SPE Program Spotlight
Rediscovering Call “On the Balcony” in Seattle
The Rev. Charlie Jackson, pastor of a small, predominately African-American Baptist church in Everett, Washington, was initially a little skeptical about his Pastoral Leadership Program classmates. They were men and women. White, black, Hispanic, and Asian. Catholics and Protestants. Priests and lay leaders. United Methodist. Presbyterian. Disciples of Christ. Episcopalian. Lutheran. UCC.
“What would these guys have to offer me?,” he wondered.
Linda Lopez Liang, a lay pastoral associate at St. Peter Catholic Church, a largely Asian immigrant parish in Seattle, was uncertain as well. She too had never worked closely with people from other denominations in an ecumenical setting. Though she had long attended a small support group for lay Catholic ministers, their meetings usually ended up being gripe sessions that left everyone depressed.
“So I wasn't sure if the Pastoral Leadership Program would really do anything for me,” Liang says. “I went into it thinking that if it got overwhelming, I didn't have to keep going and I could say ‘That’s it. I'm leaving.'”
But amidst the program’s extraordinary diversity, Jackson and Liang found much in common with their classmates. Despite—and maybe even because of—their cultural, ethnic and denominational differences, they and their classmates discovered that they all had much to teach and learn from one another.
“What was most inspiring and encouraging was that everyone had the same problems I did,” says Jackson. “We were all struggling in the same areas across the board. And that’s where our common ground was. We were all seeking to be better leaders.”
A Sustaining Pastoral Excellence project funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., the Pastoral Leadership Program seeks to revitalize and renew select groups of Protestant clergy and Catholic priests and lay leaders in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in Seattle and the Puget Sound region. Sponsored by the Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry, an ecumenical and multicultural divinity school housed in a Jesuit, Roman Catholic university, the program was designed to reach out to clergy and lay leaders in different religious, geographic, racial and ethnic communities, says Marianne LaBarre, the program director.
“We've found that when people spend time with others from outside their own denominational mainstream and share their commonalities, they bond together around the issues,” says LaBarre. “They are freed from the political one-upmanship that can happen when meeting with ministers in their own denominations.”
Under the program, a class of up to 24 pastors and lay leaders meets monthly for two- and three-day sessions devoted to theological and biblical study and reflection, spiritual direction and leadership coaching, and small peer group reflection. Lasting nine months, from September through May, the program begins with an immersion retreat in the fall, held at Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, and ends with a closing retreat in the spring. Spending significant time in the classroom, participants earn a Certificate of Pastoral Leadership and 15 hours of graduate credits that can be transferred to a Doctor of Ministry program at San Francisco Theological School. This fall, the program will launch its fourth class of students.
Though coming from diverse backgrounds and traditions, the students tend to have at least one trait in common when they begin the program, says LaBarre.
“Almost always, they are very weary when they come to us,” she says. “They are weary and discouraged and disheartened.”
Called to the pastorate 15 years ago by his church in Everett, Jackson says he had grown tired in recent years. Founded more than 100 years ago, his church has always been very traditional. Members tend to be set in their ways and were reluctant to try new things.
“When I came into the Pastoral Leadership Program, I was struggling to decide if I still wanted to be a pastor,” he says. “I was wondering if it was time to throw in the towel.”
Liang had also thought about quitting. Although lay ministers play an increasingly important role in the Catholic Church as it copes with an ongoing priest shortage, the positions are still often ill-defined, and their boundaries, duties and authority unclear. Working in a busy parish with limited resources, Liang spent long days doing everything from home visits to church administration to custodial chores.
“I felt so stuck and blocked,” she says. “The ministry had become heavy and draining. I felt heavy hearted.” Back in 1999, when she received a M.Div. degree from Seattle School of Theology, Liang was excited and enthusiastic about her lay ministry. But over the years, as she dealt with the reality of day-to-day parish life, her excitement waned.
