What My Grandparents Taught Me About Pastoral Ministry

When I was in high school, and early on during the summers in college, I spent my days working at a local pharmacy. I got a one-hour lunch break, and I ended up going almost every day to lunch at my favorite place: Granny and PawPaw’s house.

I don’t remember how it started. One day, I drove over on my lunch break, and after that, it became my routine. They wanted to see me, and I wanted to see them. Sitting at their table instead of alone at a restaurant was comfortable and unhurried. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. I was just eating lunch with my grandparents.

But looking back, I realize the Lord was doing more than I understood. Having now sat beside countless hospital beds and in living rooms with families walking through suffering, I can see how those lunches prepared me for ministry in ways I didn’t yet understand. My grandparents taught me how to slow down, listen, and simply be present with people.

PawPaw

When we ate, my grandfather talked mostly about his time serving in the Korean War, his years as an insurance agent for Liberty National, or fishing, which he loved almost as much as anything in the world.

Of the three topics, he talked about Korea the most. The war had ended decades earlier, but it hadn’t really ended for him. It shaped the rest of his life. PawPaw survived the war; he never escaped it. He talked around it in the way men of his generation often did when they carried wounds no one had given them language for.

They wanted to see me, and I wanted to see them. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. I was just eating lunch with my grandparents.

When I sat across from him at that table, I didn’t know what PTSD was. I just knew Korea was never far from his mind. Now I realize why. My PawPaw came home from the war during an era when PTSD wasn’t understood. Men like him were told to put the war behind them. They were expected to come home, go to work, raise a family, and move on.

Many did. But many, like my grandfather, carried the war with them for the rest of their lives. As a boy, I didn’t understand that. I just knew him first as my grandfather, and I knew he loved me. I’m thankful that’s how I got to know him.

Granny

My grandmother had an tenth-grade education. She grew up on a farm in a poverty she also never fully escaped. She never had much of a formal education, but I can tell you this: She knew the Lord, and the Lord knew her. If you heard her whole story, you might call her life a tragedy. But due to her remarkable faith, she wouldn’t describe it that way.

I can still see her sitting in that rocking chair when I’d come over, reading glasses on and her Bible open in her lap. She was eager to tell me what she’d read that morning. She loved God’s Word because she needed it and depended on it. Every time I left her house, she’d tell me the same thing: “I’m praying for you.” That meant more to me than any gift she could’ve ever given, because I knew she wasn’t just saying it. She really was praying for me.

I now know there was much about her life I didn’t understand. But what stayed with me was that my grandmother loved Jesus, loved his Word, and faithfully prayed for her grandson. The Lord didn’t answer every prayer she prayed the way she hoped. But I’ve often wondered how many of God’s kindnesses in my life came through Granny’s faithful prayers.

Ministry Now

I share all this because I recently sat in another living room. It was different, but it felt oddly familiar. As I left that room, it dawned on me almost immediately that I was equipped to minister there only because of those lunches years before.

Every time I left her house, she’d tell me the same thing: ‘I’m praying for you.’ That meant more to me than any gift she could’ve ever given.

I visited a member of my church, a woman in her 80s, who has leukemia. The infusions aren’t working. Neither are the other treatments. Her doctor has told her, in words kind but final, to go home and make the most of whatever time she has left.

This woman’s husband, also in his 80s, sat beside her. Neither owns a computer. Neither carries a smartphone nor has any presence on social media. In almost every practical sense, they live in a different world than I do. I’m 36 years old, I have five small children, and I’ve never known adulthood without a screen in my pocket. By almost every measure, we should have little in common.

But we hold our faith in Jesus Christ in common. That shared faith gave us more to talk about than our generational differences could ever take away. Yet sitting in that living room didn’t feel awkward or unfamiliar to me for a further reason. As we closed our Bibles and finished praying, it struck me that I’d been here before. Not this house, but this kind of room. I’d spent years sitting across from my grandparents—listening, asking questions, and simply being there.

Word for Young Men

If you’re a young man pursuing pastoral ministry, you need to understand this: Much of your future work will happen in rooms like the one I just told you about. You’ll sit with people old enough to be your grandparents. They’ll have grown up in a different world than you did. They’ll tell stories from decades you never lived in, and they’ll trust you to walk with them through some of the hardest and darkest days of their lives. In those moments, they’ll be looking to you to remind them that Christ is enough.

You can prepare yourself for those moments now by spending time in ordinary living rooms with ordinary people who love you. Those people, perhaps your own grandparents, are teaching you far more than either of you realizes.

Don’t treat those visits as an obligation or assume you’ll always have another opportunity. One day, those conversations will be over, and you won’t get them back. Sit with them. Ask about the war. Ask about the farm. Ask about the good times and the hard ones. Listen carefully. You aren’t only loving your grandparents. You aren’t simply collecting family history. You’re also being prepared for the work the Lord has for you in ways you may not understand until you’re standing in a hospice living room.

Whatever else that visit gives you, this much I can promise: As a pastor, you’ll never regret the hours spent at that table.

| Written by Jared Cornutt | The Gospel Coalition | Read full story at Read More