don furnaloni

a word of wisdom to pastors (and missionaries)

Bishop William H. Willimon describes a common bump in the road as ministers move from seminary (you could read bible college) to their first parish (you could read ministry):

“too much theological training … places the modern reader above the texts of the church and assumes a privileged, detached and superior position to the church’s historic faith. The academic guild trains pastors to stand in judgment of the texts. This sets up the pastors for a jolt when they find themselves in the role of the ordained one who leads the church not in detached criticism of the texts, but rather in faithful embodiment of them. Pastors are ordained to communicate that scripture and convey their tradition compellingly and faithfully to their congregations, not primarily so that the congregations can think through the tradition, but so that they can incarnate Christian truth in their discipleship. Pastors are not free to rummage about in the recesses of their own egos, nor are they free to consult extraecclesial texts until they’ve done business wiht scripture itself.”

For those who are inclined to receive advice from Bishop Willimon, he offers seven nuggets of wisdom:

1.  Learn to speak and teach scripture. Laity sometimes complain that their young pastor uses “religious” words like spiritual practice, liberation, empowerment, intentional community … which no one understands and no one recalls having encountered in scripture. We are ordained to lovingly cultivate and actively use the Bible’s language.

2.  Learn to appreciate the thought and speech of people who are outside of the restrictions imposed by the academy. The difference between the thought of the laity in your first parish and that of your friends back in seminary is not so much the difference between ignorance and intelligence as it is a difference in ways of thinking.

3. If you have difficulty making the transition from seminary to parish, remember who you are: the point of studying and examining the Christian faith is that you embody that faith. The point is not to devise something that the modern world finds interesting but rather to rock that world with the church’s demonstration that Jesus Christ is Lord. At times your memory of questions raised and arguments engaged in seminary may distract you from the church’s mission and purpose.

4.  On the other hand, remember that the church has a tendecy to bed down with mediocrity, to accept the status quo and to let itself off the theological hook too easily. At its best, theology can and should make Christian discipleship difficult. An accomodated, compromised church reassures itself that “all that academic, intellectual, theological stuff is bunk and irrelevant to the way the church really is.” Criticism of the church ought to be part of the ongoing mission of a faithful church that takes Jesus seriously. I pray that your theological education has made you permanently restless with the church as it is, and eager to look for the church that is to be.

5.  Theology tends to be wasted on the young. It’s only when you run into a complete parochial dead end, when you are fed up with the people of God (and maybe even God too), that you will need to know how to have a good conversation with some saint in order to make it through the night. Your winning smile, pleasing personality or winsome way with people will not be enough to sustain you as you work with Jesus, preaching the Word, nurturing the flock, looking for the lost. Only God can sustain you, and God does that through the prayerful, intense reading and reflection that you began in seminary. When you’re in a small church alone, with total responsibility on your shoulders and a weekly treadmill of sermons and pastoral care, there is little time to read and reflect. Ministry has a way of coming at you, of jerking you around from here to there. You will be tempted to take short cuts and borrow from others what ought to be developed in the workshop of your own soul. Take charge of your time, prioritize your work and don’t neglect the essentials while you are doing the merely important.

6.  Try to ignore your parishioners when they attempt to use you to weasel out of the claims of Christ. “When you are older, you will understand,” they told me as a young pastor. “You’re still full of all that theological stuff from seminary. Eventually, you’ll learn,” said older, cynical pastors. (Now it’s, “Because you are a bishop, you don’t really understand that it’s unrealistic to…”) God has called you to preach and to live the gospel before them. Be suspicious when you’re encouraged to settle in and make peace with the “real world.” There is much that passes for “the way things are” in the average church that makes Jesus want to grab a whip and clean house.

7.  Get some good mentors. Ministry is an art, a craft, and one learns a craft by looking over the shoulder of a master, watching the moves, learning by example, developing a critical approach that constantly evaluates and gains new skills. There is something built into the practice of Christian ministry that requires apprenticeship, from Paul mentoring young Timothy to Ambrose guiding the willful Augustine. In my experience, one of the most revealing questions that I can ask a new pastor is, “Who are your models for ministry? Whose example are you following?”