A Pastor Visits the Pastor’s Study

A Pastor Visits the Pastor’s Study

It was a sweltering Sunday afternoon in August. My mother, recognizing her not-yet-five year old son’s need for rest, instructed me to take a nap. But I couldn’t. I was too hot. And this became the first occasion I remember visiting the pastor’s study. My father, a pastor, realizing his young son’s need to cool down, had me come in and lay down in his air-conditioned study. I quickly fell fast asleep. Around 5 o’clock, I woke up quietly, still drinking in the cool air-conditioned air. My eyes wondered the room and fixed on my very occupied father – busy at work behind his desk. Intent, focused, working, preparing. Only an hour until the evening service, and there was my father, my pastor. After a week of preparation, he was still preparing to preach – the pastor, busy at work in his study.

The study, often a quiet place, intrigued me as a young boy. What went on in there? One time, seeing the door ajar, I peaked in…again, observing…the chairs, the books, the papers…and so quiet. Was it empty? No. There was my dad. What is he doing? What an odd sight. His face is planted in his own chair. He’s on his knees. He looks up…and he looks so strange to my young eyes, which are only use to seeing him with his glasses on. The pastor, alone in solitude – the pastor praying in his study.

But the study wasn’t always quiet. From another room, and without being able to make out any of the words, I frequently heard my father speaking. It was muffled. And what a strange rhythm. Silence….talk….more silence. A few words. Long silence. More words. This is not my father talking to himself – but rather, the pastor, using the telephone as a portal to the people he pastors. Listening. Advising. Listening. Encouraging. Listening. Praying. The pastor, hosting visitors via telephone, the pastor pastoring from his study.

An entirely common site in the town I grew up in was to see my father through the study-windows. Walk down the street where I lived, and the study is easy to see. Massive windows facing the street, windows to a room as much of a library as it is a study, illumined before dawn and well after dusk. If he wasn’t visiting a home or a hospital, at a church meeting or a radio broadcasting studio, anyone walking by was likely to see the pastor, behind a computer, clicking away at the keyboard. Email, another portal to the people he pastors. Regular correspondence. Reading, considering, praying, responding.

But, as common as these sights were, another sight was just as, if not more, common. My father, face to face with someone, or two, or three. God’s people face to face with one of God’s pastors. Pre-marital counseling and marital counseling. Church membership classes. Officer training classes. Guidance and encouragement for various people at the various stages of their lives. Sad times, organizing a funeral or a memorial service. Joyful times, receiving the wonderful news of an engagement or that a married couple were expecting their first child. Difficult times, unravelling the chaos that sin brings to relationships, that sin brings through addictions, that sin brings by sexual temptation. The pastor, working with visitors to the pastor’s study.

No longer a young boy, at 19 years old, the pastor and his study became even more significant to me. God had worked in my life. Convicted of my sin and need for a savior, I by God’s grace, knew I loved Jesus Christ and wanted to learn all I could about him. And what a blessing! I lived in the same house as my pastor! I became a regular visitor to the pastor’s study. I knew what a busy place it was, and yet, I was always welcomed. I had so many questions, so many things to talk about. And we would talk, and I’d leave with three or four books to read, and before finishing them, I’d be back in his study, talking about something else. And not just the content of the Bible, but how to apply the Bible’s content. This life situation & that challenge, and this difficulty, and that problem. Me, a PK, a grown-up pastor’s son, in the pastor’s study.

And now, half a decade into full time pastoral ministry, I am still a regular visitor to the pastor’s study! I’m working through this with my session. I’ve got someone wrestling that situation. How should I preach on this topic? What do you make of that part of the bible? How do you respond to someone who keeps doing this? When these questions keep me up at night, I pray…and after praying, I know where to go. Not to a priest, not to a pope, a cardinal, a bishop, a guru, a philosopher, a motivational speaker, a celebrity,  not even a professor or a reverend…but to the pastor. I make a visit to the pastor’s study.

My guest today is my own father, Pastor Bill Shishko. Dad, welcome to the program!

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