Alex Badega

AST student
ID: 20210027
Fall-2021

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT FOR PASTORAL FOUNDATION (PF 1001)

THE TRUE PASTORAL IDENTITY

To begin with, “Pastoral identity is a prevailing, but paradoxically underdeveloped,

theme in Christian scholarship and ministry. In Christian ministry, and in pastoral literature and
practices, the identity of the person who ministers in the name of God and the faith community
has been, and anticipatorily will and should be, “a central theme”” (J. L. Marshall, 2004;
Thornton, 2005). Yet Identity is one of the most misconceived notions in our society today.
Following what is happening in our modern world, one can easily realize that the problem of
identity crisis is growing fast and greatly. Pastoral identity as the result of integration of multiple
factors in a pastor's life has not escaped the challenge. Within our present world where most
people are no longer contented with who they are or who they want to be, living a mistaken
identity is an increasing and most accepted norm. We don’t want to be who were really are
because the worldview continually shapes who we ought to be. The modern worldview about
who we should be has badly and heavily affected and changed our true identity, and has caused
us to adopt and adapt to false lifestyles. I find it true that most people, including leaders such as
pastors live in a false existential paradigm.

My personal experience, challenges and victories made me realize that the life I live
should not primarily be dictated by modern or traditional worldviews but be governed by the
truth about who I am and whose I am. Within my years of living as a committed Christian, that is
24 year down the road, and my experience in ministry since 1998, I battled with myself like in a
boxing ring searching for the true meaning of who and whose I was. This mainly came as a result
of the fact that I was rejected by my own father at an early age and I grew up with an inferiority
complex. In order to find acceptance in every society or community where I lived, I had to wear
a false image, act falsely, live to please and attract those around me. When I could be in a place
where there are many people, I had to act in a way that will cause them to notice me and
appreciate me publicly. When that happened, I felt a sense of acceptance and confidence. I lived
in that dilemma for so long as a Christian and a minister until I discovered the truth about my
true identity.

Identity

I believe that health relationships are primarily a result of self-discovery. Getting to

know one’s self (Identity), his/her sphere of operation (Position), his/her purpose (mission) and
his/her goal (destiny) are the some of the most important discoveries a human being can make
and they act as the foundation of a meaningful life. Taking an example from scriptures, before
God created man He first defined his identity when He said, “Let us make humankind in our
image, according to our likeness”1. Our true identity is not derived from what we do or achieve
but from who we are and whose we are. What we do does not define us but our source which is
in God. God created us in His image and likeness. It is this image of God which we bear that
defines us, not what we do for ourselves, for others or for Him.

When man fell in Adam as Genesis 3 records, God through Jesus Christ restored us, this
time not to only become bearers of His image but also bear His nature and share his life. Apostle
Paul was very intentional when he wrote on who we have become through Christ. In His epistle
to the Colossians church he speaks of Christ being our real life2 by virtue of being in Christ. In
his second epistle to the Corinthians Church, Apostle Paul urges them to test themselves and
realize that Christ is in them3. In this verse he uses the Greek word “adokimos”4 which when
translated in English may mean castaway, rejected, reprobate. According to Apostle Paul, if
someone does not recognize himself/herself as Christ being in him/her is an “adokimos”.

Acknowledging our union with Christ is a very crucial point that holds us together and
plays a great role in our service to one another. The understanding and conviction that we are in
Christ and Christ is in us is the strongest foundation on which we can build our ministry and
services. This mainly gives us a clear picture of what it means to be called sons of God. I’m very
aware that the notion of us being sons of God is one of the biblical truths which has not
profoundly and clearly been addressed and presented yet it’s a fundamental teaching which
deserves special consideration and examination.

