Proclaimer Blog
How do we pastor one another?
Taken from Tim Chester's second session at last week's Younger Ministers Conference. How do we pastor one another:
- We pastor one another every day. This is certainly the biblical pattern and the way that Jesus conducts much of his ministry. This is why dishwashers (says Tim, not Adrian!!) are evil because they rob us of pastoral moments. They obviously don't have much washing up in Tim's house, because we can put the dishwasher on and still have washing up (and therefore pastoral moments). Sorry, off the point there. Make the most of everyday moments for teaching, encouraging and comforting one another.
- We pastor one another in community. The God given context for pastoral care is the church community – not the therapists session or even the pastor's study. Change is a community project. Hebrews 3.12-13.
- We pastor one another over a lifetime. Change takes a lifetime and so pastoral care takes a lifetime soon. Even if we can bring some understanding to a situation, changing hearts is a sometimes slow process. If we don't realise this we will soon become frustrated in pastoral ministry.
- We pastor one another with grace. Which means we cannot pastor one another if we are not pastoring ourselves – see Matthew 7.3-5. We need to pastor one another out of a strong sense of grace both to the one we are speaking to and to ourselves. Self righteous pastors are bad pastors. They can leave others crushed.
- We pastor one another with the good news. We don't say "you should not…". Instead we say, "you need not, because God is….."
Really helpful stuff. We'll have the video and audio up soon.
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