Pastor Irene's Manifesto

Here's another part I loved from Eugene Peterson's The Pastor. I post these kinds of things so I can get back to them easily!

Peterson was facilitating a class with a group of soon-to-be-starting pastors. After a few days together, he asked one young lady who'd been quiet what she was thinking. This was her response, which Peterson called Pastor Irene's Manifesto. I want to make it mine too.

"When I get a congregation, I want to be a patient pastor. I want to have eyes to see and ears to hear what God is doing and saying in their lives. I don't want to judge them in terms of what I think they should be doing. I want to be a witness to what God is doing in their lives, not a schoolmistress handing out grades for how well they are doing something for God.

"I think I see something unique about being a pastor that I had never noticed: the pastor is the one person in the community who is free to take men and women seriously just as they are, appreciate them just as they are, give them the dignity that derives from being the 'image of God,' a God-created being who has eternal worth without having to prove usefulness or be good for anything. I know that I will be doing a lot of other things too, but I might be the only person who is free to do this.

"I don't want to be so impatient with the mess that I am not around to see the miracle being formed. I don't want to conceive of my life as pastor so functionally that the mystery gets squeezed out of both me and the congregation."