While I have never had trouble responding to that question, I now have something to put in folks hands that will be far more effective than the few points I could make in a brief conversation.

An “Alban Institute Special Report” on the transition into ministry has just been published and is now available for wide distribution. The report, Becoming a Pastor: Reflections on the Transition into Ministry, is co-authored by James P. Wind, President of the Alban Institute, and myself.

If a copy of this report has not come across your desk, I encourage you to request your copy today. You can do so by downloading the PDF version here (4.2MB). You can also request hard copies (while supplies last) directly from the Alban Institute.

To read the report in online, or for further conversation about this report, we encourage you to visit the Becoming A Pastor website which has been developed specifically for this special report.

We’re a long way from the time when the deacons of the church would gather in the parlor of the home of the deceased to prepare the body for the wake and the burial in the church yard. The history of the rise to dominance of Funeral Homes and their resident Directors is a fascinating one—at least from the standpoint of a pastor.  

Tracy was in his mid forties. Healthy, robust, outgoing, and full of adventure. He ran his own excavating business and was the master of the earth-moving machine. In the introverted culture of rural Maine life, his extroverted nature was a breath of fresh air for this extroverted leaning pastor. The call came to my cell on a Saturday afternoon. The signal was weak, but strong enough to pick up the trauma unfolding on the other end of the line: “Tracy’s dead!” It was Becky, Tracy’s wife of more than twenty-five years. She could barely get the words out. She went on: “He was crossing the road on his snowmobile and he was hit broadside. He’s dead.” The following Wednesday, the day eventually set for the funeral, was Ash Wednesday. The season and the magnitude of this death for the congregation and the small town as a whole made me bound and determined not to follow the assigned script for funereal practice I had been inducted into decades before. I had only arrived the year before to be the Pastor of this small Baptist congregation.  

To make a long story short, we set up a vigil at the church. There would be no wake at the Funeral Home. This time, the church would keep watch and become a sanctuary for the dead and the grieving. The sanctuary was cleaned from top to bottom and flowers were kept to a minimum. The afternoon before the day of the funeral, the Funeral Director delivered Tracy’s body to the church where it was received by the deacons. The casket was placed in the sanctuary with a Christ Candle at the head of the casket. That evening hundreds of people filled the sanctuary and visited and lingered with the family and each other. This little church had not seen this kind of life in living memory. 

When the wake was done, the congregation remained. All through the night, the candle burned and parishioners came and went, sitting reverently, praying fervently, keeping faith with Tracy. This continued right up to the time of the service the following day. The building never felt the same after that night. The church experienced a kind of awakening to its place in the community. To this day, I believe it was a transformative moment.  

This particular way of doing things did not become a practice in that congregation. However, services at Funeral Homes for members and related others became a rarity. They were almost always housed in the sanctuary. 

All that to say, I am learning to be more constructive in my critique of Funeral Directors and their Homes. The critique begins at home. What does it mean for the church to reclaim its ministry to the dead and the grieving? That’s the question pastors and congregations need to answer.  

Let me end this post with a positive turn toward the Funeral Director and his/her profession. I point you to a Frontline documentary entitled, The Undertaking, which aired on PBS in October, 2007. This program features the life and work of undertaker, Thomas Lynch and is based on his critically acclaimed book, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. The book and the film combine for a wonderfully redemptive chronicle of the life of one undertaker. It was a reminder of the how good that profession can be and how much better we as pastors need to become at undertaking our role with the dead and the grieving. You can download the program from iTunes for $2 or watch it for free online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/undertaking/view/.

It was only two weeks in my entire ministry at a small Baptist congregation in New England, but several years later I still remember them vividly. Packed into those 14 days, it seemed, was the entire gamut of pastoral life:

A young couple with two small children told me they could no longer live together as husband and wife, and unable to cope, the husband checked himself into the hospital. A middle-aged single woman sought my counsel as she tried for the first time in her life to come to terms with the sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager from her alcoholic father. Two key lay leaders informed me they could not attend church anymore because of a conflict they were having with a third lay leader. An older member was in the intensive care unit of the local hospital, struggling to stay alive. A cell phone company delivered a proposal to locate two small micro-antennas in our bell tower. The finance committee reported that our giving had fallen about $10,000 behind where it should be, making the lucrative cell-phone antenna proposal even more appealing. The starting time for Sunday worship service was changed from 10:45 to 11 a.m. And, within the span of a few days, my three children returned to school; my wife went back to her teaching position; and my unmanned car rolled the length of our driveway, careened down a 40 foot embankment and crashed into a tree. The insurance company declared it a total loss.

Looking back, I’m struck not by how unusual those two weeks were, but—with the exception of the runaway car—how typical, even routine. They illustrate the range of situations that can suddenly arise in any pastor’s life. They show the ways in which pastors constantly negotiate situations that are intensely private, yet public; personal, yet corporate; urgent, yet trivial. Unmentioned of course, are the constant demands of preaching, preparing and leading worship, office administration, sustaining one’s own spiritual life, and collaborating with lay leadership to carry out the ministry of the congregation. Successfully negotiating these realities—responding, interpreting, witnessing and leading appropriately—is a complex task, one that raises some interesting questions:

How does anyone learn to do all this?  How does anyone cultivate the competency sufficient to the complexity of pastoral life?

As essential as formal education is for pastoral ministry, the seminary alone could never have delivered me to a congregation as a competent practitioner. A class on the quotidian life of pastoral ministry would have been a yawner. What conditions foster the learning of the skills, intuitions, capacities, habits, and wisdom so crucial to pastoral competence, even excellence? As coordinator of the Lilly Endowment’s Transition into Ministry (TiM) Program for the past five years, I am convinced that some fundamental conditions must be in place if pastors are to acquire the competencies necessary for excellence in ministry.

Since 1999, when Transition into Ministry was launched, the program has grown to more than 35 projects in congregational and denominational settings. Nationwide, recent seminary graduates are serving in more than 20 TiM pastoral residency programs in a variety of mainline congregations. In another dozen programs in the TiM initiative, young pastors in their first call are brought together in seminaries, denominational offices and other institutional settings to study and learn from each other and from seasoned pastors about the actual practice of ministry. In all, more than 700 young pastors have participated in the TiM program. Together, through their feedback, they have taught us much about the conditions essential to the teaching and learning of ministry. The following are some of the most important of those lessons. 

Pastoral peer relationships are critical to a good start in ministry.

Conventional wisdom has long recognized that beginning pastors need mentors, usually a “seasoned practitioner” capable of walking alongside a novice and sharing the wisdom that comes with experience. But this focus on the importance of mentoring (usually emphasized by those who see themselves as mentors) has kept us from recognizing the importance of peers. We have tended to view peer relationships as something that supports but is not essential to learning. Those who study professional education and formation, however, are increasingly convinced that the quality of learning that occurs among novice peers is equal if not superior to the learning that takes place in the context of supervision and mentoring. In the TiM program, our participants consistently tell us how important pastoral peers were to their learning and growth as pastors. Indeed, they identify those peer relationships as one of the greatest benefits of their TiM experience. Peer relationships provide a unique context for self-knowledge and practical wisdom that deserves the full support and encouragement of denominational and congregational leaders. Dominated by the “lone ranger” model of ministry, my generation of pastors thought competition was the principal way pastors related to one another. Our TiM participants give me hope that we are cultivating a generation of clergy who are better able to collaborate with their peers in ways that help to sustain pastoral competency over the long haul.

Without the time, space, relationships and resources for reflection, immersion in pastoral ministry cultivates only skills of survival and not excellence.

This may be more hunch than empirical claim, but I believe that how new pastors learn from and through the actual practice of ministry is perhaps the best predictor of what kind of pastors they will be. Most new pastors come out of seminary with enough common sense to negotiate their way into the field of practice and develop the requisite skills to get by. The brighter and more confident they are, the more likely they are to learn quickly how to perform well. But if that learning does not take place in an open system of relationships that fosters opportunities for critical and truthful reflection, then new pastors will almost certainly be set up in their ministry to become increasingly detached from the deepest part of themselves. It is no surprise how many pastors begin to falter in their vocational lives after 15 or so years of reasonably competent ministry. Some flame out in dramatic fashion, others survive on the job, living with a growing, unmistakable sense of detachment and inauthenticity.  Absent the context for reflection, experience is a lousy teacher. If my hunch is correct, if reflection is indeed vitally important to practice, then congregations and denominational bodies are doing untold damage to the formation of pastoral leadership by their failure to cultivate the conditions essential to such reflection.

Laity can play a positive role in pastoral formation.

