Being a pastor
25/04/16 05:13
Although it was 42 years ago, I remember the first day of the first class of seminary. I had recently graduated from college at the top of my class and was proud of my new degree and my proven ability to succeed in academia. We had completed our first year of married life and I was feeling at home in a joyful relationship. We had successfully navigated a move from Montana to Chicago on our own. We had earned significant fellowships for graduate theological education and I was confident that we could negotiate the expenses of urban living and full time study. I also had a clear path in my mind. I intended to study hard for a few years, earn my degree and when completed we would move back to our home state and begin serving as ministers in one of the churches there. We’d probably start out in a small town, and though I was enjoying our brief sojourn into urban living, I knew that I’d be just fine in a small town.
In that first class session, we sat in a circle of chairs and one by one we were to introduce ourselves and speak of what brought us to seminary and what we hoped to get out of our time there. I was eager to share, but listened as the others spoke. There was a student who wanted to become an academic and teach religion. Another had started down the road toward a career in engineering and discovered that it wasn’t yielding joy and wanted to switch directions. Another was emerging from a painful breakup and was seeking to get to know new people in different ways. There was a student who was passionate about working for social justice and felt that a seminary education would boost effectiveness for the struggle. Several were interested in becoming counselors and using their skills to help troubled people. A couple told of hard and challenging travels from distant countries in pursuit of obtaining an American education.
Afterwards a handful of us gathered in one of the tiny seminary apartments for a cup of tea at the end of the day. I asked rhetorically, “Doesn’t anyone else want to just be a minister in a church?”
Of course, God works through our many different callings with grace and direction and now, looking back, I can see that many of my classmates have given long and faithful service to the church. Not all of us, however, did end up dedicating our life to the ministry. There is a colleague who later became a lawyer. There are several who have served much of their careers in secular organizations. Some have gone into church administration, serving in Conference and national church settings. One colleague went into military chaplaincy and earned an early retirement. I think that those of us who have served in local congregations for all of our careers are the minority.
Throughout my career I have had plenty of contact with those who consider themselves to be experts on the Christian ministry who have found ways to work in other settings. A successful writer who received the bulk of his income from the proceeds of his books and from his speaking engagements traveled around the United States and internationally proclaiming the results of his extensive studies of the church. He was full of advice, most of it good, about changes in practice for ministers and trends for churches of various sizes. He was considered by many church leaders to be the leading expert in small church ministry. At the time I had been serving a 42 member congregation and a 160 member congregation for more than 5 years in a rural and isolate corner of North Dakota. I noted that by serving two churches at once, I had accumulated some experience in leading small congregations. The “expert,” I would remind people, had never actually served a small congregation.
There have been plenty of other experts over the years. There are dozens of companies who employ those with theological training to serve as consultants. Some of those firms specialize in fund-raising, others in institutional organization. There are building consultants, program experts, and folks who sell different products to churches. Hymnbooks, educational curricula, Bible study books, small group resources, video series and more are all available from these various companies. There are a lot of people who are promoting various financial investment and retirement savings schemes for ministers and who, for a small commission will manage our funds. There seems to be no shortage of people who claim to love the church who can’t imagine actually working for a church.
I am struck by how many people there are who claim to be in love with the church and who have found jobs which involve very little commitment to actual congregations. I’m known to often ask rhetorically whether or not these people even attend church.
I have been continuously employed by local congregations of the church since the beginning of my senior year in college. The church has not been my only employer in my adult life, however. I’ve worked other jobs because of a need to supplement my church salary to support my family. I’ve driven school bus, been a radio DJ, done page layout for a weekly newspaper, been a free lance writer of Church resources, served as an educational consultant, and done a variety of other jobs. The focus of my life and the core of my experience, however, has been working in congregations and serving them as they pursue their ministries.
