The Missional Pastor

I was trained for ministry under the 'scholar-pastor' model. Jonathan Edwards was my hero. Pastoring to me meant having a study with lots of books, locking myself in there for hours on end, and coming out to deliver erudite sermons. This is still a deep part of me. I feel guilty if I don't diagram the sermon text in the original language, read all the commentaries, and spend 20-30 hours per week in writing the manuscript. I struggle with disdaining pastors who are not heady or doctrinally educated. Following people like David Wells (cf. No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology), I have long thought that what the church desperately needs is more pastors who are thinkers.

Then early on in my pastoral experience I came across the 'contemplative pastor' model, as advocated by Eugene Peterson. His book, The Contemplative Pastor, was extremely convicting - especially the Moby Dick allusion (pp. 24-25). That classic story is about the epic pursuit of a whale. In it the whaling boat has oarsmen rowing frantically, a captain intensely directing affairs, and a poised harpooner who sits still and waits. Herman Melville (the author of Moby Dick) writes this: "To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil." Peterson sees the harpooner as the perfect analogy for a pastor. Pastors today, he maintains, are too busy. We're scurrying about, frenzied and frazzled with 'ministry'. Yet when we leave our posts of prayer to join the oarsmen we lose our position of effectiveness. So according to this model (which I still have a great fondness for) what the church needs is more pastors who can stay outside the fray and from a position of quietness, meditation, and observation speak God's truth to a harried world.

But now through my study and reading and as I pray and contemplate I've become convinced of the need for the church to be a missional community that engages the world. And this framework has produced a new model - that of 'missional pastor'. The missional pastor leads the charge out into the world. The missional pastor leaves the cloister of his study and develops relationships with the lost. He calls the church towards outward engagement by giving an example to follow. It's a more active model of pastoring.

This 'missional pastor' model is very appealing and convicting, but I struggle with following it. If only there were more hours in the day!! I fear losing my biblical and theological groundings if I abandon my study. I fear burn out and spiritual disconnnectedness if I abandon my post and "leap frenzied to the oars." And years of operating under the 'scholar' and 'contemplative' pastor models have left me rather introverted and uneasy around people. What model (or hybrid) should best guide us Chicago Emerging Baptist pastors? Thoughts? Insights? Advice?