the postmodern pop pastor

Seeing if I can pick up where I left off after some time away...

It is one of the tradgedies of modern seminary education that it is unable to form skilled ministers. It is a tragedy rather than a crime because the seminary is not designed toward that end. It has not failed, it is misdirected for the present day needs of the church. In fairness, the need has changed somewhat in a postmodern world. On the other hand, seminaries have produced contextually irrelevant pastoral thinkers for decades or longer.

Postmodern pop pastors will have to educated on a skill level as well as on a intellectual level. My seminary offered to me a primarily intellectual education, for which I am extremely grateful. I do not think I could have been in a better place to receive the kind of education that I did. Skill in preaching were hammered out, we were given a brush with the practicals of counseling and a course on prayer was required in the practicum but in the end I prayed less than when I began after having been graded on my praying and never being able to figure out the way the prof wanted my "prayer records" formatted. How do get a bad grade on prayer? I learned theology (which I think is vital, see Monday, April 04, 2005 on "the Father") at the seminary and learned skill in the church because there I was able to practice.

Practice is a difficult idea because of the context. Pastors practicing is like brain surgeon's practicing. There just aint no room for oops. Under the leadership and the watchful eye of a mature and skilled pastor, I learned how to do ministry. I was given tasks and challenges within reasonable boundaries and managed carefully so that my screw ups did not damage the congregation and so that my talents could be improved upon. This was life to me in the early stages of ministry. The classroom cannot offer this. I have run into one flaw from this mentorship model, I am too much like my mentor. Yes, his strengths are my strengths, but his weaknesses are also my weaknesses. This could be countered in a cohort environment, which I will get into some time in the future when we begin to discuss praxis.

As of now, head trained modern pastors and untrained postmodren pastors are both a danger to the people whom they serve.

Postmodern pop pastors must being practiced so that the next generation church is handed men and women who know what they are doing because they've done it before.

This kind of training only comes from the hand of one further along. Thanks to Eugene Peterson for his pastoral guidance.

We set out to risk our lives in a venture of faith. We committed ourselves to a life of holiness. At some pint we realized the immensity of God and of the great invisibles that socket into our arms and legs, into bread and wined, into our brains and our tools, into mountains and rivers giving them meaning, destiny, value, joy, beauty, salvation. We responded to the call to convey these realities in word and sacrament and to give leadership to a community of faith in such a way that connected and coordinated what the men and women, children and youth in this community are doing in their work and play with what God is doing in mercy and grace. In the process we learned the difference between a profession or craft, and a job...A job is what we do to complete an assignment...But professions and crafts are quite different. In these we have an obligation beyond pleasing somebody: we are pursuing or shaping the very nature of reality, convinced that when we carry out our commitments we actually benefit people at a far deeper level that if we simply did what asked of us...How do I keep the line sharp? How do I maintain a sense of pastoral vocation in the middle of a community of people who are hiring me to do religious jobs? How do I keep a sense of professional integrity in the midst of a people who are long practiced in comparative shopping and who don't get overly exercised on the find points of pastoral integrity? There is an old and good answer to these questions.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: the shape of pastoral integrity, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 7,9.

Addressing the idea that the pastor has to be everything. Postmodern pop pastors understand that cannot be and should not try to be everything for the church. They need to be who they are to their full ability and at times who they are not out of duty.

The continual expansion of responabilities came with a curious oversight. Little or not attention was given to what the pastor ought not to do...It has become painfully clear to me that the traditional view of the pastorate sets both pastors and congregations up for failure...As long as our [church] culture operated under the assumption that the pastor could do everything, the corollary was that we could do nothing.

Sue Mallory, The Equipping Church: Serving together to transform lives, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 57-58.

From Reggie McNeal, The Present Future. The author is addressing the need for microskill development in both professional and "lay" leader development.

Microskill development is not limited to the clergy. Having an effective missionary force will require that lay leader-missionaries know how to establish and conduct conversations about Jesus and the gospel with people in the workplace, how to develop relationships for the sake of the gospel, how to network believers in the marketplace for prayer and support, how to identify need among coworkers, how to become a life coach for people, how to develop Bible studies and seeker groups in the workplace and in the neighborhood, and how to refer people for various addictions, psychological needs, or emotional disorders. Notice that this skill set development has little to do with accomplishing church culture jobs.

Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: six tough questions for the Church, (San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2003), 131-132.

Skill is a very important aspect of pastoral work. I think that we have largely exchanged skill with technique (which has personal and theological implications that go far beyond that of professional practice) and program. Skill cannot be gained at a conference or from reading a book on the successful implementation of small groups at a large church in Chicago or Orange County or even Seattle. Skill comes from the hands of one minister to those of another.

In addressing the need for skill, I am highlighting that developed ability to do the task that is assigned, that requires that we have some form of particular training.

I worked during my teen years in the family silk screen print shop. When preparing screens for development, we had to coat them with a liquid film in the dark room. It was always hard for me when they would come in to check on how I was doing. You see, if the emulsion was too thick in one place, it wouldnt develop correctly and would be useless for the task. They would take the tools from my hand and say, "hold it this way," showing me how it needed to done.

That is what I mean by training, walking in the footsteps of older, experienced ministers who hand on the particular skills that we need for our unique role in the church of Jesus Christ. Here is how you study to prepare a sermon. This is how I layout my notes. Sit in and listen as I do premarital counseling.

Let me take this one step further. There has been change in the training needed from modern to postmodern ministry. I've addressed this already under gifting. That is, the requirement of modern pastors to play all roles. Postmodern pop pastors will need to accept that they cannot be effectively trained in too many areas. It will not be possible for a training facility (currently the Seminary) to prepare pastors to be skilled exegetes, skilled preachers, skilled counselors, skilled adminstrators, skilled managers, skilled musicians, and skilled finance managers, just to name a few of the skills needed within the church. The product of today's institutions are often pastors who know a little about doing alot of different things and the rest must be learned on the job at the expense of a living congregation with real human hopes and hurts.

It is time for postmodern pop pastors to be trained in microskills. Properly prepared postmodern pop pastors will emerge from their formal training skilled in one area of ministry - preaching, leading, counseling, children's ministry, administration, compassion minsitry and social outreach. etc. The team that is drawn together under this paradigm will be better able to lead and equip the people of Christ's body.