Pastor

The "pastor" is the best known and best developed of the five gifts of developmental people to the Community through the Church. As ___points out, the term came into use as a title when Luther cast around for a term to replace "Priest" during the reformation. prior to that, it was regarded as a "function".

Thomas C. Oden, in his four-volume Classical Pastoral Care[], carefully researched out the references in the literature to aspects of this task as understood by the church down through the ages until the time of Freud, when the definition took on a psycho-analytic or counseling flavor.

The provision of local "shepherding" is central to the life of any group, and such nurture pays off in the individual and collective maturity of its members. In addition, the group's activity in the larger community, individually or collectively, can result in much secondary effect as well.

Because this is the best known of the five types of ministry gifts, the person with this title often is saddled with several unnecessary hardships:

• an expectation that s/he will do all five tasks, and do them well
• an expectation that s/he is a one-man airforce, and the congregation is to play the role of ground crew (rather than the other way around).
• in smaller churches, s/he is often regarded as a "family chaplain" In larger churches s/he is often regarded as an administrative CEO

For all the problems, these people do maintain a strong effect in many small communities, in both rural and rural settings.