Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, alluded to the biblical parable of the talents and said, “We in seminaries are in that story, and to be honest, we have not been good stewards”(Wilkes 1990, 60). The same can be said for the leadership development system of the Presbyterian Church USA. Despite the efforts of thousands of gifted and committed Christians and the use of significant resources, the system of preparation and oversight for ministers in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is not working as it should to produce healthy ministry. It is highly regulatory, is experienced as gatekeeping, and demonstrates poor stewardship of human and financial resources.
Description and Symptoms
Carefully compiled statistics show approximately 2800 persons are “under care” of presbyteries as Inquirers or Candidates preparing for ministry, yet only 346 were ordained in 2003. This compares with 405 in 1990 when 2147 were preparing and 546 ordained in 1980 when 2113 were preparing. We have a large supply of persons preparing for ministry, yet there is evidence of a potential shortage of parish pastors. Students express fears about being parish pastors and the percentage seeking a parish call actually declines during their seminary study (Auburn, 2001). Many of the almost 4000 PCUSA congregations without installed leadership long for a pastor and cannot find one willing to serve them. Congregations, presbyteries, and seminaries alike express concern also about the quality of pastoral leadership. Pastors themselves express doubts about their effectiveness.
The leadership system involves approximately 7000 members of presbytery Committees on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) and Committees on Ministry (COM), presbytery and synod staff, faculty and staff of 12 PCUSA-related theological seminaries, some 20 national staff persons in 3 departments, and countless field education and first call congregations. The low number of effective pastors produced by this system points to poor stewardship of all of the resources involved – human and financial.
The two-stage preparation for ministry process was instituted by the PCUSA in 1987 as a way to strengthen the system by providing a time of intentional discernment before candidacy. Approved by a majority of presbyteries, the new candidacy process established an “Inquiry” phase. Theoretically, this phase is a time for dialogue between the Inquirer and advisors in a local church session and the presbytery CPM to discern their Christian vocation (GA Minutes 1984, 40.114). If his/her gifts promise to be useful in ordained ministry, he or she is guided in preparation for ministry. If not, the person is to be guided to find appropriate ways to live out a non-church vocation and given pastoral support (SEIC 1992, 1). The “Study to Enrich Inquirers and Candidates” (1989-1992) found that 41 percent of Inquirers sampled did not enter the Inquiry stage until their first or second year in seminary and that there was little evidence of advisors guiding Inquirers in exploring their call. The SEIC Project goal was to change that so that the church could discern with Inquirers earlier and more effectively.
That is not occurring. The situation is still as it was in the early 1990s. A large number of individuals enter seminary without involvement of a presbytery and some without local church sponsorship. Many are well invested in the goal of professional ministry before they invite the key church representatives (session and CPM) into the process with them. Thus the opportunity for guidance is limited. Once students have invested a lot of their ego and their financial resources in seminary, it is more difficult for them to receive guidance in other directions. There are few stories of persons who have found satisfaction and service after being guided away from ordained ministry. Approximately two thirds of PCUSA candidates for ministry have not completed the requirements for ordination and been certified “ready to receive a call” when they receive their Master of Divinity degree. This creates significant stress when students must leave seminary housing, but are unemployable in the church or must accept a temporary, non-ordained position. Churches that seek to call them besiege seminary placement officers because they are desperate for leadership. The church (through the CPM) still needs to connect with individuals earlier in the process so that “Inquiry” and discernment of call become a reality.
Individuals who feel God’s call to ministry must negotiate some eighteen steps in the preparation process. Many find the process impersonal and painful as they navigate the steps. They feel judged at every point rather than supported in a process of discerning God’s call for their life. Confronted with care of many candidates, some of whom may live hundreds of miles from their home presbytery, CPM members have difficulty building relationships with the persons involved. Inexperienced or ill-equipped CPM members focus on the checklist rather than the person. Candidates express feelings of frustration as they attempt to navigate a system more like a factory conveyer belt than a spiritual journey. While many have good experiences, others feel that the gates are unreasonable or arbitrary. There are increasing signs that racial-ethnic candidates are banging up against the gates in high numbers. Of special concern are psychological assessments and ordination exams, which have not been evaluated for usefulness with persons of non-Anglo cultures.
