Throughout the ministry of that pastor, people will know that this individual is primarily guided by prayer, primarily guided by their time of silence and solitude. They know that they’re being prayed over. 

Delighting in the Law of the Lord

The idea of being a contemplative pastor is common throughout church history. You have various individuals who have talked about what it means to contemplate the Lord and grow in your understanding and knowledge of the Lord. But even recently, we’ve had people, such as Eugene Peterson and others, who have written and helped us understand this idea of growing in contemplation of the Lord.

What I would encourage pastors to think about is that your ministry is only going to be as effective as your growth in humility and dependence upon the Lord grows. When you think about contemplating the Lord, it’s the idea that you are sitting beneath the word of God. It’s similar to what the psalmist says in Psalm 1, that day and night you are meditating upon the law of the Lord. It is your joy, it is your delight.

When you then attend to the ministry duties or the calendar of events, you are seeing that in a spiritual way. You are seeing that as an opportunity to grow in love for your neighbor, grow in love for the Lord, encounter another image bearer who is on the path and the journey of spiritual life. And so a contemplative pastor is not someone who is holed up in their office as an introvert the entire week and they’re unable to be accessed by parishioners.

Read More