John Tamming

It is very disappointing, all right.  We have been intentional about improved diversity and race relations for 50 years now.  10%.  Sad.  Classes should be asked to make this a priority when sending delegates.  

John A. Tamming 

Some years ago I read the memoir of a Rev. Breedveld, who was my family's pastor 60 years ago in Strathroy.  He wrote of an immigrant church of over 210 families (for whom he was the sole pastor), two services a Sunday plus a dutch service, responsible for teaching all catechism classes and attended a host of very difficult pastoral situations - scores of them. The congregational stressors over immigration were massive and he had to navigate all of that.  

I am sorry, but I don't understand the almost constant laments of pastors and others over the hard life of the modern CRC minister.  I honestly do not.  They are now down to three services a month, on average, and they farm out much of the catechetical and other teaching.  Many have sought less of a dominee role (with all the pressures which that entailed) and have embraced a paid employee model instead.  The workload is a fraction of what it once was and vacations and other time off are very substantial.

You are paid to ransack libraries and life to write compelling sermons.  You are paid to read - it does not get better than that.  You are welcomed into people's lives at the most frought of times, where the conversations are dense and meaningful.  You can have carloads of engaging youth over to your deck anytime you want.  You can teach adult education.  You get paid maybe $100,000 plus benefits.

And I can remember perhaps 2 or 3 pastors in my lifetime openly revelling in the blessing of their vocation.  The rest are all hard done by.  Enough.  Please. If, over an extended period of time, you can't celebrate your calling any longer, it would be best if you left.  My children had at least two depressed and burned out pastors in their lives for extended periods of time. It did them no good at all.

Sincerely,

John A. Tamming 

Owen Sound, Ontario

I thank Nicole for her comments (my surname, incidentally, lost the last "a" some time ago, presumably the act of some ancestor trying to shake off a Frisian past).  I do not discount anything of what she writes.  I can only share my experiences and observations.

On a personal note, I completed my M.Div at Calvin years ago but switched career paths when, apart from other factors, I realized my somewhat melancholic personality would lack the discipline and energy to motivate and elevate whatever churches I ended up at.  I could do a great Good Friday sermon and loved funerals but sensed one needed a broader skill set, particularly to work with the youth and younger couples.  I just did not have it.

Articles such as this strike me as simply indulging the worst traits of so many of our clergy and reinforce that which needs no reinforcement.  Updike (I think in his A Month of Sundays) wrote of the "mischievous idleness" of the ministry and I think he was onto something. As I have relayed elsewhere, John Stek's last lecture to our Psalms class included a plea to us graduates to buy an alarm clock, to set it for 5 and to get into your study by 6.  It is the vast acres of unstructured time, largely unsupervised and unaccounted for, which works hand in hand with the depression which I observe as pervasive in our clergy.   

They have no real goals, they do in their 50s exactly the same things they did in their 40s, they write no books or even a regular column, they are largely uninvolved in the civic life of their communities, they are strangers in the local Christian school, they make almost no attempt to understand the careers and demands of their parishioners (and thus have very little octane for their sermon material), are often cynical about their classical responsibilities and in general have so little that seems to professionally focus and energize them. 

And then they read an article which tells them to read the psalms, be ok with their imperfection, etc.  With all respect, this is NOT the advice most clergy need.  

Cordially,

John A. Tamming 

I say this not gratuitously, not to be harsh but to honestly set forth the problems as I see them.  

Sam I appreciate the article but, as a long time lay member of the denomination, I have to say that the temptation I have often seen pastors led into is frankly that of sloth.   John Updike once wrote of the 'mischievous idleness' which can characterize so much pastoral ministry.  He was onto something.  
 

As an attorney I have 200 open files at any time, communicate vast amounts each day, prepare and attend for trials, mediations and depositions every month, run a disciplined staff, etc.  It gets done.   The same could be said of almost any professional I know. Three 24 minute sermons a month, a couple of bible studies and a daily pastoral call is baseline work and hardly amounts to supraerogatory effort.  Parishioners are right to look for pastors which are ambitious enough to want more, much more, for themselves and the church. Would that we had more ministers in the CRC who contained that ambition. 
 

Professor Stek's last lecture to our class included the admonition to buy an alarm clock and set it for 5:30am.   I thought it harsh but if the marines proverbially get done more before 9 than most do in a day, why anything less for the clergy?

John A. Tamming 

Mark was my Chimes editor years ago at Calvin and we attended seminary together.  Never met anyone more genuine or with greater compassion.  Thank you for your years of service, Mark.

John A. Tamming