Pastors Meet to Develop Spiritual Rules for Life

At a Roman Catholic seminary on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in St. Francis, Wis., several Christian Reformed Church pastors had a chance to meet four times over the past year to discuss their struggles and to sort through ways to help guide and fortify them in their ministries.

They met to support one another and seek to develop rules of life to help them grow spiritually as part of a Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Peer Learning grant they received from the CRC.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for us,” said Rev. Daniel Roeda, who coordinated the grant, which included pastors serving at churches in Illinois and Wisconsin.

“We got to discuss our lives and some of the issues and themes we face in our ministries. We found, as we met, that we shared many of the same struggles,” said Roeda.

Sustaining Pastoral Excellence began in 2003 to support and strengthen Christian Reformed pastors—so that they can help build vital congregations. To date, more than 70 percent of CRC pastors have participated in a SPE Peer Learning Group; 194 groups have been formed, and the SPE office is currently processing 14 proposals for new groups to begin.

In their peer group, said Roeda, one of the struggles that all of the pastors face is dealing with issues related to preparing people for marriage. They talked about how it is difficult, in this time of social change, to counsel church members wanting to get married.

Whether it be issues related to couples living together, sex before marriage, or other issues related to marriage and sexuality, pastors struggle with how to respond. They need to base their advice on the Bible and yet at the same time be sensitive to couples who might disagree with, or not even be aware of, scriptural requirements.

“Preparing people for marriage is difficult. People come with different needs and situations that can be overwhelming,” said Roeda, pastor of congregational life at Orland Park CRC in Orland Park, Ill.

Members of the peer group also looked at themselves and their own spiritual journeys, talking about the need to grow and remain close to God, said Roeda.

“It goes back to the ‘Physician, heal thyself’ idea,” said Roeda. “Too often we can dispense care to others without doing the same for ourselves.”

As part of the group, they discussed such books as Toughest People to Love, written by a trained psychologist and pastor who offers insights for understanding the interpersonal dynamics in a church between parishioners and a pastor.

They also each developed spiritual rules by which to lead their lives based on the Reformed Communion Pastoral Rule of Life, a guide that helps pastors develop daily habits of prayer, reading, theological reflection, and times for rest and recreation.

The goal in that process, said Roeda, was to develop personal goals in order to be more effective in ministry.

In talking about the rules of life he sought to establish, one of the participants said he wanted to emphasize daily devotions, weekly family time, quarterly retreats, and yearly conferences.

Another participant said he wanted to adopt a rule of life in which he works on “worshiping in a way that promotes dying to self and being reborn in Christ.”

Roeda said the peer group was something of an experiment. He was serving as a regional pastor when he applied for the grant and hoped that meeting as they did could help serve the pastoral needs of participants.

That is what happened in important ways. “Even during our first meeting, we established a deep sense of rapport with each other,” said Roeda.

Also, by sharing what they had in common and by discussing how they differed, they grew closer and in the process made each other stronger, said Roeda.

In a midyear report evaluating the peer group, Roeda wrote: “We’ve learned that our differing perspectives serve as the ‘iron that sharpens iron.’ We learned that we have different perspectives on how to present an honest persona to those close to us and our congregations.”

They also learned, by allowing themselves to be vulnerable with one another, that each of them struggles in different areas of ministry and that their congregations “value different things and therefore challenge [the pastors] in different ways,” said Roeda.

Mike Winnowski, who serves the Geneva Campus Church in Madison, Wis., said he felt that as a pastor he was pastored by the group, and that it helped him to face his own challenges and offered suggestions on how to grow in ministry.

“The peer group approach was a refreshing kind of thing,” said Roeda. “We definitely built very good relationships between us.”