From a friend, a pastor of a megachurch, George Davis, in Hershey PA.<\/p>\n
As a pastor of a larger church, I read with interest your recent posts discussing whether a megachurch pastor is really a \u201cpastor.\u201d\u00a0 I appreciated your response stressing the presence of multiple pastors in a congregation.\u00a0 However, I wonder if there isn\u2019t an underlying question that needs to be brought to the surface.\u00a0 Namely, what is the nature of pastoral ministry?\u00a0 What does it mean to \u201cshepherd\u201d a local congregation?<\/p>\n
In answering these questions, most pastors would acknowledge the complexity of this role.\u00a0 In any given week, our tasks range from teaching and leading to counseling and caregiving.\u00a0 Unfortunately, due to this complexity, it\u2019s possible to look at pastoral ministry in a reductionistic way.\u00a0 In one of your books, you argue that some have taken one dimension of the atonement (penal substitution) and made it the controlling image.\u00a0 I\u2019m wondering if the same thing hasn\u2019t happened in our understanding of pastoral ministry.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, due to influences like the pastoral care movement, some understand the role of \u201cpastoring\u201d in a way that demands the pastor be personally connected with each person in the congregation.\u00a0 After all, shouldn\u2019t the shepherd know his sheep?\u00a0 In the context of this personal relationship, the pastor is engaged in nurture, care and spiritual formation. \u00a0For instance, I can recall certain conversations with parishioners of a church who said their minister wasn\u2019t a particularly good leader, but he was a good \u201cpastor.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, pastoring involves one-on-one ministry and caregiving.\u00a0 While this is biblical, is this all that the Bible has to say about the role of a \u201cshepherd\u201d?<\/p>\n
In his thorough work on the shepherding theme in Scripture, Tim Laniak notes that the image of shepherd is linked to three key themes\u2014leading, feeding and protecting.\u00a0 Furthermore, he highlights the way the shepherding metaphor is linked with royal leadership traditions.\u00a0 Thus, as a skillful leader, David shepherds the nation.\u00a0 For me, this usage provides a clue that our understanding of pastoral ministry can, at times, be reductionistic.\u00a0 After all, if \u201cshepherding\u201d requires a one-to-one relationship with each person, in what sense could David \u201cshepherd\u201d an entire nation?\u00a0 Of course, you could respond by saying shepherding in a local church is distinct from the royal leadership traditions.\u00a0 Nonetheless, if the expectation is that the minister have this one-on-one relationship with each person, the \u201cshepherding\u201d image seems to be a confusing metaphor to use in light of its broader usage elsewhere in Scripture.<\/p>\n
So, in discussing whether or not a megachurch leader is really a \u201cpastor,\u201d we need to first define what the role of \u201cpastor\u201d entails.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a friend, a pastor of a megachurch, George Davis, in Hershey PA. As a pastor of a larger church, I read with interest your recent posts discussing whether a megachurch pastor is really a \u201cpastor.\u201d\u00a0 I appreciated your response stressing the presence of multiple pastors in a congregation.\u00a0 However, I wonder if there isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1731],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoring-and-leading"],"yoast_head":"\n
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