By Rowland Croucher
~~~
Preface: 'Reverend Joe'
Introduction: Pastoral Challenges Today
1. Relationship with God
2. Family-of-Origin
3. Mentors and Networks
4. Leadership and Interpersonal Skills
5. Home and Marriage
6. Stress Management
7. Problem-Solving
8. The 'Vision Thing'
9. Professional Growth
10. Institutions and Creativity
~~~
REVEREND JOE'S STORY
Reverend Joe (his story is an amalgam of half-a-dozen from my files and my recent memory) was a boilermaker in a factory, but he had a gift with words. One of his elders said he should be a preacher, so he went to Bible College, and served a term as a cross-cultural missionary with an interdenominational organisation. His ministry in Papua New Guinea was 'ordinary' according to the mission-people, and his wife developed some health problems. The doctors suggested that a tropical climate would not be good for her, so the Mission Society asked him to do some 'deputation' - which he did very well. He had only three talks to offer, but that's all he needed as he journeyed around Australia, preaching in evangelical churches every Sunday. The General Superintendent of one of the Baptist Unions heard him speak, and was impressed.
When Joe intimated that he was thinking about entering pastoral ministry, the G.S. said 'I think we can find a place for you' and Joe began the process of theological training with a view to ordination. He struggled to pass his exams, but eventually made it. He then served two rural churches, but both pastorates ended badly. In the first, he 'fronted' a couple of the powerful people, and they virtually drove him out. A second pastorate finished abruptly after a couple of years when he had a breakdown. There was no farewell from either church. When he felt a little better, he asked to be put on the Baptist Union 'list' for another pastorate. The meetings of the 'settlement committee' came and went and Joe's name would come up each time. But there wasn't a 'suitable' church. (One of the members of that committee said to me, 'We have to be efficient, because there's always a lot of business each month. But these names. they're people! This is their vocation, their livelihood, we're talking about. We don't pray for them, or even meet some of them. They're mostly just names. I feel very uneasy about the whole process.')
I met Joe when I preached at the Baptist church he attended. We made a time to talk - at the local McDonald's. He got there early and was waiting for me, with a cup of coffee. (I learned later he found a used styrofoam cup, and asked for a 'refill', as he couldn't admit to me that he was penniless). His wife was supporting them both with some 'agency nursing', but her health was still not good, and she could only do about two shifts a week. After mortgage payments, and other bills, they had about $50 a week for food. He couldn't find a job - and his old trade wasn't a possibility any more.
He told me, in an hour-and-a-half, the 'headlines' of his story. He had a brutal, alcoholic father, and a mother who suffered 'nervous breakdowns' regularly. His childhood was unhappy, and he was a lonely kid. School was always a bad experience, and he left at 15 to work in a factory. A Christian work-mate befriended him, took him to an evangelistic meeting, 'and I was gloriously saved'. His life from then on was focussed on serving God and winning others to Christ.
After a while, I asked him to give me a rough assessment of his missionary and ministry careers. He did some things well, he said, but he couldn't cope with people who 'crossed' him - either by making comments about his beliefs/ preaching, or by challenging his leadership. 'I got into trouble regularly because I would stand up to people. That's the only way I survived as a kid. They're not going to squash me. But I think I made a lot of enemies each place I served.'
We then talked about 'where to from here'. I summarised John Mark Ministries ' research into ex-pastors like him - and me. There are about 41 responses to the question 'Why did you leave parish/ pastoral ministry?' Most leave in a context of conflict - with the powerful people in the church or denomination. But underneath all this there's always a story of 'unfinished family-of-origin' business. His story was not unusual - indeed he's a classic!
He told me he felt 'the Union' had washed its hands of him. He was in the 'dead wood' category that institutional people talk about. 'The G.S. who encouraged me to enter ministry has gone, and no one there now knows me.' The Baptist Union had recently developed a system to encourage the personal and professional growth of its pastors, who now are required to renew their accreditation regularly. Joe felt threatened by all this. 'I'm not a reader, ' he said. 'But I still think I could be useful somewhere in the church.'
INTRODUCTION: PASTORAL CHALLENGES TODAY
Now, what should happen to Joe if he's to realise his potential and make it back into pastoral ministry again? Is he a hopeless case? I personally don't think so, but it will certainly be uphill. Non-tertiary-educated/ Bible college trained ex-missionaries have generally had problems adjusting again. The society they left has moved dramatically in their absence. They often lack the vocational skills to compete on their return and the sending mission societies have often failed to provide for their retraining and economic wellbeing after 'years of sacrificial service'. Even pastors that never went overseas, but were trained in the 1950s/ 1960s, are often similarly disadvantaged.
I meet quite a few pastors still leading churches because they can't think of any alternatives. They're burned out, struggling on, and their churches are suffering.
Then, too, there's another category: pastors who feel they're 'mediocre' in terms of effective leadership, but who do a faithful job. until some powerful people in the church insist on their 'getting their act together better'. Then there's trouble.
Another group is committed to 'church growth', but their people often feel they're pawns in a triumphalistic chess-game. 'Our pastor doesn't listen: he suffers from an edifice complex. We're OK if we bring friends to church, but not if we struggle.'
Some older pastors feel they've passed their 'use by' date. One told me: 'I don't understand all this post-modern stuff. I seem to be preaching about things the educated young people aren't interested in. A university student said to me: "You preach at us. Our teachers encourage us to come to our own conclusions."'
Today it's both easier and harder to be a pastor. Easier, because we have more resources to help us - like the World Wide Web for sermon-material (ever used the search-engine Google as a concordance?), more support-groups to encourage and pray for us, better access to the world's practical theology experts, and a higher standard of living, on average, than pastors have ever enjoyed.
But it's also harder. Many of us can identify with the apostle Paul who said, 'Who is equal to such a task?', about his own call to pastoral ministry. These days the expectations of our people are higher - and more likely to be expressed vigorously. Up-front leaders and speakers compete with dynamic personalities on television. There are more 'religious' people not attending churches (in the West) than ever before in history. Our people are likely to be better-educated - and differently-educated than we are. 'One size fits all' doesn't work any more: people are more mobile, and brand-loyalty doesn't work for Generation X'ers (those born since 1965) - or even Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).
The role of the clergy is by not as clear as it was. Nor is there clear public affirmation of their role in many instances. Most people see no need for religious professionals. And there's a lack of confidence in institutions. Why waste precious time propping up ineffective institutions? Indeed, the very way in which people are approaching spirituality is that community involvement may be helpful at some points in time, but is certainly secondary to the individual spiritual journey.
