Reflections on the Excellence Movement
To speak about an excellence “movement” in ministry is a powerful acknowledgement of the impact that various Lilly Endowment initiatives have made over the past 10 years. In that time, research projects, youth formation programs, clergy renewal grants, Sustaining Pastoral Excellence, and many other Lilly-funded projects have constituted a major effort to encourage us to think differently about what we do in the church.
As this movement has taken root and grown, I have been privileged to observe and take part in it from a variety of perches. At St. John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minn., I have directed capacity building and sustaining pastoral excellence projects, working with Jeff Kaster, who is guiding the integration of youth faith formation into the school’s mission. At St. Paul ’s Monastery in St. Paul, Minn., I serve on a steering committee for a lay ministry formation project led by Jackie Witter, which is changing the culture of professional development in Roman Catholic ministry. Finally, I have worked as a facilitator with Carol Lytch on the coordination project for the youth ministry and capacity building grants and with Janice Virtue and Ken Carder on the sustaining pastoral excellence coordination project. All of this exposure to the “movement” has been as instructive as it has been a privilege. From my various involvements, I draw two major conclusions.
First, the various Lilly grant initiatives have created space in which seminaries, congregations and pastors, and denominational organizations have been encouraged to see, name, and interpret what it is the church is called to do—now, in these times, with these challenges. The “busyness” that is so much a part of being church today can obscure our vision so that, as we charge ahead with our own agenda, we primarily see only what’s on the periphery. These various Lilly projects, however, have invited all of us who are concerned about the life of the church and its role in the world to stop and look up. They have given us a chance to see the world in all its complexity and messiness and to learn afresh what is going on around us.
Seeing with eyes wide open enables us to describe more accurately the real contexts of our work. Writing proposals and designing new ways to embody the Gospel have sharpened our capacity for critical analysis that cuts away antiquated, biased, and self-serving assumptions. We see our contexts for what they are and what they promise.
As important as seeing and naming are, however, they are incomplete without the work of interpretation. Here is where the Endowment has done us a great service with the coordination projects and the annual meetings. They challenge us to figure out what all our grant activity really means. For the pastors and other individuals who participate in our projects, it means they have a renewed sense of authority to act, not react, so that the life of discipleship can be truly transformative. For congregations, there is a deepening sense of mission and purpose that frames a vision based on faithful life in the world, not on the hollow measures of organizational success. And for denominations, the interpretative processes generated by these projects have shifted the premises of many central offices, as one denominational executive has noted, from idolatry of structures to the urgency of the Good News.
Second, these excellence projects have encouraged us all to temper our lament about what is not working and curb our tendency to look for simple, one-dimensional causes. Before, for instance, we might have believed that if we could just “fix” the clergy, then the life of the church would flourish. If we could “fix” congregations, then a revival of righteousness would sweep throughout the land. If indeed we could “fix” seminaries and the students they are pumping into the church, then congregations would no longer limp along with ill-equipped idealists. And, surely, if we could “fix” the denomination and its leadership, then the Gospel could be preached with new purity of purpose.
But what I have learned over the past seven years is that no one fix will bring about excellence. We are in this together—clergy, seminaries, congregations, and denominations. We have a lot to learn from one another, and that means we need to listen to one another, for our interpretations depend on what we each bring to the conversation. What the excellence movement makes clear is that the renewal of the church and the renewal of the ministry for the sake of the Gospel will be done as we work together or it will not be done at all, no matter how generous the Lilly Endowment may be. That generosity has given us opportunity, encouragement, and a space in which to re-discover the authentic meaning of a call to discipleship.
Victor Klimoski is director of lifelong learning for the School of Theology at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minn.
