Conversati…Oh, You’re a Pastor

I was at the gym this morning.  For the first time ever I was the only person there.  I started my workout and things were going fine.  About halfway through, another guy came in.  A guy I had seen before, but had never interacted with, other than the occasional nod of “hey, how ya doin.”

He starts up a conversation in a little bit.  Totally cool.  Great guy.  We’re just talking away…he tells me what he’s doing, a bit about his past, what he thinks of the current news story that’s playing on the TV.  And we talk for a good half an hour.  Really kinda cool…and then it comes out that I work as an Associate Pastor, and the whole conversation changed.

Now…he didn’t stop talking to me.  He didn’t get nervous at all…but the conversation completely changed to religion, and spirituality, and some of the struggles that he’s had.  Turns out he’s had some experience in the church world.  But I struggled with the fact that religion became our conversation.  It was like a switch was flipped when I mentioned what I do.  And that happens pretty often.

I called a friend of mine (who also works in the church), and we talked about that experience.  She mentioned that she shared the same struggles…that when people find out what we do, it changes things.  She thought that if that information was disclosed too early in the conversation, that it usually ended up changing the conversation, focusing it about God, instead of whatever the conversation may be about,  BUT, she said, if you have a conversation and the fact that you work in the church comes out at the end, as your wrapping it up, it actually changes the experience.  It makes it feel more like the church is actually living within this world.  Instead of becoming the topic of the conversation, it makes spirituality, religion, God, (whatever you want to call it) a foundation to the conversation.  Instead of changing the conversation, it just changes the context.

I thought it was pretty insightful.  I love my job.  I love what I do.  But I want that to be a foundational aspect of my life in this world, rather than for it to set me apart from this world.

It makes me wonder if that’s why Jesus told people not to talk about him.  Because it would set him apart.  Instead of working as the son of God in this world, he would have been set apart from this world.

Who knows???

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