In the past 40 years I've preached in about 700 churches in Australia, and they're becoming more varied each decade. The single most common question in our 'Marks of a Healthy Church' seminars: how can we cater for old and young with their different tastes in one worship service, particularly in smaller churches? This centres particularly on the issue of modern vs. older music. But then, we've argued about music before: some churches in 17th century England and Scotland forbade all singing, others said we should only sing Psalms. When new hymn-books are produced, there are mixed reactions. (In 1691 when the first Baptist hymn book appeared, many Baptists refused to use it!).
Back to TV: most church-attenders have watched almost 20 hours of television the previous week. Not only is the medium the message, but if communication in church isn't dynamic/interesting (and cognisant of an assumed 45-second attention span), the music excellent, and the themes life-related, people will go elsewhere - even back to the TV. (See Tony Campolo, 1995, chapter 4 'The Television Challenge' for one of the few writers-about-churches to underline the significance of television for churches).
Baby Boomers and GenX'ers have grown up with television - that's why they're less-than-committed to a particular church/denomination. They're part of a consumer culture in which choices/freedoms dominate their lifestyle. They want 'value for money/time' and won't hang around a church that's boring, irrelevant to their questions, or stuck where it was. (Tradition is a good servant, but a very bad master).
Baby Boomers still have a disproportionate influence over our entire society, consuming (in the U.S.) 51% of all the goods and services and comprising 81% of journalists. Again, they don't share at all the 'brand loyalty' of their parents: indeed they scoff at it - hence the decline of denominations that have 'expected loyalty but neglected needs'. Baby Boomers and GenX'ers see the church they're in as a 'way-station' for their ongoing spiritual journey rather than the final destination. (This is partly because they're open to upward job mobility, which may require changing location). They're more likely to be loyal to a pastor than to a church or denomination. They're also more tolerant of change, and more comfortable with diversity and ambiguity.
GenX'ers got the best of everything: they've never had to wait for the good things of life, so don't understand 'deferred gratification'. They listen to music privately, and grew up in the first generation that devalued children as having less social and economic value. They finish their education later, marry later, have kids later and enter the job market later (hence the term 'the postponed generation'). They've been even more influenced by television than have the Baby Boomers: but their concern for global issues often tends to be unfocussed, even shallow. They face an almost overwhelming array of options, and tend to be indecisive. Said one: 'We search for a goal, and once it's attained, we realise it has moved farther away'.
So an important question at this point is: should we surrender to the 'I/me/myself' selfishness of the consumer culture? Two excellent books on this are Philip Yancey's Church: Why Bother? and Eugene Peterson's The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends. The point these two books make: 'church is essentially in rebellion against selfishness and is committed to diversity'.
Another contemporary issue: most Christians believe that a society which loses its commitment to certain core moral values, where most 'do what is right in their own eyes' is 'on the skids'. Post-modernism rejects absolute ways of speaking of truth. Post-modernism, as the cliche puts it, is essentially a rejection of 'meta-narratives'. So religion is pushed out of the public arena into the private domain and such relativism can have disastrous consequences. Christians believe that to claim a morality which is purely self-referential is to claim a freedom which ends up as being no freedom at all. If there is no point of reference beyond ourselves, then reason, justice and law become exploitable by the powerful and the influential, and the weak have nothing left to appeal to. If we have no word for sin we shall soon find we have no words left to describe responsibility. As the ancient Roman adage puts it: 'What are laws without morals?'
An Indian pastor was excited he was about his up-coming marriage. A Western missionary asked a few questions about the bride-to-be and it soon became evident that the young fellow had not yet even met the woman to whom he was betrothed. It was an arranged marriage. With as much cultural sensitivity as possible, the missionary asked how did they know if they loved each other? The Indian pastor's response: 'We will learn to love each other.'
The Church, whether we like it or not, is like an arranged marriage! We don't determine who is or is not part of the Church, God does. We won't get on with everyone. In one sense, when we give our lives to Jesus, we actually don't have any choice in the matter, for we are called to learn to love even those we don't get on with.
Back to pastors: please note that we are not here judging the effectiveness of a pastor's work simply in terms of cleverness or measurable success. I know some faithful 'Jeremiahs' whose congregations have dwindled; there were often factors at work beyond their control. Generally, however, well-led and healthy churches grow, spiritually and numerically. There's a climate of love and expectancy and competence and relevance in them which encourages people to come back again!
So here we will use words like 'effective' and 'faithful' rather than 'successful'.
After listening to hundreds of their stories, I believe the following are the ten characteristics (in my preferred order of importance/significance) of pastors - women and men - who 'make the distance'.
1.. RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
1-1 JESUS OUR MODEL
Christian ministry - of any kind - is simply doing in our world what Jesus did in his. Jesus is our pattern for ministry - to God and for the world. Close communion with the Father was at the heart of all he was and did. As his disciples saw this reality they wanted to be part of it (why don't more people ask us to teach them to pray?). His prayer-life was disciplined and ordered, although he too, was busy. It began with a contemplation of God - 'Our Father' - before moving to human need. He prayed hard before important decisions, like choosing the twelve. His meditation on Scripture gave strength in times of testing, particularly when the devil wanted him to do ministry another way. Time was found for prayer - 40 days, a whole night, very early in the morning. Hurry is the death of prayer. (When did you last take a retreat?) Nowhere did Jesus pray 'to feel good': for him, and for us, the key imperative is obedience.
1-2 SPIRITUAL FORMATION is the process whereby the Word of God is applied by the Spirit of God to the heart and mind of the child of God so that she or he becomes more and more like the Son of God. It's 'growing firm in power with regard to your inner self' (Ephesians 3:16). It's the maturing of the Christian towards union with Christ.
Assumptions of spirituality include
* God is doing something before I know it
* Love and prayer are gifts
* The aim of spiritual formation is not happiness, but love, joy, peace - and courage and hope
* Prayer is friendship with God, a response to his love
* Prayer is subversive: it's an act of defiance against the ultimacy of anything other than God
* We are always beginners in the life of prayer: pray as you can, not as you can't ('to seek to pray is to pray')
1-3 IMAGES OF MINISTRY
The minister - whether pastor or other - serves by introducing persons to Jesus, our only antidote for alienation. Alienation (sin) is the severing of self from self, self from others, self from God; and all these are connected (if I'm alienated from self I won't be OK with others). The opposite of alienation is belonging: the process is called metanoia ('turning' from blaming to owning one's alienation and being 'converted'). Truly 'converted' people are eucharistic, thankful, grateful.
