Pastoring the Pastor

In the past few months I’ve been reading pastoral ministry books for my own spiritual and pastoral good.  In case you missed some earlier reviews, I said Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling wasn’t overly helpful because of its narrow audience: it isn’t for pastors who are weary, tired, and who need encouragement.  In fact, I had to force myself to finish it – it ended up being more discouraging than encouraging for me.

I did, however, appreciate Bruce Mawhinney’s Preaching with Freshness; it is an excellent resource for pastors who are need encouragement in faith and life.  Along those lines, I highly recommend this 2012 Christian Focus publication, Pastoring the Pastor by Tim Cooper and Kelvin Gardiner.  It is similar to Mawhinney’s book, yet is set in a different context so it doesn’t overlap too much.

Pastoring the Pastor is a email dialogue between a younger pastor and an older one.  The subtitle says it: “Emails of a Journey Through Ministry.”  At first I was thinking it might get a bit cheesy and far-fetcher.  I was quite wrong.  This email dialogue is based on a true story, therefore it is realistic, engaging, practical, and on top of this, biblical.  This email dialogue was also encouraging, refreshing, and helpful for me as a pastor.

Here are a few highlights from my reading – again, it is the advice of an older pastor to a younger one.

“[The church you pastor] is not a problem for you to fix, it is a community of people for you to love in the name of Christ, and shepherd in the ways that he has for them.  Rest in the Lord and be his man in the ministry and I predict you will have a life of joy at the deepest level; try to manipulate the church to fit your dreams and your life of misery has only begun.”

“The other thing that I think you need desperately, and it is something we in church leadership neglect so freely, is friends and relationships outside the church.  You need to have someone to talk with about things other than the church, God, or nuances of theology.  It’s okay, in fact, to have an interest in sport, or literature, or the arts, or travel, or anything that is wholesome and recreational.”

“Before appointing an elder, make sure he understands that any authority that might be attached to the role is given that he might serve, not that he might set himself apart.”

I could go on.  If you’re a pastor who needs some solid wisdom, encouragement, and new motivation to keep proclaiming God’s whole counsel in and out of season, I highly recommend Pastoring the Pastor.  I usually don’t read theological/biblical books on Kindle because I like to take many notes; however, this one is in novel form so I did enjoy it on Kindle.  Either way – hard copy or electronic – it’s a good one for a pastor’s shelf.  If you’re not a pastor but know one who is going through the grind of the ministry, gift him with a copy of this book.  I’m thankful to the authors and publishers for getting this book out; I trust it will benefit Christ’s church around the world.

shane lems

Tripp’s “Dangerous Calling” – A Review

This book, Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp, is a book about pastoral ministry.  However, it is not about the general aspects of pastoral ministry; it has a more specific focus.  The focus is on pastoral ministry gone wrong.  So this book is not for pastors who are generally on the right track of humble service.  It is not for weary and fatigued pastors looking for refreshment, encouragement, and renewed motivation for ministry.  It is not for pastors, seminarians, and churches who are looking for a book to challenge and encourage them to stay the course of biblical, pastoral ministry.  It is for pastors and churches who have gotten off the biblical path of pastoral ministry.

I realize Dangerous Calling is marketed as a book meant for all pastors, elders, and laypeople who want education in this area, but I don’t believe it is for just anyone.  I’m actually a bit disappointed since I picked this book up hoping for a broader discussion of the pastoral ministry, including bold encouragement to stay the course in pastoring and preaching.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have trusted the marketing blurbs (why do I keep doing that?).  Though everyone can certainly learn from different parts of the book, it really isn’t for all pastors, elders, and laypeople.

Here’s who the book is for: pastors who struggle with pride (thinking they are better than or above others in the church), hypocrisy (preaching godliness while living ungodly secret lives), mediocrity (writing sermons on Saturday), and formality (going through the motions of the ministry without the heart).  Tripp does talk about a few more issues like those, but all the discussions fall under one of these things.  Certainly most pastors (myself included!) struggle with some of these things from time to time, but the book is really for pastors who struggle with all of those things at once.  For those pastors who do struggle with all these things at once – who are “off the track” – this book is exactly what they and their churches need!  I cannot recommend it enough for that audience.

I should also point out a few subjective critiques.  First, Tripp’s writing style was tough for me to read.  Many times in the book entire paragraphs were filled with rhetorical questions.  This got overwhelming after the second chapter – I found it far too difficult to answer all those rhetorical questions (well over 100 in all).  Also, the repetition in the book drove me crazy.  Many paragraphs had sentences that started the exact same way.  For example, on page 97 one paragraph contained “I knew…” ten times.  This wouldn’t have been annoying to me if it happened once or twice, but I was distracted by this by the middle of the book.  Again, those are subjective critiques about things that annoy me as writer and reader.

Before I conclude, I should point out one sentence that summarizes a major argument of the book (the pastor’s heart).  For the pastor, Tripp writes, “Public ministry is meant to be fueled and propelled by private devotion” (p. 197).  Both are, of course, important, but I believe it would be better to say that private devotion is meant to be fueled and propelled by the public ministry of the word and sacrament – for both the pastor and parishioner.  Indeed, Tripp didn’t even mention the sacraments in this book on pastoral ministry!   This is a glaring omission.

To summarize, this book is a valuable and essential resources for those pastors and churches who have gotten far off track in the pastoral ministry.  For those pastors who think they run the show and are above the common parishioner, this book will  be a ministry saver.  For pastors who preach one thing and live another, this book will convict and lead to repentance.  But if you’re a pastor who is generally headed in the right pastoral direction – with humility, a true heart, and hope in the gospel – this book isn’t one that will challenge, refresh, and encourage you along that path.  Dangerous Calling will, however, be helpful for many larger churches who have begun to exist more like a religious business than a body of Christ.  And one of Tripp’s oft-repeated phrases is indeed one all of us can take to heart: preach the gospel to yourself constantly!

