File this under “WERE YOU PEOPLE RAISED IN A BARN OR WHAT?”
It’s been brewing for awhile, so hold onto your hats, pigeons. PeaceBang’s got a whopper of a rant to get off her chest.
It’s like this.
Ministry is one of the professions where the apprentice system is still the way we train the next generation. There simply is no good way to learn the arts of parish ministry without spending time as a parish minister under the watchful eye and good mentoring of a senior colleague. If the experience is terrible, we learn by negative example. If the experience is a good one, seminarians gain an amazing store of knowledge and ministerial lore in a short time. Sure, the pay is slave wages and that’s not okay, but it is currently the state of affairs (in my denomination, anyway).
Keep this in mind, newbies: no matter how awesome you think you are, almost no one in the local church has you at the top of their list of concerns. Sad but true. Hence, a good dose of perspective, a cork in the whine and a some humility and ingenuity will do you well in your search for a good placement.
A parish ministry is a fragile eco-system. It takes a tremendous amount of time and talent in this era of throwaway and consumeristic attitudes for a minister to become settled in a congregation, trusted, and copacetic enough with the laity and staff to welcome an intern into the mix.
Simply put, an intern is a risk to the eco-system of a church. As much as we all want well-prepared ministers to serve the church, we want good people first and foremost, and you should not assume that you are that person. You’re still in formation, remember? You’re not entitled to anything – least of all the privilege of serving in a pastoral role to a congregation. I hear this sort of entitled attitude expressed all the time by seminarians and I think, “Wow, that’s really amazing. I went about finding an internship placement with the thought that I would be really lucky to be accepted as an apprentice to any church.”
The church and your senior colleague(s) are doing you a favor by agreeing to help you prepare you for the ministry — by listening to your terrible first sermons, by smiling supportively as you stumble through the liturgy, and by humoring you through your Big Visions that you’d love to try to inflict on the congregation even though you’re only going to be there for one or two years. Remember that as you go forth to find a congregation and a senior colleague to mentor you. Get your orientation right.
I hear the whining start already. “PeaceBang, you’re being so condescennnnnnding!!”
Yes, I am, tootsie. That’s because I’m your veteran colleague and you don’t know anything yet, and it would be wise if you piped down and listened for awhile and took notes.
(Speaking of which, I was in massive shock and amazement when I taught Worship and Liturgy and many of my students never took one note. Gee, that’ll be helpful when you go to do your first funeral and somehow memory fails to provide the comprehensive list of tips Professor Weinstein provided when you took the class THREE YEARS AGO. I shake my head at the ignorance, I really do. These people are not going to make it in ministry. I don’t know what they think: that they can coast through on their awesome faith skills? Wake up and smell the Communion wine!).
Some congregations have fantastic internship systems set up, maintained by a crew of dedicated lay people. In those congregations there’s a lot of competition for internship slots, so remember that. Be humble, not entitled. Some congregations are internship factories because interns serve the supervising pastor’s ego. They’re not interested in your formation so much as in cloning mini-me’s or in sending out a corps of disciples in their name. In some congregations, the pastor is a mess and props up his or her failing ministry by bringing in interns to do the work he or she doesn’t want to do. The seminarian who goes to that church isn’t being trained but exploited. Most churches are fairly small and the sole senior pastor does most of the work with the intern his or herself. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me. Do you want to apprentice under this pastor? Why? That’s a lot of work you’re expecting us to take on. Why us? Why our congregation? If you don’t have a good reason, we don’t need to take on that extra work and expense. Be fair. Remember that you could wind up being a liability.
I am steamed about this right now because I have seen several excellent colleagues in recent years struggle with the egos of obnoxious interns who have caused them no end of extra work and stress. These ministers have spent more time cleaning up the messes made by their interns than is fair to expect, and I think it’s high time someone spoke plainly to the problem. I know that interns go through hell with supervising ministers, too, but there’s not much you can do about terrible supervisors but report them and get the seminary to stop acrediting the site, and I hope you would do that (I’ve seen it done and been very satisfied to see some abusive, exploitative colleagues lose their supervisory status, but not without having done a lot of harm first). An experienced pastor who stinks as a supervisor is already ordained. They’re not in formation any more. They’re formed, and they’re formed badly. But it’s you, the newbie who is open to learning, that I want to reach.
