Spiritual Neighboring | Learning Theological Analysis

Traveling, traveling, traveling! I've finished up with Episcopal Divinity School's staff meeting, now on to the Wild Goose Festival.

But today, lots of flying!

-Liz

Pastoral Care for Healthy People

To be a church involved in the resistance, our leaders need a strong spiritual foundation. To be a church reaching out to the community, our leaders need a strong spiritual foundation. Or maybe it is this: to be a church our leaders need a strong spiritual foundation.

By this I do not mean any particular spiritual style or type; I do not mean that it must be meditation or prayer or bible study or theological analysis. Each of these are specific to how a person makes meaning. But whatever the strategy, leaders need confidence in God’s support for them, and in their own ability to articulate their faith for themselves.

I’m going to use the term spiritual care, rather than pastoral care, because I do not believe only, or even mostly, pastors must provide this. But it must be someone’s responsibility, and also many people’s responsibility, to attend to our leader’s formation as Christians.

I call this Spiritual Care for Healthy People.

There is a particular rhythm to caring for people in crisis; spiritual care for healthy people requires us to be more proactive. We do this work when nothing is wrong. We do this work not to improve their work but to grow their faith. This is formation.

Some of this work happens in meetings of the team. Making time for spiritual disciplines and personal for check-in is important. You can also encourage, and help, everyone explore a theological basis for their viewpoints on decisions. It is critical to develop theological talking points for any decision that might be controversial or will have a few naysayers. Each leader needs help developing their own response when others question the leadership-body’s decisions.

Much of the work happens in one-on-one meetings. You probably already are meeting with the leader of your boards or committees, but the best leadership development happens if you can meet individually with everyone who is doing leadership work.

When I start at a new ministry I ask my leadership about their faith journey, and how the volunteering they are doing connects to their faith. I wish I had done that as follow-up throughout my time there. Instead of meeting to plan our meetings, I wish we focused on where we see God in this committee or team, and where we see God in our congregation.

It is important as well to see God in our leaders! Research suggests that people need to hear five positive points of feed back for every correction. While I expect that most churches are doing little negative feedback, I know that our leaders are correcting, critiquing, and evaluating themselves. Work to create a culture where everyone is noticing good things that others are doing. Appreciation events in worship are a great thing, and people should be hearing positive feedback all the time. Perhaps if you get in the habit of that, it will be easier to provide constructive corrections as well. But be certain there are five times more kudos than advice.

We want to be a place that builds up everyone, that appreciates those that are doing the work, and that is a safe place to try out new ideas. For this to happen we must connect our spiritual lives to our volunteer tasks. We need to help each other do that.

What do you do to care for your congregation's leaders? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
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I'm offering a Spiritual Neighboring course in Denver October 18-19. It's designed around providing care for people who are homeless, in-prison, newly out of prison, and those who find it difficult to get out of their homes. Click here for more information and registration.

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I teach an online course Foundations in Baptismal Living at Bexley Seabury this September. It is 4 weeks long, with reading, videos, and one live session each week. Learn how to think theologically and develop a theological argument for a topic you care about.

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