Chapter 28 - Staying in Church

Welcome to one last entry in our blog conversation around This Odd and Wondrous Calling!  Rev. Lillian Daniel and Rev. Martin Copenhaver have offered us stories from their ministries – stories of the oddness and the wonder of parish ministry – and invited us to reflect on our own stories as parish pastors and as parishioners.  I volunteered to write the last blog without remembering the subject of the last chapter.  When I flipped to page 228, I laughed.  The chapter on staying!  I have a deep affinity for staying.

                Rev. Duane Meyer, at that time an Associate Conference Minister in the Iowa Conference, offered me this advice as I prepared to begin parish ministry at Olds UCC:  “Just don’t leave.”   I didn’t leave the dear folk at Olds for 7 ½ years and then I didn’t leave the dear folk at Central City UCC for 19 years.  

                Some of you know that I am drawn to life in spiritual community.  (I’ve spoken with other ordained women in my generation who felt called in childhood to be nuns before they could imagine being called as pastors, never having seen an ordained woman or even a good movie about one!)  I’m drawn to a vow in communities following the Benedictine rule:  the vow of stability.  To vow stability is to promise to fulfill one’s vows in the same community for life. 

                But I also write to you as one who did not stay, one who is no longer a parish pastor.  I did leave, answering a call to cheer on pastors and congregations as a member of the Iowa Conference staff.  God and I continue to exchange occasional sharp words over that leaving and this calling.  I miss parish ministry very much and I have a deep, deep affection and respect for those who have taken up an odd and wondrous calling and who have stayed.

                I also write to you as one haunted by a statistic that prompts a great deal of searching conversation among folk in wider church ministry, among Committees on Ministry, and among first call pastors and their congregations:  half of new parish pastors leave parish ministry within the first five years.  Half. 

                If you’d like to join in this final blog conversation about staying in church, I have some questions for you!

·         Pastors, what makes you stay in church?  What mix of odd and wondrous call, financial and geographical reality, faith and fear, makes you stay? 

·         Pastors, what sorts of things push you at times to think of leaving parish ministry?

·         Parishioners, is your church a place where pastors stay?  Or frequently leave?  Why do you suppose this is?

                It’s been a delight to join you in this journey of shared reading and conversation.  I’ll look forward to our next conversation!

Jonna Jensen, Associate Conference Minister for Eastern Iowa

Chapters 26 & 27 – Preaching and Pastoral Care

In these two chapters from This Odd and Wondrous Calling, Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver reflect on the two most obvious things a church pastor does -- preaching and pastoral care (visiting the sick). If you questioned average folks on the street about what a pastor’s work is, they’d probably be able to name these two things. For authors Martin Copenhaver and Lillian Daniel, these tasks live at the heart of their ministry.

Indeed these two ‘tasks’ are integral to pastoral ministry. They are where a pastor meets the people of a congregation in particularly intimate ways --while sick, or during a sacred conversation while worshipping God. They write about how the rest of their work informs these tasks: “In meeting with couples in crisis, I realize that my own reflections on marriage are being shaped and enriched in ways that undoubtedly will make their way into my preaching. In the administration meeting where we agonize between two important budget items, my thoughts on stewardship are being shaped. Later when I read a text for the week, all these experiences will be part of what ends up on the page,” Daniel writes on page 225.

None of what they say is particularly surprising, for those of us engaged in pastoral ministry, at least. I find it interesting that their reflections do not mention how these tasks relate to being religious leaders. By making a pastor’s work center in Sunday morning or hospital visits, Copenhaver and Daniel might have inadvertently diminished the call of the pastor and, indeed, all Christians. Jesus certainly preached and taught and healed the sick. But, none of those things were ends unto themselves. Those things were done in order to transform lives, to give people a sense of purpose and value that came from God, nowhere else.

Preaching and pastoral care are mere tools in the toolbox.  These tasks facilitate holy relationship, allowing the pastor to be both a comforting and challenging presence to members of his or her congregation. Over time, the relationships that are built allow pastor and congregant alike to grow spiritually in ways they could never do alone. Hopefully that personal growth transforms them into new people, allowing them to transform the world.

Nicole Havelka
associate conference minister for youth and young adult ministries