What to Expect of a Pastor

This is as much about what NOT to expect from a spiritual guide or pastor as it is about what to expect.

We can expect pastors to be compassionate. Compassion manifests itself in a variety of ways. Maybe they take great care to get to know everyone—which, incidentally, most pastors say takes two to five years. Maybe they administer well and fairly. Maybe they spend a lot of time on lesson plans, meeting agendas, worship liturgies, or constructing a sermon.

Maybe a pastor emphasizes the “passion” of compassion, and can set a fire under your pew to help those in need and to work for peace, justice, and equality. Maybe a pastor manifests the “suffering with” that compassion literally means in pastoral care and counseling and spiritual direction.

The pastor may be gentle, someone you want to talk to, or the pastor may be charismatic, someone you want to listen to. The pastor may be introverted, more of a contemplative, someone who needs more time alone.  Or the pastor may be extroverted, wanting constantly to be among you. Compassion comes in many forms, and the majority of pastors would not be in their profession if deep down they were not compassionate.

Pastors may not have time to memorize a sermon, given other pressing responsibilities. They may not be natural speakers. We are spoiled by politicians and megachurch preachers who have the benefits of teleprompters speaking to us as if they are not reading what they are saying. Or we’re impressed by speakers who have the advantage of saying the same thing over and over again to different audiences. And some of us have been spoiled by senior pastors of large churches whose only job all week is to write and practice their sermons, while associate pastors do the day-to-day “hands on” ministry.

We can’t expect pastors to be like the pastor of our church in which we grew up; in some cases, we may hope they aren’t! We can’t expect a pastor to be a parental figure for us: he is not our father, she is not our mother. Though we can expect a pastor to be friendly and a kind of friend to all, and we might be blessed with a pastor as a personal friend, we cannot expect this. True friendship is a gracious gift, not something we can write into a job description.

The pastoral relationship is a professional relationship. You might be friends with your doctor or therapist or lawyer, but you would not expect this when engaging them to do their work. Indeed, close friendship might even interfere with the professional distance required to be effective, being of real help. Think of the things you withhold from a spouse or a friend. Think of the ways we avoid challenging a spouse or friend.

We can’t expect the pastor to be psychic, always knowing when we need to talk. As our own best ministers, each of us must take responsibility to ask to talk with the pastor when her or his ear is needed. Some I have served have gone through tough times only to tell me later they didn’t want to bother me because I was so busy. Now this may be Southern for “mind your own business,” but sometimes I felt I was attending to lesser issues rather than vital issues.

A church member once laughed when she confessed that she was an adult before she realized that pastors got paid. Some of us have the feeling that pastors should do what they do for the mere love of it. This is where the distinction between ministers and pastors is helpful. All of us as Christian ministers are called to do what we do for the mere love of it, not for the reward of heaven or human praise, but because we can derive satisfaction by doing what is right, just, and charitable. Part of our own ministry must be to support pastors adequately so they may devote their time to shepherding our congregation.

We can expect a pastor to need our support. The best support a pastor could have is regular attendance at worship and any classes and special programs she or he devises.

Offer a pastor one-on-one positive and critical feedback, in person and in private, just as the biblical injunction suggests, rather than presenting it to anyone else through gossip or in meetings. Rage or blaming or innuendo works about the same with a pastor as it does with a spouse or a friend.

Have regard for her or his personal life, not expecting pastors to attend every event, not using their partner or child or friends as a means of communication or manipulation. All of this is a two-way street: you can expect a pastor to behave like a professional, offering one-on-one feedback in private when allowed, avoiding rage or blame or innuendo, addressing but not creating conflict through e-mail, not using partners or children or friends as a means of communication or manipulation.

Trust pastors to be professionals. If you can’t get them on the phone, or if you find them running a personal errand, trust that they have arranged their schedule in such a way to fulfill their professional responsibilities. Pastors I know work well over a 40-hour week, and even when not formally at work, they are constantly thinking about what could be done to improve the life of the congregation. That’s what pastors do.

Expect all church leaders to be professional, even as volunteers. Sometimes we excuse unprofessional behavior with the caveat, “Why, they’re only volunteers.” Expect church leadership to observe and preserve professional boundaries. Expect them not to be abusive verbally, emotionally, sexually, or spiritually. Expect them to live a life with as much integrity as possible. Expect them to confront anything that might interfere with their professionalism, even as volunteers, such as addictions, control issues, or problematic partner or child. Expect them to follow professional protocols, procedures, and decorum.

