"To Him be glory forever": Acts 6

Thursday, March 14, 2019

The Custodian?

"Are you the custodian?"

That was the question recently when someone saw my keychain. "I'm not the custodian, but sometimes it seems like it" was my reply. I'm the pastor of a small church, and in addition to my main responsibilities the fact that it is a small church, and that I live next door, makes it only "natural" that I do some other things. These other things include occasional custodial work, some building repairs, minor work on the church car, unlocking/locking up the building for other users, and some other things that don’t come to mind at present.

I need keys to the various doors of the church, the parsonage, the gym/education building, a storage shed, as many as four vehicles, and two post office boxes. Over time I have assembled a collection of keys that, to this point, give me access to everything I need. A few keys unlock multiple doors, and several fit only one single door. Once we had a doorknob break. I couldn't repair the door knob but I could replace it with an old one sitting in our storage shed. An old one that happened to have a single key with it.

Lots of keys, virtually all of them having a necessary purpose, kind of like you'd expect the custodian to have, except I'm not the custodian. Well, not exactly the custodian. Because as I thought a bit more about the key/custodian thing it occurred to me that a pastor and custodian have a lot in common in the nature of their work.

The custodian needs to know their way around the building, and how to take care of things. They need to keep an eye out for what needs to be done, and use the right tools and supplies to do the job well. Cleaning might be the greater part of the job, but it isn’t the only thing that gets done in the course of a day.

Similarly, there is a lot of care, over peoples souls, that goes into being a pastor. After five years in Dulce I would say that the biggest parts of a pastor's job are preaching and praying. As the book of Acts tells the story of the early church grew it notes that the apostles were feeling overwhelmed with all the things to attend to. And so they gathered all the disciples together and then set some aside for the various tasks of service, saying in Acts 6:4:

"But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word."

The apostles weren't necessarily better than anyone else, but they understood that there were only so many things each person could do, and that some of those tasks were the ones that Jesus specifically prepared them to do. And so that’s where they focused their energy.

For me, it works out to spending time studying, praying and preparing to proclaim God's word, Sunday by Sunday; sharing the Bible and praying with the people I get out to visit with in their homes, the hospital and care facilities; and praying over the many things that come as prayer requests when we worship on Sunday morning. And there are all the seemingly random bit of contact I have with people during the week. At the store, or post office, or just about anywhere, where a few brief words become an opportunity to point a person in the direction of the Lord.

Many things come up as "non-pastoral" duties over the course of the week. They come my way, they need to get done, and I work on them. But it is the various forms of "prayer and the ministry of the word" that I think are the most important. The diverse way those things present themselves make me think the pastor/custodian comparison holds a lot of truth. And that’s just fine with me.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Three Years In…

The last day of August…marking the end of another year of ministry in Dulce. We have been here for three full years and so today I find myself with a few thoughts on being a pastor.

At the end of the first year I felt that I had spent twelve months learning to be a pastor. What on earth does a pastor really do? Looking back on the first year it seemed that answering that question in the specific place where I serve seemed to be my primary achievement. I hadn’t begun with the goal of answering that question but by the end of the year I figured I had achieved a basic level of pastoral competency.

And at the end of the second year? My conclusion then was that I had a firm identity as "their pastor," with "them" being the people who came to church each Sunday, the people I visited at the hospital and in their homes, the people I met at the park. I had been here long enough and spent enough time with them that I felt a sense of responsibility towards them, not because they were the group attending the church I served, but because I had gotten to know them as the people God called me to serve. I understood things about their lives. Their relationships. Their community. As people, they mattered to me.

And today, as three years have ended? I have a different learning of my role here. I have heard it said that it takes three years for a pastor to find out how big a mess their church is, and that it takes three years for a church to find out how big a mess their pastor is.

Regarding the church I serve I'll say that it isn't any kind of mess. There are strengths and there are areas that could be stronger. I wouldn’t trade this congregation for an opportunity to serve any other place. During the call process we were asked how long we would stay and our answer was that if things work out we intend to stay until it is time to retire. After three years we have no desire to serve anywhere else.

But as to the pastor himself, and the mess he may be? I don’t know what the members of the congregation would have to say, but I'll say that the things I feel are among my greatest strengths are also evident to me as areas needing lots of growth.

In Acts 6 we read about the early church and one of the problems it had. The apostles were overwhelmed with their responsibilities and so they created the role of deacon, so that there were people who were in charge of caring for the physical needs of the Christian community. This left the apostles better able to attend to what they felt was their primary calling, saying in verse 4:

"But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word."

At the end of three years I feel strongly that these two tasks, prayer and ministry of the word, i.e. preaching and teaching the Bible, are the central tasks of a pastor. There are many other things that clamor for my time, but these are the two things that should always be the priorities.

They are two tasks that happen in a variety of settings. They happen in worship on Sunday mornings, over breakfast at the Inn, in a car in the parking lot, in the hospital and nursing home, in the privacy of my study. They happen in large groups, in small groups, with just one other person, and with just myself and the Lord God.

On the one hand I can see a basic level of "competency," yet on the other hand I can see much room for growth in both areas. As three years end I am thankful for everyone who prays for this ministry and for every prayer that is lifted up on our behalf. And I ask for continued prayer, not because I see myself as a pastor in crisis or that we are desperate for encouragement, but because neither we, nor any other ministry, serves on their own and separate from the body of Christ. We pray for each other to lift each other up to God, seeking that God would use His servants, wherever they may be, to bring glory to His name.

May our service in Dulce strengthen His church and bring glory to His name, or as the Psalmist says,

"From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the Lord is to be praised!"