DIRTY JOBS

One of the tv shows that my children and I enjoy watching together is a show called "Dirty Jobs". Maybe you have watched it, maybe you haven't. If you haven't it's about a guy named Mike Rowe, (who does the voice for Ford truck commercials, and is the voice for Deadliest Catch), that goes around and working with people who have dirty jobs. He has sorted garbage, worked on a pig farm, been in sewage treatment plant, been a plumber, picked up rotting dead animals off the road side, harvested "gooey" ducks, etc.. Just about every "dirty" job there is he has helped to do. Some have been funny, some have been totally disgusting, some almost deadly but all have been dirty jobs. At the end of the show he sometimes asks for the viewers to submit their idea for a dirty job.
Thinking about "Dirty Jobs" this week got me to consider there is one dirty job that Mike has yet to do. You may agree or not but the one dirty job I would like to see Mike do is that of a pastor. I have discovered that pastoring can be dirty. Let me explain: in pastoring we have to maintain a clean and sterilized image, guard our emotions, keep a smile and make everyone happy. If you can do this, then you either are one step away from the funny farm or you have taken lessons from some great politician. However, in the ministry, especially the pastoral ministry the job can become dirty. "Crap" gets slung at you all the time. Crap comes when people don't get their way, and demand to have things or have their way irregardless of what is best for the church or the collective well being of an entire church. Crap is the reaction and accusations that people fling at you when they do not get what they want or you don't respond to someones every whim. "Crap" comes when people work together to achieve/discern the will or direction of God and then when you begin to go in that direction people are not happy because it's not their way. In pastoring you either get to be a master at dodging flung dung or you get hit with it. No matter if you dodge, or get slammed with the dirt of pastoring there is still the clean up, the smoothing over, or pacifying of disgruntled people, (the reality of should they be pacified will be addressed later.). This is one dirty job that I would like to see Mike do.