NEW WEBINAR: Clergy Care in Uncertain Times
NEW ALBAN ROUNDTABLE WEB-SEMINAR
“Start the New Year Right: Clergy Care in Uncertain Times”
Rochelle Melander: Alban Author, coach, spiritual leader
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern
New Year’s Special Price: $30 - Enroll Here
In these uncertain times, clergy stress, fatigue, and spiritual needs usually take a back seat to managerial and budgetary deliberations and decisions. Why not start the new year right by focusing on clergy wellness and self-care, your own or your pastor’s or priest’s?
Healthy leaders provide healthier leadership for their congregations!
Rochelle Melander is the author of
A Generous Presence: Spiritual Leadership and the Art of Coaching
and The Spiritual Leader’s Guide to Self Care.
Alban’s Response to The Economic Situation
Although we had been paying attention all year to worrying signs about the economy—especially the impact of high gas prices and the collapse of the housing market—we still weren’t sure what to expect when we began to construct our business plans this Fall. Enough uncertainty had been introduced to make us reluctant to continue to claim a growth strategy, and when the liquidity crisis hit the news in mid-September, it became increasingly evident that this would not be a passing concern.
Everyone was suddenly very worried about the economy; we were especially uneasy about its impact on congregations because the crisis hit right in the middle of pledge season.
- How would that impact congregational budgets?
- How would it then impact congregational spending on Alban products and services?
The answer, of course, is not yet known, but it did seem necessary to construct contingency plans and to develop a strategy that it made it clear to congregations that we would be there for them and with them through what could be a difficult time.
It seems important at this time to demonstrate to congregations that we are an adaptive organization that adjusts to changes in the world that affect them. So, the current economic circumstance presents both a challenge and an opportunity.
One challenge is to continue to generate sufficient revenue to allow the institute to continue to pursue its mission with energy.
One opportunity is to demonstrate to congregations that we are not just trying to sell them a programmed approach, but rather that we are an organization that can work with them to address their most pressing issues in new and effective ways.
When the economic situation began to threaten to turn a downturn into a true crisis, we felt that we needed to reach out to our constituents. We expected that they were searching for ways to understand the role they could play in responding to the situation. And we felt that a failure to do so could threaten our relevance to those who look to us for leadership. At the same time, we did not want to do anything to exacerbate a sense of panic. We decided on the following initial actions:
- Focus a series of Alban Weekly newsletters on helpful approaches to congregational leadership in uncertain times. One of these elicited this response from a pastor in Wisconsin: “This was an excellent word in today’s worried times and we will use it as a bulletin insert and the story in our preaching this weekend. I love getting the weekly newsletter. Your organization seems to know just how to assist pastors at every step of the changing journey. Thank you!”
- Knowing that our consultants have a wealth of wisdom to share with leaders, but that their work is often focused on one congregation at a time, we organized a webinar with Alice Mann and Susan Beaumont on “Ministry and Mission in Uncertain Times.” Almost 100 connections (some with more than one person) from around the country heard Alice and Susan share approaches and processes to help congregations remain focused even when they don’t know what is ahead. The cost of the webinar was $25 per connection
- We created a blog at www.AlbanRoundtable.org to allow those who participated in the webinar and others to share with us and each other their concerns and approaches to the circumstances. We offer a collection of relevant resources at the site as well.
- We are creating a downloadable document containing helpful articles from past issues of Congregations to offer more insights (and create some sales).
- We will be offering follow-up webinars in the months to come.
- We are working to create a special issue of Congregations that focused on ministry and mission in uncertain times.
One truth we have recognized in this work is that that many of the congregations with which Alban works were not suddenly thrust by recent events from a position of certainty to one of uncertainty. Many have been dealing with uncertainty for some time. The current circumstances provide for us and them an opportunity to learn from approaches that have been under development for some time.
We invite you to share with us your experiences in the face of the economic situation we all share, especially the ways you have chosen to respond to the shifting needs, resources, and opportunities you face.
Web Event Tomorrow 1 p.m.
Still Time to Sign Up!
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WEB EVENT:
Ministry and Mission in Uncertain Times
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| Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1 PM Eastern Time Join Alban senior consultants Alice Mann and Susan Beaumont and Alban senior staff in a one-hour online conversation about the current climate of general uncertainty and economic stresses and what this means for congregations and their leaders. By enrolling for this event using Alban’s Event Center online, you can watch visuals and hear broadcast audio of the conversation over your Web connection, while submitting text questions to the moderator to enhance the discussion. |
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Who has time to be thoughtful?
