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81 pages

English

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What is the ultimate purpose of pastoral ministry? What emphases and priorities should take precedence? In the day-to-day emphasis on various pastoral roles and pragmatic concerns, what can sometimes get lost is the theological foundation for understanding pastoral ministry.James Thompson is a New Testament scholar with a concern for relating biblical studies to practical ministry. Here he does a careful study of several of Paul's epistles in order to see what Paul's vision and purpose were for his own ministry. He finds that Paul's aim was an ethical transformation of the communities (not just individuals) with which he worked, so that they would live lives worthy of the gospel until Christ's return. Using this as a framework, Thompson offers suggestions for practical application to contemporary ministry.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 février 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441205896
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0576€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Pastoral Ministry according to PAUL
Pastoral Ministry according to PAUL
A Biblical Vision
J AMES W. T HOMPSON
2006 by James W. Thompson
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thompson, James, 1942- Pastoral ministry according to Paul : a biblical vision / James W. Thompson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8010-3109-5 (pbk.) 1. Pastoral theology-Biblical teaching. 2. Paul, the Apostle, Saint. 3. Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul-Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. BS2655.P3T48 2006 253.09015-dc22
2005027812
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are the author s own translation.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Contents
1 Discovering a Pauline Pastoral Theology
2 Blameless at His Coming: Paul s Pastoral Vision in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians
3 Living between the Times: Pauline Anthropology and the Problem of Transformation in Galatians
4 Romans as Pastoral Theology
5 Building the Community: Pastoral Theology as Community Formation in the Corinthian Letters
Conclusion: Transformation and Pastoral Theology
1 Discovering a Pauline Pastoral Theology
A fter years of educating future ministers, my colleagues and I finally took on the task of writing a vision statement to serve as a foundation for our curriculum and to describe the ministry for which we were preparing our students. After I took the responsibility of chairing the committee and drafting the vision statement, I realized what a difficult task I had, offering a coherent vision that would reflect the faculty s shared understanding of the ministry. This challenge was especially remarkable in that faculty members could reach agreement on the final draft only after extended discussion even though we had been shaped in the same theological tradition and were preparing students for ministry within this tradition. We discovered that we work with many unstated and differing assumptions about the nature of the ministry.
When I talk to pulpit search committees who are prospective employers of our graduates, I discover that their vision of ministry scarcely corresponds to the vision that we hammered out as a faculty. These search committees present job descriptions with very specific expectations for ministerial candidates. Although these job descriptions do not articulate a theology of ministry, they reflect assumptions about the nature of the ministry. The assumptions derive primarily from the committees own past experiences and observation of what appeared to be effective ministries.
From what I have learned from colleagues in other seminaries, my experience is not unique. Everyone has unstated assumptions about the nature of the ministry that are evident in the various alternative-even competing-models. Jackson Carroll has indicated that theological traditions have differing understandings of ministry. Denominations in the Reformed tradition emphasize a learned presentation of the faith whereas Methodists place great value on interpersonal skills. Southern Baptists emphasize evangelistic skills whereas Orthodox Christians expect liturgical leadership. 1 In the North American context, however, expectations have changed over a period of time, often crossing denominational lines.
My observation of developments within my own tradition correspond in large measure to the historical delineation described by John B. Cobb and Joseph Hough for developments in many denominations. 2 For an earlier generation, the ideal minister was the evangelist who was measured by his success in persuading large numbers of people to become Christians. Some were traveling revivalists, and countless others worked in local congregations where they were appointed primarily for evangelistic purposes. In a second era, congregational expectations for the minister shifted from outreach to nurturing the congregation and responding to the needs of individuals. In this era, ministers learned the techniques of the therapist and placed considerable value on pastoral care and counseling. Their task was to meet the ever-increasing perceived needs of the people in the congregation. In the present era, the minister is ultimately measured by the ability to organize, build, and manage a complex organization. Congregations continue to assume that the minister will maintain the traditional roles of marrying and burying, but they believe that the ultimate goal of the minister is to take the congregation to a new level of growth. The minister must be both an effective communicator and an administrator. In a competitive religious marketplace, the task of the minister is to ensure that the congregation maintains its place among religious consumers. Often search committees no longer look for someone who conforms to one of these models. Instead they seek someone who is a combination of, for instance, Jay Leno, Lee Iacocca, and Dr. Phil.
These often unstated assumptions indicate that the missing dimension in the conversation about ministry is a theologically coherent understanding of the purpose of ministry that incorporates the numerous roles of the minister. According to Thomas Oden, no systematic, scripturally grounded pastoral theology has been written for an English-speaking ecumenical audience since Washington Gladden s The Christian Pastor (1898). 3 The literature on the various tasks of the minister is abundant, but we lack a comprehensive theological understanding that provides the foundation for the minister s many tasks.
We are searching for a unifying, centered view of ministry. Regrettably, the disciplines serving the modern pastoral office have become segmented into wandering, at times, prodigal, subspecializations. Although we have produced an abundance of literature on pastoral counseling, the question remains as to what is pastoral ( distinctively pastoral) about so-called pastoral counseling. Sermons abound, and sermonic aids superabound, but few operate out of an integrated conception of the pastoral office that melds liturgical, catechetical, counseling, and equipping ministries. Having borrowed heavily from pragmatic management procedure while forgetting much of their traditional rootage, church administration has become an orphan discipline vaguely wondering about its true parentage. The loss of a centered identity in ministry is mirrored in the excessive drive toward specialization of the disciplines intended to serve and unify ministry. 4
The seminary curriculum does little to produce a coherent understanding of the telos of ministry. The division of the curriculum into separate areas of specialization, developed under the influence of the German model at the end of the nineteenth century, exacerbates the problem by separating ministry from the other theological disciplines. 5 Edward Farley has described the separation of the theological disciplines under the influence of German scholarship, indicating that contemporary theological schools have inherited the nineteenth-century understanding of the place of practical theology within a theological curriculum. Farley traces the development from the time when practical theology designated all theological study to the time when it became a separate discipline. In the initial step toward this separation, practical theology included moral theology, church polity, and other pastoral activities. As specialization increased, practical theology was distinguished from moral theology as an area pertaining to the church s fundamental activities. 6 The focus turned to the necessary skills for the maintenance of the church and the care of troubled people. Practical theology became segmented into a variety of subdisciplines. With this focus on the skills necessary for maintaining the church, seminaries and churches offered alternative, if not competing, definitions of pastoral care. Although the seminary degree requires both theory and praxis, the two areas are insufficiently related to each other to provide a theological foundation for ministry. Without a theological foundation, the minister too easily becomes the one who ensures the church s competitive edge in the marketplace of consumer religion.
Despite the pressures that often come from the church and society to define the minister s role in pragmatic terms as the maintenance and growth of the institution, the answer to the question of ministerial identity, as Ellen Charry has argued, is a theological one. 7 In this book I address this missing dimension in the conversation about ministry by offering a pastoral theology that rests on a conversation with recent interpreters of Pauline theology. Examining the theological foundations and goals of Paul s pastoral work, I argue that the Pauline vision will contribute to the discussion that now occupies churches and seminaries throughout North America: What is a minister? For what roles do we prepare future ministers? What are the goals of ministry? As a New Testament scholar who often works on the boundary between biblical studies and practical ministry, I wish to initiate a conversation between the two disciplines, for Paul provides a coherent pastoral vision that can be the basis for a contemporary pastoral theology. My purpose is to move beyond the focus on the roles of the minister and the ho