Ministries Reshaped

Ministries Reshaped

How might American Christians revitalize and expand the practice of their varied ministries? The reports below describe experimental efforts to invigorate and, in some cases, reshape the theology and/or implementation of various Christian ministries in the United States.

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The reports below are organized by the type of ministry being reshaped.

Reshaping: Campus Ministry
Remaining Faithful to Calvin: Congregations Reach Out to College/University Students
By: Michael Miller, Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2005
Michael Miller and his Center for the Church and Higher Education seek to create vibrant campus ministries that are congregation-based. Largely lay driven, these programs offer the opportunity for adults to share their lives with students, serve as models for these young people seeking to discern their vocation as well as develop leadership for the next generation. Miller outlines five key elements essential for any successful campus ministry effort.
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Reshaping: Clergy Peer Relationships
The Group Plan: Building on Pastoral Excellence
By: Holly Miller				Date of Project: 2003
An initiative by United Methodist pastors in North Alabama has now spawned efforts throughout the church to build pastoral excellence by gathering small groups of congregational leaders for study, mutual support and critique as well as mentoring.
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Reshaping: Congregational Leadership Training
Seminaries Build Capacity To Strengthen Congregational Ministry
By: Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2005
What are seminaries doing to prepare leaders for congregational ministry? Kathleen Cahalan discusses the findings of a grant program that has asked just that question of 45 institutions from Roman Catholic, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, independent or peace church traditions. Her reflections reveal distinctive differences as well as significant points of shared experience, programs and perspectives among these schools.
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Reshaping: Entering Effectively into Ministry
The First Parish Project of the Hinton Rural Life Center: Where "Small Is Beautiful"
By: Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2006
First Parish Project responds to the fact that most American Christians attend medium to large sized urban and suburban churches and thus most persons who become pastoral ministers come from such churches. And yet, when newly ordained men and women are assigned to their first congregations they frequently find themselves in smaller membership churches in rural or declining urban settings. The national and ecumenical First Parish Project focuses on gifted young pastors serving in congregations numbering under 100 with an eye toward ameliorating their sense of isolation and fostering a community of supportive peers who can assist them in sustaining their vocations to parish ministry.
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Reshaping: Entering Effectively into Ministry
Transition into Ministry: Programs Offer Hope for Revitalizing Congregational Leadership
By: Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2004
David Wood, coordinator for this program, describes various organized efforts by congregations, denominations and seminaries to support and mentor seminary students and newly ordained pastors for their entry into their first call to ministry.
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Reshaping: Exploring Vocations
Helping Young People Examine the Relationship between Faith and Vocation
By: Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2005
Since the beginning of the Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation (PTEV) in 2000, Lilly Endowment has awarded 88 North American church-related colleges and universities with grants to implement programs. Kim Maphis Early discusses these “vocation grant” programs which are individually designed by the institutions to fit within their own mission and culture as they develop programming to assist young people to examine the relationship between faith and vocational choices, and to offer opportunities for gifted students to explore ministerial options.
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Reshaping: Pastoral Leadership
Prioritizing the Roles of Pulpit Rabbis in Contemporary America
By: Wertheimer Jack, Jack Wertheimer				Date of Project: 2006
As part of a wide-ranging study of Jewish religious leadership conducted at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York under the direction of the Seminary’s provost, Professor Jack Wertheimer, a team of three social scientists surveyed both congregational rabbis and their lay leaders in Conservative synagogues as to their rating of rabbinic roles. Their research was spurred by a desire to clarify how both congregational rabbis and their lay leaders define their expectations for rabbinic leadership, and whether those expectations resemble or differ from one another. Their findings are intriguing for all who occupy a pulpit in American culture as well as those seeking religious leadership for their congregation.
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Reshaping: Youth Ministry
Claremont Program Takes Dramatic Approach To Develop Teen Leadership
By: Frank Rogers, Jr.				Date of Project: 2005
Frank Rogers has reshaped leadership development among youth by inviting them to become active agents in their own story instead of passive recipients of the consumer culture. Using a “narrative pedagogy,” Rogers enables youth to use Christian symbols and stories to tell their own stories which in turn prepares them to lead in the future by helping those around them better to understand the larger context and meaning of their lives and the crises that they encounter.
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Reshaping: Youth Ministry
Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project: A Revitalized Approach Meets Youth Needs
By: Tracy Schier				Date of Project: 2004
In an era when most programs and products geared for young people are loud or fast or both, an approach to meeting the needs of youth that is quiet and deliberately contemplative may seem counterintuitive. But according to Mark Yaconelli, the director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project housed at San Francisco Theological Seminary, many of today’s young people want to encounter God in an authentic way.
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	You may also be interested in: Ministries Reconsidered
	where pastoral leaders from a variety of Christian communions reflect on what must change and what remain constant if Christians are faithfully to address the call to discipleship in the contemporary American setting.





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