I arrived this morning to sunny Atlanta, Georgia and made my way via MARTA to Columbia Theological Seminary. I checked in, moved into the room and headed off to eat lunch. I am rooming with Jay from Only Wonder Understands. I met Steven Blair, pastor at First Light Gardner, for lunch and we spent the day at the conference together.
One of several purposes of this gathering is to grow in relationship and friendships with others. This is a very valuable thing. I live less than 30 minutes away from Steven, but we hardly ever are able to spend time with each other. Recently, I have found it particularly necessary for me to be intentional about nurturing friendships. My experience thus far in ministry has been that it does take an intentional effort to maintain friendships that feed one’s soul. What do you think?
- Is it difficult for a pastor (or yourself) to have deep friendships?
- How important is it to maintain connection in ministry?
- Is it healthy to have close friends within the congregation that a pastor is serving?
I would love to hear what you think. More on Mainline Emergent/s later…
Rev. Andrew Conard 
4 replies on “Connections in Ministry”
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this lately. I think one of the blessings of being on a multi-pastor staff is that we can have friendships within our congregation in ways that solo pastors might not be able to. I know though, in the midst of the demands of ministry, that it does require a great deal of intentionality to nurture relationships (within and outside of the congregation).
Jeff – I agree. There are possibilities within a multi pastor staff that would not be afforded otherwise. My wife and I are a part of a small group consisting of congregants and we are able to effectively “take off the pastor hat.” for a little while.
Andrew,
I am a congregant of a United Methodist Church and I’m interested in what your main take aways were from the Columbia Theology Seminary conference.
Keith
Keith – Thanks for your interest. You can read the series of posts that I made while at the Mainline Emergent/s conference here: https://thoughtsofresurrection.wordpress.com/tag/mainline-emergents/ For me, I think the main take away was that there is a wide variety of exploration in ways of being the church and living as a disciple of Jesus Christ within the mainline denominations. I found more reason to hope in the future of the United Methodist Church.