Editor’s note: Both before and after standing as a candidate for moderator of the 2012 General Assembly, Susan Krummel, has been serving as teaching elder and general presbyter/stated clerk for the Presbytery of Great Rivers. In a Facebook page dedicated to committees on ministry around the denomination she has shared reflections about the extra stresses impacting Midwest pastors, and cited a letter she recently sent to the pastors in her presbytery. We share this with you on the Outlook blog page to invite you to reflect and respond….
Friends,
I don’t know how things are where you are serving, but in the center of the country it is a rocky season for pastors. We have had several pastors with decades of experience come to a precipitous end of a call in the last few months. And, for those who are still hanging on, it is a rough row to hoe (how’s that for a Midwest analogy?) We have (as of today) 104 congregations. I cannot possibly get to the studies of each of our pastors to sit with him or her to let them tell me about how this is not what they expected their ministries to be like. So, I sent them the attached letter last week and I have heard from several of them that it came just at the right time. It is based on II Timothy. I share it with you just in case something like this might be of help to your pastors.
Why is it so rough out there? I think there are several contributing factors. Most Presbyterians did not grow up in the Presbyterian church yet many of our churches continue to imagine that they do not really need to teach their new elders anything about Reformed theology and the polity that arises from it. We continue to act like they should just know it and pastors get cross-ways with their sessions. Second, with several of our congregations leaving us for other affiliations, it seems to have created an atmosphere where any authority that the presbytery might once have had is being diminished. We may go to a church and say our rules say “this” and they reply with an attitude of “make me.” Third, and most importantly, I think we have reached the tipping point in many of our churches. The people who are in our sanctuaries on Sunday morning look around and see that there are fewer and older people. They remember all of the things that used to happen at church that have gone by the wayside. They know in their guts that they need to change, but they do not want to do so. Then the pastor gets up on Sunday morning and sits in session meetings and tells them that they need to change. Again, they don’t want to. Instead of deciding that it is time to change themselves, they are deciding that the easiest way to stop having to think about change is to get rid of the person who is talking about change. So they fire their 63 ½ year old pastor who has been with them for 21 years and so on.
Certainly an interesting time to be working in leadership in the church. I wish you well as you continue your ministry with your COM and help us to navigate these new waters.
Susan D. Krummel
General Presbyter and Stated Clerk
Presbytery of Great Rivers
August 30, 2012
From Sue Krummel, a follower of Jesus through the grace of God;
To the pastors of Great Rivers Presbytery, colleagues in ministry who toil daily on the frontlines of the call to pastoral ministry:
I am constantly thankful to God for the gifts that each one of you has been given to carry out your ministry in very trying times. Whether you have been ordained for a year or a decade or half of a century, your faithful ministry is changing lives in ways you cannot even imagine. Every Sunday when you preach the gospel to a crowd or a handful of people, your love for God who has saved us through Jesus Christ and who upholds us through the Holy Spirit is bringing joy and peace.
Perhaps your ministry is not exactly what you had expected, for these are trying times. Surely part of your call to ministry was a call to work in tandem with a vibrant congregation, filled with people who want to make a difference in the world because of the difference Christ has made in their lives. Yet there may be more docents than disciples in your congregation. That is, there may be more people who love to be the keepers of the museum rather than followers of Christ. You have also been called to serve the people of God at a time when our culture no longer expects people to express their faith every week. It is hard for people to carve out the time to gather for study and prayer and worship. And, our denomination seems to have lost its definition of itself. Shared leadership; the centrality of Word and Sacrament; ardor joined with order have been lost in our efforts to be all things to all people.
What, then, shall you do? How can your gifts be put to their best use to fulfill your high and holy calling? Paul has said it better than I ever could. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by God, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”(II Tim 2:15) “Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. . . As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” (II Tim 4: 2,5)
As you begin the program year for your congregation, as you approach the time of year when many congregations review the work of the pastor and decide about terms of call, as you gird your loins for what lies ahead, remember your call. Remember what you do best through the gifts that God has given you. Remember to nurture your own spiritual life.
Paul knew the churches Timothy was serving well enough to name the people who were trouble and the ones who were following the call of discipleship. Although I could name a few of each of these kinds of people in some of your congregations, I do not know them all. But you do. Read II Timothy and take heart. Build up the relationships in your congregation with the leaders who have vision and energy and joy in their faith. Seek out the people who can tell you how their lives have been changed because they have met Jesus. “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” (II Tim 4:22)