# Wounded Healer: The minister of Christ expects trouble (as Jesus promised) in a world tempting us with clean sorrow and clean joy. The Lord is closer when we are vulnerable, when we stop pretending to be powerful, and admit how wounded we are. Personal spiritual renewal comes only through brokenness, dying (Psalm 51:10-12,17, John 12:20-28). The Christian life begins and continues as a via crucis. We recognise Judas and Peter in ourselves - we're both wicked and weak. And yet, in our despair, when resurrection seems unlikely we hear him in the garden or on the sea-shore, alive, calling us by name. Because we are identified with a dying/risen Christ, our ministry is a 'living reminder' of this oneness. So we will avoid crucifixion-only spiritual masochism or resurrection-only triumphalism. And our pastoral task is to prevent others suffering for the wrong reasons.
# Servant Leader: Ministry is the translation of the Good News into human relationships. It's having authority to empower others to live in the Kingdom. 'Authority' = a firm basis for knowing and acting; 'authorities' maintain their position after knowing/acting have finished, and 'lord' it over others (which is why people who climb institutions often have difficulty maintaining a spiritual life). Jesus, in contrast to the authorities, was a servant, identifying with us in our ordinariness (the Suffering Servant wasn't good-looking, Isaiah 52:13). So ministry has to do with 'the quiet homely joys of humdrum days' (Sangster), the sheer Mondayness of things. Such servanthood is indiscriminate (if I cannot embrace someone, it is because he or she reminds me of some fear in myself). But let us remember: if we live to please people, we become slaves of those people. Instead of one master (Jesus, whose yoke is easy), we end up with numerous Pharaohs who are never satisfied with our performance no matter how much we do. Our servant role is well expressed in Colossians 1:24-29 and Acts 20:28 ('Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.'). As we are called to be servants of the church, we also affirm that the church is not our master - Christ is.
During the installation of a pastor, the congregation is asked two questions phrased something like this: 'And you, people of God, will you receive this messenger of Jesus Christ, sent by God to serve God's people with the Gospel of hope and salvation? Will you regard him/her as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God?'
# The Scholar Teacher (Latin schola = free time): Henri Nouwen (Creative Ministry) contrasts violent and redemptive teaching models. 'Violent' teaching is competitive (knowledge is property to be defended rather than a gift to be shared), unilateral (the teacher is strong/competent, the pupil weak/ ignorant), and alienating (students and teachers belong to different worlds). 'Redemptive' teaching is evocative (drawing out potentials), bilateral (teachers are free to learn from students), actualising (offering alternative life-styles in a violent world).
# Coach/Empowerer. The Protestant Reformation put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people, and just about everybody agrees we now need a new Reformation to put ministry into the hands of the laos - but many/most clergy will resist it. (Why do we persist in using the word 'minister' in the singular?) The clergy are part of the laity, equipping us all towards spiritual growth and maturity (Colossians 1, Ephesians 4). Pastors are the churches' resident spiritual directors (see Eugene Peterson's excellent writings on that subject), theologians (see Elton Trueblood), and prophets (Walter Brueggemann).
1-4 THE SAINT AND THE PHARISEE
In general there are two religious mind-sets - those of the 'saint' and the Pharisee. We all have something of each in us, and the potential to be either. Both may be 'orthodox' theologically, even 'evangelical'. Both pursue 'goodness' but by different means, for different ends. (Pharisees were 'good' people in the worst sense of the word!). Saints (like Jesus) emphasise love and grace, Pharisees law and (their interpretation of) 'truth'. Saints are comfortable with 'doctrine', but for the Pharisee doctrine becomes dogma, law becomes legalism, ritual (the celebration of belonging) becomes ritualism. The saint lives easily with questions, paradox, antinomy, mystery; Pharisees try to be 'wiser than God' and resolve all mysteries into neat formulas: they want answers, now. The saint listens, in solitude and silence; the Pharisee fills the void with sound.
With Jesus, acceptance preceded repentance, with the Pharisees it was the other way around. The saint, like Jesus, says first 'I do not condemn you'. Pharisees find that difficult: they'd prefer 'go and sin no more'. Jesus welcomes sinners; sinners get the impression they're not loved by Pharisees. For the Pharisee, sins of the flesh and 'heresy' are worst, and they are experts on the sins of others. For the saint, sins of the spirit - one's own spirit - are worst. Saints are 'Creation-centred'; Pharisees 'Fall-centred'. The saint's good news begins with 'You are loved'; the Pharisees begin with 'You are a sinner'.
For the Pharisee 'my people' = 'people like me'; for the saint 'my people' = all God's people. Pharisees are insecure (needing 'God-plus' other things); the saints are secure (needing 'God only'). The Pharisees' audience is other people: their kudos provides a measure of security (psychologists call it 'impression management'; Jesus calls it hypocrisy). The saints' only audience is God: their inner and outer persons are congruent.
Pharisees hate prophets ('noisy saints') and their call to social justice; saints love justice. (Saints aren't into writing creeds very much, which is why the two things most important for Jesus - love and justice - don't appear in them).
So saints remind you of Jesus; the Pharisees of the devil (demons are 'orthodox'). Saints see Jesus in every person: they haven't any problem believing we're all made in the image of God (= Jesus) although they're realistic about that image being marred by sin. Saints are spread through all the churches: the closer they are to Jesus, the more accepting they are of others. 'Ambition' for them means 'union with Christ': they call nothing else 'success'. In their prayer they mostly 'listen', 'wait on the Lord'; the Pharisee needs words, words, words. Pharisees have a tendency to complain about many things; for the saints life is 'serendipitous': they have a well-developed theology of gratitude. Pharisees are static, unteachable, believing they have monopoly on the truth; saints are committed to growing. (Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum; the Spirit abhors fullness - particularly of oneself). Jesus was full of grace and truth; Peter says grow in grace and knowledge: Pharisees aren't strong on grace, but for saints 'grace is everywhere'.
The religion of the saints is salugenic, growth-and health-producing; that of the Pharisee is pathogenic. Only one thing is important: to be a saint.
Pastors who have not been cured of their Pharisaism will not last the distance.
Saints appreciate these sentiments (in Rory Noland's song):
Holy Spirit, take control.
Take my body, mind, and soul.
Put a finger on anything
that doesn't please you,
Anything that grieves you.
Holy Spirit, take control.
1-5 SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES
The spiritual life cannot be nurtured without discipline. So make a chapel or oratory somewhere, perhaps a corner of your bedroom, away from interruptions (put the telephone answering machine on), where you do your prayer and Bible/spiritual reading (not 'Bible study' or sermon preparation: that should be done in another place at other times). Daily solitude is not a luxury; it is a necessity for spiritual survival. If we do not have that within us, from beyond us, we yield too much to that around us.
