What does the pastor do? - by Clint Humfrey

Found here. My comments in bold.
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I'm not entirely sure the author knows the difference between a pastor and an elder.
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How does the pastor spend his time? (This is a different question from the one asked in the title. I wonder which one he will answer.)

That is a question that sometimes arises from some who are critical and most who are just curious.

Medieval monks would spend their time at appointed hours praying, singing and chanting at their home, while transcribing texts in the intervening hours. (??? What do monks have to do with pastors?)

At the Reformation, so little of the previous centuries work had been dedicated to preaching, that the Reformers stood out for their emphasis on the pulpit. (The preaching of the Word is important, but again, what does this have to do with answering one of the two questions?)

The consistory of Geneva (I have never heard of this before. Apparently it was some sort of mild form of the inquisition, exacting discipline on sinners in the church.)

spent a great deal of time reviewing pastoral care issues, thinking through them biblically and apply counsel to people and situations. Sometimes the counsel and care (A somewhat innocuous description, it seems. This council was a corrective board that had a view towards clamping down on sin via confrontation.)

was disregarded and some Genevans preferred to be disciplined out of the church, than to be discipled in the church. All of this took organization and care. But the primary driver of the ministry was the Word work. Calvin’s preaching through the bible provided the basis for doctrine in the church in Geneva, and the surrounding village churches that worked together with Calvin’s, seeking counsel from Calvin’s elders, even making requests for pulpit supply. (The author's little historical aside has us puzzled. What does all of this have to do with pastors?)

Some things have changed, but others have stayed the same.

Word Work & Prayer Work

Today the work of the Word and Prayer (cf. Acts 6:4) are the two greatest tasks which the pastor must undertake. (Let's quote the Scripture. Ac. 6:1-4: 

In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

We first note that the apostles had a problem with their management. They were doing work that should have been delegated to others. So they put others in charge of ministering to the widows.

Second, it was the apostles, not pastors, who desired to dedicate themselves to prayer and the Word.

Third, this is not how churches are structured today. We don't have twelve apostles presiding over a church.

The author has taken over the work of the apostles and made it in to pastoral work.)

Both of these are work. It is not enough to tell the congregation that you just didn’t ‘get anything out of the Word’ this week. It requires mental and spiritual ‘sweat’. It is taxing. It makes you tired like all work does. (What in the world? Are there pastors out there who stand in front of the people and say such things? Are only pastors praying? Are pastors supposed to be tired after praying? This makes no sense at all.)

The Word work and Prayer work have the added problem of being difficult to measure. Prayer is done ‘in the closet’. Word work is done ‘at the desk’. But consider that the person who is in the closet or at the desk is largely out of sight. That means that it can appear as if the faithful pastor is unaccountable or unavailable or invisible. (Again we are puzzled. Who is measuring pastoral work? Is the author suggesting that pastors are doing a bunch of spiritual heavy lifting in private, but are being unjustly criticized for not working hard enough? This is very strange.)

What is the measure of the Word and Prayer work? It is seen in the fruit of the ministry. It is seen in the healthy diet which people feed upon. It is seen in the Spirit’s illumination of people to understand God’s word better, to be helped by God’s truth, to glorify God’s ways. (The author continues to present the pastorate as some sort of unique and separate thing, as if the pastor is primarily or exclusively responsible for prayer, study, bearing fruit, feeding the flock, and illumine people. We search the Scriptures in vain for this model, or even any hint that a pastor has such a role.)

The weakness of the pulpit speaks to the emptiness of the closet and the barrenness of the desk. (Or perhaps the mistakenness regarding the role of pastor in the church.)

Pastoralist Work

But there is another aspect to the pastoral ministry that must have a part. It is the pastoralist part. That is, it is the awareness and care for the condition of the sheep. (Finally the author has gotten to the actual, biblical role of the pastor. The pastoral ministry is care for the flock, not preaching or mowing the church's lawn or filling out forms.)

The pastor must know the people he is feeding. If he doesn’t know what their condition is, then the diet he offers will be too thick or too thin, too spicy or too sweet. (Whew. This is so hard to read. These seem like vague platitudes. What does it mean to "know the people he is feeding?" How does he do this? How does he determine their condition? 

Would there any consideration given to turning to God for insight about the people? Or how about turning to others with gifts in those areas so that they can minister to the people?)

So the pastor exhorts and teaches personally in his interactions with people. (Is the pastor also the teacher? We have already seen the author conflate the pastor with apostle. I wonder if he will want to make the pastor the evangelist or prophet [Eph. 4:11]as well?) 

He hears their anxieties and cares. He points them to Christ. This is the pastor’s task also.

Not Shopkeeper Nor Therapist

Sometimes people can get confused about their expectations for the pastor. (Ah, so it's the fault of the people.

Probably because of centuries of bad teaching on the subject.)

Pastors can be viewed as shop-keepers or therapists. Some sheep don’t wish to be led to feed in green pastures, but wish to be treated like a pet in the shepherd’s home.

As David Wells has pointed out, our era is a Therapeutic Age. And this emphasis has dominated the thought of pastors and church members. The people expect the pastor to be a therapist, on call to fix them, and the pastor moves increasingly to be responsive to the ‘felt needs’ of the people.
This mindset came to dominate the pastoral style of the seeker sensitive movement. (We finally discover that the author has an ax to grind. He's blaming other movements for the problems in his church. 

But the problem goes back a long time, when the church abandoned the church structure set forth by the apostles, and embraced the Church of Rome model. We have had a singular man at the top of each church ever since, much to the detriment of Christianity.

It's not a "seeker sensitive" problem, it's "professional pastor" problem.)

And with it, the sufficiency of the Scriptures was lost as desks and closets were left empty. (This is completely off the wall. "Seeker sensitive" churches killed pastoral prayer and pastoral study, which led to losing the sufficiency of Scripture? Whaaaat? This makes no sense at all!

Apparently the author is unaware of theological liberalism, which infected the church decades ago. Or paganism, which has been chipping at the church for hundreds of years. Or universalism, seeking to undo the trust in Scripture for 80 years. Or Higher Criticism, which has worked to destroy the foundations of the Bible for more than 100 years. Or the work of philosophers from Voltaire to Mill to Nietzsche. 

We could name a dozen more things, yet the author blames "seeker sensitive" churches. This is vapid.) 

So there is a constant struggle which the pastor faces. He must be jealous to guard the desk and closet time. As John Macarthur said many times, “the task of the pastor-teacher is to keep his rear-end in the chair until the job is done”. On the other hand, the pastor must know the sheep, and be able to offer feeding and protection according to their needs. He must do this without subtly giving in to worldly expectations of his role which come from the people or from himself.

(Wow. No wonder so many pastors fail or fall. No wonder so many churches struggle. It would take a super human to succeed at what the author describes. All this derived from a single scriptural mention of the word "pastor, " an office that has morphed into a singular leader of the local church.

But the Bible has no such model of church leadership. The church is led by a plurality of godly men who understand that they have unique talents and gifts, as well as weaknesses. The pastor is but one of them. He isn't a teacher necessarily, because other men have that gift. He isn't required to be an administrator either. He isn't the the spiritual go-to guy. He's charged with caring for the flock in conjunction with others who combine together to create a God-centered team of leadership.

The biblical model is 5 offices manifesting together [Eph. 4:11], coupled with a group of elders overseeing the local church [1 Pe. 5:2].)