Sometimes I wonder, some of these pastors in polo shirts and skinny jeans fancy themselves as stand-up comedians.
[31:19] And humor is an important aspect of Christianity because if we're not laughing at ourselves, we're not paying attention to our sin and to the stupid stuff we do. So there's a lot of humor to be found. But again, that's secondary. That's not the primary task. Hmm. So.
[31:40] You know, one of the things that you talk about and you've talked about throughout the book is the whole great narrative of redemption. And you also use the quote from Francis Spufford, which I love. I've always loved it. The human propensity to F things up. Right. And I think that that's true. But it also seems like that goes, that whole narrative of redemption and what Spuffer says seems to go against so much in our culture that tells us that we're wonderful, that everything is fine. It's the other guy that's a jerk.
[32:19] And I think that that's also a challenge in our churches because there's a part of me that thinks and even feels like we're not even trained to talk about redemption and talk about, you know, there is a, I think that there's a church in Brooklyn that its whole kind of theme is that you're forgiven and that just can upset people. But it also is actually bringing people in as well but what is it in our especially in the kind of the denominate in our denominations and everything that makes us feel that that whole story of redemption isn't enough that we have to add more to it yeah uh i remember traveling the the back roads of georgia as bishop there and there was a a church outside of uh uh one of our larger towns had a big billboard out, and it was called the Church of Perfecting Saints. And I never did this because I didn't have enough guts, but I always wanted to stop and knock on the door and say, how's that going for you?
[33:30] How's the perfection thing working out for you, man? Because it's not working out for me. I think clergy, without being overly self-revealing, can help people acknowledge through their own witness, the clergy's witness, about the human propensity to F things up by saying, hey, I found that even some of my best intentions.
[34:02] Even when I have the purest of motives, of course, there's never a perfectly pure motive, but even if my motives are mainly or predominantly pure, I can still mess things up.
[34:14] And it's a reality of human nature. So the church begins with a faulty understanding of human nature. We kind of think that if we just work at it hard enough, we'll figure this out. That it's all about hard work. It's all about spiritual practices. And that's why I think a lot of other religions or even the religions of the nuns, E-N-O-N-E-S-S, is all about kind of achievement or all about getting things right. And again, the narrative of Christianity is that we never do get it right, and we never will decide of the coming of Jesus again in glory. So, can we just give each other a break? Can we extend compassion and mercy to the other, and that is so countercultural, even in the church. So, you know, my church, I don't know about Disciples of Christ, but my church is still under the kind of illusion of some of the worst parts of the social gospel.
[35:24] And there's nothing in that social gospel I don't agree with.
[35:28] You know, the alleviation of poverty, the education of folk, the end of racism, the end of sexism. I mean, all those things that are issues in our culture, I'm all on board with. I already mentioned climate change. I mean, sign me up for all that. I affirm all of it, right?
[35:49] But it gives us the idea that if we just learn how to do this a little bit better, then somehow we'll achieve the kingdom of God. But that's not the biblical narrative. The biblical narrative at the end of the story is actually a new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, not a reworked Jerusalem, a Jerusalem that's been perfected somehow by the hard work of the saints. It's actually God's doing. So fundamentally, we have a theological problem as our churches in America and maybe in other cultures. I'm just not that familiar with enough other world cultures where Christianity is present, but we have a fundamental theological problem because we make assumptions about human nature that are inaccurate. And therefore, we're not going to be.
[36:40] All it does is put guilt on people. Why am I not as faithful as the next person? And when we do that to people, we turn them away from Christianity, especially people who've been marginalized by the church and told that because of their race or their sexual orientation or whatever, they are not welcome because they don't live up to things, up to the standard that that person has for who a Christian ought to be. And we lay all sorts of guilt on people. Now, guilt's a good thing, and Spufford does a great job in his book talking about guilt. But if we stay there and we don't know that God has taken away our guilt, you know, God has said, here, free pass because of Jesus. Just trust. Just trust in what Jesus has done for you on the cross and in the resurrection. So, you know, our theology is bought into the cultural narrative, and because of that, our churches are really mirrors of that, and mirrors of spiritual achievement, spiritual progress.
