Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry

by Paul David Tripp

things I could point to that assured me I was not the guy

The pain was a clear indication of God’s lavishing his love and grace on me. In this trial of conviction, I was getting what I had so often prayed for—the salvation (sanctification) of my soul.

Unpacking these themes is a good way to launch us on an examination of places where pastoral culture may be less than biblical and on a consideration of temptations that are either resident in or intensified by pastoral

ministry.

“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.”

You are constantly preaching to yourself some kind of gospel. You preach to yourself an anti-gospel of your own righteousness, power, and wisdom, or you preach to yourself the true gospel of deep spiritual need and sufficient grace. You preach to yourself an anti-gospel of aloneness and inability, or you preach to yourself the true gospel of the presence, provisions, and power of an ever-present Christ.

Either you will be getting your identity vertically, from who you are in Christ, or you will be shopping for it horizontally in the situations, experiences, and relationships of your daily life. This is true of everyone, but I am convinced that getting one’s identity horizontally is a particular temptation for those in ministry. Part of why I was so blind to the huge disconnect between what was going on in my public ministry life and my private family life was this issue of identity.

The office of pastor was more than a calling and a set of God-given gifts that had been recognized by the body of Christ. “Pastor” defined me. It was me in a way that proved to be more dangerous than I would have thought. Permit me to explain the spiritual dynamics of all this.

My faith had become a professional calling. It had become my job. My role as pastor was the way I understood myself. It shaped the way I related to God. It formed my relationships with the people in my life. My calling had become my identity, and I was in trouble, and I had no idea.

there are many bitter pastors out there, many who are socially uncomfortable, many who have messy or dysfunctional relationships at home, many who have tense relationships with staff members or lay leaders, and many who struggle with secret, unconfessed sin.

So we come to relationship with God and others being less than needy.

This sucks the life out of the private devotional aspect of our walk with God. Tender, heartfelt worship is hard for a person who thinks of himself as having arrived. No one celebrates the presence and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ more than the person who has embraced his desperate and daily need of it.

They are comfortable with living outside of or above the body of Christ. They are quick to minister but not very open to being ministered to.

The false identity that many of us have assigned to ourselves then structures how we see and respond to others. You are most loving, patient, kind, and gracious when you are aware that there is no truth that you could give to another that you don’t desperately need yourself.

‘Pastor, I know I’m supposed to have devotions with my family, but things are so chaotic at my house that I can barely get myself out of bed and get the child fed and off to school; I don’t know how I would ever be able to pull off devotions too’—what would you say to him?”

There was no identifying with the man’s struggle.

Being a pastor was my calling, not my identity. Child of the Most High God was my cross-purchased identity. Member of the body of Christ was my identity. Man in the middle of his own sanctification was my identity. Sinner and still in need of rescuing, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace was my identity.

is quite easy in ministry to

give in to a subtle but significant redefinition of what spiritual maturity is and does. This definition has its roots in how we think about what sin is and what sin does.

Since seminary tends to academize the faith, making it a world of ideas to be mastered

maturity is not merely something you do with your mind (although that is an important element of spiritual maturity). No, maturity is about how you live your life.

It is possible to be biblically literate and be in need of significant spiritual growth.

I was mature and felt misunderstood and misjudged by anyone who failed to share my assessment.

You see, sin is not first an intellectual problem. (Yes, it does affect my intellect, as it does all parts of my functioning.) Sin is first a moral problem.

It is about my rebellion against God and my quest to have for myself the glory that is due to him. Sin is not first about the breaking of an abstract set of rules. Sin is first and foremost about breaking relationship with God, and because I have broken this relationship, it is then easy and natural to rebel against God’s rules.

my mind that needs to be renewed by sound biblical teaching, but my heart needs to be reclaimed by the powerful...

The reclamation of my heart is both an event (justification) and a pro...

Biblical maturity is never just about what you know; it’s always about how grace has employed what you have come to know to transform the way you live.

No, David did what he did because at some point he didn’t care what God wanted. He was going to have what his heart desired, no matter what.

Knowledge is an accurate understanding of truth. Wisdom is understanding and living in light of how that truth applies to the situations and relationships of your daily life.

Knowledge is an exercise of your brain. Wisdom is the commitment of your heart that leads to transformation of your life.

unbiblical view of biblical maturity.

I started out my days with a deep sense of privilege that God had called me to do what he had called me to

I took God’s faithfulness to me, to his people, to the work of his kingdom, to his plan of redemption, and to his church as an endorsement of me.

God was acting as he was not because he was endorsing my manner of living but because of his zeal for his own glory and his faithfulness to his promises of grace for his people.

The success of a ministry is always more a picture of who God is than a statement about who the people are that he is

using for his purpose.

Do you encourage a level of community in your church that you do not give yourself to?

I wish I could say that in the lives of the vast majority of pastors there is no disconnect between their public ministry personas and the details of their private lives. I wish I could say that most pastors are as skilled at preaching the gospel to themselves as they are to others.

I know how this calling can seem unbearably burdensome and how it can be a sheer delight.

Almost every weekend I am somewhere teaching on some kind of Christian life topic (marriage, parenting, communication, body of Christ, living in light of eternity, etc.).

He was only forty-five and in the height of his ministry, but he looked old, tired, and beaten. He didn’t look like the same man who had preached just a day earlier. He mumbled an apology about being late and without any

further hesitation said: I’m done, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t deal with the pressures of ministry. I can’t face preaching another sermon. I can’t deal with another meeting. If I am honest, I would have to say that all I want to do is leave. I want to leave the ministry, I want to leave this area, and I want to leave my wife. No, there’s been no affair. I’m just tired of pretending that I’m someone that I’m not. I’m tired of acting like I’m okay when I’m not. I’m tired of playing as if my marriage is good when it is the polar opposite of good. I can’t preach this coming Sunday, and I have to get away alone or I’m going to explode. I’m sorry to lay this on you this way, but I’m done—I can’t go on.

what’s gone wrong with pastoral culture?

no one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.

His explosive anger with his children, which was not an irregular experience, was one of those signs.

very skilled self-swindlers.

works. If you aren’t daily admitting to yourself that you are a mess and in daily and rather desperate need for forgiving and transforming grace,

it’s the people and circumstances around you that need to change. What you are doing, although you probably aren’t aware of it, is building elaborate, seemingly logical arguments for your own righteousness.

Because sin blinds, God has set up the body of Christ to function as an instrument of seeing in our lives, so that we can know ourselves with a depth and accuracy that would be impossible if left on our own.