The Presbyterian Polis - Connecting Churches to Churches

The Divinity student and the future of the church

As I read this NYTimes article - Divinity Schools Take On the Challenge of Keeping Students on a Path to the Pulpit -,  I realized that the transitions that I'm seeing in churches have not yet reach the point where a major transition in the nature of the pastorate has begun to emerge.

I can't really tell you want will come in the role and experience of being a pastor.  However, i do know that one of the things that needs to happen is a great deal more clarity about the boundaries that form the role pastors play in the church.

I think the principal issue is the inability to state with certainty precisely what the pastor's role is and isn't . As a result, the role is measured by the expectations that each member has, rather than some more objective criteria. 

Part of the dilemma is that what often happens is that the pastor ends up take responsibility for work that members should be doing, yet don't because it is easier to just pass it off on to the pastor. 

For example, every pastor position comes with the expectation of visitation. Precisely what does this mean?  Who should be visited? How often should they be visited? And what should be done when a visit is made? 

What is missing is the responsibility of elders and members to care for one another.  If this role is being fulfilled, then it changes the social context of the church.  If the responsibility is fully on the pastor's shoulders, then the social environment is built around one individual. That is not a healthy arrangement.  The core problem with this is that their a complicity of silence between those who desire to be visited and those who ignore the responsibility. As a result, it gets dumped on the pastor.

The options for men and women who earn ministerial degrees have grown.  Being a parish minister is not the most easy nor attractive ministerial calling.

From my perspective, the training for parish ministry needs to broaden out from the traditional course work and field work.  Merely tweaking the curriculum won't do it. It requires broadening exposure to fields outside of the traditional biblical, theological and ecclesiastical intellectual box. 

Two areas that I can see are training in organizational development and transformation and instruction in social networking and word-of-mouth marketing.  Developing the first requires the church to more clearly understand the similarities and differences between traditional businesses and the church.  Developing the second is the recognition that the focal point of church is shifting from the Sunday morning worship service to the social formation of the church as a collaborative community of servant leaders.

What this means for pastoral ministry is a shift from a pastor-centric to a member-servant centric church life.  This means that part of what pastors need to learn through their seminary training are the skills that enable members to take responsibility for the full life of the church. The pastor serves as an enabler of growth and development rather than the measure of it.  It is this that I have always seen in Paul's description of the church in Ephesians 4.

So, if seminaries are having a difficult time recruiting people to parish ministry, then we need to ask the question about whether the way we function as an institutional church makes sense.  I know there are changes happening. I see them and want to encourage their spread. But one church changing here or there isn't sufficient.  Ultimately, this change will have to be reflected both in the seminary and in the governing bodies that validate a person's call to ministry.

How can Sessions make spiritual decisions?

DennisS commented "Do you have some models or examples of spiritual decision making by a Session? I think this might be helpful for people to see the difference in how decisions are made."

This is a good question, and not an easy one to answer.  It is sort of like asking how do you tell someone has faith?  How do you know when the Session is making spiritual decisions?  Or, what does an unspiritual decision making process look like. 

Here are some thoughts.

Governance - New Elder Leadership #1 -

“As a new elder, I am trying to understand what the Session is supposed to do. It seems all we do is have meetings?”

The Session of a Presbyterian church is not the same as the Board of a local non-profit organization. The range of responsibilities is much broader. 

The most familiar responsibility is the administrative. At your monthly meeting, you hear committee reports; review financial information; make decisions about church operations, like facility issues and personnel; and receive and dismiss members. Often this is all some Sessions do.

As a result, some elders are disappointed that their experience is not more spiritual. They wonder what it means for them to be the spiritual leaders of the church, when all they seem to deal with are organizational issues. 

The burden of this dichotomy between the Session’s twin responsibilities of leading a spiritual body while managing a business operation ordinarily falls on the pastor. Most pastors do not bring to their calling a background in business, and most Session members do not bring to their calling a background in the ordained ministry. As a result, what should a beautiful marriage of the spiritual and organizational aspects of leadership becomes an experience of frustration and disillusionment.

So, as a new Session member what should you do? 

First, recognize that as a Board the Session is possibly the most unique governing body in all of the organizational world. Its blending of spiritual and organizational leadership is another picture of the incarnation at work in our world. Here God unites a diverse group of men and women as a spiritual communion whose responsibilities are the most mundane tasks of budgets, planning and personnel management. 

Second, recognize that whatever the experience and expertise you bring to your service that it is somewhat incomplete.  Whatever you have experienced during your life is not exact match to your service as an elder. What this requires of all of us is the humility to see that our calling is to be used by Christ as a leader regardless of our background.

Third, recognize that as a spiritual leader of a congregation, your calling is to be a servant.  This service requires you to listen, pray, reflect and discern what it is that God is doing at any specific moment. For people who have experienced service on a non-profit Board, this may well be a total departure from what they are used to.

Finally, many of the issues and decisions that confront the Session are business issues. How you handle personnel issues and how you manage the church’s financial resources are just two. These are very tangible business responsibilities that require clear thinking by the Session. As a result, this spiritual approach to the business leadership of a congregation requires a type of spiritual governance rarely seen outside the church.

The next two postings will consider two other areas of elder responsibility. We’ll look at the influence our Ideas have as leaders, and then, consider how to nurture our Relationships as members of a Session.

Respect and Servant Leadership

My latest Real Life Leadership column is now online.

The topic is the place of respect in leadership, and how it is essential to servant leadership.

Servant Leadership

I was just recently introduced to John Sullivan, a retired Marine and business prof at Montreat College. John has done some intensive study in the nature of servant leadership. 

Lately, John has been working in east Africa with pastors to help develop their ability to better serve their congregations.  It is fascinating to hear him talk about this cross-cultural leadership experience.

My impression is that John has taken the concept of servant leadership as formulated by Robert Greenleaf and brought not only a more definitive biblical/theological dimension to it, but also a more systematic approach to incorporating it into the leadership function of organizations.

John has written a book, Servant First! Leadership for the New Millenium, that both analyzes Greenleaf's perspective and outlines servant leadership as identified in the life, ministry and relationships of Jesus Christ.  It is an ideal book for pastors and Sessions to use to discuss the nature of their relationship as leaders, and as leaders to their congregation.

I personally have been a believer in the servant leadership ideal since the 1980s. However, I felt that most of what passed for theory in servant leadership circles lacked something.  It had the right perspective, but it wasn't rigourous enough.  It was too limited to just an attitude of the leader, instead of how the leader organizes his or her work, team and organization.

I sat the other day and asked John his thoughts about servant leadership.  In particular, I asked him whether a servant leadership could be the basis for the structural design of a business or a church.  He felt that it could and pointed me to the example of Christ as a leader.  I felt that the conversation about systematizing servant leadership throughout an organization is one we will continue to have. 

From my perspective, my systematiztion, I mean that the organizational structure, the roles and responsibilities of the board, the executive leadership, the staff, volunteers are defined and measured according to this philosophy. 

Measurement of servant leadership is what I want to see.  How do you measure it?  I don't know.  But I want to know and believe that John Sullivan is going to help come to understand how.  Stand tuned to this blog to see where this conversation goes.

Finally, John offers seminars for groups, especially churches.  I recommend that you allow him to help your leadership team learn how to be servants first and leaders second.