There are many mental models, or metaphors, for pastoral performance out there, such as pastor as spiritual director, pastor as leader, and the dreaded pastor as C.E.O.  The following work is the result of a seminary class and is meant to offer yet another possible perspective into pastoral identity.  I tend to think of myself as an artist, so it is a natural leap for me.  But something I should say before I start is that each of the models out there are not exclusionary.  Each metaphor has its good and bad side.  None are perfect.  Perhaps they work best together.  Nevertheless, here are my reflections on what the pastoral role looks like through the lens of "the artist."

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The Pastor as Artist

Some time back, I was talking with a long-standing Christian about a particular book.  When I handed it to him, I noticed that his hands shook as he glanced over it.  As we talked, our conversation took a turn to more personal matters.  He had Parkinson's and it kept him from doing a great many things.  He really enjoyed leaning about his faith and wished that he were able to participate in Bible studies and the like.  He mentioned a bit of guilt about not growing as a Christian.  I assured him that as long as he was doing what he could, that was okay.  God only expects us to do our best, no more.  It would be unfair for anyone to expect more than does God.       At that point, he told me "why" he had Parkinson's: he had done many terrible (and he emphasized "terrible") things in his past, and now God was "getting him back" for it.       I was shocked.  I wasn't sure how to respond.  I considered this view of God to be absolutely atrocious, that God would "do" this to someone to "get him back."  The image of God that I had at that moment was one of a malicious old bearded man peering down and laughing at human misery.  Although appalled, I still bit my tongue.  I asked, "Why do you say that?"       "Because," he replied, "God wants to fix me so that we can be together forever."       That's part of his story.  It is one in which some tragic mistakes were made once upon a time, but even those could not keep God from pursuing him, from reclaiming him.  Earthly life is but a moment in eternity, and anything he endures here has eternal purpose.  Ultimately, what really matters is that in the end he and God will live together forever.      I've read here and there about the pastoral task of meaning-making.  Perhaps there is something to that, but what meaning can I really bring to anything.  I guess I could have offered him my meaning, my understanding, of his situation.  But at what price?  His hope?  Yes, his hope of redemption lay in trusting that God was at work in this way in his life.       Is there really any meaning in it at all?  Or is it possible that the meaning in it all is so incomprehensible that it just doesn't matter.  What if the beauty of meaning truly is in the interpretation of the beholder?  Where does the pastor go from there?

"Meaningless!  Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 1.2.

To be an artist is to be one who inspires.  This ability is grounded in living in two worlds at once.  One is the here and now.  The artist is able to notice the surrounding world, perhaps in a unique way that others cannot achieve.  The other world is the world of creative possibility.  Nothing is static to an artist.  Actuality is lost in potentiality, at least in the imagination.      Artists work with a medium.  Whether it is clay and water or pen and ink, the medium becomes that through which inspiration flows.  This is not to say, though, that the medium is that through which the artist imposes his or her will upon the work of art.  No, inspiration flows and shapes in both directions.  As I work with pencil or wash, I am shaping the product as well as being shaped by it.  The medium connects the artist and the art.      In pastoral ministry, the pastor as artist functions with the medium of the Holy Spirit to draw forth the beauty in congregational life.  It is not about giving beautiful meaning to it.  But rather, it is about opening the door for people to enter into their own beauty of meaning as they are touched and formed by the Spirit.  An artist is nothing without a medium, and so too is ministry nothing without the Spirit.  It is the task of the artist to give his- or herself over to the medium and the work of art.  Only then can creativity be realized.

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