This is not the old preacher trick, ‘You’ll never find the perfect church because as soon as you have, you’ll be there.’ Because while as a statement that may be true, the phrase is more often than not used as a deflector for church criticism or an unconscious motivation for the idea that since nothing in this life is perfect, we should simply relax and stop trying. No, this is truly an honest look at myself in order to continue trying to bring change about in the way we as a western culture have chosen to worship God. There are many, many needs for reform in the western church; but not the least of which is in each of our hearts. And since I have no way of looking into anyone else’s heart but my own, this post is focused on the one thing I can change right now……me.

Vulnerability has unfortunately become just as disingenuous in our churches as authenticity and relevance. Our authenticity is disingenuous because of course, the very moment you start trying to be authentic, you are no longer authentic. With relevance, I can tell you straight up that now that I no longer work as a pastor at a church, what is relevant to me as a parishioner is light years away from what was relevant to me as a paid pastor, and what I strove to make relevant to the parishioners. I can only imagine the gap of relevance between an actual celebrity pastor and say, a 55-hour-a-week pharmacist. In the same way, vulnerability has had its teeth pulled out because we somehow managed to take weakness out of the equation. Vulnerability is not necessarily a phrase you hear a lot about in the Bible. It only means a lot because it encompasses a myriad of ideals extremely close to the heart of the Bible: weakness, humility, meekness, and the idea that someone mugs you and as they’re running off you’re like ‘Wait! You forgot my shirt!’ Jesus speaks very highly of smallness. In fact, we are also told by the apostle Paul that weakness is so important because then Jesus can show His strength, rather than ours. Since we are all weak, vulnerability would just simply be letting our pretenses down and showing that weakness. But as humans, we (I) have a really difficult time doing that. So we managed to take the weakness out of the vulnerability. Let me give you some examples. I can honestly say I’ve said each and every one of these, either from the stage, in a small group context, or just in general conversation:

- “With all my heart, I just wanted to melt people’s faces off with my screaming guitar solo! The chords were perfect and it would’ve been glorious. But then I remembered for what seems like the hundredth time in my life: never play five notes where one will do. When will I learn?”
Subtext: I can play ripping guitar solos.

- “Hey, I’m a sinner just like you! I’m gonna be vulnerable right now: I struggle with anger. The other day on the freeway, someone cut me off and I was so angry I started to speed up and try to run them off the road. I was ready to throw down if I’d caught up with them! But by the grace of God, I was able to calm down, and just let God deal with them.”
Subtext: “I’m powerful. I get angry. I curb my manliness for the sake of the kingdom.”

- “Sometimes I really fail as a pastor. I was in my office the other day for a counseling meeting, and it was about noon, and the whole time while the couple was talking, all I could think about was….Chipotle!!”
Subtext: I am funny and relatable.

- “I’m gonna be honest with you…porn is a real hangup for me.”
Subtext: I’m a man and I like sex.

- “Dude…I so hear you. Sometimes, I just get peopled out. I’ve got family, friends, coworkers…and then by the time I get to church, I’m just done. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m sure people think I’m a jerk when they try to talk to me, but sometimes…you just fail.”
Subtext: Ya, I’m pretty popular.

Now while all these may be true, may be real instances, and may even be beneficial to hear and talk about from time to time, each of them lacks true vulnerability…which would be making me appear as the weak, tiny speck of dust that God chose to save through absolutely no merit of my own, that I am. Vulnerability is not vulnerability if it is devoid of weakness and filled with subtext that makes you look good, powerful, or socially acceptable. True vulnerability is going to make you look bad. Gross. Weak. Even, perhaps, socially taboo amongst your Christian friends and in the Christian media. And that is what I think the church needs more of. So as I launch into the next year of saying some things to try to edify the church by questioning the need for change, I want to start with true vulnerability on my part. Because that’s the only thing I can really change on my own, the thing I’m most responsible for, and if we all did it, probably the thing that would help the most. And I’ll start with this. This blog has gotten big. And when I started it, I thought it would become big because of my amazing guitar skills. But by and large, the majority of commenters say things like, “Thanks for your honesty on the blog. It’s been refreshing to watch your journey through failures, to become less and less of a jerk worship leader.” And when I look back on my old posts, I know those folks are dead-on. I thought I would be used for my strengths. And instead, God wanted to use me for my weaknesses. My weaknesses that were coming out in posts when I didn’t even mean them to. That actually stings even right now as I type this. So here’s some honest things on which working would be a great first step for church reform:

• I’m scared to do this.
• I question now, why of all the avenues of serving God I could have chosen, I chose the one that put me at the front of the stage.
• I want to tell myself that I tried very hard to ask questions as possible change catalysts from the inside, while I was on staff or serving at various churches. But I’ve learned over the last few months that I have a very serious fear of conflict. I’m sure that what I thought were affronts to the status quo on my part, were veiled at best.
• I’ve led worship from the electric guitar sometimes because I’d get bored on the acoustic.
• I have carried guitar solos out too long because I liked my own playing.
• I have cut guitar solos too short when it was clear people were worshiping and praying and responding, because I was afraid of what the pastor would say.
• There’s a part of me that wonders if being this vulnerable and showing weakness will actually make me look more awesome. And I like it.
• I have tuned my guitars before services when I knew they were in tune, I just didn’t have anyone to interact with and didn’t want to look awkward.
• When I felt God telling me to leave established church occupational ministry to explore what else He wanted me to do, I fought it. Probably harder than I’ve let on to anybody but my wife. The reasons I fought it were money, and because in the church, I was somebody. Outside of working in the church, that title and that position…gone. I used to have people in my office, counseling them, moving them around on schedules. Now I ask them if they’ll hire me.
• I am not a very strong person. I like to think of myself as one, but sometimes my hands shake when I’m disagreeing with people.
• I can’t remember the last time I had righteous anger. I’m usually angry because somewhere deep inside, my hubris, pride, or ego is being threatened.
• Sometimes I’m afraid that most of my personality is pretty much composited from movies I like.
• I am extremely manipulative, and sometimes I’m completely unaware that I’m even doing it.
• I often only care about people inasmuch as they support my view of myself. In essence, you’re either a walking thumbs up or thumbs down to me.
• I’ve lied to people in the form of a compliment that wasn’t true because I wanted them to view me as a super nice guy.
• I have made God a means to my own ends. For money, security, and stature. Not every day…but too much.

That stuff hurts to be honest about. But I feel it’s important because if I were to work on those things in myself, the church I was at would immediately be a better place. As much as I praised the idea of vulnerability in this post, it’s still only the first step. If you never let the humility take root past your mouth, and into your heart to let it effect change in your daily actions, then it was worthless. And most of my above failures can be solved with a good dose of humility. True humility…just plain thinking of myself less.

“The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble–delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.”

- C.S. Lewis

Splendid.
Karl.