 |  The everlasting arms propel as well as sustain.
Summer 2004
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Sometimes Ministry Stinks
How will you respond when you get stuck holding the bedpan?
By Craig Barnes
July 1, 2004
It had been a hard year of ministry, and I was feeling discouraged. So I went to an older, wiser, veteran pastor to seek godly wisdom. This is what he told me: "If you get stuck holding the bedpan, carry it like a queen."
Bryant Kirkland had spent over fifty years as pastor to congregations of a variety of sizes and locations. When I was in seminary, he taught my preaching courses, and he continued to be my mentor till his quiet death on Easter a few years ago. I loved going to Bryant for counsel because he had such a gift for offering wisdom that was truly spiritual—precisely because it never sounded spiritual.
He reminded me of the way Jesus made a theological point by cursing fig trees, eating with sinners, or presenting over a hundred gallons of wine as a wedding present. Jesus would have certainly used Bryant's line about bedpans if they had been around in the first century.
When one of his daughters was born, Bryant was impressed by the quality of the nurses who cared for his wife and new baby. When he complimented a supervisor, she explained that the hospital trained all of its own nurses. "We tell our nurses that there are a lot of smelly jobs in our profession, but every job can be conducted with dignity. Our motto: If you get stuck holding the bedpan, carry it like a queen. Then the focus isn't on the bedpan but on the graciousness of the one who is holding it." I got the point.
There are also a lot of smelly jobs in the pastoral ministry. For example, churches attract odd people. That's our business. As another of my teachers once said, "If you want to be the light of the world, you have to expect to attract a few bugs." Eventually the members and elders of the congregation get bugged by the problem parishioner, ...
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