Notes on *The Art of Pastoring*
The Art of Pastoring, David Hansen, (IVP, 1994, 2012)
Main Idea/Takeaway
Pastors are called to be parables of Jesus — people meet Jesus in our lives when we follow Jesus.
"I attempt to describe why it is that people meet Jesus in our lives when we follow Jesus. Even more, I have attempted to describe how and why following Jesus is the central principle of pastoral ministry, the comprehensive principle that integrates every task." (13)
"The thesis of this book is that people meet Jesus in our lives because when we follow Jesus, we are parables of Jesus Christ to the people we meet." (13)
"Here's what the pastoral ministry is for me: Every day, as I go about my tasks as a pastor, I am a follower of Jesus, I am therefore a parable of him to those I encounter. The parable of Jesus works the power and presence of Jesus in their lives." (31)
"Pastors who are parables of Jesus Christ change people's minds about Christ and bring the real Christ to people." (145)
Interaction
I pray petitionary and intercessory prayers because that grace of God at work within me leads me to desire things I cannot create. God's grace at work in me causes me to want to see things happen that I can't make happen. So I ask him to. (114)
Difference between parable and symbol. (143)
Table of Contents
I. Beginning
II. Call
III. The Holy Spirit
IV. Temptation
V. Eschatology
VI. Preaching
VII. Prayer
VIII. Friendship
IX. Sacrament
X. Leadership
XI. Leaving
XII. Reward
Favorite Quotes by Chapter
I. Beginning
"Better to be a follower of Jesus and no expert at that, just a sinner saved by grace, called to love because I have been bought with a price." (22)
"Pastoral ministry must be following Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ called me to this work, and following him must be integral to realizing his calling." (22)
"The speakability of God: this is what I want my life to be, a living organism through which God speaks, Not a hero, but a regular guy working away at imitating Christ in my everyday life." (26)
"My shepherding is an authentic extended metaphor of the Good Shepherd. And as such, my life conveys the surprising presence of the grace of God." (27)
"But if Jesus is communicated through us because of the likeness we share with him in our everyday life, if the essence of delivering Christ is living like him in our whole life, matching our life's narrative with his life's narrative, then our everyday life counts." (29)
"An adequate definition of pastoral ministry emphasizes following Jesus as the act of ministry, and particularly following Jesus on the way of the cross." (29)
"Sexual sin gets the press, but ego press kills the church." (30)
II. Call
"The gospel is the power of the love of God, and as such it gives the pastor the power of the love of God to give to others. If the gospel is the pastor's bread, the pastor will always have bread to give away." (41)
IV. Temptation
"I've tried and tried, but I've never been able to mix ambition and love. When I'm trying to be important and I'm plotting my way to the top, I can't love my wife, I can't love my kids, I can't love my friends, I can't love my parishioners. When I'm climbing ladders I cut myself off from the power of the pastoral ministry, which is love. For me to love, for me to follow Jesus, I need to step off the ladder." (76)
"In our hypertherapeutic milieu, people want professionals to do something to them to make them feel better. Living through life, meeting the demands of following Jesus, living under the lordship of a holy God doesn't appeal to the general public these days." (78)
"Pandering is a moral problem. We pander to people's desires for shortcuts because we don't want to walk the Way of the Cross with them. We want shortcuts just as much as our people do." (82)
V. Eschatology
"If we can't teach our people where they go because we don't know ourselves, or if we feel that we cannot teach them what we really believe about heaven and hell, we are poor pastors." (85)
"The widespread lack of a coherent, biblical eschatology among preachers, and their unwillingness to teach it, leads to toothless, people-pleasing preaching." (86)
"All I see is people that need Christ. I see people in danger. I feel a fire light in my gut: the message God has given me for this morning is something the congregation needs to hear and respond to. Nervousness about my performance is displaced by concern for the people to hear the Word of God and believe in faith. I see their end. I see their need. I see that there is a decision to be made about Christ, and that decision counts for everything."(99)
VI. Preaching
"Preaching is a form of aggression. As we preach, Yahweh, the God of war, conducts holy war to conquer territory. The field of conflict is the human heart." (108)
"Thinking Christocentrically helps me sort through the side issues and leads me straight to the heart of every biblical text and the subject of all sermons: Jesus Christ." (111)
