CONVIVIUM

DATES FOR 2009 GATHERING OF 3M NETWORK

MARCH 22-25, 2009

DOMINICAN CONFERENCE CENTER

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Please circle the date on your 2009 Calendar.

We have asked Bill Mate of the Minnesota Conference to share hunches,

intuitions, insights that might contribute to our networking and gathering

between now and the 2009 3M  Session.  Our recognition this year had

to do with the differing perceptions that define the new generations

being called to ministry.  You are encouraged to add to these insights

and intuitions by posting a comment.  Hear these words from Bill Mate:

   Our conversation as a 3M group has a level of confidence I am not certain is warranted in these days of great change. We are comfortable that we have “process” to deal with variables before the clergy of our denomination in the coming years that includes retreats, long discussion, and a “family” (in its various forms) understanding of our churches to provide clarity and commitment. It causes me dis-ease.

   How does working with the “Millennial” generation differ from we “Boomers” and “Traditionalists”? The “Millenialists” were born between 1982-2000. 78 million strong! They are most like us: they are motivated to action by: relationships, volunteering, internet/global information and personal accountability. The defining moments of their lives were: the Clinton impeachment, Columbine high school, and 9/11.

   Whereas “Generation X’ers, born between 1965-1981, 46 million strong, were motivated to action by: feedback, freedom to change direction, learn, enjoy and be recognized and relationships. AIDS, the Cold War end, moms at work and the first Space Shuttle Explosion defined them. Most of us in the group, by the way, are called “Traditionalists" (or builders), 75 million strong. We are motivated by duty, loyalty. Our defining moments were World War 11 and/or Korea, the great depression; perhaps Vietnam and the assassinations of the 60’s, Watergate and the Space race. [All the above from the Barna Organization who does research of religious behavior].

   So, I think it is appropriate we invite a colleague in ministry to join us next year who was born between 1982-2000 or late in the Generation X’ers (1975+) to check our assumptions and how we work and plan.

   Since I have the stage in this paragraph, let me list a few more “elephants” in the room I think all of us need to be aware of if we are serious about helping clergy be the best they can be: Future generations will not support the “Unified” budget principle for church finances. We are going to have to help clergy become more enterprising!

   Related, pay and benefits for clergy will play a major role in the quality of people entering ministry. The ecological crisis makes the way we do business—driving three hours for a two-hour meeting—and the many variables on this theme an obsolete way. We must seriously pursue how technology can help us do our business: conference calling (via Internet phone systems). Video conferencing with multiple people around the state will likely be more common and there will be less frequent personal gatherings.

   When we gather the time will be intense on relationships and less on business. Theologically we are already being affected by the “world is flat” calling for a less imperialist expression of our faith and more cooperation and appreciation for the expression of all the world religions in our cities. That’s a start. I could go on!

   I enjoy this group more than almost any other group I associate with during the year: Good people, thoughtful people, kind people, and faithful people. So I look forward to next year with new folk in our midst and still time with each of you.                Bill Mate

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A SHORT GLOSSARY OF SYSTEMS TERMS

(always a work in process)

differentiation, has four main elements always active simultaneously (as though each of the four is inscribed on top of the other, unpronounceable, yet realizable if only in fleeting, charged moments): 1) ongoing self-definition, 2) capacity to stay connected, 3) ability to regulate one’s own reactivity and not be subject to the reactivity of others (non-anxious presence) and 4) vision, the ability to “see” things that others cannot “see” at first but are willing to trust, something that is “caught,” not taught; more about perception than goal-setting; more inward, than something outwardly imposed.

emotional process, something that happens that makes one no longer see things as they formerly saw them; “seeing” things through a new set of lenses; not only a change in perspective, but also a change in perception; this is something that happens at our deepest personal level of being: with our whole being we have experienced something we cannot “un-experience; this is about transformation, redemption, spiritual formation, “soul-stuff!” No lasting change can take place unless it comes at the level of emotional process.

homeostasis, every system has its own homeostasis or balance, just like each person’s body has its own balanced way of functioning; it can be healthy or unhealthy and every point between the extremes. Lasting change is so difficult because it is the nature of every system to return to its original homeostasis.

interlocking, when there is an unresolved issue in any part of a system it tends to effect all other parts of it, e.g., an unresolved issue between any two people in a family can effect the whole family; an unresolved issue within one's own self will make a difference in how one "sees" many other thing. Picture a mobile. Try touching it without causing movement throughout the mobile. Systems are like that.