I always look forward to autumn — the weather, the trees changing, a new “school” and program year getting underway. And then autumn arrives, and from now until next summer, I suddenly recall, will be one banana peel after another, navigated at breakneck speed. Ready or not, it’s already time to start planning for next year, just when this year is getting underway - budgets, event scheduling, logistical arrangements requiring long lead-times, break over me like a surfer’s nightmare wave.
Just at the time I’m hoping lots of people will become involved in the sort of lifelong educational opportunities that the Alban Institute offers, I rediscover the question that looms over all of us in our leadership roles in congregational life: “Who has time to be thoughtful anymore?” My email inbox level rises inexorably, like a slow-motion tsunami threatening to wash me out to sea. Committee meetings beget more follow-up sub-committee meetings. And these require more emails and conference calls, and … need I go on?
Online or offline, there just isn’t time for the sort of thoughtful deliberations that are essential to continuing learning for leaders in communities of faith.
The thing is, I know that I am in no way unique. And this isn’t a church problem; it’s a larger social and cultural challenge that is indicative of the times we live in.
I’d like to find someone to blame this on. Nicholas Carr this past summer wrote an article for The Atlantic Magazine that proposed one potential culprit, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” It’s really a very thoughtful article about the effect of our learning technologies on the process of learning itself. Carr want us to think about the ways that the availability of an exponentially increasing volume of information encourages us simply to skim the surface, rarely taking the time for thoughtful reading and reflection.
I’m not sure, however, that I can blame my own lack of thoughtfulness on Google. After all, I found Carr’s article by ….. Googling it. In any case, most of what I learn about anymore has at least a tangential connection to Google — it’s how I even find book titles to buy from Amazon to read in all their inky, pulpy tangibility … which I still do, and with regularity. And yet, as I skimmed over Carr’s article, I realized I was one of those people who, hearing the clock ticking over my shoulder, can easily find myself unwilling to maneuver even the 4220 words Carr needed to express his thoughts. Email notifications, as you can well imagine, continue to pop up even as I write.
Maybe, too, it’s the political season, when facts often seem disposable in debates, when emotion and perception and style so often are stand-ins for thoughtful, intelligent, substantive dialogue. I keep waiting, at the end of a 60-second strategically placed TV campaign spot, for the candidate to come on and say, “I’m the person this is talking about and I don’t approve of this ad!”
Obviously, however, all too many of us feel all too often that thoughtfulness is a luxury that our schedules simply no longer permit. It makes me wonder what this is doing to all the older approaches to continuing education for congregational leaders? I fear that even these are more and more frequently prone to getting packaged into shorter formats, full of pithy sound bites, and ending in three, five, or twelve-step action-plans. I wonder what we can do to encourage the kind of learning that needs time, that can’t be reduced to slogans, and that convinces us to hold off on acting precipitously not just until more is known, but until what we know already is more deeply understood? Thoughtfulness is not an excuse for inaction, but an alternative to brinksmanship, which looks good on TV but rarely works out for the best in real life.
Learning is always about more than information, however much we need accurate knowledge about a subject before we start pontificating about it. The deeper kind of learning that is capable of instituting and sustaining creative growth and change in the life of congregations doesn’t just need explanations of how things are, but a deeper, interpretive understanding of how they got that way and the implications of continuing or challenging things in the future.
Google need not be antithetical to thoughtfulness. But it will be, if we can’t learn to make the time to think about all the information we can have at our fingertips. Opportunities for thoughtful, imaginative, and insightful learning are vital, indeed essential, to congregational life if we are to resist the emotion-driven, thoughtless, power-hungry manipulation that gnaws away at the bonds that unite us in our society and our churches, as well.
Vital Congregations as Communities of Practice
What is a vital congregation? Is it simply a community of fervent conviction and shared belief about who we are, where we came from, why we’re here, and the direction the world is going? Or is congregational vitality to be measured by the emotional intensity of worship and songas evidence of God’s Spirit at work?
In my experience, vital congregations are more than a collection of individuals drawn together by similar personal experiences and needs that in turn are expressed through common beliefs or by similar styles of religious life. Vital congregations are communities of practice, where we immerse ourselves in those “patterns of communal action,” that in Craig Dykstra’s words “create openings in our lives where the grace, mercy and presence of God may be made known to us.”1
Far from being a recent innovation, “spiritual practice” is actually one of the oldest ways to describe the formation and nurture of God’s people for faithful living. Sabbath-keeping, for example, is according to the Hebrew Scriptures a practice that helps us to pattern the rhythms of our own lives on the creative rhythms of God at work in the world. Or in the Celtic church of pre-Roman Christianity in England, the practice of leadership by monastic abbots occurred not only through teaching, but even more importantly by means of personal example of the spiritual practices of the monastery. Here monks practiced the habitus, or habits, of life and worship that kept alive the vitality of the Christian way of life during what would be a long, dark age.
