Hans Deventer
28th December 2005, 01:57 PM (13:57)
This is a strange book. Despite the fact that it is more than 25 years old, it seems very contemporary. I have read it, but I'm not sure I have understood it. So let me quote Henri in his preface and perhaps you'll get an idea what the book is about.
The Four Open Doors
What does it mean to be a minister in our contemporary society? This question has been raised during the last few years by many men and women who want to be of service, but who find the familiar ways crumbling and themselves stripped of their traditional protections.
The following chapters are an attempt to respond to this question. But as Antonio Porchia says: "A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors." Any new insight which suggested an answer led me to many new questions, which remained unanswered. But I wanted at least to prevent the temptation of not entering any doors at all out of fear of the closed ones. This explains the structure of the book. The four chapters can be seen as four different doors through which I have tried to enter intom the problems of ministry in our modern world. The first door represents the conditions of a suffering world (Chapter 1); the second doorm the condition of a suffering generation (Chapter 2); the third door, the condition of a suffering man (Chapter 3); and the fourth door, the condition of a suffering minister (Chapter 4). The unity of this book lies more in a tenacious attempt to respond to the ministers who are questioning their own relevance and effectiveness, than a consistant theological theme, or a fully documented theological argument. Maybe our fragmented lief experiences combined with our sense of urgency do not allow for a "handbook for ministers". However, in the middle of all fragmentation one image slowly arose as the focus of all considerations: the image of the wounded healer. This image was last in coming. After all the attempts to articulate the predicament of modern man, the necessity to articulate the predicament of the minister himself became most important. For the minister is called to recognize the sufferings of his time in his own heart and make that recognition the starting point of his service. Whether he tries to enter into a dislocated world, relate to a convulsive generation, or speak to a dying man, his service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded by the suffering about which he speaks.
Thus nothing can be written about ministry without a deeper understanding of the ways in which the minister can make his own wounds available as a source of healing. Therefore this book is called The Wounded Healer
BTW, "modern" here is a lot closer to "post modern" as McLaren uses the word. Nouwen also wrote how people pointed him towards his male oriented language. He pleads guilty and promises to do better next time.
The Four Open Doors
What does it mean to be a minister in our contemporary society? This question has been raised during the last few years by many men and women who want to be of service, but who find the familiar ways crumbling and themselves stripped of their traditional protections.
The following chapters are an attempt to respond to this question. But as Antonio Porchia says: "A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors." Any new insight which suggested an answer led me to many new questions, which remained unanswered. But I wanted at least to prevent the temptation of not entering any doors at all out of fear of the closed ones. This explains the structure of the book. The four chapters can be seen as four different doors through which I have tried to enter intom the problems of ministry in our modern world. The first door represents the conditions of a suffering world (Chapter 1); the second doorm the condition of a suffering generation (Chapter 2); the third door, the condition of a suffering man (Chapter 3); and the fourth door, the condition of a suffering minister (Chapter 4). The unity of this book lies more in a tenacious attempt to respond to the ministers who are questioning their own relevance and effectiveness, than a consistant theological theme, or a fully documented theological argument. Maybe our fragmented lief experiences combined with our sense of urgency do not allow for a "handbook for ministers". However, in the middle of all fragmentation one image slowly arose as the focus of all considerations: the image of the wounded healer. This image was last in coming. After all the attempts to articulate the predicament of modern man, the necessity to articulate the predicament of the minister himself became most important. For the minister is called to recognize the sufferings of his time in his own heart and make that recognition the starting point of his service. Whether he tries to enter into a dislocated world, relate to a convulsive generation, or speak to a dying man, his service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded by the suffering about which he speaks.
Thus nothing can be written about ministry without a deeper understanding of the ways in which the minister can make his own wounds available as a source of healing. Therefore this book is called The Wounded Healer
BTW, "modern" here is a lot closer to "post modern" as McLaren uses the word. Nouwen also wrote how people pointed him towards his male oriented language. He pleads guilty and promises to do better next time.