Too often, congregations see themselves as recipients of well-formed pastors rather than co-participants in pastoral formation. To most laity, seminaries form pastors and pastors serve congregations. Although the congregation is clearly the context where pastoral formation happens, the role the congregation plays in that process is often cast in negative terms. The TiM congregational residency programs, however, created a different dynamic between pastors and laity, one that has repeatedly shown the powerful role that congregations can play in the teaching and learning of ministry. In the TiM residency programs, laity are called upon to contribute directly and explicitly to the mentoring of beginning pastors. As a result, laity typically become highly invested in the success of pastoral leadership across the board. Their mentoring opens up a new level of mutual understanding and appreciation between laity and pastors. When I visit the TiM residency congregations, I always meet lay leaders who express deep appreciation for the program and for how it helped them understand the role of pastoral leadership in a whole new way. Pastors, both residents and permanent staff, tell us the program has prompted a new conversation about pastoral leadership in the life of the congregation.

Mentoring is best conducted in shared practice.

Those who have had the most to learn in the TiM program have probably been the seasoned pastors who have served as mentors. Many of them have served on and over pastoral staffs for years. All say they have grown from their mentoring experience as they taught ministry in and through the context of practice. Nothing, it seems, concentrates your attention on what you do and why you do it like having someone watch you, hoping to learn by observing your practice. Many of our mentors say the experience forced them to reflect on their own practice of ministry in ways that have measurably increased their own competency. Serving as a co-participant with residents in the practice of ministry can make for an interesting mentoring relationship. In mentoring, the mentor’s performance is just as open to critique and reflection as the mentee’s. Together, the mentor and resident create a context for mutual discovery and learning that is especially fruitful. In the context of shared practice, the traditional dyadic, hierarchical model of mentoring tends to become, instead, a matrix for shared learning. 

To date, the academy has been the primary source of most efforts to prepare pastors to learn in and through the actual practice of ministry, usually through such programs as internships and field education. These efforts have been and will remain crucial to preparation for ministry. What we have lacked, however, are the forms and practices for teaching and learning ministry beyond the academy, opportunities rooted squarely in the context of congregational life and in the lives of seasoned and increasingly excellent practitioners.

In an article about the state of the professions, Howard Gardner and Lee Shulman, frequent writers about the professions, identified one of the primary hallmarks of professional work as, “the ubiquitous condition of uncertainty, novelty, and unpredictability.”

“While much of professional practice is routine,” they wrote, “the essential challenges of professional work center on the need to make complex judgments and decisions leading to skilled actions under conditions of uncertainty.” (“The Professions in America Today: Crucial but Fragile,” Daedalus, Summer 2005, p.15)

Such a description is surely true of pastoral life. The challenge for us is to develop the conditions for the kind of teaching and learning sufficient to the demands inherent in the field of pastoral practice.

The Rev. David J. Wood serves on the staff of the Fund for Theological Education as the coordinator of Lilly Endowment’s Transition into Ministry Program. He is an ordained American Baptist Pastor and has served congregations as a pastor for the past 25 years.

It is my intention to post to this blog at least weekly.  The content will vary depending on what I am reading, doing, and reflecting on that week. 

At the center of my attention will be the issues and concerns of those who are in the early years of ministry.

That leaves me with a pretty wide field of relevant topics.

I encourage you to make use of the StreamCast guides that will help to orient you to the landscape of the site.

Welcome!  And let us know what you think.

• The initial years of ministry contribute to a trajectory for pastoral development over the course of one’s ministry. Habits and practices, both good and bad, established in this period have a durable quality to them.

• The experience of the transition from seminary to parish, from classroom to congregation, can be abrupt, untutored, and haphazard. As a result, beginning pastors tend to feel isolated and unprepared, lacking crucial support and guidance when they most need it.

• Often in Protestant church life, recent seminary graduates can find themselves situated as solo pastors in struggling congregations with limited collegial or institutional support. This can, and often does, result in a professional, relational, intellectual, and cultural isolation that can be detrimental to the formation of one’s vocational identity.

• A sustained, reflective, undivided engagement with congregational life and ministry is critical to the formation of pastoral identity and skill.

• The mentoring of young pastors by seasoned and excellent pastors is an important dynamic in the formation of pastoral identity.

• Learning with and from peers in ministry is a significant experience in vocational formation.

To address these realities, TiM programs have developed an approach that is centered in congregational ministry and that depends upon the close collaboration and interaction of congregations, mentoring pastors, and the beginning pastors.

Strategies that integrate these three “players” in various ways have been devised.

Some seminaries require a year-long internship, either through Clinical Pastoral Eduction or a local congregation, and these entail full-time immersion, but then only for nine to twelve months.

The TiM programs, on the other hand, involve at least two years of such immersion and position the pastor as a called pastor in
ministry rather than a student pastor in training.

The key difference between this undertaking and the more traditional approaches to practice-centered pastoral formation found in seminaries—most notably Field Education and Clinical Pastoral Education—is that the TiM program allows for a full-time, sustained immersion in the practice of ministry.

The central, organizing center of one’s daily life is not the academy but the life of the congregation. The principal teachers of ministry are co-participants in the practice of ministry.

Since the first TiM projects were funded in 1999, Lilly Endowment–funded projects addressing the transition into ministry now include more than twenty congregation-based “residency” projects and about a dozen institution- or judicatory-based “first-call” projects.

The first five years of parish ministry set an entire ministry. The habits, the inclinations, the dispositions, the way of understanding vocation is set in those first five years, and it lasts. (1)

That core belief—or a similar variation—is at the heart of four denominational initiatives that focus on new clergy as part of the Lilly Endowment’s Transition into Ministry program. While the initiatives vary in format and approach, they share a commitment to helping new clergy learn to develop the disciplines, understandings, and relationships needed for a lifetime of healthy parish ministry.

How the programs are structured, how they have supported their participants, and what they have taught their sponsoring organizations are described in the following pages. As you read these stories of success and hope for a new generation of ministers, consider the following questions offered for reflection:

What challenges do you see new pastors facing as they make the transition from seminary to parish ministry?

What ways can you imagine that you and others—in denominational bodies, clergy groups, seminary communities, and congregations—could provide new clergy with concrete opportunities for support and development?

What are the benefits of having new pastors whose first experiences in parish ministry are healthy, productive, and nurturing? Who is affected by these benefits?

How might what is learned through these programs for new pastors be adapted to help others?

Bethany Fellowships
Making the Transition from Seminary to Parish Ministry

The Bethany Fellowships is a program for new pastors within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who are making the transition from seminary to parish ministry. Each year eight to 10 new fellows join the program and make a four-year commitment to a combination of semiannual retreats, peer support and accountability, and mentoring.

Over time, the Bethany project has gone through an evolutionary process. “We began by thinking that we would place a couple of recent seminary graduates in larger congregations,” said Don Schutt, who coordinates the program. “Our denomination does not have that many large churches, and we had some difficulty finding senior pastors who had the time to serve as mentors. After two years, we realized that an in-house residency was not going to work for us.” As a result, the decision was made to invite a certain number of new pastors to meet in a larger group twice a year at retreats held in metropolitan areas.

Each retreat begins on a Monday evening with worship. The fellows then share where they are and what they hope for from the retreat. In addition, each fellow shares a prayer request, about which the group then prays.

On Tuesday, the group visits a lively congregation in the area, usually a mainline congregation, but some have been evangelical megachurches or emergent congregations. The fellows learn about the congregation’s ministries and programs and hear about staff members’ work.

On Tuesday evening, a guest speaker leads a discussion of a topic that relates to a book the fellows read prior to the retreat. “We tend to focus on books that deal with practical skills,” Schutt said, “rather than something too intellectually heavy.”

The fellows then enter into 24 to 36 hours of silence during which they are free to pray, read, take walks, or sleep. On Thursday morning, they come out of silence and worship together. Afterwards, they break into small groups to debrief the experiences of the week. Thursday also includes free time and some type of party for the larger group. The retreat closes by noon on Friday.

Five seasoned pastors serve as mentors for the Bethany Fellowships program, both at the retreats and by telephone between these gatherings. Group e-mail and a blog site provide points of connection for the fellows as well, and a site visit by a mentor is arranged for almost every fellow.

One of the critical learnings that has emerged from the Bethany Fellowships, Schutt said, is the power and importance of peer support. “We have learned that the transition from seminary to congregational life is not easy,” he said, “and that new pastors need as much support as possible without curtailing their freedom to fail. Working in a congregation tends to be an isolating experience, but this program helps the fellows see that they’re in this together.”