The biblical truth is that we are sons of God! God is our Father not by imagination or by
assumption. We are born of God as Apostle Peter said that “You have been born anew, not of
perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23;
NRSV). The word “seed” used here is the Greek word “spora” in which the English word
“sperm” is derived. This shows that our Christian life is Christo-genetic. Christ has become our
true and real life. Apostle Paul clarifies this when he writes to the Corinthian church in his
second epistle that, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view;
even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that
way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:…” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17; NRSV;
Emphasis added). It’s unfortunate that we still regard ourselves from a human point of view yet
we call ourselves children of God. The way we see ourselves determines the way we see others.
It is very important that as pastors and leaders in the Christian community, change the perception
of our identity. What we do doesn’t define us, we define what we do!

Position
1
Genesis 1:26; NRSV
2
Colossians 3:4
3
2 Corinthians 13:5
4
Strong’s Lexicon
 During creation of man, God did not stop at defining his identity as His image bearer,
He proceeded by defining man’s purpose saying, “And let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”5 After defining man’s identity,
God proceeded with defining his position which was the position of dominion and authority. By
assigning him with responsibilities to rule over His creation, Father God declared man (Adam) as
His image bearer, representative and rightful heir of the creation.

We should bear in mind also that are not sons by legal adoption procedures as
understood within the modern western legal concept. In our days, adoption is understood as a
legal placement of a child from a different biological descent into your own family. In biblical
times, when your own son would come of age, you as his father would publicly and officially
place him into the position of being your representative, thus designating him as the rightful heir.
This was done in a big ceremony where the son would be clothed in a special garment and would
from that time start to manage all the businesses in his father’s stead. This meant that the son has
grown to become a mature responsible son in whom the father is well pleased. As Jesus once
said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?”6 In
this case the adopted son also represents his father in a sense that he who has seen him has seen
his father. God the Father lovingly foreordained our destiny before the foundations of the world
that we should be placed in His Son. This placement is what is known as adoption. It is a new
creation birth, a born again (born from above) experience which the Father initiated through
Christ in whom we have become co-heirs in the family of God. By virtue of being IN CHRIST,
we were publicly declared heirs and representatives of God our Father through Christ His
beloved Son.

Mission

Our true identity as sons of God and our position as “sons IN the Son” and co-heirs with
Christ define our mission as our Father’s representatives in a call to ambassadorship. Our
commissioning is perfectly defined by Apostle Paul as the “ministry of reconciliation”.
According to Paul, this ministry is based on the conviction or persuasion “that one has died for
all; therefore all have died And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for
themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them”7 (emphasis added). The perspective
of “all-inclusiveness” changes the way we regard the world and how we approach our
communities in the world of our operation. We are sent on an already accomplished mission.
Actually we heralds of the good news of victories already attained. God has already reconciled
the world to Himself through the death of His Beloved Son Jesus Christ. As Apostle Paul put it,
“…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us”, the message of reconciliation the good
5
See citation 1 [Emphasis added]
6
John 14: 9;NRSV
7
2 Corinthians 5:14-15;NRSV
news of Christ’s finished work on the cross. Our ambassadorship and our ministry are of a
mission already accomplished in advance. We compel people to reconcile to God who has
already reconciled them to himself. We are inviting people to a feast already paid off, prepared
and ready to enjoy. Isn’t this relieving of all the burdens we’ve carried along in our service to
God as pastors? I believe it does!

In Christ, pastors ought to live, serve and work responsibly as mature sons not as
surviving servants. In our service to God our Father, we don’t strive to impress Him for
acceptance. He has already accepted us in the beloved as Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians
Chapter one verse six. We please Him because He was pleased with us first in Christ. There is
nothing satisfying and fulfilling like knowing that you are serving a father who is pleased with
you all the time. This brings a sense of meaning to life. In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”
Viktor Frankl shares his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps where many of his fellows
lost their lives. He ascribes their frustration and death mainly to their lack of a sense of meaning
to life. While this is true, one has to not that human reason for survival is not that fulfilling and
satisfying enough like acknowledging your divine mandate of ambassadorship.

