Keeping Busy

One of my favorite authors is Eugene Peterson.  I've always found his writings to be very thoughful, compassionate, and pastoral.  Yesterday, I was reading his book "The Contemplative Pastor: Return to the Art of Spiritual Direction" and one section in particular caught my attention.

In the chapter titled "Unbusy Pastors" he says that pastors need to be careful that they arn't "busy."  According to Peterson, being busy arrises in a pastors life for two reasons: vanity and laziness.  Vanity can lead to business because when you're filling up you're schedule then you feel like you're more important.  Laziness can lead to being busy because we let other's determine what our roles are (you need to be at this meeting because you're the pastor!)... and instead of being proactive about our time.  It's not that a pastor should not be "active."  It's just that we need to be careful of how we fill our time.

So what should a pastor do?  Peterson says there are three things: pray, preach, and listen.  Pastors need to be leaders in prayer.  I've been convicted of this more and more over the course of the last three years in seminary... i've had so many great professors who have emphasized the incredible need for prayer.  When I think of prayer, what comes to mind is dependence.  Prayer allows me to live into the reality that I am not in charge of this situation, and that there is a God who is.  Pastors covet the time they spend in preaching.  We have something that not many people have on a weekly basis: the ability to speak the grace of God in Christ into people's lives.  We need to be careful that we are doing that in the most effective way we can by paying attention to our people and contexts.  Pastors should also lead the way in listening.  I've found that people tend to spend a lot more time talking in our culture than listening.  Pastors should provide people with the opportunity to be heard.  We often jump to quick fixes or cheap answers (someone's always worse off!), but listening to people validates both their concern and their humanity. 

I pray that I and my colleages would be people who pray, preach, and listen.