Scott seems to be trying to address two separate, but obviously related issues. Is our deployment system optimal? From my view as someone just entering that system for the 1st time it is confusing and very opaque. Not all dioceses use the Transitions Ministry Office, not all profiles listed there are complete or up-to-date. A tremendous amount of networking and knowing the right people seems to still be important. And it has never made sense to me that we do the interim thing for every parish - why not do a coadjutor priest like many diocese do for their bishop? It's not as if the current system has resulted in a plethora of healthy, growing congregations.

As to compensation, I really think Scott is on to something here. Many dioceses try to address this through standards and minimums and other mechanisms. I think what would work better is a system where all clergy were paid by the diocese or province with parishes contributing an equal percentage of resources that is then redistributed more equitably. I think you could also work in a more effective review process this way that includes peer comparisons as well as parish expectations. I fear though that the implicit congregationalism which permeates our Church (and all American Churches, really)would be highly resistant to such a scheme.

Jon White

Posted for Kay Collier McLaughlin:

Those of us who work in transitions daily are well aware of the length of traditional nomination processes and the current average stay of clergy in congregations, and join in this very real concern. We are also aware of the important work that takes place in parishes during an interim or transition time, and the importance of health in all parts and practices of our system. One size does not fit all! I am currently completing a book which includes some potential ways we might strengthen this part of our life together, and certainly would welcome thoughts others have on the subject. I know that transition officers across the church are constantly in conversation about this and other ways of improving this vital part of our life and ministry.

Kay Collier McLaughlin, PhD
Deputy for Leadership Development and Transition Ministries
The Diocese of Lexington

Jon, your suggestion of sometime 'coadjutor' transitions makes really good sense to me. I've seen some corporate-sized congregations negotiate with a bishop for okay to run a search process concurrent with the last year of a retiring rector, so that the Sunday after the old rector departs is the first Sunday of the new rector. In the instances I'm thinking of it hasn't produced 'hand-picked successor' to the outgoing rector.

I think the interim system imagines it will give the laity an opportunity to discern the congregation's deep vocation. With a really good interim that can happen, and one mark that it's happening is fresh energy during an interim (at best including growing numbers and income). At worst an interim can be a time of lost momentum, dis-empowering of lay leadership while the interim sees to institutional regularization and ordering, distinctive home-grown mission approaches, pastoral care, and programming stalled awaiting the blessing of a new rector. And at worst, the new rector comes and claims a canonical mandate to remake program and liturgy in his/her own image.

But I don't think our problem is "congregationalism." I think we could make a better historical (long and short term) case for the effectiveness of the Spirit moving through local inspiration, trusting unique visions for specific mission situations, and distinctive choices for enculturation. Too often our interim system homogenizes and conventionalizes congregations (which does make them more predictable and easier to administer and program centrally).

The other issue in this picture is short-term pastorates. I think I did good work as a college chaplain and country vicar for the four years' each stint doing those, but in both instances saw from the distance how things we'd worked hard to achieve disappeared in eighteen months and thriving ministries went back to struggling. What's the ideal tenure of a pastor? Of course circumstances vary, but five years is a very, very low average and reflects mutual congregational and clergy impatience (and unreasonable hope and expectations on both sides), and poorly executed search processes that make a "match that lasts for one, two or three years, numbers drive the average down well.

How long does it take a congregation and leader to develop an effective, trusting relationship? How mch long does it take a pastor become an effective, open, visionary leader? Our common wisdom says 10-12 years, so twice this painfully low average. And I'm grateful that I stayed twenty-six years at St. Gregory's, founding, growing, building, re-discerning with the congregation, continuing to grow, etc. Bill Swing who was our bishop through that time said "It will take you a whole generation to shape a congregational culture."

I agree there may be some push-back for a diocesan or regional standard of salary scales, but for those struggling parishes, it may be the impetus to get good clergy to apply for those harder posts and thus provide better pastoral care, visioning, and leadership where it is needed more desperately.

I agree that our call process is much too long. Although I am the very grateful recipient of our transition officer's skills, I do wonder if the good done during an interim outweighs the benefits of a simplified call process. If a lengthy interim is necessary, why aren't parishes being spiritually developed in such a way as to make the interim process redundant -at least for more parishes?

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Even if we sought to level pay across the board wealthy parishes would add off the book rewards to get the clergy they want.
Far fairer in some respects would be to level the pension field by eliminating HAC as part of the formula. Everyone would pay in the 18% , but pensions would be based onyears served alone.
This would free people to do all sorts of interesting ministries without worrying abou being destitute when they retire. In some respects our Pension system runs deployment with the pressure to be "upwardly mobile" in order to be reasonably financed in retirement.

