It might be having an understanding person to talk to. It might be help putting frustrations into perspective. Or it might be a gentle reminder that nobody, not even the pastor, can do everything — and probably shouldn’t try.
But for the first 25 Fellows of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — people in the early years of their first full-time ministry — the CBF’s new program is providing “invaluable” assistance.
The first group of CBF Fellows gathered in August for a week in Atlanta. The idea, according to the CBF, is to “help ministers establish practices and rhythms that help sustain ministry” and to give “ ‘first call’ ministers a space where they can reflect on their calling and how to live out their calling in their congregations.”
The Fellows, from nine states, will meet four more times over two years, and get continuing support through conference calls, peer groups and professional coaches. They have already taken things a step further by setting up a Facebook page for mutual support.
The intent “to provide ministers with resources to help them be stronger and healthier leaders who are living a healthy and balanced way of life,” said Beth Kennett, coordinator of coaching ministry at the Center for Congregational Health in Winston-Salem. It does this by developing a community and network of colleagues, said Kennett, who serves on the program’s faculty.
Coaches, she added, help “individual leaders to lead more from who they are rather than from the expectations they are experiencing from people and circumstances around them.”
Five Fellows in the Mid-Atlantic
Matthew Johnson
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The program came at just the right time to remind Matthew Johnson of some wisdom he had nearly forgotten. He’d participated in a young leaders program at the Center for Congregational Health, but that was before he became full-time pastor at First Baptist Church of Smithton, a rural congregation near Belhaven, N.C.
At the end of his first year at Smithton, he felt a bit discouraged. “I had developed some bad ways of thinking,” he said. “You can take things too personally and be too disappointed by any kind of setbacks, if people don’t agree with your supposedly great idea.
“It was really good for me to be reminded that it’s not all about me; this is usual and expected, and something we should be able to deal with,” he said. “It’s a normal part of the life cycle of the church and of a pastor.”
The Fellows program has helped him look at some tools he’d been taught about in a new way. “I needed to be reminded that there are different places you can lead from, and sometimes you need to be able to lead from the middle or even from the back …. It was very refreshing.”
Meeting others in similar situations was also energizing, he said. “Where I am is very isolated,” he said. Now, “we are helping each other, giving each other advice, and maintaining relationships with one another.”
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Olivia Dawson
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When Olivia Dawson attended the first Fellows session in August, she was “very pregnant.” In fact, she jokes that “the trip put me over the edge,” because not long after she returned to her church in Arnold, Md., she gave birth to her son, 5-and-a-half weeks early. Fortunately, he’s fine, and so is she.
Her pregnancy was one of the main reasons Dawson applied for the program. “I knew that a baby would change my life, and it was important to me to have accountability and support in this new phase, especially professionally.”
She figured balancing motherhood with her job as associate pastor of music and faith development at College Parkway Baptist Church in Arnold would be a challenge. The Fellows program could help her make a healthy start in balancing family and professional lives, she said.
She’s found that it’s helpful in other ways. She has no musical training, but music is a third of her job. Those in the group who are musically trained have come to her aid.
And there are “the real-life situations that seminary doesn’t always cover.”
“Just yesterday, the power went out in our building,” she said. “All of a sudden you’re a building manager, and you don’t learn that in seminary. We are all going through similar things; we have similar frustrations and similar joys. It makes life easier to know that I’m not going through this alone.
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Joe Kendrick
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Joe Kendrick’s first Sunday at Bruington Baptist Church, a rural church in eastern Virginia, didn’t happen. Hurricane Irene blew through, the power failed and a tree fell on the parsonage. Church was canceled.
Despite that beginning, he’s glad he stayed. He’s also glad he now has the Fellows program to help him learn how to handle his hectic schedule as the small church’s only staff.
‘The coaching has been fantastic, because I’ve been able to identify things that I need to work on or be intentional about, especially with time management,” he said. “I’ve got sermon writing, worship planning, visitation, men’s activities, women’s activities, youth and children activities …. I end up taking on more than I should. The coaching has really helped. We talk about how to use volunteers effectively, how to recruit better,” he said.
Kendrick had a natural peer group because three fellow graduates of Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond are Fellows, and he’s enjoyed extending his ties with other fellows and the CBF.
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Brittany Riddle
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Brittany Riddle, minister to adults at Vinton (Va.) Baptist Church, also has found the coaching “particularly helpful.”
“My coach helps me discern what my gifts and passions for ministry are and how to best use the ‘resource of me’ to serve God, the church, and to stay true to my calling to ministry,” she said.
Riddle, a graduate of Furman University and Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, had served in intern positions at Grace Baptist Church and Second Baptist Church, both in Richmond, and at churches in Greenville, S.C., and Louisville, Ky. She also had been a chaplaincy intern at a hospital in Greenville.
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David John Hsiley
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David John Hailey began his ministry at First Baptist Church in Burlington, N.C., while he was in divinity school at Duke University. Now, as the full-time associate pastor with children, youth and families, he finds that the Fellows program is important in helping him “know that I’m not alone in what I deal with.”
The coaching sessions are “great,” he said. He has a lot of support from his father, who is a minister, but he also finds that it helpful to be able to talk things through with his coach, a youth minister in Georgia.
“He takes the coach position — he doesn’t try to force me to do anything; he just helps me find the course of action that I need to take,” said Hailey.
Having studied at Duke, where Baptists are a minority, Hailey appreciates the opportunity to get to know the CBF’s leaders — and those who will be its leaders in the future.
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Seven other ministers in the Mid-Atlantic are among the first Fellows cohort: Joshua Breazeale, minister of education and children at Oakmont Baptist Church in Greenville, N.C.; Paul French, minister of music and worship at Rosalind Hills Baptist Church in Roanoke; Alex Gallimore, pastor of Hester Baptist Church in Oxford, N.C.; Andy Hale, pastor of Mosaic in Clayton, N.C.; John Harris Jr., pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Rose Hill, N.C.; Matthew Roberts, associate pastor of youth and children at First Baptist Church in Marion, N.C.; and Darren Williams, co-pastor of Nomini Baptist Church in Montross, Va.
The Fellows program is funded through a grant from the Religion Division of the Lilly Endowment. Partnering with the CBF in the project are the Center for Congregational Health and the Center for Teaching Churches at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology.
Linda Brinson ([email protected]) is a Religious Herald contributing writer, based in Madison, N.C.