What does it mean to give spiritual care? To shepherd a soul?
| posted 6/16/2009
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So what should pastors promise people?
I'm not sure pastors or the church are in the business of promising anything. That's not what we were called to do. We're called to be witnesses, to call people to discipleship, to engage in the formation of a spiritual life in Christian character.
There's an element of promise in the nature of the gospel, but it's usually so different from what people expect that they don't see it as a promise.
Say a parishioner comes to your office deeply troubled about her marriage. What is your role?
Nobody just shows up in my study to ask about her marriage. She's already part of a congregation. I'm not starting from ground zero; I'm starting from a commitment, membership in a body of Christ.
My task as pastor, then, is to get to know her better and to give her life dignity. I listen. I understand. That's not an insignificant thing in itself.
But always, I'm trying to pull people back into the worshiping community. I want to tell people, "This problem is not the whole world. It feels like the whole world, but it's not. You've got a golden opportunity every Sunday morning to reorient yourself."
I don't ever want to convey that our primary job as pastors is to fix a problem. Our primary work is to make saints. We're in the saint-making business. If we enter the human-potential business, we've lost our calling.
How do you develop an ear for what's going on spiritually in a person? Did you know how to do it when you began pastoral work?
No. I didn't have the faintest idea how to do it.
How did you learn?
I took Sunday morning absolutely seriously. I wanted to be a preacher, an intercessor. I wanted to baptize and give the Eucharist with integrity. I wanted to gather people to that place.
Whenever I started to deviate from that center during the week, I knew it: This isn't what I was called to do. I'm doing good work, but this isn't the gospel.
What were you doing when you were deviating?
I was trying to meet people's needs on their terms, helping them with their marriages, trying to make sure the church was successful. I wanted a stewardship campaign that worked, I wanted to get Sunday school teachers, and I wanted to get a youth group going.
I never quit doing any of those things, but when that became my work, when that defined my work, I knew it.
The problem was, I hadn't learned a way to live organically out of Sunday. I had two models, and neither could help me.
What were the two models?
I grew up in one in which, when the enthusiasm starts to flag, you turn up the fires—work a little harder, talk a little louder, do something that will excite people.
I couldn't do that. I couldn't live on emotion and on hype and on advertising.
The other was the institutional model: giving leadership to an organization that was stable and responsible and successful, that would meet people's religious needs. That was good, but it bored me to death. It was religious, but it wasn't the gospel. I didn't sign up for that.
