Clergy Appreciation Month

What Is a Pastor? 

What Is a Pastor? 

What’s in a name?” Shakespeare once asked. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. The same is true for many of us. Over the years, I’ve held many titles: son, husband, friend, teacher, chaplain, pastor, and now associate conference minister. Each one carries its own weight, but some titles go deeper than description. They take responsibility, even identity. Thomas C. Oden never took the title of pastor lightly. In his book Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, he reminds us that “pastor” comes from the Latin for shepherd. That’s not just a quaint metaphor. It’s one of the deepest biblical images for Christian ministry (Psalm 23, John 10, 1 Peter 5).

Shepherds don’t get corner offices, they don’t spend their days shuffling memos, and they certainly don’t wear Italian suits to go herd sheep. They walk with the flock, make sure no one wanders off a cliff, fend off predators, and sometimes even smell like the sheep they’re caring for. Oden believed that the image best describes what the clergy are called to be.

A pastor, he says, isn’t primarily a manager, a therapist, or an entertainer. The role is far older and far weightier. To be called pastor is to be entrusted with the care of souls: preaching, baptizing, feeding the people with Word and Sacrament, praying, and modeling what faith looks like in real life.

Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s article.

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