The power of yes and no

published on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 by jbjames@duke.edu

Here is an Advent reflection for this week, by our friend and office-neighbor Bill Lamar at Faith & Leadership.

A preview:

Joseph was going to call the whole thing off. He was going to do the noble thing, the honorable thing. He would let Mary go quietly, without blogging about her condition. He would do his best to save face and salvage their reputations. But apparently, Joseph’s rational decision-making process was not enough for God....

Theologically, it is fair to say that God partners with humans in the economy of salvation. But when special circumstances present themselves, as in the birth and protection of God Incarnate, God goes the extra mile. More than likely Joseph would have done the “right” thing. He would have spared Mary disgrace. But God wanted him to do more than the right thing. God wanted him to be, in the words of Pope John Paul II, the Redemptoris Custos, the Guardian of the Redeemer. And in Matthew’s Gospel God seems to be more Augustinian than Pelagian. Humans need divine aid to live into our vocations. We need grace to live as God would have us to live and to do what God would have us to do. So through a dream, God injects a little stimulus into the economy of salvation.

Read the whole thing.

Shalom y'all,

John

 

John James, M.A.

Research Analyst, Clergy Health Initiative

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Connecting Self-Care to Ministry

published on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 by jbjames@duke.edu

Last week, Faith & Leadership published an article by Mark Miller-McLemore about clergy sabbaticals.  The writer identifies a number of downsides for the congregation and staff who must hold down the fort while the senior pastor is away.  The purpose of the article is not to urge against sabbaticals, but to point out some pitfalls that should be kept in mind when a pastor plans for a sabbatical. 

Most United Methodist churches in North Carolina are of modest size and lean budget, especially in our present economic climate.  So I assume that for the majority of our pastors (UMs in NC), a sabbatical is not a realistic possibility. *

Despite that, Dr. Miller-McLemore makes some observations that are broadly relevant to all congregational leaders and particularly to the Duke Clergy Health Initiative.  One is that the priestly role has real symbolic power, and members of a Christian community feel the absence of the pastor deeply, even fearfully.  (This blog will have something more to say about pastoral presence in a couple of days.)  Let us acknowledge that it is a different thing for a pastor to be away from the church for an extended time than for the head of a business or secular organization to be away from the office.

In discussing a pastor's laying the groundwork for a planned sabbatical, Miller-McLemore writes:

The increasing prevalence of pastoral sabbatical in an era that stresses “clergy self-care” may have led some new pastors to think of it as something all pastors deserve and should expect. But it must have a larger purpose. To be worthwhile of congregational support, a sabbatical ought to connect explicitly with the ministry to which the pastor will return. Otherwise, sabbatical risks seeming like an extended paid vacation.



For those of you enrolled in Spirited Life and assigned to Group 1, we are currently asking you to commit to a three-day retreat in early 2011.  We realize this is not an easy or simple request.  We understand that your calendars are crowded, your people covet your presence, and that for many of you, the normal mode of life involves a high degree of flexibility in your schedule.  To step away from your parish for three solid days and to turn your mobile phone off (at least for part of the time) is a tall order.  And Spirited Life will make other claims on your time: there will be other retreats, meetings with your Wellness Advocate, participation in planned wellness activities.

Self-care, in the view of some at least, is a buzzword that has permeated the church, crossing over from the business world.  Mutual care or covenant care might be better terms for our work.  But leave aside for a moment that semantic difference, or whether you choose to join Spirited Life or follow some other plan for improving your health and wellness.  If you feel the need (as most clergy do) to do some work on yourself away and apart from the local church, you should feel free and empowered to assert that need.  But to varying degrees depending on your congregation, you will be called on to narrate that need and even persuade your people of its urgency.

For Spirited Life participants signing up for a retreat: At the risk of stating the obvious, consider an appropriate way to offer a sincere "thank you" to the congregation for the gift of time and space.  (In the sabbaticals article, Miller-McLemore describes ways the pastor's path of personal renewal can be celebrated during a worship service.)  Also, be prepared to articulate ways in which your enhanced health or better life balance will lead to more fruitful ministry and an deeper life of faith for you and the community you lead.

* I do know of United Methodist pastors in our conferences who have received sabbaticals.  So it is not unheard of, and there is a growing list of resources available for clergy sabbaticals, notably a program of sabbatical grants offered by the Louisville Institute.  If you have questions or thoughts on the topic of sabbaticals, let us hear from you.


Shalom y'all,

John

John James, M.A.
Reseach Analyst
Clergy Health Initiative

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The Incarnation of Excellence

published on Friday, December 10, 2010 by jbjames@duke.edu

By Kenneth Carder

Defining excellence in ministry remains a challenge. Some people suggest that the term excellence carries so much class and cultural baggage that an alternative descriptive word or phrase should be used.  Faithful, fruitful, and effective seem to be the most frequently suggested substitutes.

I confess my own ambivalence with using a term that easily slips into elitism and Pelagianism or works righteousness. The term has roots in the Greek virtue tradition, which carries considerable class and gender connotation. For example, virtue was possible only for the privileged class. Wrestling excellence from its elitist roots as a mark of superior human achievement remains a formidable challenge for ministers of the Gospel. 

But alternative descriptive terms also carry baggage. Faithful, fruitful, effective have their limitations. Faithful to what? What fruits? Effective at what? Ambiguity and cultural bias accompany such terms as surely as the term excellence.

Descriptive terms are modifiers, and care must be taken that we not give so much attention to the modifier that we ignore the subject being described. When severed from ministry (more precisely, Christian ministry) excellence becomes a “dangling modifier” without firm attachment to the reality which gives it meaning.

Excellent Christian ministry is a person, not a theological or ecclesiological abstraction. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of authentic excellence, the love and power of God to reconcile and transform persons, communities, and the entire creation. When defined by the Incarnation, excellence is stripped of its cultural and class baggage as popular images of success, elitism, and control are turned up-side-down.

The One who is the incarnation of excellence was born of a young peasant girl among the homeless in a cattle stall. He spent his first months as an immigrant fleeing the barbarism of a political despot. He grew up in a working class family and associated with the marginalized and despised. He was executed as a criminal among other criminals, buried in a borrowed grave.  He never wrote a book or managed an institution or won an award.

Jesus, the incarnation of excellence, proclaimed and embodied God’s reign of compassion, justice, generosity, and joy. He loved the unlovable, reconciled the alienated, freed the captive, comforted the grieving, forgave the guilty, healed the diseased, welcomed the outcasts. In his presence, the last were affirmed as the winners and the least were applauded as the greatest.

In Christmas we celebrate God’s excellence made flesh in Jesus Christ. And the appropriate response to the Excellence-Made-Flesh is being an extension of the Incarnation, the love and power of God becoming flesh in us.

In the Clergy Health Initiative and Spirited Life, excellence is not an abstract concept or dangling modifier. It is a person, supremely Jesus of Nazareth.

Perhaps during this Advent and Christmas Season, we should put aside abstract definitions of excellence in ministry and give thanks for the persons who embody God’s love, presence, and power, persons who bear the marks of the One whose coming we anticipate and celebrate.

Kenneth L. Carder is the Williams Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School.. He was bishop of the Mississippi Area of the United Methodist Church from 2000 to 2004 and the Nashville Area of the UMC from 1992 to 2000.

(This article was adapted from a version originally published in the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Newsletter, December 2006/January 2007 issue)

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