(This piece is contributed
by invitation. Rev. Malcolm Himschoot, MESA Minister for Ministerial
Transitions, works in the United Church of Christ denominational office. He works
closely with administrator Darrell Ludwig, who on a daily basis handles all
Ministerial Profiles for the UCC. MESA can be found at www.ucc.org/ministers/. )
“What God Has For You, Is For You”
Malcolm Himschoot - October 8, 2013
A man walked past my office, headed for the Profiles desk.
He had come from far away for a UCC meeting at the denominational offices.
While here, he decided to see what had happened to his profile. In the current
system, it’s like an inter-galactic black hole. You never know.
He found Darrell. Darrell found the problem. A piece wasn’t
in yet. Darrell didn’t know it because the administrator only is alerted by the
system when all pieces are in. The minister didn’t know it because he wasn’t
alerted that a piece was missing. The profile was far from circulating, but
neither one knew it. Meanwhile opportunities were passing by, and the man who
was a qualified and dedicated minister waited, and waited, in search.
Of course this situation is unacceptable; the grief, understandable.
MESA is tasked to finally improve the tools of the search and call system this
year – to design something that resembles a modern, efficient task process, to
fit together procedure and purpose, to align a functional product with the
stated goals of numerous focus groups.
Still, the UCC search and call process will always be more
than a little mystifying. Far beyond the professional office, out there even
beyond cyberspace, is where profiles are actually picked up and handled,
touched and used.
The task before a Conference staff person is to find a batch
of possible ethical leadership candidates for a church. The task before a congregation
is to find a minister the church will respond to as they grow in God. There are
as many ways of accomplishing this outcome, as there are people! Algorithms and
heuristics, strategies and shortcuts. There are modern and ancient ways of doing
this, there are European and African ways, cheaper and richer ways, speedy and
slow ways, considerate and commercial ways, committee and consultant ways,
happenstance and certified ways.
There is also, and despite it all, prayer.
The Holy Spirit has worked through stranger things than
paperwork. The Holy Spirit has almost certainly moved in spite of paperwork!
But the Holy Spirit does move, regardless.
It just so happens that a search process which makes no sense,
which shows no rhyme nor reason, which takes too long or comes too sudden, may yet
be a very faithful process. One in which God shows up, and has a leading role.
Which is why, for years and years, the starting instruction
for the minister preparing their profile has not been, “Turn on your
typewriter, computer or iPad.” And the starting instruction for the search
committee engaging ministerial profiles has never been, “Locate the mimeograph,
risograph, copy machine or PDF.”
The starting advice is always, “Begin with prayer.”
And so, next year when the profiles process is clean and transparent,
when a strategic database exists, when authorized ministers in search know
entirely what to expect, when colleagues across conferences are working
together better than ever before, when each church in search is miraculously
behaving as a rational engine no longer a called community of human beings,
when the numbers of supply and demand equalize marvelously in the perfectly demographically-matched
employment marketplace… unless that year is also the year in which Jesus comes,
there will still be a moment when everything apparently breaks. Down.
Somewhere, a person of faith will be trying to discern their
path while stressed out to the max, needing a secure place to be, enduring a
time of flux and change, with many needs pressing upon them. Somehow this
person, an authorized minister, will be doubting or at least wondering about grace
and providence, vocation and justice. They’ll be praying that their spirit too may
be called for a purpose, that their contribution will have a place in a heaven’s
unfolding drama on earth, and that their employment needs will be met. Although
anger, despair and fear will come naturally, this person must learn to rehearse,
as the visitor rehearsed today in my office, “What God has for me, is for me.”
Try that line on. No matter how long or winding the journey.
If it’s true, it’s true.
What God has for you, is for you.
Through such courage and conviction, a Way will be created to
further Jesus’ gospel of mercy and hope, the sacrament of peace in the breaking
of the daily bread. I pray such courage and conviction for each and every
minister of Word and Sacrament in this time.
Amen.
(This piece is contributed by invitation. Rev. Malcolm Himschoot, MESA Minister for Ministerial Transitions, works in the United Church of Christ denominational office. He works closely with administrator Darrell Ludwig, who on a daily basis handles all Ministerial Profiles for the UCC. MESA can be found at www.ucc.org/ministers/. )
