There is no question that pastors should be sensitive to people's needs. Pastors should care deeply about the people whom they serve. The problem is that there is literally no end to other people's needs. We will never be able to keep up with them all, let alone satisfy them all. Pastors, like anyone else, are profoundly limited human beings. We can't be all things to all people, and we can't keep everyone happy all the time.
Perhaps you have seen the cartoon drawing of a pastor sitting at his desk, looking at a sign on the wall: "There is a God. You are not God." If we have no clear sense of pastoral identity and let others constantly define who we are and what we do, we will sooner or later grow angry or cynical—or even experience burnout. We are not God, and we can't do it all.
These identity problems may be even more pronounced among commissioned lay pastors. Presbyteries are increasingly turning to commissioned lay pastors, especially in order to provide pastoral care to smaller churches that cannot afford a full-time minister. Yet, too often the implicit message is that commissioned lay pastors, despite their extraordinary commitment and sense of call, are second-class, "not-quite-real" ministers. These questions of pastoral identity are further complicated by the fact that many presbyteries are still trying to figure out just how to use commissioned lay pastors, train them, encourage them, and hold them accountable.
The Long Bony Finger of Faith
The bottom line is that none of us will be able to sustain pastoral ministry without a clear sense of pastoral identity. Reformation theology reminds us that this identity, like the identity of the church itself, is rooted in one thing alone. When a person becomes a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and again when he or she is ordained as a minister or commissioned as a lay pastor, he or she affirms one thing before anything else—trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The one and only thing that holds the church together is Jesus Christ—and the one and only thing that will give us a clear sense of identity as pastors is Jesus Christ.
As our confessions insist, this Jesus is not merely an historical ideal, not merely a great teacher out of the past. Rather, to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior is to confess him as the risen, living Christ who "sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and will come to judge the quick and the dead." Better market research will not hold the church together, even if market research has its place. Trying to keep everybody happy will not hold the church together, even if we can agree that the church should welcome all and be responsive to all. And promising to be all things to all people will not keep a pastor all together, as hard as he or she tries.
