(Painting: "Portrait of Christopher Potter," clergyman/scholar, 1636)
On Being a Pastor-Writer
Writing has always come easily to me; pastoring was more of a process. I’ve been writing stories and poems since I first learned how to string words into sentences on a piece of paper. Preaching and counseling and church administration, however, are not things I thought I would be doing with my life. And yet here I am: right now, I have six novels in print (some of which are even passably readable) and six years of pastoring under my belt. Of the two endeavors, the latter is definitely the most important—I have found my vocation in the teaching ministry of the Body of Christ. Writing has always been recreational for me, but in the original sense of the term: it is one of the ways in which I experience and participate in the “re-creation” that God is performing in my life.
But, as I think about it, I’m not sure that I can
separate the two activities of being a writer and being a pastor quite so
cleanly. The pastorate is a vocation and not just a job, so “being a pastor”
touches every part of my life, including my writing. The writing I’ve done,
though often undertaken simply in the sheer joy of creating something winsome
and lovely, has a pastoral element to it. I write pieces that will, I hope, prove
helpful to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I seek to magnify the great story
of the Incarnation by incarnating a bit of truth and joy into the substance of
a printed page.
There are challenges to being a pastor-writer, of course: I
don’t have as much time for writing as I used to, and many of the dear folks in
my church seem to feel they’re under an obligation to try to like everything I
write. But, on the whole, I’m enchanted with the way that God is weaving
together my vocation with my recreation—to proclaim the greatest story of all,
week in and week out, and to write down words in the in-between times that
might, God willing, help my flock to re-imagine that story in a new and
compelling way.