Given that lay
people often fail to understand what the clergy do during the week—“Preacher,
it must be nice to work just one day a week”-- we can understand why clergy do
not have an appreciation for what their parishioners face during the days when
they are not at the church building.
Most clergy have held only temporary or part-time non-church jobs
(although this is changing as median age adults are responding to the call to
ministry). Few clergy today visit their
members at their place of employment; in fact, often the laity don’t even work
in the same community where they reside and attend church. Even if the pastor was employed in business
before responding to the call to ministry, he or she may not be familiar with
the stresses that are peculiar to the settings where their members work in
2013.
This can be addressed in many ways in the church, but the
process of making the connection can begin in the seminaries, schools of
theology, and divinity schools where clergy are formed and informed for
ministry. In his article on “Theology for Workers in the Pews,” Chris Armstrong suggests how these institutions “are helping business leaders to think ethically and theologically”
and also “helping clergy to engage more intelligently with business leaders in
congregations.” His recommendations
suggest some ideas about steps that theological institutions can take to foster
an interactive dialogue between church world and business world.
First, seminaries could partner with businesses to offer
staff development experiences in the workplace taught by seminary professors with
ministry students as small group facilitators or teaching assistants. Some possible topics might be ethics,
interpersonal relationships, and servant leadership.
Second, Armstrong suggests that seminaries rethink their approaches
to field education. Rather than limiting
ministry praxis settings to clinical pastoral education (CPE) in
hospitals, prisons, and psychiatric wards or field education to congregations
and church-related ministries, students might do internships in businesses
where they would shadow executive leaders, work with employee assistance
programs, or resource teams working on community service projects.
Third,
seminaries could take advantage of the experiences of local business people, especially
those who lead entrepreneurial endeavors, by inviting them to campus as
speakers, guest professors, or symposium participants. Discussions about vision, values, business practices,
and quality of life in the workplace would benefit the business leaders, the
seminary leadership and the students.
If seminaries
can begin the process of theological engagement with the workplace during the
minster’s seminary days, they will open doors for more effective dialogue when
the students begin serving local congregations.
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