Spiritual wisdom suggests we begin our 'quiet time' with a Bible word, phrase or prayer ('Be still...', 'Maranatha', 'Lord, have mercy on me a sinner'). 'Occupy yourself in it without going further. Do like the bees, who never quit a flower so long as they can extract any honey from it' (Francis de Sales). 'Lectio divina' is the slow, reflective reading of the Bible. Scripture is God's personal word to me - for my 'formation' not just information. I read it reverently, ready to be 'converted' again and again (conversion begins but never ends), willing to be led where I may be reluctant to go, believing that God has yet more light and truth to reveal to me, and to the church. I try to learn to 'meditate on the Word day and night' (Psalm 1:2).
The Daily Office is an excellent structure for daily devotions. Try the Australian Anglican Prayer Book or the Daily Devotions section in the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book. The Daily Office, says (Baptist) Stephen Winward is absolutely scriptural, God-centred, depends on an ordered use of Scripture (including difficult and challenging passages), is corporate, educative (we're in touch with prayer traditions centuries old) and 'obligatory' (even though the discipline is sometimes hard). Of course, as the Protestant Reformers emphasised, it can be mechanical and formal, but it doesn't have to be. 'Few things are needful, or only one' says Jesus to Martha (Luke 10:42 RSV mg.). Be still, and know that he is God. Contemplation is the awareness of who (and where) God is. The intellect and lips are still, and one is open to beauty, goodness, wisdom, gentleness and love - in short, to transcendence. It's the descent of the 'Word' from mind to heart. The most important element in the contemplative life is not knowledge, but love. This is a hard discipline for 'heady' and busy people.
Christian spirituality issues from, and creates Christian community. We have suffered from too much privatised religion ('receiving Jesus as your personal Saviour' is not an expression we got from the Bible). Pastors, too, need to be accountable spiritually to someone. 'Self-made Christianity' is a contradiction. And remember, pastoral ministry is not automatically self- (or spirit-) nurturing. Because you handle holy things doesn't ensure you're a holy person. So we will find a spiritual director, a 'soul friend', someone who helps one respond to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit, listening together to the Lord. The key question in direction is not 'Who am I?' (that's counselling) but 'What happens when I pray?' Spiritual direction is all about following Jesus who taught his disciples to pray. So did the apostles: read the magnificent prayers in Ephesians 1 and 3 and Colossians 1, where Paul spells out how he prays for his friends - obviously modelling a way to pray he would like them to emulate. However, Spiritual Direction is not, in essence, directive (it's the Spirit who directs). We come to God, said Augustine, not by navigation, but by love.
The sacraments are the Lord's specific gifts to his people: the corporate acts par excellence of his church.
Fasting is a good regular or occasional discipline. Fast from food, words, TV, spending money, the telephone, sex, watching sport - whatever will help get ends and means in perspective for a while.
Silence is 'the royal road to spiritual formation' (Nouwen). It is not just the absence of noise, but an opportunity to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit. 'Meditation' is a way for Scripture to be internalised not merely (as in Transcendental Meditation) a technique to 'calm down'.
Journaling is a useful means of recording the promptings of the Spirit in our lives. A spiritual journal is a written response to reality: a record of one's inner and outer life (including dreams), a way to inner growth, reflection and healing.
Prayer cannot be divorced from daily living. Baron Friedrich von Hugel's first suggestion to Evelyn Underhill when he was invited to be her spiritual director: visit the poor in inner-city London two days a week. After all, the Spirit, says an ancient Latin hymn, is pater pauperum, 'father of the poor'.
A final word from Bonhoeffer: 'It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he or she is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world' (Prisoner for God, SCM, 1953, 166).
1-6 THE CALL TO MINISTRY
Here is some classical Christian wisdom on the subject of vocation:
# 'Your motives are mixed. So are mine, for I shall not know this side of death why I became a preacher; and I have no right to assume that all that moved me in the choice was of angel brightness. Sometimes we see how incredibly ravelled are even our best desires.' (George Buttrick, Sermons Preached in a University Church, Abingdon, 1959, p. 109).
# Traditionally, an 'inner' call was dominant when one entered monastic life; but the call to the presbyterate/pastorate needed an 'inner' call confirmed by the church. God always calls people to leadership in the community of Jesus Christ through the community. Calvin taught that there is a 'two-fold' call to pastoral ministry: God calls, but the church must also call. Wesley distinguished between an 'inner' and 'outer' call.
# The call to 'ministry' is a subset of the call to be a child of the living God. The New Testament talks about the 'high calling of God in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 3:14); it is a 'holy calling' (2 Timothy 1:9); and a 'heavenly calling' (Hebrews 3:1).
# Sometimes people wear rose-coloured spectacles when considering a call to pastoral ministry / full-time evangelism / cross-cultural missionary work. Those people are considered fortunate, because they have lots of time to sit around and meditate, without being bothered by the hassles of ordinary living. A mother-of-nine told the evangelist Gypsy Smith that she believed God was calling her to be an evangelist like him. 'Isn't that wonderful!' he responded. 'God has not only called you; he's already provided you with a congregation!' Jesus said to Peter: 'Follow me (leave your home)'. To the Gadarene demoniac (Luke 8:26-39): 'Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.'
# An old church paradigm suggests six 'vocation indicators' - Faith (words and actions that indicate a deep-down commitment to Christ and his Church); Idealism (often expressed through initiatives which promote peace, justice, and strive for a better world); A Search for Greater Meaning (eg. an authentic questioning of current lifestyle); A 'People Person' (either extroverted, or a quieter 'one-to-one' personality); Leadership (ability to draw others to oneself, make decisions and take initiatives); Strength of Character (integrity and a sense of responsibility for one's own actions and decisions).
# God may have to call you more than once before he gets your attention. God had to call Samuel three times before he got the message.
# Sometimes a 'call' will come when we are really discouraged in our work; sometimes when we are successful. Christian wisdom says that usually a 'restlessness' will precede a call to another ministry, but escaping, running away from a tough job to enter pastoral ministry does not augur well for a ministry-future. (Have you heard of the black cotton-picker in the American South who was very tired one scorching day. He looked up to the heavens and said 'O Lord, de sun am so hot, de work am so hard, de cotton am so grassy dat I believe you callin' me to be a preacher!').
Shalom!
Rowland Croucher
July 2002
Note: For A Pastoral Survival Guide [2] visit http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8659.htm
To find more articles in this series, put the words (in double quotes) "A Pastoral Survival Guide" into the website's search facility.
