A Pastor By Any Other Name - Revisited

I wrote a blog with the same title a couple of years ago - and after hearing from both the "Excellence in Ministry" event in Colorado and hearing Elaine Heath preach yesterday on the dearth of spirituality in the seminary/academy, I was both encouraged and provoked to reflect more on the subject.

I have often said that the United Methodist Church has no theology of ordination - and I am ready to modify that a little bit to say that the UMC is not PRACTICING a consistent or historical theology of ordination. Methodism no doubt has one of the most interesting histories of ordination, but the one developed versus what it has morphed into are at variance with each other. What we had when Methodism was birthed was an understanding of how the Holy Spirit gifted, enabled, and set apart some servants to preach and provide for the sacraments to be celebrated. What we have now is a tangled mess of clericalism and the antithesis of what Wesley feared (with thanks to Randy Maddox's reminder):

0. What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God, and to build them up in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable as it answers these ends: and if it answers them not, it is nothing worth. - John Wesley, Letter to John Smith, June 25, 1746. 
   

We currently have over twenty classifications for clergy in the United Methodist Church. What I have found is that such is nearly impossible to explain to most laity (and some clergy), as well as to explain to those of other communions and fellowships. And, when examined, is it unsupportable in a Wesleyan ethos to function so.

To complicate the matter more - and to further be at odds with Wesley's intentions - is how we have handled clergy education. One of Wesley's warnings was that in our quest to educate clergy that we exercise prudence in not "professionalizing" them as was often the case with law and medicine, thus "elevating" them from the class of those whom they would be seek to serve. (So it might behoove us to be a little careful about the doctor/medical school, pastor/divinity school comparisons!) It is also important to note that historically, a Divinity degree was not required of Methodist clergy until 1956 (and then, it was a Bachelor of Divinity, not a Master of Divinity). Before then, a course of study was the usual route Methodist pastors took, and college and seminary were alternatives.

The reason I write of this is because of several cruxes we have reached in the UMC (and, I suspect, we are not the only denomination so affected):

• Student debt. Student debt is mounting - at steep rates. That, mixed with tuition that has gone up disproportionately with the cost of living, creates a perfect storm for both the UMC and for UM seminaries: ministerial candidates have debt that is nearly impossible to eradicate, seminaries are stuck between deferring admission to a student because of the undergraduate debt and the need to have enough enrollment to make ends meet, and Boards of Ministry have to wrestle with deferring a candidate who has too much student debt, yet accrued it getting the minimum standard of education required. Of course, some debt counseling would go a long way with students. But with scholarships and fellowships declining, students are forced to go to school part-time to stay out of debt - which delays one's entry into ministry. The unintended consequence of requiring the M.Div is the reality that, now and in the near future, only upper-middle class and upper class folks will be able to afford the education necessary to fulfill the standards of the UMC... a denomination founded on ministering to the least, the last, and the lost in society, with practical divinity at the heart of ministry. (A good resource is the Auburn Theological Seminary report on seminary student debt, found here.)
• Flaws and holes in seminary education. To be honest, our UM seminaries (and many others) are more like schools of theology, not seminaries in the truest definition of the word. While some would argue semantics between academics and praxis, it is fair to say that until recently, our seminaries did very little, if anything, with spirituality and ministerial practice; indeed, spirituality was often a dirty word in the theological academy, not seen as a "credible" discipline worthy of time and study (thankfully, this is changing). When I asked this question once at an alumni advisory committee meeting, I was told by several, "You get that after seminary. There's too much theology, history, and biblical study to cover - you can't expect seminary to do that too. That's not our/their job." My story is not unique.
• Discontinuity of History, Theology, and Practice of Pastoral Ministry. Contrary to popular belief, we ordained local pastors (referred to as local elders) until very recently (1968), which is at variance with our sister AME, AMEZ, and CME denominations, who still ordain their local (i.e., non-itinerating) pastors. One third of our pastors in the UMC are local pastors, who we used to ordain, but not "license" to celebrate the sacraments - with no theological defense of such a practice. I pray that we soon regain the delineation between ordination and conference membership. Ordination/ordo does not "belong" to the individual - it belongs to the Church to use in the course of mission and ministry. To quote Gordon Lathrop: 

The leadership of the liturgy is part of the liturgy. Ordination is intended to include persons in the schedule and pattern whereby the Christian assembly enacts the meaning of the Christian faith. Indeed, the order to which one is ordained is, finally, simply a list of persons who take their place and turn in the leadership of the structure of the ordo. - Gordon Lathrop, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology, Fortress Press, 1993, p. 190. 

