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Kevin M. Watson

Kevin M. Watson

Tag Archives: younger clergy

Resurrection, Ginghamsburg and Younger Clergy

18 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry

≈ 9 Comments

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younger clergy

I have been thinking about the post I recently wrote on younger clergy and the conversation it has prompted. I can’t put my finger on it, but I am not satisfied with the post and my articulation of the importance of younger clergy. As I have been chewing on this, I had a thought I am not really sure what to do with:

Of the largest congregations in the UMC today, a significant portion were new church plants that were planted by a younger pastor who is still the senior pastor.

Last year Adam Hamilton listed the ten largest churches in the UMC on his blog. I am not familiar with all of the churches on the list, but I know that three of the top six churches were started by the same person who is currently the senior pastor, and two of the top six were not large churches when the current pastor was appointed to the church. And while I don’t know their ages, I am confident that they were “young” when they planted their churches.

These churches are: Church of the Resurrection (Adam Hamilton), Granger Community Church (Mark Beeson), and The Woodlands (Ed Robb, Jr.). Windsor Village (Kirbyjon Caldwell) and Ginghamsburg (Mike Slaughter) were smaller churches that became “mega” churches under the pastorates of Caldwell and Slaughter.

I am not sure what to do with this. On the one hand, none of these pastors were appointed to be the senior pastor of one of the largest congregations in their annual conference when they were young and relatively inexperienced. On the other hand, now they are the pastors of 5 of the 6 largest churches in the UMC. One obvious insight could be that entrepreneurial younger clergy should be given the opportunity to plant new churches. But is there something else that can be gleaned from this?

If Hamilton, Beeson, and Robb Jr. had not been given the chance to plant new churches, these churches likely would not exist.

Does this have anything meaningful to say to the conversation today about younger clergy? Does this tell us something less obvious than, “We should let younger pastors start new churches?” I wonder what thoughts these pastors would have about the importance of younger clergy and recruiting, supporting, and placing them?

What do you think? Do you see any meaningful connections?

Edit: Thanks to John Reasons who corrected the initial draft of this post where I incorrectly included Mike Slaughter as planting Ginghamsburg. I knew better, but definitely had it wrong in this post. I have revised the post to correct my error.

The Number One Call to Action

17 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry

≈ 11 Comments

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younger clergy

If I were in charge of the Call to Action, which I clearly am not, the number one priority would be aggressively recruiting younger clergy. Unfortunately, The United Methodist Church’s approach to ordination in many ways is almost the exact opposite of recruitment.

For too many people I hear from, the ordination process feel like a burden of endless obstacles in their path and hoops to jump through. To make things worse, prospective clergy are sometimes ignored or treated with indifference. I have heard many people from many different annual conferences say that they were told that it was their responsibility to keep track of their paperwork, not the DCoM or BOM.

As I have interacted with gifted younger people who feel called to local church ministry, I have had the thought that it feels like the church is almost daring them to go and do something else with their life. Sometimes, it feels like we are doing all that we can to be inhospitable and make them feel like their calling is an imposition on the church.

The irony is that the exact opposite is true. The church is desperate not just for younger clergy, but for gifted clergy who are passionate about being ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If there is one thing that I think the church could do that would be the most likely to have a positive impact on the church, it would be pouring time, money, and resources into recruiting the most gifted spirit-filled younger clergy we can find.

Here’s one possibility: What if every Annual Conference made it a priority in the next quadrennium to find 10 women and men, who were 25 and younger and displayed unmistakable passion and giftedness for ministry, and then did everything that they could to make sure that these people progressed through the candidacy process as efficiently as possible (with integrity). And then they were put in positions where they were most likely to thrive. What if we treated them like they had something of urgent importance to offer to the church not in a few decades, but NOW? If a group of young leaders were encouraged, nurtured, supported, and empowered to fulfill their callings, I would be shocked if they didn’t have a huge impact on the church.

There might be a better way to do this, and there might be something that would be even more important. But if there were one thing that I could do that I would be most confident would pay dividends, I would search far and wide for the next generation of leaders that God is raising up and I would put them in positions to thrive today.

If you are a pastor and you are reading this, let me ask you: What are you doing to raise up, encourage, and support the next generation of leaders? Maybe the best way to ask this question is to ask you what you wish someone had done for you when you were preparing for full-time local church ministry?