Or increase the numbers in the URLs until you get to the 10th in this series - http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8667.htm
Rowland Croucher
October 2010
~~~
Preface: 'Reverend Joe'
Introduction: Pastoral Challenges Today
1. Relationship with God
2. Family-of-Origin
3. Mentors and Networks
4. Leadership and Interpersonal Skills
5. Home and Marriage
6. Stress Management
7. Problem-Solving
8. The 'Vision Thing'
9. Professional Growth
10. Institutions and Creativity
~~~
REVEREND JOE'S STORY
Reverend Joe (his story is an amalgam of half-a-dozen from my files and my recent memory) was a boilermaker in a factory, but he had a gift with words. One of his elders said he should be a preacher, so he went to Bible College, and served a term as a cross-cultural missionary with an interdenominational organisation. His ministry in Papua New Guinea was 'ordinary' according to the mission-people, and his wife developed some health problems. The doctors suggested that a tropical climate would not be good for her, so the Mission Society asked him to do some 'deputation' - which he did very well. He had only three talks to offer, but that's all he needed as he journeyed around Australia, preaching in evangelical churches every Sunday. The General Superintendent of one of the Baptist Unions heard him speak, and was impressed.
When Joe intimated that he was thinking about entering pastoral ministry, the G.S. said 'I think we can find a place for you' and Joe began the process of theological training with a view to ordination. He struggled to pass his exams, but eventually made it. He then served two rural churches, but both pastorates ended badly. In the first, he 'fronted' a couple of the powerful people, and they virtually drove him out. A second pastorate finished abruptly after a couple of years when he had a breakdown. There was no farewell from either church. When he felt a little better, he asked to be put on the Baptist Union 'list' for another pastorate. The meetings of the 'settlement committee' came and went and Joe's name would come up each time. But there wasn't a 'suitable' church. (One of the members of that committee said to me, 'We have to be efficient, because there's always a lot of business each month. But these names. they're people! This is their vocation, their livelihood, we're talking about. We don't pray for them, or even meet some of them. They're mostly just names. I feel very uneasy about the whole process.')
I met Joe when I preached at the Baptist church he attended. We made a time to talk - at the local McDonald's. He got there early and was waiting for me, with a cup of coffee. (I learned later he found a used styrofoam cup, and asked for a 'refill', as he couldn't admit to me that he was penniless). His wife was supporting them both with some 'agency nursing', but her health was still not good, and she could only do about two shifts a week. After mortgage payments, and other bills, they had about $50 a week for food. He couldn't find a job - and his old trade wasn't a possibility any more.
He told me, in an hour-and-a-half, the 'headlines' of his story. He had a brutal, alcoholic father, and a mother who suffered 'nervous breakdowns' regularly. His childhood was unhappy, and he was a lonely kid. School was always a bad experience, and he left at 15 to work in a factory. A Christian work-mate befriended him, took him to an evangelistic meeting, 'and I was gloriously saved'. His life from then on was focussed on serving God and winning others to Christ.
After a while, I asked him to give me a rough assessment of his missionary and ministry careers. He did some things well, he said, but he couldn't cope with people who 'crossed' him - either by making comments about his beliefs/ preaching, or by challenging his leadership. 'I got into trouble regularly because I would stand up to people. That's the only way I survived as a kid. They're not going to squash me. But I think I made a lot of enemies each place I served.'
We then talked about 'where to from here'. I summarised John Mark Ministries ' research into ex-pastors like him - and me. There are about 41 responses to the question 'Why did you leave parish/ pastoral ministry?' Most leave in a context of conflict - with the powerful people in the church or denomination. But underneath all this there's always a story of 'unfinished family-of-origin' business. His story was not unusual - indeed he's a classic!
He told me he felt 'the Union' had washed its hands of him. He was in the 'dead wood' category that institutional people talk about. 'The G.S. who encouraged me to enter ministry has gone, and no one there now knows me.' The Baptist Union had recently developed a system to encourage the personal and professional growth of its pastors, who now are required to renew their accreditation regularly. Joe felt threatened by all this. 'I'm not a reader, ' he said. 'But I still think I could be useful somewhere in the church.'
INTRODUCTION: PASTORAL CHALLENGES TODAY
Now, what should happen to Joe if he's to realise his potential and make it back into pastoral ministry again? Is he a hopeless case? I personally don't think so, but it will certainly be uphill. Non-tertiary-educated/ Bible college trained ex-missionaries have generally had problems adjusting again. The society they left has moved dramatically in their absence. They often lack the vocational skills to compete on their return and the sending mission societies have often failed to provide for their retraining and economic wellbeing after 'years of sacrificial service'. Even pastors that never went overseas, but were trained in the 1950s/ 1960s, are often similarly disadvantaged.
I meet quite a few pastors still leading churches because they can't think of any alternatives. They're burned out, struggling on, and their churches are suffering.
Then, too, there's another category: pastors who feel they're 'mediocre' in terms of effective leadership, but who do a faithful job. until some powerful people in the church insist on their 'getting their act together better'. Then there's trouble.
Another group is committed to 'church growth', but their people often feel they're pawns in a triumphalistic chess-game. 'Our pastor doesn't listen: he suffers from an edifice complex. We're OK if we bring friends to church, but not if we struggle.'
Some older pastors feel they've passed their 'use by' date. One told me: 'I don't understand all this post-modern stuff. I seem to be preaching about things the educated young people aren't interested in. A university student said to me: "You preach at us. Our teachers encourage us to come to our own conclusions."'
Today it's both easier and harder to be a pastor. Easier, because we have more resources to help us - like the World Wide Web for sermon-material (ever used the search-engine Google as a concordance?), more support-groups to encourage and pray for us, better access to the world's practical theology experts, and a higher standard of living, on average, than pastors have ever enjoyed.
But it's also harder. Many of us can identify with the apostle Paul who said, 'Who is equal to such a task?', about his own call to pastoral ministry. These days the expectations of our people are higher - and more likely to be expressed vigorously. Up-front leaders and speakers compete with dynamic personalities on television. There are more 'religious' people not attending churches (in the West) than ever before in history. Our people are likely to be better-educated - and differently-educated than we are. 'One size fits all' doesn't work any more: people are more mobile, and brand-loyalty doesn't work for Generation X'ers (those born since 1965) - or even Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).
The role of the clergy is by not as clear as it was. Nor is there clear public affirmation of their role in many instances. Most people see no need for religious professionals. And there's a lack of confidence in institutions. Why waste precious time propping up ineffective institutions? Indeed, the very way in which people are approaching spirituality is that community involvement may be helpful at some points in time, but is certainly secondary to the individual spiritual journey.