Rather than engaging in collaborative discernment with the candidate, the parties in the process operate separately and each has difficulty making a negative decision. Some sessions admit that they have doubts about an individual’s suitability for ministry, but do not have enough contact with them to be sure and expect that the seminary or CPM will make the decision. Seminary staff persons have information and valuable perspectives, but are hesitant for legal reasons to take initiative to disclose it to CPMs and rarely are consulted. CPMs have difficulty trusting their own instincts, so rely heavily on psychological testing and ordination exams as gates to weed out the unfit. Confronted with a church eager to begin ministry with their new pastor, COMs hesitate to say “no” even when their experience and judgment tells them to do so. Later, when picking up the pieces of a broken pastoral relationship, they say, “I knew we should not have approved that call.” Clearly gatekeeping is not working. The pastors are hurting. The congregations are hurting. The ministry has not born fruit. This is not good stewardship.
Impediments
Presbytery ministry committees are overwhelmed. A COM Moderator said, “We are so tired of cleaning up messes.” COMs spend many nights with pastors and sessions in conflict or negotiating pastoral dissolution agreements. Because COMs so often take the role of “referee” or “judge,” pastors and churches are reluctant to call them early when serious problems could be avoided. COMs have little time for pastoral visits, coaching ministry, or sponsoring educational events.
The responsibilities of these committees grow with each General Assembly meeting. Without clarity of purpose and prioritization of tasks, time and energy are spent in gatekeeping behavior – “processing” persons and “calls” by approving or disapproving rather than stewardship behavior of building relationships, discerning “fit”, and developing gifts.
Those persons charged with development of pastoral leaders are themselves leaders caught in a very challenging role. Those who are skilled tend to burn out. Some are paid staff persons – Executive Presbyters and others who work with CPM and COM. Because of declining financial resources and changing priorities, many governing bodies have fewer staff persons and those are stretched thin. The volunteers who are members of CPMs and COMs are overwhelmed with the tasks before them and some feel ill equipped. These presbytery committee members who are the lifeblood of the PCUSA leadership system are volunteers and busy people – elders and ministers with their primary ministry in their own congregations and communities. Their time, energy, and gifts are precious and must be well spent.
The system is disconnected. While the problem is very complex and has many facets, research and analysis point to the fact that a critical issue is the compartmentalization of the system itself. Various pieces of the system (presbytery CPMs, COMs, and seminaries) are functioning independently. With few opportunities for communication or understanding between them, it is easy for the parties to blame each other for ineffective ministry. The SEIC Project identified the difficulty of connection among partners in preparation for ministry, but failed to include the essential “feedback loop” via Committees on Ministry (SEIC 1992, 57-58).
System disconnection is mirrored in national staff support for ministry. The Committee on Theological Education (COTE) is in one division. CPM and COM support are in another, and the Office of the General Assembly manages the ordination examination process. The Board of Pensions is housed in Philadelphia. It is hard to bring the entities resourcing ministry together into collaborative partnership when the staff for those entities do not work together regularly. Each of the entities sends communications, develops resources, and offers educational events. But information has been guarded and data has not been shared. There has been no regular common table for collaborative work. The result is a lack of shared vision or consistency of messages among them.
A Vision of The Ideal We Seek: Holistic Stewardship
A holistic support system for ministry arises as theological educators and governing body leaders relate regularly, reflect together on the challenges of leadership development, and work creatively to address shared concerns. Each party has valuable information, perspective, and unique abilities. Seminaries invite input from Committees on Ministry who work with pastors and have first hand knowledge of congregational life. Seminaries have first hand knowledge for CPMs about candidates on their campuses and in field education settings. They have rich resources to assist COMs with life-long learning. COMs learn from CPMs about the experiences, visions, fears, and expectations of the people who are preparing to be our future pastors. The connections are strengthened in order to strengthen ministry.
