Sacraments
change relationships.
The
sacrament of ordination will change Deborah’s relationship
to the church and the other people
in it.
Just so, we
have expectations of our clergy.
There has
been a huge change in our understanding
of clergy in the past 50 years.
We have seen
changes in business leadership models
such as Robert Greenleaf’s servant
leadership
-- changes in psychology with the
rise
of more spiritual
affirmative psychologies
instead of the dark,
pessimistic ponderings of Freud.
We have
renewed the life of intentional spiritual practices
outside the walls of monasteries.
All these
things have changed what we expect of priests.
But the
biggest change about 40 years ago was
the rediscovery of baptismal ministry.
We have
undertaken to restore the authority of the laity
and the empower lay leadership in
congregations.
Ordination
now happens in a new context
of actively engaged lay leaders.
Baptismal
ministry is boldly written into the 1979 Prayer Book.
That change
40 years ago raised, but did not answer,
what it now means to be a clergy.
Many, maybe
most clergy, were taught a passive role
that was called “pastoral” though
what it meant
was not pastoral at all.
It was to
show up for people, knitting our brow to
look worried,
and invite them to tell us their
problems.
Some people
liked that. Some may even have benefitted.
Others found
it irritating.
Some thought
the cleric was representing God
as a well meaning but ineffectual
spectator.
That was
actually the image of God taught in seminaries
in those days.
They liked
to call God “the fellow sufferer who cares.”
But that is
not a Biblical picture of God.
It is not an
effective way to lead the Church.
And it is
not what the New Testament prescribes
as the job of the clergy.
So let’s
start with what a pastor is.
It isn’t the
old “Father knows best” autocrat.
But it isn’t
the passive listener either.
A pastor is
a leader -- not a ruler.
Rulers order
people to do things.
Leaders
persuade them.
The pastor
is a particular kind of leader.
It’s a
shepherd image.
It
contemplates a flock on the move.
The shepherd’s
first job is to keep the flock together.
That’s what
pastors do.
They call
the community together.
The cleric
makes the church a safe place, a spiritual home.
The Prayer
Book describes it as building up the family.
We invite
and welcome diverse people into the unity of
Christ.
Then we help
them form community.
There is a
fundamental vitally important action
that can make a community a place to
get healthy
instead of act out our pathologies.
That vital
step is to establish a behavioral covenant
that sets the norms for how we treat
each other.
Behavioral
covenants have healed and revitalized
even seriously broken communities.
There’s
a model for that process from the Alban
Institute.
It’s an itty
bitty little book, Behavioral Covenants
in Congregations
by Gilbert Rendle.
But however
you do it, the cleric helps people become a community.
The second
thing the pastor does is keep the flock on the move.
The pastor
is a change agent.
This is
tough duty because our church flocks
are notoriously change resistant.
Leading
change is a delicate business.
A cleric
must make it her business to perfect that fine art.
Deborah, I
commend to your attention
church consultant Peter Steinke’s A Door Set Open
every word written by
business professor Robert Quinn,
starting with Deep Change. .
Ordained ministry
is leadership, not rulership.
But it isn’t
doership either.
Just as the
pastor isn’t a ruler saying, “do this because I said so;”
the clergy should not do too much of
the church’s work
and should do almost none
of it alone.
The Prayer
Book says the priest is
“to be a faithful pastor to all whom
(s)he is called to serve,
laboring
with them . . . to build up the family of God.”
When the
clergy do church work, it is a way to lead and teach.
For example,
clergy provide some pastoral care.
But the most
important thing the clergy do
is equipping the congregation to
provide pastoral care to each other.
Whenever I
hear from a cleric
that she is run ragged providing
pastoral care,
I know that cleric has become a doer
and not a leader.
She has
failed to inspire and teach her people.
She is
connecting the members to herself,
but she is failing to connect them
to each other,
failing in her vow “to build up the
family of God.”
The
Anglicanism professor at Yale, Christopher Beeley,
wrote the best book on clergy
leadership
I’ve seen in recent years.
It’s called Leading God’s People: Wisdom From The Early
Church For Today.
I commend it
to you Deborah as a guide for your ministry.
I commend it
to Trinity as you look for a new rector.
Beeley says
that clergy and laity shared leadership
in the Early Church.
He cites the
New Testament and the letters of church leaders
like St. John Chrysostom in the
first centuries of our faith.
Clergy and
laity both have a role.
Then Beeley
makes a crucial point
that we have learned the hard way in Nevada.
Leadership
is not a zero sum game.
If we
diminish the leadership of clergy,
lay leadership does not increase to
take its place.
Quite the
opposite.
Lay
leadership goes down the tubes with it.
Effective
clergy leadership inspires and forms
strong lay leaders to become what
St. Paul called
“partners in the gospel.”
We hope for
clergy who will not rule over much,
and who will
not do over much.
We hope for
clergy who will inspire and teach congregations
with
strong, thinking, bold laity.
So Deborah,
do a little, rule over less -- lead, lead, lead.
Recognize
the gifts of lay people.
Inspire them
and equip them for their ministries.
Build up the
family of God
because in this family we find grace
and are transformed.
