The Tortoise wins.
I remember hearing Aesop’s famous fable The Hare & the
Tortoise as a little boy and thinking, “I’d still like to be the hare.
After all, the tortoise may win, but who wants to be a tortoise?”
Many years later I’ve reconsidered, especially when it comes to
pastoral ministry. If there ever was a vocation wherein “the race is not to the
swift,” it’s the pastorate. A faithful shepherd will pace himself for the long
haul given the nature of the work. Pastors are not pounding out “products,” but
doing heart work. And heart work can be messy, unpredictable, and slow to
change.
When I was a child our family took annual trips from our
Southern California home to the northwest corner of Iowa to visit my
grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins. I come from a family of German
immigrants who came to Iowa for its rich farmland. I recall the first time my
grandfather pointed out the living room window of their home (a converted
school house overlooking farms as far as the eye could see) as he explained to
me the way farmers rotated out the crops each year: corn, soybeans, corn,
soybeans. This, I learned, was good for the soil. With other stories my
grandfather would tell of how farmers needed great effort and patience as they
waited for the crops to come in. To see the fruits of their labor farmers
needed time: time to prepare the soil, time to plant, time to water and,
finally, time to bring in the harvest. Being a farmer is not work for those
wanting instant gratification. The parallels to the pastorate are many. Much
like the farmer, pastoral ministry demands patient toil.
This, of course, is not the world we live in. We live in the age
of instant. We want our WiFi to fly, our coffee ready, our music streaming, our
shopping at the speed of Prime, and our social media and news feeds constantly
refreshed. As Cal Newport helpfully observes, our age mitigates against “deep
work.” 1 And pastoral ministry is the ultimate deep work. In 2009 David
Gordon concluded that Johnny Can’t Preach in large part because Johnny
can’t read and write. 2 The modern day preacher seems increasingly unable to do the deep
work required given how media have shaped the messenger. Gordon was prophetic writing
before smart phones, Twitter, and texting became ubiquitous in the culture
making his thesis still more tenable. In the last decade there’s been a steady
stream of scholarship focused on the impact of digital media on the mind. And
not only on our minds, but our humanity itself may be at stake. The literature
is ominous regarding the effects of our technological age. 3
At Some Pastors and Teachers we want to go counter to today’s
frenetic pace. Our digital world feels frenzied because, well, it is. There is
a hyperactivity to our time that works against pastoral ministry. What Nicholas
Carr observes about the impact of the Internet on his life and thought can be
applied to pastors today:
The boons [of the Internet] are real. But they come at a price.
As McLuhan suggested, media aren’t just channels of information. They supply
the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the
Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and
contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information
the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I
was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy
on a Jet Ski. 4
Pastoral work is not like riding a Jet Ski — zipping along the
surface water of God’s Word and people’s hearts. Pastors are “stewards of the
mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1) laboring for people’s “progress and joy
in the faith” (Philippians 1:25). This is not work done in the shallows.
This is the vital lesson the apostles learned early on in the
church. In Acts 6 we see the temptation for the church’s leadership to be
pulled away from the deep work required of an under-shepherd. Rather than be
deterred from matters of first importance, the leadership provided for another
way to satisfy a very real need. After all, widows being neglected in the daily
distribution of food is no small thing. But their need couldn’t be met at the
expense of prayer and the ministry of Word:
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number,
a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows
were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the
full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up
preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from
among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we
will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the
ministry of the word.” 5
The word translated ‘devote’ means “to attend to, devote oneself
to” with regularity and steadfastness. 6 Pastors must cultivate sustained, concentrated focus on the ministries
of Word and prayer. And we need to be ruthless in keeping at bay distractions
from this primary work. The apostle Paul trained his young apprentice Timothy
in this understanding of the pastorate when he reminded him of what every
pastor should be devoted to:
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of
Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which
was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.
Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your
progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this,
for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. 7
Note the verbs in this passage: devote, practice, immerse,
keep a close watch, persist. To be sure, the current state of
evangelicalism is not amenable to these disciplines. But this is no excuse for
the pastor to not practice them.
Given this, we’re creating a platform for pastors that seeks to
slow things down. We want to cultivate thoughtfulness and reflection about
things of first importance to a pastor: things like theology, ecclesiology,
preaching, apologetics, and counseling. We’ll do this through a publishing
cycle that allows for time to absorb thoughtful writing about topics relevant
to pastors. Rather than an avalanche of content burying pastors in “right now,”
our goal is to create a space of “less-is-more” content that is worthy of
sustained concentration for the sake of wise application. Our editorial
approach will not exacerbate attention deficits, but seek to cultivate attention
surpluses.
Some years ago I worked for a major media company doing
editorial work. My boss had a phrase he loved to use when it came to the
Internet: daily addiction. The idea was to have so much new, fresh
content on a daily basis that people felt compelled to traffic our websites
everyday, throughout the day. And, believe me, this can work. Adam Alter is
right. 8 But by feeding the frenzy we were (unintentionally) undermining
people’s ability to think beyond the surface of any given issue because before
you knew it, we were on to the next thing.
I recall an acquaintance of mine during my undergraduate years
at the University of Washington. Brad and I attended the same campus ministry.
Our small group of guys was asked a question by one of the leaders about how we
deal with the hectic nature of our lives, how we carved out time (if we did at
all) for thoughtful reflection on God and the Bible. What Brad said has stuck
with me all these years. He said, “I walk slowly.” Rather than move quickly
from one class to the next or from one meeting to another, Brad said, “I
intentionally slow down my pace.” Whether Brad was on time for things is beside
the point. His effort to slow things down for the sake of contemplation seemed
right in 1994 and seems all-the-more important in 2018. 9
Some Pastors and Teachers is designed to help you “walk slow.”
We dare to use the Internet in a way most people think impossible, if they
think about it at all. We are moving contra frenzy. How will we do this?
Some Pastors and Teachers is, in a sense, a manifestation of
Neil Postman’s “Loving Resistance Fighter.” 10 In this resistance we demand that the Internet serve us in our calling
as pastors and teachers. We are not modern day Luddites longing for a past
“golden age” before the Industrial Revolution gave birth to our wired world.
That said, we firmly believe the Internet was made for man not man for the
Internet. And this conviction brings with it several unique editorial
characteristics that will be evident on our website, our podcast, and during
the colloquia we host.
SOMEPASTORSANDTEACHERS.COM
At our website we are establishing a publishing cycle that drops
less, not more, content in a week. This is an intentional effort to emphasize
quality over quantity. Also, you will find at the site, more often than not,
articles and essays not blog posts. And we love footnotes. The reason for this
is simple and profound: pastors are called to deal with the deep things of God
and the human heart. The issues relevant to pastors can’t be worked through in
a tweet or two, or a blog post of five or seven bullet points. 11
Another way we plan to “walk slow” on our website is to champion
the weekly columnist. I remember my senior year in college waiting in
anticipation for Friday morning to arrive. This was the day one of my favorite
columns in our school newspaper landed. I couldn’t wait to read this weekly
opinion piece for its thoughtfulness and provocation. While I didn’t always
agree with the author, his columns almost always inspired me to think deeply.
In a time when many people think they have something valuable to say every day
throughout the day, at Some Pastors and Teachers we aren’t convinced of this.
But we do believe good thinkers can produce thoughtful columns on a weekly
basis. Our plan is to give you weekly columnists you can’t wait to read given
the quality of their prose and ideas. We are bringing to the site true writers.
