Love Life Drama

If there is one thing worse than people at your church trying to set you up with someone it is people at your church critiquing someone you are dating.

A few years ago I started seeing a lovely young woman who had been attending our church. She was a single mom with a four year old. Like all of us, she had made some mistakes before she came to know Christ. Nobody had any problems with her before we started to talk, but that all changed when she became a candidate for the youth pastor’s love interest. We began to hear all kinds of complaints like, “She isn’t as spiritually mature as you” and “She only started helping with the youth to get his attention.” When I put my arm around her during church and the phrase “I love you” entered our relationship the response we were getting from some people would have made you think we were having sex before marriage (which happened to be one of the rumors going around). We had one of our own friends come and tell us that they were not on board with the relationship, and half the time we didn’t even know where the complaints were coming from because we were getting them second hand. It hurt both of us. The whole thing annoyed me and sent the message that people didn’t trust my judgment, but to be honest, the real toll was taken on my now wife. She felt attacked and judged, and I know that people have left the church for far less than that.

What’s comforting to know is that we are not alone is this battle, that many ministry couples before us have had to deal with people sticking noses into their romantic life, all the way back to Moses. You may think I’m kidding, but go check it out for yourself in Numbers 12. The story goes that Miriam and Aaron (Moses own brother who is a priest) are talking badly about Moses because of where his wife is from. You could even go as far to say they were judging her for where she had been. Does this sound familiar? Now I will tell you that if you are ever in a similar situation some of the events that occurred in this story probably won’t happen to you (i.e. pillars of cloud and leprous inflictions), but one thing that that Moses did which we must replicate is to not hold their wrongs against them. Not once did Moses go on the offensive, in fact at one point he actually prayed for them.

A tough fact about being in ministry is the “fish bowl” lifestyle: everything you do is on display for others, including how you react to people constantly butting into your business.  An equally difficult fact to live with is that these people need your grace, even when you don’t feel like giving it to them. As a leader you have a great deal of power in your hands, and even when you aren’t thinking about that power you can do a great deal of damage if you fail to keep yourself calm in these highly emotional situations. Some people don’t mean to instigate these problems and if you respond angrily just once to these spiritually fragile people they may feel as if they aren’t welcome in the church any more for their failures, or may even invent divisions and dissentions that weren’t there before, ones that can last lifetimes. The only way for healing to take place, just like the healing Miriam and Aaron needed, is your intercession with forgiveness.

So my advice to you is to protect the one you choose to adore, but keep cool and offer mercy. In the long haul your actions will definitely help you from adding any additional stress to your life, and they may just bring people closer to God as well.