What does a pastor do?

I first took the title of "pastor" on July 1st, 2015, and it felt really, really awkward. I was new to Michigan and I wanted to get to people. At the same time, I knew that as soon as people asked the question, "What do you do?" and I answered, "I'm a pastor" that would be the end of the conversation for some people. For a season, I would tell people that I was a "faith and community director." Then I learned that wasn't going to work and just had to rip off the band aid. "I'm a pastor." Nowadays I tell people I'm a "United Methodist pastor" because that sounds less intimidating to people for some reason. The interesting thing about being a pastor is that, besides giving a sermon every week, people really don't know what you do.

So what does a pastor do? More specifically, what do United Methodist pastors do? Here's the essence of our "job description" and what I'm responsible for.

First off, there are different types of pastors in the United Methodist Church. The main two pillars are called elders and deacons with a few different variations under each of those umbrellas. I am an elder and that means I have four main functions of my job: Word, sacrament, order and service.

Let's start with Word. That is in reference to the Word of God, the Bible. That means we have a task of faithfully interpreting the Bible for our community and faith. This is a privilege and a really deep responsibility. This means that every message you hear or any class or study you’re a part of, we have a responsibility to really study that passage a lot. Every week I read different books and what’s called Bible commentaries, which are written by scholars who have spent even more significant time with the text.

Then we come to sacrament, which for the UMC means baptism and communion. Different sects of Christianity call different things sacraments. For United Methodists, we stick with communion and baptism. A sacrament is where God does something extraordinary through something ordinary. Ordinary things like water (baptism) and bread and juice (communion) are vessels of grace where God's presence can become known through them. This means we walk people through the journey of baptism and we take the time to teach what we believe about baptism and communion. These aren’t duties that we hand off to others, but ones that we officiate. As I have gone along in my spiritual journey, these sacraments have become even more special to me and it is such a privilege to guide people through them and teach people about them because there’s a lot more to it than what appears. We believe that God is truly present with us in baptism and that God rises us out of the water and that God and even the saints who have gone before us into eternal life are present in communion.

Word and sacrament are the obvious parts of our job because they are done publicly. The other parts are the ones behind the scenes. When it comes to "order," that means it is our responsibility to make sure that all of what we do as a church is pointing us toward fulfilling our mission, which is to welcome and connect all people with God through relevant discipleship and service. This is big picture tasks like setting the vision for the church. It also means nitty gritty details like yearly paperwork. Ordering the ministries calls us to the big picture and the small picture. It calls us to the balcony to observe how everything is interconnected, and also to get on the dance floor and be part of the movement.

And we do all of this because we are called to serve. When I think of the pillar of service, I think of how we are called to show up in the lives of our people when there is need. It is a ministry of presence, and I consider that a privilege to do that. This can happen outside the church walls with home and hospital visits or inside the walls with funerals and weddings. That’s all part of the pillar of service. We mourn with people. We celebrate with people. We get to be present in their lives as much as we’re allowed to. 

So, that’s a bit of what I do. Like a lot of gigs, it can vary from day to day and I actually appreciate that. But I hope that gives some clarity on what this pastor does and doesn’t do.

Curious to learn more? Come join us any Sunday morning at 10!