Feature
Seeking Pastoral
Identity
by John E. Johnson
Many pastors face an identity crisis. They ask themselves, “Who am I? Why should the people in my congregation listen to me? What is my identity as a minister of Christ?” As Neuhaus notes, “It is not an academic exercise but a day-to-day struggle to make sense of who we are and what we are doing.”(1) Of its importance, Oates writes, “If you are to do your work well, refreshing strength must be afforded you from a coherent vision of your identity.”(2)
Pastors and others have wrestled with this problem over the centuries.(3) Yet the issue may be more intensely felt today. “Clearly the pastor-teacher is enveloped in a critical identity crisis in our time.”(4) In fact, pastoral identity may be the contemporary crisis in pastoral ministry.(5)
Pastors struggle with this question for three reasons. First, this concern has emerged out of a deficiency in pastoral theology. As one noted pastor states, “In my opinion, much of the ferment in ministry, the identity crisis most of us live with, is largely a theological failure.”(6) Much of pastoral training has been devoted to the practice rather than the theology of ministry. The focus is on administration, preaching, leadership skills, small-group dynamics, and other related duties. Too little time has been given to developing a theology of ministry, in which students address what God defines as ministry and calls a minister to be.
The second reason for the confusion has to do with the present culture. People have changed in how they expect pastors to spend their time, preach their sermons, and shepherd their people. Whereas in the past a pastor was principally viewed as resident theologian and preacher, today there is the expectation that a pastor should be, among other things, a chief executive officer, a therapist, and/or a church growth specialist.
Pastors are now forced to extend their energies to a new line of responsibilities, which sometimes eclipse the older and more foundational responsibilities.(7) If a pastor seeks to pursue a genuinely God-centered ministry, it will, as Oakes puts it, “collide head-on with the self-absorption and anthropocentric focus that has become commonplace in many evangelical churches.”(8)
Other voices are underscoring the concern:
The ministry, like other occupations today, is much preoccupied with the discussion of “role models,” “role expectations,” “role conflicts,” and such. The minister is expected to be preacher, leader of worship, counselor, teacher, scholar, helper of the needy, social critic, administrator, revivalist, fund-raiser, and a host of other sometimes impossible things.(9)
Neuhaus continues:
Pastors harassed by these conflicting expectations and claims upon time and ability are tempted to embark upon an open-ended game of tradeoffs. Today I'll be a little of this and a little of that, tomorrow I'll be a little of the other things and something else. For the conscientious, who are determined to keep the game going, it is a certain formula for confusion and collapse.(10)
Many pastors entered the ministry with a clear vision and high ideals and have left battered, confused, and disoriented. The loss of bearings, the blurring of identity, has become a major cause of physical and emotional “burnout” in the ministry.(11)
The third reason for this pastoral identity crisis is the present drift toward relativism and a pluralistic mind-set. Together, they have raised the question of pastoral relevancy. “The pastoral ministry,” writes Wells, “has been culturally adrift for a long time. It has been dislodged from the network of what is meaningful and valuable in society.”(12) As Peterson said, “In general, people treat us with respect, but we are not considered important in any social, cultural, or economic way.”(13) The result is an uneasiness settling over the work of ministers like a thick fog, a perplexity that causes them to wonder who they are.