When congregations attend to becoming communities of spiritual practice, we learn that faithful living is more than going out and doing what people are taught on Sunday. Rather, during every day of our lives, faithful people are who they are today, because they have long practiced faithful virtues as members of intentional communities of faith.
Becoming an intentional community of spiritual practice involves the reinvigoration of what are really quite traditional ways of faithful life in community. Diana Butler Bass, in her work The Practicing Congregation, categorizes these practices in four broad areas: worship, prayer, moral formation, and life together. In her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, she lists ten spiritual practices that she sees at work in vital congregations today: Hospitality, Discernment, Healing, Contemplation, Testimony, Diversity, Justice, Worship, Reflection, and Beauty. These sorts of practices endure over time and across cultures. What changes are the specific activities by which specific groups of believers embody these practices in different times and places. Spiritual practices are what Yale theologian Paul Holmer once described as “the grammar of faith” in his book of the same name: they give shape and form and meaningful order to the infinite challenges and potentials of life in community as the church.
In my own work with churches and their everyday leaders, I have found that those communities of faith who long to become more vital congregations might well begin by focusing on several essential ways of being intentional communities of practice.
Fundamental to all faithful life in community is the Practice of Discernment, by which I mean discovering who we are in God’s sight—that our primary vocational calling is simply to be the creatures we have been created to be—in relationship, in community, celebrating the goodness of God’s creation. If we are to be able to discern what we are being called to do as God’s people, we must begin by discerning who God has created us to be—our spiritual identities. The desired outcome of the practice of discernment is a renewed appreciation of the lifelong process of spiritual formation through which “who we are” and “what we are called to do” come ever closer together in practices of faithful living.
Intimately connected to the practice of discernment is the central spiritual Practice of Story-Telling. The stories we tell about ourselves and about God have the capacity to shape—or to inhibit—the people we can become and the lives we can lead. Each of us has a way of telling our personal stories that not only expresses who we are willing to say we are in the present, but also influences the shape of who we are capable of becoming tomorrow. For example, when we tell our story as one of challenge and triumph we see different possibilities open to us than when we tell what Alban Senior Consultant Larry Peers describes as “a problem saturated story” of an insurmountable series of failures and frustrations.
In large measure we are the stories we are capable of telling about ourselves. Or put another way, “the stories we tell” tend to become “the reality we are capable of living.” If this is true about the practice of telling our personal stories, it is even more crucial for the practice of telling the stories of God—the Practice of Proclamation. Should it be any surprise that when our stories tell of a God who is perpetually angry and vengeful, our daily life with family, at work, and among fellow parishioners will be different than when we encounter God as full of compassion and slow to anger, and one whose grace is shown in loving us just as we are, however much more we still need to become?
These stories open up, or close off, the very Practice of Hospitality that we envision for congregational life. Are we merely tolerant of those who are strangers or different from us? Or do we attempt to be inclusive? Or can we go further to risk “radical hospitality,”—moving from mere inclusion to what theologian Miroslav Volf calls “embrace,” or what Adelle Frank at the Church of the Bretheren describes as “intentional vulnerability,” which is what Benedictine Sister Joan Chittester means, I think, when she speaks of living “without clenched fists”?
One spiritual practice, as we see, always leads to another, in this case hospitality turning out to be the twin of the Practice of Service. In what my own parish calls “prophetic hospitality,” we not only expect to be changed by those who invite themselves through our doors, but we also have begun to understand that an essential part of this change is our common calling to go with our new neighbors and friends back out of those same doors to participate together in God’s redemptive transformation of the world.
So Discernment has led us to Story-Telling, and then to Proclamation, and on to Radical Hospitality and now to Transformative Service. But it does not end there. Service requires the Practice of Stewardship, which depends on the Practice of Generosity. The more we live out our congregational life as intentional communities of practice, the more vital our congregations become, and the broader the range of spiritual practices we discover ourselves to be called to, and capable of, together becoming agents of the Reign of God.
1. See www.practicingourfaith.org/prct_what_are_practices.html
Copyright © 2008, the Alban Institute. All rights reserved. We encourage you to share Alban Weekly articles with your congregation. We gladly allow permission to reprint articles from the Alban Weekly for one-time use by congregations and their leaders when the material is offered free of charge. All we ask is that you write to us at weekly@alban.org and let us know how Alban Weekly is making an impact in your congregation. If you would like to use any other Alban material, or if your intended use of Alban Weekly does not fall within this scope, please submit our reprint permission request form.
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FEATURED RESOURCES
The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church by Diana Butler Bass
Historian and researcher Diana Butler Bass argues against the conventional wisdom regarding “mainline decline.” She sees encouraging signs that mainline Protestant churches are finding a new vitality intentionally grounded in Christian practices as they lay thegroundwork for a new type of congregation.
