An Additional Thought on Culture and Pastoral Ministry

I had some time to reflect on my last post and so I want to add another thought regarding culture. I want to be careful to state that it is vital not to diminish the importance of understanding culture. It is necessary for us to understand culture and to connect with culture, but our relevance, or what sets our direction, or steers our engagement in culture cannot be culture. Culture does not set the agenda for our engagement, rather the reign of God does, however, culture is the context in which our engagement happens -- and so we need to understand it and take heed of it. As followers of Christ, submitted to living out our life in the way of Jesus, we live in our culture, whatever culture that may be, by the agenda set by missio Dei, by the agenda of the reign of God (see Matthew 5-7 for this agenda). We are called to live out, to demonstrate the reality of God's reign in the context of culture.

This is all to say that the way we lead as pastors is not to be driven by the agenda of the culture, rather we are called to lead, or better still -- to serve -- the purposes of God in the context of the cultures we find ourselves in. For this reason culture is important to understand. It is the context in which we are called to serve as pastoral servants.

Culture and Pastoral Ministry

Ernest White in an article entitled The Crisis in Christian Leadership (Review & Expositor, Vol. 83.4 Fall 1986) expresses the axiom "culture and society shape leadership after their own likeness" (p. 547). I am in the process of writing an article that explores this further, especially as it relates to pastoral leadership. Here are some of my initial ideas.

We know that as followers of Christ we are in the world but not to be of it, meaning that even though we live as human beings within culture, we live as sojourners or aliens guided by a different purpose, a different culture if you will. However, over the past 2 decades or so pastoral leadership has been greatly influenced by business and government culture, especially in relation to the models we have used to guide the way we lead in the churches we serve. The question I raise is whether we are called to "lead" in a different way as we are guided by the Gospel of the reign of God?

In some ways the kingdom or reign of God does not have a culture of its own because it takes root within cultures in order to bring all peoples within all cultures under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Yet in saying this, we also need to ask whether the kingdom or reign of God also has countercultural or othercultural aspects to it that confront each culture with the demand for metanoia (repentance). Does living under the reign of God lead us to live differently in the cultures we find ourselves in? I think so! Therefore, I also ask, does living under the reign of God lead us also to lead differently? I also think it does!

I think what we need to be exploring at the beginning of the 21st century is what the shape of our pastoral leading, our pastoral ministry is to be in light of being guided by the Gospel of the reign of God. My hunch is that we have missed the depths of what we are being called through our utter fascination and indepth exploration of leadership. The fact is most models of leadership have some aspect of "lording it over others," which Jesus cautioned us against (cf. Mark 10:42). It seems to me that we have much to learn about what how we are to engage in ministry in the churches we serve by delving deep into discovering and discerning what it means to be servants, pastoral servants -- to be fascinated with servantship, rather than leadership.

What am I not saying is that pastors are not to have influence (a definition of what it means to be a leader), rather what I am saying is that our influence is to be realized through an exploration of what it means to be servants (and not just servant leaders, because that still places the emphasis on leadership and makes servanthood a mere adjective) because the master we serve is Servant.

Perhaps then there are aspects of the kingdom or reign of God which exert cultural influence and as we are guided by the reign of God as our guiding principle/telos, then perhaps we will discover that we will begin to exercise a kind of leadership that is shaped by the culture of the kingdom, rather than the culture we are in, but not to be apart of.

Well there is much more to be explored and to be dialogued over regarding this -- but what do you think? I am interested in your responses.

Insights on Pastoral Ministry from Two Encounters

I do not make enough of encounters -- at least I do not write out my reflections on encounters enough. Sometimes I find it easier to just have thoughts and reflections and I am finding that it takes discipline to voice those thoughts either verbally or in written form. It seems that at times my attempting to articulate these thoughts through voice or in writing gets in the way of what I want to express. Need to reflect more on this later.

Getting back to my two encounters. I had two encounters this week that shed some light on the nature of pastoral ministry. One was with John Hayes of InnerCHANGE (www.innerchange.org)who has a unique way of revealing what is to be seen in Scripture. He sees Scripture from the perspective of the Story that God is telling us. Often when we read Scripture we look for the historical drama unfolding before us, the words spoken, the actions displayed -- and we get caught up in the event and try to make some sense of it for our life and living. However, there is another way to see Scripture as well. It involves seeing it as God telling a Story to us, His Story. And in telling his Story to us it is more than what the content of the Story is about, there is much to be learned in the hearing by how the Story is being told -- how the Story is structured.

So for example, John Hayes told the story of the 4 friends who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus to be healed in Mark 2. John Hayes opened my eyes to a whole new dimension of what is shared in this story, by seeing the way this Story is told by God to us -- almost allegorical, but not really. In hearing this Story being told we see things we normally do not see when we only take notice of the story's content and not its structure. Of significance is to note that when the 4 friends brought this paralyzed man to where Jesus was -- it was crowded. They could have said to themselves, "Well we did our part, we brought our friend to be healed, but there is a crowd here -- we tried our best." This reveals perhaps our attitudes in ministry -- trying our best but stopping short of engaging in what we know we need to do because of the barriers that always confront us. What is healing about this story -- at least the way God tells it -- is that barriers will always be there, but are we willing to climb to the roof and rip a hole in it to get those who need to be touched by Jesus in front of him. Powerful stuff.

The second encounter was hearing Linford Detweiler of "Over the Rhine" perform. A poet who has deep insights into life -- his own and ours. He read us some of his poetry, some to music and some without music. He shared insights in ways that drew you into the way he sees life.

In both of these encounters I see something that I think is to be descriptive of pastoral ministry. It involves "seeing the Story of God being told all around us." It involves "hearing the activity of God that is going on all the time." No mix up of words there -- seeing of Story and hearing of activity -- is what I meant to say. Something of what pastors are to be is being poets. As we live and serve amongst our people we are called to discern God Story amongst us, God's actions amongst us -- and we begin to give voice to these discernings. We begin to retell the Story of God with us, we give voice to the ongoing continuing unfolding drama of God in Jesus among us and around us. The only way this Story can be told is in the way it is told to us -- in Story. Often we try to take hold of it, capture it, reshape it, interpret it, recast it, through our preaching and teaching. But I wonder if there would be more power in the hearing of God's Story amongst us as God's people if we offered up our voices to the Spirit of God in ways that John Hayes and Linford Detweiler did this week -- and so become poets retelling the Story of God in the hearing of a people whom we are called to serve so that they may include their living, their struggles, their hopes and sorrows, their joys and despairs in this Story of God.

I see that as pastors our role is not to recast the Story in ways that show how well we know how to tell the Story, but we find ways of telling God's Story that people will give their lives to become a part of God's Story and somehow see their story being embraced by God's Story. Is this a helpful image? Let me know what you think?