Program participants have developed a level of camaraderie and a depth of interaction that have surprised program leaders. One fellow described the program as the “most nourishing, prayerful, and supportive group I have ever encountered. Being a pastor is such a lonely vocation that one begins to wonder if anyone else out there could possibly understand what it’s like. At the retreats, we realize that we have a whole network of brother and sister pastors who have been in the valleys we find ourselves in, and more importantly, have found their way back to a place of wholeness, health, and even resurrection.”

Another fellow said she feels “normal” during the retreats. “How wonderful it is to gather with other new clergy who are walking much the same path as I am,” she commented. “I often feel that the job I do is so utterly different than that of others around me that it is nice to come and be with others—ones to whom I don’t have to explain everything—ones who understand immediately.”

Another critical learning, said Schutt, has been that new clergy, despite all of their training and background, still have a need for spiritual formation. “We remain committed to including a large block of time for silence and reflection, as well as an opportunity for spiritual direction, during each retreat,” he said. “We want to help the fellows understand that prayer is critical for sustaining one’s life in a congregation.”

The fellows’ diversity also has provided opportunities for learning. The 50-50 gender mix, the participation of people of color, and the group’s theological diversity provide differences of perspective that are helpful, Schutt said. The opportunity for fellows from Disciples and non-Disciples seminaries to get to know one another also has been positive, he added.

In thinking about the future of the Bethany Fellowships program, Schutt said he and others within the Disciples of Christ believe it is critical to help develop viable, sustained pastors—especially in light of the national trend within the mainline of new clergy dropping out of parish ministry. Schutt said program leaders are grateful to the Lilly Endowment for providing the initial funding for the program and hope to raise private funds so that they can continue it “as a way of sustaining a new generation of pastoral leaders.”

First Parish Project:
Learning to Serve the Small Congregation

The First Parish Project is a national, ecumenical program of colleague support, leadership development, and spiritual growth for clergy serving their first appointment or call in a small-membership congregation. The program is hosted by the Hinton Center, an agency of the United Methodist Church’s Southeastern Jurisdiction.

The Hinton Center, located in Hayesville, North Carolina, offers small-membership churches a variety of resources and services. The center also developed the Colleague Covenant Forum, a program providing clergy with the opportunity for fellowship, support, spiritual formation, and renewal.

When Delmer Chilton joined the center as coordinator of spiritual formation ministries, he began to brainstorm with others at Hinton about how they might support young pastors. “My sense was that most young pastors grew up in urban or suburban churches that were program or corporate size,” he recalled. “They also did their field education in similar congregations. And most of their interaction had been with people their own age. But 90 percent of first calls are to chaplain- or pastor-size congregations in smaller settings with older members. That can result in culture shock and isolation.”

The First Parish Program, which Chilton directs, grew out of those brainstorming conversations. It targets pastors who are under age 35 and serve congregations with an average attendance of no more than 100. It is open to new pastors from all denominations across the country.

Each group within the program includes 20 to 25 participants and meets from Monday through Friday six times during an 18-month period. Although the largest percentage of participants are from the United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Methodist Church, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, other participants represent traditions ranging from Orthodox to Unitarian Universalist to Christian Reform to Metropolitan Community Church. “We’re not here to convert people or to change their theology but to learn about the act of being in ministry,” Chilton said.

During each gathering, the group worships together and spends two hours a day in small groups. The group also explores a specific topic—such as the personal life of a minister and spiritual disciplines, family systems theory, pastoral identity and public role, transitioning leadership from corporate to spiritual, congregational involvement in the community, or how to maintain colleague support throughout one’s career. “We focus on self-care, Chilton said, “because what you learn about that almost always works and never becomes out of date.”

Each small group also participates in a weekly chat room between meetings. Some of the alumni chat rooms are still going.

“We are trying to teach young clergy not to be lone rangers,” Chilton explained. “Without peer support, they can crash and burn or make stupid mistakes. One of our participants said, ‘I would have quit without this program.’ Clergy don’t have supervision as other professions do, so there’s not that protection.

“At a minimum, we can be a place where pastors can appropriately talk about what’s going on in their lives and congregations. We hope that the participants will learn to form their own groups. We try to teach them that wherever they are, they can be intentional and proactive about finding support. If they can’t form a group, they can find a spiritual director or go to a pastoral care center for supervision.”

In reflecting on the program, Chilton said he is amazed by the quality of the people entering ministry today. “We’ve been hearing that the prestige of ministry is down and that there is not the same quality of candidate,” he said. “That’s not what I’m finding. Today’s new pastors are as good, if not better, than those 30 years ago when I entered ministry.” He also expressed amazement at the deep devotion of these young pastors, along with concern about the financial challenges they often face. Many of these pastors, he explained, finish seminary with a debt of $30,000 to $40,000. “I have to believe that this debt contributes to the drop-out rate that we’re seeing,” he said. “These young pastors are facing this debt while also caring for their families. At the same time, it’s becoming more and more difficult for small-membership churches to pay what is needed by their pastors.”

It concerns him, too, that denominations are making it harder to get through the ordination process than it needs to be. “We are sending a double message when we say we need more young clergy and then make it so difficult to navigate the process—often because of denominational politics,” he said. “I hear stories from people who are good pastors but who went to the wrong seminary for their annual conference or are too ‘whatever’ for their specific synod. We need to be working with and encouraging these young clergy rather than treating them like political volleyballs.”

As part of the First Parish Project, Chilton visits each participant’s congregation twice. During those visits, members of the congregations often tell him that the program has helped their pastor to be more comfortable and confident. Some congregations share that they have never had a pastor stay so long. Chilton said he tries to help those congregations see themselves as teaching parishes that have a wonderful opportunity to help shape a ministry.

Company of New Pastors
Fostering Excellence among New Presbyterian Pastors

The Company of New Pastors is a vocational formation program designed to foster excellence in new pastors within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by deepening and sustaining the cultivation of their theological vocation.

The initiative grew out of a commitment by the denomination’s Office of Theology and Worship to help pastors be agile, imaginative people of substance in faith and life, explained Sheldon Sorge, director of the program. The hope, he added, was that a pastor’s renewed passion and love for God, the church, and the world would affect the entire congregation.

Participants enter the Company of New Pastors program at the midpoint of their seminary experience and continue for four years after seminary graduation. The program has an ongoing nature so that participants can develop relationships that allow deep conversation and engagement.

Since its inception, the program has involved 300 people—250 new pastors and 50 mentors. The program currently includes students at eight Presbyterian seminaries. (Two additional Presbyterian seminaries are ready to join the initiative, and conversations are taking place with several non-Presbyterian seminaries.) Seminary faculty members who are ordained pastors convene their “companies” on a monthly basis to share in prayer and theological study of the Presbyterian ordination vows. All seminarian groups meet together in the fall for a national consultation at the denomination’s national headquarters.

Upon graduation, the participants are reconfigured into regional groups, which are convened and led by pairs of experienced pastors. The curriculum for the four years beyond seminary focuses on the “theological underpinnings of the Lord’s Day service,” Sorge said. Attention is paid to significant theological works, as well as to preaching and worship leadership. Most participants, according to Sorge, say the program has had a dramatic effect on their preaching and worship leadership.

Another participant explained that “finding space and opportunity to sharpen my own theological understandings and sharpen my own sense of theological vocation is a great blessing—not only for me, but I hope it empowers and enables me to go back to the parish and allow the people there to understand the world around them in terms of the language of faith.”

Between gatherings, participants follow daily disciplines, including scripture reading, prayer, and study of the church’s confessional resources. “The disciplines that I learned inform me daily,” said a former participant. “I think my ministry would be completely different if it were not for these disciplines.”

Initial research on the program, according to Sorge, shows that its participants are staying longer in their first calls. After the first call, new pastors often are left on their own, he said. In order for there to be ongoing discernment and renegotiating of the call, he added, people need to talk—as they are able to do in the program’s “companies.”

“Our program also helps those new pastors who go in starry-eyed and then have problems arise,” Sorge said. “The group provides friends who can help you discern whether it’s a toxic call and staying too long will kill you or whether you need to hang in there, work your way through whatever it is, and not run from it.”

One of the surprising learnings from the program has been the unexpected sense of renewal among the mentors. “We selected people who embodied the graces of fruitful, faithful ministry and have been about it for awhile,” Sorge said. “So we were stunned to discover that they have found the program to be revolutionary for themselves. They report that it has made a huge difference in their own ministries.”

The program, he noted, also has been significant for the large group of people who have graduated from seminary but are not ready to be called to pastoral ministry—whether because a spouse cannot relocate or the candidate has not passed the ordination exams or completed the ordination requirements. It takes nine months after seminary graduation for half of the people who want a pastoral call with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to receive a call, Sorge said.

