The Pastor

Most church job descriptions are more lengthy than brief. Rarely can a single skill set accomplish all of the tasks necessary in a pastor’s week. Only a real renaissance personality can shift from office administration, budget needs, counseling sessions, and team organization, into shepherding, soul tending, and spiritual formation. Add this to a dynamic weekly sermon series and you have quite the personality. Being a pastor is a job that requires a certain personality type, and part of that personality needs to love the job of being a pastor.

Having said this, you might not expect that after five years of vocational ministry I would want to lengthen my job description. Maybe we can allocate 10% of my current salary to the moonlighting job I do in the office each week and reconsider the other 90% to “an exploration in holiness.” Let’s face it, who gets paid to be holy? Among a myriad of other pastoral tasks, as proposed in Peterson’s book, why not consider making this the priority? I’d like to suggest we make Eugene Peterson’s book, Under the Unpredictable Plant, a 197-page job description.

How quickly will I be frustrated by my own proposal? Though I’d like to think not, the answer would be quite eminent. You see, I suffer from a closet addiction to ecclesiastical pornography. Just recently, as we wrestle through the sudden growth in our children’s ministry, I find myself willing to give up my office space for an expanding nursery. Is this because I want to see families spiritually developing in our congregation, or because I’m caught up in the novelty of needing more space for more people? In a church growth atmosphere, the excitement and momentum of new attendance can easily become overwhelming. The American Religious Ship could easily be departing from the harbor. How can we be sure to jump ship before we find ourselves lost at sea? Has anyone even asked me if I’m spending time praying for each of these families on a daily (let alone weekly) basis?

I really could care less about my office. It’s six in one, half dozen in the other… I really don’t even like being in my office. Not having an office kind of relinquishes that demand. What is important to me, however, is that I am spending time each week nurturing a community of people who are spiritually responsive to the call of holiness in their lives. I need to trust that if I’m doing my job, others will be doing theirs. I suppose that in saying this, I can also trust that if I’m heading for Tarshish, others will be doing the same.