I often hear seminary students talk about being disappointed by the feeling that they are abandoned by their annual conference while they are in seminary – that they feel invisible. How can you communicate to someone who is ready to make a difference for the kingdom of God that you believe in them and are willing to invest in them?

How are you investing in the future leadership of the church?

The Crisis of Cynical Younger Clergy?

28 Wednesday Oct 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Life, Ministry

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

cynicism, younger clergy

A recent conversation has continued resurfacing in my mind. The short version is that someone’s reaction to meeting a younger clergy person was that they seemed kind of cynical. The person who made this comment is someone who I find to be charitable and not quick to find fault with others. So, the comment stuck with me.

Since this very brief conversation, I have found myself wondering if that is a criticism that is too often true of younger clergy. As a younger clergy person, I know it has been true of myself at times. I am not sure why this is the case, but for many of us who are in our twenties and early thirties who are seminary students and pastors, we tend to be quicker to find problems than to look for solutions. And we tend to be contemptuous or scornful of those we disagree with.

Sometimes the conversations that leave me feeling the most drained and hopeless for the future of the church are with groups of younger clergy. And this is something that too often I have found to be true of younger clergy across the theological spectrum (I am referring here primarily to the younger United Methodist clergy I have interacted with). Sometimes it seems that what we primarily have in common is our age and our ability to see the negative in nearly any situation.

In some ways, this should not be all that surprising. We are the generation that has made the Daily Show and Steven Colbert our preferred news source. Both of these shows are satires that are dripping with sarcasm, and often seem to appeal to their audience based on a kind of “inside joke” mindset. In other words, you get these jokes and understand the hypocrisy, because you are smarter than the people Stewart and Colbert are talking about. (See, there I go being cynical and quick to find fault…)

However, my experience with younger clergy is not that we are all cynical all the time. (Of course I am painting with very broad brush strokes here. There are many clergy who are younger and do not fit the stereotype I am developing here.) Cynicism, it seems to me, comes out most clearly when groups of younger clergy come together. Though we can be very cynical in groups, every younger clergy person I have talked to is passionate about the church and has ideas for how to strengthen and improve it.

Ultimately, I don’t know why cynicism tends to be particularly pronounced when younger clergy come together in groups (and I may simply be wrong about this generalization). I wonder if part of it is that it is a collective expression of frustration that the church seems to be so desperate to have younger clergy, but then does not always seem to be very good stewards of the younger clergy that they do have. In other words, there may be some reason for cynicism. It can be difficult to hear people talk about the crisis of younger clergy and at the same time feel like nobody is noticing or listening to the younger clergy who are in the church.

However, the point of this post is not to justify cynicism among younger clergy. I am writing to challenge myself and any younger clergy who might read this to consider whether cynicism is a virtue, or whether we might want to consider trying to look at things in more positive and productive ways.

Going back to the beginning of this post, I think one of the reasons my friend’s comment has stayed with me is because I suspect that cynicism amongst younger clergy is more of a hindrance than an asset. I believe the church absolutely needs us to provide leadership. However, I also believe the church needs us to have hope in what God wants to do in the places that we are called to serve. There are certainly reasons to be dissatisfied, and I am not arguing that we should ignore or overlook problems. Instead, I am arguing that noticing problems should prompt us above all else to look for solutions.

In other words, I don’t believe that the gift that God has given this generation of younger clergy for the church is the gift of being able to point out problems with the church. Rather, I believe that our gift is to boldly look for solutions, with faith that God will provide. I have seen signs of younger clergy making positive contributions to the life of the church, and I know that we are just getting started. I hope and pray we will not be distracted by the reality that the church we are serving is not perfect. Instead of diagnosing what is wrong with the last step that the church took, or is taking, perhaps we can begin to seek to discern what the next step is.

What do you think?

The Ideal First Appointment

23 Wednesday Jul 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Ministry

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

appointments, UMC, younger clergy

There has been some great discussion about younger clergy, appointment making, and the culture of the United Methodist Church as a result of my review of The Crisis of Younger Clergy by Lovett Weems and Ann Michel. I have continued to think about this conversation the past few days and I have started thinking about one particular question that I would like to invite your feedback on: What would make for the ideal first appointment for a younger pastor?

I would love to hear from those of you who have experienced a first appointment as a younger pastor. I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of folks who have not personally beem young clergy in a first appointment, but have observed younger clergy and have thoughts about what would be most helpful. It seems to me that there are several issues surrounding this question: What are the stewardship issues? Development issues? Formation issues? etc.

What are your thoughts?

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