From the Editor
Marshall Shelley
April 1, 2000
A certain pastor aroused lots of curiosity and speculation because of his habit of walking to the railroad tracks each afternoon and standing there alone.
For weeks, the pattern was the same. At exactly 2:35 the freight train would roar by, and the pastor would stand motionless, watching it pass.
"What's he doing?" people wondered. Some feared he was thinking of doing something drastic.
Finally someone asked him why he kept a daily appointment with the train.
He replied, "I just need to see something move around here that I don't have to push."
Okay, it's just a story. But while putting together this issue of LEADERSHIP, we heard a true variation on that theme.
Don Payne, who directs the suburban and rural training center at Denver Seminary, told us about a man in an established career who felt God's call to pastoral ministry. So he left his first career, attended seminary, took a church, and before long began to experience tremendous stress in the pastorate.
That in itself is not unusual. What was unusual was the source of the stress. He had gone into ministry believing the Woody Allen rule: "80 percent of success is just showing up." This new pastor assumed that if you just show up, ministry will come your way, you respond, and all is well. He underestimated how much initiative was necessary in pastoral work.
He found the burden of creating a climate, of initiating ministry opportunities way too stressful. So stressful, in fact, that he left the pastorate to return to his earlier "less stressful" job—as an air traffic controller!
Perhaps no aspect of ministry requires more forethought—more initiative—than the Christian's prime directive, as Jesus described it: "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them … ...
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