00-Pluene- some to be pastors(b)

SOME TO BE PASTORS BY PETER H. PLEUNE And he gave some to be ... pastors ... for the perfecting of the saints, unto the voorlc of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the Icnowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgroton man, unto the measure of the stature of the f illness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13.

Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Be diligent in these things; give thyself wholly to them; tJiat thy progress may be manifest unto all. Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching. Continue in these things; for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. 1 Timothy 4:14-16.

ABINADON-COKESBUBY PRESS NEW YORK NASHVILLE SOME TO BE PASTORS COPYRIGHT, MCMXLIII (1943) BY WHITMORE & STONE

All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the text may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publishers, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers.

Contenido I. The Gospel According to You3 II. “THIS ONE THING I DO!”7 III. An Understanding Heart15 IV. Ringing Doorbells23 V. Slow, Curve Ahead29 VI. Five Senses and Two More.36 VII. Those who are not with Us43 VIII. Pastoral Psychiatry50 IX. To Join this Man and this Woman55 X. When Death Comes60 XI. Books66 XII. Time, Vacation, Money72 XIII. This and That78 XV. In a World at War91 XVI. Faltering in our Task of Happiness95

WAR EDITION

Complete text. Reduced size in compliance with orders of the War Production Board for conserving paper and other materials.

SET UP, PRINTED, AND BOUND BY THE PARTHENON PRESS AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To my wife and daughter who have devotedly shared with me the bitter and the sweet experiences which constitute the undertones of this book

IT IS PERHAPS JUST AS WELL THAT THE AVERAGE church member never sees a catalogue of a theological seminary. He is not too sure always that his minister is a normal human being ; and to find that his pastor studied such things as Apologetics, Homiletics, Hermeneutics, and the like, would only increase his bewilderment about the kind of preparation some of us must have had for our task. Then to learn that the special study of a minister’s work as a pastor is called Pastoral Theology could not help very much in his understanding of how often we act the way we do. We can almost hear him muttering to himself, "Pastoral Theology! What has Theology to do with it? Why don’t they teach just plain pastoral common sense?"

There was an unusually rare understanding in the reply I overheard one church member make to another on this subject.

One asked, "What is it that our preacher is going to teach at the Seminary?"

"Pastoral Theology," the other replied.

"What’s that?" asked the first man.

"That," said the other, "is what a minister has to know about being a pastor that he can’t get out of books." And here am I trying to put it into a book ! To be a good pastor does require a wisdom that is not academic. No set of rules could be laid down, or textbook be written, to fit the various demands of a pastor’s work. It is both too simple and too complex for that.

Even a loose definition of pastoral work is difficult. It is not enough to say that in the pulpit a minister is a preacher, and that outside of the pulpit he is a pastor; for preaching too is, or ought to be, a pastoring of the flock. We offer no definition of a pastoral ministry lest we seem to limit it.

We do have a deep conviction that the determining factor in the field of a pastor’s endeavor is not a matter of technique but of inner spirit and attitudes, and of the utter commitment of one’s personal life, without pride or self-seeking, to the glorious task of hallowing, comforting, healing, and redeeming the lives of men.

We confess that we do not know much about it. And what we do know may not be interesting or helpful to anyone else. But we have thought much about it. We have struggled along at the task for thirty years. For a few years we tried to teach a class in a theological seminary in what the catalogue listed as Pastoral Theology. We do know that many young ministers feel their inadequacy here. It has helped us, and we hope them, as we have talked together about it. This little book is the result of a suggestion from a younger minister that we jot down some of the conversations we have had about the things that enter into being a good minister of Jesus Christ. That is all that we have tried to do. We have sought to follow the conversational manner in order to avoid the formal and the didactic. We have taken many things for granted. We naturally assume an intimate personal relation of the minister to his God, and his dependence on God for strength and guidance in all things. We will be thinking together primarily about some of the ways in which we may give ’ * all that is within us ’ ’ to the task for which God has appointed us, of shepherding some of his flock. Should any laymen come upon this book, we trust that it may serve to increase their patience with their pastor, and give direction to some daily sustaining prayer in his behalf.

I wish to express my appreciation to President Frank H. Caldwell and Dean Lewis J. Sherrill, of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and to Dr. Teunis E. Gouwens, for their critical reading of the manuscript of this book, and to the latter particularly for his hearty encouragement to begin to write these chapters out of our ministerial experiences.

PETER H. PLEUNE