A few years ago Christian Education Ministries, the discipleship board of the ARP, sent out free copies of William Still’s The Work of the Pastor. I’m not sure if this had anything to do with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson having recently joined the ARP as pastor of First Presbyterian in Columbia, SC. Still was his mentor when Sinclair was a young convert.
I started to read the book, but got distracted (as is often the case) and have recently picked it back up again since I’ve been finishing a number of the books that have been backlogged. Just clearing the queue.
The first chapter is titled Feeding the Sheep. Here Still rattles the cages of those people who de-emphasis preaching. This, he argues, is our most important (but not only) task. But first he lays out the goal of pastoral ministry, of which our preaching and teaching is a primary means.
“… its ultimate aim is to lead God’s people to offer themselves up to Him in total devotion of worship and service.”
True preaching is not merely information transfer (though this must happen) but life transformation. We must not stop with what the text says, but what it means and how it is to be applied to life. And one of the very first applications may be to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
“The pastor called to feed the sheep may find that his first calling is to evangelize the goats! … The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed. … You will certainly not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness.”
Still advocates preaching the full counsel of God, not just a few isolated gospel facts. This does not mean you aren’t preaching the gospel (for justification and sanctification) each week. It means you are to show how the whole of Scripture connects with the gospel.
Still pulls no punches. He goes for the jugular, calling out those who call themselves pastors but have a very different agenda than God’s. Perhaps he’s trying to convert the goats who are in ministry. But his words are needed for I see so many of the same problems he warns against.
“If you think that you are called to a largely worldly organization, miscalled a church, going, with infinitesimal doses of innocuous sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only help I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the minisry and go and be a street scavenger…”
And later:
“… the greatest failures are those who, having tried to run Christ’s church as a moneymaking racket, a clockwork train, or a social free-for-all, depart and leave a spiritual wilderness behind them, in which the one thing that is not known at all is the Word of God.”
I think I followed that guy in my first pastorate. I am grieved by the number of books on ministry that treat the church as a business (we do need sound financial policies and to run the organization well). We are in the life change “business” and that can’t be managed like a business. We deal with intangibles and are more than “service providers.”
We are not to feed the sheep alone, but must seek the working of the Spirit in our own lives and the life of the flock. Without the work of the Spirit we are merely re-arranging dead bones. As the Spirit works, uncomfortable things may happen. Sometimes it is like the show Holmes on Homes– you have to tear down all the lousy, code-violating work before you can properly rebuild the home. It isn’t pretty, convenient, easy or fast. You had better be sure of your calling- and know it is not a 9-5 job. It is your life. There will be stretches when your days off aren’t really off. This is particularly true if you are a solo pastor. You can’t rotate who’s on call this weekend in case someone ends up in the hospital. You’re it, and sometimes that call comes in the middle of the night.
You cannot feed the sheep without prayer. You need to pray so the Spirit is giving you pastoral sensitivity when you plan your preaching schedule, and when you prepare & deliver your sermons. I assess the needs of the congregation when I pick a new series. We primarily go through a book at a time. But I want to pick wisely. It is not about what I want to preach, but what they need to hear. I need the Spirit to help me figure that out.
Late in the chapter he talks about the effects of effective ministry. The first he mentions was a bit surprising. Pleasantly surprising.
“… finances will improve. This is the least of the signs, but it is almost always the first to appear in the reviving of a church.”
I saw this in Florida, but the next sign short-circuited it. I see this happening now in Arizona. Giving is up, God is at work but He is far from done working among us and in us. And through us.
“There will be opposition, and you may be quite surprised at where it comes from- notably those who have been ‘running the church’ and who have turned the church of Jesus Christ into their private preserve and hobby.”
That is pretty much what I experienced in Florida. There were others with legitimate concerns- I was a young pastor who was making mistakes. But the biggest opposition came from those who wanted to control me (one elder even said that was his job). Still notes that they will tear your preaching to shreds: how long, style, illustrations etc. I probably heard it all, including that I shouldn’t use R-rated movies to illustrate something (most of them had been on TV, and I issued appropriate warnings).
He does make it clear that you aren’t to go looking for a fight. But you must not avoid fights when they come. Don’t be a coward when it comes, for come it will if you are doing your job right.
“In this work we must not be afraid of upset. We must not go out of our way to create it; we don’t look for trouble, but seek peace. But if we are going to be faithful to God and to men, there will be upset.”
Some of this upset will be caused as you uncover people’s unseen sins. This a a good upset. The Spirit is at work to transform people. But it can be upsetting when various sins come to light.
Still starts the book with a bang. His style isn’t fancy. But it may be just the shock to the system we need to awaken from our complacency in ministry.
Cavman Considers 
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