i have left, this week, my beloved community of gritty, grounded ministry and have been given the privilege to listen to the voices shaping the larger conversation of the Church. it has been an indescribably rich week, but has left me wondering if it is possible to both speak into the cloud of higher conversation and have feet firmly planted in a local community.
i am confident that excellent ministry must informed by excellent theology — the onus of responsibility is on the pastor to be sure the practice he preaches is based in fully formed doctrine, but must the reverse be true? is a theologian only as good as the concrete praxis that comes out of his theoretical positing?
is there a point at which those involved in the formation of current theological theory become so disparate from those involved in the formation of local church praxis that the two become irreconcilable?
we have local shepherds with excellent practicality but whose voices are neither offered nor sought at a national/international level. and we have brilliant minds pushing forward conversations that must be had but are seemingly divorced from a consistent local congregation that would keep them relevant to the implementation of their ideas.
where are the small town pastors at mega-conferences? why always the audience and never the platform? who is shepherding the “speakers’” congregations as they bounce from conference to book contract to podcast? are the guiding voices the most authentic or just the most ambitious?
ultimately my questions are based in obvious selfishness. i ask if one voice can be both macro and micro and do either one with any semblance of excellence because i want to be that voice. i’m asking if there enough room in my particular life to deeply love both my micro-community and the macro-conversation? can i actually be both fully pastor and theologian or will i eventually have to choose?
is the tension so great that it is uninhabitable or just great enough to pull me to a life lived on my knees?
