What is a pastor's primary work?
In the epilogue of the 20th anniversary edition of A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, author Eugene Peterson summarizes the guiding principles of his work as a pastor:
The first conviction was that everything in the gospel is livable and that my pastoral task was to get it lived....
The second conviction was that my primary pastoral work had to do with Scripture and prayer. I was neither capable nor competent to form Christ in another person, to shape a life of discipleship in man, woman or child. That is supernatural work, and I am not supernatural. Mine was the more modest work of Scripture and prayer--helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures and then joining them in answering God as personally and honestly as we could in lives of prayer. This turned out to be slow work. From time to time, impatient with the slowness, I would try out ways of going about my work that promised quicker results. But after a while it always seemed to be more like meddling in these people's lives than helping them attend to God.
Slow work indeed. There is definitely a lust in evangelical Christianity (and if I'm honest, in myself) for the magic program that will grow disciples and a bigger church with a nicer building and bigger budget and more ways to help more people. But I think Peterson is on to something here. The work of pastoring must be done in a way that is grounded in, and continually returns to, Scripture and prayer.
There will always be good ideas that are new and can help a church to be more effective, but if the focus of my ministry ever leaves the foundation of Scripture and prayer it will become irrelevant in the long run.
The first conviction was that everything in the gospel is livable and that my pastoral task was to get it lived....
The second conviction was that my primary pastoral work had to do with Scripture and prayer. I was neither capable nor competent to form Christ in another person, to shape a life of discipleship in man, woman or child. That is supernatural work, and I am not supernatural. Mine was the more modest work of Scripture and prayer--helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures and then joining them in answering God as personally and honestly as we could in lives of prayer. This turned out to be slow work. From time to time, impatient with the slowness, I would try out ways of going about my work that promised quicker results. But after a while it always seemed to be more like meddling in these people's lives than helping them attend to God.
Slow work indeed. There is definitely a lust in evangelical Christianity (and if I'm honest, in myself) for the magic program that will grow disciples and a bigger church with a nicer building and bigger budget and more ways to help more people. But I think Peterson is on to something here. The work of pastoring must be done in a way that is grounded in, and continually returns to, Scripture and prayer.
There will always be good ideas that are new and can help a church to be more effective, but if the focus of my ministry ever leaves the foundation of Scripture and prayer it will become irrelevant in the long run.
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