By Joe Kutter
The Ministers Council, what is it and what can it be? Or, from the perspective of a member, what can The Ministers Council do for me? I believe that we are, in part, “A Community of Practice.”
As we talked with the Lilly Endowment about the second Together in Ministry grant, the most pressing question from Lilly was, how will you sustain the TIM program? Our answer was, in order to sustain the TIM culture, we must have stronger and more effective constituent councils. If we want to intensify the expectation that the ministerial leaders served by the Ministers Council will participate in collegial covenant groups, then the constituent councils must be the stewards of that expectation.
It was with a focus on our constituent council leadership that Lilly introduced us to “Communities of Practice” (COP) and to one of the primary leaders in the development of COPs, Dr. Etienne Wenger.
The core concepts are these: 1. Community, 2. Practice, and 3. Domain.
COMMUNITY: The COP concept begins with the assertion that all knowledge is social in nature and that the community is fundamentally necessary for the development and application of knowledge. We learn as we interact together.
Imagine this: Several colleagues in ministry choose to test out a new restaurant together. What will almost certainly happen? There will be conversation about the menu, about the service and ambience, about family and politics. And then, because the group has ministry in common, the conversation will turn to issues of ministry. Perhaps there will be conversation about the season for worship or Christian Education or the congregant who is difficult or church growth or shrinkage. Sooner or later, the sharing will start and without clear intention, the participants in this group that chose to test out a new restaurant will be talking and listening and learning ministry from one another. Each will be teacher and learner with one another.
The COP process takes this fundamental insight and gives it a new dimension of intentionality. Conversational arenas are intentionally created for the purpose of shared conversation with the purpose of doing it better.
The Ministers Council is, at times a COP at work and intentionality will make us more effective in our shared intention of doing ministry better.
PRACTICE: The primary participants in the COP are practitioners. The practitioner is the person who engages in both the development and in the practical application of knowledge. It is in the practice that the dividing wall between doing and knowing is broken down. The knower and the doer are the same person, the practitioner and the practitioner is in a constant quest to know more and to do it better.
The practitioner is one who sees the world through the lens of the practice. The attorney is always aware of legal ramifications and the physician can’t help but see medical consequences and the minister always sees others through ministerial eyes.
We in the Ministers Council are practitioners. In our practice, homiletics becomes sermons and theology becomes a way of engaging the persons that God has entrusted into our care and ecclesiology become the practice of congregational leadership. The Bible shapes the lens through which we engage the world. To be a ministerial leader is to be a practitioner.
DOMAIN: This may be the least intuitive of the three core concepts but it is indispensable to the COP process. The domain is the cluster of core issues and concerns that shape the community. It is the sun, the center of gravity, which keeps all things in their place.
Our domain, our core issues and concerns have been defined for us in the Ministers Council Mission Statement. To paraphrase we are focused on deepening our spiritual journeys and increasing our effectiveness as leaders in Christ’s church.
Our core concern is, in the words of the song, “Just a closer walk with thee.” We want to discern the Spirit among us and to be faithful to that Holy guidance. We know that this is both a deeply personal and individual quest and that it is a communal undertaking. Why else did God create the church? So together we engage the issues and concerns that relate to our spiritual journeys.
Our second core concern is that we will be more effective leaders in Christ’s church. Our call to ministerial leadership demands the development of a set of skills and abilities that will allow us to be both fruitful and faithful in the practice of ministry. Learning to preach and teach and lead and discern the culture within which we are serving, all are necessary skills that must be honed if we are to faithfully and effectively respond to God’s invitation to ministerial leadership.
Our domain then has two foci, spirituality and effective church leadership.
Now the question is, how do we nurture ourselves as a Community of Practice? That is the next necessary question. However, it is beyond the scope of this short essay. However, nurturing COPs is the focus of most of the literature on Communities of Practice. So let me offer the following resources.
Finally, using Lilly Endowment Grant money, the Ministers Council is offering Community of Practice Workshops that are designed to strengthen our constituent councils. We can make something happen.