In the past 40 years I've preached in about 700 churches in Australia, and they're becoming more varied each decade. The single most common question in our 'Marks of a Healthy Church' seminars: how can we cater for old and young with their different tastes in one worship service, particularly in smaller churches? This centres particularly on the issue of modern vs. older music. But then, we've argued about music before: some churches in 17th century England and Scotland forbade all singing, others said we should only sing Psalms. When new hymn-books are produced, there are mixed reactions. (In 1691 when the first Baptist hymn book appeared, many Baptists refused to use it!).
Back to TV: most church-attenders have watched almost 20 hours of television the previous week. Not only is the medium the message, but if communication in church isn't dynamic/interesting (and cognisant of an assumed 45-second attention span), the music excellent, and the themes life-related, people will go elsewhere - even back to the TV. (See Tony Campolo, 1995, chapter 4 'The Television Challenge' for one of the few writers-about-churches to underline the significance of television for churches).
Baby Boomers and GenX'ers have grown up with television - that's why they're less-than-committed to a particular church/denomination. They're part of a consumer culture in which choices/freedoms dominate their lifestyle. They want 'value for money/time' and won't hang around a church that's boring, irrelevant to their questions, or stuck where it was. (Tradition is a good servant, but a very bad master).
Baby Boomers still have a disproportionate influence over our entire society, consuming (in the U.S.) 51% of all the goods and services and comprising 81% of journalists. Again, they don't share at all the 'brand loyalty' of their parents: indeed they scoff at it - hence the decline of denominations that have 'expected loyalty but neglected needs'. Baby Boomers and GenX'ers see the church they're in as a 'way-station' for their ongoing spiritual journey rather than the final destination. (This is partly because they're open to upward job mobility, which may require changing location). They're more likely to be loyal to a pastor than to a church or denomination. They're also more tolerant of change, and more comfortable with diversity and ambiguity.
GenX'ers got the best of everything: they've never had to wait for the good things of life, so don't understand 'deferred gratification'. They listen to music privately, and grew up in the first generation that devalued children as having less social and economic value. They finish their education later, marry later, have kids later and enter the job market later (hence the term 'the postponed generation'). They've been even more influenced by television than have the Baby Boomers: but their concern for global issues often tends to be unfocussed, even shallow. They face an almost overwhelming array of options, and tend to be indecisive. Said one: 'We search for a goal, and once it's attained, we realise it has moved farther away'.
So an important question at this point is: should we surrender to the 'I/me/myself' selfishness of the consumer culture? Two excellent books on this are Philip Yancey's Church: Why Bother? and Eugene Peterson's The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends. The point these two books make: 'church is essentially in rebellion against selfishness and is committed to diversity'.
Another contemporary issue: most Christians believe that a society which loses its commitment to certain core moral values, where most 'do what is right in their own eyes' is 'on the skids'. Post-modernism rejects absolute ways of speaking of truth. Post-modernism, as the cliche puts it, is essentially a rejection of 'meta-narratives'. So religion is pushed out of the public arena into the private domain and such relativism can have disastrous consequences. Christians believe that to claim a morality which is purely self-referential is to claim a freedom which ends up as being no freedom at all. If there is no point of reference beyond ourselves, then reason, justice and law become exploitable by the powerful and the influential, and the weak have nothing left to appeal to. If we have no word for sin we shall soon find we have no words left to describe responsibility. As the ancient Roman adage puts it: 'What are laws without morals?'
An Indian pastor was excited he was about his up-coming marriage. A Western missionary asked a few questions about the bride-to-be and it soon became evident that the young fellow had not yet even met the woman to whom he was betrothed. It was an arranged marriage. With as much cultural sensitivity as possible, the missionary asked how did they know if they loved each other? The Indian pastor's response: 'We will learn to love each other.'
The Church, whether we like it or not, is like an arranged marriage! We don't determine who is or is not part of the Church, God does. We won't get on with everyone. In one sense, when we give our lives to Jesus, we actually don't have any choice in the matter, for we are called to learn to love even those we don't get on with.
Back to pastors: please note that we are not here judging the effectiveness of a pastor's work simply in terms of cleverness or measurable success. I know some faithful 'Jeremiahs' whose congregations have dwindled; there were often factors at work beyond their control. Generally, however, well-led and healthy churches grow, spiritually and numerically. There's a climate of love and expectancy and competence and relevance in them which encourages people to come back again!
So here we will use words like 'effective' and 'faithful' rather than 'successful'.
After listening to hundreds of their stories, I believe the following are the ten characteristics (in my preferred order of importance/significance) of pastors - women and men - who 'make the distance'.
1.. RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
1-1 JESUS OUR MODEL
Christian ministry - of any kind - is simply doing in our world what Jesus did in his. Jesus is our pattern for ministry - to God and for the world. Close communion with the Father was at the heart of all he was and did. As his disciples saw this reality they wanted to be part of it (why don't more people ask us to teach them to pray?). His prayer-life was disciplined and ordered, although he too, was busy. It began with a contemplation of God - 'Our Father' - before moving to human need. He prayed hard before important decisions, like choosing the twelve. His meditation on Scripture gave strength in times of testing, particularly when the devil wanted him to do ministry another way. Time was found for prayer - 40 days, a whole night, very early in the morning. Hurry is the death of prayer. (When did you last take a retreat?) Nowhere did Jesus pray 'to feel good': for him, and for us, the key imperative is obedience.
1-2 SPIRITUAL FORMATION is the process whereby the Word of God is applied by the Spirit of God to the heart and mind of the child of God so that she or he becomes more and more like the Son of God. It's 'growing firm in power with regard to your inner self' (Ephesians 3:16). It's the maturing of the Christian towards union with Christ.
Assumptions of spirituality include
* God is doing something before I know it
* Love and prayer are gifts
* The aim of spiritual formation is not happiness, but love, joy, peace - and courage and hope
* Prayer is friendship with God, a response to his love
* Prayer is subversive: it's an act of defiance against the ultimacy of anything other than God
* We are always beginners in the life of prayer: pray as you can, not as you can't ('to seek to pray is to pray')
1-3 IMAGES OF MINISTRY
The minister - whether pastor or other - serves by introducing persons to Jesus, our only antidote for alienation. Alienation (sin) is the severing of self from self, self from others, self from God; and all these are connected (if I'm alienated from self I won't be OK with others). The opposite of alienation is belonging: the process is called metanoia ('turning' from blaming to owning one's alienation and being 'converted'). Truly 'converted' people are eucharistic, thankful, grateful.
