Maybe I can be of help, but I am reminded it may be limited. Every minister is different and brings gifts, motives, expectations of their own to the table. They come with all kinds of experiences. They may be married. They may have children. Parenting models are different. “You have forgotten what it takes to get three children ready for church, Dad” my son Bret says to me…. and he is right. I have forgotten. In fact, Arline got them ready. I always got to church early and opened the doors and went over my sermon, talked with early birds who prepared the choirs and taught the Bible classes, and prepared the nursery. The church can be a hive of activity before worship.

     I tend to forget that the issues change and the churches and management styles along with leadership models have changed. What was a model in 1958 doesn’t work in my opinion in 2008. I am persuaded for example that “top down” CEO-type management doesn’t work anymore and what is more effective is a “bottom-up” model. Steel Lake is more comfortable with the latter, I believe. And it is very important we continue the process and the progress.

     Well, here goes, realizing it may not fit everyone. First, the modern pastor has to be a kind George Smile (in John le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”) He has to have a nose for the sacred and a sense of compassion for the hurting. He has to love people and he or she has to love God and Jesus. He has to try to live incarnately in a parish with imagination and creativity. It requires discipline and appreciation of mystery.

     Secondly, he needs to be a pastor-priest in all the humility she or he can muster and all the love the parish can give him or her. She or he will grow and love back as you pick up the slack, helping to manage and model the community.

     Third, the pastor needs to live and think inductively in the biblical word and always daring to put himself in the author’s shoes and capture God’s living reality in Jesus’ life and in the community that follows Jesus Christ. That is not to imply he shouldn’t be a biblical scholar, but one who is captured in the biblical word in reflection. This is the minister’s job among God’s people so that the word of God bounces back and forth as much to the minister and the laity in that he has to be a biblical scholar.

     Fourth, he will need to be given time to think and study and read. Sermons take time. They need reflection, and they need not just the head, but the heart tied to the sacred. Most pastors work differently and they change within the context of a parish and the world. Paper in one hand; bible in another; a book or two under his arm; the visits and encounters at hospitals are in the mind; the pastor’s prayer, “mercy, mercy, what am I doing here?”  Most are overextended if the truth be known. There is no place for a slacker in such  a calling; but what parishes don’t understand is that most pastors are underpaid and overworked! They don’t know or keep boundaries very well. They are suckers for praise and will stand on their heads giving themselves away for a congregation, i.e. unless they get depressed. That is when you have to help — watch the criticism. Gripes become sources of pain. Too much and you will lose him or her. They are good “race horses” but they need space to grow and be trained. God does that, in context of the parish and a good group of leaders to help him or her do God’s work. Elders and Deacons share and nurture the pastor. When they do, everyone is blessed.

     Fifth is the Pastor’s family. Spouses need to be freed to chose and find their way. Often they are multi-faceted: Spouse, parent, homemaker and working to make ends meet. They may have a career doing a multitude of things at once. Arline worked all our married life and the one regret I have as I look back is the time taken away from her and my sons. I missed too many events of such importance that I have continued to revisit them to make up for the times I wasn’t there. They have forgiven me, but they were short-changed. I remember a water polo award that I missed when I was too busy doing something that could have waited. Remember your own kids and realize he is on call at all times of the day and night. When you need him or her, in the hospital, or crisis, the pastor needs to be there. His family knows this and wants him to be there, but he forgets and lines of responsibility blur into the immediate crisis, and normal routines. He will need help most likely in boundary issues. Call him when you need him, but remember his family and respect his home.

     Sixth is the preaching and the sacraments of communion and baptism. I agree with Joseph Sittler, a Lutheran teacher and seminary leader, that his preaching has changed over the years, the tennis ball bounces right back to you from pew to life, from pew to pulpit. The word of God and the grace of God has an authority of its own. It must reveal its own reality. It must testify of itself. The preaching and the sacraments have an intrinsic force or energy to heal, to reveal and to love. I have been taught by some of the best teachers to live in the text and when you do, the mystery of grace and love occur. It is the energy of God’s reality. It is the mystery and wonder of community. It is the commitment of a servant of the human and the divine. It is the greatest calling in the world and demands the very best from us. I love it and the parish that calls a pastor to a particular job among the people of God is blessed.

     The last item for a pastor is a place and a time everyday for solitude. Without “aloneness” we run the danger of what Henri Nouwen calls the loss of our center. To quote him,
     “A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.”
                                      —Out of Solitude

     Surprising things happen in solitude for me. It is God’s time and God’s place. Conversations are frank. Dependence recognized. Confession of humanity and weakness occur. Honesty is characteristic of the time spent. In short, the “centering time” or “aloneness time” is essential for a pastor or burnout or depression occur. The only necessary thing, my friend, is living a prayerful life.

See you in worship,
Your pastor and friend,
Chet