“This is a critical period,” he said. “How do you keep the call alive when you feel that you’ve been left on the bus or that you’re viewed as damaged goods? This program has become a significant way of helping people hold to their call. Some of our best pastors have come from this pool of people. This makes our program distinctive since most first-call programs are for people who already have a call. In our polity, the passage from candidacy to first call can be a lonely passage. Our program provides a community to help people work through it.”

Members of the congregations the participants serve have provided strong affirmation of these new pastors, Sorge noted. They report that they perceive the participants to be good or very good pastors and positive representatives of the denomination. They also have described the new pastors as being open to concerns and new ideas, and remarkably able to affirm diverse groups of people.

Sorge said the denomination is working on a funding plan that will enable this program to continue beyond the life of the current Lilly grant.

Residency in Ministry
The Power of Pastoral and Congregational Mentoring

The Residency in Ministry program, now concluded, was an initiative of the North Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. The program placed new clergy in “mentoring churches” within the conference for a two-year residency.

Charles Johnson, the program’s director, said the program design team had decided that the mentoring churches should be large enough to have multiple staff. The senior minister would serve as a mentor for the resident, and a group of lay people from the congregation would form a mentoring group. The conference would provide salary support for the resident, and the congregation would provide housing, office space, continuing education, and benefits.

A new seminary graduate, recruited for the program because of promise, would then be matched with one of the mentoring churches and would serve there as a resident for two years. The resident would be free of a specific portfolio of responsibility so that he or she would have an opportunity to become familiar with the full gamut of pastoral functions.

Johnson met with the residents in a monthly covenant group experience that included Bible study, outside resource people, and spiritual sharing. During these group times, the residents “let their hair down” about their problems and what they were learning, Johnson recalled. As a result, they developed strong relationships.

During the program’s six-year life, 10 residents were placed in nine congregations. “We saw it as an experimental program that would help us learn about how new pastors can get a good start for a lifetime of service,” Johnson said. “We came to the conclusion that we had done that learning, so we are not going to continue the program.”

The learning has included feedback from participants in the program. Several of the residents bonded so well with the congregations where they served as residents that they stayed on as associates. Others moved on to new appointments.

One resident who was appointed to a congregation that was planning a building expansion said, “I felt so comfortable in that setting. My mentor and I had worked all of it through, so I had the right skills.” Another’s appointment was to a conflicted congregation. “The program prepared me for this situation,” the resident later reported. “I would have failed otherwise.”

The program also helped the conference learn the importance of identifying and affirming congregations that pride themselves on their ability to “train” young pastors, Johnson said. As a result of the program, the conference’s district superintendents have been asked to give serious attention to identifying these types of churches.

“Our denominational system of appointments can engender resentment,” Johnson explained. “Sometimes congregations become adversarial to their pastors because they don’t know how to be adversarial to the conference. When we put brand new people into those situations, they ask themselves what they did wrong and question their ability. If they can get a start in a place that is supportive and mentoring, then they are safe to make the normal mistakes of a new pastor.”

The program also resulted in learning about the importance of mentoring for new clergy. Johnson said the conference’s Board of Ordained Ministry has a process in place for bringing new persons into ordination. The process, which lasts three to four years, includes a mentoring piece, a covenant group piece, and a writing piece.

“Doing mentoring well will make some people lifelong pastors,” Johnson said. “The mentoring relationship has to be between people who are close geographically—not 200 miles apart. We hope to begin to put a mentoring process in place that’s more effective and to work more intentionally with covenant groups. By doing that, we will let young pastors know that we really want them in ministry and want to help hone the innate skills they have for a lifetime of service.”

Johnson noted that the program also allowed the conference to do some things outside the box of United Methodist polity. The bishop and cabinet agreed to allow the program’s leadership team to identify the candidates for the residency program and then to bring them together with the participating senior pastors and congregational mentoring teams for a day-long discernment process. The bishop and cabinet then approved the assignments recommended by the team out of the discernment process. “It was a tremendous gift to our program to be able to try a cutting-edge approach to staffing,” he remarked.

Johnson also recalled that early in the program’s development, the developers received questions from other United Methodist conferences. Johnson then learned that other conferences were beginning to call their probationary process for ordination candidates a “residency in ministry.”

“They were using the terminology, but not the process,” he said. “I hope that we can help redefine the probationary process and change it so that it truly becomes a residency in ministry—not just another name for the same old process.”

_______________

(1) James Small, coordinator, Office of Theology and Worship for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), from Company of New Pastors, dir. Vernon Leat, prod. Blake Richter, DVD, Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2006.

(Note: It is also available, formatted for printing, both in Microsoft Word format (.doc) or PDF.)

Thoughts on the Transition into Ministry Program

February 28, 2005
Indianapolis, IN

Unpublished address by Daniel Aleshire
Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada

I want to share some thoughts with you from my perspective at The Association of Theological Schools about Transition into Ministry. 

1. The programs that you guide and the perceptions you have about transition into ministry are likely influenced by your own transition into ministry. 

Mine came after seminary and graduate school, when for a variety of reasons, I felt that my work should begin in the congregation. I remember about four months into the pastorate of Bergen Baptist Church in northern New Jersey that the semester didn’t end, the congregation didn’t change, there were no grades, and the work was not going to start fresh next week. Higher education is an environment where life comes in four-month blocks. I could stick out a professor that I didn’t like because I knew the course would end. All the work came to a certain and clean stop every four months. There was a clear indication of achievement at the end of the four months in the form of grades. And after a short break, everything started fresh: new professors, new courses, all with limited carryover from the previous semester. Work in school has a wonderful pattern of frequent and clear endings and beginnings and often nice breaks in between. In the congregation, the people didn’t change every four months. My first Sunday, a somewhat troubled member of the congregation (about whom I had been counseled) was the first to greet me at the door after the service and told me my sermon was “the worst damn sermon” he had ever heard. (It wasn’t that good, but I have heard enough bad sermons myself to think there is a lot of competition for this distinction, and I hated to have won it my first Sunday in the pulpit!) Four months later, this man was still there and not much more impressed by my preaching. And other than him, the grades the congregation gave were so ambiguous that I was never sure how I was doing. In the fifth month, nothing was all that new. School can provide an addictive world of clear time frames, frequent changes, regularized opportunities to start all over again, and limited carryover from the previous four months’ work to the next four months’ work. 

My transition from school to pastoral ministry was from a kind of work at school in which I was in the driver’s seat: deciding how much of my time would be invested in what, what work I would do, and what time of the day I wanted to do it. As a pastor, I was much less in control of when I did what and, on more than a few days, what I did at all. 

If you are like me, these kinds of experiences stay with you—I remember that first year in full-time parish ministry with more clarity than I remember many of the other years of work since then. 

2. School-based theological education is deeply influenced by the ontology of “schoolness”— and the nature of a school defines a lot about the kind of learning that is possible in a school. 

A school provides an environment that is very peer oriented. There are people in the class with you, more peers than professors. They are friends and, at times, competitors, but a school is a community of peers.

A school gathers people in what should be safe space so that there is room to explore new ideas and embrace new information. A school is responsible for providing space that is inviting, welcoming, and open. A school deliberately seeks to remove potential threats. 

School-based learning is typically highly controlled. A course begins with a syllabus that tells students what they should read, when they should read it, what they should learn from it, and how they should be able to demonstrate their learning from the assigned readings. The map is clear, the objectives are stated, and the course is set. The completion of one course is linked to another, under a carefully proscribed curriculum. There are many variables, of course, but the center of “schoolness” education is very articulated, focused, and orderly. 

Schools divide work into orderly units so faculty can gain sufficient expertise in an area and the work of the school can be organized. Disciplines grow up in schools as a way of providing the internal structure necessary for the school’s work to be done well. The work of a school orders material for students, distinguishes one kind of material from other kinds, provides a reasoned and organized exposure to it, and sequences that exposure to enhance student learning. 

Schools and classroom-based education are particularly suited for learning that emerges from information in books, teachers, and human interaction. It is very good for the assimilation of material, for relating material in one subject to another. It is ideal for the pursuit of the kind of intellectual work that explores ideas and imagines new combinations and interpretations of ideas. 

Schools are absolutely superb at certain kinds of learning. If you want to exegete the Greek text, go to a school, take baby Greek, then intermediate Greek grammar, then exegetical courses. If you pay attention and learn your lessons, you will be able to exegete a Greek text. If you want to learn the history of the church, go to a school, take a course on early Christian origins and New Testament, then Patristics, then church history prior to the Reformation, then church history post Reformation, and top it off with a history of your part of the Christian family. If you have studied your lessons, you will know a great deal about church history at the end of your school experience.