While I was not there, I am encouraged to hear the missional concerns that Prof. Randy Maddox and others raised last week at the Mid-Quadrennial training event in Colorado for Boards of Ministry regarding our present state of affairs in the UMC. I hope our own denomination's Study on Ministry takes note and heeds our own history and theology of our founding and genius of Methodism. As a district superintendent, I can attest that at present:

• a master of divinity degree is no indicator (or insurer) of pastoral effectiveness, nor do I think it should be the "minimum" standard for ordination (and note that I do NOT equate ordination and conference membership/itineration)
• combining churches/charges together are no longer the solution they once were to creating salary packages large enough to pay a full-time salary
• clericalism often inhibits shared lay/clergy leadership
• we need more, not less, flexibility in educational requirements for those seeking ordination that considers situation and context
• seminaries need (and I believe would be willing) to work with us on these frustrations and help us find solutions for local churches and the denomination without "dumbing down" ministerial education. We must be willing to shift our thinking and be willing to ditch outmoded pedagogy

What gives me hope are things like our own Paducah and Paris District's Generative Leadership Academy, and other leadership and missional initiatives across our Connection. I've been blessed to watch leadership skills and spiritual gifts identified and discerned. I've gotten to see the "aha" moments when someone "gets it" in regarding discipleship and mission. And I believe that Methodism's best days are still before us - we just have to be willing to shift our ways to cultivate ordained and lay leadership. 

New wineskins for new wine.

Pax,
Sky+

Rerun: "Nurture and Cultivate Spiritual Disciplines and Patterns of Holiness"

Originally posted on Wednesday, July 21, 2010


"Nurture and cultivate spiritual disciplines and patterns of holiness..." That's not from The Rule of St. Benedict. Nor is it from an objective of a spiritual growth retreat. It is ¶304.1 (b) of the Book of Discipline, the United Methodist's canon law, under the heading "Qualifications for Ordination."

In midst of the numerical decline of much of Protestantism, it seems that we are putting a great deal of emphasis on hospitality, worship, church programming, and communications - and we should be, because those are certainly areas that need shoring up. But when you talk to pastors about spirituality, spiritual direction, spiritual disciplines, etc., you often get a stare in return. I've even heard some say, "That's just too personal." I even heard this one once: "It's all about Jesus, preaching the Word, and getting into the Bible. That spirituality stuff is too Catholic." The smart ass in me considered quoting Scripture to this learned colleague about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I resisted. So I simply asked him, "If it's all about Jesus (and it is!), but we can't teach people to pray and be Christologically grouded and formed, who will?" His response was classic: "Well, people should get that at home."

The problem is, I heard that EXACT same thing said when I served on an advisory committee at the seminary I graduated from - by a colleague who should have known better. I had voiced my concern that while we were giving a good theological and historical education, we were doing very little, if any, spiritual formation. To which I was told, "That's not the job of the seminary. Pastors get that on their own." I was much younger at the time and so I kept my young mouth shut. Now I wish I had opened it a little.

But do seminaries engage their students in a conversation about the gravity of choices that they will face or prepare them to make those choices? Does the larger shape of theological education draw their attention to the formative character of the questions asked and answered by its professors? Does the shape of their preparation help them to grasp the difference between a vocation that demands a certain kind of performance from them and the vocation into which they have been called, which requires them to be the kind of people who are possessed by that "basic sense" of what is being asked of them? Are their professors prepared to shape souls as well as intellects? When they graduate, do students have the sense that they have already embarked on that vocation?

As a product of, and participant in, theological education for over three decades, I am inclined to think that the answer to these and other questions is, more often than not, "no." - Frederick W. Schmidt, "What Is Being Asked of You? Canonical Theism and Theological Education", from Canonical Theism, 2008, pp. 273-4.

Schmidt goes on to say that the blame can be place into three areas:

• The quest for credibility from the larger academic community - which preferred historical discussions over faith and spiritual experience.
• The adoption of the university model for graduate education - which drove professors to be more specialized in a few disciplines and led to religious vocational amnesia
• The issues of praxis which diverted the theological task away from spiritual formation towards the importance of leadership, administrative prowness, psychological therapist, and social prophecy

In short, we're teaching pastors a lot about church administration, biblical form criticism, systematic theology (the Barth & Tillich show), social psychology (the Freud and Jung show), and philosophy of religion (the Schleiermacher and Schopenhauer show). I learned these things - and they are certainly important things.

