“Don’t be a goldfish; be a shark,” is a phrase that has stayed with me. The zealous motivation speaker who had chucked her family overboard to achieve her dreams used the phrase to encourage people to jump out of their mind numbing goldfish bowls of low expectations for the purpose of devouring their dreams. Yum! No one likes the fish bowl and those flakes floating down through the water.
Yet almost every pastor and his family will find themselves swimming in circles in full view of every kind and judgemental eye. Those occupy the senior pastor’s chair, the music pastor’s bench, the youth pastor’s closet, or the children’s pastor’s office which used to be the janitor’s closet all swim in the fish bowl. All fall victim to the church member’s opinions which ranging from comments about the guys tie, his wife’s cooking, and his understanding of ecclesiology. Nothing is off limits. Just try putting a new house or a car into the fishbowl and see what happens.
Some pastor respond to the challenge of always being observed by taking a shark like approach. They actively find ways to close the blinds to their homes, to fence their kids away from criticism, and to protect their wives from all those ‘helpful’ comments. They proactively find ways to escape or at the very least hide their family fishbowl from view.
Though I lived this way at times, I think this approach to the fish bowl can prove to be extremely dangerous. Security, safety, and good relationships do not come from hiding from the people in our churches. These things can only be attained by transparency.
The solution to the fish bowl is not to hide nor is it to swallow the congregation. The solution is to get more fish in the fish bowl.
The family is a delicate, private, and precious thing. But our greatest family our truest mothers, brothers, and cousins are not the people with whom we share our DNA. They are the people who share are love for Christ. The truest family is the family who sees your weakness and encourages you to follow Christ. The truest family is the family who is willing to welcome your into their lives, allowing you to see their faults so that you can help them while embracing your faults. We need friendships with fellow Christians that are, “extensive enough, intimate enough, and above all long lasting and committed enough to really uncover our deepest foolishness and cowardice and to draw out our deepest capacity for wisdom and courage.”
The apostle Paul said it this way,
For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. – 2 Thessalonians.
Christians need both the word and relationships to thrive. Paul taught the gospel and he lived the gospel. He was with people showing them how to apply the gospel to everyday life.
Pastors must be doing the same thing. We should embrace the fish bowl, happily working out their faith before others. We must show others how to work by working and how to parent by parenting, and how to manage a budget by budgeting. We must invite people into our lives for the expansion of the gospel. By God’s grace, We must reveal how the gospel can and should transform everyday life. We are to model both the weakness of our flesh and the amazing power of the gospel. As we depend on God, the gospel will go forward in the lives of others.
Pastors need the fish bowl and so do you. Andy Crouch warned
“If you don’t have people in your life who know you and love you in that radical way, it is very, very unlikely you will develop either wisdom or courage.”
If your local church is never in your business, you will be one stunted Christian.
The fish bowl is only a problem because it is a one-side affair. Church members want to reserve the right to attack, demean, and belittle the pastor and his family every time one of their sins bubbles to the surface. When the Pastor comes to confront the deacon about stealing or the piano player about her sexual dalliances, the church holds an impromptu business meeting to tell the pastor to stand down. As one church member told a pastor friend of mine, “I wish you would stop applying your sermons to our church.”
Church members often refuse to swim with the pastor because they do not want to their pastor to challenge their sin with the gospel. Quite often, we pastors are ok with this arrangement because we do not want to have to spend hours counseling messy, dirty church members. As a result, the church creates a dangerous fish bowl for one instead of an aquarium for many. Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightfully said,
A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community
The Christian community that fundamentally fails to grasp that we are all sinners in need of saving is ultimately not a Christian community. A church membership that consists of people who maintain an air of self-righteousness by never inviting others into their homes and hearts is not the church God sent his son to redeem.
For pastors to pastor well, we have to model the gospel, confront sin, and be open to correction. We have to embrace the fish bowl. For the church to function well, all of its members need to jump into the fish bowl with their pastor.
Are you ready for the fish bowl?
Witkowski Blog 