I posted something a few days back that included a bit on training for ministry under the heading 'post academic training'. Well timely or what? Maggi [see header ref] and Jonny are now discussion how to train folk for emergin church leadership etc. Of course there is some appearance of disagreement but it does seem clear to me that there is both a need for church leadership that is theologically literate and also practically competant. CLearly too there is a perception that too much theology does not make connections with ministry. In actual fact these are cartoon positions. I'm married to someone currently being processed in a vicar factory. My reflection are in the earlier post though I would like to add a few things in the light of the current debate I've just referenced.
There is a trend in the training institutions for the CofE to try to develop skills of theological reflection; if I understand it aright the aim is to develop reflective practitioners of ministry. However there are countervailing forces, to some extent, in the form of the Church's ministry commissioners [ABM] who seem to have become fixated on more traditionally academic rigour. This wouldn't be so difficult an issue if this rigour could be applied n creative ways [and there is some good work being done on assesment related to creative and practical/vocational subjects]. However, man academics are reared scholastically in the old school and both harbour suspicion of stepping outside of what they know and also have not [yet!] developed the imaginitive purchase to 'see' how it might be done differently. All of which is not helped either by the cultural prejudices of our society which disparages non-traditional subjects, and this prejudice is often all to easily uncritically absorbed by academics cought up in the cut-throat business of defending their turf and prestige. So it is in the teeth of all this opposition and misunderstanding that we have to push forward the perfectly possible project of retrofitting training for ministry.
This is why I thinkit is important that we find helpful analogues o f what we are trying to do and I will say it again: the training of medics [including especially nurses, paramedics, physios etc]; the training of actors and artists; the training of post-compulsory teachers/lecturers all have academic rigour but a huge vocational and creative component. It can be done.
I reiterate too that I think that it is uefuyl for us to have in mind the idea of the 'scientist- practitioner'. This is a model that I uncovered while researching for my dissertation on Life Coaching and Spritual Direction in a paper on the professinalisation of life coaching. There's alot we can learn from reflection on this issue and perhaps when the dissertation is ready for publication you might read it [email me I hope to have pre-submission copy in the new year].
Let me quote a bit from this paper which I think is helpful in the debate.
Practitioners are trained within this framework to have a working understanding of the principles and methodology of research. This understanding then enable them to apply informed critical thought to the evaluation of their practice drawing on and being informed by the relevant academic literature to design and implement relevant evidence-based interventions evaluating client progress and adhering to relevant ethical practice.
Now it is not a direct analogy to ministry but there is enough to pursue, I think. The idea of enabling the application of 'informed critical thought' etc seeems fairly straightforward in thinking about pastoral care, leading worship, teaching the faith, developing and 'growing' people and facilitating mission. And in that sense 'evidence-based interventions' become understandable if we include in 'evidence' the data of biblical and theological reflection. 'Client progress' would be broadened to include 'church or project progress' or somesuch. Ethical consideration go almost without saying.
I still think that my suggestions earlier about the pattern of training could be a good way to develop this agenda, but I'm open to other ideas too.
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
19 November 2004
14 November 2004
routine exercise of imagination
Fast Company | Fast Forward 2005: 67-70: Couldn't help wondering what Church would look like if we took this idea seriously. "one of the most intriguing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission is 'to find a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing, the exercise of imagination.' In every organization, bureaucratic or not, liberating imagination is at the core of competitive advantage. How to do so? The commission suggests: creating a team that regularly dishes up analysis from the perspective of the enemy, or in business terms, your toughest competitor; developing a set of telltale indicators to better predict an attack, perhaps a rival lining up a key supplier; having a management process to monitor and act on such signals; and ensuring that someone is held accountable for it all."
It fits in with my feeling that decision-making bodies in church could do with training in things like the Edward de Bono mind tools and where use of stuff like 'six thinking hats' was normal ...
It fits in with my feeling that decision-making bodies in church could do with training in things like the Edward de Bono mind tools and where use of stuff like 'six thinking hats' was normal ...
13 November 2004
Reenvisaging the CofE? [2]
The rant I've title-reference-linked is the proverbial bucket of cold water to wake you up before I get onto the next reforms. It's referenced because I think that it is the foil against which institutional reform needs to be played. You are of course quite entitled to read this first!
Anyway on to the reforms. The is the 'post' section. You may want to look at the first posting in this mini-series and the next post (much delayed).
