The Other Side of the Altar
June 20, 2012 My friend Ron had been a pastor his entire adult life. After taking a position at our denominational headquarters he and his wife began attending our church. During lunch together one day he said, “Pastor David, I must tell you, things look very different from the other side of the altar.” I thought I understood then what he was trying to express. Now I completely get it. After eighteen years as a senior pastor, I have a completely different vantage point. I now “attend” churches that I am not leading. I now participate in worship services that have been planned by someone else. Things do look very different from the other side of the altar!
Last October I began this new journey of leading a seminary. Since that time I have been in many different worship services in a variety of churches. I often find myself reflecting on the worship services I helped design and lead as a senior pastor. There are many things, by God’s grace, that went well and that I wouldn’t change. In hindsight, however, there are a few things I wish I had done differently.
1. I wish I had not been so rushed
As a pastor leading worship I could always hear the clock ticking. It seemed that every service was crammed full with so many details, that there was very little time to breathe if we were going to finish on time to meet the schedule of the morning. Therefore, I often left our worship services feeling more exhausted than invigorated. I don’t think it was the best model for my congregations. Perhaps they left worship exhausted too.
I remember what Dallas Willard told John Ortberg when he asked what is needed to be spiritually healthy. Dallas replied, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” Now that I am on the other side of the altar, and not “responsible” for worship time constraints, I find myself hoping for worship to be a time of resting in God’s presence. The rest of my week feels so frenetic, I don’t want worship to feel busy, too.
2. I wish I had prayed more
By this I don’t mean that I didn’t pray before the worship service. I did … a lot. I always prayed for God’s power, presence, and anointing to be on our worship services. And by this I don’t mean we never prayed during worship. We did. We prayed to begin the service, before the offering, during baby dedications, before the sermon, and the benediction. Most Sundays there was even a pastoral prayer time. We prayed … a lot. But I can’t say that we always lingered in God’s presence. I can’t say that we always took the time to just to wait on the Lord. Truth be told, we probably did more talking to God than listening.
Now that I am on this side of the altar, I find myself more and more just wanting to be still. Because I have not been planning for the worship service all week long, and have no real agenda but to be a worshiper, I feel the need to be quiet – not just to rest my body, but to still my mind and quiet my heart. The great African church father Augustine observed that we don’t open our arms to receive from God because they are already so full with our own concerns. I am discovering a new hunger to receive something from God in worship that is bigger than my own concerns. I want my pastor to lead me in those seeking times of prayer.
3. I wish I had helped my people honor the Sabbath better
In his book, The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill writes, “No ancient society before Jesus had a day of rest … The Sabbath is surely one of the simplest and sanest recommendations that God has ever made.” I am learning anew just how true that is. As a pastor, Sunday was not my Sabbath, because I was working. Sundays for me would start at 5:00 a.m. and end about 10:00 p.m. They were long days filled with worship services, preaching, teaching, meetings, counseling, meals, and small groups.
I would often bemoan the fact (to myself) that so many of our people didn’t have the same commitment to Sunday that I did. Now I know why. As a seminary president, Monday through Saturday has a very different rhythm for me, and the last thing I need is to fill my Sunday with hours of the same kind of activity. What I need is a Sabbath. I need it, not because it is medicine for my weekly stress and anxiety, but because it is a needed reminder to me that God is God and I am not. There is an old Jewish saying that “the Sabbath has kept the Jews more than the Jews have kept the Sabbath.” Now that I am on the other side of the altar, I need that weekly reminder more than ever.
These are some of the things I am learning on the other side of the altar. These are also a few of the things I hope to pass on to future pastors.
Reader Comments (9)
I agree. It is definitely different from the other side of the Altar. Even as a Pastor, turned into an Educator, turned into a Pastor again, I find myself thinking - "How can I apply the truth of these lessons in my second go-round?" I have found one more thing that I would add to Dr. Busic's post: "Teach my people how to PRAY with the focus on Christ as the Center of Prayer!" In agreement with Dr. Busic's first two observations, I had often prayed in response to what my people desire at the altar, and prayed in a rushed manner. There were more people to help, there were family members waiting to go home, there were ... I think you get the point. Now, I am working to internalize and exemplify this lesson in my relationship with others - at the Altar. Thanks, Dr. Busic!!
Thanks for this blog. I greatly appreciate your methods of communications with perspectives that are always interesting. As You are in the place of people preparations for the ministry, somewhere along the way, would you open the field of discussions about relationships with those who are on the associates side of the altar - the evangelists, the assistants, the retired, etc? I often see many positives and some negatives for these relationships that a pastor doesn't see or ignores.
I look forward to your blogs.
Wonderful post and a great reminder. I think they may all be intertwined in some way. The fact that Sunday's are so busy causes us to hurry the worship service, which negates an opportunity to just listen and pray. The need to entertain in the hour to hour and 15 minutes that people are willing to give us also quickens the worship pace. Wonder if there is any way to "fix" some of this? Sure would like to help my pastors do so.
Dr. Busic
it is an interesting reflection and i been in both sides of the altar im a "PK" and sunday is the busies day of the week and is full of commitment to the point that we want to do it all just to make sure is done correctly. but i like the concept of the "Nazarene Nap" in which we need to take time and relax and listen to Gods voice in solitude. I'm still a young pastor and i will take your advice in not to rush and just led the Spirit flow, to pray more and have more solitude time with God, and to honor the Sabbath.
Thank you for these wonderful insights.
Knowing who you are as a Pastor; detail-oriented, passionate, and bold, your observations are quite interesting. Leading my own services now, and watching the clock as you did, I find myself wondering how to create space in our corporate worship for reflection and pause. Perhaps this comes with the preaching discipline of using less words to say the same content in order leave some of the proclamation to the Spirit. Sounds risky...
I just completed Sunday morning #3 of being a Senior Pastor and committed all the errors above. The result is I am exhausted and trying to unpack a parsonage with my wife and inlaws and just don't have the social energy to put up with any of them. So thank you for the post and I hope a young pastor like me who just long jumped across the altar can begin to learn the lessons therein.
David, you make some good points. However, I differ with one statement that makes a significant impact on me. Sundays are NOT my work day, even as a pastor. My work is throughout the week; though my role may different than others on Sundays, I come to worship rather than work. I strive to keep my perspective on God, not what I do. We have made our Protestant services too leader-centric, we need to remind ourselves that worship is focused toward & centered on God. Then Sundays become the Sabbath for our lives.
Not sure how I came across this blog post. Grew up in a Nazarene parsonage and my husband and I have attended Nazarene churches all of our lives. It is refreshing to hear someone in Nazarene leadership willing to admit there are things I should have handled differently. I would encourage you to teach pastors to view their own work habits as though they were a layman in their own church. There are some pastors/staff who literally do not take time for themselves. Those need to be encouraged and allowed to take time away from their pastoral duties. Unfortunately, because of a lack of accountability, others go to the opposite extreme and are often absent from the communities in which they "pastor." Neither extreme results in healthy churches.