Reading Together

Jen and I started reading a book together last night. It is called "The Art of Pastoring: Ministry without all the Answers".

This book is especially close to my heart because I had the opportunity to work with the author of the book as my senior pastor for a year before he moved away from Montana. So I know Dave lives most of what he writes.

Dave was not always the most skilled supervisor, but he was a good mentor and one of the few pastors that I had that even as a staff person I felt pastored me.

Here is a quote from his book that we read last night:

My predecessor's library haunted me. When he left his church, he left the
ministry and forsook his library. Every single book remained in the office on
the shelves, undisturbed; he took not one...
His library told the story of
his ministry. The books were ordered in topical fashion...his topics represented
most of the trends of Christianity in the 1970s, the decade of his pastoral
ministry....
The church growth movement was well represented. He went to some
conferences on the subject and bought books. Church minutes from his tenure
reveal that church members attended the conferences with him. They also reveal
that he tried the methods but with no results. Closets, desk drawers and file
cabinets were filled with dittos of church growth teaching materials, church
surveys and proposals.
He journeyed as a charismatic....He had learned from
books how to organize growth groups and spiritual retreats...From late in his
ministry there was a smattering of literature from Reformed theology,
psychology, liberal theology and biblical studies.
A few parishioners told me
with deep sadness that by the end of his ministry he had lost much of his
Christian faith. His faith crisis did his ministry in. The books couldn't
deliver him...
Most of the books and articles were written by genuine
Christians. What went wrong?
I didn't know what went wrong. His library
presented a bleak testimony to me, though. He and I were cut from the same piece
of cloth. I believed that following Christian movements amounted to following
Christ. I was suckled on trend-driven Christianity. I'd grown up in the thick of
consumer religion. It was all I knew. I knew every movement represented in his
library. I'd tried them all myself. I didn't know if I could do pastoral
ministry without them. But every time I looked up at his library, I knew that I
had to try.