Shaping a place where people can become more like Christ

In the best kind of way, this book makes me feel like I’ve not been much of a pastor. I sit in my clerical collar, in my church office, alongside several bookshelves filled with many books about the church and ministry. Very pastor-like. But have I been pastoring? If these sorts of things—or even the fact that I preach more than 40 Sundays a year—don’t assure me that I am pastoring, what does?

Scot McKnight sees a model for pastoral ministry on display throughout Paul’s letters, and he suggests that Paul’s ministry centers on one essential task: Christoformation, that is, forming a culture in which people can be conformed to Christ. Across Paul’s letters, McKnight sees a concerted effort to nurture a culture in which such conformity can take place.

This, then, is what assures me that I am pastoring, at least in a Pauline key. Pastors are pastoring when their work is geared toward nurturing and tending a culture of Christoformity. It’s the kind of work that Jason Byassee and Matt Miofsky describe as “forging a crowd into a church.”