Rethinking (Reframing) Pastoral Ministry – My Wrestling with the Manner of Pastoral Ministry (1.3)
September 15, 2022 Roland Kuhl 0 Comments
In my first year of university studies in Applied Chemistry at the University of Waterloo, I experienced the grace of God and it changed my whole life. Though I was brought up in a conservative church, much of the Christian walk was about pleasing God and doing the right things and not doing the wrong things. I came to believe in God but through high school realized that I could never live the kind of life that would be pleasing to God – it was a graceless experience. I resolved as I went off to university that either I figured out how to live with God or for my own sanity to not try to please God anymore.
God had a third option in which as I decided to walk away from God, God encountered me with the love that can only come from God and transformed me through the grace that only comes from God. I discovered freedom in my new-found Christian walk, discovered a new group of people who sought to walk in the ways of Christ with an extraordinary openness to the Spirit.
It was during this time, during the first semester finals, that as I was studying chemistry and growing in Christ that I began to sense God calling me into ministry. The only ministry I knew was pastoral and I was sure I was the least suited for this kind of ministry. I loved God, sought to serve God, but I was sure these were spurious thoughts in my head so I reasoned away this sense of call that was growing in me – the reasoned it away seven times. But every time I came to such resolution, whenever I opened Scripture to read it, I was confronted anew with this call. Finally, I prayed, “Lord, if this is you extending this call, though I think I am not qualified or suited for such ministry, I will say yes if you give me overwhelming peace in such a decision.” God did. I was filled with such peace in responding “yes” that I came to know that I knew that this was God’s hand upon my life.
And so I pursued preparation for ministry – completed my year at Waterloo, transferred to Oral Roberts University (where one of the pastors where I was fellowshipping in Waterloo graduated from), and completed my preparations after ORU by completing my seminary training at Fuller Theological Seminary. It is here at Fuller where I grew thinking theologically, rooting and centering myself in Christ, seeking to believe what Christ says and what Christ believes, rather than merely believing about Christ. Here I also encounter C. Peter Wagner and learned about Church Growth and the importance of leadership.
I took these learnings into my first pastorate in Indiana, and then my second pastorate in Alberta. Yet, as I lived out the kind of leadership that was now being expected of pastors I realized that it did not fit well with me. I sensed I did not have the kind of gifts necessary to be such a pastoral leader as denominations were requiring in order for churches to grow (numerically and otherwise). It was while serving in Edmonton, AB that I began seriously exploring what was going on and I came to the realization that this way of leading, that drew from business, marketing, military models, was antithetical to the way of leading expressed and demonstrated by Jesus and that it was actually doing harm to the people we were called to serve. In coming to this realization I knew I needed to step out of pastoral ministry to explore if there indeed was a different way of pastoring, of leading. In stepping out, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program in education (I came to realize that besides New Testament Studies or Theological Studies – which I explored at Fuller, that what was necessary was exploring how we put faith that we expressed into practice – hence giving attention to discipleship and educational processes).
This ended up being a 15-year hiatus, my own kind of desert wandering where I came to rethink and reframe what pastoral ministry entailed through the writings of Eugene Petersen; where I came to rethink and reframe what pastoral leading entailed through exploring at first servant leadership, but then realizing that servant is not to describe the manner of our leading, rather servanthood or servantship is to be the posture in which we do all things – pastor, teach, preach, even lead. As I explored the way of Jesus in leading in a posture of servantship rather than one of leadership, I came to realize that this kind of leading was not what churches were looking for in their pastors – they wanted take-charge leaders to be pastors of their churches, taking on a posture of leadership, perhaps mediated through a servant focus. I wondered if I would ever pastor again.
Also in my theological and spiritual journey I came to realize that I was Anabaptist in my theological outlook, and so my wife and I began attending a Mennonite congregation in the county where we lived – there was only one Mennonite church in the whole county. After a while they came to realize that I possessed pastoral gifts and calling, as they were looking for a pastor. As we entered into discussion, I noted that I was not interested in pastoring in the manner that most churches were expecting of their pastor and as I shared my journey, they declared that this is the kind of pastor they would be interested in. The result was a 7-year ministry among them, experimenting with new ways of pastoring, of discerning the Spirit, of engaging missionally and incarnationally.
This overview has been a brief one and indeed there are more depths of discovery that I did not mention, however, I hope that what I shared gives a sense of a journey of not only where I came to explore rethinking and reframing pastoral ministry, but resonates with you in a way that invites you into such an exploration as well.