The same research of Presbyterian pastors that I mentioned yesterday reports these findings with respect to the challenge of our call.
One in five respondents report that, in the previous two years, they “very seriously” or “seriously” considered leaving parish ministry for another type of ministry (22%), and one in seven (13%) reported that they “very seriously” or “seriously” considered leaving the ordained ministry entirely.
At the same time, it was reported that:
Most respondents (84%) would encourage someone who had come to them for advice to consider pastoral ministry, but most of them would do so only if the person felt strongly called to ministry (63% overall).
The fact that 22% seriously considered leaving the parish ministry in the last two years and 13% considered leaving the ordained ministry entirely suggests the serious stress of the practice of ministry in our present day churches. Our ambivalence about the power of God’s call to ministry is suggested in the parallel response that 84% would encourage someone who sensed a call from God but most of those, 63%, would want to make sure that the sense of call was powerful in that person’s life. That seems wise to me because from our own experience, we know that it is not an easy road to travel.
As we reach out to our colleagues, I think we need to recognize that our “calls” do change and that for some it might be right to leave the pastorate or even ordained ministry but that doing so does not invalidate what they have already done. In Presbyterian lingo, we speak of all members of a congregation being ministers, and that certainly can include those clergy who have chosen other paths to respond to God in their lives. They need to be affirmed.
At the same time, I think we need to rethink how we articulate the “nobleness” of the call. Sometimes we get ground down by the minutia of everyday ministry and lose touch with the significance of what we do. What does it mean to be “called” by God to serve God in the midst of the ordinary?
After 20 years of active pastoral ministry in the NC Conference of the UMC along with many conference and district responsibilities, I went on incapacity leave due to health problems that disabled me.
I struggled for a while with the whole idea of call, ordination, disability, and ministry. With the help of a leader in a clergy crisis ministry, I came to several conclusions.
1. The Call to ministry is dynamic not static.
2. Ordination like Christian baptism is a constant which helps us hold to our identity as Christians and as ordained ministers.
3. Though no longer able to serve effectively as a pastor, one still has gifts and graces for ministry very often in unique ways that were not there before.
4. Unless these issues are worked through one can totally loose touch with what it means to be “called” by God and ordained by the church to serve God and minster to others in the midst of the very ordinary life of being on disability.
I could go on and unpack this further from both my experience and my sister-in-laws, but doing so would involve a full article instead of a comment.
John: I’d actually be interested in you going on for more comments. As I have commented in previous blogs, I think the issue of the call needs to be explored with more depth. The Presbyterian Pastoral Care Network, http://www.pastoralcarenetwork.org for whom I write material has developed a Toolbox of ways that clergy can be supported. In an addendum that I am currently working on, I’ve developed several ways that not only the clergy but the congregation and governing bodies can both nurture the sense of call and be open to the dynamic qualities of which you speak. Let me hear more.
Rev. McCutchan,
Thanks for requesting my going on with more comments.
John
During my second year in college God called me into full time ministry back in 1977. I graduated from East Carolina University with a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in History in 1979 and received my Master of Divinity in 1983 from Asbury Theological Seminary. From June of 1983 until June of 2003, I was a pastor of various United Methodist Churches in eastern North Carolina. I never dreamed ending up on incapacity leave in June of 2003. Due to being diagnosed with major depression and bipolar II plus post pastoral traumatic stress syndrome, I was no longer able to function in pastoral ministry or other full time work.
The surprising facts are that the chances of becoming disabled are higher than most of us think. Studies show that a 20 year old worker has a 3 in 10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age.
Reaching retirement age for clergy is a process that many denominations have some degree of support and preparation for the transition. This is sadly missing for us on incapacity leave who too often are left on our own to find our own support to help us. The professional and personal transition for being an active ordained minister involved in pastoral ministry along with conference and district roles is quite a an experience that has taken some time to adjust to.
Also in June of 2003, Second Life, a virtual world developed by Linden Lab launched on June 23, 2003 and became accessible via the Internet. With my first life and ministry over with, I’ve been working with a healing process to discover my second life and second call to ministry.
Thus, I offer the following as suggestions for traveling the path of transition and supporting ordained clergy in this painful and stressful process.
First it is very important to wrap your head around the idea that These such a dramatic change in the seasons of one’s ministry do not mean we have failed. Instead it means the end of a particular season of ministry. Thus the kind of ministry we do changes after a season of healing. For the past seven years, I’ve been working my way through a healing process to discover my second life and second ministry within the context of major changes in my health.
Who would have ever thought that I would complete a 14 year old goal of earning a D. Min. focused on Church Health in 2001 and then my own health fail. However, God has helped me take what I learned to help others both with church as well as clergy health concerns along with mental health issues.
Second, the transition journey on incapacity means working through many things including core identity issues related to call, ordination, and ministry. With the help of various online clergy crisis ministry friends, God helped me to see that actually our calling as well as arena of ministry are dynamic while ordination like baptism remains a constant. Thus, I’m able to introduce myself as Rev. ___ and if people ask about my ministry I tell them it is in a different arena than being the pastor of a local church.
Third, it is a transition needing a revisiting of one’s call.
It is very easy to fall into the mindset that one’s call to ministry and ordination as an Elder in the Church as well as full membership in an annual conference of the UMC is only still valid if one is still a pastor of a church. Thus, as I have discussed with others like myself, it is very easy to see oneself as invalid. My sister in law is an ordained UM minister on incapacity as a cancer survivor. She’s told me how invalidated she feels when someone introduces her as Debra Watson who used to be a pastor. We can far too easily see an invalid as someone who is invalid as a person and that is dead wrong. Both words are spelled the same and the only difference is how you say invalid or invalid.
