Proclaimer Blog
The no make up selfie pastor
I've resisted the urge to post a no-make-up selfie. It's insanity multiplied.
It did get me thinking however about Kathryn Jenkins. She has a nice voice. And she is normally well made up.
But her no-make-up selfie is not. A no-make-up selfie, that is. I'm not a make up expert despite living in a house full of girls, but I can see she's less made up than the picture above; however no-make-up this is not.
It got me thinking about pastoring. There are pastors who appear in full make up all the time. Not literally, of course, but they present themselves to their congregations as more glamorous than they really are. I hope most of us would reject that approach as deceitful and actually unhelpful for ministry (see 1 Tim 4.15). So most of us know we have to strip away the facade. However, perhaps like Kathryn, we're not prepared to go all the way. That would be too painful. That would open us up to too much analysis. And so we're always wearing a little make up.
Please hear me. I'm not making a case for parading your sins in the pulpit nor making your unadorned self the centre of attention. But to our congregations we need to be those without make up. We need close friends who see us as we really are. We need to be honest with our leadership teams. And though preaching is a high calling where we step into the pulpit with the very authority of God's word, we need to do it in humility, honesty and straightforwardness.
No make up, in other words.