Concordia TheoBLOGical Seminary

Michael Horton has a dynamite article in the March 2008 issue of Touchstone magazine called “All Crossed Up” in which he describes the difference between ordinary ministry and extraordinary ministry. And it might surprise you that he is making the case for being ordinary.

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see that the contemporary church in America is struggling.  It struggles with a culture that is increasingly hostile to its assumptions.  It struggles with itself over doctrine and practice (and the relation of the two).  The question is: what should a pastor do?

The pressure is heavy for pastors to rejuvenate languishing congregations, to boost attendance, to generate measurable results.  People expect a lot from their pastors.

Is it any wonder that, “According to a recent study of Evangelical ministers, 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month and 80 percent of seminary graduates leave within five years.”

What builds the church?  The gospel faithfully proclaimed and administered in the sacraments or exciting new techniques, social theories, and therapies?  Certainly, there is nothing inherently objectionable with taking advantage of new technologies to communicate the message.  It is also true that social sciences and leadership-management research can be very useful.

But something is awry when pastors are more familiar with Peter Drucker than the epistles of St. Peter.  What are the primary tools for pastoral care?  Clinical behavioral research or scripture, sacrament, hymnal and catechism?

One could make a case that major portions of the American Church appear to thrive as a result of marketing, management, and mojo.  But does it hold up under closer scrutiny?  Do large organizations with multi-tiered activities necessarily mean the church is strong?

The bottom line in Horton’s article, and this is what I appreciated so greatly, is his advocacy for the ordinary means of preaching, prayer, sacrament, liturgy, etc. for mission and ministry.

Whether one is the rigid traditionalist or the master of innovation, the pastor’s tendency is to rely on himself to edify and extend God’s kingdom: his charm, his talents, his sense of humor, his labor.

Horton notes that we tend to:

“…forget that the public ministry of Word and sacrament is first and foremost a vertical, eschatological event of the Spirit’s disrupting grace that generates a horizontal extension of covenant succession in history while also drawing in outsiders by that same ministry. It is first of all God’s work, not ours, whether we’re thinking in traditional or innovative categories.

“Christ is serving us, building his kingdom, drawing people by his Spirit from the dominion of sin and death and leading them in ever-richer understanding of the gospel, extending that message and acts of love outward to the neighbor.”