God’s Shepherds Don’t Always Look the Part
What does the ideal personal banker or financial advisor look like? He or she should have a healthy dose of gray hair (or male-pattern baldness) that gives the impression of wisdom and experience. That person should also be mildly overweight, so as to look successful and a person of some personal wealth. And finally, the ideal banker or financial advisor should have hemorrhoids. Yup, hemorrhoids—to maintain an appearance seriousness. (Bet you didn’t expect to read about hemorrhoids in the church newsletter!)
It’s an old joke, but makes you think. And not just about the impression a person may want to convey to others, but how our hopes and expectations can color what we look for.
What does the perfect pastor look like? Go ahead and Google “the perfect pastor” sometime. Each search result will have a list of individually commendable but mutually exclusive characteristics (“…is 29 with 40 years’ experience…” and the like).
Years ago, I served my seminary internship requirement as youth pastor in a Covenant church out East. The lead pastor had started his ministry there just a week before Cheryl and I arrived. The family had decided to buy a house that was still under construction, so they’d had to live in the old parsonage for a few months first. Then came the Saturday that many of us from church went over to help them move into their new home. One elementary school aged girl saw the pastor in work clothes that day… and stared at him as though he were an alien! She’d never considered that he was anything other than what she saw in church every Sunday. Pastors don’t wear old clothes with paint on them! Imagine that, a real person, quite like everyone else.
Being a pastor today doesn’t carry anywhere near the same mystique that it once did. (Shucks, my Dad used to ask about 10% clergy discounts—and get them!) But pastors are still the ones who listen to our troubles along the way, find us when we’re in the hospital, pray for us, and help focus our attentions on God’s promises to us, and Jesus’ presence with us, and the Holy Spirit’s work among us, week after week. Pastors may not “be 29 years old with 40 years’ experience,” but they do represent the care and concern of the whole church family when they visit with us. And like all of us in the church family, pastors seek to be the hands of feet of Jesus.
Blessings on our Pastoral Search Committee as they seek the pastor God is preparing to become part of the ministry of Covenant Church of Schaumburg.
