I’ve been out for a couple of days but following up on the last blog, let me explore some possible ways that a judicatory official might engage pastors and educators in discussing their call. It is a different dynamic if that is done in a private conversation, a shared conversation with colleagues, or in a public conversation. Each has their value, both for the one sharing and the one hearing. The context I would like to explore today is having that conversation with other colleagues. You can translate into other traditions, but I will use the lingo of Presbyterians.
The General Pesbyter selects three or four pastors to have lunch with him or her. The topic of conversation, it is made clear, is looking at the pressures that affect our understanding of our call. The group is deliberately chosen to reflect at least some theological diversity and each participant is serving a different church. All participants are asked to set aside two hours for the lunch.
The General Presbyter explains that s/he wants to have an informal but intentional conversation with them about their experience of God’s call and how it is experienced in their particular setting. S/he begins by reading the baptism and temptation story from Matthew 3:13-4:11. This combination lays out both Jesus’ experience of call and the temptations that he confronted in living out that call.
With that as a background, invite each person to share their sense of call and some of the current features in their current position that build pressures and or temptation to compromise that call. Begin with each one sharing their experience of call, starting with the General Presbyter. Having heard these stories of call, then invite them to explore some of the pressures and or temptations that they experience that compromises that call. Again, to establish a climate of honesty, it would be good for the General Presbyter to begin that conversation. I’m not sure whether it would be good to have each share their personal struggles or to have them do so as a group. The latter invites a more general exploration of the subject which may be better in such a short period of time.
The third part of the conversation is to share what resources each has discovered that helps strengthen them as they continue to respond to their call and resist the temptations to distort their response as well as accept forgiveness when they feel they have done so. It would seem appropriate to conclude with shared prayer so that each might lift up concern for the others as they join in responding to God’s invitation in their lives.