Traveling Together: A Guide for Disciple-Forming Congregations by Jeffrey D. Jones
Anyone concerned for the life and ministry of the church, who has a sense that things are not what they might be, and who is seeking a new understanding of congregational life and mission will find hope and help in the pages of this book. Jeff Jones maps out the factors facing congregations in this postmodern, post-Christendom world and shows congregational leaders how to embrace the best parts of their church’srich heritage and reclaim it for a new day.
Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony by Lillian Daniel
Lillian Daniel shares how her congregation reappropriated the practice of testimony one Lenten season, a practice that would eventually revitalize their worship and transform their congregational culture. Tell It Like It Is features the testimonies worshipers heard and reflections from both those who spoke and those who listened to these stories about God at work in the world.
Alban Weekly, 2008-09-22
Number 217
Faith & Everyday Leadership
Reinventing the 21st Century Church
September 9, 2008 – September 11, 2008
Roslyn Retreat Center , Richmond, Virginia
Facilitator: Wayne Floyd
Note: Seminar begins at 12 noon on day 1 and concludes with lunch on day 3.
This retreat introduces you to the exciting new curriculum developed by the Alban Institute, “Faith and Everyday Leadership.”
Are you someone who desires to live a more integrated life, linking your faith more fully with the demands of everyday leadership in your home, business, and congregation? Are you a clergyperson who wishes you knew how to encourage your laity to bring their everyday gifts of leadership into the life of the community of the church?
Learn about how to recognize and value all of your leadership roles in your work, communities, and family lives as expressions of your faith commitments and values.
Discover ways to be more mindful of the best practices of leadership you already know, as well as ways to become a more faithful agent of grace and transformation, contributing to the shaping and healing of the world.
This leadership workshop will provide you with a way to
- Learn more about faith at work from leaders in everyday life
- Build collaborative approaches to leadership among clergy and laity
- Make your congregation into a resource to sustain everyday leaders
Join with others who want to learn what the church and everyday life have to teach each other – and how faithfulness in everyday leadership can contribute to reinventing the 21st century church.
About Wayne Floyd
Wayne Whitson Floyd is in charge of Education Development at the Alban Institute. He is a lay professional with experience in leadership both inside and outside church. Wayne had developed and led programs in adult education and vocational discernment in three Episcopal dioceses and at the Washington National Cathedral. He is an author and educator and is married to an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Washington, DC.
LINKS
Printable Event Flyer (PDF format)
Mail-in Registration Form (PDF format)
Coaching news from the “other” AMA
AMA Study Finds More Use of High-Level Coaching
by Agatha Gilmore
Thu Jul 10, 2008
Today, many organizations aim to grow by accelerating talent development as much as possible. According to a new study by the American Management Association (AMA), coaching has become one increasingly popular way to do it.
The study, “Coaching: A Global Study of Successful Practices,” surveyed more than 1,000 business leaders around the world and found use of coaching as a means of increasing individual productivity was up. Nearly 60 percent of North American companies use coaching for high potentials frequently or a great deal, and about 42 percent use coaching of executives to the same extent. These percentages were higher in the international sample.
Contrarily, only 37 percent of North American respondents and less than 30 percent of international respondents said they used coaching to help problem employees.
“We’re all expecting more out of individual performers,” said Edward Reilly, president and CEO of AMA. “I think coaching has been found to be another effective tool in terms of talent development, and it makes sense to invest in that type of development. It’s also pretty clear that the reduction [in coaching for low performers] comes from trend to learner, more competitive companies with probably less tolerance for long-term carrying of people who are not performing. Extensive amounts of intervention are probably not as common as they might have been a decade or two ago.”
The study’s findings also tie into issues surrounding Generation Y employees’ entry into the workforce. These young workers are known for their social networking and their need for mentoring and guidance. Coaching is not only desired but expected by Gen Yers, but many recognize it’s something they must earn in today’s marketplace.
“I think younger people see [coaching] as an important part of their long-term deal with the company,” Reilly said. “Part of their compensation is the company’s efforts to develop them as individuals and as managers.”
The AMA study also found the type of coaching offered has an impact on the effect. For example, it appears external coaches can be more individually effective, while internal coaches tend to be more cost-efficient in the long term.
“[I]nternal coaches often provide lower cost of services, exhibit more consistency in methods and understand the organizational culture,” said the AMA study. “However, they may also be perceived as less credible. Leaders may consider internal coaches to be less confidential. ”
The study’s authors cite a 2007 report titled “Executive Coaching for Results,” in which 59 percent of leaders indicated a preference for external coaches, while only 12 percent preferred internal coaches.
