Questions and Responses at the end of the 2003 School of Ministry course:

• Being unemployed - what happens when / if / while I don't get a call to a parish?
  • It may not be fair, but there is no guarantee of a placement. These days there is often a delay. It is hard when friends you have trained with with know where they are going and you don't.
  • Keep in touch with the Introductions Committee Convenor.
  • Check arrangements with your housing.
  • Check out with WINZ about benefits and conditions.
  • You may wish to explore temporary supply preaching.
  • Richard Bolles, What Color is your Parachute, has a website, Job Hunters Bible.
  • If finance is not an issue have a decent holiday first.
  • Ask Andrew Bell about short term overseas placements, if that is your call.
• How could we develop an apostolic itinerant ministry within the Presbyterian movement?
  • There is discussion about Recognised Ministries which would provide some framework, but there are things which can just happen. If someone is appreciated, the word gets around. We do not need to advertise ourselves. Being an elder should be a mark of responsibility in the church. Get to know people around the country. Ask.
• Exorcism in Presbyterianism
  • Evil is for real; it is described, symbolised, personified and addressed in different ways.
  • We should resist the devil and all his works, but there are traps for young players, as one might expect.
  • I respect people with ministry in this area who are discreet and who do not resort to the demonic, or to territorial spirits, as catch-all explanations. There is a fair amount of of faulty diagnosis, and some manipulative power games, which create the problems we then try to solve. With people whose lives are in a mess this is dangerous stuff.
  • I would be in favour of the ancient and Catholic Christian practice of making exorcism part of baptism. We can invite people to renew their baptismal vows including the rejection of evil.
  • It never hurts to claim the Lordship of Christ over a place, person, or situation. "Constituting a meeting with prayer as a court of the Church" could even be seen as a form of exorcism - like many things in our church's spiritual heritage, its there already we are just not appropriating it.
  • An Enlightenment world view is a bit useless on its own here, but it is not totally irrelevant either.
  • Andrew Scott provided a link to First Presbyterian Church, Pitman, New Jersey on "The problem of a personal devil and demons."
  • If we frame church conflicts in terms of spiritual warfare, be aware that the evil to be exorcised is usually to be found on more than one side of any particular issue. St Patrick's Breastplate is a prayer we can discover afresh.
• NOMS and mini-bishops
  • I guess it actually follows from what Calvin said about the words for presbyter and bishop in NT Greek. The problem is not the words, it is what people want to mean by them. But Presbyteries as a whole, and ministers, can learn a lot from the episcopal ideal.
  • Traditional ministers are becoming scarcer, and other forms of valid ministerial leadership are increasing. How does this change the NOM role?
  • Would you be recognised as a teacher and encourager of others? Servant leadership, ministry of all believers, and the affirmation of one another with different gifts can be testing to implement, but would seem to be the way to go.
• Further study options
  • This is a time of year when it seems terribly important to sort out the rest of your life, but you may actually have other things to do.
  • In my view it is more important to know what questions are important to you and to work on them than it is to have a programme in mind. If you wait until there is an academic or other opportunity before thinking about what you are interested in you may not make the most of it. University courses are expensive in NZ or overseas. It is easier to do the research on place when you are nearing a study opportunity that it is to do fresh thinking on what you want to know that is worth the effort.
  • There is no knowledge of theology or leadership skill enhancement which is going to cure someone in pastoral leadership who is not keeping up the with needs of their people, and with what is going on in church and society. On the other hand for someone is pastorally connected, there can be opportunities which are worth the investment.
  • If you are strong academically the MTh and PhD routes are good for some things and useless for others. MMin, DMin and the MTS from Bible College can be good mid-career choices. Normally a PhD is needed for tertiary level teaching in non-pastoral subjects. Select training seminars can be helpfully focussed on quickly applicable skills which make more sense when you are in a ministry situation.
  • Grant applications are a fact of life, including for study leave. See Grant Applications.
  • Do book reviews. Push your thinking harder. And harder. Keep up your exegesis.
  • Check out Continuing Formation and Research_Aids
  • The School of Ministry Staff are among those you can consult with at any time as you think about how to make good use of study leave.
  • We need new generations of teachers and trainers. Where are they going to come from and how will they be prepared???
• How to change trad to cool risky culture
  • Just Be
• Support in ministry / Supervision / Spiritual Direction
  • Keep up with your buddies from your time at the School of Ministry. Ask around. Take your time. Don't make long-term commitments to a formal support arrangement until you have tried something out for a while. Have an exit.
• Running Meetings
  A good book is Tom Hindle, Managing Meetings, Dorling Kindersley. Other tips:
  • Observe meetings that you consider well run and make notes to yourself on how they do it. Talk to the Session Clerk about how they do things in your first parish, and go with that until you have the confidence to change it. Let people have their say, bring them on task, ask for a resolution when that seems right, hold out if it is not, stop when you said, get a small group to work on things if they look sticky. Pick up pieces, especially those who feel hurt, afterwards. For people you disagree with keep the disagreement in formal meetings, and be scrupulous in avoiding sorting them out in the car park after Presbytery. It is just like TSU, or class really.
  • Have a look at Event Planning and Making the Most of Meetings
  • Cultures of meeting, decision-making and mediation have changed enormously. Some Sessions don't know that. People whose professional life is used to structured process (eg lawyers, those in politics) will expect something similar in the church which can be useful or may be a pain. In rural communities Federated Farmers may provide models to be aware of.
  • When there is uncertainty about how to process an issue, it can be helpful to use the authority of the chair to summarise a situation, suggest a process, and make a decision. If you need to stop and talk about how to handle something, then say that is what you are doing and do it. If a meeting is seriously disruptive you can close it or adjorn it.
  • Most meetings today are less formal than they used to be, but effective meetings are more carefully structured than they may appear at first sight. In a good meeting the chair knows exactly what is going on, where they are going, and when they intend to finish, and who is going to be able to get their piece in before that time comes.
  • Apart from routine business, one good discussion on one serious issue in one meeting is a high score.
  • Make good use of small groups, short meetings for routine stuff, and retreat style for the more tricky.
  • Make meetings fun. Start with affirming each individual and allowing them to say something about how things are for them.
  • Don't linger when you don't need to. Remind people of time-frames. "We are going to be out of here by 9.30."
  • Acknowledge some of us see this, some of us feel this.
  • There is a time to pray.
  • Some sticky things can be left for informal discussion in a tea break and come back to them later.
  • Usually the chair is more about moderating process than setting outcomes.
  • The Presbyterian Church (USA) Parliamentary Procedures is available in pdf and is worth a read, despite - of course - having no formal authority.
  • Sustained failure to follow procedure without knowing what rules you are breaking will almost always get a parish into trouble. Breaking "rules" when you know what you are doing is one thing, what is really important is that you also take responsibility for the outcome and the quality of the decision-making which results.

John Roxborogh, October 2003, updated March 2005.