When I was in seminary, we spent a lot of time talking about what it means to be a pastor. We looked at what the job requires and what this kind of ministry is like. As we did this, we examined a number of images that helped us understand the role of a pastor. The old form for ordaining pastors in the CRC described pastors as servants, stewards, teachers, sheperds, and ambassadors and heralds. In my brief time as a minister, I've spent some time thinking about what my job is like and how I can explain what I do to others. I think one helpful way to do that is to think of pastors as storytellers.
In the Reformed tradition we sometimes talk of the grand story of God and His world, a story that we usually tell in four acts: creation, fall, redemption, new creation. (Personally, I prefer the term "consummation" to "new creation," but I think new creation is the more common term.) In broad terms, my job as pastor is tell this big story, this story that includes all of us. This story shapes the way we look at the world, giving us hope that the events of our lives are not random and that God is working out His wonderful purposes in all things.
A major part of my work is preaching. In preaching I tell small pieces of this grand story as contained in Scriptures. Because the story of God and His world is centered on Jesus Christ, Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and reign bubble to the surface again and again as I tell different chapters of the story. And as I tell these small pieces of the larger story, I tell stories from our lives that show how we fit into God's grand story and how His master story relates to our day-to-day experiences. (Even my sermon structures are directly shaped by stories; I was taught a narrative style of preaching in seminary.)
But my storytelling work doesn't end in the pulpit. When I make pastoral visits, I listen to others' stories and work to understand the people I meet each day. I try to ask questions that lead to stories, and these stories shape the way I preach and teach. Often we read Scripture at the end of visits and connect our stories with the larger narrative. When we close our visits in prayer, we bring our stories before God, thanking Him for His faithfulness and provision, lamenting our pain and suffering, asking for His help and signs of His presence. When I teach in settings such as youth group and Bible studies, I try to use stories to illustrate what the life of God's kingdom looks like in our circumstances. When I do the work of mentoring and discipleship, I help others tell their stories, seeing how God works out that familiar pattern of sin, salvation, service in an unending variety of contexts and settings. When I tell others about Jesus, I look for ways to tell stories of how God is active in my life and our world, stories that show what following Christ means to me.
In Acts 3, after a beggar is healed of lameness at the temple gate called Beautiful, Peter and John tell the story to the crowd as part of the continuing story of Jesus' work in the world. They stress that they are witnesses of these events. I see my work in that light. I look for how Jesus is at work in His world through His Spirit and I tell those stories in the context of the grand story of God and His world. I, too, am a witness. And that means I have stories to tell.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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