Fourth. one’s call to ministry and ordination to ministry is both a foundation and something constant that can be remembered much like we remember trusting Christ and our Christian baptism.
Fifth, what is not constant is the focus of one’s call and ordination. The healthiest way I’ve found to view your calling within the general call to full time ministry is dynamic and can as well as often does change.
Sixth, if we don’t see our call to ministry as dynamic it is all too easy to feel very ambiguous, confused, lost and yes sometimes even abandoned clerically speaking. Debra once told me about a book by a lady who was disabled and said that for some disabled people being an invalid meant feeling invalidated. How interesting it is that both words are spelled the same and the only difference is how you say invalid or invalid.
Seventh, a dynamic understanding of one’s calling as dynamic is helpful for working past feeling invalidated. Being stuck is seen by always speaking of oneself in terms of what they use to do or don’t do or can’t do anymore.
Such a state of being stuck results in a an ever growing darker deep sense of feeling cut off intensified by the reality of no longer being an active pastor or being in retirement which can express itself in an emotional cutoff in reaction as seen in extreme anger, bitterness as well as other expressions of intense pain one chooses to wear it like a badge of honor instead of something in which God can season us by helping us to work through it. Bitter or Better, the choice is ever before us. As someone once said, those who cease to feel, cease to learn because the numb become dumb.
Eighth It has taken some time to make a transition myself to where I will tell people, yes I’m an ordained minister but with a different ministry than what pastors do. This has been helpful to my boys in telling their teen friends what their dad does. It has been a tough transition not only for their mother to become fully disabled but also for me given how much of a rock that they have seen me as in their lives.
Ninth, we are what we call ourselves.
I traveled with a fellow clergyman who is also on incapacity. We went to his hometown in West Virginia to tend to some of his mother’s business. I notice that everyone that he called whom he did not already know and everyone he introduced himself to was the same. He always said, “Hello, I’m Rev. Lon Miller” and every time he introduced me to someone it was always “this is Rev. John Crowe.” I think he has been able to maintain something that I can learn from and use. That is a continuing practice of communicating a sense of professional and personal identity as someone who continues as an ordained Elder in the UMC but not an active pastor. Retired pastors are still referred to as Rev. ___ and retired medical doctors are still called Dr. ___. However, I’m not sure of those with academic degrees for they are usually called doctor in a school of higher education. Maybe by practicing this habit of Lon’s will help me feel better about myself and communicate myself better to others.
I shared this with another clergy friend of mine on incapacity leave. His response is very insightful.
“Something for me to think about too, perhaps. From almost the time I went on incapacity leave. I’ve not introduced myself either as Rev. I don’t think it’s shame, except maybe self-shame at feeling the need to explain myself and “what happened.” But I know I really don’t have to explain anything. Perhaps referring to myself as Reverend would be healthy for me as well.”
As a martial artist in Korean Karate, I’ve learned something of the importance of respect and using the correct title as being part of that emphasis on being respectful. Generally speaking, if you say hello to a Korean over 50ty years old, it’s like they are back home and the traditional respectful reply kicks in. If you ever run across a fully traditional Korean person, the importance they put on being respectful towards you can feel a bit over whelming but good, as well as rather motivating to being respectful as well. American clergy and laity would all be much healthier if we valued being respectful toward each other as much as traditional Korean culture and Korean churches do.
We ordained clergy have gone too far with our informality to the extent that some clergy do not want to be called Rev. ….but just ____. This posture assumes an unrealistic familiarity; expresses a lack of healthy boundaries; and opens the door for a co-dependent ministry style in which the pastor becomes the UMW mascot. Frankly, I like the word pastor better than Reverend because it is a Biblical word.
10th. While we might not ask someone to call us Rev., Dr. or Pastor, it is healthy for clergy transitioning from one season of ministry to another to remember you are an ordained elder in a new season of ministry that God is calling you too step by step. Also, in this new season of ministry, you still carry the personal as well as professional identity as one ordained into full time ministry and thus still have the privilege of introducing yourself to others as Rev. ____.
Today, we have the new opportunity to view cyberspace as our parish. Well, technically we are surfing not riding in cyberspace, all the while sitting instead of standing like those who surf the waves of the ocean. Instead, we sit and surf the waves of the internet with the pressing of our keyboards and clicking of our mouse.
So clickity, press we go in ministry to people we often do not know, in places we have never been before and probably never will on this side of heaven.
For clergy on incapacity like myself, cyberspace is my venue of ministry. Some of this has involved doing some teaching in an online support group for caregivers of aging parents.
Also, I am very concerned about clergy health, church health and mental health. The free time I have now gives me the liberty to write articles that relate to these issues in less academic ways than my dissertation.
I’ve spent hours creating a Clergy Triage/ER page which gives information and links to clergy ministries by state in the US and some outside of it. I check these links and add new ones when I discover a new ministry. I’ve been told by some ministry to clergy group leaders that I have created the most comprehensive list online and they refer people to my list when they are out of their geographic area.
My new ministry has involved helping NAMI NC with their faith communities page which other NAMIs have either linked to or copied.
It’s also meant maintaining the NC UMC Annual Conference mental health page. I’m most excited about being selected to serve on the clergy advisory committee for the Duke Clergy Health initiative.
I’m very proud of my cancer surviving sister-in-law, Rev. Debra Watson. She now has a humor ministry “Merry Makers” and I’ve posted many of her cartoons online.
The First Year Pastor
http://nccmentalhealth.org/pastorhumor.htm
Sick Humor (in light of her battle with cancer)
http://nccmentalhealth.org/sickhumor.htm