ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
REVIEW OF RICHARD OSMER’S “PRACTICAL THEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION”
SUBMITTED TO DR. TIM SENSING
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF BIBM 629 FIELD EDUCATION
BY KIPP SWINNEY
JUNE 1, 2012
Review of Richard Osmer’s Practical Theology
Richard Osmer’s book, Practical Theology: an Introduction, is a very productive and
useful book for the practice of Ministry in a congregational setting. The introduction of the book
lays out why Osmer feels that practical ministry is so important for a minister to learn. He
discusses this out of his own experience of having gone into ministry without adequate training
in practical theology and then experiencing things for which he was not ready. Many of the items
that Osmer talks about come out of the biblical tradition for ministry. He revisits many of the
expectations and functions that ministers had in the biblical texts. Some of the positions that he
discusses were not originally overlapping, but he gives great cases for why these functions are
important for practical theology and for a minister’s training. He has organized his chapters to
address the various areas of ministry that the Bible describes. Osmer incorporates these areas of
ministry into as new model of ministry developed by Charles Gerkin. The new role for the
minister is the interpretive guide. In previous generations, people viewed the minister as the
authoritative guide to everything. When there were questions about morality or life, the minister
was supposed to know the answer. The developing model is no longer for the minister to be an
authoritative guide, but a guide who may be equally new to the terrain, but knows how to
interpret the maps and the topography. This emphasizes the companion nature of the ministry
rather than the unquestioned leader.
The first chapter focused on listening as a priestly office. For the minister or pastor to be
the interpretive guide, he or she needs to be able to understand the community to which he or she
ministers. It is not as important for an authoritative guide to understand the context because that
person ought to know what is best for the group. In this chapter, Osmer discussed gathering
information and listening to people’s stories. The situation that people are typically in is rarely
due to simple circumstances. Everyone has a long back-story, and most people are multifaceted
and complicated. Learning the situation and of both individuals and churches will go a long way
in ministry. Osmer discusses some of the tactics and strategies that one may use in gathering the
data and the stories of the people in the congregation. There are a number of qualitative research
plans discussed in the book that help the minister with the task of listening to the congregation,
and Osmer describes these in detail. Osmer discusses some of the issues with doing this type of
research such as the reflexivity. When the minister of a congregation conducts the research, the
process of the research will certainly affect the results. Although this should not discourage the
minister from doing this research, as the researcher may best interpret the data.
The second chapter has to do with the Biblical tradition of the sage. This is different from
either the prophet or the priest because these individual do not directly receive their inspiration
from God, but from the wisdom around them. This too is an important aspect to the model where
the minister is the interpretive guide. If the minister is exploring new territory, there may not be a
prescribed action for every situation. However, pastors ought to be able to use wisdom and
understanding to interpret the situations around them much like the biblical sages. The biblical
sages represent to the canonical books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. In the Hebrew Bible, there
are counselors of various types who give the kings advice. These people had to weigh situations
and make judgments rather than use concrete systems. These people were not always associated
with the cult, but do have strong ties as Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth represents. Some of the
positions may overlap, but the sage is the most distinct from the other offices. In minister, there
is often gray area, and it is not always clear what the best mode of action may be. Osmer uses the
example of alcoholism being one of those grey areas, where ministering to others can be difficult
to determine what the best course of action is. This is an extremely important area for the
minister, who is the interpretive guide, to learn.
There times when the minister must speak for God. The premise of Prophetic
discernment is that God and Israel or the church live in a covenant relationship. The covenant is
lenient, but there are certain parameters of that covenant. It is the role of the Prophet to
determine when Israel or the church has stepped outside of those barriers and needs to return.
This will frequently be the role of the minister. It is inevitable that churches are going to make
mistakes and will need to return to the covenant with God. To be an interpretive guide and to
engage in spiritual discernment, one must have a developed spiritual life. There are two poles to
the prophetic discernment. On one side of the prophetic discernment scale, is sympathy. This is
the ability to feel what God feels concerning all the suffering in the world. When creation
suffers, God feels its pain. The other pole to prophetic discernment is ethical and theological
interpretation. This revolves around making decisions based on what is the theologically or
ethically correct course of action.
Osmer’s final chapter discusses the pastor as a servant. Osmer breaks down three models
of leadership identified as “task competence,” “transactional,” and “transformational.” Each of
these forms has its strengths and weaknesses, but not of these necessitates servant leadership.
Servant leadership is a concept that is radical and different from the majority of the world’s
perspective on effective leadership, but it is highly supported in Deutero-Isaiah and in the New
Testament. Humility and servant leadership transform all of these models into highly important
aspects of the servants leader pastor’s work. The servant leader does not act out self interest, but
only the interest of the kingdom of God.
Osmer’s application to my specific context
Although the book is very good, Osmer did not write this book to my exact context. The
Osmer wrote Practical Theology to address congregational minister, who were in a conventional
pulpit position. I am serving as a Campus Ministry Intern at the Southern Hills Church of Christ,
which is congregational ministry, but it is different from the typical ministry. This book offers
great insights to doing ministry in any situation. The early part of the story of Olivia Potter,
which Osmer used to demonstrate the usefulness of Practical Theology, is very common, and
there have been people whom I have met through working with the Campus Ministry who have a
similar story to Olivia. I have never been in the position of Reverend Gains, who was very
influential in Olivia’s life, to help a person make the radical transformation into a minister of
God, but I have seen others minister to people in a radical way that made huge impacts on people
as they moved forward out of college. I believe that college is a very important time for
individuals. It is the time that people will likely make decisions that they will not change for the
rest of their lives.
As Osmer has diligently demonstrated the need for a minister to posses these skills, this
book should be highly useful for campus minister. The minister of college students needs to be
able to attend to the students, think wisely, discern like the prophets and serve selflessly like
Jesus. It does not matter what context one is in, ministry will nearly certainly involve serving
other people in some manner. The ability to listen to people and to understand what they are
going through is an extremely valuable skill to have. The need to listen in campus ministry is
higher than other ministries. The nature of campus ministry is that people are not in the ministry
for the long term. Students come and go from a campus ministry frequently and few will stay
part of the ministry after graduating from college. Thus, there is a need to be always listening to
what people are saying because that could change rather quickly.
In campus Ministry, being a servant leader is especially important. It is common for
students to become part of a campus ministry without feeling like part of the larger church
community. There is usually very little that is actually keeping a student at a particular
congregation. Students will not support a campus minister who acts out of selfish ambition. A
large degree of humility is important for campus ministry in general. Campus ministry has the
tendency to fluctuate, and this will happen regardless of the actions of the campus minister.
Having the humility that Osmer talks about, which come from an attitude of servant leadership,
will help the campus minister to see the larger picture and not become discouraged based on the
current movement of the campus ministry.