“External coaches can bring greater objectivity, fresher perspectives, higher levels of confidentiality and experience in many different organizations, industries and business environments, ” they wrote.
Regardless of what kind of coaches an organization chooses, the AMA study showed, in these troubled economic times, organizations likely will find more value than ever in leveraging coaching.
“Generally speaking, our team believes that coaching will continue to expand and mature as an important leadership development practice,” said the authors. “We expect that coaching will become one of the keys to developing and retaining scarce talent in the future, and we think companies that learn to leverage it well will have a significant competitive advantage in the global marketplace. ”
To see a full copy of the free AMA study, visit www.amanet.org and register to view the materials.
Writing Your Way Home in Preaching, Teaching, and Soul Tending
by Kent Ira Groff
Do you ever think, “I’ve got to write this”? But other times, “I get to write this!” Sometimes duty takes over: Sunday’s sermon, newsletter deadline, persistent e-mails. How can we move through “got to” into “get to”?
During a writing funk, two things occurred to me.
First, if I find bits of grace in the grit of duty, then obligation morphs into invitation.
Second, even if my words get rejected, what matters at the end of a day is if I’ve written myself an inch closer home to my true self and God.
Writing can help us appreciate ministry. Preaching, teaching, and soul tending extend an invitation to pen our way home and out into the world’s need—the tides of contemplation and communication.
PREACHING
How dare I preach the Word unless I first let the Word preach to me? If I lose my passion, my words are hollow. How can we keep coming home while writing—and preaching?
I constantly remind myself: “Pause… to fall in love again with the Word beneath your words and with the people who ache for you to let them in on your sacred ideas, fears, and dreams.”
Sometimes I trick myself home by writing what I would say if I could. Once all I could think was nothing.
I write about
Nothing.
No thing.
Ah! No thing really matters,
only relationships.
Other times I keep writing page after page even if it feels like junk—then: Pause… I tell myself, there must be inklings of grace in all this grit. So I go back and highlight the inklings (prune my junk) and I’m home again.
I tell myself to “story the sermon,” oxygenating theological ideas. A pastor conversed about preaching new insights regarding Advent. We paused… She began telling of a lone child who wandered into worship. Into the synergy of silence dropped this poem prayer.
*To cradle a new insight or give*
**birth to anything everlasting**
***wrap your truth in stories.***
We can practice “contemplative exegesis” by looking at a biblical story from new angles. French artist Claude Monet painted the same cathedrals and bridges in different hours of day, seasons, or weather. What happens when I reposition the easel? Does the subject change? Or do I?
A minister retold the overworked “Prodigal Son” story from the neighbor’s viewpoint. “Let me tell you about this dysfunctional family next door. Young brat was spoiled rotten. Insulted his dad. But guess what that father did? Yep. Let his son run off with big family money. And that mother—she was invisible—just grieved inside the house. Older brother worked 24/7—felt no thanks from Pop. What happened when that wasted brother came home? Did he get a beating? No. Pop threw him a party. Did that cool older brother blow up!”
By shifting the easel to the neighbor’s voice, the pastor reconstructs original tensions in the story. The father and mother (aspects of God?) seem weird like their kids.
Sometimes I need to pick up my easel and go to some far country to come to myself—arise to return home for the first time again. The sermon prepares the preacher; the preacher prepares the sermon.
TEACHING
How dare I teach unless I learn some new thing? “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear,” goes a Zen saying. If the pupil of my eye and heart is wide awake, I can be digging or diapering or delving into books and my teachers appear out of nowhere.
Someone turned the saying on its head: “When the teacher is ready, the pupil will appear.” How can I explain the thread of providence that brought students and seekers across my path when my life was ready?
Sometimes a troubling person is my teacher. A bright pastor contributed insights in a seminar I was leading. The last night he got angry. I awakened early and conversed with him in my journal. Through my fingertips I heard: “It’s so frustrating—when I go back to my Kentucky mountain church I can’t talk about Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky the way I’ve done here.” Trying on his moccasins changed me. We conversed at breakfast and I enlisted his help in the final class to explore students’ re-entering back home.
SOUL TENDING
How dare I tend others’ vulnerable souls if I don’t tend my needy soul first? Prayer helps me show up to God with my hurts and hopes to be safely present to another.
An impulsive letter or e-mail from a tide of anger can “kill” a relationship. Yet as Abraham Lincoln knew, that same letter, written but never sent, can prevent or restore a broken relationship.
One time I scheduled lunch with a friend I thought had failed to support a common project. I felt so fussed I wrote three-pages till I got to God’s desire beneath my anger—then shredded them. When we broke bread I was free: we found ways to support one another.
