Clear Priorities Help Pa. Pastor
Be a Shepherd, Not a Hired Hand
As the pastor of four—and at one time as many as six--small United Methodist churches in and around the town of Bradford in rural northwest Pennsylvania, the Rev. Steve Moore, 55, was constantly on the run. Virtually every hour of every day, his calendar was filled with an unending stream of meetings, appointments, and conferences: church boards, pastor-parish relations committee meetings, Bible studies, prayer groups, funerals, weddings, church suppers, hospital visits, home visits, and 101 other essential tasks that he was certain would never get done unless he did them himself.
He was so busy, in fact, that a few years ago, when his brother gave Moore and his wife airline tickets to fly to Hawaii to see their children and three grandsons, he initially declined.
“I told my wife that I wasn’t going,” Moore recalls. “I said ‘What about the church? I just have too much going on.’” Only when the district Board of Ordained Ministry insisted that he make the trip did Moore finally relent.
Today, however, after participating in the Rural Pastors Institute—a Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Project funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.—Moore has a different approach to ministry. Now, he has established clear boundaries and a set of priorities, and for the most part, he’s sticking to them—though he confesses it’s still a struggle.
“I don’t do it all the time, but I’m trying to put everything in priority,” he says. “I’m keeping God number 1; my wife, number 2; my family, 3 and the church coming in fourth.”
Most amazing of all, when Moore began setting priorities, focusing on some church tasks and dropping others, his churches didn’t collapse. Indeed, they thrived. Rather than sitting back and allowing Moore to do everything, parishioners began stepping forward and establishing whole new ministries.
What he really learned in the Institute, Moore says, was how to stop being the “on-staff, paid, professional Christian.” Yes, he’s been a church minister for eight years, but it wasn’t until he participated in the Institute that he finally learned how to be a pastor, he says.
“Pastors aren’t called to be the hired hand,” he says. “We’re here to shepherd the flock, to feed the flock, to water the flock. And that’s what I’m doing now. I’m a shepherd.”
An ecumenical organization, sponsored by the Center for New Community in Chicago, the Rural Pastors Institute, as its name suggests, works to equip clergy for ministry to rural congregations and communities, according to the Rev. Christine M. Conrath, the institute director.
“What we’re about is keeping the best people in rural ministry and doing whatever it takes to do that,” says Conrath.
In the program’s first cycle, Moore and about 50 other pastors from rural communities located from Washington to Kentucky met five times over 2003 and 2004 in both small regional groups and large gatherings. In the meetings, the pastors worshiped together, studied issues facing rural communities, and learned practical skills such as time management and self care.
When the Institute’s second two-year cycle begins in July, Moore will be back. This time, he’ll be a small-group leader, sharing the skills he learned from the Institute with a new group of pastors.
“Steve is a great pastor,” says Conrath. “He’ll be responsible for convening one of the small groups and using the area gatherings to teach a new set of pastors what he’s learned.”
Moore says the Institute helped him realize that he had been spending most of his time in ministry “doing things to please the people rather than pleasing God.”
“I was all wrapped up in taking care of the squeaky wheel, wrapped up in board meetings and doing things that I thought had to be done,” he says. “I was killing myself trying to do everything. Now when I miss a board meeting, they don’t question it. They give me a set of notes later.”
Since Moore began taking his new approach to ministry, his churches have stepped up and created a host of new ministries. In the past two years, they’ve started food ministries, a fellowship program for the congregations’ widows, elderly care programs, and other new initiatives.
Moore, meanwhile, has not been lying in a hammock in his backyard, sipping lemonade. Like a shepherd, he’s been providing direction and guidance, and seeking new paths for his flock to travel. Using insights gained through his participation in the Institute, Moore spends a lot of time identifying community needs, inventorying available resources and finding new areas the church can work in ministry.
The Rural Pastors Institute, he says, helped him to see community problems that were there all along, right before his eyes, but which he somehow never saw before. As the RPI pastors studied issues affecting rural America, the “light bulb” came on for Moore as he realized for the first time that his own community was experiencing many of the same issues.
“They opened my eyes to see the problems that are out there and then identify the resources that are already available in the community and what we can do as the church to help,” he says.
For example, many small towns and rural communities nationwide are losing population, as young people move away in search of better jobs and educational opportunities. As a result, the elderly account for a growing percentage of the population in rural America, Moore learned. For the first time, Moore realized the extent to which this same trend was occurring in and around Bradford, dramatically changing the area’s demographics.
“The face of our community and our ministry is shifting,” Moore says. “If the church doesn’t keep up with that shift, we’re in trouble.”
After Moore discussed the issue with parishioners, the churches began several ministries for the elderly, including a program to support Project Care, a local non-profit organization that provides home care and other services for the elderly. Since going through the RPI program, Moore says, he now looks at the world and sees where God wants the church to be.
“And that’s everywhere,” he says.
While the Institute has clearly influenced Moore and his ministry, it’s also having a positive effect on other churches and pastors in the area. Since attending the Institute, Moore has shared his new knowledge with other pastors and, as a result, their local pastors group has become more active.
“We’ve always had a good group but it’s become even stronger,” says Moore. Inspired by the Institute, he and other local pastors began a Wednesday morning study group, focusing primarily on issues of pastoral leadership and self care. For their first book, the group read a book that Moore had studied in his Institute small group: Rest in the Storm: Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers by the Rev. Dr. Kirk Byron Jones.
“Everybody looked at themselves and said ‘My goodness, things have to change,’” Moore says.
After eight years in his current assignment, Moore transfers this summer to two new churches, Pleasantville UMC and Enterprise UMC, about 70 miles west of Bradford.
Although he and his wife are sad to be moving, he marvels at what his four churches—West Branch UMC, Asbury UMC, Custer City UMC and Rew UMC-- have accomplished in the past two years. He is confident members will continue the ministries they have begun.
“I’m leaving this place, but I’m not leaving anything unfinished,” he says. “They’re going to carry on.”
