More from Craig Barnes’ ‘The Pastor As Minor Poet’ (Eerdmans, 2009).
The contemporary weight of confused expectations about role and function can lead to pastors being unclear about their own identity in Christ.
To be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioner’s complaints about the church…
Having described a number of ‘enduring [and] healthy images of pastoral ministry’ Barnes suggests another: the poet.
One of the reasons that people need pastors is precisely because God is always present but usually not apparent. It takes a poet to find that presence beneath the layers of strategy for coping with the feeling of its absence. Thus, the parish minister’s soul becomes a crucible in which sacred visions are ground together with the common and at times profane experiences of human life. Out of this sacred mix, pastors find their deep poetry, not only for the pulpit, but also for making sense out of the ordinary routines of the congregation.
As poets, pastors are always looking for a portal that invites passage into a deeper, more mysterious – and thus true – understanding of what is seen. They do this not only in their study of sacred texts but also in their study of the common events of the culture in which we live and in their pastoral conversations, always looking for the mystery that lies just below the surface…
This means that the pastor-poet does his or her best work not with presenting issues, which are seldom the real issue. This is the fallacy of those who try to define the pastor as manager, an entrepreneur, or a service provider who is only in need of more skills to be a success in handling the many issues that have presented themselves. Most presenting issues are merely symptomatic of underlying theological issues. Even those who treat the pastor as a spiritual leader often reduce his or her work to treating symptoms.
mgpcpastor's blog 