Completed!

CPI Pastors and Instructors, Fall 2011

Three years ago, a group of twelve pastors from seven congregations in Canada East Mission came together for the first time. The twelve were enrolled in CEM's pilot of the Co-missioned Pastor Initiative, or CPI for short. They met that first weekend at Crieff Hills, a retreat centre owned by the Presbyterian Church just East of Cambridge, ON. Also present as guest instructor was Apostle Mary Jacks Dynes along with program leaders Marion Smith and Doug Bolger, plus MCFO Mike Hewitt and (then) MCP Carman Thompson. It was the beginning of a remarkable journey.

Since that time, the group has met together on six additional occasions for a weekend study each spring and a week long session each fall. They have had opportunity to meet and learn from a wonderful group of instructors including Becky Savage of the 1st Presidency, Jim Poirier now of the Presiding Bishopric, (then) Dean of the Seminary Don Compier, Field Apostolic Assistant for Central and South America Mission Field Arthur Smith, Evangelist and Spiritual Director Marvin Rice and many more. Together they have studied theology, personal spiritual practice, Biblical exegesis, Congregational management and approaches to congregational mission just to name a few of their subjects. They have learned together, supported one another, and challenged each other to succeed.

This past weekend the group returned to Crieff Hills where it all began. This time their instructors were Apostle Susan Skoor and President of Seventy Kris Judd, along with Carman Thompson, now Field Apostolic Assistant to Susan Skoor. Also present were CEM president Tim Stanlick, MCFO Mike Hewitt, and program leaders Doug Bolger and Marion Smith. The topic was mission. It seemed a fitting lesson on which to graduate.

Then, all of a sudden it was over! The pilot program has been completed, and this group of twelve join four others in the CEM CPI alumni. The mission centre is blessed to have them, but where did that three years go?

The group learned a lot, of course, and we know they are better pastors and ministers as a result. The mission centre has also learned a lot, and will apply that learning to future endeavors already in the planning stage. You can expect to see and hear more information on that at some future time, but not now. Now is the time to savour this moment of accomplishment for our twelve graduates. They have worked hard. They have studied many books, and were sent away with another one tucked into their bulging cases. For the pastors, it is one more day in a lifetime of learning.

Congratulations CPI graduates. We are proud of you, and look forward to years of ministry that will be all the richer for this remarkable time together.

Posted by Carman

Early

Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to leave early. As Peter Trueman used to say "this isn't news, but it's reality."

I'm trying to do more of that lately. I'm making an effort, as I reported to the rest of my team at staff meeting this week, to disconnect. I'm working at taking the time off that I have coming. In this job we work lots of overtime. Or at least if we were in a regular job it would be counted as overtime.

Have you ever considered that there are really only about 50 weekends in a year that one could reasonably be in a Sunday congregational gathering? And that most of your CEM team tend to work those days! (I'm giving us a conservative two weeks holiday; because, believe it or not, reunion, youth camp, directors' retreat, even women's retreat) do not count as holidays. Even if you're not officially "on staff" because there's always someone who needs to talk, or ask questions or give you some feedback on something you talked about last time. Now don't think we don't enjoy all that--or most of it anyway, but it isn't exactly leisure.

This is not to say either that we only work weekends! Much stuff gets packed into "office hours" even if those hours are spent on the road, at a home office, meeting with people, attending workshops or meetings or information sessions or preparing to preach, teach, counsel... There's plenty to do.

So here's the scoop. Sometime in the year 2011 I DO plan to retire--not come in to work any more. And I need to practise not being here, not staying until the last person leaves, not waiting to see if there's something more to do, someone else to call. I need quite a lot of practice, alas. It might take several months. But for today, I think I'll just leave early. Is everybody OK with that?

Posted by Marion

Meetings

It may be fashionable to declare a hatred of meetings. Mention “meetings” and someone is bound to say it: I hate meetings! Our little work group has often found ourselves in this round of questions and predictable responses:

Do we need to meet?
Is there anything for the agenda this week?
Can you think of something we need to meet about?
Well, maybe just a short one.

And then we do meet. We have a regularly scheduled meeting every Wednesday morning because we’ve learned that we always do need to meet. For a small team it is amazing just how much needs to happen around that meeting table. After all, we see each other all the time. We share the hallways, the lunch table, the photocopier and fax space. We meet each other on the stairs, at the refrigerator and in the parking lot. Why do we need to have a formal meeting?

Again, the fashionable comment that always gets made sooner or later: isn’t it better to be “doing” than to be “meeting”?

And of course, “doing” is the priority. We must be about meeting all those goals we’ve set and agreed upon. But nothing just happens of its own accord. You need to be strategic. You need to set time-lines and assign folks to tasks. You need to hear about what’s going on in the other parts of the field that just might make a huge difference. You need to hear about the problems people are having and maybe put additional brain-power to work on the challenges. You need to just go round the table and listen to whatever progress is being made. You need to cheer a little for the minor successes and encourage in the face of the hard questions. You need to tap into the synergy that a group brings to an issue. You need to let ideas happen.

At least those are the kinds of things we need to do at our meeting table.

Then you need to watch the clock, wrap up the conversation and move on. So a stop time is also a critical piece, and an agenda—that essential list of things to include. Ours always has the item “Where have you been and where are you going and what do we need to hear about?” This is the main reason we will always need to meet. Because we’ve all been somewhere and will be somewhere else soon.

So if you should happen to call us on a Wednesday morning, be sure to have your message prepared to leave on the answering machine. Everyone is in a meeting!

Posted by Marion

Greetings

We greet you from Independence this morning!

Our whole program team has gathered with our Apostle Mary, our old friend and former apostle Jim Slauter and a great crowd of other people from Mary's field, Canada West and North and Central USA. We're excited to be gathered around the big round council table in the temple.

We're here for some updating, for a little information sharing, a bit of future planning, but mostly to be in conversation with colleagues to strengthen and build up our team. As I'm looking across the table there are Carman, Mike, Jim, Alfredo.

To be really polite and respectful we're leaving computers closed, cell phones turned off, connections back home and abroad disconnected. We're being intentional to connect here and now, at this table with these people. Who knows just how many "Good Words" will emerge from these conversations? I've already got a couple of ideas. But you must be patient and wait for them to percolate, work their way through a couple of days of thinking and sharing.

And if you're very lucky, you may even hear a good word or two about some amazing grandchildren I hope to spend a wee bit of time with over the next few days. It's all good!

Take care of yourselves, everyone back home. We're thinking of you. Check in tomorrow for greetings from your team on the road.