Without tending our souls, we endanger our selves and our ministry. Words can guard one’s soul: a pastor stays free of porn by imagining Jesus repeating: “Come here… don’t go there.”
A journal helps me get surprised. I play with words and ideas—pray my pain and anger. After my father died, unresolved grief reared its head. By writing in dialogue about his verbal non-responsiveness, I began understanding him and that non-responsive part of me. I realized he was a master at communicating through intuition and gestures! I celebrate those gifts in myself.
Writing creates a way to tend another’s soul. Jon flew 3,000 miles to his home state to be with his comatose father. The next morning he read his father a note penned by his own twenty-something son, Sean. Minutes after “hearing” his grandson’s words, Jon says his father’s breathing began to ebb into a peaceful death.
For the next e-mail or card to contratulate or sympathize, try composing your own simple “prayer poem.”
Whether you write for love, labor, or learning—or blessedly all three—every form of writing can call forth the Word that unlockss the treasure of your life’s purpose.
KENT IRA GROFF is a spiritual companion, retreat leader, and writer living in Denver, Colo. He is founding mentor of Oasis Ministries, Camp Hill, Pa. This article is adapted from his book, Writing Tides (Abingdon). For Active Spirituality (Alban) and other resources for ministry see www.kentiragroff.com
Holy ground in cyberspace
One of the perennial concerns raised about online learning is that some sorts of education simply must occur face to face — that group process, for instance, or the forming of strong interpersonal bonds, or the intimacy of peer to peer mentoring, requires the physical proximiity of teacher to student, and students to one another, in a shared culture of presence.
This has always seemed to me a somewhat questionable assumption for those of us in the Christian tradition, whose main source of authority is itself the product of the discovery of the technology of writing, and is shared with the remoteness of 2,000-3,000 years of history, and across unshared cultural boundaries and barriers of language.
St. Paul, who wrote the earliest parts of New Testament, used this technology of inscription, delivered by the technologies of sailing, in the form of letters to remote communities around the Mediterranean. In doing so he intended to serve as their mentor and spiritual guide, encouraging them into deepening bonds of affection and commitment and faithfulness that have been shared across the millenia thanks in particular to the technology of the printing press.
The following is a post from the Daily Episcopalian blog about one counter-intuitive discovery about online learning written by Ann Fontaine, an Episcopal priest and General Convention deputy from the Diocese of Wyoming. It may make all of us think differently about the potential of cyberspace for religious education.
By Ann Fontaine
Seven years ago the Diocese of Wyoming’s Canon for Ministry Development, Lynn Wilson, wondered if we could offer Education for Ministry (EfM) via the internet to our isolated and rural churches and their leaders. I have been a mentor and trainer with EfM since the early days of the program. This was a challenge I could not resist. How could we replicate this small group experience with its transformative theological reflection and study? Dr. Norm Peterson, a mentor and Dean of Education at the University of Wyoming and I recruited our first class of students for a pilot project with Blackboard, the popular distance education program that most colleges use.
I thought it would be possible to carry out the program but did not believe it would be as good as face-to-face EfM. I could not have been more wrong. Now the online groups are spreading around the country with students from as far away as South Africa, Bahrain and Korea. Originally we thought it would be great for rural isolated students. We have discovered that it is great for those who travel for work, those who live in cities and don’t want one more night out, those who have children at home and snowbirds. The intimacy and depth of sharing is beyond my dreams. When we do find time to see each other in person – we are like old friends.
Other EfM Online mentors have had similar experiences. Jenifer Gamber, Diocese of Bethlehem, finished her 4th year in an online group then became a mentor. She writes:
Leading with life-changing stories
by Twila Glenn
Consulting Manager, The Alban Institute
Narrative Leadership: now what in the world does that mean? There are a lot of answers to that question, but basically, it is a way of leading organizations in which the story of who we have been, seen through the lens of who we are, forms the foundation for the story of who we are to become. Stories wind their way through individual lives, through family lives, through community lives, through congregational lives, and through the faith journey of each of us.
In about a month, folks will gather at Lake Junaluska Conference Center in North Carolina to hear stories, tell stories, and learn new ways to weave together God’s story, their congregation’s story, and their community’s story in powerful new faith journeys. You can be part of that gathering—part of that story.
If you come to Lake Junaluska in July, Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams, noted Old Testament scholar and vivid storyteller, will take you by the hand and walk you into the heart of that rich and teeming story of the Israelites—perched on the edge of promise—learning to remember their own story. You will emerge from the experience with new insight into how what a community remembers shapes its identity.
With Dr. Larry Peers, Senior Consultant for the Alban Institute, you will “wade in the waters of deep change. You will learn the healing power of reauthoring problem-saturated stories of your congregation and your leadership into powerful new stories of possibility.”
