Meet Reverend X

Thanks for stopping by. My name is Reverend X. This, of course, is not my real name, which you have no doubt deduced by now.

Contrary to what you might think, I am not an "ex-Reverend," a Reverend's ex, nor am I a member of XXX Church. Since the name "Anonymous Reverend" seems to already be in use across the great worldwide web, I have taken my pen name from that great spiritual cartoon character, Racer X, from "Speed Racer".

I can tell you that I am currently a Christian church pastor and I live in North America. If I tell you any other details, I might have to ... well, not kill you, of course, but threaten you in some other way, like inflict a paper cut on you. And since you can't get paper cuts from the internet, I think I'll just stick to remaining anonymous for now for your protection and mine.

Why, you might ask, would any pastor want to remain anonymous? Why, you might ask again, would a supposedly God-fearing chap want to "hide your light under a bushel basket" or some such notion? Since I am anonymous, I have no fear of your questions and am happy to answer them, in the order that you conceivably might have asked them.

Many pastors, rightly or wrongly, believe that the people for whom they care simply could not handle it if they knew what their pastor really thought, felt, believed, or experienced as a human being. There could be weeping, gnashing of teeth, loss of faith, torches, pitchforks, and general ugliness.

Many parishoners (which, oddly enough, is not what you call fans of Robert Parish) do not really want their pastors, ministers, bishops, priests, clergymen, and overall folk of the cloth to have any human frailties. The ideal pastor should be continually encouraging, tenderly sympathetic, all-wise, all-knowing, all-present, self-supporting, and available 25/8/366.

Pastors are also expected to refrain from cussing, uh ... dang it!

Can you imagine living under the weight of those expectations for yourself, or for your family? If you are a pastor, you can not only imagine it, but you have likely experienced it. There are, after all, understandable reasons why more than 30% of all ministers in America are either currently in clinical depression or are recovering from it. Statistics are not readily available for the wives and children of pastors, but the anectdotal evidence is grim.

This blog, is therefore dedicated to being a place of encouragement, identification, venting, and redemptive healing for people in ministry; and also, hopefully, a place where individuals of all backgrounds can see into a window of one pastor's life with all of its joys and pains, successes and disappointments and to become a better friend and ally to those who care for all God's children.

Finally, this is one place to hear the perspective of a simple sinner saved by grace who is daily working out his salvation with "fear and trembling" just like anybody else

I'll try to keep it as real as I can ... as real as I can be while hiding behind a pen name. I do reserve the right to change names, dates, places, and hair styles in order to protect the innocent. Or myself, LOL!