Open Source Continuing Education

Another idea I have been working on as a way to encourage clergy to continue in education while also keeping costs down and using the collective expertise/wisdom of the clergy community of the Central Texas Conference.

You can read the beginning proposal of Open Source Class (a working name) here.

My friend Sarah commented that this idea might work (with modifications) for staff development not just at churches but in any organization.

Ministers are Metaphors

Ministers are metaphors.

This is why when someone steals from a business it is tragic, but when a minister steal from the church it is tragic and horrendous.  

This is why when someone is hospitalized the minister is given access to the patient even when others are restricted.

This is why people will leave their home church and follow ministers who move to another church.

Ministers are metaphors in our culture for something else.  Ministers are metaphors for God.  

This is not saying that ministers are God or even God like.  Not at all.  However, ministers and the world gets into trouble forgetting that ministers are metaphors.

Ministers who forget that we are metaphors will fall into the trap of believing that we are god.  And when we feel like we have "god-like" power and authority we have the potential to do things that are very un-Godly.  

When we forget that ministers are metaphors, we have a potential to allow the minister to act in ways that are not becoming of the office of minister.  

The next time you see a minister, remember that ministers are metaphors of God.  It is not the minister who should be followed but the God they point to.  

Is your minister helping you to follow the metaphor they embody?  Have you ever forgotten that a minister is a metaphor for God?  Do you know of a minister who has forgotten that as well?  

Called out of ministry

Much of the ordination process of the UMC is built on an idea that we feel called into ministry.  It took me ten years, from start to finish, to become ordained in the UMC.  There is a long and comprehensive process for identifying a call into ordained ministry.  

A mentor and friend whom I deeply respect and admire mentioned recently that we ought to consider the a process for those people who feel God calling them out of ordained ministry.  

As our lives change and we gain wisdom over and our sense of self change over time, so to would one's sense of call.  Are you the same person you were 10 years ago?  Will you be the same person 10 years from now?  

Of course not.  

What happens when a life of an ordained person in the UMC changes, and they no longer sensing a call in ordained ministry?  Do we allow them to continue to do ordained ministry and limp along?  Do we instead build into the system a process for transition out of ministry?  

What would a process of being called out of ministry look like?  Would that be something that would be an appreciated process for those ministers who can move out of ministry with dignity?  It has to be better than surrendering credentials with a sense of shame and/or disgrace.  It has to be better than "plugging along" until retirement.

Don't congregations deserve ministers we are called into ministry and not called out ministry?  

Cul-da-sacs

I grew up in a cul-da-sac in Keller Texas.  It was great.

My friends and I could play street hockey without fear of cars driving through the game.

We had parties for the neighborhood and had tables of food right in the middle of the cul-da-sac.

We could have tons of basketball games at a full court with fathers and sons.

I learned to back up a vehicle in the broad space of the cul-da-sac without fear of hitting another vehicle.

Cul-da-sacs are amazing.

Sort of.

You can have an amazing lemonade stand, but there are only 3 people who are going to drive by it.

When you enter a cul-da-sac the only place you can go is home.

Cul-da-sacs can only sustain themselves for a short period of time before you have to leave it in order to go to the store.

Cul-da-sacs are "finished" in that what is built is all that there will ever be.  

Cul-da-sacs are insular and not open to new creations.

Is your life a cul-da-sac?  Is your job a cul-da-sac?  Is your church a cul-da-sac?

I am concerned that the UMC is fantastic at building cul-da-sacs and not avenues.  I find we in the church love to build cul-da-sacs because of the safety and security they provide.  But cul-da-sacs never go anywhere.

Cul-da-sac is really just a fancy name for a dead end.