Sustaining Pastoral Excellence

During 2006 and 2007 the Department of the Ordered Ministry undertook an extensive set of trips to listen to Covenant ministers from all over North America. The purpose of these trips was to tap into the wisdom embedded in our ministerial community. The hope was to discern the formation and developmental needs of clergy as we continue the journey of excellence into the future. Hundreds of conversations later we discovered a clear clustering around 6 major themes.

Below is a summary of the listening interactions with 45 different clergy district clusters. These journeys fulfilled the mandate from the Executive Committee of the ministerial association to get the broad voice of the pastoral community to respond to key questions about the future health and vitality of our ministerial leaders. The questions that framed the interaction(s) were as follows . . .

1) What does excellence in the community of pastors in 2020 require?

2) How does the voice from within the community of pastors continue to shape the discussion of excellence through 2020 and beyond?

3) What are the potential partnerships, collaborations, and synergies necessary to make this happen?

4) What is the ongoing role of a denominational department, like the Department of
the Ordered Ministry, in providing proactive resources for ministerial excellence?

Here are the responses from Covenant pastors. It is worth noting that pastoral response #1 (see below) was by far the most important segment. We heard this repeatedly, at every gathering, all across North America.

1. There needs to be an active denominational listening presence in our community of pastors.
*reclaim community of pastors as a wisdom base
*guided conversations
*face to face, collaborative, holistic, engaged

2. There needs to be an intentional rebuilding/reclaiming of community within our ministerial family.

*pastor to pastor, intentional, accountable, must be bottom up
*use point people
*share our stories (videos/visuals) – regular, intentional, quarterly?, inspire, challenge
*multiple strategies – organic, affinity groups, online learning communities, district conversations (“what
do we need to know?”), linking pastors around like uses, seminars – core arts, celebrate diversity - bilingual

3. There needs to be a focused effort to help pastors address issues of contextualization and change.

*needs to be shared responsibility by DOOM/NPTS/Conferences – other
depts. as helpful
*Prepare pastors to lead the church in and through change
*Understand how to read changing culture/be adaptable
*leading systems through change – not trained to do it
*missiological training and technology
*credentialing bi-vocational pastors & emerging ministry issues

4. There needs to be advocacy for pastors in congregations – especially in conflict

*dealing with conflict
*call-understanding role of pastor
*equipping congregations - teaching churches how to care for and support pastors
*greater collaboration between conference/denomination

5. There needs to be an emphasis on soul care

*nurturing of spirit, margin, boundaries, creating time for inner self – physical, emotional, spiritual
*name standards of excellence in health
*Center for Spiritual Direction needs to live on and continue to develop as denominational resource
*Move away from CE Model and reporting and move to life rule for all pastors
(focus@Midwinter 2008).
*take boundaries education to next level (co-dependency, power, etc.)
*provide re-visioning experience every 10 years for all pastors

6. There needs to be an established holistic life-long learning pathway for Covenant ministers

*core pastoral competencies
*greater technical training/expertise, maximize the use of technology for sharing
learning, communications, etc. & continue to discern which media are appropriate

*create intentional learning communities, expectations in terms of learning and how to prepare for stages in the life of the pastor – assessments. Develop a new partnership and collaboration with NPTS that sustains life-long learning throughout the minsterium . . . can NPTS be integral to ongoing development of clergy??

The Department of the Ordered Ministry has acted on these six responses. During the next month there will be a set of articles explaining how.