Just because something is overstated doesn't make it wrong. I'm readinjg a book which sometimes overstates, generalises and makes claims that need some qualifying. But it is a good book, written by a genuinely interesting and thoughtful pastor. David Hansen's The Art of Pastoring is being read by our Pastoral Care class, and it is all the things a good text book should be – accessible, written out of experience, and sufficiently self deprecating for readers to feel they are learning from a fellow traveller rather than deferring to an expert.
The sub title is Ministry Without All the Answers, and throughout the book there is a refreshing acceptance that much of ministry is ad hoc, instinctive, gift and opportunity, serendipity subverting strategy, a way of being that leads to certain actions and activities – but all such activity governed by who it is done for, Jesus Christ.
So, here is an overstatement – "…time management is the new eschatology. Theology's venerable "already and not yet" has become "what needs to be done today and what can be left till tomorrow". Earlier Hansen had a go at "How to" books on pastoral tasks, and warned, "pastoral ministry is a life, not a technology." By which he means a way of being rather than a set of practical and relational skills. What he is after is a view of ministry that is not trend driven, task driven, or identity conferring. Then he says something not so much overstated as often overlooked – "The pastor as a parable of Jesus Christ" (p.11).
Balance in ministry is both doing and being, who we are influencing and motivating what we do. It is not mere technique, but neither is it mere trial and error, accidental or incidental. It is a rich and unpredictable mixture of many things, including careful planning, alert adaptability, contemplative reflection, imaginative compassion, spiritual instinct for the significant, attuned listening to others, discipline and organisation balanced with intuitive and subversive openness to change.
Time management need not be the division of the day into quarter hours and each one accounted for – though John Wesley in his own neurotic self-censorship did indeed keep account of such micro-managed life. Nor should ministry be measured bytasks completed, boxes ticked, or skills demonstrated. Like all good books on pastoral theololgy, Hansen's book is a refreshing corrective, and a very good guilt reducing tonic. His key insight, that the pastor is a parable of Jesus Christ informs the whole book. Hansen is obviously not afdraid of the tough theology either – he quotes Eberhard Jungel, "This christological statement is to be regarded as the fundamental proposition of a hermeneutic of the speakability of God." Ehh…Quite!
Hansen explains, "If Jesus is the parable of God and preaching the story of Jesus brings God to people, if we live our lives following Jesus, maybe our lives canb bring Jesus to people. Maybe we can be parables of Jesus." (p.24) Jesus is the Word of God, God articulated in human life and personality, the Word become flesh. Hansen is arguing for an incarnational ministry in which Jesus is glimpsed, explicated, demonstrated, not in the fullness of the glory beheld in the Word full of grace and truth, but in the much more limited, but no less graced life of following Jesus in the service of the Kingdom of God. As Jesus is the exegete of God, the pastor is called to be exegete of Jesus, His Way, His Truith and His Life.
We await the class discussion.
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