The Lines and Angles of Pastoral Work

Eugene Peterson employs a trigonometric metaphor to give shape to pastoral ministry: three “essential acts of ministry” form the angles of a triangle:

“Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction… I see these three essential acts of ministry as the angles of a triangle. Most of what we see in a triangle is lines. The lines come in various proportions to each other but what determines the proportions and the shape of the whole are the angles. The visible lines of pastoral work are preaching, teaching, and administration. The small angles of this ministry are prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. The length and proportions of the ministry ‘lines’ are variable, fitting numerous circumstances and accommodating a wide range of pastoral gifts. If, though, the lines are disconnected from the angles and drawn willfully or at random, they no longer make a triangle. Pastoral work disconnected from the angle actions- the acts of attention to God in relation to myself, the biblical communities of Israel and church, the other person- is no longer given its shape by God. Working the angles is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors and priests.”

(Working the Angles, pp. 3-5.)

The “angles” (according to Peterson, the most essential aspects of pastoral ministry) are among the most neglected aspects of pastoral work. It’s possible for a pastor to carry out a “successful” ministry in the eyes of his church and the public without attending to prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. “I don’t know of any other profession in which it is quite as easy to fake it as in ours,” Peterson says. Yet apart from these, the pastor is not fulfilling the calling of his office.

Looking After One’s Own

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people’s property.

-Chesterton, Commonwealth.

Recovering Craftsmanship

Where character forbids self-indulgence, transcendence still hovers around.

–Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences.

Weaver is arguing that the contemporary loss of pride in craftsmanship (think industrialism and consumerism) is due, foundationally, to the abandonment of the ideals, the abandonment of the abstract true and good. When workers are living in right accord with the transcendent, the result will be that their work is the translating, or the fleshing out, of the ideals, “a bringing of the ideal from potentiality into actuality.”

However, we have abandoned the ideals and now give supreme value to what works, to the practical. Weaver tells us the inevitable result:

When utilitarianism becomes enthroned and the worker is taught that work is use and not worship, interest in quality begins to decline.

The road to the recovery of craftsmanship in work is the fresh remembrance that all of our work is to be bringing the ideals to life, interpreting that which is transcendent. More so, it is looking to the One in whom all truth is sourced. Essentially, it is the realization that all of life is worship before the holy and triune God. It is Luther’s realization of Coram Deo: we live every second of every day before the face of The Almighty. It is the glad acceptance of the believer’s position in Christ, and the ambitious obedience of our Lord’s commands.