Paul Tripp, Dangerous Calling (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012).

shane lems

Godly Practices and Pastoral Theology

 I love these paragraphs from Martin Bucer’s Concerning the True Care of Souls.  It starts with a general maxim Bucer sets forth.

When people are lax about church practices there is to be found weakness in their Christian lives.

This is the principle and general way of strengthening the weak and foolish sheep of Christ.  Therefore, where there are Christians who are not diligent in attending the church of God and the holy assemblies, and show themselves to be somewhat cool in their attitude towards the blessed practices of the church, praises, prayers, general almsgiving, the sacraments, and so on, the most important thing is to make such people joyful and passionate about these godly practices.  For even though one may not yet notice any specially disorderly living, nor any special timidity under the cross or valuing the world too highly and Christ too lowly, these weaknesses will without doubt soon appear and break out as soon as offences and objections come.  These are also generally those who err in their Christian understanding first in one direction and then in another, because they do not really long to have the mind of Christ.

Now, the particular degrees and forms of weaknesses of Christ’s sheep which we will come across are pointed out in the texts which we have quoted.  Those who are disorderly the Apostle tells us to warn and admonish.  Those who are weak in the faith, that is, in their understanding of Christ, are to be lifted up, and not subjected to searching examination of their thoughts and consciences.”

As I’ve mentioned here before, this is an oustanding Reformation resource for pastors and elders: Concerning the True Care of Souls.

shane lems

What Threatens to Smother the Church?

There’s one more quote from Still’s The Work of the Pastor (published first in 1984) that I want to highlight before I set this book down for now.  (Note: the Lt. Col. Thomson whom Still mentions below was a sort of Barnabas to churches behind the Iron Curtain in the 20th Century).  Though he writes this for pastors, it is applicable for others in the church as well.

“A great many of us are far busier propping up our particular brand of democracy and social service than building the church of Jesus Christ against which even the gates of hell shall not prevail, whether our democracy collapses or not.  The church is not called to subsidize the state any more than she is called to work against it; she has to be as neutral to it as loyal citizens can be.  She is called to gather and build the church of Jesus Christ under any system whatsoever.  Her members are to submit to the powers that be, as far as this does not conflict with the individual conscience, and they are to let the state do as it will.  If the state forbids Christians, loyal Christians, to be Christians, she can only kill the body, she cannot kill the soul.  What Paul and Peter are saying in Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2 is that we are to submit to any regime we happen to be under – submit to it, not sponsor, or oppose it.”

“We are supposed to believe that there are no conditions on earth in which the Christian church cannot survive, for God will always see to it that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church that is to be.  That is certainly true behind the Iron Curtain.  When Lt. Col. Thomson wanted the richest Christian fellowships he could find, he went for them to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Russia.  He told us of a young man who was converted in the Red Army.  …Do not think that the church is smothered in these countries.  She is more likely to be smothered by wealth, ease, and complacency.”

These paragraphs are found on pages 65-66 of The Work of the Pastor.

shane lems

sunnyside, wa

Election, Perseverance, And A Pastoral Letter

 In Letter 12 of his Letters, John Newton wrote to a friend who was skeptical about the doctrines of unconditional election and the perseverance of the saints.  In a charitable and pastoral way, Newton gave his Christian friend some encouragement in thinking about these doctrines.

He opened by explaining that we don’t come to learn the truth through our own natural ability.  “It is not therefore by noisy disputation, but by humble waiting upon God in prayer, and a careful perusal of his holy word, that we are to expect a satisfactory, experimental, and efficacious knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.”  In other words, these doctrines are not simply mathematical equations proven by some scientific method but truths God reveals to his people through personal, prayerful study of the Word.

He moved on and gave practical advice on how to study these doctrines.  First, he said, “[Do not] lay too great stress upon a few detached texts, but seek for that sense which is most agreeable to the general strain of the Scripture.”  By this he meant to let Scripture interpret itself by way of the analogy of faith.  Second, and subordinately, he said to compare experiences with the truths of Scripture.  For example, when Christians stand firm to the end of their trial filled lives, does experience show that it is by their own power and fortitude or by God’s power through his grace? 

Third, Newton told his friend not to hesitate embracing these doctrines simply because he had a few objections to them.  If we’d wait to believe a truth until all our objections are cleared, we would never believe!  ”We are poor weak creatures; and the clearing up of every difficulty is not what we are immediately called to, but rather to seek that light which may strengthen and feed our souls.”  Finally, he wrote that “whatever is from God has a sure tendency to ascribe glory to him, to exclude boasting from the creature, to promote the love and practice of holiness, and increase our dependence upon his grace and faithfulness.”  Calvinism has everything to do with God’s glory in saving hell-bent, spiritually dead sinners and making them holy so they can give God glory by depending completely on his grace and mercy in life and in death.  This is thoroughly biblical!  Newton even ends the letter by saying, “the doctrines of grace are doctrines according to godliness.”

There is a bit more to this letter that I’ll have to mention later.  Newton goes on to explain from Scripture the comforting truths of election and perseverance.  This letter not only contains some solid advice on studying the doctrines of grace, it also explains them in a biblically edifying way.  Equally important is Newton’s pastoral approach in loving this Christian who was unsure that the doctrines of grace (Calvinism) were true.  Many of us could learn a thing or two from Newton’s method of teaching the truth in love, humility, and patience.

If you want to read the entire  letter, you’ll need to get The Letters of John Newton.

shane lems