[37:53] I've been at this a long time, not so much as a priest and bishop, but as a human being and as a Christian, and I sometimes joke with my wife, I get up in the morning and I say, I'm sorry. And she'll say, what for? I say, I don't know. But, you know, there's going to be, I'm going to do something stupid. I'm going to say something ugly to you today that I regret already. I won't mean to say it, but I'll do it because it's part of my human propensity to F things up. And if the church is not being honest about that. And I think when the church is, it is a great relief to people.
[38:40] Um, and, and I know, you know, feedback I've had on my preaching is that, you know, you're not formal enough, you don't bring enough theology and you don't quote the church fathers and whatever. I don't think that's my task as a preacher. My task is to let that person in the pew who may be going through a brutal divorce right now, or, you know, just had to put their 16 year old son in rehab or just bury their father, that there is a God who loves them no matter what, and that God is not going to go away. That God has already forgiven them. It's just a matter of them realizing and coming to that faith that God has forgiven them and that God is going to love them all the way into eternity. Trust in that message.
[39:26] But we're somehow afraid to say that because we think it's not something that it will scare people away or whatever. To talk about sin or the human being. You have things up. But, you know, there are parts of the Episcopal Church now that if you talked about sin, boy, people would say, that's a real downer. You know, that's culturally inappropriate or whatever. Boy, there is nothing more culturally appropriate right now than to talk about human sinfulness. I mean, if you look around the world, Ukraine, Gaza, you name it, and in this country, we could long list it. There's enough sin to go around right now. If we don't name what it is, then we're not being truthful.
[40:18] Yeah. On that note about sin, especially when you're talking about on social issues, I always find that funny that people don't want to talk about sin. But then it's like, I don't know what's going on in Ukraine or how women are treated sometimes or LGBT issues and all that. It's like, that kind of seems like sin to me, but we don't want to bring that up. We want to talk about other people's sins. Yeah, we don't want to talk about ours. If those people who are homophobic or racist or, you know, fill in the blank, if they would just change, everything would be okay. And the biblical narrative says, no, it won't be because there'll be something else. There's always something else. It is the human propensity to F things up. And so if we're not going to F things up over race relations, we'll F things up over something else. But there is a bomb in Gilead who heals all this sin-sick soul-ness out there.
[41:29] I think you're bringing up of Benedict, and I don't know as much about Benedict, but I do know a little bit about the fact that, of course, he came up at a time kind of at the beginning of what has been called the Dark Ages and his rule and all of that. But it just reminds me of kind of trying to find a different way of being, especially when the culture around you seems to just be falling apart, which obviously probably is all the time. But especially in that time, that seems like that has a message for us today, when there are so many things going on, that it is important to have that kind of intentional faith that is going on in your life as a pastor, but then also within your community. Yeah, there was a book written a couple years ago called The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. Yeah, Rod Dreher, yeah. And I read that and went, Rod, man, you don't understand Benedict at all, because it was, let's remove ourselves from the polluted culture, and let's just have our little Christian communities where we can kind of stay pure. And that's exactly what Benedict didn't want to see happen.
[42:51] In starting these communities, he saw this as leaven for the larger culture around them. And that it was a way of modeling for people how one could be a Christian in the world as it is, the real world, not some fantasy world or some removed world where you could keep everybody together and everybody would be perfect. Because if you read the rule, monks can be real pains in the ass.
[43:21] Because you're all in this intentional community, it's like, oh, now we're all these faithful Christians, and we'll always do the right thing, and everybody will love one another. No. And that's the reason the rule is the way it is. I mean, he lays out, how do you deal with conflict? How do you deal with another brother who snores and keeps you up at night? You know, I mean, the practicalities are all in the rule. So, you know, I'm not suggesting we all go into Benedictine communities, although that wouldn't be a bad thing if we had more of them, but learn from what Benedict's trying to say about how to be in but not of the world, how to hang in there and persevere and have a real life. The way, you know, St. Augustine talked about having—he prayed to God in the confessions, Lord, give me a real life. And that means I don't want to be hermetically cut off from the pain and anguish of the world for the joys and the sorrows. Give me a real life so I can live life to the fullest, trusting, though always, in the grace and mercy of God.
