The pastor of a local church is required to fill many roles. His specific tasks are best understood through the filter of his overall calling: to shepherd God’s people under Christ. For many churches this role has changed significantly during the last 50 years. As many churches think and act more like businesses than a Body, many pastors think and act more like CEO’s than shepherds.

In The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson provides a helpful word of rebuke and challenge to these pastors and churches. Written 20 years ago, he offers three adjectives that should describe pastors.

First, a pastor must be unbusy. Modern ministry leads many to think the busy pastor is the best pastor. However, through discipline he must devote appropriate time to prayer and study so that when people need him, he is available.

“How can [a pastor] persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if [he has] to juggle [his] schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?” (17).

Second, a pastor must be subversive. Our calling is not to glory or fame. Too often pastors dedicate themselves to those tasks that produce immediate, measurable results. However, Christian ministry, at least the way Jesus modeled it, is built on personal investment in individuals that often produces slow, steady, maturation. For too many pastors, the goal is not to shepherd people toward maturity, but to garner acclaim.

“[A pastor is] undermining the kingdom of self and establishing the kingdom of God. [He is] being subversive” (27).

Third, a pastor must be apocalyptic. He must exhibit a healthy preoccupation with eternity. This mindset does not lead him to ignore the present, but to lead people in the present with a view of eternity. The people in our churches are living for today because our pastors fail to point them to eternity.

“With the vastness of the heavenly invasion and the urgency of the faith decision rolling into our consciousness like thunder and lightning, we cannot stand around on Sunday morning filling the time with pretentious small talk on how bad the world is or how wonderful this new stewardship campaign is going to be” (39).

Pastors, do these three words describe your ministry?

Churches, do you encourage your pastors toward this type of ministry?

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Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, Eardmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 1989.