How Have Modern Ways of “Doing Church” Fallen Short?
An Oversight
I think that modern ministry has had a lot of fruit come from it, and perhaps a lot of good methods have been produced. Typically, what it doesn’t do, though, is to care about the soul of the pastor. It’s more primarily concerned with people in the pews, getting certain numbers on the board, and things like that.
Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls
Coleman M. Ford, Shawn J. Wilhite
Professors Coleman M. Ford and Shawn J. Wilhite help pastors to embrace a classic, patristic vision of ministry through a study of pastoral virtues and early church figures.
There might be value in looking at those things. Pastors need to be fed by the contemplation of God through their own spiritual disciplines, through their own practice of silence and solitude, seeking to devotionally mine out the Scriptures for themselves.
Though we may talk about that in certain spaces like conferences or some books here and there, typically, pastoral leadership and pastoral ministry concern themselves more with pragmatics, more with getting the job done, and meeting the needs of others rather than allowing those needs to be met out of the overflow of a pastor’s soul.
Coleman M. Ford and Shawn J. Wilhite are authors of Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls: Learning the Art of Pastoral Ministry from the Church Fathers.
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