by Craig Dykstra

Craig Dykstra is vice president for religion at Lilly Endowment, Inc., and author of Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practice. He is also editor, with Dorothy Bass, of For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education, and Christian Ministry. This article appeared in The Christian Century, April 8, 2008, pp. 26-31. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscriptions information can be found at www.christiancentury.org.

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Introduction

In working closely and personally with lawyers, I have come to see that they have been formed—by their legal education and even more by their years of professional work in the law—in a particular way of seeing and thinking that is distinctive to that profession. They have developed what we might call a "legal imagination." It consists of a penetrating way of knowing that enables really good lawyers to notice things, understand things and do things that others of us simply cannot see or do.

There may also be such a thing as an artistic imagination. Artists in every medium have an imagination and an intelligence that enables them to pull together what they perceive in the world and contemplate in their souls in the process of creating new works of art that in turn help the rest of us apprehend reality in entirely new ways. Like the legal imagination, this imagination relies on individual gifts but is also shaped by the community, education, artistic tradition and material relations within which the artist works over time.

But what of the kind of imagination I have seen in so many pastors? The pastoral situation itself shapes pastors in a way of perceiving and understanding and relating to the world that has distinctive characteristics. The unique confluence of forces and influences that impinge on those who engage deeply and well in pastoral work shapes them powerfully, fostering a set of sensibilities, virtues, and skills that characteristically belongs to good pastors.

Every day pastors are immersed in a constant, and sometimes nearly chaotic, interplay of meaning-filled relationships and demands. They attend to scripture; struggle to discern the gospel's call and demand on them and their congregations in particular contexts; lead worship, preach and teach; respond to requests for help of all kinds from myriad people in need; live with children, youth, and adults through life cycles marked by both great joy and profound sadness; and take responsibility for the unending work of running an organization with buildings, budgets, and public relations and personnel issues.

In the midst of the interplay of all this and more, pastors become who they are; indeed, pastors are transformed. The unique confluence of all these forces both requires and gives shape to an imagination marked by characteristics and features unlike those required in any other walk of life. Life lived long enough and fully enough in the pastoral office gives rise to a way of seeing in depth and of creating new realities that is an indispensable gift to the church, to all who are members of it, and indeed to public life and to the world.