Finding Renewable Energy through Shared Ministries

The title of this column is also the title of next year’s Rural Ministry Conference, scheduled for March 1-3, 2009 in Dubuque. By “shared ministries” I mean any and all of the possible ways that congregations and ministry leaders can better serve the mission of the gospel by doing together what cannot be done alone. Shared ministries include, for example, yoked parishes and geographic parishes, multi-point parishes and staff ministry leadership teams—as well as other examples and models that represent creative responses to the challenges of mission in local communities.

Last fall, during a class session in the course, “Imagining Rural Ministry,” at Wartburg Theological Seminary, a discussion about shared ministries prompted one student to relate that she had heard parishioners in a rural congregation express resistance to the possibility of forming a geographic parish on the grounds that to do so was to concede the eventual and inevitable closing of their beloved church. That perspective reflects a common understanding that healthy congregations are self-sufficient congregations, able to afford full-time ministry and to engage in mission on the basis of their own internal resources, without having to seek the partnership of others beyond their own membership. When congregations find themselves no longer able to do this, when congregational membership and resources grow smaller, a sense of decline can seize congregational perspective and stifle congregational imagination. Suggestions about shared ministry can seem like prescriptions for palliative care of the terminally ill.

But many rural congregations have discovered a different reality. Shared ministries can become opportunities for new engagement in the mission of the gospel, rather than life-support for dying churches. In my not-yet-one-year of service as Director of the Center for Theology & Land I have seen and heard several encouraging examples of congregations finding new life by entering together into creative arrangements for ministry and mission. The 2009 Rural Ministry Conference will be devoted to the good news about shared ministries. Speakers and workshop presenters will share theological vision and practical experience about where and how this can happen.

Details about the conference will be shared in future editions of this newsletter and on the CTL website as they become available. In the meantime, I invite all readers of this article to share with me suggestions and insight about shared ministries and the 2009 conference. I can be reached by phone, 563-589-0272, or e-mail, pbaglyos@wartburgseminary.edu.