Keeping the Main Pastoral Thing; The Main Pastoral Thing!

The past couple weeks have been, um, well challenging for me.  Lot's going on in so many fronts that even a organization freak like me can't hope to keep up.  I read The Tyranny of the Ugent in college and have since sought to invest in the most important things; not just the one's that screamed the loudest.  But I've learned that sometimes, like the last few weeks, even important things have to get dropped because there are too many of them for one sinner to handle.  So how should pastor's prioritize what are at the top of the list of not just urgent, but critically important things?  

Enter my long-time friend, Eugene Peterson.  Well, OK, he doesn't know he's my friend, and technically we've never talked or even been in the same room, but (cue whiny voice... and sarcasm) "I just feel like I know him soooooo well and he know's me sooooo well."  OK, maybe we're not freinds, but he sure has helped me along the way to become a more Christ-centered shepherd of the sheep.  He's helped me also with my recent Tyranny of the Important (revised and updated edition!).  Here's what he says about a pastor's priorities regardless of what providence throws at you:

“We need to help in keeping our beliefs sharp and accurate and intact.  We don’t trust ourselves; our emotions seduce us into infidelities.  We know we are launched on a difficult and dangerous act of faith, and there are strong influences intent on diluting or destroying it.  We want you to give us help.  Be our pastor, a minister of Word and sacrament in the middle of this world’s life.  Minister with Word and sacrament in all the different parts and stages of our lives—in our work and play, with our children and our parents, at birth and death, in our celebrations and sorrows, on those days when morning breaks over us in a wash of sunshine, and those other days that are all drizzle.  This isn’t the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task.  We will find someone else to do the other important and essential tasks.  This is yours: Word and sacrament.”

“One more thing: We are going to ordain you to this ministry, and we want your vow that you will stick to it.  This is not a temporary job assignment but a way of life that we need lived our in our community.  We know you are launched on the same difficult belief venture in the same dangerous world as we are.  We know your emotions are as fickle as ours, and your mind is as tricky as ours.  That is why we are going to ordain you and why we are going to exact a vow  We know there will be days and months, maybe even years, when we won’t feel like believing anything and won’t want to hear it from you.  And we know there will be days and weeks and maybe even years when you won’t feel like saying it.  It doesn’t matter.  Do it.  You are ordained to this ministry, vowed to it.” from you.

“There may be times when we come to you as a committee or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling your now.  Promise right now that you won’t give in to what we demand of you.  You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time-conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularized hopes for something better.  With these vows of ordination we are lashing you fast to the mast Word and sacrament so you will be unable to respond to the siren voices.”

“There are many other things to be done in this wrecked world, and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don’t know the foundational realities with which we are dealing—God, kingdom, gospel—we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives.  Your talk is to keep telling the basic story, representing the present of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation.”

That, or something very much like that, is what I understand the church to say—even when the people cannot articulate it—to the individuals it ordains to be its pastors."  Contemplative Pastor, p. 138-139.

OK then!   If you want to know how to pray for me, or any other pastor- especially at times of real difficulty, this would be a great guide!