Baby Pastor: An Introduction

As a kid, I always loved the James Herriot books.

If you’re not familiar, James Herriot was a country veterinarian in rural Scotland in the early 20th century. His books have been adapted recently into a successful BBC television show called, All Creatures Great and Small. The delight of the books was in watching the formation of a naive veterinarian school graduate from the big city, and his eventual shaping into a beloved pillar of his Yorkshire community.

James receives an invitation to work at a small practice under the tutelage of an experienced vet, Sigfried, and his happy go-lucky nephew Tristan. As they live in the same house, go on calls and work together, James gradually learns through a series of humorous and poignant vignettes, critical truths about what it means to be a vet to a hard but loving community.

I always thought it would be useful to have such a chronicle of the formative experiences in the life of a young pastor.

Seminaries are replete with students eager to learn truth, drunk with the intellectual power of big ideas and grand ambitions for the future, and there is a certain shaping that occurs in the daily complexity and messiness of pastoral ministry. From personal experience, as you will see, it can be brutally humbling, full of unexpected love and even comedic absurdity. But it is also a beautiful calling wherein the Baby Pastor is privileged to the most sacred of human experiences: standing at the altar with a couple, sitting at the bedside as a loved one breathes their last, or hearing the deepest vulnerabilities of a person stripped of all pretense.

I make no claim to experience or even virtue as a pastor, I simply reflect upon the varied ways that the Lord has gently knocked me down a peg, shown me the mastery of wonderful pastors, and manifested Himself in sometimes bizarre ways. I don’t want to forget these experiences, the laughter, the tears, the wonder and pain. Most of all, I don’t want to forget the people. The people who invited a young and headstrong pastor into their lives, offered him food and drink at their table and placed their trust in his trembling hands.