Floding introduces concern of ministry formation during a crisis

Floding, Matthew

English

Reflective Practice - Formation and Supervision in Ministry (E-Journal)

Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in MinistryISSN 2325-2847 (print)*  ISSN 2325-2855 (online)* © Copyright 2021 Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in MinistryAll Rights ReservedSECTION 3MINISTERIAL FORMATION  IN A TIME OF CRISISEditor’s IntroductionOn March 10, 2020, Duke University employees received this commu-nication from the office of the president: To the Duke Community,For the last several weeks, the Duke-wide Task Force has been working diligently to prepare for and plan our university’s response to COVID-19. In the past few days, it has become clear that the spread of the virus con-tinues across the country. Even though this is due to circumstances be-yond our control, we can take steps now to minimize health and safety risks to Duke students, faculty, staff and the larger community, especially as students and faculty prepare to return from Spring Break.The instructions that followed included moving to remote learning and suspending in-person internships. The swift response coupled with a rigor-ous testing regimen was extremely effective in protecting the community.Suddenly, however, students engaged in field education found them-selves learning with learners as worshiping communities, nonprofits, and CPE programs adapted to virtual environments. This was experienced across the country. Educators providing leadership to CPE and field educa-tion programs were personally impacted. Still, ministerial formation con-tinued, though not as before. In this section, authors explore facets of forma-tion disrupted by the pandemic’s onset.John Senior, in “Ministry Formation in the Places of Wisdom,” ex-plores how “ministry in the context of the current coronavirus pandemic 92points to the ways in which space is itself a carrier of wisdom.” How does the assumption that wisdom arises from reflection operate in novel spaces and platforms?David Emmanuel Goatley draws on historic resources from the Civ-il Rights Movement and Mission Societies to Howard Thurman to explore “Forming Leaders to Flourish in Crises.” He contends that current and up-and-coming leaders need to be formed with attention to adaptability, hu-mility, spirituality, and sustainability.In “Countercultural Remorse: The Importance of Attending to Grief in Transforming Our Embedded Beliefs,” Julie Hanada narrates her per-sonal journey of living in the tension between embedded beliefs and val-ues from her community of origin and important values and ideals she has embraced from other communities in which she is a member or participant. She finds the concept of countercultural remorse a key tool for healing and empowerment.Mark Chung Hearn seizes the opportunity during the disruption to reflect on his vocation as educator in “Ministry and Formation through Multiple Pandemics: How a Clergyperson Ministers in Higher Education.” He writes, “Amid all this chaos and eruption of everything I and others know to be normal remain two interrelated calls: my responsibility to shape learners and my vocation to minister to people with a life-giving response.”The sudden and dramatic changes ministerial leaders faced as the pan-demic swept the globe, followed by the uprisings associated with the killing of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, all beneath the cloud of the threat of climate change, called for resilience in ministerial leaders. Dorothee Tri-podi and Stephen Booth in “Embodied Resilience: Supervision and Mentor-ing during a Time of COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and Climate Change” consider insights and practices informed by Scripture, theology, and the so-cial sciences that nurture resilience in those who nurture resilience in oth-ers as supervisor-mentors.Angela Barker Jackson and Jessica C. Williams present a case study from Central Baptist Theological Seminary’s pivot to “just-in-time learn-ing” for participants in their Lilly-funded Thriving Congregations Initia-tive. They reflect on their experience as participant-observers in the eight webinars that emerged to equip leaders and to document their experience and expressed needs in real time in the early months of COVID-19.SECTION 3: EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION93Excellence in supervision in theological field education was the focus of a collaborative effort of nineteen field educators in volume 40 (2020) of Reflective Practice. The topics the emerging five teams addressed included a literature review, exploring theories of supervision, training supervisor-mentors, wisdom from supervisor-mentors about excellent supervision, and listening to the students’ experience as they described wise and helpful su-pervision and mentoring. The teams addressing the last two topics reconsti-tuted when it became apparent that supervisor-mentors and students were facing new challenges. Their articles document the dramatic changes expe-rienced by supervisor-mentors and students in the new virtual reality they were navigating.The articles in this section demonstrate the passion and commitment to reflective formation as practitioners and in the formation of students de-spite the constraints and challenges of this past year.Matthew FlodingEditorSECTION 3: EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

SECTION 3: MINISTERIAL FORMATION IN A TIME OF CRISIS - Editor's Introduction

https://journals.sfu.ca/rpfs/index.php/rpfs/article/download/851/785

SECTION 3: MINISTERIAL FORMATION IN A TIME OF CRISIS - Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Reflective Practice - Formation and Supervision in Ministry (E-Journal)