In Puerto Rico, a colloquial saying is used to express pity towards someone or something: ¡Ay bendito! Translated, the phrase is a variation of “aw-man,” a long “oh” of surprise, and the “bendito” part means holy. Essentially, “Holy Pity.”
But when you are fighting against the imperial structures of life, church, family, ministry and self-expectations, and God sends someone to say, “I get it,” that is holy.
Being the church and doing ministry in these interesting times requires Christians to ask questions, look for answers, strive towards innovation, wrestle with decline, work for justice, and rethink calling and vocation.
The struggles of daily routines, staff meetings, administrative expectations, and conversations about church lead to a haunting question, “How is your church doing?” When we respond truthfully, we are usually met with either, “I get it” or, “¡Ay bendito!”
When I started in ministry, nobody talked to me about the continuous fear of failure. The clinical term is “Imposter Syndrome,” a chronic feeling of self-doubt and fear of being discovered as an intellectual fraud.
Ministers go through the process of answering our call. We train for ministry, serve others and complete church and denominational expectations. We advocate for people. Then, we face the intense reality that we have a syndrome.
Research institutions have collected information on church decline in the United States in the past twenty years. This information reveals much about Puerto Rico, the world’s oldest colony. Symptoms surround us!
These symptoms include pastoral and volunteer burnout, toxic leadership, bad ministry meetings, power struggles, microaggressions, political division, intolerance, denominational struggle to change and resistance.
As ministers diagnose these symptoms, others sense we are losing our faith. That’s when the “¡Ay bendito!” starts.
“That’s ministry.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“Things will change.”
“God is in control.
And, my favorite, “In my days…”
The ministerial attitude of “¡Ay bendito!” may provoke an overwhelming anxiety that we aren’t doing enough. Imposter Syndrome challenges our identity in God.
God has called us to serve, but we want success.
God calls us to reconciliation, but we are focused on the past. God calls us to justice, but we are stuck in the law. Our identity in God often gets mixed with a fixed posture that claims a call to a particular role or location.
When our minds are fixed on a location instead of God’s vocation for our lives, we forget that our vocation is an active and ongoing call. Responding to God’s call is essential to our identity because God is interested in our response to our call, not someone else’s.
Imposter Syndrome reduces our self-conviction and augments doubt.
Élisabet Cadoche and Anne de Montarlot affirm Imposter Syndrome from a womanist perspective, noting that women have been oppressed by “dominion experiences.” These diminish their self-conviction because of society’s norms of what a woman is or should do. From a womanist perspective, even the gender experience is prone to Imposter Syndrome, and society is ambivalent about a healing conversation.
This syndrome comes with the fear of exposure, like a Scooby-Doo villain unmasking. There are days when the questions are deep.
Is this all happening because of me? Am I provoking this division, struggle, decline, silence, violence? Am I capable of continuing in ministry?
The direct consequence of Imposter Syndrome is doubt.
When we do ministry from a position of doubt, we are vessels with a hidden escape hole. Imposter Syndrome provokes one to be an atheist of oneself. It diminishes possibilities, and everybody responds, “¡Ay bendito!”
We have all the information, but self-doubt empties our faith. We accomplish goals, but we compare our goals to others. We are developing in our personal growth, but the general diagnosis is that we are not doing enough.
Are these symptoms and diagnostics new? Of course not!
But today, we find ourselves in an informationally developed social context, an intergenerational wise society, and a diverse educational approach. We are moving, slowly but surely, toward an “I get it” perspective.
I still remember thinking about quitting the ministry. It was a challenging time where my anxiety was my identity, and my identity was obsessing over ministry success. In the process of gaining perspective and channeling progress through seminary, writing, therapy and friends, God’s Spirit surprised me with hope.
Jesus gets it. He dealt with the imposter syndrome at Gethsemane. “Remove this cup from me” (Lk. 22:39-46).
That is a deep thought of divine humanity, where honesty connects Jesus to God. Isn’t that what we should aspire to? Instead of the “¡Ay bendito!” of resentment, what if we courageously named our needs before God?
When we refresh our identity, call and purpose, we are surprised by hope. In our honest prayer, we hear God say, “I get it.”
Remove the comparison cup.
Remove the super-person cup.
Remove the perfectionism cup.
Remove the overworking cup.
Remove the church-family-hierarchical pressures cup.
We are surprised by hope when we understand that Jesus gets it. This hope can allow us to minister with freedom, honesty, and mercy.
If we, as leaders, can deal with Imposter Syndrome and affirm a liberating “I get it,” we can begin to approach God’s everlasting love.
Because of frustration and desperation, I often say, “¡Ay bendito!” But in recent life transitions, I have understood that maybe it is not the time for me to be here, there, doing this or that thing others are doing. It is, instead, time for me to ask, “Can I help?”
I have learned to take a deep breath, smile and deal with uncertainty. I am pausing to think, know and discern. In each avenue, I hear the affirming grace of God’s voice saying, “I get it.”
