The Rev. Dr. Beth McCaw and the Rev. Shelli Latham, two leaders in the movement to help train leaders for small churches, joined the Rev. Bill Davis for a recent edition of “Leading Theologically.” Listen to their 35-minute conversation here.
McCaw is the dean of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. Latham is president of Omaha Presbyterian Seminary Foundation. Both have a heart — and a track record — for helping small PC(USA) faith communities build effective leadership. Davis is senior director for Theological Education Funds Development at the Presbyterian Foundation.
“This is really where my home is these days,” McCaw said. McCaw’s service includes years spent in Namibia and rural Montana, where she was “deeply appreciative and moved by the creativity and hope and freedom that some of the small congregations have.”
“At a time when there’s an epidemic of loneliness or disengagement,” she said, “I think small churches can hold special promise for pulling people together and nurturing folks holistically.”
Latham noted that Omaha Presbyterian Seminary Foundation was founded as a seminary in 1890 “to serve the frontier” between McCormick Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary, “a lot of wide open spaces and small towns and thriving and not thriving congregations that were small from the beginning,” she said. These days, “it’s exciting to be doing something that’s really relevant. To think about serving church at all means we have to think about nurturing churches and the leaders who are in small congregations.”
For many who minister in small church settings, there’s “a really different trajectory in theological education” from the standard Master of Divinity degree, Latham said. People “see a vacuum and an opportunity and they think, ‘could this be mine to step into?’ but they’re constrained geographically or financially or time-wise — but eager to serve,” Latham said. “We haven’t necessarily caught up to equipping people where they are for the ministry they could be doing right now.”
“I’ll run into pastors who will say, ‘Seminary did not prepare me for this,’” McCaw said. She tells them: “Good news! We’re not teaching in the same way as we did when you went to seminary 30 years ago. We’ve kept apace with very new and fresh forms of what church is.”
“Most of our learners are already in ministry,” McCaw noted. “We’re training them in place, in the laboratory of their local context.” That represents “a great hope of better ecclesiology and restoring ministry to the full breadth of God’s people.”
Davis wondered: What is essential today for a small church leader?
McCaw said the need to be nimble and responsive is spelled out in The Great Ends of the Church. “There’s something very anchored to the faith but also transcendent and flexible in the forms we can express that,” she said. “If we can form our learners in a way that they appreciate the gift of the gospels and of this tradition — but they also sense a lot of freedom and have trained muscle memory for leaning in and interpreting that for the church today — that will serve us for the long haul and in multiple contexts.”
“It’s a fun and exciting time to be in congregational ministry, even while being scary, because we have long proclaimed that we believe in the priesthood of all believers and now we’re in a time when the rubber meets the road,” Latham said. “We need an equipped laity. We need all the gifts of all the people who are in our congregations.”
OPSF recently launched online Certificate in Proclamation training to equip people to engage Scripture in worship and to explore homiletics and Reformed theology. “We have to do these things in the context of people already in ministry,” Latham said, “and discovering ministry as they’re learning.”
“Equipping our leaders for their own internal journey through spiritual direction and peer learning groups in community and anchoring people in communities of support” may not sound like theological education, Latham said. “But we have to learn how to care for ourselves as these agents and disciples for Christ’s glory. The muscle memory of how you develop spiritual practices that are going to sustain you in ministry is so incredibly important.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Tina Finley, Accountant, General Ledger Office, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation
Rob Fohr, VP, Strategic Alignment & Mid-Council Relations, Strategic Alignment, The Presbyterian Foundation
Let us pray:
God of justice and peace, we pray for your small and large churches and ask you to inspire congregations and individuals to work together for your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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