Rethinking (Reframing) Pastoral Ministry (1:1)

September 12, 2022 Roland Kuhl 0 Comments

When I sensed a call to ministry back in December 1974, after wrestling with positively responding to this call, I was only aware of responding to this call through traditional forms of pastoral ministry – serving within some sort of church context.  Were other options open to me at the time?  Perhaps, but now as I reflect back, I do not know how open I was as a young man to hear or see such options.

I grew up in a conservative church context, so a calling to ministry was framed narrowly as pastoral ministry.  I remember though when I mentioned my receiving and responding to this call in a Jesus-people fellowship I was active in where I attended university, the question was raised whether it was pastoral ministry I was being called to, or the general call of all followers of Jesus to engage in ministry?  I think at the time I was not really all that open to consider that question because it seemed to be challenging the authenticity of a call to pastoral ministry – the sense that the questioner assumed I did not have pastoral ministry gifts.  That is actually why I struggled at first as well in responding to this call, because I believed the same, and so did many at my home church.  I was not a gifted speaker/communicator, I was somewhat shy not having the naturally ability of being in front of people commanding their attention.  However, though I raised these concerns with God, God kept reminding me that God was extending this call upon my life to serve in, as I understood it at the time, to pastoral ministry.  This call was eventually supported and confirmed by others as they witnessed the Spirit of God using me in numerous ministry contexts.

However, over the years of engaging in pastoral ministry, walking alongside others in ministry as well as those considering ministry, ministering in contexts outside of church ministry, particularly in academic ministry (which I still do), I realized that there is and needs to be a broader understanding of what pastoral ministry entails.

I meet regularly with a colleague and our discussion of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in our world continues to reap benefits of reframing how we think about ministry, about church, about living missionally and incarnationally in the world.  We are in a liminal state where life and how we engage in ministry is changing, how we are disciples in the world is changing, even what it means to be “church” in the world.  Out of these conversations there has been a growing rethinking or reframing (for me at least) of what it means to be involved and engaged in pastoral ministry.

I have come to realize that even within academic contexts, where I have been professor as well as administrator, that though this is outside of a normal pastoral ministry context of church, that I have brought and still do bring a pastoral perspective, attitude, demeanor to my walking alongside with others as I shape their understandings and guide them in how they lead in ministry in their contexts and world.

Right now I am entering retirement and yet rather than “retiring” from ministry, I find myself rethining and reframing how my being pastor is taking on a different context – such as the neighborhood within which I live, how my being pastor is taking on a more incarnational focus as I seek to walk alongside my neighbors in my neighborhood, seeking to discern what the Spirit is doing in their lives so that I might join in.  I have come to discover over the years being pastor is not so much a role, but a calling, a perspective, even a worldview that has shaped my personality and how I approach and am with others. 

Indeed, I am more sure of my calling to pastoral ministry, since I first responded to this calling upon my life over 46 years ago, yet living out this calling I have come to realize goes far beyond the scope of what we have come to understand as “church” in our North American context.  So I raise this question for myself and for you who find yourself in a similar place – what is the new shape of pastoral ministry, how is the context of pastoral ministry being reframed as we seek to love God and love neighbor, how might we reframe our understanding of church as we seek to live and minister incarnationally in our neighborhoods?  I look forward to this exploration and I look forward to your questions, thoughts, challenges as well so that we might explore this together.  I hope you will join in this exploration with me.