# Wounded Healer: The minister of Christ expects trouble (as Jesus promised) in a world tempting us with clean sorrow and clean joy. The Lord is closer when we are vulnerable, when we stop pretending to be powerful, and admit how wounded we are. Personal spiritual renewal comes only through brokenness, dying (Psalm 51:10-12,17, John 12:20-28). The Christian life begins and continues as a via crucis. We recognise Judas and Peter in ourselves - we're both wicked and weak. And yet, in our despair, when resurrection seems unlikely we hear him in the garden or on the sea-shore, alive, calling us by name. Because we are identified with a dying/risen Christ, our ministry is a 'living reminder' of this oneness. So we will avoid crucifixion-only spiritual masochism or resurrection-only triumphalism. And our pastoral task is to prevent others suffering for the wrong reasons.
# Servant Leader: Ministry is the translation of the Good News into human relationships. It's having authority to empower others to live in the Kingdom. 'Authority' = a firm basis for knowing and acting; 'authorities' maintain their position after knowing/acting have finished, and 'lord' it over others (which is why people who climb institutions often have difficulty maintaining a spiritual life). Jesus, in contrast to the authorities, was a servant, identifying with us in our ordinariness (the Suffering Servant wasn't good-looking, Isaiah 52:13). So ministry has to do with 'the quiet homely joys of humdrum days' (Sangster), the sheer Mondayness of things. Such servanthood is indiscriminate (if I cannot embrace someone, it is because he or she reminds me of some fear in myself). But let us remember: if we live to please people, we become slaves of those people. Instead of one master (Jesus, whose yoke is easy), we end up with numerous Pharaohs who are never satisfied with our performance no matter how much we do. Our servant role is well expressed in Colossians 1:24-29 and Acts 20:28 ('Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.'). As we are called to be servants of the church, we also affirm that the church is not our master - Christ is.
During the installation of a pastor, the congregation is asked two questions phrased something like this: 'And you, people of God, will you receive this messenger of Jesus Christ, sent by God to serve God's people with the Gospel of hope and salvation? Will you regard him/her as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God?'
# The Scholar Teacher (Latin schola = free time): Henri Nouwen (Creative Ministry) contrasts violent and redemptive teaching models. 'Violent' teaching is competitive (knowledge is property to be defended rather than a gift to be shared), unilateral (the teacher is strong/competent, the pupil weak/ ignorant), and alienating (students and teachers belong to different worlds). 'Redemptive' teaching is evocative (drawing out potentials), bilateral (teachers are free to learn from students), actualising (offering alternative life-styles in a violent world).
# Coach/Empowerer. The Protestant Reformation put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people, and just about everybody agrees we now need a new Reformation to put ministry into the hands of the laos - but many/most clergy will resist it. (Why do we persist in using the word 'minister' in the singular?) The clergy are part of the laity, equipping us all towards spiritual growth and maturity (Colossians 1, Ephesians 4). Pastors are the churches' resident spiritual directors (see Eugene Peterson's excellent writings on that subject), theologians (see Elton Trueblood), and prophets (Walter Brueggemann).
1-4 THE SAINT AND THE PHARISEE
In general there are two religious mind-sets - those of the 'saint' and the Pharisee. We all have something of each in us, and the potential to be either. Both may be 'orthodox' theologically, even 'evangelical'. Both pursue 'goodness' but by different means, for different ends. (Pharisees were 'good' people in the worst sense of the word!). Saints (like Jesus) emphasise love and grace, Pharisees law and (their interpretation of) 'truth'. Saints are comfortable with 'doctrine', but for the Pharisee doctrine becomes dogma, law becomes legalism, ritual (the celebration of belonging) becomes ritualism. The saint lives easily with questions, paradox, antinomy, mystery; Pharisees try to be 'wiser than God' and resolve all mysteries into neat formulas: they want answers, now. The saint listens, in solitude and silence; the Pharisee fills the void with sound.
With Jesus, acceptance preceded repentance, with the Pharisees it was the other way around. The saint, like Jesus, says first 'I do not condemn you'. Pharisees find that difficult: they'd prefer 'go and sin no more'. Jesus welcomes sinners; sinners get the impression they're not loved by Pharisees. For the Pharisee, sins of the flesh and 'heresy' are worst, and they are experts on the sins of others. For the saint, sins of the spirit - one's own spirit - are worst. Saints are 'Creation-centred'; Pharisees 'Fall-centred'. The saint's good news begins with 'You are loved'; the Pharisees begin with 'You are a sinner'.
For the Pharisee 'my people' = 'people like me'; for the saint 'my people' = all God's people. Pharisees are insecure (needing 'God-plus' other things); the saints are secure (needing 'God only'). The Pharisees' audience is other people: their kudos provides a measure of security (psychologists call it 'impression management'; Jesus calls it hypocrisy). The saints' only audience is God: their inner and outer persons are congruent.
Pharisees hate prophets ('noisy saints') and their call to social justice; saints love justice. (Saints aren't into writing creeds very much, which is why the two things most important for Jesus - love and justice - don't appear in them).
So saints remind you of Jesus; the Pharisees of the devil (demons are 'orthodox'). Saints see Jesus in every person: they haven't any problem believing we're all made in the image of God (= Jesus) although they're realistic about that image being marred by sin. Saints are spread through all the churches: the closer they are to Jesus, the more accepting they are of others. 'Ambition' for them means 'union with Christ': they call nothing else 'success'. In their prayer they mostly 'listen', 'wait on the Lord'; the Pharisee needs words, words, words. Pharisees have a tendency to complain about many things; for the saints life is 'serendipitous': they have a well-developed theology of gratitude. Pharisees are static, unteachable, believing they have monopoly on the truth; saints are committed to growing. (Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum; the Spirit abhors fullness - particularly of oneself). Jesus was full of grace and truth; Peter says grow in grace and knowledge: Pharisees aren't strong on grace, but for saints 'grace is everywhere'.
The religion of the saints is salugenic, growth-and health-producing; that of the Pharisee is pathogenic. Only one thing is important: to be a saint.
Pastors who have not been cured of their Pharisaism will not last the distance.
Saints appreciate these sentiments (in Rory Noland's song):
Holy Spirit, take control.
Take my body, mind, and soul.
Put a finger on anything
that doesn't please you,
Anything that grieves you.
Holy Spirit, take control.
1-5 SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES
The spiritual life cannot be nurtured without discipline. So make a chapel or oratory somewhere, perhaps a corner of your bedroom, away from interruptions (put the telephone answering machine on), where you do your prayer and Bible/spiritual reading (not 'Bible study' or sermon preparation: that should be done in another place at other times). Daily solitude is not a luxury; it is a necessity for spiritual survival. If we do not have that within us, from beyond us, we yield too much to that around us.
