Reflections on My First Year of My First Pastorate by Kenny Panduku (The Great Panduku)

For those of you who don?t know, I am the Pastor of the Trinity Church in Bridgeton, Missouri. This is my first pastorate having been a Youth Pastor in Oklahoma for the three years prior to this. As I write this, I am about to celebrate my first year anniversary at the church.

Overall, the experience has been great. I was in a difficult situation in Oklahoma and God really opened the doors for me to come here. It is an established church with a proud heritage and the prospect of hiring a ?27 year old kid? (now 28) wasn?t something that I think they were ready for. I knew from the first moment I heard about the church and their search for a pastor that it was the church for me. It took them a little while, and two other pastoral candidates, to come to that conclusion. That being said, the church has overwhelmed us with love. They are a true picture of a loving, compassionate member of the body of Christ. We have fit right in and have fallen in love with our church family here.

There have been many unique struggles that only a Pastor can experience and many things that I am still learning and getting comfortable with. For example, the O.W.L.S.(Older, Wiser, Loving Servants) our Senior Adult group, are going apple picking in the weeks to come. It never occurred to me that I should go. My wife, however, having lived with a minister -- her father -- her whole life, immediately suggested that I should go. ?Why?? I asked. ?They are your church members? was her response. The light clicked that I am responsible for the whole church. That is just one of the struggles. Getting comfortable with the idea of being the leader of the church and not just the guy who preaches on Sunday morning has been another.

I could share many ?interesting? things that have happened in my first year, but I thought I would share a couple that have relevance to the Thinklings website, which began as a discussion of Theology and still has at its core, I think, theology in the forefront.

We recently began a discussion of John MacArthur?s book, Why One Way? on Wednesday nights. It is a defense of exclusivism in an inclusive world. As an opening lesson, I presented the ideas of Modernism and Postmodernism and their effects on societal thinking. Ending the discussion, we read together John 14:6 and I stated that as Christians, we needed to stand strong on our conviction that John 14:6 was absolute truth. We then began to discuss the idea of what happens to those who have never heard an accurate portrayal of the Gospel. The context of this was our task of making sure that all hear about Christ because contrary to inclusive thinking, all roads do not lead to Heaven. As we discussed it, one of our former Elders, and current Trustees, said, ?I have a problem with believing that a child who has been brought up in a Mormon home and grows to be an adult without ever knowing anything different will be sent to Hell. How can we hold them responsible?? I was at a total lost and I am sure it showed on my face. His contention was, at its heart, inclusive thinking. ?Well, they didn?t know any better and they were good Mormons so?? For the first time, I found myself behind the lectern and not in a chair during a moment of extreme discomfort. Everyone was looking at him and then looking at me. One of the people in the group brought up the passage in Romans 1 where Paul speaks about the knowledge of God existing in creation and in us. Because of this, Paul says, in essence, there is no excuse for those who die without the benefit of special revelation. (In the interest of brevity, I will not develop that thought fully here.) The man however was unmoved and I was unnerved. He is considerably older than me and was one of the men who was uncomfortable with my being so young. I finally asked him what, in his opinion, would be the ?end? of those in such a situation, who died without knowing any better. His response was, ?I don?t know.? The line of thinking is the classic, ?How could a loving God send someone to hell?? My response was to call on the holiness of God and on the truth of John 14. In the end, he remained unconvinced and I am still unsure of how to bring this to an end. I am only concerned in that it is a major point and one surely worthy of debate.

The second interesting struggle has to do with the idea of same sex marriages in the church. On another Wednesday night, we took the opportunity to simply discuss current events. This happened to be around the time that Canada had legalized same sex unions and it was a major issue with our folks. I brought up the possibility that our church would have to deal with the issue in the very near future and I asked what our response should be. The responses were varied but the general impression that I got was that we would be very uncomfortable with someone struggling with that particular sin to come to our church. The thinking is I am afraid, very common. We treat homosexuality as if it is the unpardonable sin. A much graver sin than any of the others. I shared my feelings that I would welcome a person struggling with homosexuality into our church. That perhaps our church could become a place where homosexuals could come and find love and truth. Not acceptance mind you, but not condemnation either. (Again, in the interest of brevity, I will not elaborate on the difference in openly living in a sin and struggling to overcome it. We would not let anyone, I hope, openly living in any sin without interest in repentance find tolerance of said sin in our church.) When I asked for a response, one man said, ?Well perhaps we could have a home Bible study without actually having THEM in our church.? Again I was floored. The suggestion was that the church pass off her basic responsibility, allowing sinners a place to find Jesus Christ.

The problem is we like our sins to be nice and manageable. We can deal with greed and lying, but what about drug abuse and homosexuality, some of the ?nastier?, ?darker? sins? These make us feel uncomfortable and we would rather not think about it. I encouraged our church to look at the central problem rather than trying to ?troubleshoot? specific sins. The central problem is, a person either has a relationship with Jesus Christ or they do not. If they don?t, it is our job to help them come into a relationship with him and then watch as the Spirit cleans their life up. I am not sure at this point how my church will react if a person struggling with homosexuality were to come to church one day and continue to come while struggling. I like to be optimistic, that they will find love as any other person would. But, I am not so sure.

Being a Pastor is great and it is difficult. I love my people and sometimes I want to strangle them. The blessings far outweigh the struggles, to this point anyway, and I am looking forward to the future here.