Being in Ministry

Honestly, Openly, and Deeply

Purnell

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781498272094
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

An experienced pastoral practitioner writes with poetic insight and reflective discipline about the practice of ministry and the life of the priestly person. Doug Purnell is also a professional artist and the book shares many of his drawings as part of the text. His book will touch you deeply. It will not be a gentle read, but it will be ministry shaping. You will think in new ways about ministry and about the role of the priestly person as a result of reading this book. You will be enriched.

1

The Journey to the Present Ministry

People often ask me, “How did you get to be a minister?” And so the first part of this book tells the story of that being and of that call, my call—for the particulars are different for every person.

A second question often follows: “As a minister, what do you do, day by day?” Or, to put it another way, “What does your work involve?” And so the second part of this book tells about doing in ministry. But it also tells about being. Though we often forget that aspect of our spiritual and priestly lives, or don’t trust it enough, in fact being is often all we can do.

Then there is often a third question: about how I became an artist, closely followed by a fourth, whether I’m still painting. Much as folks ask whether my father was a minister, they ask, “Was there an artist in the family in an earlier generation?” No, I say, my dad was a life insurance salesman. As for the question of whether I’m still painting, I always want to answer: “Am I still breathing?” Painting is something that is similar to breathing for me: I do it because I’ve got to do it. Perhaps you have something in your life that is similarly integral to who you are. You will understand that there are many parallels between my being an artist and my being a priestly person and spiritual leader. And as you find your way through this book, you will see that it is pulsing with drawings and paintings and stories that, while primarily about who I am as artist, are also significantly about who I am as minister, pastor, priestly person, and spiritual leader.

I tell these stories about my own life as a way of making sense of my call, my sense of vocation, and of discerning new directions in the face of major disruption. The stories are also a way of doing pastoral theology—the art and discipline of tending and attending to the lived experience of the people given to my care and holding that experience in conversation with the received church tradition in order to try to make sense of it, or at least to bear it.

I wonder how my stories will prompt you to recall stories about your own life. I particularly hope that the book will encourage you to embrace with confidence and a good measure of relief what your life calls out in you, perhaps as a spiritual leader, minister, and priestly person, but perhaps as something different altogether.

Since many of us have experienced similar painful disruptions in our lives, I have included stories that I hope will evoke your memory and your story. At the conclusion of the book in an appendix is a series of reflective questions that I hope will help you reflect on your own life and ministry

The stories I tell are not all easy or straightforward. My position as a teacher in a seminary was made redundant and the strong sense of call I had was ripped apart causing what for me was a vocational and life crisis. I was suddenly enveloped by darkness. Subsequently I have had to rethink my life and ministry. I know that I am not alone in this, for many of you have faced similar crises that have pulled apart, unsettled, and radically challenged the sense of call or vocation that was shaping what you were doing.

Privilege

I like being in ministry. It is a privilege. Being in ministry is what my life calls out in me. That sense of call has been present from an early age, and through the last three years when the actions of the church by making my position as a seminary teacher redundant have hurt and confused me, that sense of call to ministry has remained clear.

A colleague minister asked me one day, “Have you thought of doing something else, outside the church?” “No,” I said, “I am a priestly person. That is what my life calls out in me; that is what I am. I have thought about doing other things, but I have never had any sense that they would be in the least bit satisfying. I am a minister, a pastoral person, a spiritual leader.”

Yet in 2004, after I had taught for nine years in a seminary, I was abruptly beckoned from a meeting and told that because of a financial crisis in the institution they had decided to cut two teaching positions. Mine was one. Somehow I held myself together until I got home and told Heather, my wife; then, I broke down and wept uncontrollably. I was devastated. Teaching had been such a clear and affirmed call. Never until this moment had there been any doubt for me that this was “my calling” in life. Now here I was: made redundant, downsized.

My Call to Theological Education

My call to theological education happened slowly over about fifteen years. I had responded to the call to ministry and had understood pastoral ministry as being the direction of my life. Slowly a new sense of call emerged within that larger call; it was to teach in seminary. One of the more consciously shaping moments happened like this: while I was on a sabbatical from my parish in Sydney, Australia, I was invited to teach a weeklong course at San Francisco Theological Seminary in art and theology. At the end of the final class, I thanked the students, picked up my things, and began to leave the room. One of the students stood on behalf of the class and presented me with a preaching stole. Apparently I had been seen covetously eyeing that particular stole in the seminary bookshop—and had decided I could not afford it. The student’s words of presentation were very complimentary about the learning experience we had shared and strongly affirmed my call to a teaching ministry. The gift came as a clear blessing of the call that had been growing in momentum for a very long time.

I had not been a very good undergraduate student. I didn’t do exams at all well. In retrospect, I suspect that I was asking too many questions, enjoying learning new things, playing with ideas, but not able to ground them in any significant way.

I found a way that suited my learning style when I was introduced to a process of learning by reflecting on experience. I began to shape and address my own questions. My learning had a newfound direction.