3. These programs for Transition into Ministry, as best as I can tell from reading your reports, assume that theological schools do reasonably well what schools were designed to do. None of these TiM programs have a single strategy to introduce new pastors to basic theological concepts, to the history of the community of faith, or to the grand narrative of the biblical text. If you are working with the graduates of ATS member schools, you can typically count on their knowing these things. TiM programs are seriously engaged in providing the kind of learning that schools, by their fundamental character, are not very good at providing. 

4. Transition into Ministry programs serve two significant educational functions. 

A. The first is to help students with the cultural adjustment from school as their primary work environment to a ministry setting as their primary work environment. If the school is basically a peer oriented environment, then pastoral work, especially for new graduates in small congregations, is typically not peer oriented. If schools gather people into a safe and welcoming space, then ministry often throws them into spaces that are as likely to be threatening and unsafe as warm and welcoming. If a school divides work into orderly units, then ministry contexts confound work into chaotic and disorganized patterns. If schools are particularly good for the intellectual work necessary for the acquisition of material from books, then ministry settings are particularly good for intellectual work that calls for discernment across a wide range of individual and organizational ambiguities. If schools invent disciplines to organize work, then ministry contexts have a way of smashing disciplines apart because the categories don’t hold up in pastoral practice. 

B. The second purpose of these kinds of programs is to guide the kind of learning that occurs best outside of school environments. Roger Shinn, in an essay now many decades old, wrote that “… perhaps the most significant education cannot be programmed. There are times of shaking foundations, times of trauma, times of revelation that bring new apprehensions of the life and the world. Often they are the very experiences that civilized and compassionate education tries to spare people.” (1)

Congregational and other ministry settings create the environment for a different kind of learning. They help students learn to think more clinically, administratively, organizationally, and interpersonally. These settings don’t teach novice ministers how to “apply” what they learned in school. Rather, these environments evoke different “intelligences” and students engage in a different kind of intellectual work. It is intellectual work that deals with the kind of wisdom that accrues from practices, from skills that get better with repetition and reflection, from perceptions that are informed and enriched by coaching. These lessons are not learned well in a classroom; in fact, that can’t be learned in a classroom. I remember the first time in ministry when I left the joy of new parents at the hospital delivery room to go to the funeral home. The emotional shift was so real I can still feel it. How does one learn to transition from celebrating birth to grieving death in two miles? However it is learned, it is not by applying something that was learned in absentia in a classroom. It is an altogether different kind of learning. Pastoral work is a constant variation around certain themes, like jazz. (2)

It is not the kind of music that is played by learning to read music, then playing the notes. It is improvisational, and improvisational playing requires both knowing the tune and how to vary from the tune. One learns to play this kind of music by being a very good musician, by knowing the tune, and by practicing how to play using improvisation. 

5. Why are these TiM programs needed? I realized, in thinking about these relatively new programs you have been inventing, that the Christian church has survived for a couple of millennia without them. So, why do they seem so needed and promising at this time? It is the combination of two factors. The first is that theological students have gotten older and older. And while older students bring significant gifts to ministry and typically extensive experience in the church, they don’t bring many remaining career years for religious leadership. American religion needs younger candidates, as well, which brings us to the second factor. The current generation of younger seminary students seems not to have as much experience in the church as we remember other generations of younger students to have had. Some younger students have been involved in church their whole lives, but many have not been. They come out of seminary without the church equivalent of “street smarts.” They graduate from schools that tend to focus on more denotative ways of knowing and enter ministry contexts where the primary way of knowing is connotative. They need “church smarts,” and schools—even very good ones—are not very effective at teaching that kind of “smart.” It takes a context of practice and engagement for this kind of knowing. 

6. The main point of these reflections is that good ministry requires more than one kind of knowing, and different kinds of knowing are most readily engendered in different kinds of educational settings. For ministry, those educational settings are ministry context and school. Neither setting—the school nor the ministry context—should feel guilty that it is not educating the way that the other setting is educating. Each setting, if it is doing its work well, provides a powerful educational venue for a kind of learning that is crucial to effective ministry. My hunch, as an educator, is that each environment most effectively educates when students are immersed in that environment for sustained periods of time. I also think that the multiple kinds of education that are needed are most effective when each educational setting deeply respects the contribution, educational capacity, and intelligence of the other.

7. I am from the “school” side of things, and I cannot tell you what I think congregational educators can do to make theological education more effective, but I do have a list of things that I think schools ought to be working on. 

• I think schools need to work on the disciplinary structure by which we do our work. The current structure makes little sense except in a theological school and for the work of theological school teachers. The disciplines of practice radically alter how the theological content is organized, and we school teachers need to think about disciplinary structures— or at least educational practices related to the disciplines—that better serve our students. 

• Theological schools need to value the range of “intelligences” that good pastoral work requires and examine how we can cultivate as many as possible as deeply as possible. 

• As schools work on the unending project of the curriculum change, we need a better appreciation for the kind of needed learning that is not readily attained in the classroom, and to figure out how to free some time for students to have greater exposure to the environments that facilely teach this kind of learning. 

• I also think that school-based educators need to learn how to distinguish among levels of quality in other than classroom performance and to use this information to make better decisions about admissions and more effective interventions during seminary. 

I had wanted to share the following text with you in Indianapolis, but the evening was growing late, and I had already overly taxed David Wood’s “suggestion” of 20 minutes. The text is from ATS accrediting standards and summarizes the overall goal of the theological curriculum, as we understand it at ATS. It is not always, if ever, attained, but I want you to know what we are striving for:

In a theological school, the over-arching goal is the development of theological understanding, that is, aptitude for theological reflection and wisdom pertaining to responsible life in faith. Comprehended in this over-arching goal are others such as deepening spiritual awareness, growing in moral sensibility and character, gaining an intellectual grasp of the tradition of a faith community, and acquiring the abilities requisite to the exercise of ministry in that community. (3)

If the schools could give you recent graduates like that, I think TiM programs could make them into pretty good pastors.

Footnotes:
-----------

1) Roger Shinn, “Education is a Mystery,” in John J. Westerhoff, ed., A Colloquy on Christian Education (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1972), 19.

2) Max De Pree, long-time trustee at Fuller Theological Seminary and chair emeritus of the Herman Miller Company, wrote a book several years ago called Leadership Jazz in which he argues that all good leadership is jazz-like and improvisational. I think the image is especially useful for understanding pastoral practice. 

3) The Association of Theological Schools, “4 Theological Curriculum,” 4.1.1, Bulletin 46, Part 1, Standards of Accreditation (Pittsburgh: ATS, 2004) 54.

Transition into Ministry: Programs Offer Hope for Revitalizing Congregational Leadership

An Interview with David Wood Pastor, First Baptist Church, Gardiner, Maine

By Tracy Schier

It is probably safe to say that when most people go to church on Sunday, or attend any number of programs sponsored by their congregation, they don’t put a lot of thought into the multiple dynamics that contribute to the success or failure of their pastor.  Congregation members may grumble if the sermon is “off”, be upset if the music is not to their liking, or be absolutely irate if the youth ministry program runs into difficulties.  Without realizing it, many congregation members expect their pastor to be all things to all people.  Somehow, they consciously or unconsciously expect that the process of call or ordination has put this man or woman a notch above ordinary folk.  Somehow, a person with a vocation to the ministry—after all, this is a call from God—is expected to be holier, more patient, more able to cope, simply more of everything.

Now think of young ministers, until recently seminary students, who are plunged into congregations with very little on-the-job training and sometimes very little work experience as well.  Their “book learning” may be exemplary; they could have received A’s on all exams and term papers.  But young ministers still have much to learn, and without a controlled environment and without honest critiquing and mentoring by seasoned ministers, they can find themselves as disillusioned and lonely persons, questioning or even rejecting their vocation.

Program officers in the Religion Division of Lilly Endowment had been noticing this and other congregationally related problems over time.  Educators, practitioners, and observers of ministry were making it known that revitalization and renewal of pastoral ministry was a “must.” A number of issues—clergy burnout, declining numbers of ministers in many denominations, among others—triggered the Lilly staffers’ interest and prompted development of several programs that go to the heart of the ministerial, and the congregational, experience.  One of the programs focuses specifically on recent seminary graduates entering into their first call, since, across the country a number of concerns were becoming well documented.  Among these were the declining numbers of young people choosing to enter into ministry; increasing numbers of seminary graduates opting out of ministry within the first five years; and shifting interest among seminary students away from pastoral ministry and toward academic life or work in the non-profit sector.

The Birth of the Transition Into Ministry Program

The specific Lilly Endowment initiative for recent seminary graduates is known as “Transition-into-Ministry.” Launched in 1999 and funded until 2007, Transition-into- Ministry is coordinated by the Fund for Theological Education and operates some 24 programs throughout the country. Fifteen programs are congregation-based and nine are institution-based.  A wide spread of denominations is currently involved: Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, U.C.C., ELCA, American Baptist, United Methodist, AME, Episcopal, and the Christian Reformed Church.

Rev. David Wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Gardiner, Maine, is the program coordinator.  He says that the program aims to provide a communal ecology necessary for effective ministry.  “We are,” he says, “consciously working at bringing together the seminaries, congregations and denominational leadership.  We feel that if we can create conditions for conversations and engagements among the three that can address the needs recent seminary graduates have when they begin their pastoral lives—then, we will have a learning environment that will benefit everyone.  Our seminaries do a good job of imparting expert, theoretical knowledge.  Graduates have a solid background in theology, Biblical studies and the other areas of study necessary for pastoral leadership.  What they don’t get enough of is craft knowledge that can only be gained on-the-job with solid mentoring and peer support.”

Transition-into-Ministry has a variety of project models that engage new ministers.  The first model, Congregational Residencies, brings two or three recent seminary graduates into a single congregation for two years where they participate in all aspects of pastoral ministry under the mentorship of a seasoned pastor and the congregation’s senior staff.

A second model, First Call, is specifically for newly ordained pastors in their first call and operates within a single denomination.  A few of these programs are national in scope, most are judicatory/diocese-based programs.  The young men and women in these programs come together as a cohort at regular intervals and over a period of three or more years.  Under guidance of an experienced pastor, they study, receive encouragement, and engage in reflection and prayer.  Importantly, as is the case with all the models, they have the opportunity to come to realization that ministry is not a solitary assignment and that they will benefit enormously from collegiality and bonding among peers.

The third model, known as the Demographic Based model and another version of the First Call model, focuses on those young pastors serving in rural areas or in small congregations.  They may be of varying denominations.

A fourth model—yet one more version of the First Call model—is a seminary based program in which seminary graduates are convened regularly in covenanted groups with mentors to reflect upon their experience in their first call situations.

According to Wood, these models are rooted in a number of assumptions about congregational life, theological education, and the nature and practice of ministry itself.  First among these assumptions is the notion that congregations should not simply be consumers of pastoral ministry but rather need to be incubators of ministry and of pastors.  To bring this assumption to life, pastors and their staffs, along with members of the congregations, need to assume the role of a “teaching congregation.”

Wood further emphasizes that the congregation-based residency programs do not rest on an assumption that seminaries are failing to prepare students for ministry.  This is far from the truth, he asserts.  “Rather, congregation-based residency programs are rooted in the assumption that there is a kind of learning that seminaries are not well situated to provide.  If we think of seminary life and its rigorous engagement with scholars and academic disciplines, it is the context where expert knowledge is gained; then, when a person leaves seminary, congregational life and the intensive engagement with colleagues and pastoral practice is the context where craft knowledge can flourish.” Wood stresses that education for effective ministry requires both kinds of knowledge: expert and craft.  The Transition-into-Ministry programs, he says, “provide for a high level of reflection IN ministry, whereas seminary provides, primarily, a context for reflection ON ministry.”

Wood says that CPE and Field Education programs in seminaries do provide students with a reflective encounter with the practice of ministry, but they are, by necessity, limited in scope and duration.  He adds also that seminary faculty often have had little or no experience in the practice of ordained ministry, something that “inevitably increases the distance between classroom learning and the realities of ministry within a congregation.” Wood hopes the programs can integrate the realms of seminary and congregation thus easing the movement between them.  “As we go on, our project should have a great deal to say to field educators in seminaries today.” He notes that seminaries are starting to make efforts to create an environment that supports alumni in a number of ways.  “After all,” he says, “many in ministerial life find that some of their most treasured colleagues are those from their seminary days.  Seminaries need to do more to highlight for their graduates the significance these collegial relationships have for the practice of ministry over the course of a lifetime.”

The Catch-22 of Experience

Exacerbating the challenges that many new ministers face is their own limited experience.  Wood notes, “Many students enter seminary with limited backgrounds in congregational life and ministry.  Some even come to know the church only as college students.  Consequently, a sustained first hand knowledge of congregational life and the mentoring relationships that are so important to vocational formation are often missing from the lives of many seminary graduates.” The strength of the Transition-into-Ministry programs is that they seek “to combine the quality of reflection that characterizes the best CPE and Field Education programs with ministry that a full-time position within a congregational setting provides.”

Wood further relates the results of a question posed to directors in the program.  They responded to the following: “From your interaction with Residents in your program, what are the three competencies you perceive as being least developed in recent seminary graduates?” By far, the ability to interpret congregational dynamics was the competency most mentioned as least developed, followed by pastoral identity/role, leadership, liturgy, conflict, and time management.  Relational boundaries, self care, and administration were also cited as being least developed.  Interestingly, when Residents were asked to name the three competencies they wish they had gained in seminary, church administration and money/stewardship/budgets came in as the top two.  Following close behind were knowing the Bible as a whole, liturgy/sacraments/planning, and vocation formation/peer groups/pastoral identity.  The bottom three in the Residents’ list were being a teacher, preaching, and mission/church growth.

One of the most important aspects of all of the models in the program is what Wood calls the “time spent in face-to-face engagement with colleagues.” It is well known that young seminary graduates can find themselves in their first call as solo-pastors in congregations that are struggling or isolated or both.  In these situations the young pastor has limited collegial or institutional support, thus leading to professional, relational, intellectual, and cultural isolation that is detrimental to the individual’s formation of vocational identity.  Each of the models in the Transition-into-Ministry program helps newly minted ministers to be part of a collegial community with fellow graduates, seasoned pastors, and strong lay leaders.  Wood points out that at this stage of their vocation, patterns and habits of learning along with patterns and habits of prayer and other personal practices can be enhanced through the interactions that take place in a like-minded and sharing community of peers and mentors.

Wood points to the liminality of the first few years of ministry, when a new minister is authorized externally by virtue of academic and ecclesiastical qualifications, and yet, internally, one’s ‘pastoral identity’ is still taking shape.  He says there is a certain kind of learning and formation happening in these initial years that shape a vision of ministry and establish the initial contours of what Craig Dykstra has identified as the “pastoral imagination.” The experiences of these first years of ministry, according to Wood, “have enduring implications for the practice of ministry throughout a pastoral career.  The formation of pastoral identity is inextricably bound up with the act of being a pastor.”

How the Transition Into Ministry Program Works

Also crucial to each model in the Transition-into-Ministry program is the choosing of those seasoned pastors who either host residents in their congregations or who participate as mentors and teachers in the non-residency models.  Wood describes such pastors as being “highly reflective.” They are “men and women who have the ability to teach out of what they do.  And they have to be able to lead a staff culture that is vital.  Further, we look for pastors who have the ability to interpret the program within their congregation as well as externally.”

Wood explains the challenge of the residency model: “You bring two to four people into an existing, well developed staff culture—this places a huge demand on the pastor, the staff and even on the congregation members.  These residents are a part of the staff, but everyone knows they are only temporary and their job description may not be totally clear.” After some trial and error, leaders of Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis came to realization that specific job descriptions for the Residents are necessary.  Thus, at Plymouth, the Resident’s title is Minister of Outreach with responsibility for the Outreach Board and supervising activities of two workers in neighborhood programs.  At First Church in Minneapolis the Resident is an Associate Minister with general responsibilities, including regular preaching and worship leadership, pastoral care, specific committee assignments, and generally working in close relationship with the Principal Minister.  At Hyde Park Union Church in Chicago one resident has primary project focus on expanding programs for children, youth, parents and families while the other resident is focused on a part-time chaplaincy at Jackson Park Hospital where one of the church members is a staff physician.  The emphasis of this project is to create community service opportunities for church members, especially those related to the hospital.

Residents at Central Christian Church in Lexington, KY, have had opportunity to determine how their own gifts and interests match perceived needs in the congregation.  According to Rev. Michael Mooty, the congregation’s senior pastor, the church’s three Residents were encouraged to create opportunities for ministry.  Two began intentional engagement with college students, one has initiated a young adult movie and theological discussion group, one started a mentoring program for pre-adolescent girls that pairs them with older women in the congregation.  One wrote a number of prayers and hymn texts for Advent and one is leading a writers group, among other initiatives.  Mooty relates that all three residents “have taken initiative in pastoral care situations” and are participating with the Capital Campaign Steering Committee.

Wood reports that in the most successful instances, a level of educational intentionality happens and the congregational leadership and membership recognize that the young people are there to learn and to be deeply involved.  The Rev. Carol Pinkham Oak, Associate Rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Alexandria, VA notes that, “The congregation is also a participant [in the program] as a teaching congregation.  Part of the mission of Christ Church is now the nurturing and sending of new clergy.  A teaching congregation creates a safe learning environment for the residents as well as a willingness to learn with them and from them.” Many people on church staffs have told Wood that one of the greatest benefits of the program for them is that they are forced to think about what they do in new ways, providing new levels of reflection and self- analysis.  Wood sees as a by-product a recognition on the part of pastors and their staffs that the program and the interaction with the young seminary graduates has prompted them to be more effective in their overall ministry.

Among the projects that are denomination/institution based is one at Princeton Theological Seminary designed to develop research on effective, life-giving practices of youth ministry as well as to discover effective approaches to youth ministry and address the burnout rate common to youth ministers in their first years.  Called Bridges: Linking Theological Education to the Practice of Youth Ministry , the program is coordinated by Rev. Leslie Dobbs-Allsopp.  In addition to the research components, the Bridges Pastors Program is a pilot effort that supports pastors who are in transition from seminary to professional youth ministry.  Serving some 20 pastors who graduated in the classes of 2000 or 2001 from 9 different seminaries, the program brings the participants together four weekends over two years for work in pastoral formation, youth ministry issues, opportunity for solo time with a pastor, and recreation and Sabbath with peer colleagues.  An on-line discussion board assists the young pastors to stay in contact when they are back in their congregations.

Perhaps in no setting is pastoral isolation a greater issue than in rural and small town congregations.  In Hayesville, NC, the Hinton Rural Life Center’s project in the Transition-into-Ministry program is geared for recent seminary graduates entering their first full-time ministry position in a church of small membership, small being defined as a church with average worship attendance under 100.  It is assumed that the growing-up experience of the majority of young clergy has been in middle to large size congregations in urban or suburban settings.  According to the project director, Rev. Delmer L. Chilton, such young people “are not well prepared to respond to the unique characteristics and contexts of smaller membership churches, whether rural or urban.” The full name of the Hinton project tells a lot: The First Parish Project: A Colleague Support Group Program to Increase Clergy Retention Rates and Enhance Pastoral Performance.  Participants are an ecumenical group of 25 beginning pastors for each of three years.  Each group meets at Hinton’s retreat lodge for one week, Monday through Friday, in fall, winter and spring of two successive years.  In the final session of the second year the curriculum centers on evaluation and feedback, consolidation of learning, and identification of next steps in each pastor’s journey to become a more effective minister.  Hinton staff visit each pastor in his or her parish for visioning and planning with the congregation.  Chilton describes the curriculum for each of the weeks as including topics in three primary areas: pastoral leadership skills, spiritual formation and discipline for clergy and continuing education in the context of ministry.  Chilton also says that the program will use technology as a vital key “to resisting the isolation that often accompanies serving small membership churches.”

The Road to Revitalization

Revitalization of anything worthwhile takes thoughtful planning and work.  Wood hopes that the Transition-into-Ministry program can indeed lead to renewal of pastoral ministry.  He notes, “We only have a few years of experience and we are only starting to collate our learnings.  But we have high intentions that our program can spur congregations, seminaries and judicatories to use what we are doing and learning as a context.”

Wood cites results of a question asked of Residents concerning their most important learnings in the Transition-into-Ministry experience.  The overwhelming “most important” aspect is collegiality/peer groups/friends, a finding that underscores one of the lead premises of the program: that ministry should not be a solitary endeavor.  Other issues, in declining order of importance, are pastoral identity/role, importance of practice, modeling good preaching, liturgy, renewed hope, and dealing with culture shift.  Wood continues, “We might say that the program is a controlled experiment.  But we are certain that we are creating a learning environment that can be generative of other models that can contribute to ongoing revitalization and reshaping of congregational ministry.  We want to help overcome those experiences that foster a dim view of local church life.

“This program solidifies young seminary graduates’ intention to go into pastoral ministry.  The culture shock of going from seminary to a local church, or to a congregation that is vastly different from their home church, is softened for these young people.  Everyone benefits—the young seminary graduate, the congregations, and the denominations themselves.”

“Transition into Ministry: Programs Offer Hope for Revitalizing Congregational Leadership” from the website Resources for American Christianity http://www.resourcingchristianity.org/

Two classmates graduate from seminary. Each has done well academically, and received glowing recommendations from the faculty. Each was affirmed by a field placement parish during the seminary experience. And each performed well amid the challenges of clinical pastoral education. Two classmates, both filled with promise and the potential to be highly effective pastors, transition into their first full-time positions in parish ministry. Fast- forward 35 years. One of these individuals is retiring after a rich and rewarding career in parish ministry. The other is retiring from a secular career, having left parish ministry within a few years following negative experiences in two parishes.

What happened? Why do some seminary graduates committed to the pastoral life successfully navigate the transition into full-time ministry and others don’t? Why do some pastors flourish while others do not? Why do some parishes seem to have a knack for producing great, young pastors? It is my conviction that the first two years of full-time parish ministry are the most critical. And my seven years of experience leading the Foundations for Spiritual Leadership program at Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a pilot program funded by the Lilly Endowment, has taught me many lessons about how we can create the conditions for success for new pastors during these formative years.

We most often associate success in ministry with accumulated years of experience. Success can mean many years of ministry in one congregation, sharing their joys and tragedies and triumphs. It can mean starting a new parish, identifying a mission, and building a new community of faith where previously there was none. It can mean sequential parishes, each larger and more complex than the previous. Success can also mean transforming a struggling congregation into one that is engaged and flourishing, or creating and nurturing a unique and powerful “niche” ministry that is a catalyst for the transformation of individuals and communities. Success might also mean election to a position of enhanced responsibility within a denomination.

What if success in ministry was available to every clergyperson? What if success was created rather than achieved? What if clergy and congregations intentionally planned for success? Success could then be understood as a set of conditions that create life-giving ministry for the clergyperson and the congregation. With this in mind, what if success could be created most especially for new pastors, for those making the transition into what we hope will be a lifetime of ministry?

Creating the conditions for success for new pastors begins with understanding the significance of the initial years of ordained ministry.

The vocational formation of seminary carries over into the first two years of parish ministry. Adaptation and learning, innovation and meeting new challenges, attempting to balance personal and professional considerations all happen at an intense pace. Every ministry experience is new. Amid the intensity associated with this time, the full identity of the pastor as scholar, teacher, shepherd, and spiritual and congregational leader takes shape. The foundations for holy habits and healthy leadership practices for an individual’s entire ministry are also put in place. Herein lies the significance of these first two years of ministry.

Traditionally these first years have been viewed as a time of trial and error, a time when new pastors learn what not to do by painful mistakes, a time when recently ordained clergy have to figure out on their own how to balance vocational, personal, and family needs. Certainly, positive vocational formation can and does take place in the context of a trial-and-error model. Sadly, more often than not, formation in this context is negative, leaves scars for future years in ministry, and can even lead new clergy to leave ministry. Creating the conditions for success honors the first two years as unique in an individual’s ministry, as his or her identity takes shape through positive experiences and a structured learning model that embraces the pastoral life as both joy-filled and demanding, both intellectually stimulating and emotionally intense. Rather than trial and error, this context for vocational formation is both active and reflective, providing an opportunity to celebrate the privilege and responsibility of walking with others in their faith journey and to embrace the challenges of daily ministry.

Creating the conditions for success for new clergy recognizes that two distinct processes of vocational formation take place during these initial years: the integration of academic learning with the daily experience of ministry, and the mastery of basic skills in the practice of ministry.

From Classroom to Pastorate

The first vocational formation process is to integrate the formal theological training of seminary into the specific context and experience of parish life. One bishop compared these early years of parish ministry to the novitiate for those who take monastic vows. He observed that a monastic cannot really learn what it is like to live in community until he or she lives in community. The same is true for a pastor. A pastor cannot really know what it is like to pastor a congregation until she or he has the experience of shepherding a congregation.

Academic study and the cultivation of rigorous theological reasoning are essential for success in ministry. One cannot preach the entire development of trinitarian theology using the sermons of the early church fathers. However, knowledge of that theological development serves as a powerful resource for a sermon on the Trinity. One cannot preach on a given Sunday a sampler of the types of sermons covered in homiletics. However, with the knowledge of different sermon styles for different purposes, one can choose the most appropriate for a given circumstance or text. With respect to all the disciplines in theological education, strong and vital academic preparation provides an essential foundational resource for the experience-based learning that occurs in ministry.

