In my forty years of ministry, I can’t remember when a member of the presbytery staff called me simply to inquire how I was doing. While there are many ways to demonstrate care and compassion, I want to suggest a simple act that I think could make clergy feel more cared for and would help the judicatory staff have a better finger on the pulse of the ministers under their care.
First step: Find a detail person, perhaps a lay person or a clergy of a small church and ask them to help you. What they are to do is to create a chart of all the clergy in the presbytery with the following information. Name, including any preferred nick name; office, cell, and home phone number, date of ordination, and date of installation if they are an active pastor. Include a notation of the number of years since ordination and installation. Also note their day off.
Second, create a chart with that information on a calendar according to the day chosen by the judicatory staff. That staff member is to set aside a half-hour to forty-five minutes once a week to call the person designated for that day. The call is a friendly word of appreciation for the person’s ministry; inquiry of how they are doing; when appropriate recognition of an anniversary; and the question, “If there is one thing you would like presbytery to be aware of about you, your family, or your ministry, what would it be?”
The chart should be arranged so that different staff people are not doubling up on the same clergy, should include associates as well as pastors, include special clergy and retired clergy. Allowing for vacations, etc, that would mean that each person is talking to about 45 clergy in a year. It would allow for some strengthening of relationships and an alertness to any significant wave of feeling sweeping the presbytery. Wouldn’t that be worth 30 minutes a week?
Steve – This is so needed! I like your ideas for structuring it into the judicatory’s “to-do” list. While active UCC pastors meet with the Church and Ministry committee of our association every 2-3 years for a “check-in” — that’s an awfully long span of time to receive no inquiry into how you’re doing. We heard from a former UCC pastor who spoke at an association meetings, who’d served a pastorate in the SW during a time of great personal upheaval and stress. She was quite active in the life of the judicatory as well — she left the UCC and the ministry . . . in all those years not one peer or higher up thought to ask how she and her family were faring! My sense was that she ditched her Christian faith altogether as a result.
Sue: Thanks for sharing this. I’m of the opinion that we need to build that sense of community even with those who are doing well in their work. Hopefully well before the crisis occurs, or even if it never does, the conversations will be natural. I know judicatory staff are increasingly overwhelmed as well, but 30 minutes a week might even be of help to them.
Steve, Thanks for following my blog. And, thank you for this great idea. I was in an interim (ABC/USA) recently and after almost 7 months I called the exec to ask if he would be interested in knowing what was happening in this church that had quite a history of wounding. He said, “yes, I was waiting for you to call me because I wait to be invited for a conversation”. I was floored. And he also wondered why the church didn’t trust him. Really? They didn’t know him and he didn’t show any interest in getting to know them. Luckily, we were able to establish a regular contact schedule initiated by the church. Sigh…Keep up the good work. Nancy
Thanks, Nancy. With all the downsizing going on in denominations, it’s easy for those remaining to feel overwhelmed and begin to just focus on the immediate demands and not attend to what is important. One of the time management lessons is to separate out the important from the immediate. However, because they feel overwhelmed, it would be good if pastors found ways of complimenting and affirming the good things our judicatory people do as well. Like all humans, it is easy for them to feel very lonely as well. Any of us can take the first step towards building community. Hope your Easter is blessed.