The Gospel & Work by Moore Russell D. & Walker Andrew

Author:Moore, Russell D. & Walker, Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Theology/Ethics
Publisher: B&H Books
Published: 2017-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

How Should the Church Engage?

Tom Nelson

A person should think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful. —1 Corinthians 4:1–2

Confession is good for the soul. But let’s be honest, it’s hard for pastors. Making a heartfelt confession before my congregation was very hard, yet would prove transformative for our faith community.

Pastoral Malpractice

Pastoral malpractice may seem a rather severe self-assessment, but I could not find a more accurate description of my vocational failure. The inconvenient truth I could not evade, ignore, or dismiss was the harsh reality that although I was called to equip my congregation for all of life, I had only been equipping them for a small sliver of their lives. I had given little sustained thought to the activities my parishioners spent so much time doing throughout the week.

Thinking back on it, I certainly believed my congregation’s work mattered. I was especially aware of this during the offering time on Sunday or in the midst of a capital campaign. But at some point, I realized that the thing that actually mattered most to me was my own work, measured by things such as the numerical growth of the attendance at our Sunday services. I may not have said so explicitly, but I was living as if my vocation as a pastor was far more important than the vocations of my parishioners.

The Majority-Minority Disparity

My pastoral malpractice can best be summed up as a professionally accepted, yet blinding vocational failure, embedded in a majority-minority disparity. In other words, I had been spending the majority of my time equipping congregants for things they were called to do with a minority of their time. Without malice and with good intention, my pastoral vocational paradigm had been informed by a theological deficiency. At the heart of it all, I had failed to see clearly—from Genesis to Revelation—the high importance of vocation and the integral theological connections of faith, work, and economics.

Somehow I had missed how the gospel speaks into every nook and cranny of life, connecting Sunday worship with Monday work in a seamless fabric of Holy Spirit-empowered faithfulness. With the best of intentions but with far-reaching negative ramifications, I had been perpetuating a large Sunday-to-Monday gap in my preaching, discipleship, and pastoral care. It was time to embrace some desperately needed change.

The Sunday-to-Monday Gap

I am discovering I am not alone in my pastoral malpractice. For many pastors and Christian leaders, there is a large Sunday-to-Monday gap. This gap leads to a deficient understanding of the integral relationship between worship on Sunday and work on Monday. Many well-intentioned pastors spend the majority of their time equipping their congregations for what church members do with only a minority of their time. And this ignores the importance of everyday work and the workplaces Christians inhabit so many hours each week. The negative consequences of this common form of pastoral malpractice are both striking and sobering.

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