multigenerational transmission, every system has a debt to the past; though the members of a system may change there is something more alive in the system than the individuals; it may take the form of a memory, tradition, disease, emotions or others aspects of the past that are transmitted from one generation to the next; to use the analogy of the body, it is like a person who has had a limb amputated, but at times still feels as though it is there.

non-anxious presence, the capacity to regulate your own reactivity and not be subject to the reactivity of others.

sabotage, has to do with resistance to change and/or reaction to someone (an emerging leader) moving toward differentiation; a person or persons within the system works to undercut movement toward change; this is an effort to maintain their own homeostasis because of the comfort zone they have with it.

secrets, this is obvious, but usually not taken seriously enough because of the pain attached; like plaque in arteries secrets in a system clog communication and diminish the health of the system; somewhat like “the elephant in the room.”

triangles, an emotional triangle is formed by any three persons or issues whenever any two parts of the system become uncomfortable with one another due to an unresolved issue, they will “triangle in” or focus upon the third person or issue as a way of stabilizing their own relationship with one another.

undertow, as natural as the ocean cascading on a beach and creating an undertow is the tendency of systems to try to “pull down” a person’s move toward differentiated leadership (becoming the head of the body); Edwin Friedman liked to say, “No act of differentiation goes unpunished;” whenever one begins to rise on the scale of differentiation there is a natural resistance on the part of some who feel their own homeostasis disrupted; I like to call it “undertow.”

unresolved issue, unfinished business; something that is “alive” within the system that its members cannot get past and causes a residual emotional dis-connect; and intellectual “block,” and emotional “wall;” something all involved know needs to be dealt with (resolved) but no one is willing to make the first move.

John Winn

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THE ESSENTIAL PENTAGON

COVENANT

                            SYSTEMS THINKING            MENTOR/COACH

INTENSITY         LONG TERM

   THE ESSENTIAL PENTAGON is the infrastructure that it seems to me is basic in any endeavor to maintain ministers in ministry. These essentials, in turn, are grounded in a deep appreciation for the ongoing formation of a pastor’s own Spirituality and anchored in a serious understanding of Biblical Theology.

    FOREMOST IS A RESPECT for the Covenant we hold in common in ministry. Colleagues in ministry need a “safe place,” where they can count on confidentiality, experience trust, express tentative thoughts and ideas on which they are still working, and share some of their deepest hurts as well as their most sparkling moments. The substance of the Covenant has to do with loving the Lord, Our God, with all our hearts, souls, mind, and strength; and loving our colleagues in ministry in the same way we love ourselves. Sound familiar? The nature of our Covenant in ministry needs to be looked at from a variety of perspectives in all the small group gatherings dealing with maintaining ministers in ministry.

   THIS REQUIRES A certain amount of Intensity that enables us to push to the deepest levels of emotional process. I am making a distinction between "feelings" and "emotional process." By emotional process I am talking about connecting with life experiences that change the way you "see" things. We are "messing around" with perception here! Positive change is not simply an intellectual matter. It is essentially emotional. Our Life Together is not a series of comfortable intellectual discussions. We are dealing with the life-stories of brothers and sisters who have been created by a loving God.

    FURTHER, THESE SESSIONS must be over a Long Term so that we can actually experience some life changes together. This is not the place for a “quick fix.” The long term makes it possible for a sense of vision to emerge, a way of seeing with new eyes, not only who we are, but what it is possible for us to become. Peer groups that honor confidentiality and maintain covenants with a healthy degree of intensity over the long term can be life-giving and life-saving.

   THERE IS NO “expert” present pouring new knowledge into empty vessels or sharpening skills with the latest fads. This is a process not a program. These kind of peer groups learn from each other. We learn and grow through discovery moreso than intellectual assent. We take turns being Mentor. We take turns being the Coach. The teaching/learning cycle correlates with Mentor/Coach.

    WHAT MAKES THIS PROCESS different is the part Systems Thinking plays. That is what keeps it from being “just another continuing education opportunity.” Systems deals with the way we perceive things and is a most important ingredient in the post-modern world for the kind of person and the kind of leader one will become. I am specifically referring to systems thinking or family process as developed by Murray Bowen and made clearly applicable to church and synagogue by Edwin Friedman. Because their form of systems thinking comes from the discipline of social studies, it has more of an affinity with the structures we deal with in the Church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right when he said, "The only sociological category that could possibly be compared to the church, and even then only approximately, is the family."

   ANY PROCESS TO DEAL with maintaining ministers in ministry needs to wrestle with these five practical basics at the outset.

John Winn

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