Represent our Father and working for Him with an understanding that we are heirs of all
that he has is of such a great honor and brings comfort, peace and joy. Can you imagine of a
father who has worked hard all his life and has attained great reaches that can’t be exhausted and
which would be more than enough for his posterity, he has set everything needed for them to live
as happy as they would need, he leaves all his companies and properties to be managed by his
children, if they would live and act responsibly as mature son, they would enjoy the benefit but if
they don’t they would miss everything yet they had it all on their plate. This reminds me of what
Apostle Paul said about a child-like minded heir in his epistle to the Galatian Church. He said,
“…heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all
the property” (Galatians 4:1; NRSV). I personally think that most times we as pastors have lived
and acted like minors in issues related to our inheritance as sons of God. We live, serve and work
as slave not sons. We fail to fully represent our Father because we don’t walk in full assurance
and conviction of our inheritance as sons. We end up manipulating and being manipulated by
those around us and circumstances. We are not aware of who we are, whose were are and why
we are here!

The Ultimate Purpose!

According to Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy which is his psychotherapeutic theory, it

“focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning.”8 In
this he means that when humans lack a reason to live for they are susceptible to despair. As he
quotes Nietzsche’s words: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How”9, he
strongly affirms it as “a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy”. As a social worker by
8
Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning: First published in 1946, first Rider Books printing 2012
9
See citation 8
profession, I also believe the statement is very true but my question is what is that “why”
according to God? I believe there is something more meaningful to life which we live for.
Something more precious than perishable things of this present world!

In his epistle to the Ephesians, one of the prison epistles and known as the queen of
epistles, Apostle Paul give us the ultimate purpose for ministry. Speaking of the gifts endowment
to the body of Christ and their benefits in chapter 4, the apostle reveals to us what I call the
ultimate purpose for ministry when he write, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
(Ephesians 4:12-13; NRSV; Emphasis added). If there is something that brings a sense of
meaning to life and it’s worth living for, it is to see the entire body of Christ coming to the unity
of the faith, with full knowledge of the Son of God and fully matured to the measure of the full
stature of Jesus Christ.

If “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned” and “man….is concerned about
many things, above all about those which condition his very existence” as Paul Tillich says in his
book “Dynamics of Faith”10, then the ultimate purpose for ministry should be the ultimate
concerned for every minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “Maturity to the full stature of the
fullness of Christ” should be the ultimate concern for every pastor and that should bring enough
sense of meaning to life. What a great honor to be part of this glorious task! I’m so glad and I
count it a great privilege to be God’s responsible son through whom the Father is pleased to
executes His agenda of saving and bring many sons to Himself by the preaching of the glorious
massage of Christ’s victory over all evil powers which had previously held them captive.

Therefore, the true pastoral identity is embedded primarily in the revelation of who we
are and whose we are. If you don’t know where you’re coming from it might be difficult and
almost impossible to know where you’re going. Knowledge of our true origin as found in God
gives as the true meaning to life and a sense of purpose. We are sons of God sent on mission
with one message, the good news/gospel/euaggelion, a message of victory already acquired by
Jesus Christ through the six events of His crucifixion, death, burial, quickening, ascension and
seating. This was God’s act of love/Agape (self-giving love) towards the cosmos to reconcile and
recapitulate all things to Himself through Christ Jesus. It is within this understanding that I
believe a pastor, like any member of Christ’s body, derives his true identity and a sense of
meaning to life. No matter the challenges and troubles he might go through in his endeavor to
serve our heavenly Father, the awareness and convictions that everything has already been
successfully and perfectly dealt with through Christ, will change his approach towards ministry
and life at large. We were not called to do what God cannot do but to declare what He has
finished doing through Christ. Like a messenger from the battle field where victory has been

10
Paul Tillich: Dynamics of Faith: 2001 (original 1958); pp:14
achieved, we are heralds and messengers of the glorious news of Christ’s finished, triumphant
and victorious battle over the devil and sin.