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Clergy Leadership Initiative
How We Began
In 1999, discussion
began at Texas Methodist Foundation about the challenges facing The United
Methodist Church in Texas, including the needs of pastors as they faced issues
of church management, leadership of church staff and their own professional
development and self care. Educational seminars for pastors and lay leaders and
a statewide event on money and ministry were consequences of this ongoing
discussion.
A Long-range Planning Committee was formed to study how
Foundation resources could be used to address the problems of ministerial
burnout and a lack of peer support and continuing educational experiences that
better prepare pastors to lead a changing church in a rapidly changing world.
The Clergy Leadership Initiative (CLI) reflects what the Foundation discovered
from the work of that committee, from focus groups with pastors and interviews
with United Methodist leaders, and from staff perceptions derived from years of
working with pastors and congregational leaders to help them find the resources
to fulfill their God-appointed missions.
The Challenge and the
Need
The Church faces a nationwide challenge to attract, inspire, nurture, and
sustain bright, imaginative men and women in pastoral ministry. As the Church
changes from a maintenance mode–in which the Church expects people to come to it–to
a more mission-oriented mode of proactively connecting to the world, pastors
must learn new habits and rhythms for the practice of ministry. Pastors have not
had consistent, high-quality educational opportunities to help them deal with
these rapidly changing conditions or support systems to help them “stay the
course.” This has resulted in feelings of incompetence, isolation and futility,
and an acute need for a “safe” place to build leadership, self-care, and
spiritual formation skills while developing relationships of mutual trust and
encouragement.
The Foundation knows
from our own experience and research, as well as that of others, that strong
pastoral leadership creates vibrant congregations. When local congregations are
vital and effective, the communities they serve are bolstered, the denomination
is strengthened, and the whole Church prospers. CLI will provide leadership,
self-care and spiritual formation resources for pastors, including pastor
learning groups and special educational events and seminars. Additionally, CLI will produce research that extends the benefits beyond Texas
United Methodist pastors and congregations to all denominations. New models of
pastoral leadership, as well as measures of the effectiveness of resources and
methods, will be invaluable to all churches engaged in recruiting, training, and
supporting new leaders.
The
Clergy Leadership Initiative consists of six elements:
Clergy Development Groups
Educational Seminars
Discovery Events
Statewide Event
Bishop Conclaves
Research and Publication
Clergy Development
Groups form the center of this ministry. Each group consists of eight to twelve
pastors who meet periodically for two years. A facilitator assigned to each
group plays a key role in their success by helping participants assess their
needs, identify goals, and set norms for the group’s work. They will also help
identify and develop resources to support the group’s work, and will provide
“one-on-one” mentoring to participants between group meetings to reinforce
learning and accountability.
Clergy Development
Groups determine their own process and programs, select speakers, set agendas
and plan curriculum, with the facilitators and the Foundation’s CLI Director
working together to identify appropriate models of learning and spiritual
formation to support that development.
Educational seminars are offered each year,
open to all interested pastors, and, where appropriate, to laity and church
staff. Established professional development resources provide immediately
available knowledge and skills to serve as a catalyst for deeper learning and
change. Additional seminars customized to address the expressed needs of one
or several groups may also be provided. We plan to extend the seminar learning
experience by providing individualized follow-up with participants to
facilitate a reflective and systematic approach to integrating learning into
their ministries.
Discovery events are held annually. These one and half day events are designed to gather and shape new learning,
which can then be shared throughout the CLI ministry. A group of pastors
interested or experienced in a particular issue is invited to meet together
to explore learning pathways related to that issue. New insights,
perceptions, or confirmations are then documented in written or other
sharable forms. Topics will include issues related to leadership,
self-care, and spiritual formation. These events offer another opportunity
to engage participants in a process of discovery and a concrete method for
contributing their learning to the overall CLI ministry.
A statewide event is scheduled in
2006, patterned after the Foundation’s highly successful Faith, Money,
and Mission: A Summit of United Methodists in Texas, held in March of
2000. This two-day event will continue our efforts to bring together the
wide array of local United Methodist churches and institutions as a
community of faith. This event provides an opportunity to build consensus
about the theological purpose of the church by gathering all the disparate
parts of the United Methodist denomination – clergy, laity, judicatory
executives, and representatives from United Methodist institutions, such
as universities, hospitals, nursing and retirement homes and community
centers – to discern how best to make the Church present in the world. Our
overarching purpose is to communicate the message that by strengthening
our pastoral leadership and connections to each other and to our common
tradition, we are strengthening our ability to accomplish the Church’s
mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ.
These two-day events will
communicate the aims of our Clergy Development Groups and related events
to the bishops serving our Texas annual conferences, and solicit their
input and support for continuing to provide leadership, self-care, and
spiritual formation resources through the CLI. This will provide
the bishops with their own affinity group to garner input and explore a
common agenda for sustaining pastoral excellence.
Research and Publication
Group facilitators and
Foundation staff will gather research through the process of
evaluations and surveys, as well as interviews with participants, to
gauge progress, help determine the long-range impact of this
ministry, and refine the ministry to match the needs of
participants. In addition to periodic reports, the Foundation
plans to publish summative information on how pastors and their
congregations were affected and which tools, methods, and resources
were most effective in eliciting change and promoting effective
ministry.
For more information on Clergy Leadership Initiative programs,
contact
Bobbie Juranek
at 1-800-933-5502. |
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