I am also increasingly drawn to websites that display a
minimalist aesthetic for the sake of thoughtfulness. Too many websites have too
much “noise.” The clutter crowds out contemplation. These websites are so
overloaded with headlines and graphics and videos — things popping up and
talking when not asked — that they turn us into zombies clicking unconsciously
on the first thing that gets in our way. When you come to our site we want you
to enter a “clean” space where your mind is not bombarded with chaos but
quieted with order. Navigation will be simple and the content displayed in a
way that is inviting rather than repelling. We actually think our site is a
place you’ll want to visit and stay a while because it is a refuge in a world
ruled by the tyranny of the urgent.
With the democratization of knowledge in the digital age, like
Tom Nichols, we want to push back against the death of expertise. 12 In 2007 Andrew Keen observed that the Internet brought with it the
“cult of the amateur.” 13 While the death of expertise and the cult of the amateur is bad for
our democracy, it’s disastrous for the church. Theology matters and God has
given to the church “some pastors and teachers” to be guardians and purveyors
of orthodoxy. 14 We believe formal theological education is good and needed and
should be valued in the church. Therefore we will solicit writers who have
evident expertise in the area they’re writing about. Not potential expertise,
but established knowledge and wisdom. This puts a welcome burden on our editors
to bring writers into our fold who model this editorial conviction: expert
prose in the service of pastors for the good of the churches they serve.
PODCAST
Our weekly podcast is designed to accomplish many of the same goals
as our website. What we do in print we want to do with audio. The episodes will
feature topics and guests that pastors need to consider if we would be faithful
in our work. The main goal will not be to entertain but to inform and inspire.
Each program will be relevant without being a slave to relevance as we, not the
world, seek to set the agenda for the pastor. In other words, what is most
important or relevant isn’t always what’s happening today. The podcast will not
be news driven, but ecclesiologically driven even as we take up current events
from time-to-time.
Perhaps the one adjective that comes to mind more than any other
to describe our podcast is serious. We are serious about God, the Bible,
the gospel, the pastorate, and the church. Of course, we hope our seriousness
is communicated with an attractive tone and, at times, good humor. But our
podcast will always be more D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones than The Babylon Bee.
COLLOQUIUM
During my residency work for my PhD I always looked forward to
Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m. This is when our weekly colloquium gathered. Assembled
in the room was the entire church history faculty and my peers in the program.
With nervous excitement I loved how a given faculty member would pursue us on
the reading for the week. Those discussions were both humbling and
exhilarating. I learned much.
Part of why I learned so much was the close proximity I had to
the professors and my peers. We actually discussed, debated, and argued over
deeply significant issues. We looked each other in the eyes, studied body
language, and picked up on nuances of tone that might be missed in a larger
gathering. And unlike the social media world we live in today, civility was
nurtured. We were not unknown emojis opining, but real people forced to practice
neighbor love in person. It’s much harder to treat someone poorly in person
than it is in the virtual world. 15
In smaller gatherings you’re more accountable for what you say.
This is a good thing because it forces you to think before you talk and to
measure your words in a way you might not otherwise. Everyone is a genius in
the crowd. But when you have to actually test your thesis in a closer community
of people who will critique your content, this makes your work better.
Our colloquia will be annual events purposefully smaller than
the large conferences in evangelicalism today. We want to give attendees close
proximity to the keynote speaker as well as their peers for the sake of going
deeper in knowledge and application. We want to use these events to resource
fewer people (than the major conferences) for the sake of making stronger
impacts on the many. We see a model for this in Jesus’ earthly ministry with
his focus on the twelve and the three.
FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS
Pastors are “stewards of the mysteries of God” and called to
“care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” 16 Pastoral ministry is the ultimate deep work. This is why Some Pastors
and Teachers exists: to help equip pastors to better care for the churches they
serve.
We are aware that the world (and much of evangelicalism) doesn’t
prize our approach. It may seem too slow or too serious or not flashy enough.
After all, the world doesn’t revere turtles. But we’re hoping to enlist
thousands of turtles to take up the cause of Some Pastors and Teachers.
Because the Tortoise wins.