And then, Alban Senior Consultant Alice Mann will ask you to journey with her into the “soul of the place” and explore with her what it would mean to befriend the soul of the place in which you and your congregation live. Learn with her how to take this sense of place that is “in our bones”—this place where we live and work and worship—and nurture it, turn it into a powerful story of well-being and justice for our community and our world.
All of this—and beautiful Lake Junaluska (with a powerful story of its own)—can be yours at the Alban Institute at Lake Junaluska in July. Come share your story! (Click here for more information and registration.)
The Problem Trap
Alban Weekly, 2008-06-16
Number 203 printer-friendly version
by Larry Peers
To effect deep change, leaders must be able to stand outside the dominant story of whatever it is we are trying to change—rather than being so immersed in it that we cannot truly observe how to lead a particular group in a particular situation. Ron Heifetz, author of Leadership Without Easy Answers, often talks about this as being able to take a balcony perspective. I have found the tools and perspectives of narrative therapy especially useful in helping clergy begin to get up on the balcony and become different observers of their situations, allowing for different actions and different results to become possible.
Recognizing the Problem-Saturated Story
One of the primary kinds of stories that takes hold in congregations and makes change difficult is what is known in narrative therapy as the “problem-saturated story,” or one in which the focus is on who or what is or has been wrong.
You can recognize the problem-saturated story when you’re in a group where someone offers an example of how difficult or awful something is in the congregation and before you know it the rest of us can’t help but chime in with more evidence for how truly bad and impossible the situation is. We can almost hear ourselves saying, even if the words aren’t verbalized, “You think that’s bad, let me tell you how it is even worse than that!”
Why We Are Losing Ground with Young Adults
By Marty J. Cauley
I have the amazing privilege of working with spiritually sensitive and passionate young adults from across the southeast. I am also charged with understanding why the church is losing ground with young adults. After hundreds of conversations with young adults, I have identified some common strands running through their decisions to leave the church, or at least our version of the church.
One reason is the perception that worship is passionless. This is not because young adults do not care for traditional worship or liturgy. There is actually resurgence in older forms of liturgy among young adults, but the churches they flock to for this type of experience do it very well and are clear about why they do it. Young adults just will not tolerate watered down, unexplained ritual or poor quality, half-hearted worship. This generation desires to experience God in wholly different ways than did their parents – with their hearts as well as their heads.
Young adults desire clarity in a world filled with uncertainty. The lack of a clear, unified vision for our churches is a stumbling block. We must find a way to clarify our vision and renew our commitment to making disciples and changing our world. The abandonment of our heritage’s commitment to balancing social justice with evangelism leaves us without the needed bifocal emphasis that would be most appealing to young adults.
Since their birth, this generation has been told they can change the world, and they intend to do it. But many are disgusted by what they see as the incongruity of spoken values and lived values in the church and the culture. To see a Greenpeace bumper sticker on a Suburban really bothers this generation of revolutionaries. They are also perturbed by constant political in-fighting within the denomination. The church’s tendency to make mountains out of molehills seems ridiculous to this highly practical and pragmatic generation.
Another thing that drives young adults from our doors is criticism of things of little consequence. Churches that balk at having a young person with blue hair or a pierced nose as part of their congregation are essentially assuring their absence. This generation is striving desperately to identify who they are and where they fit into community. If that accepting, loving community is not found in the local church, they will find it elsewhere. Does it really matter how many piercings or tattoos they have?
Finally, the church’s token attempts to reach young adults are actually alienating rather than attracting them. They see it as hypocritical when the church states how important their presence is but develops program for them but not with them such as “90’s style” praise services. This is a generation of “doers” and not “watchers.” They do not want to send money to missions as much as they want to be part of a missionary endeavor. They desire to put their hands where their hearts are. They also perceive the incongruity in rhetoric about wanting young adults in our churches at the same time that funding is cut for ministries with college students.
There is, however, hope. Young adult Christians can flourish in places where the focus on spiritual formation is sharp; where they can worship with complete abandon in services filled with symbolism and depth; where this generation of Myspace® users can tell their own stories of how God intersects their lives and be listened to; where they are welcomed into positions of influence and responsibility and empowered to live and lead boldly into the future; where the vision is clear; and where local mission and a global vision seek to change the world.
There are several important steps the church can take to reestablish connection with the next generation of leaders:
- Validate youth and young adult ministry as a primary calling. Those on the front lines of young adult ministry – youth workers, campus ministers, camping directors – have been made to feel that their ministry is not as important as that of other ministries. They often feel little connection and support from those who stand to benefit or suffer greatly from the fruitfulness of their endeavors in the years to come.
