Why I confessed pastoral malpractice

In 1989, my wife Liz and I moved to Kansas City, Missouri, to start Christ Community Church. Ten years later, I stood before my congregation and confessed my failure to them.

It was not a failure of moral indiscretion or financial impropriety—it was a failure of pastoral malpractice. Because of my own lack of theological reflection, I had failed my congregation. Not intentionally—I was committed to the Bible, preaching the gospel, and to doing so depending on the work of the Spirit.

My failure was this: I spent the majority of my time equipping our church for what they do with the minority of their time.

I worked hard to equip our church to be godly people, to serve the church well. This is important, but I was failing to equip my congregation in what each of them was doing in most of their life. As I studied the Scriptures, I began to see that my understanding of the gospel was inadequate. For the gospel does not just speak into explicitly Christian activity on a Sunday—it speaks into all of life. The gospel speaks into all of our lives, especially our workplaces, and I had failed to see it.

Are you a little disappointed by my confession? Perhaps you clicked on this blog expecting something a little juicier—a pastor gone over to the dark side. But a pastor confessing for failing to integrate work and faith—isn’t that a bit lame?

Well, no it’s not. Neglecting this area is very serious indeed.

The temptation of dualism

I wanted to share my confession with you because I suspect that for most of us it is a confession we should be making ourselves. We mentally put our “walking with God” and our “working at my job or in my home” in different boxes.

This is to be guilty of what is called “dualism”. We split life into two separate areas that are seemingly not related to each other, two areas that don’t talk to each other—one spiritual and the other physical, one sacred and the other secular. This is a very common way of thinking for many of us.

But the trouble is—it is not in the Bible. It is just wrong. And this dualism leads to one of two errors:

First, it suggests that only “gospel ministry” is important. We start to think that the only way to please Christ through our work is to be engaged in something that directly promotes the gospel. So if I am a writer or actor, I have to write or perform only things that explicitly mention Jesus. Or if I am a teacher, I must only teach religious subjects, or work in a Christian school. But really, the only work of real significance is being a missionary, a pastor or—at a push—a doctor.

Second, it means we think of ourselves as Christians only when we are involved in church activity. In other words, Christ shapes our lives in our churches and our homes, but he does not shape the way we view and live out our work. We fail to think about the values and assumptions of our work in light of who we are as Christians. We fail to think what it means to be a Christian and work in business or art, as a home-maker or an educator, in construction or social care.

The alternative to dualism

Jesus offers something much better than dualism. What he invites us to is whole-life discipleship. Consider these famous verses from Matthew’s Gospel:

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." – Matthew 11:28-30

In Jesus’ day, a yoke was a common device used to link together two oxen as they plowed the fields. Taking the yoke, a farmer would put two oxen in it, side by side. He would put the mature, experienced ox on one side, and the younger, inexperienced ox on the other.

Jesus invites all of us to enter his yoke, to follow his lead, to learn from him just as an apprentice learns from a master craftsman. Jesus invites us to begin to see and live in this world as he lived in and saw this world. Once we have been yoked to Jesus, we view our work in a new light. When Christians fully grasp the impact of the gospel on their vocation, it infuses their day-to-day occupation with new joy and significance—and it helps them to endure difficult seasons.

Jesus’ invitation is wonderful. But pastors—have your church members heard it? Could it be that you are guilty of teaching dualism from your pulpit, whether implicitly or unintentionally? Will you instead endeavor to hold out Jesus’ wonderful offer of whole-life discipleship?

Gospel Shaped Work by Tom Nelson is a new curriculum from The Gospel Coalition and The Good Book Company. Eight sessions will encourage the whole church to connect Monday to Sunday by putting the gospel at the heart of everything we do at work. It’s part of the five-track Gospel Shaped Church curriculum, which is based on TGC’s ministry distinctives.

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