Monday, November 12, 2007

Cognitive Conflict: The Missionary vs The Pastor

Due to cognitive bias, it looks likely that there is a real conflict between the role of missionary and pastor. If one person is in charge of implementing the mission, and pastoring those doing the missionary work, then one or the other will suffer.

We can do all things in Christ of course, and that's why He gives us other brothers and sisters- He knows we weren't made to do it all by ourselves.

There are a certain set of situations where the pastoral concerns for an individual and the larger missionary goals could conceivably be in conflict, or the pastoral issues could, for a time be more important to pursue, than the mission itself.
Needless to say, if you are charged with the mission, and it's what you eat, drink, and breath, it will be very hard for you even notice such a situation has arisen.

Until, of course, there's an incident. Then the Ex Post narratives are generated. Since, again the mission is primary, the narrative is cast in terms of whether or not the individual conformed to the mission and not in pastoral terms.

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