Post denominational Let's face it: it's hard to come up with any very good arguments to support denominationalism. The real glue holding a denomination together is finance and governance, not theological emphasis or even any great commitment to ecclesiology. So let's go with that. Don't worry about formal mergers, just free up the situations so that ministers/priests/pastors can serve flexibly across denominational boundaries. There are some practicalties involved but are they really so onerous? So why shouldn't I, as an ordained Anglican serve in a Baptist or Methodist Church? It might be helpful, why not take up two part-time pastorates one Anglican the other URC? And so on ... Probably someone is going to object; something about catholicity of orders? Excuse me; read again what I've said and think about the meaning of the word 'catholicity'.
Post academic training. I think that we have to recognise that ministry is not an academic activity and training people as if they were likely to go into research is a big mistake. Don't get me wrong: I think that having church leaders and the like who are able to deal with the issues, questions and challenges in a well-thought-out way is a Good Thing. However, I think that we need some other analogue than academic research as a root metaphor for ministerial training. The leading contenders, in my view, should be performance arts and medical practitioners. In both of these fields professional and academically rigorous training takes place. However, in both fields it is also allied strongly to praxis. There is a heavy empahsis on reflective learning. I choose these two analogues because part of the ministerial role is like medics: it involves seeing people, helping them to articulate what's up and then evolving appropriate responses in ways that help them to make progress and finding healing [cf cure of souls]. Some of the role is like a performer: the need to lead a group of people, live, through a journey of discovery and contact with the ineffable; the need to do so in an embodied way and to use all the physical and mental resources at your disposal to do so.
So I would like to develop the current mixed-mode training even further. In this development an even higher emphasis would be placed on the individual supervision so that the trainee minster's academic curriculum was set more fully by the experience of working ministerially. This means the trainer/tutor acts in a more 'coach' mode and need sto be theological astute as a practical/community theologian rather than a discarnated academic. Now I know that there's a cartoon in that but the big-bold drawing will suffice to get over the thrust of what I'm saying.
The interesting link up here is that the role of trainer/tutor/coach would be somewhat analogous to that of coach/bishop as I suggested in the previous posting on this and, of course, this suggests that episcope is a shared ministry.
Post-Parochial For the time being anyway, geographical situation is not such a strong determiner of social network. Many churches operate in effect as post paochial. eE need to find good mechanisms for working network 'parishes' as well as geographical. And in fact it makes little sense for the kind of parish boundariedness that has been used in the past to continue in certain areas. Either we need to be able to redraw them more easily or in some areas simply to pool sovereignty, or something like that. 'Post'in this case does not mean 'without' but 'supplemented by something else'.
In this connection I think that we should note an important development; the rise of network communities. The Northumbria Community, The Community of Aidan and Hilda, The Iona Community, and perhaps even Spring Harvest, Soul Survivor and Greenbelt all form significant nexuses of spiritual resourcing. I think that it may be that for many people allegiance to these 'dispersed communities' is greater than to the local church which serves more as a point of contact for things spiritual between dispersed comunity events and activities. If the local church ties in with these 'parachurches' then that's helpful to the 'punter'. Perhaps the nearest precedent I can come up with to this is the pre-Reformation Churhc in Britain where local churches, as I understand it, we effectively run by the various monastic organisations with a few exceptions where the leading priest was called a Rector because he had control rather than being appointed by a monastery. I wonder whether we could be heading in that direction, cross-denominationally? If so why not actually go with it?
Post-hierarchical This is partly about things like equalising stipends across the board but it is also about clearing out the informal elitism. I keep noticing that some people seem to be approached to do stuff seemingly because of their background rather than, necessarily ability. I'm not syaing they don't have ability, merely that sometimtes the combination of some ability plus having gone to the 'right' universities/schools/ dioceses/parishes seems to score over ability on its own. This shouldn't be the way it is in church, natural and understandable as it is, we should be past this, folks.
I commend the current Archbishop of York for chosing to serve his last years before retirement in a parish ministry [and the loss of pension that implies too]. I hope that we can move to a church where this isn't so unusual an idea because there is a genuine valuing of ministry rather than status. A bishop is a 'job'/'ministry', so is a deacon, and so, for that matter is being a Reader or a secretary.... its an endemic problem, history tells us. so can't we be serious about finding systemic ways to encourage it?
