Discipleship on the Way

One of the really cool tools to stay connected and to gain easy access to many other websites and blogs is through a reader.  It functions like an email inbox system, where it will bring new content that was posted to a website or blog and put it into your own reader.  It allows for you to not have to go check out many sites.  I use Google Reader; please check it out!

Because of this reader I can more quickly stay connected with others – personal blogs I read, even news channels like CNN.  I think I have a subscription (all free and pretty simple) to 26 different websites/blogs. 

Here are a few links I would like you check out of blogs I read (some of which I have made comments on):

1. Kansas House Church Charge – A New Appointment by Andrew Conard – this is a really cool idea for making disciples in a new way.
2. Theology of Worship? by Dan Dick – this is a very provocative post, inviting me to consider what really am I seeking to lead when I lead in worship. 
3. Economic Recovery 1 and 2 by Brian McLaren – this post calls us to wrestle with what really is God calling us to pursue when we think of “recovery.”  This post connects well with his book, Everything Must Change.
4. Leadership and Change by Parker Palmer – in this audio podcast  Palmer talked about the vital connection between inner work and social change. 

Last week (Jan 20-23) I was in Atlanta for my Lewis Fellows program.  One of my favorite and powerful portions of the week was walking through the city, visiting the King Center, along with the birth home of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ebenezer Baptist Church.  It was powerful to be in the hub of so much of the civil rights movement in this country, especially with the inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday. 

Here is one of my favorite pictures from my photostream via www.flickr.com.  Enjoy!

Unfortunately Bishop Scott Jones was not able to be with us for worship this past weekend.  He was sick with a high fever, so was unable to travel to be with us.  However, we look forward to a future time to be together!

Today, the 19th of January, Shaylin said her first word!!…ok, so maybe she made a special sound, which we interpreted as a word….ok, so maybe it was also in Hebrew!    Yes, Shaylin said her first Hebrew word today, ya`áqöb (it is translated as “Jacob” in English)!  No really, she said it correctly in Hebrew.  We will let you know when she says her first English word too! 

Download Dustin Petz – Morning Devotion

Chapter eight of The Crisis of Younger Clergy is titled, “Deployment of Young Clergy”.  The chapter begins with a quote from Lyle Shaller (A Mainline Turnaround, 2005),

“talented ministers are ’set up to fail’ by being invited to serve churches where their gifts, skills, experience, personality, and other characteristics do not match the needs and culture of that congregation at this point in its history” (61-2).

Indeed that is the case for many of my younger clergy peers, especially in a previous conference.  The understanding coming from the episcopal cabinet was that we were called to “bloom where we are planted.”  While I agree that we are called to grow into the positions and roles to which we are appointed, this platitude misses the vital horticultural practice of having a correct environment for a particular plant to grow.  Growing up on a farm in western Kansas, we would have never tried to plant corn in our fields dominated by dry and sandy soil.  There would not be enough nutrients, nor water for the crop to yield enough to meet the expenses of that particular operation. 

I have had younger clergy peers who were placed into common “first-time” placements – those that no one else wanted, partly to put them into a new environment, but maybe also to “pay their dues”, or to require them to ”wait their turn.”  The result was them becoming quite depleated as individuals, so much so that their desire to serve God and their community quickly became a painful burden.  Multiple peers seriously considered finding their calling fulfilled in other venues or other denominations. 

Weems & Michel’s text offer suggestions regarding the deployment of young clergy:

1. Pay significant attention to the appointments of our young clergy, so that they might begin their ministry with strength and health – even be able to form habits that will carry them through their years.
2. Appoint young clergy where they can make a difference – placing them where they can utilize their gifts and graces, and find a community of peers to support them.
3. Use associate positions strategically – given that 40% of younger clergy are associates, see their role as a time of training, not becuase they cannot do the ministry of others, but as opportunities to learn and develop.
4. Re-consider Itineracy – younger clergy do not statisically agree that the current UM system works well.  Maybe we are at a point of relooking at how we deploy all of our clergy leadership.
5. Re-consider Guarenteed Appointments – younger clergy today are not strong advocates of our current guarentee practice.  How might the UMC find ways to strengthen its clergy leadership, while also challenging them to become the leaders we have been waiting for?

Questions: What vision of ministry and clergy leadership will help our current congregations flourish and become vital into the years ahead?  What changes do you suggest?  How might the young clergy help change the system?