Guest commentary by Andrew Whaley
“They didn’t teach us that in seminary!”
How many times have pastors shared this phrase when relating the beautiful and confusing and frustrating stories of ministry? The truth is, though, that there is no way three years of study can help us to gain even rudimentary exposure to the biblical knowledge, theological skill, questions of pastoral presence and leadership ability needed to navigate this lifelong calling. In fact, most of those experiences that seminary did not train us for are only learned in the daily practice of ministry in the church.
In August of 2015, I left my first call as a solo pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson City, Tennessee, to accept a head of staff position at Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virginia. During our season of discernment, I told the pastor nominating committee that managing a church staff and daily church administration was the area in which I would need to grow the most.
I was incredibly grateful, then, to learn about the Trent@Montreat Conference that I attended in April of this year. Jointly sponsored by the Trent Fund of Second Presbyterian Church, Macedonian Ministries, Union Presbyterian Seminary, NEXT Church and Montreat Conference Center, Trent@Monteat was a unique conference where participants signed up for a particular “track” that explored a specific area of practical ministry and participated in worship and social times as a large group. I was overjoyed to learn that one of the tracks for this conference was titled, “Staff as a Gift Instead of a Headache.”
In sessions with several others pastors who found themselves in similar situations, we met with the Millie Snyder, the executive pastor of Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Millie led us in team building exercises we could use with our church staffs. She walked through how we could lead weekly meetings, conduct regular evaluations, organize requests for vacation time, write job descriptions, observe appropriate boundaries, schedule ministry and go through hiring processes. She sent us links to particular documents that she uses in her ministry.
Millie then welcomed our questions, and she and the group helped us to develop strategies to address particular challenges in our congregations. Then, after we had been back in our contexts for a month, she emailed us to follow-up and see where we were in our plans.
I have consulted Millie since returning home as the church has been in the search process for a new music director. She helped me craft questions for interviews, alerted me to red flags to look for and discussed how to structure the timeline of the person’s visit to our church. I have also drawn upon one of the books she recommended to us as our session works to devise how God is calling us to shape a new position for an associate pastor. Millie encouraged us in these times of discernment to listen to those around us (what drives them, why do we function in certain ways as a congregation), learn from them (who speaks, who doesn’t speak, what topics are open for discussion and which are closed) and love them, affirming those church leaders for the good things of God they are doing.
Having these resources, peers and an experienced leader is a great asset as I navigate these questions for the first time! I am lifting continual prayers of gratitude for both our Presbyterian system that enables such connections and Trent@Montreat that led us to each other.
Learning in this way is essential to our continual growth as pastors in congregations, and learning experiences like this are most appropriately offered to us once we have completed our formal theological education. Without the practical experience and the frequent feelings of failure and inadequacy that regularly accompany days in pastoral ministry, lessons about team building and staff management are hollow. You cannot manufacture these experiences in a classroom or in an internship. They are learned by necessity – and we must keep learning because we are continually called to grow.
Our continual growth in the practice of ministry is one of the ways we live out our sanctification, a theological concept that we do learn in seminary. The Holy Spirit is continually calling us to into deeper faithfulness, not complacency. We need peers who push us beyond ourselves to realize God’s call on our life; mentors and coaches who can give us practical tools to utilize in ministry; and ongoing opportunities for learning so that the church might continue to become the fully functioning Body of Christ.
ANDREW WHALEY is senior pastor of Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virginia. He is married to Rebecca, and they are the parents of two children. Andrew can regularly be seen on the greenway or in Raleigh Court running with his dog Toby, and he looks for any excuse to get out on the golf course.
