Working the angles

I'm reading Eugene Peterson's book "Working The Angles" for the first time in several years, but it is feeling as if it is the first time. This book is quickly becoming formative for how I do and see ministry.

A pastor does 3 main things which are visible to the congregation. These are preaching, teaching and administration (running the church). This is what the church sees week in and week out. If ministry were to be seen as a triangle, these are the three lines.

But what gives the lines their peculiar shape? How do these 3 lines go from being just simply three visible lines to being a triangle? It is all in the angles. A triangle without angles is nothing but a cuple of lines. There is something else at work to give shape to these visible lines.

Peterson says the three angles which give shape to pastoral ministry are prayer, Scripture study and spiritual direction. These are the things which a pastor does but which are generally invisible to the congregation. We do not often see the pastor at prayer, studying Scripture or giving spieitual direction to anyone (usually done on an individual basis but can be in a small group as well). Without these three essentials, the triangle of ministry simply consists of 3 unconnnected lines.

These are the three areas in my ministry that I will be working on in the near future. I work on these three angles to an extent, but not to the level that I need to. Without these as being essentialo in my ministry, it too will just drift into inconsequential lines, unconnected to much anything else. These are the angles to work on