Bonhoeffer Chapter 4

    Reading what Bonhoeffer has to say about ministry was quite interesting and insightful. I thought that he has done a good job at tying in ministry to what he talked about in the rest of the book as well. There is so much to ministry and I believe that we must take that seriously as Christians. I believe that Pastors and all Christians, no matter their calling, should take it very seriously and other believers should be holding them to that.

    One of the things that Bonhoeffer talks about is the ministry of listening. For me, something that stuck out to me the most in this section was this quote, “There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person” (pg. 98). I often catch myself doing this. I am not going into ministry myself as a pastor (at least for now), but whatever my calling from God is, this is something that all Christians should search their hearts for and see if they are doing this to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

    Bonhoeffer also talks about the ministry of helpfulness. He mentions how people will take their work too seriously and will not allow anything to get in their way, even if it is a good thing. I have seen this firsthand. This story that I will share incorporates the failure of a pastor to listen and be helpful. My brother is a youth pastor. He is at his second church, but at his first one, it did not go very well, mainly because of the lead pastor. When he started there, everything seemed great. Suddenly, my brother started seeing many things that this pastor was doing. He was neglecting personal time with his own family and spending upwards of 75 hours a week at the church. He was also encouraging it in his associate pastor and my brother. He would not lose sight of his work, no matter the cost. That was his failure to be helpful. His failure to listen was directly towards my brother. He was asking my brother for his opinion on many things that needed to be done within the church but would always disregard anything he would say. He was not willing to truly listen to anyone else in the church.  I witnessed this as I was a youth leader within that church and had many encounters with that pastor.

    There are other ministries that Bonhoeffer talks about, but I believe that those two are so important. Through the trials that my brother experienced at his old church, it taught him many things, but it showed how destructive a non-listening and non-helpful pastor can be. The church needs to step up and hold each other accountable when it comes to doing ministry right.