What I Would Do (7)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three was talking about "secular ministry." Section Four looked at what I've learned in these three years in "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (1)
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (2)
5. What I Would Do: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,
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Earlier this week, United Methodist Bishop and renowned author William Willimon wrote the following on his blog:

Unfortunately, I fear that most of us pastors think of ourselves as caregivers to the congregation, maintainers of the status quo, rather than agents of change.--Link to blog post

In a discussion earlier this week, this post came to mind. Several of us were talking about the difference between church planter-type pastors and parish-type pastors. It may very well be that the practical difference is found in that very quote. Or, as Bill Easum used to describe it- it is possible to have too many gifts of mercy for the job you are doing. Or, as Jim Collins talks about in Good to Great, you have to get the wrong people off the bus and the right people on in order to move to greatness. We don't like to do that. We don't want to leave anyone out.

The same kind of distinctions may very well be in place for the difference between leaders and managers. As we continue to look at the issue, we are on shaky ground. We are, in many ways moving away from the training that most clergy have had. Most training is a professional education to do a particular type of job. Feed the hungry, visit the sick, kind of things. That has become, as we talked about in a much earlier post, the definition of being a pastor. Add a little bit of good theological education, put a dash of church history, stir in Clinical Pastoral Education and there you have it.

Pastor. The Expert. The Hired Hand to do The Job.

Nothing wrong with that in theory. But it certainly based on Jesus' ministry. I know I have covered this in other posts but I bring it back in here because it would inform and guide my attempts, if I went back into parish ministry, to live it differently. In order to do that one of the things I will be required (by my own needs) to do is find a spiritual director and a coach. They could be one and the same, but II will want to utilize the coach in specific leadership and development ways and a spiritual director as a guide along the spiritual road that must be walked through the whole thing. If I can find someone who can do both, all the better. It will allow for a deeper and broader intergration.

I have learned that outside support is critical to a personal ministry that is growing. An outside coach and spiritual director can often see through the pains and acute tensions of a situation and ask the right questions. Never, never do I have enough resources in myself to do it. Never, never do I have all the insights and answers. I need to be able to admit that and look for those people around me. Support is not an option. It is non-negotiable. Professionals, non-professionals, friends, even strangers.

I have a close friend that I have been doing this with for 19 years now. We now live over 320 miles apart, but once in a while, if too much time goes by, we meet at a restaurant 160 miles from each of us. He is a supportive friend I couldn't live without. Other friends are contacted on the phone. Other people are at my support meetings. At another point in my ministry I was part of other support groups through the greater church. Non-negotiable.

Last week I commented that if all this were possible we wouldn't need God. The real underlying importance of that statement is not that we need God, but that we need to know what God wants us to do and then seek the proper power to do it. We all pay a lot of lip service to that idea but in our actions and realities of daily life we often behave differently. That's why one of the things I would seek to do differently were I to re-enter the ministry is to seek more and broader ways to introduce spiritual disciplines to the church I am serving. That says Alan Roxburgh is an essential part of being missional.

From Alan Roxburgh's Journal comes this:

Growing numbers of leaders are aware that missional change is not primarily about techniques and programs. It’s about culture or worldview change... The question is: How does this kind of disciplined culture change occur? there is one element that does seem common to those leaders who sustain themselves on the way - they are rooted in some form of regular spiritual practices... but .. the vast majority of church leaders have no daily form of Christian practice or formation in their own lives.

To live and grow together as a missional congregation/community the practice of Christian formation is one I would seek to develop. There are countless ways that such formation has been done over the centuries. We are rediscovering many of them in new ways today. The modern semi-monastic movements, praying the Daily Hours, quiet contemplative retreats- these and many more work to strengthen the community and keep us aimed at God and the world beyond our own doors.

I said I would talk a little about denominationalism...well- I guess that will wait for another week.