Professional Effectiveness Report

 

The Professional Effectiveness Committee began by thanking everyone who participated in the Code of Ethics teaching piece which was posted to the web site during the previous year. Particular thanks were given to Dee Dee Turlington and Mike Harvey for the editorial work they did.

 

It was agreed that we should move on to providing additional resources to the web site. In particular we decided to provide resources for the following areas: Leadership Development, Tips for Pastoral Duties, and Special Status Clergy.

 

Special Status Clergy

 

There is a desire to provide more website resources for those wanting to pursue the military chaplaincy. We would like there to be more information concerning the denominational requirements for chaplaincy in general, and also information on what each branch of the military requires for its particular program. Shelly Aakre agreed to contact the office of George Langhorne to start the process of gathering information for this project.

 

Leadership Development

 

We began by exploring different models and methods churches use to develop lay leadership. We decided to act in  the following ways: 

• Mark Hetrick will provide a description of a church that uses the elder model in their church government.

• Thomas Gilmore will be providing a training manual he uses for the ordained diaconate.

• Margaret Marcuson will be developing a model for a church that centers its life on “intentional facilitated learning” as opposed to one solely centered on social connection.

•  Mike Harvey is going to work on another church model based on dialogical relationships.

• Margaret also agreed to allow us to provide a link on the Ministers Council web site to her web site which discusses leadership from a family systems approach.

• A discussion of lay ministry ensued, in particular Certified Lay Ministry. Mike Harvey will begin researching the various Certified Lay Ministry programs that are available as a way to discern what additional resources we may need to provide. Jeff Woods also agreed to help in this area.

• Jeff Woods agreed to provide questions that can be used in establishing mentoring relationships that churches could use in training lay leaders or pastors could use in helping other pastors. Mark Hetrick also agreed to provide some information regarding such a mentoring process with which he is familiar.

 

Tips for Pastoral Duties

 

Phin Marr will submit several original services he uses for weddings, child dedications, etc. We encourage all senators and council members to do the same.

  

We then started exploring two “big ideas” that we’d like to see develop in the next few years. First, we’d like to see a mentoring process begin in every region. We envision a Ministers Council member making themselves available as a mentor for someone coming into their region who is beginning their first ministerial position (chaplaincy, pastorate, associate pastor, staff, campus ministers, etc.). We’d also like the Senate to consider waving the dues for the new member for the first year. Ideally such a person would receive a letter or phone call from the constituent council’s leadership welcoming them into the region, making sure they know they are free members of the council for a year, and making the offer to provide them with a mentor (who would be trained in some way). The mentoring resources discussed above will be a start in developing this idea. We realize that discussions will need to take place with regional staff to make sure this is a needed service and would be welcomed by them.

 

Second, we thought it would be great if there were online resources that could be used by clergy in crisis, much like the ones available for those who are interested in various 12-step programs. There are a lot of possibilities for this: chat rooms, message boards, e-mail list-servers, and combinations of all these things. Ideally there would be council members available to help those who needed to use this service. There is a great deal of thought that needs to go into this. For one, we will have to explore possible liability issues. Phin Marr agreed to start looking into the technical aspects to see what is possible, and also to see if he can contact various organizations who provide such services to see how they handle liablity issues. Again, both of these projects are longer-term ones, but we are excited to think of the possibilities they present.

  

Respectfully Submitted,

Phineas Marr

Vice-President for Professional Effectiveness

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