Sadly, “service to the Lord” in American church culture often means taking on unreasonable expectations & duties for the church.

This often leads to sacrificing one’s family on the altar of the ministry, and this can happen very accidentally.
To quote Arcade Fire, ministry today often means “working for the church while your family dies.”
But this is not a godly sacrifice but a lack of boundaries that causes one to emotionally abandon oneself & one’s family.

The lack of emotional self-awareness in ministry can be devastating to one’s family and can lead to a real emotional abandonment on many levels.
Sadly, I’ve seen this again and again. Healthy boundaries are forsaken for “service to God.”

Kids see this and understand that they are not as important as “the ministry” & they end up seeing God in that light. God is responsible for taking away their parent’s love & attention.
Spouses feel this as well and can often get sucked into to thinking it’s their sacrifice that they too must grin and bear.
Children of pastors, professors and theologians often leave the faith because of this. They feel from a young age that the “work of the Lord” is more important than their needs.

They’ve been emotionally abandoned even if it’s not on purpose.
Ministerial sincerity doesn’t atone for these sins of omission or commission.
It’s not without reason that Paul says a qualification for elders and pastors is that their children are believers.

How a parent in ministry handles their children emotionally and spiritually is one of the many litmus tests of faithfulness and calling.
This isn’t to say it’s always the pastors’ etc fault but it’s a good general rule.

Kids who “rebel” or act out often do so from emotional trauma or spiritual abuse and not feeling unconditionally loved.
So when popular pastors or teachers show no emotional awareness to others’ real needs, it isn’t for nothing that Paul commends us to look at their children and see.

This is the wisdom Paul gives us that we sacrifice for “celebrity” or “genius” or power.
These kinds of illegitimate sacrifices can happen in small ways or grand ways.

In the end, this causes us to sacrifice the way of Christ — and subsequently sacrifice our children —on the altar of influence or ministerial success.
If we are in ministry, family care and self-care are the first callings. If we cannot do that, we aren't called to ministry at all.
All this to say, your self-care is important. If you don't take care of yourself emotionally, you are no good to your family or church burned out all the time. Then, take care of your family. They are God's eternal litmus test for faithfulness.

Love God, self, and neighbor.
I know that during the pandemic things aren't easy for anyone. If you are going to sacrifice anything, don't let it be your emotional health or your family's.

Sacrifice working for the church. It will survive without you. Jesus reigns.
God's love for you is not based on whether or not you are in the ministry.

He loves you and wants your freedom and flourishing.
God wants your emotional health more than he wants you to be serving vocationally in the church.

God wants your family to feel his love through you. That is the most important thing.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Timothy Massaro

Timothy Massaro Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @word_water_wine

15 Nov
What’s the common thread and theme that holds Evangelicals together in America? It’s the adoption of a political ontology of power that holds on to the American dream of Empire — whether they are baptist or charismatic or non-denom or confessional Reformed— that’s the linchpin.
The folks that stand out against this tradition are the anomalies, not the borders or keepers of this movement. Only those who have a distinct political ontology can withstand the pressures to fall in line with that. But not many have offered a different metaphysic robust enough.
Many pastors and teachers who have opposed this American imperialism thought that they could opt for a kind of “political neutrality”. In the end, this leaves congregants at the mercy of what news channel they listen to.
Read 7 tweets
24 Aug
If so much of Scripture is poetry, song, and apocalypse, why doesn't our theology/teaching/preaching sound like that? We need to recover the mythopoetic resonances of Scripture since that is how we capture the imagination and how God chooses to reveal himself.
Liberals look at the mythopoetic aspects of Scripture, see that they are really there, but conclude the Bible cannot be true.

Conservatives adopt the same historical positivism and essentialism and conclude that these aspects can be literalized and quantified & therefore true.
They both adopt the false binary of myth vs. fact. Myth vs truth.

When in reality, God uses the mythical language to reveal transcendence and uses categories that are effulgent and apocalyptic to move us to awe and reverence before God who transcends our categories.
Read 8 tweets
15 Aug
When it comes to thinking about #deconstruction in Christianity, Paul Ricoeur rightly argues for the creative and spiritual uses of Freud, Nietzsche, Lessing, et al. They are helpful on many fronts. They help us see what is “not God” and hear God more clearly.
They allow us to use a “small hammer” to tap the idols we are worshipping and hear their hollowness and emptiness. We need deconstruction as we learn to reinterpret the sacred texts and dogmas once again.
In interpreting a text, we will be forced to be disinstantiated from our Sitz im Leben and existentially re-emplotted by the Word, the Sitz im Wort, into the new world of God’s green country.
Read 10 tweets
21 Jun
To truly be free from shame and guilt, to offer ourselves to others, to be open about our failings and strengths, first requires us to look at ourselves truly and compassionately. Openness, vulnerability, and courage are all based on self-compassion.
Self-compassion looks at ourselves as flawed & finite whose brokenness & neediness are not causes of shame. Sin brings shame & guilt but this is not inherent to who we are or our neediness. Self-compassion is rooted in God’s love for us as his creatures & as his redeemed people.
Shame and guilt are often intertwined in our lives and are hard to distinguish. The voice of shame tells us that we are our worst actions and evil deeds. Guilt positively tells us our actions are bad and sinful but they are not who we are. Sin violates who we are as God's people.
Read 11 tweets
13 Jun
What we’re seeing w/ the “anti wokeness” policing and legislation coming from this evangelical and Reformed consensus is directly due to bad histories of modernity like Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.
These attempts at finding out how and why we are in this conundrum in the West downplays the role slavery, colonialism, empire, and racism had in building modernity. The modern mind is plagued with guilt over these sins by which the West became a dominant superpower.
The intentional misremembering of the past is how atrocities are committed in the present.
Read 34 tweets
10 Apr
I think we have to say emphatically there’s a place for our emotions with God and each other— whatever they are. God wants us to come to him with all our baggage and wounds. He wants us, not an idealized version of us.
He doesn’t promise to immediately vaporize our sorrows or problems but asks us to lean into Him as the safe haven of home that will lead to healing and joy, many times without God removing the thorn in our flesh.
Our ultimate goal is healing from depression and anxiety but that might not come in this life. We can experience some relief through therapy or medication. And we can still experience joy and happiness and love while having mental health issues.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(