[44:34] That allows us to live a real life. I mean, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. I mean, I would be sucking my thumb in the corner in a straitjacket if I thought everything that's going on in the world now or even went on 100 years ago or 200 years ago, whatever time somebody finds them in, that there wasn't some telos to all this, that there wasn't some grounding that God has this.
[44:58] That the human propensity to F things up is not the last word. I mean, I don't know how atheists….
[45:08] Makes sense of the world, you know? The gospel is the only thing that makes sense given the world as it is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I think, thinking about Rod Dreher, and I have not read this article, I need to read it, but it was in comment, and I just saw the kind of synopsis about it, but the author was talking about the fact that he rejected that, but talked about his own experience, and I think it mirrors my experience growing up in the Black church, that that was kind of more of an example of the Benedict way of living, which having grown up in that, I can tell you, is not full of perfect angels. But it was modeling a different way against the wider culture and being faithful to God. I had the privilege of pastoring two, predominantly, in one case, all African-American parishes in the Episcopal Church. And if it weren't for the black church, actually doing that kind of Benedictine work of saying, you know, this is where we can be truly ourselves and real people before God, where the white person is not able to subjugate us, is not able to control our lives. This is where we can have our identity and purpose clearly spelled out.
[46:31] You know, that was a vital necessity for African-American Christians, totally. And, you know, is that necessity still there today? Maybe so. But I would hope that we would see more communities that are more integrated across cultures and races so they can be training grounds for how to lead a real life with people who are different than we are. Because I think a friend of mine who passed away years ago said that we better get used to the assholes now because we're going to be living with them in eternity someday. So this is a training ground for how are we going to live with differences and for those people that just drive us up the wall. And for parish clergy, there's always that one person, sometimes more than one person. This is something, kind of a paraphrase of a Parker Palmer quote. He said that when there's that one person in the parish that has kind of made it their mission in your mind to make your life miserable, When that person blessedly finally leaves and goes someplace else, someone else comes in to take their place.
[47:45] So Palmer was saying out of his kind of quicker spiritual discipline, which was life-giving, get used to it now. Learn how to deal with difficult people. Learn how to love those people. A great book I would recommend from Chuck DeGrode, who's a Reformed church pastor, a professor up in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Western Seminary. He wrote a book called The Toughest People to Love. It's a brilliant book. I mean, clergy all should read that. It's really a wonderful book because there are always going to be those people in our lives. And so this idea, the fantasy we live with, that somehow we're going to get to someplace where those people aren't going to be around?
[48:32] I mean, what are you smoking? But whatever it is, I want some of it because, you know, and sometimes we're the toughest person to love, you know? So clergy need to flip it and say, how hard is it? I know we're kind of getting off base a little bit, but the number of times Sometimes I did interventions with clergy who were crashing and burning in congregations. So often they'd say to me, you know, once the people just get to know me and they learn how I run things, then everything will be fine. And I stopped and said, wait a minute, you had that completely backwards. Once you get to know them and learn the culture of the parish, then you'll be able to adapt to the culture in the parish so that you may be an effective priest and pastor and evangelist in this congregation. And I don't know whether, again, whether it was seminary that taught them that stance, but it's the exact backward stance that a healthy priest or pastor needs to have, right? I'm going to show these people how to do liturgy the right way. I'm going to change all this, and I'm going to get everything, and we're going to head down, and the kingdom's going to come here, and we're going to be a big church.
[49:51] No. No. Have you listened? Benedictine listening. Have you listened to the cares and concerns and the hopes and the fears of your people? And can you then take all that and then help them make sense of that and move forward together as God's people in this place? That's your role, not fixing them. They're not fixable. They're lovable, but they're not fixable because you're not fixable. And right now, son, you're not very lovable to your bishop, you know? To be honest with you, get with, you know, come on, get real. You're not being honest with yourself or with your people. If you were talking and kind of wrapping things up, talking to a young pastor or someone who is getting ready to be ordained into the ministry and maybe heading into their first parish, what advice would you give them for leadership? Wow. I think first, surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth, even when it's ugly and even when you don't want to hear it. And then have a disciplined spiritual life to listen to those people.
