It is amazing what you can learn when shut up and listen.
In the Spring of this year I invited 10 pastors to be part of a pilot peer learning community. Using an Appreciative Inquiry model, we set sail on a journey that has been truly remarkable. I have learned a tremendous amount from this group of beloved colleagues over the past seven times we have met together. Some of my learnings are about the layers of crap that enshroud our congregational pastors. These layers wear them down and out. They insulate our pastors from the wellspring of God’s Spirit from which they are to draw their source of energy, inspiration and enthusiasm for ministry. These layers create multiple disconnects from the all the places pastors find renewal, support, and insight for doing their vital work. Trying to do ministry in the 21st century context in North America is extremely difficult work. Our pastors are weighed down by the burden of mid-20th century expectations for being church in today’s context and the blame of not being able to successfully deliver this misguided notion to the people they serve.
Our pastors are attacked by a hostile culture, a fear-riddled constituency, families demanding their fair share of time and a constantly changing understanding about how to do effective ministry in time such as this. It is very difficult to do effective ministry today.
Our clergy peer learning community was created to give pastors a safe place where they would be invited to burrow through the layers of crap and tap the true core of their spirit; to get to that place deep within where their spirits and God’s Spirit intersect in ways that first inspired and empowered their calls to ministry and, now, longs to inspire and empower their ministries in new contexts. Our journey to-date has been like drilling for water, living water, if you will, that has longed to be set free to refresh the pastor and people he or she serves.
Well, praise be to God, the living water is flowing and wow is it refreshing!
Through attrition our group of 10 is now down to six. One withdrew early on. One had life and church issues that always got in the way. Two accepted a call to another region. Those remaining faithful have become “founts of blessing.”
Yesterday, we spent time doing lectio divina on Philippians 2:1-5. The passage that became the focus of our conversation was “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” Leading up to that discussion we spent time talking about the power of stories and how we need to find ways to truly listen to each other’s stories and discover how God is already at work within us. When the conversation shifted to the passage just noted one of the pastors stated that congregational pastors are the “keepers” of the peoples’ stories in the congregations they serve. And, to be the keeper of the stories require you to find time and ways to learn the stories of your people. In essence, the pastor is to allow the same minds of the people to be in her or him. Not equivalent to, but kept in. She went to suggest that Jesus is the keeper of all of our stories and knowing that may explain what Paul had in mind when he said that we are to have the same mind in us that is in Christ Jesus. My story is kept in the mind (memory?) of Jesus. It is in the mind of Christ where our stories become one – my story with Jesus’ story – my story with the stories of those kept in the mind of Christ.
I think this is a brilliant insight. I will be spending a lot more time reflecting on that image all the while giving thanks that I could drink once more from the “fount of blessing” of these treasured colleagues.
