ANAMCARA - COLLEGIAL CLERGY COMMUNITIES by Mahan Siler reviewed by Margaret Marcuson Rev. Margaret J. Marcuson works with clergy who want to be better leaders and churches who want to develop their ministries. She is the author of Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury), and is the Senator from Oregon. Her website is www.margaretmarcuson.com.

An important focus for Ministers Council in recent years has been Together in Ministry groups— collegial covenant groups in a wide variety of formats. Veteran Baptist pastor Mahan Siler has written a booklet, AnamCara: Collegial Clergy Communities, outlining a model for clergy to engage in collegial groups to the benefit of one another and their ministry.

What does AnamCara mean? It’s a Gaelic phrase which means “soul friend.” Siler said in an interview that he used this phrase because he wanted to make clear that this model went much deeper than the typical “support group.”

He says in the book, “This is about friends, soul friends, with whom you share the passion of common calling….AnamCara would be a small circle of your choosing, friends of your excitements, companions you could risk trusting, colleagues with whom you would enjoy practicing the art of ministry.”

Siler said he was motivated to work on a model for clergy groups by his own experience. “I had early on a really classic burnout in my first pastorate in Northern Virginia – I just ran out of gas. It was a time of a lot of turmoil in Washington, DC, back in the late 60s. I resigned without a place to go, and recouped.” He worked as director of a pastoral care department, but always wanted to get back into the pastorate. When he accepted a call to Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, he said, “I figured out next time I’d take better care of my own need as a pastor to stay alive.” He said that during that time he also observed other pastors not doing a very good job of self-care. He said, “Among all the professionals, we have less collaboration, and we need it the most.”

In the book, Siler points out another aspect to life in ministry today: that we are part of a huge cultural shift going on right now. He calls this the Great Turning, a profound transition taking place around us. (See also Phyllis Tickle’s new book The Great Emergence for a brilliant articulation of our current cultural experience and the implications for ministry.) Old ways of being in ministry will not work any more, and it’s easy to find ourselves at a loss as we struggle with the anxiety and change around us.

What is the AnamCara model? Siler is expressing a vision, a hope for “a network of small collegial circles each of six to eight clergy leaders of congregations who meet regularly to offer mutual support, collaboration, and accountability in their practices of theological reflection, leadership and Spirit awareness.” He says, “AnamCara communities are practice groups. The common praxis – theological reflection and discernment, leading, and soul nurturance – is the unifying thread.” He says that each group will develop its own unique shape and that methods and content will vary, but he does have a suggested form.

“AnamCara is for you who see yourselves as resident theologians, leaders of congregations, and Spirit-persons yet readily confess that you cannot practice theological reflection, leadership, or spiritual awareness by yourself or under your own strength. It is for you who want to profess more intentionally a practice of ministry that challenges the individualism that isolates us, undermines our communities, and sucks the breath out of the very Gospel we preach.”

The AnamCara model includes four elements:

1) Practicing community. Siler suggests that there is a necessary aloneness that comes with the job. There is also an isolation that “starves our spirit,” and is not inevitable. Siler feels that collegial connection on a deep level is both an antidote to the destructive isolation that can lead to frustration and burnout and a way to ease the aloneness that goes with the territory.

2) Practicing theological reflection and discernment. He suggests that we are resident
theologians, doing theology inductively, often serving congregations with a wide variety of perspectives. We need time and space to think through our own views. “The resource of peers within a learning community such as AnamCara is a place in which to ponder the big questions, enter into deep listening, and think critically about the vision of our call.”

3) Practicing leadership. Siler says it took him some time to see himself as a leader of leaders within a congregational setting. Today, he says, there is no option to gradually become aware of this. “You are leaders. The times demand it.” It’s essential to understand the difference between leading and managing, and when each is required. He suggests that an AnamCara group can serve as a collegial consultation group for leadership challenges, “not to analyze or fix, but to listen and ask clarifying questions within a circle of mutual respect.”

4) Practicing soul making. He says, “The most serious danger I faced as a pastor was losing my soul in fulfilling the role.” Practices that enhance our spiritual formation and transformation can help us both professionally and personally. These could include prayer and meditation as well as exploring our family of origin or using tools such as Myers-Briggs to learn more about ourselves.

Siler’s model is time-consuming: he suggest an initial two-day retreat, and then one full day a month to address the four areas described, coffee or a meal weekly (or conference calls or other ways to keep in touch), and then a four-day annual retreat. He acknowledges that most pastors would say, “I just don’t have the time to do it.” He says that much of what we do for continuing education is content-based. We may learn something, but the experience is not transformative. He argues that true transformation requires a deeper commitment.

Siler has his own theological perspective, and most of his work around leadership has used a systems approach. Yet he doesn’t want the model to be dependent on a particular theology or theory of leadership. He says, “Each group would within those four areas come up with different forms of perspective.”

Siler’s book is a quick read, but the implications are far-reaching. What if Together in Ministry groups, as they move away from dependence on the Lilly money, read this book, and think about the ways they do now and can continue to work together on community, theological reflection, leadership and spiritual growth?

His model fits well with what we are learning about Communities of Practice as developed by Etienne Wenger, the focus of the next Lilly grant. Wenger suggests that “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (“Communities of practice: a brief introduction,” p. 1).
For Siler, ministry comprises both doing and being, and the AnamCara model helps support both critical aspects of ministry life. As pastoral leaders, we need to have a passion both for our work and for ourselves.

The booklet is available from Catawba Publishing (www.Catawbapublishing.com). Siler is also writing a revised version. A network of pastoral counseling centers in his area is training facilitators and will be developing groups and researching the impact the groups have.
AnamCara is a short though meaty read. Read it and think through: how are you finding connection in your ministry? How might your Together in Ministry group go deeper? Where do you want to grow as a pastor and human being? Do you have a “soul friend” or friends? How do you find a way to develop your doing and your being in your ministry?