CURRENT STATE OF PASTORAL MINISTRY
In order to sustain pastoral excellence, seminaries must be as intentional about postgraduate development as they are about student development during the degree-pursuing years. Seminaries must develop unified ministries to monitor the realities of pastoral life and then proactively nurture the spirits, souls, and bodies of today's clergy and their families. Seminaries must form partnerships with judicatories and other clergy-support organizations to identify key growth points in the vocational journey of clergy and establish formative experiences to address both the problems and the potential that attend that journey.

The challenge facing the seminaries of the twenty-first century is to devote appropriate resources to equipping pastors in the years that follow graduation and to do it in a creative partnership with the ecclesiastical officials and the laity of the church. This means moving into a "whole people of God paradigm," into a more unified approach to postgraduate development, and into a more creative alliance with denomination and parachurch leaders around the world.



PROGRAM DEFINITION
The seasons of ministry have both internal and chronological dimensions that require continuing transformation. The inner transformation of the pastor occurs in an ongoing way and often is helical in nature. Like the geometric form that constantly increases in size in circling around a central point, pastors must continually return to their true Center of life and expand and deepen their connections to that Center. Certain inner transformations may be precipitated by external changes occurring in a pastor’s life and ministry, as well as triggered through onset of chronological transitions.

Becky R. McMillan, in painting a portrait of pastoral leaders in the local church today, observed that “[b]ecause the demands on clergy and the needs they experience change over time and under different circumstances, they need resources of continuing education and other types of support appropriate to different stages of pastoral career and to the changing contexts in which clergy serve.” ¹

Since continuing education can be strengthened by sound research and understanding of these “seasonal” issues that impact pastors and their ministries, we propose to undertake research that will enable us to understand more adequately the various seasons through which pastors normally pass. Based upon this research, we propose to publish a monograph on the Seasons of Pastoral Ministry and to design a series of seminars to be offered periodically to pastors around the various seasonal themes. The seminars will be a follow up project to those addressed in this proposal.

The research will be characterized in the following way:
• Series of 12 different focus groups composed of 8-10 pastors each held around the country;
• Focus groups that are interdenominational and intergenerational in make-up;
• Participation of Asbury Seminary doctoral students in the research process; and,
• Generation of a monograph, “Cultivating and Sustaining Pastoral Excellence During the Seasons of Pastoral Ministry.”


¹Beck R. McMillan, “The View from Pulpit & Pew: Provocative Findings on Pastoral Leadership in the 21st Century,” SACEM Presentation, February 21, 2003 (Duke: Pulpit & Pew), www.pulpitandpew.duke.edu (August 12, 2003).

• CONTACT: email: psalm@asburyseminary.edu

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