MINISTRY IS NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART
Clergy are called to proclaim a Gospel that challenges many cultural values and risks tension among the membership. The church and the clergy want unity, yet most clergy are challenged by truth they hear in the Gospel. The stress of ministry increases daily and the thought of adding racism to the mix can be viewed with natural hesitancy.
MY STORY
I often don’t know it at the time, but as I reflect back, I feel called by significant events in my life. My senior year in college, intending to enter seminary the next year, I felt attracted to the recently formed Peace Corps and spent two years living among the poor in the barrios of Peru. My last year in Seminary, fully intending to serve a church in the inner-city, a lecture by the radical Stokely Carmichael again altered my journey. If I wanted to address racism, he said, don’t do it in the ghetto but go into the suburbs where racism gets its power. That set off a 50-year journey serving three predominantly Caucasian churches exploring how to address racism in our society. I draw upon that fifty years and my desire to keep a silent commitment to Stokely Carmichael to address racism in our church and society. I offer lessons I learned to support my courageous colleagues who continue to serve as pastors in a challenging era of ministry.
BEGINNING WITH THE FAITH OF YOUR MEMBERSHIP
What I offer is a nine-module series drawn from my experience to provide concrete steps for any clergy person who desires to integrate anti-racism ministry into the spiritual leadership of the church. A key aspect of this strategy is that it seeks identify ways to draw upon member’s faith beliefs to build an understanding of the church’s calling to ministry in this area. Using the internet and church gatherings, the spiritual leadership draws upon basic Christian doctrines—Love your neighbor, Thy Kingdom come on earth, blessed are the peacemakers–to both build a strategy and encourage the membership to live their faith and grow spiritually in the process.
MY OFFER TO YOU
If you are interested in exploring this possibility for your ministry, provide me your email address below and I will send you without obligation a pdf describing the strategy more completely and an opportunity for a risk-free phone call with me to explore whether the lessons I learned can support and strengthen ministry in your church.
If interested I will provide you with eight modules suggesting steps on how to implement the strategy in your church. I will also offer an hour of consultation with you and your church leadership to answer any questions raised by the modules and how to adjust the strategy for your particular church.
CONTACT ME AT STEVE@SMCCUTCHAN.COM
