My heartfelt thanks for the response yesterday to the young man who was inquiring about preaching and pastoring. A very kind reader asked for his address and will send him a few books and a publisher contacted me to send him a book, too. Nothing like seeing the Jesus Creed in action! Here’s the response yesterday from the young pastor-to-be:
Scot,
I can’t begin to tell you how moved I am by the response to the post. Just to have my questions acknowledged as legitimate, good, shared questions has been immensely healing and encouraging – by which I mean, I read the responses through eyes streaming with tears, of course. 🙂 There have been lots of great responses and the fact that so many would take time to respond so graciously, thoughtfully, with prayers and encouragement…I feel very embraced by the Body of Christ today. My thanks, with all my heart.
Your reader offering the books is another example of kindness that blows me away. Absolutely I’m interested.
Please convey my heartfelt gratitude to her.
One last thing – I find it fascinating how many people have pointed to “deeper” or formational issues underlying my questions, even without access to the complete letter which allowed you to see the same. I had lunch with a pastor friend Monday – which will hopefully be a monthly thing – and ruminating on what you’d said, plus our lunch conversation, helped something click for me. All this time, I’ve been asking “what is preaching?” type questions (and it does, as I said, do me more goood than I can say to have that question taken seriously and compassionately, and not be treated as a reprobate for questioning). But I think what I’ve really been needing to ask is “what are pastors? What does it mean that I’m one?” It is, absolutely, a deeper issue of spiritual formation.
So…thanks to all of you, I’m asking the right question. And since that doesn’t mean all the other questions go away…well, thanks to you, your readers, and the many books added to my book list, I’ve got lots of resources to help me get further down the road.
It’s been a good day.
Blessings,
Name