Last week I had the privilege of attending a breakfast with some fellow pastors (and aspiring pastors) in the Nashville area. Reverend David Cassidy was a guest, speaking to the group on the topic “The Reading Life of the Pastor.” It was an excellent talk and conversation, and encouraging and challenging on a number of fronts. One of the overall impressions I was left with is that a pastor needs to have a “poetic” ministry. This jogged my mind to recall a book that I had picked up and started, but had set down and not returned to: The Pastor as Minor Poet, by M. Craig Barnes. In light of Pastor Cassidy’s talk, I have taken it up again, and came across this insightful remark. In setting forth the possible ways in which a pastor can be identified (such as shepherd, priest, ministers of Word and Sacrament), Mr. Barnes humbly suggests the image of the poet. He writes,
I present this not as the normative or even preferred image, but simply as another biblical description of the calling of those who have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore, and express, the truth behind the reality. Poets see the despair and heartache as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary, and they describe this in ways that are recognized not only in the mind, but more profoundly in the soul.
In a day in which people are so profoundly confused about fundamental identity issues, and are desperately trying to construct life as best they can, it is critically necessary for pastors to recover this poetic dimension of their ministries. What the congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God’s image (18-19).
Poets are visionaries. They can see the world at a deeper level, and help others to see that world, too. Surely pastors are called to the same. We live in a world still marred by sin, but Christ has come and redeemed the world. In so doing, He has given the Church a vision, not only for the future, but for the present. Therefore, it is for pastors take up the poetic mantle to help God’s people see the life which Christ bids them to live in Him.