Embracing Pastoral Idealism

It's not naïve; it's life giving.

Pastoral ministry can be disorienting. We do it for a few years and then wake up one morning wondering what we are doing and why. The answers that may have been ready at hand when we began seem lost to us. A cloud settles over us, and we begin to feel isolated and alone, in such a way that, to me, invites an adaptation of the words of Leo Tolstoy.¹

All ha…