Pastor-Manager? Pastor-Therapist? or Pastor-Theologian?
Some people want a pastor who gets all of their inspiration from the best-seller lists, pop-culture films and Wired Magazine. Others want their pastor to be a master of leadership principles, a management guru with a sprinkling of Jesus on top, who can help them put together an investment portfolio. But the true calling of any shepherd of God’s flock is to be a pastor-theologian. Kevin Vanhoozer, the author of The Drama of Doctrine and Everyday Theology, reiterated the primary importance of theology in an interview that I recently read. Here is an excerpt:
Not all pastors make time to read great works of theology. They are too busy preparing sermons, visiting their people, organizing the church’s evangelistic program and so on. Why should pastors make the effort to become pastor-theologians?
KV: Both parts of the Great Commission, evangelism and making disciples, require theology. Theology is a form of the ministry of the Word; specifically, theology is a the ministry of Christian understanding. We need theology in our evangelism because theology is about preserving the integrity of the word, the message of the gospel an evangelist proclaims. We need theology in our disciple-making because theology is about reminding us who we are and what we are to say and do as followers of Jesus Christ in this or that situation.
The world is filled with therapists and managers. What the church needs now is people who can (1) articulate from the Bible the truth about God, the world, and ourselves in terms that are faithful to the Bible and intelligible in the contemporary context (2) exhort their congregations to say and do things that corresponds to the truth of Jesus Christ as attested in the Bible.