But what about lectio divina? Patristics (the Early Church Fathers)? Prayer offices? Spiritual disciplines? Spiritual discernment? Incarnational theology? Pneumatology (study of the Holy Spirit)? Sacramental theology? Discipleship and disciple-ing? Sanctification? I was very blessed by Don Saliers and Ted Hackett, mentors of mine, to develop an interest and passion for these things. But it was self-directed - it was not a mandatory part of the seminary curriculum for United Methodists (or any other Protestants), and to my knowledge it still is not. That leads me to believe we need to quit calling them "seminaries" and start calling them "schools of theology." Good information, but no anchor or undergirding of where these things fit in a life lived with Christ.

If we clergy cannot locate ourselves in our Christian quest and pilgrimage, we certainly cannot lead our churches to see where they are located in the Kingdom of God. We cannot lead with any sense of spiritual or theological authority (only that which is granted by the Book of Discipline!). We cannot tell the Christian story from a standpoint of faith - just from the standpoint as recorded by history.

Schmidt says, most importantly, those who teach present and future clergy must "remember that it is not enough to learn what it is that clergy do. They need to be in touch with what it is that clergy are meant to become. Their own relationship with God, their growth in faith, and the practice of spiritual disciplines are keys to that becoming and to the knowing that accompanies it. In turn, those same experiences are indispensable to the seminarians' own ability to make disciples of others." (p. 285)

If we pastors are mandated to "nurture and cultivate spiritual disciplines and patters of holiness" for our congregations (and we are), then we had better learn them ourselves. According to the Book of Discipline, it's not just "Catholic" - it's Methodist, too. I'm convinced it's Christian to the core.

Sounds like we better get on this. Soon.

Pax,
Sky+

Learnings of a New District Superintendent

A few months ago I wrote "Confessions of a New Superintendent." Since then, I have been in cabinet meetings to assist in pastoral projections, met with staff-parish committees, met with pastors, taken a lot of phone calls, visited with many people in my office, held a couple of district clergy meetings, and served as host superintendent at our annual conference (and yes, Jorge Acevedo, I wore a suit four days in a row). It has been a baptism by flame thrower.

What I've learned:

• D.S's drive a lot - my predecessor drove over 200k miles in five years - so I bought a used car built for the high miles and low maintenance.
• D.S.'s get thrown into the midst of conflict, and my sports officiating experience in dealing with coaches all these years has finally paid off: listen more and speak less, show respect in the midst of conflict and disagreement, and admit your mistakes.
• Never wait to put something on your calendar later - do it then.
• Listen to softer music when driving on "D.S. business." Save AC/DC and Rush for fun driving.
• Even if you're in a hurry, eat smart. The "Freshman Ten" applies to new D.S.'s too!

The most sobering thing I've learned is that there is no correlation between education of clergy and clergy effectiveness. I wrote about this in an earlier blog, but I am beginning to see and hear about it first hand as a D.S. We have pastors who have little or no spiritual depth, yet are appointed to churches to serve as spiritual guides and leaders - and laity are noticing. Emmaus Walks, Academies for Spiritual Formation, SoulFeasts, and other such venues of opportunity for spiritual direction and formation are helping folks grow in their spiritual walk and discipleship. But they are also helping folks realize how much many of their pastors are neglecting to teach these basics of the faith AND, more to the point, have no spiritual depth or discernment of their own. It doesn't help that more and more clergy surveyed (anonymously of course) only read the Bible for sermon fodder, and rarely for devotion. In all of the consultations that I did this year, not one church asked me to send them a good pulpit preacher. But I did hear "Send us a praying pastor" more than once.

I am convinced more than ever that seminaries are failing us. And now, the perception is real among those who help fund them. Two conferences recently dealt with resolutions to sever connections with one United Methodist seminary.

I will readily admit that I know some local (licensed) pastors who are far more spiritually adept and mature than many elders that I know. Many of them are second-career pastors.

I am not trying to be anti-seminary. But it pains me greatly to admit that a seminary education may not be the best preparation for one to do ordained ministry, and I am more inclined to believe that it is not an absolute necessity anymore. I come from a family that greatly values education - indeed, I am the only McCracken in my family without a doctoral degree. But given the high price of money and time involved in a seminary education and the fact that we presently have pastors in a dying denomination who cannot speak, live, or teach a spiritual ethic and discipline to the congregations they serve - are we not guilty of horrible stewardship? Lest you think I am being horribly un-Methodist and anti-intellectual, consider this journal entry of John Wesley:

I had a good deal of conversation with Mr. N-----n. His case is very peculiar. Our Church requires that Clergymen should be men of learning, and, to this end, have an University education. But how many have an University education, and yet no learning at all? Yet these men are ordained! Meantime, one of eminent learning, as well as unblamable behavior, cannot be ordained because he was not at the University! What a mere farce is this! Who would believe that any Christian Bishop would stoop to so poor an evasion? - John Wesley, Journal Entry, March 20, 1760

Of course, John Wesley isn't the final authority on anything - but he saw the mistakes of being a complacent Church that put legalism above faithfulness. That is certainly nothing new to the faith! Practical divinity requires practical education and formation.