I am among the lucky ones. I had a sense of how I wanted to invest my life and I’ve been able to do so. My career has, however, been filled with surprises and unexpected turns. There have been a couple of times when I believed that God was calling me to serve the church in a different setting when no call existed. There have been a few efforts at being called to positions that were for others. Still, for a guy who wanted to be a minister, I have been blessed to be a minister. I got my wish and I know it was the right thing for me.
I pray that those whose careers led them to other places have found some of the joy and satisfaction that I have known. It is a good life to be a pastor.
In that first class session, we sat in a circle of chairs and one by one we were to introduce ourselves and speak of what brought us to seminary and what we hoped to get out of our time there. I was eager to share, but listened as the others spoke. There was a student who wanted to become an academic and teach religion. Another had started down the road toward a career in engineering and discovered that it wasn’t yielding joy and wanted to switch directions. Another was emerging from a painful breakup and was seeking to get to know new people in different ways. There was a student who was passionate about working for social justice and felt that a seminary education would boost effectiveness for the struggle. Several were interested in becoming counselors and using their skills to help troubled people. A couple told of hard and challenging travels from distant countries in pursuit of obtaining an American education.
Afterwards a handful of us gathered in one of the tiny seminary apartments for a cup of tea at the end of the day. I asked rhetorically, “Doesn’t anyone else want to just be a minister in a church?”
Of course, God works through our many different callings with grace and direction and now, looking back, I can see that many of my classmates have given long and faithful service to the church. Not all of us, however, did end up dedicating our life to the ministry. There is a colleague who later became a lawyer. There are several who have served much of their careers in secular organizations. Some have gone into church administration, serving in Conference and national church settings. One colleague went into military chaplaincy and earned an early retirement. I think that those of us who have served in local congregations for all of our careers are the minority.
Throughout my career I have had plenty of contact with those who consider themselves to be experts on the Christian ministry who have found ways to work in other settings. A successful writer who received the bulk of his income from the proceeds of his books and from his speaking engagements traveled around the United States and internationally proclaiming the results of his extensive studies of the church. He was full of advice, most of it good, about changes in practice for ministers and trends for churches of various sizes. He was considered by many church leaders to be the leading expert in small church ministry. At the time I had been serving a 42 member congregation and a 160 member congregation for more than 5 years in a rural and isolate corner of North Dakota. I noted that by serving two churches at once, I had accumulated some experience in leading small congregations. The “expert,” I would remind people, had never actually served a small congregation.
There have been plenty of other experts over the years. There are dozens of companies who employ those with theological training to serve as consultants. Some of those firms specialize in fund-raising, others in institutional organization. There are building consultants, program experts, and folks who sell different products to churches. Hymnbooks, educational curricula, Bible study books, small group resources, video series and more are all available from these various companies. There are a lot of people who are promoting various financial investment and retirement savings schemes for ministers and who, for a small commission will manage our funds. There seems to be no shortage of people who claim to love the church who can’t imagine actually working for a church.
I am struck by how many people there are who claim to be in love with the church and who have found jobs which involve very little commitment to actual congregations. I’m known to often ask rhetorically whether or not these people even attend church.
I have been continuously employed by local congregations of the church since the beginning of my senior year in college. The church has not been my only employer in my adult life, however. I’ve worked other jobs because of a need to supplement my church salary to support my family. I’ve driven school bus, been a radio DJ, done page layout for a weekly newspaper, been a free lance writer of Church resources, served as an educational consultant, and done a variety of other jobs. The focus of my life and the core of my experience, however, has been working in congregations and serving them as they pursue their ministries.
I am among the lucky ones. I had a sense of how I wanted to invest my life and I’ve been able to do so. My career has, however, been filled with surprises and unexpected turns. There have been a couple of times when I believed that God was calling me to serve the church in a different setting when no call existed. There have been a few efforts at being called to positions that were for others. Still, for a guy who wanted to be a minister, I have been blessed to be a minister. I got my wish and I know it was the right thing for me.
I pray that those whose careers led them to other places have found some of the joy and satisfaction that I have known. It is a good life to be a pastor.