Over the course of their nine months together, though, participants in the Pastoral Leadership Program often undergo life-altering changes. Studying and working together with people from all sorts of traditions and backgrounds, participants begin to gain a broader perspective on the world and their own problems, says LaBarre. They spend time focusing on their own gifts and talents and try to remember why they were called to ministry.
“We help them remember that they weren't called by the local church,” says LaBarre. “They were called by God. And when they get back in touch with that call from God, it’s a catalyst that rekindles a fire inside them, and they say ‘Yes! That’s what I'm about.’”
LaBarre describes the process of gaining a broader perspective as “getting off the dance floor and onto the balcony,” a notion borrowed from the work of Ronald Heifetz, founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University. As Heifetz contends, most people spend their days on the “dance floor” of their lives, immersed in the hubbub, just trying to stay in step, unable to see the larger picture. Occasionally, though, people need to go up on the balcony, look at the ballroom from a broader perspective, and see what is really going on.
“For two or three days each month, we get these pastors and lay minister on the balcony and we work them,” says LaBarre. “We help them to reflect on where their church is right now, and where they are being called. We work with them to identify their deepest strengths and passions so that they can live out of those as fully as possible.”
For some pastors, living out their passion might even mean leaving parish ministry. The Rev. Julie Josund, a Lutheran pastor, for example, had long been interested in issues of clergy health and wellness. The Pastoral Leadership Program helped her to discover how deep that passion ran, she says. A year after completing the program, she took a position as director of the Institute for Clergy and Congregational Renewal at Pacific Lutheran University.
“I realized that what I wanted to do was to support and encourage other pastors,” she says. “There are good pastors out there, and to be able to support and encourage some of the folks who are doing this work is what gets me excited and keeps me going.”
Others, such as Jackson and Liang, find renewed excitement and passion for pastoral ministry.
“Being on the balcony,” meeting and learning with people from a variety of traditions, Jackson realized that he was in a rut, that he was trying to do everything in the church himself and needed to learn how to delegate. If his congregation members weren't willing to try new things, maybe it was because he wasn't giving them the chance.
“I realized I was trying to have my personal touch on every single ministry in the church,” he says. “I hate to say this, but I was walking around trying to be the star of the show.”
Now, however, he’s working to equip his congregation to use their gifts and help build up the entire church. This summer, he is conducting a leadership development retreat for his congregation, drawing upon his experiences in the Pastoral Leadership Development program.
Even more impressive, Jackson has also applied for admission to the M.Div. program at Seattle University, seeking to complete a degree he began many years ago, back home in Mississippi. While working as an auto mechanic, he completed two years of study but eventually had to quit school to support his family. Since being called to pastor the church in Everett, he has diligently attended as many continuing education classes as he could, but was never been able to complete his M.Div. Now, at age 53, Jackson is heading back to school.
Liang has also undergone similar changes in her life and ministry.
“I feel reconnected to my call, but in a different way,” she says. “I feel more freedom to engage the call. I feel more authority to follow my call and express it.”
Studying and meeting with people from a variety of faith traditions helped her gain a broader perspective, she says. When she talked with them about her ministry, they heard her story differently than other Catholic lay ministers would have heard it, and she in turn, began to hear it differently as well.
“Somehow, it opened up my perspective,” she says. “I felt closed in and then all of a sudden, it opened up before me. I had never understood what a difficult and complicated job Catholic women have working in the church, but they helped me to see that, and they gave me a lot of validation and support.”
Since completing the program in 2004, Liang took on additional duties in her parish when she was appointed as lay ecclesial pastoral coordinator and, with the help of the program’s 15 credits, completed a D.Min. from San Francisco School of Theology.
“The program released a tremendous amount of energy in me,” she says. “Before, I always felt like I didn't have enough, I didn't have this or that, but now I know I have what I need.”
As the program enters its fourth year, LaBarre marvels at the transformations she has seen take place in the lives of her students.
“It’s the kind of thing that gives me shivers,” she says. “This is about people’s lives coming into fullness. I am just thrilled. This is the work of my life.”
