Part 6 - Becoming a Lead Pastor
After graduating from seminary with my M.A. in Theological Studies it was not long before I found myself tiring of the music ministry projects, and hungering for a bigger role of leadership in a community of faith. I wanted to preach regularly, not just every now and then. And I wanted to put the big ideas I had about developing a church around the ministry of small groups into action.
In the fall of 2001 I discovered a multi-site church in Northwest Washington, and by Christmas I had accepted an invitation to pastor their just-started location on Whidbey Island. So we moved from the Portland area to this beautiful island a couple hours north of Seattle. This was a huge time of transition and growth for me, and some aspects of this new job fit me perfectly while others did not.
How was it a great fit? The fact the church was committed to using contemporary worship forms - mostly the use of modern worship music - and was clear about saying “If you don’t like this style of worship I’m sure you can find a church you’ll like better.” The church was dedicated to being SIMPLE and clear about it’s priorities of Worship, Small Groups, and Outreach. The church was dedicated to being a place where people of all sorts of backgrounds could come and find hope and healing. All of this resonated with me deeply, and I was excited to find a place that so closely matched my journaling about what type of church I wanted to lead.
How wasn’t it a great fit? If I’m honest, I realized even when I was hired that the church’s statement about the Bible was problematic for me. In the 10 point doctrinal statement, #1 said this about the Bible:
The Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament, are the inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings. The Bible is the complete written revelation of God’s will for the salvation of mankind and the divine and final authority for Christian faith and life.
As I read this now, 20 years later and five years after resigning from my pastor role, I’m amazed how long I actually lasted in that job. Because from day one, there was distance between what I truly believed about the scriptures and the church’s doctrine.
In 2002 when I started I already knew I didn’t believe that first sentence about the scriptures being without error in the original writings. What I knew for certain would have to be accepted only by faith, since no archeologist or Bible scholar has ever beheld an “original writing” of the scriptures. We have copies of copies of copies that have been passed down to us through the centuries. It may sound very spiritual to say “the originals were without error”, but no one would ever be able to confirm or deny the truth of that statement. Second, in my English Bible, translated from multiple Greek and Hebrew manuscripts from a variety of centuries, I found troublesome discrepancies between the two creation stories right in the first two chapters of the book.
“Without error” was a difficult phrase for me to accept - and in fact I knew I did not accept it. But it seemed a small little phrase, and there was so much about the church that I loved. So because I was not required to sign off on the doctrinal statement to be hired as pastor, I simply stayed silent and buried my difference of opinion on that matter, and got busy in the work of leading a young church.
The longer I stayed, the more I realized there was a growing gulf between what I felt the church expected me to believe and to teach about the Bible and what I actually believed and wanted to teach. But that process took about thirteen years to finally come to the fulcrum described at the beginning of this story. There were so many great things that happened along the way. People found new life in Christ. People found deeper experiences of God’s love through the activities of our church. People discovered giftings and developed them for use in God’s Kingdom. I’m so grateful for that time in my life and I’m so grateful for the inspiring leadership of our lead pastor, who tragically passed away in 2017.
I look back at those years and I feel so blessed to have had those experiences and to have been used by God in so many ways. But I was being pulled into a more beautiful story, and something would eventually have to give.