“Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate,
self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…” – 1 Timothy 3:2
Have you ever heard the term, “above
reproach” and wondered where it came from? Or maybe you know it’s from the Bible but you never really knew what
part of the Bible it is from. Well the
verse above it is. If you do a search
for this phrase in the Bible, the only verse that comes up is this verse where
Paul is instructing Timothy about the qualities an elder or “overseer” should
have. One of the qualities in the list
is this phrase, “above reproach”.
Ever
since taking my first ministry class at Lipscomb, I have tried to live above
reproach. That’s because the professor
beat it into my brain that ministry is a dangerous profession to enter because your
life gets placed under a microscope and any flaw you have is laid out for the
entire congregation to see. I was warned
about counseling women and given some very good guidelines in regards to
that. I was told story after story about
ministers who failed to live a life above reproach and what that did to their
lives and the lives of the church they were called to work for.
When I
started working at Central, I had a great conversation about living above
reproach with the elders and ministers here. We put into place certain rules for me to follow so that I would never
find myself in a situation where I could fall into temptation or even be wrongly
accused of anything. I believe I have
lived up to those standards completely since starting here almost five years ago. I do my best to honor this lifestyle so that
God can work through me in my ministry and Satan cannot.
However,
recently I have been convicted of the fact that I have gone to the extreme of
living in a way that is not just above reproach, but above approach.
There is a great difference between living above reproach and above approach.
It is
in my nature to keep a wall of protection between me and everyone else in my
life. The wall of protection I keep up
between me and others causes me to become unapproachable so that people don’t
feel comfortable coming to me with their concerns, problems, worries, etc. People don’t want to let down their guard
because I don’t let mine down. People
don’t want to enter into any relationship with me because I am afraid to enter
into one with them.
As a
minister, one of my biggest callings is to help pastor those who God has placed
in his church at Central. But my zeal
for living above reproach has made me above approach
and therefore I have very few opportunities to actually do what I have been
called to do. The teens like to joke with
me about this. They call me awkward. I give awkward side-hugs, I don’t make good
eye contact, I shy away from one-on-one conversations that last longer than, “How’s
it goin?” I have been praying very hard
and working very hard on this lately. Itdoesn’t come natural to me, but I feel like I’m making strides.
What
about you? Do you feel like you have a
hard time living above reproach without living above approach? If so, maybe we can encourage each other and
find some ways to set up boundaries that not only help us live above reproach,
but also help us engage in meaningful relationships at the same time. I’d love to brainstorm with others like me to
find strategic ways to balance these two ideas in order to be effective
ministers.
Maybe you struggle the opposite
way. Maybe your struggle is finding how
to be approachable without being reproachable. In other words, maybe you find yourself being able to get to that deeper
level of relationship with others very easily, but sometimes that leads you
into inappropriate situations. Maybe you
need to place some boundaries in your life in order to protect you from sin or
from accusation. If that is the case, I
would be happy to pray with you or help you find ways to set some boundaries in
your life.