[51:13] Regularly check in with the people you've been called to lead.
[51:19] Get feedback. I always told my staff, the paid staff that I worked with.
[51:30] You need to come into my office occasionally and close the door and tell me what a horse is behind I am or how my latest idea was the stupidest thing you've ever heard. Now, when you leave the office, you're not going to be blabbing that to the entire diocese.
[51:51] We don't get meaningful feedback early on on how we come across to other people, on how people receive us. So I would say to that new pastor, get some emotional intelligence training. Get good feedback on how you come across to other people so you can be more effective in your leadership. If you don't know how people are receiving your ministry, warts and all, then you can't be effective. And then I would say, you know, grind yourself in whatever the spiritual practices are of your tradition, and don't give them up simply because you're too busy. If you're not praying and reading the scriptures in some way that your tradition provides on a daily basis, it's so easy to get distracted. It's so easy to go off, you know, at the squirrel, you know, the squirrel over there.
[52:50] So I guess first, surround yourself with people who love you enough to tell you the truth and listen to them, and then be willing to change and adapt your behavior and style based on what you're hearing from people. In other words, be the damn adult. Don't be so childlike that you're not willing to change. Well, that's just who I am. Well, come on.
[53:14] But again, you hope that God is working in you to make you more faithful and more effective in your ministry. So to say that, well, that's just who I am and that people need to adjust to me. No, it's the other way around. So get some emotional intelligence training. Make sure you have a good feedback loop that's honest and truthful and not just telling you what a great person you are and how a great preacher and liturgist and pastor you are. That's not helpful, right? And secondly, ground yourself in the spiritual practices of your tradition and don't leave them. Don't just say, well, it's inconvenient now for me to do that. No, stick with it, because that's where you're going to, again, be confronted again and again and again with the human propensity to have things up. I mean, that's the biblical story, right? And your own propensity to do that, and that will make you have a softer heart. It'll make you more empathetic towards those who screw up in your congregation. It will allow you to practice the word of grace to them and to yourself. It will make you more compassionate and more merciful. And those are the kind of leaders the church needs right now.
[54:29] Less laser light shows more compassion and mercy yeah and the laser light shows that doesn't work with insurance would just i don't know they would not like that so good point another reason not to do it right no but i think it is important i think the the sense of of having someone that can kind of tell you the truth and to be the type of people that can tell the truth um because i think we live in a culture that doesn't want to live out the truth. Yeah, I think that's a great gift that Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon of Duke Divinity School have insisted on for the last 25, 30 years that Christians need to be a truthful people. That's all we got. And that means telling the truth even when it's ugly and even when it's unflattering to ourselves or to the institution. We need to be a truthful people because we believe in the truth of Jesus Christ. And the truth will set us free, as John H. says.
[55:33] All right. Well, Scott, Benny, thank you so much for taking the time. This has been a great interview. I hope that we can kind of talk again sometime. Happy to. All right. As long as I'm still vertical, I'll be glad to chat. All right. Thank you so much. Take care, brother.
[55:52] Music.
[56:21] So, I'm kind of curious to know what was your thoughts about this episode. What has been your experience with clergy leadership? And how have you tried to lead with a sense of grace, understanding grace about yourself, about your understanding that you have that capacity to mess things up? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. And I'd like to also hear maybe what ideas people that I should be interviewing for future episodes. Whatever you have, whether it's a comment, praise, idea, send it to me at churchandmain at substack.com. And I will include links to the book Done and Left Undone. I actually finished reading that a few weeks ago. So, it's a really good book, and I would really urge you to read it, especially if you're a pastor. If you want to learn more about the podcast, if you want to listen to past episodes or donate, please visit churchinmain.org. You can also go to churchinmain.substack.com to read related articles, and you can also donate there. I would also hope that you would subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app.
[57:42] And wherever you listen, that I hope that you would rate or leave a review that helps others find the podcast. Well, that is it for this episode of Church and Main. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Take care, everyone. Godspeed. And I will see you.
[58:02] Music.
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