By Barry Howard
This week I’ve had the privilege of sitting around the table with a distinguished group of future ministers and veteran ministers in a retreat setting as we collaborated about our sense of calling, the challenges and opportunities of the local church, and scenarios for the future. As the first session began, I found myself wondering whether these young ministers are actually up to the monumental challenges facing the church in the coming years.
However, as I listened and interacted, I became convinced that many of these young ministers seated around me are better prepared for ministry than previous generations, primarily because of their participation in the Ministerial Residency Program funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment and administered by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Initiative for Ministerial Excellence.
Two years ago, the church that I serve became a teaching congregation through the program. That means for the past two years we have been host to a ministry resident — a recent seminary graduate who is preparing for a first call to ministry.
Most of the churches I have served have provided short-term opportunities for university students to serve as interns. While internship programs are valuable in helping students explore their sense of calling, a ministerial residency actually provides opportunities for young ministers who have confirmed their calling and completed their theological training to serve on a church staff full-time for two years in a mentoring relationship with a veteran pastor. During the residency, a young minister encounters a variety of real-life ministry situations prior to moving into a first call in a local congregation.
In recent years, statistics have shown that young ministers who have a frustrating experience during their first call frequently transition from local-church ministry to para-church organizations — or end up leaving ministry altogether. I believe that a young minister who completes a residency will be better prepared to serve on a church staff with maturity and longevity.
My wife is a veteran school teacher. As a part of her education and preparation for becoming a teacher, she was required to spend a certain number of hours in a classroom observing interactions between the teacher and students. Then she was required to spend a semester working alongside a teacher in the classroom, preparing lesson plans and doing “practice teaching.”
Physicians also have to test-practice their profession. Between the completion of their medical-school training and their entry into a practice, physicians are required to complete a residency that typically includes a rotation in multiple areas of patient care. The variety of medical dilemmas addressed by the medical resident during residency prepares the young physician to enter a medical practice with sharper skills and greater confidence.
In Baptist life in particular, while ministers are not required to complete a residency prior to ordination or a first call, a residency program can provide experiences that prepare a minister to serve effectively in the crucible of a local congregation.
Just as our congregation has served as a teaching congregation for a ministry resident, it has been my privilege to serve as a supervising pastor to the resident. In this mentoring relationship, our resident has experienced almost every kind of ministerial responsibility and challenge that I face as a pastor. Our resident has prepared and preached sermons, planned worship services, written columns, implemented ministry initiatives, worked with challenging people, prayed with patients who were entering surgery, counseled couples preparing for marriage, walked alongside individuals who were facing death, performed baptisms, administered communion and led weddings and funerals.
While I hope that I have provided a few bits of wisdom for our resident, our resident has provided refreshing perspectives and insights to me. As a veteran pastor, it is easy to grow stale or mechanical or to become entrapped in the vacuum of meaningless traditions. Our resident has helped me, colleagues on our staff and members of our congregation to think more creatively and to serve more enthusiastically. And now it’s time for our resident to graduate from the residency program and, hopefully in the near future, to be called to offer that fresh insight and energy to another congregation.
So here I sit, around the table with my fellow supervising pastors and ministry residents, listening to their stories, feeling their anxiety, and sharing their dreams for the future. They are a diverse group. Some are young men and some are young women. Some are clergy couples. And I hear and sense their passion for ministry, their deep faith in God, their impatience with institutionalism, and their love for the local church.
I am convinced these young people are extraordinarily bright and gifted ministers who are now ready to fill the vacant ministerial positions in our churches. They have sharpened their skills and are up to the challenge. The bigger question is: Are our churches ready to be challenged and led by these young ministers? A church search committee would be wise to consider these young ministers as a pool of candidates with advanced standing. They are the cream of the crop, and they are ready to serve.