By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them
In the November 2005 SPE Newsletter, John Wimmer, program officer of Lilly Endowment Inc., pointed out that Sustaining Pastoral Excellence projects were never intended to be remedial programs for struggling pastors. Instead, we were all entrusted with “seeking out and creating fresh new ways to reinforce and promote existing excellence in ministry.” These words present a basic challenge all SPE projects face in identifying the pastors with whom we work: How do we find pastors who already embody excellence in ministry? Indeed, what are the signs of pastoral excellence?
In our project at The Center for Ministry Leadership at Covenant Theological Seminary, we have found that even clergy can suffer from misconceptions about pastoral excellence. Some of our participants assume that excellence equals “success” as defined by the number of people and amount of resources in their ministries. (As one participant put it, “I’m evaluated on two things: bodies and bucks.”)
Other pastors may define pastoral excellence purely in terms of “faithfulness” as reflected in a commitment to their calling over time--regardless of other indicators of success or failure. (“After 20 years in the same location, I’m comfortable where I am,” said one of our pastors. “It would be easy to simply not rock the boat.”)
While “success” and “faithfulness” are both somewhat useful, we have come to believe that neither is sufficient to express the idea of excellence articulated in the SPE vision. For example, if we search for “successful” pastors, we may employ a false standard of evaluation or overlook invisible dysfunctions that contribute to visible success. On the other hand, if we focus on “faithful” pastors, we may discover that perseverance is no substitute for pastoral proficiency. Thus, in seeking participants for our initiatives, we envision a different description of excellence.
Excellence as Fruitfulness
The description we have identified and are seeking to implement, though different, is not new; it is derived from the pages of Scripture and reflection with our grant partners. We have based our criteria of excellence not in success or faithfulness, but in the multifaceted ideal of fruitfulness.1 Christian leaders are called to bear fruit by sharing their faith convictions and by nurturing the fruit of God’s grace in their own lives and in the lives of others. Furthermore, the metaphor of fruitfulness calls to mind the garden imagery that is so common in Scripture – imagery that suggests seasonal fruit-bearing interspersed with times of sowing, watering, and simply waiting for the work of the Lord. Fruitfulness includes a measure of faithfulness, and a measure of success – valuing both but preferring neither.
At the Center for Ministry Leadership, we have attempted to identify “fruitful” pastors, using several criteria in the selection process for our Pastors Summit.2 We share these with our colleagues at other SPE projects simply to promote our ongoing conversation in this important dialogue.
Signs of Excellence/ Marks of Fruitfulness
In our search for “fruitful” pastors, we look first for those who exhibit strong ministry expertise and emotional health in ministry. We also expect excellent pastors to have community support from their families, congregational leaders, and those who trained them for ministry. Finally, we expect that excellent pastors will express an interest in continuing education and a willingness to contribute to the educational process.
Strong Ministry Expertise
Research on the reality of ministry life reveals that pastors are expected to demonstrate expertise in a wide range of complex activities.3 These include not only the traditional duties of preaching and pastoring, but also such vital activities as leadership, management, and administration. Because most pastors are under-trained in these latter aspects of ministry, they typically have to acquire such skills on the job. In our search for fruitful pastors, we look for those who have adjusted to this diverse set of expectations by developing leadership skills and reserving time for management and administration.
Emotional Health in Ministry
Given the importance of relational competence for ministerial excellence, we have also isolated “emotional health in ministry” as a key criterion for program participants. We look for pastors who exhibit personal character, balance, and spiritual disciplines; who demonstrate emotional resilience and relational strength; and who, if married, have a mutually supportive spouse and family exhibiting spiritual and relational health. These components speak to a candidate’s personal and interpersonal health.
Assessing Excellence/FruitfulnessIf ministry expertise and emotional health are the fruit that we look for, how then do we assess them? To help us evaluate these marks of excellence, we have relied primarily on the following methods and criteria.
Behavioral Interviewing
Behavioral interviewing is one of the primary ways we have assessed ministry expertise and emotional health. Behavioral interviewing is based on the principle that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. Many interviewing techniques focus on hypothetical questions about how a person might respond in imagined situations. However interesting the answers to such questions may be, they usually give little indication how the person being interviewed actually responds in “live” situations.
In contrast, using behavioral interviewing techniques developed by Dr. Charles Ridley of Indiana University, we encourage our potential participants to describe the kinds of behaviors that characterize their ministries. As a result, we are able to assess the excellence of our participants based on concrete examples of past behavior rather than on their best guess about how they might respond in the future. In our quest to identify pastoral excellence, we have found behavioral interviewing to be quite useful.
Community Support
Another helpful resource for assessing pastoral excellence is the reports of those who regularly interact with the pastors. Since our program is promoted by three seminaries, we begin by asking the administration and faculty at each seminary to recommend pastors who exhibit the expertise and emotional health outlined above. This reputational criterion, while not infallible, gives us a pool of potential participants from which to draw.
Once we make contact with select pastors, we ask for letters of support from the pastor’s spouse and from a staff member or member of the pastor’s leadership board. The spouse is asked to describe the pastor’s strengths and weaknesses and also to identify a hoped-for area of improvement. The staff/board member is asked to comment on the pastor’s habits of ministry and to articulate hoped-for outcomes as well.
While support from spouses and other community members is not a de facto requirement for pastoral excellence, we recognize that the Pastors Summit requires a significant commitment of time and energy from the pastors, and we believe that the pastors will be most likely to fulfill these commitments if their communities understand and support their involvement. Additionally, we use the documents generated by this process as baseline data for assessing candidates and program impact.
Personal Investment
Before pastors enter our program, we ask them to write a description of their call to ministry, an account of a critical incident in their ministry, and a letter expressing why they would like to be involved in the Summit and what they hope to gain from it. These requirements encourage pastors to reflect on and express defining moments in their ministries and to imagine possibilities for the future.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, seeking out pastors who are demonstrating excellence in ministry is a great challenge. Metrics of success and faithfulness alone are not adequate for the task. At the same time, a level of rigor in selectivity is important if we are to fulfill our task as SPE grantees. We are seeking to address this challenge using the goal of fruitfulness framed by strong ministry expertise and emotional health identified through behavioral interviews, community support, and personal interest. Our hope is that the sample selected will advance our understanding of pastoral excellence for the sake of our ministries and the broader church.
Bob Burns is adjunct professor of practical theology and director of the Center for Ministry Leadership and Rebecca Rine is the research and writing specialist at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Mo.
1We thankfully acknowledge our partner, Stafford Carson, formerly of Westminster Theological Seminary (East) and now pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Portadown, Northern Ireland, who initially shared with us his extended study on fruitfulness.
2The Center organizes five initiatives for the sustaining of pastoral excellence. One of these, the Pastors Summit, is the joint effort of Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis), Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando), and Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). The Pastors Summit hosts three groups of ten pastors for six meetings over a two-year period. Calling, training, and community-building are the three themes of the Pastors Summit.
3See, for example, the ATS Profiles of Ministry project and the work of Kuhne and Donaldson (1995), Balancing ministry and management: An exploratory study of pastoral work activities. Review of Religious Research, 37(2), 145-163.