"This is what renews our hermeneutic: hearing Christ preached and taught by authors and preachers who are unafraid to tell us the truth. And that is the whole point of preaching: to tell the truth boldly and unashamedly." (112)
VIII. Friendship
"I'm gun-shy of people who like me too much."(137)
"They thank Jesus but give me the credit. Their speech is think with spiritual lingo, but they treat me like I'm their savior. I don't think they're talking about me or Jesus. They're talking to someone or something I symbolize to them. Psychologists call this transference." (137)
"What must die in every pastor is the subconscious desire to please people. What must not die is the will to love. There's the risk."(140)
"There are intelligent steps the pastor can take to avoid the snare. Don't try to be a therapist. When pastors try to be therapists, the danger intensifies."(142)
"But pastors should never, under any circumstances, attempt to create or enhance transference reactions in parishioners. They do happen, and they can have happy endings, but they should be avoided. The happy endings are rare." (143)
"How can a pastor be a parable of Christ and not a symbol of God? There is a critical difference between symbols and parables: symbols are durable, parables are impermanent." (145)
"Pastors, as parables of Jesus, bring Christ to people and then as quickly as possible become unimportant, unnecessary and superfluous to the important thing: the parishioners' relationship with Jesus." (146)
"Rather, pastors need to allow their personal effect on people to be powerful, but light-handed and brief. This is what it means for a pastor to be humble. Humble pastors don't hang around for adulation, for then they might become an idol. Becoming an idol is the greatest fear of the humble pastor."(146)
IX. Sacrament
"Sin is not a mistake. Our sin is our willing unlawfulness, our purposeful breaking of God's law. In attitude and in deed, we rebel against God, and we have for that reason forfeited our right to live. We deserve to die for our sins. That's what the death of Jesus is for; our deliberate unlawfulness." (158)
"God's love is not a theory, nor does it meet an abstract need. God's love is a factual, historic action: the death of Jesus Christ. The purpose of God's act of love is to meet our real need, the forgiveness of our sins." (159)
X. Leadership
"Jesus Christ is the object of proclamation. Preaching our visions and ideas for the church is cheap leadership, and it is not preaching. But biblical, Christocentric preaching is powerful pastoral leadership." (168)
"A good sermon is like the breakfast the risen Christ prepared for his bone-weary disciples, fish cooking on coals, and bread." (168)
"Preaching clever ideas, church programs, politics and heart warming stories is thin soup. But bringing the Word of God faithfully to people week after week is a gourmet feast, good to taste and good for the soul. Christians who hear good preaching learn to "taste and see that the LORD is good" (Ps. 34:8). They develop a taste for the Word. They love to hear the Word of God, thoughtfully prepared, lovingly presented." (169)
"Whereas the sermon divided the church into individuals, the sacraments unite individuals with the body of Christ." (175)
"It is simple insight that the traditions of Christianity that place heavy stress on the sacraments tend to view individuals from the perspective of the unity of the church, while the traditions of Christianity that place heavy stress on preaching tend to view the church as a collection of individual disciples."(176)
XII. Reward
"It's just plain true that the more our world values autonomy and self-realization, the more discouraged and defeated we pastors have become. The more the world around us becomes its own eschaton, the less we will be understood and appreciated for what we do. And to the extent that we pastors accept the world's stance and attempt to become our own destinies through autonomy, the more we will despise our call and demand satisfaction now for our efforts. That's when we start trying to make stones into bread." (195)
Notable Content
"Reading the text in its original language accomplishes two vital things. Looking at the text in its original tongue is another way to fiddle with it. It is a way of spending unhurried, inefficient time with the text. It forces me to slow down and listen more intently." (104)
"Whereas morning prayer is praying the Psalms, wandering prayer is praying like the Psalms." (118)
Chapter 8 delves into the topic of transference. This is one of the most important treatments of this topic I’ve read in regards to pastoral ministry, and it is extremely relevant, especially for younger pastors (129)
"A pastor is not a symbol of God. A pastor is a parable of Jesus Christ." (143)
"But the sacraments, whose responsibility is to unite us, become a definite threat to the unity of the church if they are celebrated willy-nilly in small groups." (178)