Spiritual wisdom suggests we begin our 'quiet time' with a Bible word, phrase or prayer ('Be still...', 'Maranatha', 'Lord, have mercy on me a sinner'). 'Occupy yourself in it without going further. Do like the bees, who never quit a flower so long as they can extract any honey from it' (Francis de Sales). 'Lectio divina' is the slow, reflective reading of the Bible. Scripture is God's personal word to me - for my 'formation' not just information. I read it reverently, ready to be 'converted' again and again (conversion begins but never ends), willing to be led where I may be reluctant to go, believing that God has yet more light and truth to reveal to me, and to the church. I try to learn to 'meditate on the Word day and night' (Psalm 1:2).
The Daily Office is an excellent structure for daily devotions. Try the Australian Anglican Prayer Book or the Daily Devotions section in the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book. The Daily Office, says (Baptist) Stephen Winward is absolutely scriptural, God-centred, depends on an ordered use of Scripture (including difficult and challenging passages), is corporate, educative (we're in touch with prayer traditions centuries old) and 'obligatory' (even though the discipline is sometimes hard). Of course, as the Protestant Reformers emphasised, it can be mechanical and formal, but it doesn't have to be. 'Few things are needful, or only one' says Jesus to Martha (Luke 10:42 RSV mg.). Be still, and know that he is God. Contemplation is the awareness of who (and where) God is. The intellect and lips are still, and one is open to beauty, goodness, wisdom, gentleness and love - in short, to transcendence. It's the descent of the 'Word' from mind to heart. The most important element in the contemplative life is not knowledge, but love. This is a hard discipline for 'heady' and busy people.
Christian spirituality issues from, and creates Christian community. We have suffered from too much privatised religion ('receiving Jesus as your personal Saviour' is not an expression we got from the Bible). Pastors, too, need to be accountable spiritually to someone. 'Self-made Christianity' is a contradiction. And remember, pastoral ministry is not automatically self- (or spirit-) nurturing. Because you handle holy things doesn't ensure you're a holy person. So we will find a spiritual director, a 'soul friend', someone who helps one respond to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit, listening together to the Lord. The key question in direction is not 'Who am I?' (that's counselling) but 'What happens when I pray?' Spiritual direction is all about following Jesus who taught his disciples to pray. So did the apostles: read the magnificent prayers in Ephesians 1 and 3 and Colossians 1, where Paul spells out how he prays for his friends - obviously modelling a way to pray he would like them to emulate. However, Spiritual Direction is not, in essence, directive (it's the Spirit who directs). We come to God, said Augustine, not by navigation, but by love.
The sacraments are the Lord's specific gifts to his people: the corporate acts par excellence of his church.
Fasting is a good regular or occasional discipline. Fast from food, words, TV, spending money, the telephone, sex, watching sport - whatever will help get ends and means in perspective for a while.
Silence is 'the royal road to spiritual formation' (Nouwen). It is not just the absence of noise, but an opportunity to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit. 'Meditation' is a way for Scripture to be internalised not merely (as in Transcendental Meditation) a technique to 'calm down'.
Journaling is a useful means of recording the promptings of the Spirit in our lives. A spiritual journal is a written response to reality: a record of one's inner and outer life (including dreams), a way to inner growth, reflection and healing.
Prayer cannot be divorced from daily living. Baron Friedrich von Hugel's first suggestion to Evelyn Underhill when he was invited to be her spiritual director: visit the poor in inner-city London two days a week. After all, the Spirit, says an ancient Latin hymn, is pater pauperum, 'father of the poor'.
A final word from Bonhoeffer: 'It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he or she is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world' (Prisoner for God, SCM, 1953, 166).
1-6 THE CALL TO MINISTRY
Here is some classical Christian wisdom on the subject of vocation:
# 'Your motives are mixed. So are mine, for I shall not know this side of death why I became a preacher; and I have no right to assume that all that moved me in the choice was of angel brightness. Sometimes we see how incredibly ravelled are even our best desires.' (George Buttrick, Sermons Preached in a University Church, Abingdon, 1959, p. 109).
# Traditionally, an 'inner' call was dominant when one entered monastic life; but the call to the presbyterate/pastorate needed an 'inner' call confirmed by the church. God always calls people to leadership in the community of Jesus Christ through the community. Calvin taught that there is a 'two-fold' call to pastoral ministry: God calls, but the church must also call. Wesley distinguished between an 'inner' and 'outer' call.
# The call to 'ministry' is a subset of the call to be a child of the living God. The New Testament talks about the 'high calling of God in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 3:14); it is a 'holy calling' (2 Timothy 1:9); and a 'heavenly calling' (Hebrews 3:1).
# Sometimes people wear rose-coloured spectacles when considering a call to pastoral ministry / full-time evangelism / cross-cultural missionary work. Those people are considered fortunate, because they have lots of time to sit around and meditate, without being bothered by the hassles of ordinary living. A mother-of-nine told the evangelist Gypsy Smith that she believed God was calling her to be an evangelist like him. 'Isn't that wonderful!' he responded. 'God has not only called you; he's already provided you with a congregation!' Jesus said to Peter: 'Follow me (leave your home)'. To the Gadarene demoniac (Luke 8:26-39): 'Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.'
# An old church paradigm suggests six 'vocation indicators' - Faith (words and actions that indicate a deep-down commitment to Christ and his Church); Idealism (often expressed through initiatives which promote peace, justice, and strive for a better world); A Search for Greater Meaning (eg. an authentic questioning of current lifestyle); A 'People Person' (either extroverted, or a quieter 'one-to-one' personality); Leadership (ability to draw others to oneself, make decisions and take initiatives); Strength of Character (integrity and a sense of responsibility for one's own actions and decisions).
# God may have to call you more than once before he gets your attention. God had to call Samuel three times before he got the message.
# Sometimes a 'call' will come when we are really discouraged in our work; sometimes when we are successful. Christian wisdom says that usually a 'restlessness' will precede a call to another ministry, but escaping, running away from a tough job to enter pastoral ministry does not augur well for a ministry-future. (Have you heard of the black cotton-picker in the American South who was very tired one scorching day. He looked up to the heavens and said 'O Lord, de sun am so hot, de work am so hard, de cotton am so grassy dat I believe you callin' me to be a preacher!').
Shalom!
Rowland Croucher
July 2002
Note: For A Pastoral Survival Guide [2] visit http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8659.htm
To find more articles in this series, put the words (in double quotes) "A Pastoral Survival Guide" into the website's search facility.
Or increase the numbers in the URLs until you get to the 10th in this series - http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8667.htm
Rowland Croucher
October 2010
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