Recovering Faithful Participation in a Therapeutic Age – Series Page
Phase 2: How We Learned to Read Scripture This Way
How did I participate in the bigger, better, greater way of thinking?
Looking in the Mirror
For decades I served as an evangelical pastor. I preached hundreds of sermons, taught Bible studies, led worship, served in community events, officiated weddings, conducted funerals, sat beside hospital beds, listened to broken relationships, prayed with grieving families and celebrated births. And the last 16 years also included working as an elementary school custodian. Now as I write this series, “Return to a Future,” I want to give some confessions of a church pastor.
Those years were a gift. However, retirement gives me something that ministry rarely afforded. Time.
- Time to reread familiar passages.
- Time to notice assumptions I never knew I had.
- Time to ask not only what I believe, but how I learned to read Scripture in the first place.
- Time to step away from the machine.
These confessions of a pastor aren’t written from outside the Church; It’s written from within it. My reflections aren’t an accusation; they’re a confession.
The Inherited Ministry
I entered the pastoral ministry in my late thirties with lots of life experiences. Like any pastor, I sincerely wanted people to experience the Good News.
When someone hurts, I want them to discover hope.
If a marriage struggles, I want Scripture to speak into it.
If someone feels overwhelmed by guilt or fear, I want them to know God’s grace.
Eventually I started a church community from scratch with only my wife, teenage kids and a few friends as my flock. Sadly after 15 years, the pandemic mandate kept the church from being sustainable. However, before that, like many other pastors, I inherited a flock, a tradition, and cultural expectations that said, “this is the way things are done around here.” Without realizing it, I also inherited assumptions about what pastors were supposed to do.
- We preach.
- We counsel.
- We mediate conflict.
- We visit hospitals.
Many small church pastors wear many hats. We become financial advisors, career coaches, marriage counselors, crisis managers, amateur psychologists, and organizational leaders. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. None of those responsibilities are wrong. Honestly, I considered them expressions of who I was and through them I gave myself in love.
The question I now ask isn’t whether they mattered. Yes I needed evidence that my ministry mattered and not sentimental reassurance. Even for a time since retiring, I struggled with that question. But now, I’m starting to reflect upon a different question. “What does God’s faithful presence look like here?” We’ll explore that further in this series.
However, now I wonder. Did those expectations (from others and myself) slowly shape the way I imagined the Gospel itself?
The Good News We Emphasized
Early in ministry, I viewed the “Good News” for what it does. News is good when it brings welcome relief and I wanted folks to experience welcome relief through my words and actions. If someone walked into church carrying a heavy burden, I wanted them to leave believing that Jesus met them in their point of need.
I still believe that.
It’s said, “Pastors don’t retire; they’re put out to pasture.” That saying inspired me to call myself the “Pastor From the Pasture” and step into a new kind of service as I look across the landscape. From this view, retirement allows me to ask:
What did I imagine the Good News was good news for?
Sometimes I wonder if my desire to bring practical help also reflected the cultural context in which I ministered. Maybe part of me was reacting against another emphasis I often encountered. I didn’t want to be accused of being so heavenly minded that I wasn’t any earthly good.
I often heard sermons that emphasized heaven where ordinary life almost disappeared from view. At times the Cross could sound strangely distant from the realities of work, marriage, children, grief, anxiety, and daily responsibilities.
I didn’t want people to only hear the cold comfort of a “one day” in the future. My desire was for them to know that God cared about today.
I still believe He does.
The Risk of Over-Correction
We all make mistakes or feel the need to fix something. However, every correction carries the risk of over-correction. If you drive a car, you’ve probably felt your heart race when you over-steered. I recall a time over 40 years ago when the front right tire of my car caught gravel on the shoulder of a road. I over-corrected and my car jolted into the opposite lane and rolled over to stop against a tree. I’m thankful I was the only car on that road.
I certainly didn’t do that on purpose; especially since my car was almost brand new! Likewise, without intending to, at times I may have presented Christianity mostly as God’s answer to the problems in our lives rather than God’s invitation into His life.
I think there’s a difference.
Reading Through Our Culture
As I grow older – and my grand kids think I’m ancient at 65 – the less interested I am in asking whether my generation was right or wrong. Instead, I’m more interested in asking what shapes the questions we bring to Scripture.
When Jesus first stepped into public ministry calling disciples to follow him, none of them joined Jesus with a clean slate. Each one had their own set of assumptions. As it is with us. From Generation Alpha to Silents, every generation reads the Bible through inherited assumptions as well.
We don’t choose them consciously. We absorb them. The questions our culture asks soon become the questions we expect Scripture to answer.
For my generation, practical application became king; I even made up my own saying. “Information without application is infatuation.” Some say “knowledge is power” but I’d say, “applied knowledge is power.”
- Every sermon needed action steps.
- Every passage needed immediate relevance.
- Every doctrine needed to solve something tangible.
None of that is bad.
But maybe pastors like me became so eager to explain better what the Bible means, that we didn’t always allow the Bible to reshape our insights about what it meant from its own point of view.
Looking back, I don’t think I preached too much practical Christianity. Yet, I wonder how often my teaching made “practical application” the destination, rather than the fruit of knowing God. Yes outcomes matter but not making myself sovereign over outcomes was a hindrance I never fully overcame while serving the ministry machine.
A Different Kind of Question
Today I find myself asking different questions.
Not, “How can this passage improve my life?” But, “What kind of life does this passage describe?”
Not, “How can God help me manage my circumstances?” But, “How is God inviting His people to participate in His life?”
Those aren’t just different applications. They’re grounded at a different centre of gravity.
The more I reread Scripture in its own historical and cultural world, the more restrained it seems to me. It doesn’t answer every question I bring to it. Instead, it teaches me new questions to ask.
Looking Ahead
This series isn’t my attempt to rewrite the past. Nor is it an attempt to criticize those who influenced me. I owe more than I can say to faithful pastors, professors, teachers, elders, and ordinary saints who pointed me toward Jesus.
Rather, these reflections are an invitation. An invitation to reread the ancient story together. To notice where our own culture silently shapes the lenses through which we see. May God’s grace allow us to recover something that’s never been lost.
Not a new Christianity. An older one.
One that still calls ordinary people into the extraordinary privilege of faithful participation in the life of Jesus Christ.