Homosexuality and political posturing seem to be at the top of the list of agenda items for the next General Conference. I would suggest instead a focus to the essentials of Christianity and Methodism: To go and make disciples, and to teach and practice the works of piety - in other words, to teach and preach the spiritual disciplines:

The chief of these means are prayer, whether in secret or with the great congregation; searching the Scriptures; (which implies reading, hearing, and meditating thereon;) and receiving the Lord's Supper, eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of Him: And these we believe to be ordained of God, as the ordinary channels of conveying his grace to the souls of men. - John Wesley

Making disciples DOES matter, and while depth of discipleship is important, numbers are important too! Evangelical isn't a dirty word - if we're Methodists, it's OUR word. Teaching and witnessing isn't bad manners; it's the Great Commission. If our clergy can't and won't do these things, how can we expect our laity to do it?

Pax,
Sky+

"Nurture and Cultivate Spiritual Disciplines and Patterns of Holiness"

"Nurture and cultivate spiritual disciplines and patterns of holiness..." That's not from The Rule of St. Benedict. Nor is it from an objective of a spiritual growth retreat. It is ¶304.1 (b) of the Book of Discipline, the United Methodist's canon law, under the heading "Qualifications for Ordination."

In midst of the numerical decline of much of Protestantism, it seems that we are putting a great deal of emphasis on hospitality, worship, church programming, and communications - and we should be, because those are certainly areas that need shoring up. But when you talk to pastors about spirituality, spiritual direction, spiritual disciplines, etc., you often get a stare in return. I've even heard some say, "That's just too personal." I even heard this one once: "It's all about Jesus, preaching the Word, and getting into the Bible. That spirituality stuff is too Catholic." The smart ass in me considered quoting Scripture to this learned colleague about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I resisted. So I simply asked him, "If it's all about Jesus (and it is!), but we can't teach people to pray and be Christologically grouded and formed, who will?" His response was classic: "Well, people should get that at home."

The problem is, I heard that EXACT same thing said when I served on an advisory committee at the seminary I graduated from - by a colleague who should have known better. I had voiced my concern that while we were giving a good theological and historical education, we were doing very little, if any, spiritual formation. To which I was told, "That's not the job of the seminary. Pastors get that on their own." I was much younger at the time and so I kept my young mouth shut. Now I wish I had opened it a little.

But do seminaries engage their students in a conversation about the gravity of choices that they will face or prepare them to make those choices? Does the larger shape of theological education draw their attention to the formative character of the questions asked and answered by its professors? Does the shape of their preparation help them to grasp the difference between a vocation that demands a certain kind of performance from them and the vocation into which they have been called, which requires them to be the kind of people who are possessed by that "basic sense" of what is being asked of them? Are their professors prepared to shape souls as well as intellects? When they graduate, do students have the sense that they have already embarked on that vocation?

As a product of, and participant in, theological education for over three decades, I am inclined to think that the answer to these and other questions is, more often than not, "no." - Frederick W. Schmidt, "What Is Being Asked of You? Canonical Theism and Theological Education", from Canonical Theism, 2008, pp. 273-4.

Schmidt goes on to say that the blame can be place into three areas:

• The quest for credibility from the larger academic community - which preferred historical discussions over faith and spiritual experience.
• The adoption of the university model for graduate education - which drove professors to be more specialized in a few disciplines and led to religious vocational amnesia
• The issues of praxis which diverted the theological task away from spiritual formation towards the importance of leadership, administrative prowness, psychological therapist, and social prophecy

In short, we're teaching pastors a lot about church administration, biblical form criticism, systematic theology (the Barth & Tillich show), social psychology (the Freud and Jung show), and philosophy of religion (the Schleiermacher and Schopenhauer show). I learned these things - and they are certainly important things.

But what about lectio divina? Patristics (the Early Church Fathers)? Prayer offices? Spiritual disciplines? Spiritual discernment? Incarnational theology? Pneumatology (study of the Holy Spirit)? Sacramental theology? Discipleship and disciple-ing? Sanctification? I was very blessed by Don Saliers and Ted Hackett, mentors of mine, to develop an interest and passion for these things. But it was self-directed - it was not a mandatory part of the seminary curriculum for United Methodists (or any other Protestants), and to my knowledge it still is not. That leads me to believe we need to quit calling them "seminaries" and start calling them "schools of theology." Good information, but no anchor or undergirding of where these things fit in a life lived with Christ.