- Bridge the gap between church youth groups and college ministry. Pastors need to make contact with campus ministers at colleges where they are sending their youth. And these interactions must be substantive – not just completing a form. Then, the campus minister needs to take pastoral responsibility for these new members of their “flock.” The lines of communication between local churches and their college students must reinforce the importance of spiritual connectivity.
- Reinvest in ministries with college students. This may mean capital improvements to outdated facilities that have deferred maintenance due to fund shortfalls. Salaries for campus ministry must be comparable enough to be attractive to the best and brightest.
- Plant emerging churches to reach young adults. New churches are more successful than established churches in reaching young adults. These churches may require greater investment than some church plants, but the returns can be tremendous in lives changed.
The Rev. Marty Cauley (mcauley@sejumc.org) is director of Ministries with Young People for the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church.
Becoming a Praying Congregation
Becoming a Praying Congregation
Alban author and seminar leader Jane Vennard talks about her upcoming Alban seminar “Becoming a Praying Congregation: The Art of Teaching Spiritual Practice.” July 15–17, 2008 at the Inn on Broadway, Rochester, New York. (length: 8 minutes)
Ministry Together: Governing Boards & Clergy
June 17, 2008 – June 19, 2008
Techny Towers Conference and Retreat Center , Techny, Illinois
Facilitator: Dan Hotchkiss
Click here to view a movie clip of Dan Hotchkiss talking about his upcoming event.
Have you had it with board meetings?
While most board members of congregations hope to contribute to their community’s long-term success, the reality of board service is that too often it frustrates and exhausts both board members and the staff who work with them.
This seminar is designed to help congregations to move beyond frustrating and ineffective ways of managing the work of boards, clergy, and staff. It draws on provocative proposals such as those made by John Carver, governance guru of the nonprofit world and author of Boards that Make a Difference, who challenges boards to quit most of their current work and start ‘making a difference’ by articulating the organization’s basic rationale for being and setting limits for its staff and volunteers. A Carver board spends most of its time thinking not about what the organization is doing but about why it should exist at all.
Dan has a very inviting and relaxed demeanor. He is knowledgeable and a good presenter.”
Dan Hotchkiss’ approach is based on the conviction that the art of governance in congregations is about creating a balance between ministers, staff, and the governing board or vestry. It is about the partnership tools needed for ministry together. A healthy governing body in a congregation:
• Starts with clearly defined roles and authority
• Succeeds when lay and professional leaders lead do ministry together, collaboratively, as partners.
You will learn specific practices and principles that will help your governing board streamline its decision-making, maintain clear limits, and keep the congregation’s mission at the center of its ministry. By discovering how to set clear policies and behavioral covenants, you will find that you can trust others to make their own decisions, give up micromanaging, and make space for holy conversations.
About Dan Hotchkiss
When congregations seek guidance for discernment and dialogue around issues of planning, visioning, and governance, Dan Hotchkiss is a valued partner for his creative approaches and sensitive understanding of the human and institutional dynamics within congregations. His next book is tentatively titled (of course) Ministry Together: The Art of Governance in Congregations.
more thoughts on Web 2.0
With all the talk about Web 2.0 these days, web technology users in all walks of life are learning many of the same lesson. One of the most important of these is how important it is to let an organization’s mission drive its use of this technology rather than vice versa.
Corporate users simply are usually a bit out ahead of non-profits in their experience with the Web — they are both earlier-adopters of technology, but also ahead of nonprofits in what they are learning about being effective adopters, as well.
Anne van Dusen, my colleague at Congregational Resource Guide, just sent me a post from searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com — a blog for Chief Information Officers in business settings. Although it’s actually two years old, she sent it as a graphic reminder that nonprofits still need to learn in 2008 what corporate Web users were realizing already in 2006, that “the real … value” in Web 2.0 “lies in what the technology enables: better collaboration among users.”
It’s one thing to add Web 2.0 interactivity to an organization’s Web-presence. It’s another to “know how to … encourage the social interaction that is integral to the concept” of Web 2.0, by both attracting users and encouraging them to contribute content, and thus “to build intellectual capital.”
Here at Alban, for example, we’re currently experimenting with Ning, an inexpensive online site that allows virtually anyone to build a simple FaceBook-type social network that is either open to anyone or protected by login-procedures that allow users to decide who can and cannot take part in ongoing collaboration and conversation on a subject. For more about the possibilities, check out the comment on the NingBlog.
What we must not forget is that the point in going to the effort to learn how to use something like Ning is that our mission as a learning organization pushes us towards finding ever more effective ways not just to deliver information but also to encourage interaction among the very people who depend on Alban’s online presence to put them in touch with the best available resources for sustaining congregational vitality and leadership-excellence.
We hope you will join the conversation about the very best in online learning for the leaders of today’s and tomorrow’s congregations.