A Pastor's Life

While reading a book for seminary I came across this paragraph...

"While there are certainly appropriate standards of faithfulness for leaders, what parishioners really want is a pastor who knows what it means to struggle against temptation and despair, like they do. They want to be led by someone who has also stayed up all night fretting over choices, regrets, and fear, but who then found the quiet grace to start over the next morning. They want to see the Gospel incarnated in a human life that is still far from complete but has become more interesting because the human drama is now sacred. In other words, they want a pastor who knows what it means to be them, but them in communion with God. Innocence is precious, but it's the glimpses of redemption that truly compel." (M. Craig Barnes "The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life". 53).

I think Barnes is on to something. It seems that I don't want a pastor (or other leader) who is only dictating to me how to live, but someone who I can see is applying Scripture to their lives and struggling in ways similar to me. Certainly a pastor should call people to holiness, but at the same time be authentic enough to allow others to see that he isn't there yet either. It reminds me of Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."