Anyway on to the reforms. The is the 'post' section. You may want to look at the first posting in this mini-series and the next post (much delayed).
Post denominational Let's face it: it's hard to come up with any very good arguments to support denominationalism. The real glue holding a denomination together is finance and governance, not theological emphasis or even any great commitment to ecclesiology. So let's go with that. Don't worry about formal mergers, just free up the situations so that ministers/priests/pastors can serve flexibly across denominational boundaries. There are some practicalties involved but are they really so onerous? So why shouldn't I, as an ordained Anglican serve in a Baptist or Methodist Church? It might be helpful, why not take up two part-time pastorates one Anglican the other URC? And so on ... Probably someone is going to object; something about catholicity of orders? Excuse me; read again what I've said and think about the meaning of the word 'catholicity'.
Post academic training. I think that we have to recognise that ministry is not an academic activity and training people as if they were likely to go into research is a big mistake. Don't get me wrong: I think that having church leaders and the like who are able to deal with the issues, questions and challenges in a well-thought-out way is a Good Thing. However, I think that we need some other analogue than academic research as a root metaphor for ministerial training. The leading contenders, in my view, should be performance arts and medical practitioners. In both of these fields professional and academically rigorous training takes place. However, in both fields it is also allied strongly to praxis. There is a heavy empahsis on reflective learning. I choose these two analogues because part of the ministerial role is like medics: it involves seeing people, helping them to articulate what's up and then evolving appropriate responses in ways that help them to make progress and finding healing [cf cure of souls]. Some of the role is like a performer: the need to lead a group of people, live, through a journey of discovery and contact with the ineffable; the need to do so in an embodied way and to use all the physical and mental resources at your disposal to do so.
So I would like to develop the current mixed-mode training even further. In this development an even higher emphasis would be placed on the individual supervision so that the trainee minster's academic curriculum was set more fully by the experience of working ministerially. This means the trainer/tutor acts in a more 'coach' mode and need sto be theological astute as a practical/community theologian rather than a discarnated academic. Now I know that there's a cartoon in that but the big-bold drawing will suffice to get over the thrust of what I'm saying.
The interesting link up here is that the role of trainer/tutor/coach would be somewhat analogous to that of coach/bishop as I suggested in the previous posting on this and, of course, this suggests that episcope is a shared ministry.
Post-Parochial For the time being anyway, geographical situation is not such a strong determiner of social network. Many churches operate in effect as post paochial. eE need to find good mechanisms for working network 'parishes' as well as geographical. And in fact it makes little sense for the kind of parish boundariedness that has been used in the past to continue in certain areas. Either we need to be able to redraw them more easily or in some areas simply to pool sovereignty, or something like that. 'Post'in this case does not mean 'without' but 'supplemented by something else'.
In this connection I think that we should note an important development; the rise of network communities. The Northumbria Community, The Community of Aidan and Hilda, The Iona Community, and perhaps even Spring Harvest, Soul Survivor and Greenbelt all form significant nexuses of spiritual resourcing. I think that it may be that for many people allegiance to these 'dispersed communities' is greater than to the local church which serves more as a point of contact for things spiritual between dispersed comunity events and activities. If the local church ties in with these 'parachurches' then that's helpful to the 'punter'. Perhaps the nearest precedent I can come up with to this is the pre-Reformation Churhc in Britain where local churches, as I understand it, we effectively run by the various monastic organisations with a few exceptions where the leading priest was called a Rector because he had control rather than being appointed by a monastery. I wonder whether we could be heading in that direction, cross-denominationally? If so why not actually go with it?
Post-hierarchical This is partly about things like equalising stipends across the board but it is also about clearing out the informal elitism. I keep noticing that some people seem to be approached to do stuff seemingly because of their background rather than, necessarily ability. I'm not syaing they don't have ability, merely that sometimtes the combination of some ability plus having gone to the 'right' universities/schools/ dioceses/parishes seems to score over ability on its own. This shouldn't be the way it is in church, natural and understandable as it is, we should be past this, folks.
I commend the current Archbishop of York for chosing to serve his last years before retirement in a parish ministry [and the loss of pension that implies too]. I hope that we can move to a church where this isn't so unusual an idea because there is a genuine valuing of ministry rather than status. A bishop is a 'job'/'ministry', so is a deacon, and so, for that matter is being a Reader or a secretary.... its an endemic problem, history tells us. so can't we be serious about finding systemic ways to encourage it?
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