Looking Back
This is a bittersweet time at Hollifield Leadership Center in Conover, N.C. After four extraordinary years, our Lake Hickory Learning Communities SPE project is coming to a close this month. This week, our pastor peer groups will be gathering for the last time (at least officially). Over the next few weeks, we’ll be closing out the final paper work on our SPE grant.
Since last fall, as the project has wound down, our pastors and project staff have spent time looking back over the past three years, reflecting on God’s gifts to us and the blessings of SPE. Our pastors have compiled long lists of the many positive impacts that SPE has made on their lives and ministries. As a SPE process coordinator who has observed and worked closely with these pastors, I can attest to the many changes they have described. The following are some of the most prominent and positive changes that I have witnessed in our pastors.
Growth – Through the SPE process, our pastors have been given numerous tools to build new capacities in themselves. I have heard several pastors share with one another how such tools as coaching, “thought leaders,” and peer perspectives have broadened and strengthened them in their ministries. These and other tools have given our pastors new insights, new ideas, and new supports.
Renewal – A substantial number of pastors began our SPE process wanting to revitalize themselves and their ministries. Many achieved that goal. I have seen pastors—two in particular come to mind—who have been virtually transformed by their SPE experience. When these two pastors joined our program, they sounded as though they were barely clinging to a fraying thread with an unraveling knot in the end. Today, however, as a result of SPE, they are pursuing new activities, they are energized about ministry, and they are hopeful about the future.
Empowerment – SPE has empowered many of our pastors to try new and unique ways to make a positive impact on God’s kingdom. For them, SPE has been a safe place to discuss innovative ideas and plans with other pastors who are also eager to consider new possibilities for the ministries they tend.
Our pastors, however, are not the only ones who have been changed by SPE. I and other staff members have also experienced many blessings. (Honestly, quite a few frustrating moments occurred in our work, but ultimately grace always won out). The following are some of the blessings I received from SPE:
Appreciating the ecumenical – A few years ago, just before joining the Hollifield staff, I went through a difficult period when I made a church and denomination change. I was doing it for my family, but I was not really happy about it. As I struggled with the adjustment to my new denomination, I prayed and prayed that God would relieve me of what I considered to be my spiritual arrogance. When I saw the advertisement for a SPE coordinator, the job seemed like a perfect fit—except for one thing.
“But God, the Baptists???,” I said to myself. “Are you testing me?!”
Thanks to SPE, though, I have learned to love and appreciate the different aspects of Baptists, Pentecostals, Disciples and more. In place of that arrogance is a new respect and enthusiasm for the ecumenical.
Learning – The SPE process has allowed me to learn with my pastors. Taking the same assessments that the pastors used – Myers-Briggs and Strengths Finder – I’ve discovered that I flourish in an environment where I can learn new things. I have loved this part of the process. I don’t know how I will use my new knowledge, but I feel certain that God is providing me with valuable information and insights that I will need one day.
Nurturing – As our SPE process progressed and I learned more about myself, I realized that God gave me a mixed-up nature. I not only appreciate structure and details but I also love working with people. When my coworkers call me “coddler” or “fluffer nutter”—just two of the nicknames they’ve given me—I just smile. I have learned it is better to be more easygoing with the pastors than demanding (although I have had to nag a time or two). Ironically, working with pastors of excellence has given me ample opportunity to use my natural “fixer” skills to repair all sorts of maladies, from registration mistakes to resending information I’ve already sent once, or twice or . . . .
In these and countless other ways, the SPE process has benefited all its participants and leaders. As our program now comes to a close, we give thanks to God for the opportunity to have been a part of it.
Kim Duncan is a sustaining pastoral excellence process coordinator with the Lake Hickory Learning Communities SPE project at Hollifield Leadership Center in Conover, NC, a ministry of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
