In 1975, Jerry Nuernberger was a 17-year-old high school senior in Illinois who had dreams of becoming a high-powered corporate lawyer and enjoying the fame and wealth he imagined came along with it.

He had the grades. He was valedictorian of his senior class. School counselors and community leaders urged him to pursue his dream of a law career at the University of Illinois.

But 45 years later, Nuernberger can’t put a finger on a single event that drastically altered his career vision that freshman year in Illinois. Instead of arguing cases in a courtroom, he headed for a life in the pulpit.

“I came to realize the biggest difference in my life at that point was my faith,” Nuernberger said. “The most fulfillment I had experienced at that point in my young life was in being a Christian person.”

Nuernberger of Stahlstown believes a person can experience no greater joy than making a positive difference in a person’s life. He experienced just that in 37 years as a Lutheran pastor.

Nuernberger recently released a new book, “I Hate to Tell You Margaret, but This is the Pastor,” a sometimes humorous, often serious look at some experiences and observations during his ministry.

“I never thought I’d write a book, but there have been a lot of unique experiences. … I am hoping this book can help congregations better understand the life of a pastor,” he said.

Nuernberger is interim pastor at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ligonier.

In explaining the broad duties of pastoral care in the book, Nuernberger says everyone’s life is a “roller coaster.”

“Life is tough, confusing, wonderful, smooth and uncertain,” he writes. “Pastors receive training to care for God’s people in all life’s circumstances. When people are facing serious health concerns, I go visit them in the hospital or home to listen and pray with them.

“When a person makes a mess of their life, I jump into that mess with them, no matter how putrid it may be. Sometimes I say words that need to be heard, words of guidance, of forgiveness and support. Always, however, I try and listen with compassionate ears.”

In one chapter, he details his reactions to being brashly told by a member in one congregation, “We’re not getting our money’s worth out of you.”

In another, he describes the difficulties in attempting to iron out disputes among congregations.

“Anthills become mountains. Although a cooling-off period might help, when that cooling lasts too long the outcome is ice,” Nuernberger writes. “So it’s really important to try and talk. Not argue. Not verbally flog. Not bully and demean … after all, pastors and parishioners are not gladiators in a bloodbath to the death.”

Nuernberger discusses when a pastor should be called.

“There are times in life when it doesn’t matter how strong and faithful a person is, life is crushing, and when that happens it is never a bother to invite me into those times,” he writes.

Readers get the impression from Nuernberger’s book that the life of a pastor is not all joyous baptisms, beautiful weddings and Christian confirmations. Far from it.

Nuernberger said pastors are on call 24 hours, seven days a week, and often are called to communicate with parishioners in times of inexplicable tragedies, such as death, sickness and joblessness.

He candidly writes that he often has found “the only answer I have is ‘I don’t know.’ ”

The Rev. Mark G. Hoffman, a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, believes Nuernberger “does a very nice job of talking about things that don’t get talked about a lot.”

Hoffman was Nuernberger’s roommate at the University of Illinois and later when both attended Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.

“Jerry is a real down-to-earth person and he has a gift for conveying that, not only in his sermons, but in his writing as well,” Hoffman said. “The book is not only helpful to lay persons, but I believe for people thinking about entering the ministry or who are training to see how another person has dealt with certain issues,” Hoffman said.

As for the book’s title, Nuernberger recalls a now humorous, but formerly awkward, memory from his second call, at an East Toledo, Ohio, church, where he was summoned to perform a funeral service by a family he had never met. Catching a glimpse of the fresh-faced young pastor, a relative of the deceased introduced Nuernberger to the widow with the exact words contained in the book’s title, “with disappointment dripping from his words” that a older, more seasoned elder wouldn’t be performing the service, Nuernberger said.

Since graduating from Luther Seminary in 1983, Nuernberger has served congregations in St. Paul; Toledo, Ohio; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Greensburg; and Gilpin, Armstrong County.

He and his wife, Kate, have three adult sons who live in Denver, Pittsburgh and New York City.

During the last 26 years, he has also written an e-mail/blog devotional called “The Bungee Cord” at 1johnthreeone.blogspot.com.

The book is available for sale at Amazon.com

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