the postmodern pop pastor

The teacup has been replaced with a long stemmed globe laced with beverage of Christ. It reminds me of the cup that we share (in my tradition) monthly as we gather around the table to take communion. (Ok, we don’t gather around a table, it’s actually handed out in individualized preshaped wafers to people sitting alone in chairs – so, our practice undermines the symbolism. One thing I try to do to compensate for the aloneness of our communal methods is to look the person handing me elements in the eyes and share a blessing, “God bless you,” or “the body of Christ broken for you.” I know it is small, but it is my attempt to enter into the remembrance.) Communion would be meaningless to take alone. It is the hands of my brothers and sisters that give it great meaning in my experience. To receive the body of Christ from their hands of another child of God, another I am in community with by our common Savior, gives my hope and life. Last Sunday, brother Vince served me the elements and his hands were the hands of Christ to me. I remember being in Bellingham last May and Mike held the bread (it was one loaf – much better on the symbolism) and when I broke off a piece he looked me in the eyes and said, “the body of Christ.” His words entered my heart on a direct path. He is my brother. That experience has bound his heart to mine. I think of Mike when I pray (4 times daily keeping the hours) “Our Father who is in heaven.”

During this last week, the friendship of two of my brothers has been driven home in my life. Pete, whose simple words give me hope and determination to follow Christ in the craft of ministry. I am certain that Pete and I were separated at birth, our hearts beat the same, our synapses fire on the same timing. God has been good to be in introducing me to Pete. The other is Cory, whose wisdom continues to amaze me and I covet having him speak into my life. Cory’s great value to me this week was simply this, he knows what a wretch I am and still gives me the respect that is due to a greater man than I. I pray and aspire to live up to that respect by the grace of God.

These are two that I seldom see or speak to, my recent encounters with them stand out. I do not have time nor words to write about David, Mark, Scott and Shannon. These are the men I partner with everyday, each who are a gift of God to me and who are making me into a more faithful follower of Christ and into a postmodern pop pastor in the image of the Trinity. My community is teaching me, training me and sharing in my devotion. The context for preparation must be communal. I need the wisdom, skill and devotion of the body of Christ in my preparation. Self-taught men are dangerous because there is no one around to remind them of what they do not know (my apologies if you are one, but its true and you know it). Pastors trained in a solo context (My first pastorate out of Seminary was solo) form corners that are not Trinitarian and there is no one there to rub them off. A pastor whose devotion is private has no place to call the congregation into community. It is Bonheoffer who wrote (paraphrase):

Let he who cannot be in community beware of being alone and let he who cannot be
alone beware of being in community.

This brings me to what sparked my thinking tonight. Bonhoeffer. How can you address pastoral preparation in community without quoting Life Together. If was wise already, I would say, “read that book,” and stop writing. But I am not that wise yet.

Bonhoeffer taught his students to memorize and ponder short passages of scripture. It seems that entire days would be taken up with this practice. He was concerned with a context for pastoral preparation that prepared men of God and took the time to force them into encounters with the Spirit of God through the Word of God and then back into community where that same Spirit would address them through the people of God.

I did not get this in my education (note here: I am not downplaying academics in education. I am an education nut. I loved my seminary education and am grateful for it. I think every pastor should be seminary educated, I just don’t know what it should look like yet. I do know it should be academically vigorous. I was thinking about education today while I mowed the lawn. An academic degree does not make a pastor, but it does say something of one’s character: willingness to be a learner, patience, endurance, valuing of the task at hand, humility to sit under others, trust in God to take the time out of one’s life – I’ll follow that thought in a later post because the context must certainly be academic. And in reality it must be academic before it can be reflective). My education was strictly academic apart from a class on prayer which taught me to hate praying.

I got this reflective practice from Marion who would sit with me for long hours. There were many times during my seminary years where he would sit with me for entire days to talk and listen. His intent was to ensure that that academics surrounding the Word of God remained the tool of the Spirit in my heart. We pondered together. To Marion, my preparation was more important than any other task he had going that day.

I’m done with this. What I planned as one thought has turned into many, how unlike me ;)

The context for preparation is communal, academic, reflective, and guided/mentored.

Thots?

My thoughts have been slowly turning from the shape of the postmodern pop pastor to the context in which we are shaped to be the shepherds of God’s precious people, from the ideal dream to real life as it happens, from pictures of what would be perfect to the memory of what is often painful. This has not been a voluntary shift on my part. I have found myself staring at this blog day after day with no words to add at present to the triune image of the pastor who is wise, devoted and trained. These thoughts do need more definition and they most certainly need the kind of deepening that can only come after days of contemplation on an island with only a pen and your Moleskine. I pray this will indeed find shape later. Until then, I invite you once again, my fellows in the craft, to look back over these meandering thoughts and add your comments. My aim is to form this three-fold outline into my doctoral project in the future. I see the task of rethinking the preparation tomorrow’s pastors as essential to the future the ministry as it should be and the growth of the community of God as effective agents in the world that is here now and that is coming. (That said with all of the 4.75 of my Calvinism in full consideration).

Until now, all of my thoughts have been forward, delineating the terminus to which we aspire as postmodern pop pastors. Tonight (I am writing this late on a weekend evening. It is a cool Southern California night with a slight breeze. I am sitting on my patio under the full moon with a cup of tea and a candle burning – if my wife wasn’t out of town it would be a perfect evening. Then again, if my wife was in town I probably wouldn’t be out here thinking and writing), tonight we turn back. What kind of context is needed to form a postmodern pop pastor in the image of the Trinity? What would it look like ideally? What would it smell like? This is a looking back in that much of my thoughts will be analyzing my own experiences of preparation, both planned and unplanned. It is also looking back through the experiences of others, which we find in their words that they have recorded for us.

Brothers, please join in and invite others (those who share our calling) to lend their input as well. I will give posting privileges based on your good word. Anyone can post comments. My hope is that this project comes into being communally, spit and cussed into existence by the hard fought words of pastors from all over North American and beyond. It is friendly, we are not debating, we are dreaming. Thanks for being a part.

This leads to my first thought on the context for preparing the postmodern pop pastor…it is communal.