Tag: Itinerancy
4 Top Ten Things About Being A Pastor: #1
Okay, so some of you give me crap about always being snarky, sarcastic and cynical. So, I thought I’d do a decidedly uncynical series of posts: Top Ten Things About Being A Pastor.
#1: Grace Happens
Before I graduated from Princeton, Dr Robert Dyksta, my theological Jedi master, lamented that I was about to serve in a denomination whose system of appointing pastors ‘contradicts everything we know about psychology.’
I asked what he meant and he replied by explaining how it’s a given that people in congregations wear masks, keep up pretenses and are reluctant to let others see what’s behind the curtain of the self they show others.
He then offered me this wisdom: ‘If you’re going to stay a Methodist, then you should tell your bishop you’ll serve wherever they send you so long as they’re willing to leave you there for at least seven years. It takes that long for people to reveal who they are behind their masks, warts and all.’
In other words, it takes time and patience to see notice grace at work in people’s lives.
But seen it I have and that, by a long shot and then some, is the best thing about ministry.
I could tell you about the woman whom I’ve known these past 7 1/2 years, who seems a completely different person these last few years than the one I knew the previous years. To be honest, our relationship back then was often marked by mutual frustration. Today I think of her as something of a cross between a friend and a surrogate grandmother. What accounts for the change in her? She credits it with a spiritual discipline she started practicing a couple of years ago, intentionally praying the shema every day and daily committing herself to loving Christ and through him, others.
Grace has changed her.
Maybe that doesn’t strike you as a Road to Damascus type of story but it’s real and it’s just one example of many I could give.
I could tell you about the woman who, having been cared for tenderly by a black nurse, at the end of her life confessed and repented of her racism.
I could tell you about husbands and wives who, after much painful work, have forgiven one another of adultery, abuse, addiction. You name it.
I could tell you about prodigals who’ve come home, mothers and fathers who’ve worked at welcoming them and elder brothers who’ve looked themselves in the mirror to finally confront the nasty self-righteousness in them.
I could tell you about people who’ve come to faith by dirtying their hands serving the poor, and I can tell you about individuals who’ve given over hundreds of thousands of dollars for the poor because God Christ has been generous to them.
I could tell you about people who’ve lost a child.
And lost their faith.
And found it again.
Even then I’d only be scratching the surface of what I could tell you.
Not only was Dr Dykstra right. His point has turned out to be the best thing about being a pastor. If you give it time, you get to see.
I can’t prove God exists, and there are those dark days and dark moods when I wrestle with my doubts and fear I’ve given my life to a fool’s errand.
But what I can prove, what I can point to and say ‘See, there it is,’ what I know without ever a day of doubt, is that grace is real.
It happens.
1 Is the United Methodist System of Sending Pastors Wrong?
Spoiler Alert: If you presently have appointment authority over me or anticipate having that authority in the future, you can stop reading now.
In one way, denominations are all the same.
We all have our our special coded language we use to describe and organize ourselves. In the United Methodist Church we tend toward boringly secular-sounding words like ‘conference’ and ‘superintendent’ and ‘itinerancy.’
Itinerancy refers to the United Methodist system of a resident bishop choosing the pastor for the congregation versus, say a Baptist church, that chooses its own pastor. Up until the very recent past, and still not the case everywhere, such appointments lasted only 3-5 years before the pastor would be moved on to another parish. Pastors, then, are treated almost like interchangeable parts.
The practice of itinerancy had very specific geographic and historic reasons for its inception. It was the best missional means for the church to follow the growth of the population across the western frontier. It was also a practice that presumed the congregation and its community were stable and it was the pastor who was transient, hence ‘itinerant.’
More recently, the system of itinerancy has allowed Methodist bishops to make ‘prophetic’ appointments to congregations; that is, itinerancy empowers bishops to appoint female and minority pastors to congregations that might otherwise resist such clergy. This, I believe, has been a good thing for the Church.
Today, itinerancy is a major hoop through which aspiring clergy must jump. To be ordained, clergy must articulate the theology of itinerancy, agree with it, pay lip service to it and vow to submit to it. As a young ordinand I jumped through said hoops better than most and passed with flying colors. And I wasn’t lying. But now I’ve got some questions.
I’m not suggesting that itinerancy is stupid or antiquated. Nor am I even really complaining about it.
I am suggesting, however, that when we treat itinerancy as theologically sacrosanct, when in fact it was a contextually necessitated process, we miss something.
So here’s my pushback:
When I was at Princeton Seminary, Dr Robert Dykstra, my Yoda, offered me this advice:
‘You should insist on being appointed anywhere so long as you had the guarantee you could stay there for at least 5 years. It takes at least that long for people’s pretenses to die and for the curtain to be drawn back from their lives. After that happens, you can do real ministry together.’
I had no idea at the time whether it was good advice or not. After all, he wasn’t even a Methodist.
I’ve now been at Aldersgate for 7 years. It hardly seems that long, but this summer a couple of things have struck me.
This July, on a mission team in Guatemala, I spent several days laying mortar with Laura Paige Mertins. LP was a sixth grade confirmation student when I first came to Aldersgate and now she’s about to start her freshman year at JMU. I’ve watched LP grow into a remarkable young adult with a faith more mature and grounded than many 3x her age.
What’s more, for the purposes of my argument, LP feels comfortable asking me anything when it comes to the faith and I feel comfortable answering, knowing that she trusts what I’ll offer. While I attribute much of her abundant faith to her family and the church, I also know, without being egotistical, that some part of her faith/worldview is my doing and it’s only been possible because of a relationship that’s been built over time.
She’s but an example. I’ve been at Aldersgate long enough now to know whose marriages aren’t as strong as they seem and whose marriages are even better than they appear. I know who’s struggling with issues of addiction or sexual identity. I know who’s lost their faith and who’s made a major leap in their relationship with God.
In 7 years, I’ve confirmed something like 350 kids in the community, and this fall the congregation is actually letting me try out a children’s program based on the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus of all things should point out how after 7 years the congregation and folks in the community trust me, and I trust them. We both know each other’s strengths and not-so strengths. It’s time and relationships, I think, that allows us to take the leap from being directors of programs to actual pastors.
I normally hate it when pastors say ministry is all about relationships. That’s usually code, I think, for laziness or ineffectiveness. I’m not suggesting ministry is all about relationships. It is about relationships though. I’m suggesting that having an appointment process that operates as though relationships- and the trust engendered by them- mattered not at all may be missing something.
I didn’t mention any of this when they interviewed me for ordination and asked me about itinerancy. Not because I was holding back or hiding my thoughts but because it’s only now, with enough time in one place under my belt, that I appreciate Dr. Dykstra’s wisdom.