Report to the General Board
November 15, 2008
Joe Kutter
I first want to say thank you for the opportunity to speak with the General Board about the work of the Ministers Council. I’ve been at it for about 10 weeks and it seems appropriate to begin by telling you why I took this job. For 39 years I served in congregational ministry and now, at this late date in my full-time ministry, I’ve begun a new adventure.
Why take this job?
This story comes from my own family experience but I believe that represents literally thousands of men and women who engage ministry in our ABC family. At the time, my dad was a pastor, the pastor of a small, small-town, nearly rural church. A leading family in the congregation had a son, about my age, who graduated from high school, went off to join the military and then returned home. One day, with both of his parents in the house, the son went into the bathroom and used a gun to take his own life. My parents immediately went to be with the parents who were both members of the church and friends. As my father sat with the family, prayed and talked together, my mother took a bucket of cleaning materials into the bathroom and cleaned it up. Together they entered into the family’s sorrow and extended the ministry of Christ.
I tell that story, not because it is something that was or is unique to the experience of my parents but because it is not. Every day, thousands of women and men in congregations large, medium and small, enter into the sorrow of their people and extend the ministry of Christ. Most do it without notice and many do it without much pay. They just do it because they feel that God has called them into that ministry. Over the years, these men and women have become heroes to me, models of Christ, and the very incarnation of grace. And it is my privilege to serve them at this time in my life.
What is the Ministers Council?
I have been a little surprised at some of the images that some people carry around about the Ministers Council I have actually heard some refer to us as a union. I lived in Detroit for about 18 years and I learned a little about unions and collective bargaining and the threat of general strikes to enhance leverage in the bargaining process. The Ministers Council does not engage in collective bargaining nor do we threaten general strikes. We are not a union.
Do we advocate for the well being of ministerial leaders? Absolutely! It is both a matter of justice and fairness that ministerial leaders be compensated in a way that protects both the well being of the ministerial leader and the well being of his or her family. And it is a matter of the well being of the church. A ministerial leader who is forever worried about being able to attend to the necessities of the family will be a less effective leader in the cause of Christ. But that is a long way from being a union.
I have sometimes referred to us as a professional association and I think that we have much in common with the professions. We seek to promote excellence in our service to church and Christ and that is a role that professions play – promoting excellence. And we do promote a high standard of moral and ethical behavior through our Covenant and Code of Ethics. A copy of the Code of Ethics is on the table. The development of ethical standards is a very professional thing to do.
But even here we have some differences. Professions control their own memberships. The profession itself determines who will enter the profession and the process by which the entry is made. We don’t do that. We do try to have some influence on the process but to say that we have control is to completely misunderstand the way that Baptists do things.
So what are we? Let me paraphrase our Mission Statement. First we are persons who covenant together. We voluntarily join together in the practice of our ministry. We covenant together to deepen our spiritual journeys. Our first purpose is to walk together so that both as individuals and as colleagues in ministry, we might have a closer walk with Christ. And we covenant together so that we can increase our effectiveness in ministry. The things that we can do can be done well or not and we seek to improve our ability to do the tasks of ministry well.
And we do this as an autonomous associated ministry organization (AMO) that is both self governing and self funding. We stand in partnership with the different members of the American Baptist family but we are not integrated into the American Baptist denominational structure.
How are we doing?
Given the troubled waters that we’ve navigated I can say two things. First, we are less numerically than we were and second, we are much stronger than we might have been. We have issues to deal with and problems that must be solved but we will be here for the foreseeable future.
The heart of our ministry is at the level of the constituent council. I am currently talking with the leaders of our constituent councils in an effort to get a picture of the effectiveness of our work across the denomination. You will not be surprised that some are very strong some act as though they are old and seem to have nearly forgotten why we exist. Some have energetic leadership and some don’t. Some work in environments that are helpful and other environments are less conducive to our work. I have finished about 25% of my informal survey and I will give a report to our Executive Committee in February.
Why have a Ministers Council?
There is a brief document on your table that I submit for your consideration. (This refers to the document, both recently developed and recently circulated, “Why a Ministers Council?) At its heart, the Ministers Council provides a community within which the vocation of ministry can be nurtured by the ministerial leaders themselves. It’s ministerial leaders assuming responsibility for their own vocational well fare – together.
Craig Dykstra, in an article published a few years ago on line for the site, “Sustaining Pastoral Excellence” wrote that effective pastors have two traits. The first he calls “Pastoral imagination?” By this he means that effective ministerial leaders over the course of their ministries develop a distinctive way of seeing the world. They see things “pastorally.” The second trait he calls “Holy Friendships.” Effective ministerial leaders nearly always have close personal friendships with some colleagues in ministry and those relationships help to create and sustain effective ministry.
The corollary is this. While not every isolate or “Lone Ranger” minister will get into trouble, nearly every one who gets into trouble is a “Lone Ranger.” Healthy ministers with healthy ministries need healthy holy friendship within the vocation.
What do we do?
Our constituent Councils have retreats, conferences, recreational activities and other opportunities to consider both the wholeness of the minister and the ministry. At the local level, our constituent councils create opportunities within which the journey with Christ can be deepened and ministry skills can be improved and holy friendship can grow.
Nationally, using a grant from the Lily Endowment, we continue to sponsor our “Together in Ministry Groups.” Last year, we had 109 groups with nearly 800 individuals participating. The primary result, using many different styles, holy friendships have been nurtured, skills enhanced and the walk with Christ deepened.
We sponsor national conferences. This year, we will bring Leonard Sweet to our pre-biennial gathering. We’ve created a partnership with Interim Ministries, Regional Ministries and Women in Ministry so that we can have him for two days. He will be with us Thursday afternoon in a workshop setting. Each participant will be asked to pay $30.00 for this workshop. Friday, we’ll continue with the traditional Ministers Council, co-sponsored with the partners above, before the MMBB lunch.
Our next national ministers conference will be called “Together in the Lord” and will be in Orlando, January 2010. This time, we will try an experiment. We are doing this in conjunction with the “Orientation to American Baptist Life” conference. Plans are still being formed but I have no doubt that we’ll have a wonderful experience.
Concluding remarks
The apostle Paul wrote that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Imagine a wonderful clay pot with an exotic tree planted within. For some reason, there is a flaw in the pot and it begins to crumble. What happens to the exotic tree if the pot crumbles? What happens to the treasure if the earthen vessel is not attended? In the Ministers Council, for the sake of the treasure, we take care of the earthen vessels. We take care of one another in our vocation and in the process, we take care of ourselves.
That is our mission, our goal, our call.
I appreciate your prayers and thanks for hearing me.