Solving Problems

Advent and Christmas have passed and a new secular year has begun. December and January can be a time of reflection and new beginnings. Many of us will make resolutions—to shed a few pounds or to exercise a little bit more.  I want to make a resolution to “pay attention.”

Eugene Peterson’s memoir The Pastor has been very influential to me over the past month. Peterson makes the case that the Church often tries to function in the business realm and becomes an entity that exists to “get things done,” or to “solve problems.”  I see this all of the time.  Church becomes a “problem solver” when we do things for people without entering into a relationship with them. Church even becomes a “problem solver” when we merely try to fill up pews at the expense of discipleship.

Everything has the potential to be a technical problem that is solved in technical ways.  Problem: attendance decline. Solution: membership growth techniques and workshops.  Problem: membership decline. Solution: get a new pastor.  The technical solutions we propose often to do not fix the problems, because the problems are often infinitely more complex. These kind of technical solutions can fix problems briefly, but unless people change and are transformed the problems will keep coming back. 

It’s so easy for pastors to get caught up in solving problems at the expense of their congregations.  A pastor ceases to be a pastor and becomes a CEO when the Church becomes a “problem solver.” 

Conversely, Eugene Peterson paints a portrait of a pastor as person who “pays attention.” “Peterson says,

“As pastors, we’re not trying to get something done. We’re not looking at people and thinking about what we can convince them to do. That’s not the goal. As pastors, we’re trying to pay attention to what’s going on now, right here—right now. We’re trying to pay attention to what God is doing. And we’re trying to share that in the community.”

 I have felt called to pay better attention to what God is doing in our lives, Church, and community and then share that information in worship. The Church life can be busy—full of meetings, grand ideas and visions. I want to stop trying to solve problems, but to take more time just to pay attention to God, to my own life, to your life, and to our lives together.

It’s when we really start paying attention that change is going to take place. Because as we start to really pay attention to God and each other we will find ourselves being changed—our hearts, minds, churches, and communities will become transformed.

Problems are all around us. But so is God. Sometimes we have to put our own agendas behind us to see where God is really working.