Pastor of the Restaurant

In Sunday School, we've been reading through John Leonard's Get Real.

This week we are studying Chapter 10, Sow Widely. The chapter is about evangelizing. At the end of the chapter, he talks about a pastor who while walking around the neighborhood around the church is discovered to not know the people around the church. The author tells the pastor "You don't pastor just a church; you pastor a community. Every one of these people, whether they know it or not, are your sheep. Your job is to shepherd them. Don't walk by them without calling out to them, asking 'How are you doing today? How's your family? How's that problem we spoke about last week?'"

It reminded me of a pastor friend of mine who pastored a restaurant.

Now this pastor was an ordained United Methodist elder and was the Senior Pastor of a church. However, he was a widower and devoted long hours to the church and the gym and not to cooking for himself. Just about every night, he would go eat dinner at a restaurant down the street from the church. Anytime he and I ate together, we ate at this restaurant. And anytime I ate at the restaurant separately, I would see him there.

Now though I was friends with the pastor and meet with him several times, I never heard him give his thoughts on that day's Lectionary reading. The only time I was in the sanctuary of his church was for a wedding that he didn't officiate. But I heard that pastor preach many sermons at that restaurant.

Whenever I ate dinner with this pastor, he would constantly be talking with the wait staff, hostesses, and bartenders. He knew who their family was, where they were going to school, and what problems they were having. It seemed the staff would intentionally come by our table just so the pastor would be able to talk with them.

The pastor told me once that though he was assigned to the church, his primary congregation was the staff at this restaurant. I thought the food was really good, Jamaican. A Whataburger or a BBQ place would be good places to be assigned as well.