Secrets of Staying Power

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I knew an old minister once.… How I envy him.… I am listed as a famous home-runner, yet beside that obscure minister, who was so good and so wise, I never got to first base!
Babe Ruth

Blessed are the presbyters who have gone before in the way, who came to a fruitful and perfect end; for they need have no fear lest anyone depose them from their assigned place.
Clement of Rome

The discouragements in ministry are not the whole story, as even the most battered and weary pastor will attest. In fact, often in the very midst of the doldrums comes the sudden gust of hope.

"I had a terrible death last week in our congregation," relates Eugene Peterson, pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. "A woman was killed in an automobile accident, and she was only fifty years old. She was such a lively person, so full of life. And the accident was terrible. Five women were traveling together in a van when a big truck plowed into them, and all five were killed.

"The accident happened in the afternoon, but her husband didn't find out about it until seven or eight o'clock at night. I got a call at nine. As I got in the car and began driving to their house, about three miles down the road, I thought about Bill, and how much he loved her, and about the three kids, all in college. I knew how devastating this would be to them, and I just didn't think I could face that. This was the fourth death in our congregation in just two months, and all of them were unnatural — interrupted lives. I thought, Lord, I can't do this. I don't want to be a pastor anymore. I just can't enter into that deep pain again. Or if I can, I don't want to. I just don't want to do this anymore.

"So I got there," Eugene continues, "and two hours later I ...

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