The Pastor I Want To Be

Monday mornings are mini-Sabbaths for me. A time to get my soul screwed on straight for the work of ministry facing me this week. Along with tea, quiet, my journal & Bible (the pastoral epistles these days), I also journey along with Marva Dawn and Eugene Peterson in a course of spiritual reading (The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call these days.)

Currently, I am reading a chapter by Brother Eugene, a commentary on the book of Romans as profoundly pastoral theology. I am discovering in this fresh view of Paul, crafted by Peterson's pen, the pastor I want to be. The exact kind-of pastor I thought I would be -- before the reality of ministry's multiple adiaphora set in. Here are his encouraging words to all the Monday morning weary and hopeful:

I am interested in St. Paul's letter to the Romans as. . .a piece of writing that is a working demonstration of spiritual formation in the Christian community. My interest iis piqued by living in an age in which the work of much of the church's leadership is neither pastoral nor theological. The pastoral dimensions of the church's leadership are badly eroded by technologizing and managerial influences. The theological dimensions of the church's leadership have been marginalized by therapeutic and marketing preoccupations. The gospel work of giving leadership to the community of the Christian faithful has been alienated from its source.

Paul was a pastoral theologian. All of Paul's thinking and writing, teaching and preaching in the service of God (that is, his theology) was at the same time carried out in the service of a community of souls (that is, it was pastoral.)

For too long, pastors have not been treated as theologians; theology has been leeched from our lives. At the same time, pastors have been told that they're not pastors but counselors and people who run churches.

Normallly, the work of pastor is not generalized; it is specific to a particular community in a particular place. We aren't going to be able to copy Paul: we have no idea what Paul would do if he had to deal with music teams and pothols in the parking lot, figure out budget, bury teenage suicides and marry confused young adults, run a youth program and pose as a genial man of God at the annual church picnic.

Pastors who are pleased to sit at the feet of Paul the theologian more often than not sign up with psychologists and management consultants for expert counsel when it comes to going about their daily work iin the kingdom. This is understandable, for caring for souls is honored and demanding work; those who give their lives to it need all the help they can get. But without theology, caring for souls can easily transgress into manipulating or seducing selves.

And scholars for whom Paul is the patron saint of the learned life frequently minimize the way in which Paul used his mind in the immediate service of God and souls, preferring thus to work in settings protected against interruption. Theological and exegetical study is honored and demanding work, but abstracted from the actual conditions of community and congregation it easily loses connection with the God who loves the world and gave himself for it. having a mind, a glory we hold in common with the angels, is grand. Cultivating the life of the intellect is essential to the sanity of the church of Christ. But the use of the mind can as easily lead into pride as into truth. This happens when it severs itself from the pastoral.

Recently responding to another pastor's blog, I reflected this:

All of the maintaining work that goes into a churchly vocation is weary-ing work but not in the same way that ministry is weary-ing.
Ministry is life-giving, even when it wearies me.
Ministry is good, even when it’s hard.
Ministry is satisfying, even when it’s messy.
A to-do list filled with maintaining makes me not want to get out of bed in the morning.

What I love about Brother Eugene is the permission he provides to pastors to, in fact, be pastors. To not get lost in the paperwork shuffle or the immediacy of programming. But to be pastoral (set firmly and lovingly in the context of a particular community and theological (reflecting on the person, attributes and nature of the Triune God)? That is the pastor I want to be.