Daily Archives: June 6, 2008

On being the Pastor

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I am richly blessed as a pastor. I just got back from having breakfast with one of the men in the church and it was as much about his desire to encourage me as it was about my desire to impart some blessing to him. It was a great time. That notwithstanding there are days… my but there are days when I wonder about it. I don’t question my call, I’m past that for now.
Mondays are usually the worst days of the week for me. I remember Joe Stowell (I think) saying that pastors suffer from Post-adrenaline-depression on Monday’s and then citing a few studies to back it up. I think he’s right. Sunday night I’m usually bushed. Monday I’m usually Blue and by Tuesday I’m feeling the pressure of next Sunday not to mention this Wednesday night and the scheduled and unscheduled visits and discipleship times.

One of the more difficult aspects of Pastoral ministry for me is trying to determine what to weigh my success or failure in the ministry against. What exactly is my yardstick?
Right on time here comes Dan Phillips With a most excellent series: The hardest aspect of pastoral ministry Addressing the exact problem.

  1. (part one)

Day 6 With the Literary ESV

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Today we finish and leave behind the book of Numbers and most of Deuteronomy. So how do we begin but with war of course. Well, war and a touch of rebellion as the warriors disobey by attempting to bring Midianite women into camp. These are the same women who just earlier had attempted to destroy Israel by sexually enticing them to worship the Baal of Peor.

In our modern sensitivities it is a difficult passage to begin with, there is bloodshed by God’s people in time of war as well as in the aftermath of war. I definitely want to work through some of these hard questions on the blog, but unfortunately this isn’t the time for it. I have a rather large portion of Scripture to read today and thus I must move on. But I cannot leave the 31st chapter of Numbers without observing that impurity must be purged even from the artifacts of another culture. It brings to mind the Haitian market which I’ve visited in the past.