As I have mentioned before, I am in a district that is participating in SHAPE (Sustaining Health and Pastoral Excellence), a ministry initiative between Church of God Ministries and several regions, with funding from the Lilly Endowment.
Annually, Church of God Ministries is required to submit a report of results, discoveries and lessons to Lilly. It is primarily written by an external consultant, Michael Wiese. In reading through the 2006 report I came across two paragraphs that were particularly insightful and worth sharing here.
In a section entitled "What are we learning?" the report includes the following lessons that are being learned through SHAPE:
But very true.
Annually, Church of God Ministries is required to submit a report of results, discoveries and lessons to Lilly. It is primarily written by an external consultant, Michael Wiese. In reading through the 2006 report I came across two paragraphs that were particularly insightful and worth sharing here.
In a section entitled "What are we learning?" the report includes the following lessons that are being learned through SHAPE:
- One of the cultural realities of the Church of God (Anderson) is the priority placed on congregational autonomy. This value, when applied to how the pastor functions, produces isolation. Isolation undermines both health and excellence. It can also produce self-delusion about health and excellence. Pastors need to be connected to others who provide opportunity for selfassessment, camaraderie, safe-disclosure, advice, and accountability.
- The need to maintain the perception of “perfection” does not produce health. The Holiness tradition, a major theological stream for the Church of God (Anderson), may be interpreted within the culture as an expectation of perfection. There is evidence that this expectation may undermine the pastor’s freedom to be appropriately transparent, to build a relationship oriented ministry and, in the end, be healthy. (page 7)
But very true.
1 comment:
wow, things I have noticed by never put together. Frankly, I've been turned off by the ChOG notion of holiness that I've seen lately. I think it has too munch to do with being perfect. That feeds into the professional clergy model, that I don't think helps us. Well, often it feels good to the church and to us, but we miss the mission we're supposed to be on. the rub for me is that I think people need honesty from us. We need it too. [Haggard] People need to see that we have struggles and failure, but that God has brought us through. But until we're honest, and not hiding behind perfection God can't help us through the struggle. You won't see me waving an autonomy flag anymore.
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