Book Review
The Peacemaking Pastor
by Alfred Poirier

When I began to read The Peacemaking Pastor to fulfill a requirement for a seminary course, I found myself quite skeptic of its value. The Peacemaking Pastor, you see, is a book written by the pastor of a church that counts another author, Ken Sande, as one of its members.  Sande wrote The Peacemaker in 1991. Alfred Poirier has since followed with The Peacemaking Pastor. Was this an attempt to expand a franchise, I wondered. No. While a token perusal reveals that Poirier does use Sande's book as a guide, I would describe the relationship between the two as a student edition (Sande's The Peacemaker) and teacher edition (Poirier's The Peacemaking Pastor), together comprising a sourcebook of great value for any church!

As the title suggests, The Peacemaking Pastor provides a pastoral perspective on the issue of peacemaking. It specifically targets pastors and thus examines the issues of conflict, peacemaking methodology, forgiveness, repentance, church discipline, and a whole host of other issues from a pastoral perspective.

Poirier's project is important because it is saturated with the gospel, as stated in the initial pages of the book: “Real change comes in people's attitudes toward conflict and reconciliation through a renewed vision of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (p. 11).  Poirier centers the topic of peacemaking on the cross of Christ. Too often, he points out, our discipleship and counseling efforts within the church—many of them peacemaking missions at heart—are impotent because they simply mirror the techniques and philosophies of the world.

Another significant principle is the emphasis on the family of God.  Poirier's contention is that the church is the primary context for peacemaking among Christians.  He writes particularly of the pastor:

Many of the conflicts we have with our people are the result of our failure to see them as family members. There is a direct correspondence between how we reduce them to mere people filling the pews and our lack of true table fellowship with them. We are even guilty of rushing into formal censure because we see our members more as nameless numbers than our father, mother, brother, or sister. Again, we can begin to seek genuine peace when we learn to regard people as our brothers and sisters in the Lord (p. 105).           

Obviously, a pastor who recognizes his own tendency to distance himself from his flock will be able to identify the same tendency when it occurs among members of his congregation. 

Other instructive emphases include consideration of “the heart of conflict,” which Poirier says should begin with a recognition that our desires drive our sinful behavior. He provides an excellent exposition of portions of James 1, 3, and 4. Continuing his discussion of James, Poirier encourages pastors to examine the heart when looking toward resolution for conflict, though he does not over simplify the issue by asserting that all conflict is a sin problem. He recognizes the need for understanding that underlying heart issues need to be worked out into behavioral changes: “Notice that the greater weight of James's counsel falls neither on behavioral changes nor heart changes. As a wise peacemaker, he deals with both” (p. 69)

One final thesis of this book is the reclamation of discipline as constructive, in addition to its normally applied corrective application. This important expansion of the traditional practice of church discipline, Poirier believes, will not only contribute to the decline of serious church discipline cases, but it is also in keeping with the biblical mandate.  “Discipline should include the whole of the Christian life that we are to live under our heavenly Father's discipline” (p. 14). Poirier reminds pastors to teach their people the importance and the heart of a thoroughgoing life of discipline. Too often, even when a pastor understands these core concepts, he takes them for granted and fails to instruct his people, thereby short-circuiting the process and producing believers who know how to (in this case) exercise church discipline, but do now understand the heart behind it, and therefore abuse and misuse it. The author concludes, “Since church discipline is family discipline, we ought to impress upon the minds and hearts of our people that discipline is the responsibility of each member of the family of God (p. 251).”

The Peacemaking Pastor does exhibit one minor pitfall. Like many other books that are so concept-specific, the author over-reaches at times to find peacemaking in every area of the Christian life and ministry:

Pastoring is peacemaking. Pastoring is mediating. Everything we do is peacemaking because that is who we now are in Christ the Mediator. Preaching
is peacemaking. Praying is peacemaking. Administering the sacraments is peacemaking. Leading and discipline are all peacemaking. Pastoring is all peacemaking not because peacemaking illegitimately assumes the jurisdiction
of the other roles as pastor, but because the integrating point of the universe is the one man and mediator, Jesus Christ, and we as pastors are his servant-mediators. We are servants of the gospel—the gospel of mediation. It is the
great story we proclaim to others of intimacy, betrayal, and restoration and
whose central character we hold out as the one mediator between God and mankind—the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5) (p. 188). 

While the principles of what he is saying are true, I found myself wishing that Poirier would cease from his burden to sell me on peacemaking and get on with walking me through its inner workings. That being said, for all the nuggets of wisdom contained within the book, I will gladly concede a few passionate excesses.

All things considered, The Peacemaking Pastor is an invaluable manual necessary to complete the library of any pastor. In a world and church rife with conflict, Poirier’s writing is refreshingly encouraging. It is essential for us as pastors to read the works of other pastors who model the relationship between our teaching ministry and other pastoral duties in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Kevin Hearne is a Master of Divinity student at Western Seminary and serves as Associate Pastor of Discipleship & Equipping at Bethany Baptist Church in Salem, OR.