Self Improvement and Confession Kind of Suck...In A Good Way

One of the requirements of becoming a pastor in my denomination is completing a unit of CPE (or Clinical Pastoral Education), which is a fancy way of saying "pay to be a volunteer chaplain and have everything you do be picked apart." I did my CPE at Cooper Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, a level one trauma center in one of the poorest cities in America and had a supervisor who didn't cut his students any slack, Rev. Cholke.

It was stressful, it was exciting, and it was one of the best learning experiences of my life.

One day, I was sharing a written report about one of my visits with a patient where I had danced around his concerns about losing his legs. Rev. Cholke was having none of it. He interrupted me, pointed a finger in my face and said, "You're afraid of conflict. You avoid the tough questions and you can't really help people if you do that."

In that moment I was embarrassed, and ashamed, and angry. And I felt those things because he was right. I kind of knew that about myself, but he had stripped my personality naked and put it on display in front of the group. I hated that moment.

It was one of the best things someone has ever done for me.

Because of that moment, I started paying attention to my motivations. I learned to recognize when I was avoiding conflict out of fear. When I did that, I could push my fear back or lean into the stress to build up resilience. Over time, I became a better leader and a better pastor because Rev. Cholke named a problem that I needed to work on.