Monday, April 07, 2008 9:14 pm | 3 comments | 285 views

Tagged with: Pastoral Effectiveness, Collegiality, Shared Ministry, Spiritual Leadership,

Beyond Solitary Pastoring

by Mark Conard

For most of my career as a pastor, I was a self-professed "Lone Ranger"--even denying the need for a sidekick and sometimes going without (at least symbolically) a means of transportation! If anything needed to be done, I could (and would) do it myself! I could (or so I thought) do things more quickly and more competently than could anybody else.

But something happened along the way. It was a gradual learning process that is still unfolding. One of the most significant things that happened was the invitation to serve as a member of the appointive cabinet. That came in the late winter (or early spring) of 1995. It was a terrifying and exhilarating time! One of the things that I discovered on the cabinet was a group of colleagues who genuinely cared about me--intense introvert that I was (and am).

For six years (and two weeks, but who's counting!), I had colleagues with whom I could laugh, pray, cry, and even get angry. I could say what I thought and what I believed without fear of repercussion.

When I came off the cabinet in 2001, I was determined to find a setting in which I would again have colleagues. I first found that in a "Consultation Group" sponsored by the Counseling and Mediation Center in Wichita, KS. I met with a group of colleagues monthly (during the school year) for two or three years.

The next experience in collegiality was truly a godsend. It was the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness of the Rockies, led by Bill Selby. He helped me begin to deal with the:
    1. Do you want to be healthy?
    2. Do you want your grandchildren to be healthy
    (or do you want them to have to deal with things you don't     want to)?
    3. Do you want your family to be healthy?
It was a series of seminars over eighteen months that helped me move toward (though certainly not achieve) being a self-differentiated leader.

Now I am part of an “Incubator Group” comprised of United Methodist in Hutchinson, KS and from a variety of ministry settings with a hundred mile radius. We are using the materials developed by Craig Robertson and others at Spiritual Leadership, Inc. Together, we are learning the 3L’s of Loving God, Learning, and Leading. The goal of this project is “Changed Hearts, Changed Churches, and a Changed World for Christ.”

It is a long ways—and a long time—from those early years of “solo” or “Lone Ranger” ministry! What a blessing to have colleagues, guides, and mentors--even in these later years of pastoral   ministry!