MEMOIRS OF AN ORDINARY PASTOR
By D.A. Carson
Crossway. 160 pages. £11.28
ISBN 978-1-43350-199-9
Most pastors are unknown men who look after small churches in difficult situations. They often battle with lack of appreciation, tendencies to depression and feelings of failure, which few people understand.
This book will be a great help to such stalwarts. It is the story of the ministry of Tom Carson (1911-1992) written by his son Don Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Illinois, and much loved conference speaker in the UK.
Tom was called to the work of pastor/missionary among the predominantly Catholic French speakers of Quebec from the early 1940s onwards. He saw little fruit for many years. His family suffered poverty and some persecution. He was maligned and his plans opposed by the leading man of his denomination. And, in the last years of her life, his wife succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. But, amid all these struggles, Tom Carson, though a man of flesh and blood, showed great grace and discipline.
Eventually the Spirit of God swept through Quebec in the 1970s and hundreds of churches came into existence, with Tom having slogged for many hard years, playing an auxiliary rather than a leading role. There is a wonderful humility here from which we could all learn.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …