http://www.staging.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/index/ Transition Into Ministry Weblog en tj@transitionintoministry.org Copyright 2008 2008-11-24T16:46:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/so_what_are_we_learning/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/so_what_are_we_learning/#When:13:14:00Z A new Alban / Transition Into Ministry report Becoming a Pastor: Reflections on the Transition into Ministry has been released. In my the course of my work with the Coordination Program of the Transition into Ministry program, the question I am most often asked is, “What are you learning through this program?” 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. Featured 2008-09-12T13:14:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/pastoral_conversation_at_its_best/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/pastoral_conversation_at_its_best/#When:16:46:00Z Pastors discuss their struggle with “free” time in their lives in the ministry. I had a very interesting conversation with a group of younger pastors—all of whom where in their first years of ministry in local congregations.  We were talking about the things they are still trying to figure out about the pastoral life.  One of the principal issues they raised had to do with how they spend their time.  What was so interesting about this part of the conversation is the direction it did NOT go in.  They did not fall all over themselves talking about how busy they were.  They did not go on about not realizing how much time it takes to do this job.  This was not because these folks were not busy, earnest, or deeply dedicated to their ministries.  Quite the contrary.  What they acknowledged in the course of our conversation, albeit reluctantly, was how much “free” time they have on their hands.  By “free time” they did not mean they were without something to do.  Rather, they were describing the experience of being free to choose what they were going to do without anyone demanding that they must do so and so.  It was part and parcel of the aloneness that is so much a part of the everyday life of a pastor—especially in “solo” pastor congregations. The went on to acknowledge that when they did do what they determined needed to be done, it was more often than not unclear if they had done anything worthwhile.  They all agreed that one of the chief tendencies in dealing with this lack of clarity and “freedom” was to overcompensate by “working” overtime.  This was the first conversation I have been in with a group of pastors where the burden of the freedom and the reality of aloneness that constitutes the architecture of everyday life in pastoral ministry was freely acknowledged and talked about openly.  This interaction reminded me why there needs to be much more conversation about self-regulation and self-generation when it comes to ordering one’s life and work as a pastor.  Furthermore, it was a reminder why pastors talking together truthfully and transparently is so crucial to the cultivation of excellence in ministry. 2008-11-24T16:46:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/preaching_economics/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/preaching_economics/#When:15:15:01Z Are we responding to the economic crisis from the pulpit? The economic crisis we are in has been ballooning over the past couple of months.  I have yet to hear a sermon that addresses the anxiety that is raging these days.  A few weeks ago I was in a congregation, a large evangelical congregation.  The text for the day was from Philippians 3, where Paul proclaims his re-valuation of all things that matter in light of knowing Christ—his embrace of suffering the loss of all things, prized things he has now come to count as dung.  Not a mention of living faithfully midst the turbulence of the times when assets can so quickly become liabilities.  Last Sunday I was in an Episcopal congregation on the coast of Maine.  The Lectionary text was from Matthew 25, the parable of the Talents.  Rather than picking up on the condemnation of burying assets for safekeeping out of fear rather than investing them wisely (even if conservatively), the Rector chose to reflect on the Collect of the day which pointed to the exhortation to read Scripture.  I have been in an American Baptist Church not too far from my home for two Sundays—not a mention of things economic. It seems we, the Church, have much to answer for in these times and certainly much to speak to.  At the very least we have to confess that we have cooperated with this debt-based economy.  Our readiness to address finances tends to coincide with our need to pledge the budget for the fiscal year to come or to ramp up for the looming capital campaign.  The connection to debt and sin is unmistakable in the New Testament, particularly the Gospels.  In the mind of Jesus, there was a correspondence between the experience of enslavement to sin and the experience of indebtedness.  This does not necessarily lead to an equation between debt and sin—but it does provide an interesting point of correlation worthy of exploration in a time when the dangers intrinsic to debt are being elaborated on as never before in the society at large. If you have a sermon (perhaps one you preached or you heard) that addresses the current economic crisis in an effective, evocative way, send it along ( dwood56@earthlink.net ) and we’ll post it on the site.  Preaching economics is always important…but especially in these times. 2008-11-19T15:15:01-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/funereal_confessions_and_professions/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/funereal_confessions_and_professions/#When:23:17:00Z Thoughts and reflections about death, dying, and the funeral business. A Confession: over my 25 years of ministry I have harbored a low-grade aversion for Funeral Homes and Funeral Directors. This has nothing to do with an avoidance of death. It has everything to do with the abdication of the church when it comes to the aftermath of death. Corpses, coffins (or the preferred term, according to my Funeral Director colleagues, “caskets”) and graveyards (or, less offensively, “cemeteries”) have become the domain of Funeral Directors and their Homes. All too often, the message delivered from these death experts was, “We’ll take it from here and call you when we need you.” This feeling that I was treading on someone else’s turf was made all the more plain when the Funeral Director handed me the honorarium he (and it was a “he” with one exception in 25 years) had negotiated as part of the funeral package.   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/. Blogging 2008-04-21T23:17:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/cancer_and_pastoral_care/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/cancer_and_pastoral_care/#When:15:37:00Z Some reflections on providing pastoral care for those living and dying with cancer. Cancer is one of the most critical pastoral care issues a pastor will face in ministry.  To say “cancer” is to invoke an incredibly diverse and unpredictable field of situations that require a capacity for improvisation by anyone seeking to be pastorally present.  My mother died of cancer in March of 2004.  She was 75.  For me, it was the first time I was in a situation of caring for someone very close to me who was dying for whom I was not “Pastor.” As you can imagine, it was one of the most formative experiences of my life.  Naturally, I drew upon my many years of experience of being pastorally present to cancer patients.  And yet, I gained a whole new perspective on what it is like to be a family member in that situation.  For the final weeks, we did home hospice which was an education in caring for the dying like none other. Last night I watched a good portion of the PBS program, The Truth About Cancer.  I would recommend it, highly, to anyone in pastoral ministry seeking to grow their understanding of what it means to live and die with cancer.  Here is the link that will allow you to view it online. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/takeonestep/cancer/video-ch_01.html This program would also be an excellent resource to use in an Adult Education class in a church school program. There is a follow up commentary with Linda Ellerbee and several physicians—they are all cancer survivors.  It is also very good.  You will find the link to this program,Take One Step: A Conversation About Cancer with Linda Ellerbee, on the site listed above. This kind of learning is never done. 2008-04-17T15:37:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/on_being_and_becoming_a_pastor_how_does_anyone_learn_to_do_this_job/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/on_being_and_becoming_a_pastor_how_does_anyone_learn_to_do_this_job/#When:14:49:00Z How does anyone cultivate the competency sufficient to the complexity of pastoral life?  By David J. Wood 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. Blogging 2008-04-16T14:49:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/the_relationship_between_friendship_doubt_and_faith/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/the_relationship_between_friendship_doubt_and_faith/#When:13:05:00Z How did the Apostle Thomas’ friends respond to his time of questioning and doubt? By David J. Wood I will preach this Sunday in the small Episcopal congregation I now attend.  As is the case for the second Sunday of Easter, Thomas and his refusal to accept resurrection will be the focus of attention.  As with most of us, I have always had a fondness for Thomas and his resistance to resurrection. Living as we do on this side of the dying, rising from the dead is hard to get my faith around.  I have always wondered where Thomas was when Jesus makes his first appearance.  What was he doing?  Peter’s absence would have been understood.  He had something to hide and to hide from.  But there is no indication in the text that Thomas had turned his heart against Jesus.  I think that after he heard the story from the women that Jesus was alive, he was out searching for himself.  While the rest stayed boxed in by fear and confusion—he went in search of the truth.  I admire that tenacity.  And the most remarkable thing in the story is that when Thomas stubbornly refuses to take their word for it concerning Jesus, they do not reject him.  A whole week passes before Jesus makes his appearance and Thomas is brought to his knees.  Jesus took his time in getting back to Thomas.  That time in between was the first test for the first witnesses: how were they going to live with those who refused to believe.  We don’t know exactly what they did.  We know what they didn’t do.  They did not cast Thomas aside.  Just as they did not cast Peter aside.  The community was large enough to embrace them and keep them close so they would come to see Jesus for themselves.  Friendship and faith are bound up together.  Sometimes, it’s hard to believe our friends.  But one thing is for sure, we won’t come to believe without them. 2008-04-04T13:05:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/welcome_to_the_new_tim_website/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/welcome_to_the_new_tim_website/#When:13:02:00Z A message from David J. Wood, coordinator of the Transition Into Ministry Program. The TiM web site has been in development so long…that folks who were transitioning into ministry from seminary when we began are now looking toward retirement!  Well, not quite that long.  But its launch has been promised for some time prompting some to wonder if it was really going to happen.  Well, here it is!  Voilà! As with all web sites, it is just the beginning.  It is indeed our hope that it will grow in scope and usefulness as folks don’t just visit, but participate and contribute to make it, over time, a destination site. As you will see, there is a public side to the site and a log-in side.  We plan on the bulk of the content to be on the public side.  The purpose of the log-in side is to provide an open space for those who have participated in TiM programs to connect with each other and to conduct business that is internal to the ongoing TiM program.  We hope that both sides will experience heavy traffic. As we say in several different places on the site, we are anxious and eager for your input and contributions. 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. Featured 2008-04-04T13:02:00-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/origins_of_tim/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/origins_of_tim/#When:15:35:01Z A brief history and background information on the Transition Into Ministry programs. The initial “Transition into Ministry” (TiM) grants in 1999 and 2000 funded a handful of projects in congregational and denominational settings. In 2007, there are 30 projects. When the initiative began, Endowment staff recall, it was informed by the following assumptions: • 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. History of TiM 2008-03-25T15:35:01-06:00 http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/the_first_five_years/ http://www.transitionintoministry.org/index.php/site/the_first_five_years/#When:06:19:00Z 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. (Originally written by Kathryn Palen and published at The Alban Institute Congregations, 2006-10-01, Fall 2006, Number 4.  Reprinted by permission.  For more information see Alban.org for a collection of their articles about the Transition Into Ministry program.) 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 FellowshipsMaking 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 PastorsFostering 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 MinistryThe 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. History of TiM 2007-10-05T06:19:00-06:00