{"id":8386,"date":"2014-09-22T13:23:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T20:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=8386"},"modified":"2015-02-20T11:13:51","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T19:13:51","slug":"seven-ministry-convictions-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/seven-ministry-convictions-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Ministry Convictions, part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Dale Cockrum | Inland District Superintendent<\/h4>\n

[dropcap]L[\/dropcap]ast month, JoAnna and I hosted a workshop for pastors who began ministry this summer at an Inland District church. Normally, pastors planning to move to a new church attend a conference\u2010sponsored Transition Workshop in late May, but in the Inland District, a range\u00a0of unusual circumstances led to a series of last minute changes, and we had 14 pastors to our home who did not attend the May event because they did not then know they were moving this year!<\/p>\n

Mary Huycke, a church consultant and former cabinet colleague, was one of the leaders of the May event, and I asked her to guide our time together. She asked me to name my expectations for pastors in the district, and I took that on as a challenge, recognizing that\u00a0it\u2019s hard to live up, or down, to unnamed expectations. I thought it might be helpful for our Inland Steeples readers to know my answer to Mary\u2019s provocative question. I identified seven of my deepest, most fervently held convictions about ministry, and over the course of\u00a0the next few months, I\u2019ll share them with you.<\/p>\n

For a glimpse of where we\u2019re going, here are all seven:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ministry is all about people and relationships.<\/li>\n
  2. Ministry requires a team.<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Ministry gives itself away.<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Ministry helps people deal with change.<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Ministry focuses on making disciples and engaging our mission\u2010field.<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. The most important hour of ministry is Sunday morning worship.<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Ministry builds on the strengths of a congregation.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As I shared with the pastors, I was sitting in front of my library, and I introduced each of these convictions about ministry with a favorite book. Mary Huycke and Dan Smith wrote\u00a0the first book, Practicing Right Relationships. Here\u2019s what I said:<\/p>\n

    \"smith-sellon\"<\/a>1. Ministry is all about people.<\/strong> In Bishop Hagiya\u2019s presentation at the May Clergy Transition\u00a0Workshop on \u201cThe First 90 Days\u201d of ministry in a new parish, he talked a lot about\u00a0visitation\u2014and how important it is. I echo that from my own experience in four churches\u00a0over 30 years, and from listening to churches talk about their pastors in six years as a\u00a0superintendent. Nothing is more important than building strong spiritual relationships\u00a0with the people of your church. I\u2019ve heard from some churches (you may be serving one\u00a0now) that apparently pastors don\u2019t visit anymore. Pastors must have other more important\u00a0things to do, people say, with wistful sadness.<\/p>\n

    I think it is true that the nature of visiting has changed over time; expectations from generation to generation may be different, but the need to visit has not changed. We may visit more in people\u2019s workplaces or at a local coffee shop, but we will still visit. The two hour\u2010long pastoral call in someone\u2019s living room snacking on cookies and tea may give way to something shorter, but I expect you to visit the people of your church.<\/p>\n

    I believe it will pay huge dividends. When you visit beloved shut\u2010ins, that word spreads\u2014we have a caring pastor. When you visit church folk, it builds real power for your ministry.<\/p>\n

    [pull_quote_left]You already have positional power, simply by being pastor. That and $4.00 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. [\/pull_quote_left]You already have positional power, simply by being pastor. That and $4.00 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Real power in a church is relational power; it comes over time and through having been with people through tough times, sitting at bedside in a hospital,\u00a0helping someone cope with loss and grief, sharing conversations on things that matter.<\/p>\n

    I know there are many things you want to do in ministry, but everything else depends on how well you know and care for the people of your church. It informs your preaching in huge ways. As I was preparing to teach a CLM class on preaching recently, I remembered\u00a0that about a year after I have arrived at each of my churches, someone came to me and said, quite seriously, \u201cDale, your preaching has gotten so much better recently.\u201d Now I know that wasn\u2019t true, but what had happened is that I knew people in the church better after a year\u00a0and they knew me more fully, and it made my preaching better than it is.<\/p>\n

    Every few days in ministry, you have to make a choice. Will you take an afternoon to visit shut\u2010ins, check with a parishioner at the hospital, or have coffee with a church leader, OR will you (fill in the blank: work on the church website, arrange your library, or post\u00a0something on your blog)? I may have given away some of my personal choices there, and sometimes we do find ourselves doing those other things, but I encourage you to spend time with people anytime there\u2019s a choice about what you will do.<\/p>\n

    Next time: Conviction # 2: Effective ministry requires a team!<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Rev. Dale Cockrum | Inland District Superintendent [dropcap]L[\/dropcap]ast month, JoAnna and I hosted a workshop for pastors who began ministry this summer at an Inland District church. Normally, pastors planning to move to a new church attend a conference\u2010sponsored Transition Workshop in late May, but in the Inland District, a range\u00a0of unusual circumstances led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":8390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[384,408],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-districts","8":"category-inland-district"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/7-min-convict.jpg?fit=700%2C357&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-2bg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8386"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9659,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386\/revisions\/9659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}