As followers of Christ, church leaders serve as trustees of individuals whom God has created and redeemed. Faith life is lived out in community where gifts are explored, differentiated and tested in relationships of mutual encouragement and where gifts are used for the good of the whole. It is a community in which people are helped to find their way in ministry.
The desired outcome of this holistic stewardship of ministers is the development of healthy and effective pastors to lead congregations in ministry. A system of leadership support is built that embodies good stewardship, valuing persons as children of God, and inviting them to join in the journey of spiritual, personal, and professional growth. The system becomes less technical and regulatory (gatekeeping), more organic and relational (good steward). By shifting from gatekeeping into stewardship, the partners in the leadership system spend their limited resources of time and energy developing competence in ministry rather than struggling to winnow incompetence. More time and energy is spent on formation and development of pastors and less time and energy are needed to deal with troubled pastors and troubled relationships. When difficulties occur, Presbytery CPMs and COMs analyze failures for learnings that are used in developing pastors rather than formulating new policies and procedures.
Those supporting this system in national offices no longer support undesirable behavior. National offices produce fewer check sheets and one-size-fits-all policy manuals to aid in the “processing” of people. Instead, staff gather and share models of “best practices,” stories of relationships and programs that are working, examples of patterns that are yielding healthy ministry.
CPMs are equipped for discernment and spiritual formation. Working with youth committees and campus ministries, they invite gifted young people to consider ministry as a vocation. They guide inquirers in the selection of a seminary and work closely with mentors, seminary staff, and home congregations in the process of discernment and preparation. Working closely with COMs, they utilize supervised ministry experiences well.
COMs put time and energy into work with newly ordained pastors to establish good ministry foundations in the first call. They connect each new ordinand with seminars and mentor/coaches to assist him or her in the transition from seminary to the parish. They help experienced pastors develop healthy work patterns, deal with family baggage, and engage in self-assessment and growth plans. This results in less “illness” to deal with.
The Challenge Ahead
We must commit to ask continually the question, “Is the system supporting effective ministry or it is just processing people?” and raise larger issues of ministry effectiveness.
It will be necessary to redirect financial resources to support new initiatives. Church funding should be directed more toward health-supporting programs, and less toward studies, task forces, and administrative structures. As cries of “no money” are raised, as they will be, serious thought must be given to the systemic impact suggested in Alan Klaas’ comment:
“…the biggest funding drain on denominational income is the weakening infrastructure of congregations. There is no doubt that the parish pastor is potentially the most potent factor in creating a thriving congregation” (Klaas 2001, 22).
Any impact upon a system as large and complex as the PCUSA leadership nurture and support system will come slowly. It will take years of consistent vision and effort before the most important results can be expected.
Have we been faithful stewards of the ministry entrusted to us? I do believe that we have raised questions that the church needs to ask. We are beginning to work differently at 100 Witherspoon Street. We are working to connect some of the parties that can effect change over the long term – presbytery ministry committees and seminaries. It will take the best from many to make the needed shift and lodge it in the leadership system.
Marcia Clark Myers, is Associate Director for Leadership and Vocation, National Ministries Division, PC(USA)
Klaas, Alan.2001. When Pastors Are Forced Out (Duke Divinity Study)
Mead, Loren B. 1991. The Once and Future Church. Alban Institute.
Webster, Richard M. 1992.The SEIC Project: Study to Enrich Inquirers and Candidates, Final Program Report. Presbyterian Church (USA)
Wheeler, Barbara G. 2001. Is There a Problem?; Theological Students and Religious Leadership for the Future. New York: Auburn Center for the Study of Theological Education.
Wilkes, Paul.1990. “The Hands That Would Shape Our Souls.” The Atlantic Monthly. (December).
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