In a recent interview with Jonathan Merritt, Eugene Peterson gave this response when asked what advice he would give to young seminary students...
"… Pastoring is not a very glamorous job. It's a very taking-out-the-laundry and changing-the-diapers kind of job. And I think I would try to disabuse them of any romantic ideas of what it is. As a pastor, you've got to be willing to take people as they are. And live with them where they are. And not impose your will on them. Because God has different ways of being with people, and you don't always know what they are.
The one thing I think is at the root of a lot of pastors' restlessness and dissatisfaction is impatience. They think if they get the right system, the right programs, the right place, the right location, the right demographics, it'll be a snap. And for some people it is: if you're a good actor, if you have a big smile, if you are an extrovert. In some ways, a religious crowd is the easiest crowd to gather in the world. Our country's full of examples of that. But for most, pastoring is a very ordinary way to live. And it is difficult in many ways because your time is not your own, for the most part, and the whole culture is against you. This consumer culture, people grow up determining what they want to do by what they can consume. And the Christian gospel is just quite the opposite of that. And people don't know that. And pastors don't know that when they start out. We've got a whole culture that is programmed to please people, telling them what they want. And if you do that, you might end up with a big church, but you won't be a pastor."
Over my short 5 years as a pastor I have found that ministry isn't anything as I expected it to be. There are things that I expected, and things that turned out far different than I expected. Ministry is far less romantic than my young, ambitious, take-over-the-world-for-Jesus, self ever expected it to be. Ministry is slow, and difficult, it is something that cannot be forced. Because people are messy, churches and communities are messy, pastors are messy, life is messy.
I think there is a discontentment in whatever field we find ourselves in, the "grass is always greener" they say. And there is a bit of truth to that, you can move from place to place, and numb the discontentment for a bit, but it will catch up. It is easy to chase the illusion of success and calling under the guise of "following God's will." But for the pastor, our life's work is far less about "success" (in one sense of the word) as it is about faithfulness. It is about faithfulness to what and to where we have been given. I am learning what it means to be faithful to a calling and place. And as difficult as it is, the journey is worth it. To commit to the ordinary is to walk in the beauty of the day to day gospel. Maybe the great theologian, Pam Halpert said it best in the Office Series finale, "There is a lot of beauty in ordinary things."