A Presbyterian congregation with a long tradition of calling senior pastors to long pastorates was underway with the search for its next senior pastor. The organizer of the weekly adult forum asked me to present a talk in a series on “hospitality.” Most presentations focused on practices of hospitality toward persons outside the congregation, but I was engaged on the question of “hospitality toward the clergy.” Here was an unusual opportunity to bring attention to possibilities for organizational and spiritual development at a critical inflection point in the church’s story. What can hospitality toward the clergy mean, or become?
The paper–too long for a blog post–can be opened as a PDF here.
Readers may also wish to read an old sermon of mine called The Pastor Reflects. Like the paper, but minus thirty years of experience, the sermon examines how the people sometimes project their own qualities, good and bad, on the leader of their society.
Recent Comments