If we clergy cannot locate ourselves in our Christian quest and pilgrimage, we certainly cannot lead our churches to see where they are located in the Kingdom of God. We cannot lead with any sense of spiritual or theological authority (only that which is granted by the Book of Discipline!). We cannot tell the Christian story from a standpoint of faith - just from the standpoint as recorded by history.

Schmidt says, most importantly, those who teach present and future clergy must "remember that it is not enough to learn what it is that clergy do. They need to be in touch with what it is that clergy are meant to become. Their own relationship with God, their growth in faith, and the practice of spiritual disciplines are keys to that becoming and to the knowing that accompanies it. In turn, those same experiences are indispensable to the seminarians' own ability to make disciples of others." (p. 285)

If we pastors are mandated to "nurture and cultivate spiritual disciplines and patters of holiness" for our congregations (and we are), then we had better learn them ourselves. According to the Book of Discipline, it's not just "Catholic" - it's Methodist, too. I'm convinced it's Christian to the core.

Sounds like we better get on this. Soon.

Pax,
Sky+

Do We Need to Reconsider Seminary-Trained Clergy?

I learned the other day that a candidate for the ordained ministry in another annual conference was deferred ordination not because he didn't measure up to doctrinal or psychological issues or didn't have the gifts for preaching or teaching; he had too much educational debt (for those of you not United Methodist, ordination candidates are asked, "Are you presently in debt as to embarrass you in your ministry?").

After doing some checking, I discovered that the average student gets out of undergraduate school at a public university with about $21k of debt, a 108% increase from 10 years ago (God only knows what the average debt is from a private school). In looking around at United Methodist related seminaries (the encouraged education of UM clergy), the average seminary debt (3 years of graduate school) is presently running around $30k. That's really not that bad, considering a year's tuition and at Duke Divinity runs $21,640, a year at Emory runs $15,500, a year at Asbury $14,400, and a year at Garrett-Evangelical $15,600 (I didn't include yearly living expenses, which estimates run $11k to $18k a year).

So let's say an ordination candidate gets the minimum education required and comes out of undergraduate and graduate school with "average" educational debt. That will be $51k. The problem is that the minimum salary for seminary graduates ranges from $25k (Rio Grand) to $47k (Western New York). In other words, the debt load (at least from a financial institution's viewpoint) is unacceptable given the income of the individual.

My education has served me well: I have diplomas from the University of Tennessee and Emory University hanging on the wall of my office. My educational debt? $0. I got 1/2 of my undergraduate tuition covered since my father was UT faculty, and I was able to work to pay the other half. I received a fellowship for seminary that paid my tuition and served as a student pastor for a place to live and living expenses. My situation was not - and is not - the norm, I fear.

Are we pricing ourselves out of ministry? One blogger suggests so ("Can We Afford Seminary?"). And more to the point, does the M.Div really serve the Church well? Has it contributed to the life of the Church or exacerbated clericalism? Do we see the role of clergy as "keepers of the faith" or do we see clergy leadership and preaching as part of what the Church does as a whole body?

I am convinced that God doesn't need our M.Div degrees, but I am equally convinced that God does not need our ignorance either. However, we might be better served going back of the very traditional model of local seminaries and apprenticeships as opposed to a professional degree. For one, it's much, much cheaper. For another, the last 50-70 years when M.Div's have become the norm have not seen a marked increase in the number of Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc. - in fact, we have gotten smaller.

Perhaps we would be served much better by a work-study type of program, night classes, online study, and the like. Some say this is dumbing down - but the reality is, especially in the United Methodist Church where the "average" church is less than 150 folks, that we probably need fewer M.Div graduates and more folks who are spiritually formed and called. It certainly worked for 1900 years.

The other alternatives are not viable ones: higher clergy salaries are not realistic. Raising church apportionments to cover the total costs of seminary graduates is unrealistic as well. And as a seminary education necessarily takes place in a private university, private education is not cheap. I am just wondering how long this present model will work: we can't require folks to get an education to be qualified and then tell them they are carrying too much educational debt so we won't ordain them.

I think are kidding ourselves if we think this problem will simply go away. If I were 44 years old with a family and felt the call to preach, I don't think I could do it in the United Methodist Church: I couldn't afford it unless a rich uncle paid my way... and I am fairly sure I don't have any rich uncles.

Perhaps a model the General Board of Ministry should consider is a localized seminary option (it worked in the Early Church for a long long time). Maybe we've bought into American consumerism too much and just tried to "buy" what we need instead of doing the hard work ourselves.

Pax,
Sky+