Over the next month I will be packing, selling my house, and moving from North Carolina to Westminster Shores in St. Petersburg, FL. Therefore, I will be reducing the frequency of my blogs over the next month or so to one a week. Once I get settled in, I will try to resume blogging, at least twice a week.
We have been exploring over the last several blogs the use of my three volumes of Clergy Tales–Tails as a basis for discussion in a clergy group. You can access these books and several other resources for care of clergy at my website, www.smccutchan.com . By the way, this website has been newly redesigned by my friend, Ben Morgan. I would be interested in any comments that you might have.
I am working on a series of small books in what I call Healthy Clergy Make Healthy Congregations series. The first of these books will be A Company of Pastors, which will include lots of the material in the last several weeks of blogs. This should be out by this summer.
In addition to drawing on the clergy Tales–Tails series, I will also make use of issues raised in my mystery novel, A Star and A Tear.amzn.to/1aTDdgs One of the issues confronted in that novel is the issue of the erosion of trust that has occurred both in our society and in our churches.
Below are some of the questions around that issue that the novel raises.
THE EROSION OF TRUST IN THE CHURCH
In Chapter 2, page 20, Bob Godwin speaks of the impact of church scandals on the ministry. “Any scandal connected with religion served to confirm society’s cynicism, and that made his work more difficult.”
Later in Chapter 20, page 243, Frank says, “It used to be that both believer and nonbeliever readily entrusted the valued members of their family to a pastor, even in the most private of situation ….A lot of that culture of trust has eroded.”
And he raises the question: “How do you minister authentically in an age of suspicion?”
This, to me, is one of the paramount questions for clergy in our current situation. Whether it is with a group or just a good colleague, it is a valuable question to pursue.
For example:
As a group identify some of ways that church scandals, sexual or otherwise, have affected the trust relationship between pastor and congregation. What are some strategies that can help overcome that challenge?
I’ll excerpt some other issues in future blogs.
