As I See It…

I’m interrupting my ‘The Contemplative Pastor’ blog series today, in order to insert this special word. Last Saturday, I posted a blog directed to my fellow-Vineyard pastors entitled, “WHAT I WANT TO SEE IN OUR NEW VINEYARD REGIONAL OVERSEERS.  This is a follow-up to that blog.

Over the last few years, I’ve found myself becoming more and more intrigued (and, quite admittedly, a bit troubled) with the overall approach we pastors of evangelical churches in North America ‘do church’. I’ve been actively involved with pastoral ministry for over 30 years, serving full-time since 1990. My wife and I planted the Vineyard church we are currently pastoring in 1998. My experience with ‘doing church’ as a senior pastor has had both its’ highs and lows. And I’m certain that most of my readers who have been personally involved with pastoral ministry for any length of time can fully understand the roller coaster we all ride, serving as pastors/shepherds of God’s people.

In recent months, I’ve been blogging a great deal about my personal trek as a pastor. During our recent 10-week sabbatical, our first ever, I finally took enough time to slow down, get re-acquainted with the God I serve, and listen carefully to, what I believe, is the voice of the Lord.

Bottom-line? I heard Him asking me to STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN.

Much like John Wimber (who in the earliest days of the Vineyard churches, found the Spirit of God coming to him, reminding John of the distinct differences between Jesus’ ministry and his own), I’ve been finding myself in a similar season of re-evaluation of ‘my’ ministry. At the core of this re-evaluation is a re-defining of the meaning of ‘success’ in pastoral ministry.

Add into this mix a healthy dose of pastoral writings from Eugene Peterson (i.e. The Contemplative Pastor, Long Obedience in the Same Direction, The Pastor: A Memoir, and Conversations: The Message Bible) and poof, you have one 60-year-old pastor who seems to be evolving into an interesting combination of one happily-disturbed man, angry as hell at wasting so much of my last 30 years majoring on the minors, and being led gently by God’s Spirit to reform my pastoral ministry in ways that, I believe, will better reflect the New Testament model I find in God’s Word. As John Wimber used to teach us through his prayer, “Lord, I want to grow up before I grow old.”

Now, with that being said, I want to clearly apologize to many of my good friends who pastor large churches throughout the Vineyard family. It’s come to my attention that some of my rants and ravings on my blog, ‘As I See It’ (especially those on the theme of The Small Church That Works) has made some to believe that I dislike large churches and think that those who lead larger churches are not nearly as spiritual as those who pastor smaller churches. To that, I politely say, ’bull’.

Let me say state clearly here. 1) I love the whole church, large, small and in-between; 2) I believe we have some of the most talented and anointed leaders in the Vineyard family currently leading us; 3) I thoroughly believe in church growth and Kingdom expansion; 4) I have absolutely no problem with churches that are big and getting bigger; 5) there are no bad guys or gals in pastoral ministry in the Vineyard family.

So with those things being said, let me summarize for you my TSCTW (The Small Church That Works) ‘agenda’.

I am thoroughly convinced, based primarily on my own experience, that pastors can easily get sidetracked on the mechanics of ‘doing church well’. I believe our American culture has thoroughly infiltrated our thinking, and in many cases, wooed us away from the primary job Jesus gave His first disciples. I will write more about this loss of vision in future blogs, but for now, let me simply say, I, for one, want to stop defining my success as a pastor by measuring the size of my church in same way corporate America looks at profit/loss margins.

Jesus wants me to ‘lead’ the people He has gathered around me by using Kingdom practices that He so clearly modeled in the first century. Eugene Peterson says it so much better than me. In his book, The Contemplative Pastor, he defines our biblical model of pastoral ministry as ‘the cure of souls’.

“A reformation may be in process in the way pastors do their work. It may turn out to be as significant as the theological reformation of the sixteenth century. I hope so. The signs are accumulating. The vocational reformation of our own time (if it turns out to be that) is a rediscovery of the pastoral work of the cure of souls. The phrase sounds antique. It is antique. But it is not obsolete. It catches up and coordinates, better than any other expression I am aware of, the unending warfare against sin and sorrow and the diligent cultivation of grace and faith to which the best pastors have consecrated themselves in every generation. Discovering the meaning of Scripture, developing a life of prayer, guiding growth into maturity. This is the pastoral work that is historically termed the cure of souls. The primary sense of ‘cura’ in Latin is ‘care’, with undertones of ‘cure’. The soul is the essence of the human personality. The cure of souls, then, is the Scripture-directed, prayer-shaped care that is devoted to persons singly or in groups, in settings sacred and profane. It is a determination to work at the center, to concentrate on the essential.”

I, for one, in the pursuit of growing my church and developing more successful ministries, had forgotten (or maybe mis-placed?) this ministry of ‘the cure of souls’ Peterson refers to. All around me, and quite honestly, inside me, the care of souls was taking a back seat to growing my church at all costs. As I see it, this approach to pastoral ministry has to change…in my church, and more than likely, yours, as well.

I believe this loss of perspective can and does happen in churches of all sizes in America. And as I said earlier, I love the church regardless of size. But I won’t go on in pastoral ministry without addressing this void that is in so much of our ministries (large and small) in our churches across America.

I hope this blog might better explain my heart as I blog on. As Keith Green, the anointed minstrel of God in the 1970’s once sang,

I need to say these things cause I love you so,
And I’m sorry you get angry when I say that you just don’t know.
But there’s a Heaven waiting for you and me,
I know it seems every time we talk I’m only trying to just make you see.

And it’s only that I care,
I really, really only just want to see you there.

For His Name’s sake.