One day I came home from work and my oldest daughter says “you smell dad.” I got to thinking about it and that day I had been to the office to study, to the college to see a couple of church members, to the hospital across the street to visit a patient, and then to a coffee shop to visit a prospective member. All of those places have distinct smells. The only word that came to my mind (and I think I heard another pastor say it) was, “I smell like sheep.” The only way I know how to pastor is through relationships. For me, the pastoral relationship flows straight out of the Trinity.
The Trinity was (and is) a mystery to me. As a kid I could not quite get the concept that God wasn’t three gods (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). In seminary I got exposed to Athanasius (and other church father’s work) On the Trinity. I understood at its basic level that God is One “What” and three “Who’s.” I also knew I did not like (and thought it was heretical at the time) the ESS model of the Trinity being taught by and to many people my age. Yet at the time I could not articulate what the Trinity meant for “real life?” And then the follow up what does the Trinity matter in the life of a pastor, besides being worthy of our praise?
Then I stumbled upon the work of Paul Fiddes, who is probably the preeminent Baptist theologian in the world (with apologies to Roger Olson and my friend Myles Werntz). His work introduced the concept that the Triune God at its heart is a community of love. God then invites us to participate within this community of love and the church itself is patterned after the community of love found in the Trinity. In other words, God is primarily a relational being by God’s very essence.
Discovering this idea has major pastoral implications. If God is by nature relational - in eternal relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - then as a pastor my primary way of being in the world is relational as well. Obviously the priority of a relationship with God. It is God who invites us to participate with Him through relationship. From there, we take on the character of God which is revealed in Exodus 34:6-8 and most fully scene in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. It is the Holy Spirit that works into me its fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control (well, for self-control the Holy Spirit still has work to do - and probably patience too).
The church then is a community of love patterned after the character of the Trinity. We show up for one another. We admonish and encourage one another. We make meals for one another in times of transition. We worship, sing, and listen (or in my case preach) to sermons together. We disciple one another, cry together, rejoice together, and carry one another’s burdens. We do ordinary things like break bread, and we do extraordinary things we didn’t think were possible like in my church’s case feed 100 families throughout the pandemic.
So if God is relational, and church is relational, then pastoring must be relational. As a pastor, you show up. You show up when someone has a baby. You show up in times of grief. You show up for ball games and concerts. You show up in hospital rooms and nursing homes. Pastors text people when they need encouragement. Pastors listen over cups of coffee to what God is doing in people’s lives. Pastors pray for and pray with people. What people see in that hour worship service on Sunday should only be an overflow of what comes out during the week. In other words Pastors are going to smell like sheep if they are doing their work relationally. Yet I think that’s what Jesus smelled like too at the end of a day of ministry, and perhaps in Heaven we will find the Triune God smells the same way.