This past week was my last installment of Baby Pastor School. The format has been greatly changed and it is not officially called "Leadership Guild" instead of its previous official name "Institute for Congregational Ministry." Unfortunately, it has never officially been called Baby Pastor School ;-( And I have to say I like the changes, though there was most definitely some growing pains this year.
Realizing that the 100 or so participants gather have a diverse range of calls and passions, the organizers got rid of the workshops and keynote speaker whose topic varied greatly from year to year. Also gone was mass gatherings with everyone in our "year" and small groups were transformed. To steal a term from a friend, baby pastor school was previously a tube sock event - it was meant to cover all but in and of itself it was pointless and void. In other words it was trying to be everything to everyone and as a result there wasn't much content.
Instead for the time being, each year they will focus on developing leadership skills to make us baby pastors and roostered leaders better leaders regardless of what type of call we have. The keynote speakers will address those skills and the small group time will be spent developing those skills greater with people who have been called roughly the same amount of time. But this year those leadership skills development started a little too basic and our small group as a result rebelled.
It really wasn't until Wednesday that the information presented became not just stuff we already knew. As one friend stated on Tuesday "Today I learned that in order to get to know someone you should have a conversation with them." Seriously!? No wonder I haven't been getting to know anyone, I have just been talking to my dogs this entire time. Therefore practicing conversations with people was not helpful.
So what did I get out of this experience? Just the idea of intentionality. Yes that might also seem like a no duh, but sometimes I need to be reminded of that. To intentionally take time to get to know new people in my congregation, people in the greater community and even people in my congregation who I have known for the last 2 1/2 years. To intentionally take time for planning ministry. To intentionally take time for reading ministry books and further development of my own ministry skill sets. To intentionally review how events, sermons or worship went to better those in experiences in the future.
So what will I be intentionally working on in the future? Well now that I just wrote that, I have almost too many to think of. But I think I will try and stick with two - one professional, one more personal. The professional option is that as Bethlehem partners with ARE and we start this transformation process, to take time to make sure that people are adapting to the changes. That doesn't mean go so slowly that glaciers are moving fast, but more to check in with people to make sure their concerns are heard and validated.
On the personal side, it is to be intentional about getting out of the house/church for at least an hour Monday through Thursday. Even though I'm an extrovert, it is way to easy for me to hole up, especially since Bob is not at home. Tuesday and Thursday should be easy as I have text study and stitch and bitch on those days. And on Mondays and Wednesdays it means visiting homebound members, meeting with community members and church members (you know that conversation piece up above), or even just going to the coffee shop if what I really need to do is read and write.
And no, even with the changes I would not want to go back to Baby Pastor School next year, but at least I have hope that it won't be such a dreaded experience in the future and the organizers are headed in the right direction.
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