Deployment is skewed because parishes usually look for their "idealized other" rather than theerson who can help them thrive. Please don't forget too that in the 70s-90s clergy were told that not changing every 5 or 6 years was a sign of their failure.

The Pension Fund runs a lot of the church these days -but this is on thing that affects who goes where. Most can't afford to live in poverty after retirement - so take a higher paying job regardless of "fit"

It's interesting to note that, unlike corporate America, we have at best a limited concept of succession planning. Many major companies require a written plan to identify, grow, and train our successors, yet in TEC, the approach all too often is "up or out," or to move to interim ministry while we determine, after the fact, who our next rector will be. That is not to say, of course, that corporate America is without its flaws, but perhaps there is a lesson to be learned.

Donald's comments about pastoral care also are intriguing. Given the old saw about the opposite of love being not hatred, but indifference, I am deeply disappointed when people tell of inadequate pastoral care, whether in TEC or elsewhere.

Eric Bonetti

I think that the issue is that in Anglicanism we are no longer episcopal churches. Yes, we have bishops, but we have lost the theology of what a bishop truly is and so our episcopal systems are not really episcopal systems, they are hybrid congregational systems that include bishops among the clergy. Because we have lost the theology of bishops, we have lost the foundational theology and purpose of priests and deacons as well. And because we have lost the theology of bishops, the folks whom we call to be bishops have no idea who they really are among us and sometimes are free to ad lib their office and other times are shackled to an authoritarian system of laity in control. This has allowed some truly great bishops to emerge by chance, has allowed some horrible atrocities to occur, but by and large, has resulted in mediocre churches, claiming to listen for the Spirit, but seemingly floundering in the sands of time.

I've been in a congregation going through search and served as part of a diocesan provided consulting team for a congregation going through search. My major concern is that congregations, even when they have direct help from the diocese, have to re-invent the wheel every time they go through a search. Experience at the congregational level in search was very limited in the situations I observed. I have also spoken with people who would never serve on a search committee again because it was not a positive experience. Also, it does not help if the congregation feels that the diocese has a different agenda in filling the position than the local congregation does. Now, that disconnect is sometimes because congregations have unrealistic expectations about what they can afford in the long term. Add any money problems between the diocese and the congregation and things get very fraught. I don't have any answers-- except that one place to make sure trust is built is between the diocese and individual congregations.

Wow, all we need is for more hierarchical, top-down "strategy" from bishops on high. In my 35+ years as an Anglican layperson, I can honestly say that the number of truly great priests who are focused on the congregation they serve and not their own grandiose agendas are few and far between. The deployment process serves the clergy and not the congregations. I note that none of the above comments are focused on what's best for congregations.

One of the reasons for lengthy interims is that congregations (the paying customers) are afraid of buying a dud, because once done, they have no control over ending the relationship. In reality, their odds of getting a dud aren't really reduced, because the odds of getting a dud are so high, and lengthy deployment processes mean you're just as likely to miss a good candidate as have one come along at the right time.

Nowhere else in the field of human endeavor are the primary, volunteer contributors so sorely abused and ill-served.

Just curious, Dave: whenever you were judging one of these "duds" w/ the "grandiose agendas", did it EVER occur to you "...or maybe it's me. Maybe the problem is me"?

JC Fisher

---blessed to have known dozens of better-than-decent priests, and probably more than one dozen very good-to-great ones (in my not quite 50 years). TBTG!

JCF

The problem is not a personal one. I have known and appreciated many priests while observing the deleterious effects their operating philosophies have had on congregations. I've also known some outright charlatans who have perpetrated some truly awful acts on churches.

As I mentioned above, the problem is the balance between the good of the congregation vs the interests of the priest.

In a system devised by, and run by, priests the latter takes precedence every time, even though 99% of the resources for the system are provided by the former.

There is talk above of priests "molding" a congregation. Priests show up with their own agenda, which they feel they must implement quickly so they can "make a mark" (even if it's a nasty bruise) so they can move on to the next level.

Given the nature of congregations I'd say the first objective of priests ought to be that of physicians: Do no harm.

Sadly, even in the well-intentioned, that is rarely the case.

I believe that in the Church of England, although clergy compensation varies a bit from diocese to diocese, the national church sets both lower and upper limits on overall compensation.

It is also worth pointing out that non-parish clergy positions, such as college chaplains, are often at diocesan minimum levels, which makes them very difficult career choices.