The Secret Weapon of a Ninja Pastor

Discovering What Matters Most When Bitterness Attacks

Photo by Abolfazl eslami on Unsplash

The U-Haul was packed on a road to nowhere.

To this day, the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans invigorates even the most stale of spaces, and crossing the threshold of the mundane into your local coffee shop can give anyone the surge they need to cross the finish line at the end of a grueling day. There would be no finish line today.

On a summery Saturday morning, sitting across from a pastor from another church at one of our caffeinated watering holes, there was only deflation and a moving van.

Literally, as the U-Haul was backing out of the house to leave town for good, the clam-shell Motorola buzzed with a number that was familiar. A reluctant press of a button let through a cheerful voice with an invitation for coffee that prompted a kind decline, followed by, “Actually, coffee might be a good thing right now.”

He knew about the split, the infighting, the accusations, and the pain. He knew this fresh-out-of-Bible-College kid was caught directly in the crossfire without a shield. Like a medic on the battlefield, he attempted to dress wounds meant for a hospital, with the grace only a shepherd could give. Conversations will fade over time, but like the fragrance of coffee, he said one thing that would invigorate my soul for years to come. I just didn’t know it yet.

“Don’t lose your sweetness”

What a strange thing to say to someone on the road to nowhere, with no job prospects in sight, and the tingling sensation of nothingness creeping in. Like being revived after a knock out, unaware of the finishing blow. His words fell flat. Something should’ve been said to lift my spirit to new heights. Some kind of motivational adrenaline shot to get me back on the field. Instead, it felt like something you’d hear at a ‘Find Your Emotions Again’ retreat, nuzzled up to a stack of Kleenex boxes.

Sweetness never appeared on the radar of ministerial fortitude. It never showed its face on a syllabus in the institutions of mass pastoral production.

In the early dawn of the stone age, many of us had to learn how to do new things absent YouTube. For some, it may be difficult to imagine a world without it, but nothing a few minutes in an Encyclopedia Britannica can’t cure. If you wanted to learn an instrument, you could purchase a vhs, buy a book or magazine, and take lessons on how to play scales over and over, but rarely would you find someone willing to open the secret sauce of musical magic. You had to dig.

Is sweetness really the secret sauce of surviving the ministry gauntlet, with all its twists and turns? If it means never losing the best parts of who you are, then yes. Pain, betrayal, loss, disappointment, unmet expectations, injustice, and brushes with the bottom of a pit will accompany you at different places in your journey. These thorns sting, some more than others, but they are not what defines you. Many pastors let these thorns remain untreated, letting their poison ooze into their souls, crippling them from the ministry and life God intended for them.

One of the greatest pieces of advice came from a battle-scarred saint one day after a church voted out their pastor. He specialized in church hurt issues and was brought in as a healing balm to the congregation and a young youth pastor in his second church. We were discussing the events which had occurred and the pain that followed, when the mouth of wisdom spoke.

“Grow tough skin and keep a tender heart.”

Life’s struggles have a way of sucking your soul dry, leaving the aftertaste of bitterness lingering for too long. For some, it’s simply the grind of ministry over the course of their careers that slowly chokes out the joy like a python gently coiling around its prey. Pastors silently give way letting poison prick through the skin, suffering in isolation, as their sweetness bleeds out. Fear not my weary friend, there is hope.

You want the secret of a ninja pastor? Be the nicest, smiling, most gracious, soul in your church when you’re shuffling down its hallways in a walker, sliding those tennis balls at the bottom. Let your life sing “It Gets Sweeter as the Day Go By.” Show time that bitterness never took hold of you. Leave the pain where it belongs: in the past. Let the love of Jesus radiate through those scars on full display. Find a way to laugh despite the things that once brought pain. Don’t let your conversations meander back to those places God has forgotten. He’s over it, you should be too.

Be the sweetest person to your spouse, your children, your friends, and always be willing to extend the olive branch to those who once handed you thorns.

There is nothing sweeter than being sweet.

Jesus, bring your healing to anyone who’s suffered the pain ministry can bring. Surround them with soothing friendship and let Your peace saturate their secret place.

Don’t ever lose your sweetness. That’s what ninjas do.