Jump directly to the Content

The Neglected Power of Blessing

One of the most meaningful things a pastor can do is short, sweet, and biblical.
The Neglected Power of Blessing

We are counting down the Top 40 articles published in Leadership Journal’s 36-year history, and we conclude with this one, Lee Eclov’s masterful reflection on one of the fundamentals of ministry.

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's fictional narrator is an elderly pastor named John Ames living in the small Iowa town of Gilead. His best friend, Boughton, is also a pastor in that town. They are so close that Boughton names his son after his friend: John Ames Boughton. But the boy grows up to be a disappointment—a scoundrel and a disgrace to his name.

As his father is dying, that prodigal son comes home to visit. Things don't go well, and he decides it is best just to slip out of town. Pastor John, his namesake, meets up with him and walks him to the bus depot. He gives the younger man a little money and they wait for the bus. Here's what happens next:

Then I said, "The thing I would like, actually, is to bless you."

He shrugged. ...

March
Support Our Work

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

Homepage Subscription Panel

Read These Next

Related
From the Editor
From the Editor
From the Magazine
The Evil Ideas Behind October 7
The Evil Ideas Behind October 7
The Hamas attacks in Israel have a grotesque ideological history and deserve unflinching moral judgment.
Editor's Pick
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
Understanding God and our world needs more than bare reason and experience.
close