Divine Calling, Human Pastor

In April 2024, I received my Doctorate in Ministry.

After three of the best years I could spend with twenty of the most magnificent pastors, I received my D.Min from the Eugene Peterson Center of Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary.

If the abstract below interests you, my disseration is linked below for you to read. I would love to talk more about about it.

Abstract

I developed heart disease during my first fifteen years of full-time, pastoral ministry. I didn’t notice the deterioration of my health until I had a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine. My cardiologist explained that while diet, exercise, and family history contribute to the development of heart disease, stress management and emotional health play critical roles in persons under forty. I began a thorough examination; the stress, burdens, and isolation that accompanied my pastoral calling had taken more of a toll than I could have imagined. I considered resignation, but as I looked at other pastors around me, I saw that I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t a question of personal capacity, but of systemic disfunction and defective theology. Instead of leaving full-time ministry, I decided to look more in-depth at why the evangelical pastor all too often burns out, experiences illness, or commits moral failings. What human-made tasks and mindsets have we—the evangelical community—added to the pastoral calling at the detriment of our health? How can we pastors reclaim the heart of this holy vocation to recenter the joy and purpose of the calling? Heart disease is the metaphor that will ground this project to explore the internal spiritual and emotional well-being of the evangelical pastor. Through my story as well as interviews with an array of pastors from my community, I will explore different interpretations of the pastoral calling and diagnose the ideologies and pursuits that are creating blockages internally and within our congregations. I will heavily rely on Eugene Peterson’s pastoral theology to explore a recovery that will help us unearth our pastoral calling to keep our body and that of the evangelical church healthy. The death spiral will not be reversed with a methodized formula but, rather, an applied spiritual theology.