I am approached on a fairly regular basis by seminarians who would like to do an internship at my church. You know what they do?
THEY SEND A GENERIC E-MAIL.
And I do a desk-head smash every time I get one.
And then it’s *delete*
Because right away I know that this person is not a go-getter, is not interested in working with me, Victoria Weinstein, and my awesome congregation but just with ANYBODY – any warm, ordained body will do, and any old congregation. So why should I respond? If your powers of discernment, social networking and people skills are that bad, I can be certain that you’re not impressive enough to bring to my congregation as an aspirant for ministry. We don’t expect you to have great ministerial skills when you apply, but we do expect you to have enough on the ball to tell us why you’re interested in coming to us. Can you imagine me convening a group of lay people for an internship committee by saying, “Hi everyone. I got a generic request from a seminarian who wants to be an intern somewhere and to work with someone. Don’t you think we should invite him or her for an interview? Don’t they sound like an exciting person to bring here to work with us and learn from us?” I think one of my folks would probably say, “Well, maybe we can teach them how to write a cover letter, to begin with!” And we’d all laugh.
Sometimes I think that ministers forget that our first loyalties are to the health and well-being of our congregations and not to the “union.” That just really peeves me. Ministers and our clubby little mentality. I hate it like poison, and I’m afraid it has greatly infected the seminary.
Perhaps worse than the generic inquiry is the overly-familiar, presumptuous one. I met a seminarian recently at an event and briefly talked with him about his need to get into an internship site. Nice guy. I later received an e-mail from him saying how nice a time he had had at the event and telling me that he wanted to talk. Not about what. And he ended the letter, “We should talk soon.”
*delete*
WE SHOULD TALK SOON????? I do not understand that at all. That’s how you address a veteran colleague under whom you would like to apprentice? “We should talk soon” is something you say to a buddy on the way out of the bar. You do not say it to a respected elder in your profession. You do not presume. You do not tell the veteran colleague that they “should” do anything. You write a formal, very respectful note nicely inquiring if they are available to talk at their convenience.
How does anyone not know this!??
Ministry is an ancient profession, and a formal one. There is protocol. All of you need to understand this.
I once preached at an ordination once where a seminarian participated. On the way up to the dais she stepped on my heels and on the way out of the dais she WALKED IN FRONT OF a respected elder colleague — I mean she was nervous and awkward and didn’t have enough poise to simply walk up three stairs and then down three stairs without falling to pieces — she didn’t walk in front of him, but cut in front of him. I wanted to grab her by the ear and sit her in the naughty corner. There is CEREMONY in ministry, for God’s sake! If you haven’t been taught the proper moves, make them up like the rest of us did. Study your senior colleagues, and not the buffoons who sit on the dais or in the chancel with their legs splayed open or their legs jauntily crossed making snarky remarks to each other behind their programs, but the ones with dignity. The ones who know how to approach a pulpit. The ones who know enough to slow down, maintain erect posture and a neutral, pleasant expression when they screw up, and walk out without stepping all over everybody’s hem. If you’re flustered, STOP and WATCH. Don’t scramble and push, are you kidding me? You can’t handle yourself better than that?
The church is about protocol. If you don’t like that, don’t try to serve the church. If you think the church is just about theology, you’re wrong. If you think it’s just about service, you’re wrong. If you think it’s just about pastoral care, you’re wrong. If you think it’s just about love, you’re wrong. The church is also about beauty, and order, and grace. It is about manners and decorum, too. If you’re such a rebel that it offends you to conform to those niceties, join a religious community that loves freedom and individuality and ego enough for you to thrive there.
Here endeth the rant.
Please join us for coffee and conversation in the parish hall.