Summer looms: long languid months in which to relax, lie in a hammock, drink lemonade, and listen to the birds in the trees…. Somehow I don’t think that describes what summer will be like for most of us! Summers seem to be as busy as the rest of the year, with travel, vacations, camps for children, and projects to be done around the house.
Still, summer allows us a change of pace, and a chance to focus on different things. This summer will provide me with an opportunity to have some concentrated time on my doctoral work. In September 2004, I began work on my Doctor of Ministry degree at Princeton Theological Seminary. I completed all my required classroom work last summer, leaving me with “just” the dissertation, or what the program calls the “Final Project”.
I spent much of this spring developing and refining my Final Project Proposal, a process that is rather like trying to corral mercury loosed from a thermometer. Papers and responses flowed back and forth between me and the Seminary’s Doctoral Committee over the months, all part of the normal process that every doctoral student goes through. Happily, the Proposal stage is nearing completion, so I can begin work this summer on the Final Project.
My Project will focus on leadership in the church. Every year God calls a new group of women and men to leadership roles in the church as Elders and Deacons. Amazingly, though, there is no training program from the Presbytery, no handbook written by the Synod, no workshop offered by Louisville, no ready resource to help us become better leaders in the church. There are more than 11,000 churches in the Presbyterian Church in this country and it appears that there are 11,000 different ways we go about trying to develop leadership!
What I hope to develop is a program we can use at our church to help officers become more comfortable in their role as leaders as they serve God and this church. Our Book of Order charges our Elders in particular to “exercise leadership…by seeking together to find and represent the will of Christ”. How best to do that is a challenge when we all struggle with discernment, demands on our time, and different interpretations of the word “leadership”.
Of course, we begin our study of leadership by remembering that we are also followers: followers of our Lord Jesus, who is Head of the Church. As we go about our ministry, as long as we “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly…and…do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” we can be confident that we will be both faithful leaders and faithful followers.
Grace & peace,
Pastor Skip