That learning style was reinforced when a church resource person came to our local congregation to lead a program on Lay Evangelism. Instead of telling us what to do, he asked about our experience and got us telling stories about our lives. Suddenly I was empowered to learn in a different way. I asked that leader where he had learned to do this and with his guidance found opportunities to practice such inductive learning skills. I put a great deal of energy into learning how groups functioned and into training and working as a group leader. When I understood that families were also small groups that could benefit from this style of collaborative leadership, I trained as a Family Therapist. The whole idea of learning by reflecting on lived experience made sense to me and gave me new purpose and direction as a human being, minister, priestly person, and as a marriage partner and parent.

One sunny afternoon I was standing on a street corner in Melbourne, talking to a colleague in ministry. He was someone I admired, someone a couple of years older than me. He told me there was a position in theological education coming available at the seminary and suggested that I apply. I was a bit staggered, because I had never imagined myself in that sort of role. I had been in pastoral ministry at this stage for ten years; four of those years had been in an outer suburban new area ministry and the other years in an intense inner city mission. It would be another fifteen years before I became a full-time seminary teacher.

Not too much later, I met and found a ready rapport with Sandra Brown, a Princeton seminary professor on sabbatical in Australia. She participated in groups that I ran and encouraged me to consider going to Princeton for a time as a visiting scholar. I was fortunate to be awarded a fellowship that helped me get there. Sandra invited me to teach in her class at Princeton; hers was one of the many loud voices that directed me towards becoming a theological educator.

On my return to Australia, I noticed an advertisement in a church paper for an “innovative teacher of Pastoral Theology” at United Theological College in Sydney. That seemed my thing. And by this time I was being encouraged by many people to consider becoming a seminary teacher. So when I saw this particular advertisement, I called the principal of the Theological College in Sydney; though he told me that the position had already been filled, he encouraged me to prepare myself further by doing some extra study.

Graeme Griffin was professor of pastoral theology when I went to Theological School in Melbourne. Graeme had introduced me to Sandra Brown and had invited me on a number of occasions to teach in his classes. When I moved from Melbourne to Sydney to take up a new parish, Graeme came to me saying, “I’m disappointed that you are moving to Sydney because I had hoped that you would be able to take up a more significant teaching role with me.” And when I arrived in Sydney I found that he had written a letter of strong commendation of me as teacher in the field of pastoral theology to the then principal of the Theological College in Sydney.

Soon after I arrived in Sydney, I was invited to become part of the pastoral theology “team” at United Theological College. The college had decided that their “innovative way of teaching” pastoral theology was to have a team of four people. I was made an adjunct faculty person and invited to share in all the things that the faculty did. The other faculty members encouraged me in every way they could to study and to contribute in theological education.

One afternoon the principal of the college asked to see me. He said there were a number of positions that would soon become available in theological education, and advised, “You ought to begin doctoral studies in order that you can be ready when they become available.” So with the encouragement of the principal, I completed a doctorate as suggested. During this time I continued to be a parish minister and to teach in the Theological College.

When in 1994 I took my long-service sabbatical from the parish, I went to be an artist in residence at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. This placed me full time within a seminary for a number of months. I was delighted, first, in being an artist and contributing to the community in that way, and second, in being in conversation with theological scholars, especially those in the field of pastoral theology. I was enormously stimulated by my experiences there.

One weekend I went out to visit a friend at the seminary of which he was president. David had been on sabbatical in Sydney a year or so earlier. He greeted me by telling me he had just had a phone call from the people at the seminary in Sydney asking for his advice about the appointment of a new principal. Looking straight at me, David said: “I told them to appoint you.”

To say my head spun would be an understatement. I spent the train trip back to Washington, D.C. imagining what I would do if I were principal of such an institution. When I returned to Sydney I consulted people about whether this was an appropriate thing for me and wisely, at the time, people told me it wasn’t.

About the same time a half-time position in pastoral theology was advertised at the seminary. A friend and colleague whose advice I have always valued told me that I should apply for this position. It seemed crazy because I had three teenage children, and working half time did not seem a reasonable thing to do. He was persuasively adamant that I would find a way to make the other half of my income. Fortunately a full-time position became available almost immediately. With much encouragement from many people, I applied for and was offered the position. It was what my life had called out in me.

The people of the parish where I was ministering understood the strength of the call to theological education and were supportive in my transition from parish to theological college. I had been in pastoral ministry for twenty-five years in three quite different parishes in three states and would take that rich experience to the seminary.

My friend and fellow minister, Brian Howe, who had just resigned as Deputy Prime Minister of the country, agreed to preach at my induction. His willingness to do so was another of the many affirmations of my call. As he spoke on that day, I thought, “If I can help equip other people to contribute to society as you have, I will have done my job.” For the induction service, I wore the stole given me by the students at SFTS. Their words of presentation remain with me.

I seemed to have found the place to which my life was calling me. I loved teaching. And I enjoyed reflecting and writing on the educational processes and how they contributed to transformational learning. I wrote about experiential learning processes in the classroom, about using creative projects as an integrative way of doing assessment tasks, and about the imagination in theological...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Journey to the Present Ministry
• Chapter 2: Call to Ministry
• Chapter 3: Being and Doing in Ministry: Doing
• Chapter 4: Privilege
• Chapter 5: Being a Theological Interpreter
• Chapter 6: Being and Doing in Ministry: Being
• Chapter 7: Identity: Memory
• Chapter 8: Remembering
• Chapter 9: Amen
• Chapter 10: Where Am I Now?
• Appendix
• Bibliography