But then expect the same thing of yourself. Do not be seductive and abusive with your leaders. Have as much integrity as possible. Confront your addictions, control issues, or problematic partner or child. Behave professionally in your process and behavior.

And above all, don’t expect the pastor or any church leader to be any more perfect than you are! In the spiritual life, I believe, the goal is integrity, not perfection. Mistakes are made by all of us, thus forgiveness is foundational for a spiritual community. Perfection suggests that we may finally “arrive”—a source of false pride—while integrity is a lifelong spiritual progress of integrating our beliefs, words, actions, feelings, and wisdom. Think of it as juggling; you may drop a ball, but you pick it up and start juggling again. None of us are perfect jugglers, but we are steadfast jugglers or we give up all together.

Last week’s blogpost served as prelude to today’s post. Check it out if you missed it:

God Is Our Shepherd.

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Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers.

Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Biblical Potluck

A minister for whom I was to read the scripture for his sermon delayed giving me the reference until, minutes before worship, I asked again. “Oh, I’m glad you reminded me,” he said, “Let me find it.” And he began thumbing through his Bible for the reading with which he seemed to have spent little time.

Another minister once told me he had tried “that meditation and prayer stuff,” but rather proudly announced he had never really “got it.”

A Roman Catholic priest for whom I served as his first Protestant friend began looking at the texts and preparing for his Sunday homilies on Wednesdays rather than Saturdays, he said, because of my influence.

The pastor whom I credit with my becoming Presbyterian in college had an intelligent, deep spirituality that blossomed in solid preaching and social activism. He wrote his sermons in phrases, as if they were poetry, and I am grateful he gave me a few of his manuscripts upon retirement. One especially memorable sermon was about “The One Remembered Line” we sometimes take from a sermon that gets us through the week.

A college religious studies professor remarked to us, his students, that in his first parish job description, he insisted on having twenty hours per week for reading, study, reflection, prayer and sermon preparation. Another professor admitted becoming increasingly hesitant to enter a pulpit, believing more and more that preaching is such an awesome responsibility, something I couldn’t altogether understand then but a feeling with which I resonate with age.

And the activist pastor I first worked alongside after graduation from seminary explained to me that he woke daily at 6 a.m. for two hours of prayer, reading, and silence, having been reared a Quaker.

While “acknowledging his [or her] poverty,” Pope Francis writes, “The Sunday readings will resonate in all their brilliance in the hearts of the faithful if they have first done so in the heart of their pastor.” He quotes Thomas Aquinas that preaching should be “communicating to others what one has contemplated.”

He encourages preachers in the practice of lectio divina, a mindful and prayerful reading of scripture. During the men’s monastic retreat I attended a couple of weeks ago, we practiced lectio divina with John 14:1-14, a text which Jesus begins, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” The phrase I gravitated to was Jesus saying “I will take you to myself.”

When that was the gospel the following week, I, as guest preacher, invited Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church to do lectio divina with the text, providing a copy for everyone, giving a chance for each to share the phrase that spoke to them. I knew this scripture would resonate in the heart of a congregation that faced so many recent challenges.  I explained that, were Sunday worship reinvented, this might be a desirable practice.

Giving it still more thought, it occurred to me that Sunday texts could be assigned much like a church potluck. Instead of last names beginning with A-F bringing salads, they could read the Hebrew lesson in preparation for worship. Instead of main dishes, G-L might contemplate the Psalm for the day, while M-R could reflect on the Epistle lesson. And instead of bringing desserts, S-Z could meditate on the Gospel.  To be fair, a congregation should rotate the assignments. To be honest, I have experienced abundant as well as sparse church potlucks, so it depends on the spiritual investment and generosity of the congregation as to how this will turn out!

Often we want church leadership “to do it all for us,” rather than doing our own spiritual work. But my experience is that people attracted to spiritual formation are eager to do their own work, in the spirit of the apostle Paul’s advice to the church of Corinth:  “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”

For me, the “punch line” of the men’s monastic retreat came when our leader, Carl McColman, who has written his own excellent and readable The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, recounted once being asked by an interviewer on a program, “If you could recommend only one book on Christian mysticism, what would it be?” To which Carl responded, surprising the host, “Why, the Bible, of course!”

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Related post:

Open Your Refrigerator

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Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.