This experiential learning takes formal academic study and applies it to the practice of ministry through an action-reflection process. This is a new style of learning for many people. It requires setting aside time to reflect on a particular experience, and identifying theological, personal, and other perspectives offered by a mentor. What happened? What could have been done differently? What would you do the next time and why? These are all questions that arise from experience and shape identity. How did you understand yourself as a pastor in this situation? How did you bring the compassion of Christ to a grieving family, or how did you explain that marriage is a life you create together in God’s love? What is your theology of stewardship and what do you think is the theology of the stewardship committee members you are dealing with? These are questions for the new pastor to contemplate. Reflection follows action, which follows reflection. This iterative process aims for integration and begins to shape identity in deep and powerful ways. Experiential learning incorporates academic learning with the daily experience of ministry.

Mastering Many “Firsts”

The second vocational formation process is developing the skills for ministry. In the first two years, a new pastor experiences many activities of ministry for the first time: the first wedding, the first wedding rehearsal, the first funeral, the first baptism, the first confirmation class, the first time preaching sequentially and regularly, the first time conducting worship in this particular congregation, the first time balancing full-time ministry with personal and family activities. Often these firsts occur amid the emotional ups and downs that are common in the daily life of a pastor. A parishioner has died and the grieving spouse is on hold, waiting to talk to the pastor. This conversation cannot be scheduled nor can it wait until after the Sunday sermon has been written. Building skills for ministry occurs at a rapid pace in the first two years. Confidence comes when situations or tasks have been handled appropriately. Competence is built over time by reflecting on experience, receiving effective and informed feedback from caring others, and completing the task to one’s own satisfaction. As new pastors begin to feel competent in the basic skills of ministry, their confidence grows.

The integration of academic learning with the experience of ministry and the mastery of basic skills for ministry are key aspects of positive vocational formation for new clergy. Both processes shape pastoral identity in important ways. Moreover, both processes are steep learning curves for newly ordained pastors. Navigating these learning curves effectively requires creating three conditions for success: a safe learning environment, mentoring from experienced clergy, and peer learning.

The Safety to Learn

Creating a safe learning environment is the first and most important element to help new pastors succeed. All pastors make mistakes. What is crucial is that mistakes not become determinative of a pastor’s ministry. Instead of repeating stories of what went wrong, the focus should be on naming and celebrating what went right. Creating a safe learning environment means that mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities, mechanisms are established for effective feedback, and the congregation views its ministry as one of playing an active role in shaping clergy for ministry. Congregations that offer a safe learning environment can be understood as “teaching congregations.” Some teaching congregations have discovered this ministry through their dedication to serving young pastors. Through effort and in some cases intentional learning, these congregations have come to understand what makes ministry life-giving for them and for new clergy.

However, any congregation that welcomes a new pastor can offer a safe learning environment and pattern itself as a teaching congregation. A teaching congregation forms a relationship with the new pastor with the understanding that the congregation has as much to give to the new pastor as the pastor has to give to them. A teaching congregation appreciates the unique importance of the first two years of ministry in shaping pastoral identity. The relationship between the new pastor and the congregation has different dimensions from the relationship between the congregation and the senior pastor or other more experienced assistants. The relationship between new pastor and congregation is often time-bound, for a period of two or three years; it is fluent in praise and judicious with criticism; it is open to new ideas; and it provides time and opportunities for learning. Though this relationship has a different dimension, it is equally important that the congregation fully embrace the new pastor as a pastor. An analogy from the practice of medicine is apt. Medical residents treat patients and are appropriately called “doctors.” Even though the resident is supervised by a more senior physician, the resident has both the authority and the requisite skill to be fully engaged in the care and treatment of the patient. Both the learning and the care-giving take place in what we call a “teaching hospital.”

Similarly, in a teaching congregation, it is understood that the new pastor is learning and therefore needs time for preparation, reflection, and feedback in navigating the steep learning curves described above. Although the new pastor is involved in tending the flock, it is also understood that the new pastor will not be involved in every aspect of the congregation’s life all the time. Instead, there will be focused times for concentrating on preaching, or stewardship, or Christian formation, or developing lay leadership. There is a support team formed to meet monthly with the new pastor. The members of this team serve for the duration of the new pastor’s tenure, are trained in effective feedback, and serve as advocates and guides. In addition, a teaching congregation ensures that a portion of a more senior pastor’s time is set aside for mentoring the new pastor.

Finding a Mentor

Mentoring is the second form of support that creates the conditions for success. While a mentoring relationship cannot be forced, the most effective mentor is an experienced clergyperson who knows the particular context and dynamics of the congregation the new pastor is serving. In a multiple-staff church, more senior clergy can serve as mentors. If the new pastor is a solo pastor, then a previous interim minister or another person familiar with that congregation can serve as a mentor. The important thing is that the integration of academic and experiential learning and the mastery of the basic skills of ministry take place in community, in conversation, in the context of a relationship with someone who has detailed, on-the-ground knowledge of the congregation.

The formative process of mentoring goes beyond a general conversation of how things are going. Instead, the mentor and new pastor review the ministry activities of the last week or month. The mentor helps the new pastor explore key questions about pastoral identity: How did you experience yourself as a pastor in that situation? How did you experience God in that moment? What were the dynamics in the room? What worked and what would you do differently? How did you feel when that comment was made?

The mentor also anticipates the “firsts” with the new pastor. Walking through the first wedding rehearsal reveals details that the new pastor needs to know. Preparing for the first funeral, the first baptismal preparation class, the first confirmation class are all opportunities for dialogue and teaching. Preparing for the first time when parish duties interrupt family or personal plans can be an opportunity to explore where to compromise and where to hold firm. Whatever the circumstance, the mentor anticipates the learning curve and offers assistance, guidance, and support. The conversation between mentor and new pastor follows the action-reflection model that forms the deeper levels of pastoral identity. The mentor’s role is to help the new pastor gain perspective, which in turn creates positive formation experiences that build success.

Learning with Peers

In addition to support from a more experienced mentor, the third condition for success is peer learning. Again, ministry is based on relationships. Supportive relationships with mentoring clergy and with the teaching congregation are vital. However, without peers, without conversation with those who are at a similar stage in their journey, ministry can feel isolating. Peers share strategies for navigating the learning curve. Peers add perspective on ministry. They add a dimension of community and of self-understanding in the context of that community. Not every congregation will have more than one new pastor at a time. At a multiple-staff church a cohort of two or three new pastors can create a peer learning group. Across a judicatory or seminary alumni network new pastors can form colleague groups. Facilitated peer colleague groups can be a particularly effective way of providing meaningful connections with others whose experience most closely reflects their own. In the flurry of the first two years of ministry, new pastors will often forgo these groups in favor of the many other things they want to say yes to in ministry. Creating a structure where peer support can occur and designating that time as important to vocational formation often gives the new pastor permission to deeply engage in these groups. Just like mentoring relationships, peer groups cannot be forced. They can, however, be designed to go beyond casual lunch conversations to reflect on deeper questions: What particular gifts does our generation bring to ministry? What do we want to do differently? When we consider our call to ministry, how does it contrast and compare to that of our mentors? Where is there a disconnect between our generation’s seminary experience and parish life? How do we creatively bridge that gap? Where are the places of celebration? What do we need to learn?

All Can Teach

Any congregation can create the conditions that provide the foundations for success and spiritual leadership among new pastors—a safe learning environment, mentoring, and peer learning. Small congregations can call a newly ordained pastor and create a life-giving ministry for all, knowing they will soon send this pastor forth to serve the wider church. Larger congregations may call one new pastor to assist the senior pastor, knowing that part of their ministry is to serve as a teaching congregation. And the largest congregations may call several new pastors at once to learn from more senior clergypersons, knowing their ministry is to set the standards of leadership and shape these new leaders for the future. Neither the size of the church nor the number of new pastors called determines the conditions for success. Instead, success can be created by any new pastor in partnership with any community of faith that is committed to the ministry of being a teaching congregation. The realization of this vision is life-giving and life-sustaining both to new pastors and to the congregations they are called to serve.

_______________________________________

Questions for Reflection

1. Describe the experience of your congregation’s most recent newly ordained pastor.
2. Name three ways to create in your congregation a process for experiential learning that integrates academic learning with parish life and builds the basic skills of ministry.
3. How can your congregation be helped to understand that they play an essential role in shaping new pastors?
4. What would a safe learning environment, mentoring, and peer learning look like in your context?

Reprinted by permission from The Alban Institute, Congregations, 2006-10-01, Fall 2006, Number 4