[Magdalen] This saying No is tough

[Roger Stokes]

On 23/09/2014 02:21, Lynn Ronkainen wrote:
> A former deacon at one of the churches I attended long term in 
> Houston, upon being called as rector for the second time/second 
> church, created a 3 tiered program, using clever names I've now 
> forgotten but they were additionally numbered 101, 201 and 301  as 
> part of their name.  The main concept being, find the gifts you have 
> and *are willing* to share with your parish. His observation had been 
> that too often we plug people into existing vacancies because they 
> have skills and talents, but what we might do instead is to help 
> people find out what they think they can contribute to a parish and 
> with the main goal being - where are your skills, talents calling you 
> and how can you use them here, and it might be something brand new to 
> bring to the parish.
>
> I had the opportunity to participate in a modified version of his 101 
> class as part of a guided retreat in connection with an EFM class I 
> was mentoring that he led.  It was and remains a great concept... 
> OTOH, the concept alone is a big sea change in some places, and the 
> allure of plugging in 'new blood' into the 'way we've always done it' 
> has strong gravitational pull... LOL

This side of the pond we have team parishes where there is a Team Rector 
and Team Vicars who are also stipendiary and officially of incumbent 
status.  They are set up with the idea of co-operating and sharing their 
particular skills across the parish.  That is how it may indeed work 
with the first set of clergy.  The problem comes when one leaves.  You 
have great difficulty finding somebody with the same skill-set - which 
also may not be the one they need then but is what they are looking for.

Roger