Our Life Together - Holy Friendship

I attended our yearly Life Together clergy conference at St. Luke’s UMC Indianapolis this past Monday and Tuesday. The theme this year was Holy Friendship. We heard presentation from Bishop Janice Huie of the Texas Conference and her experience of bringing together two separate conferences. Since we are in process of bringing the North and South Indiana conferences together, this was interesting.
Matt Bloom (husband of Kim Bloom, associate pastor at SB Clay UMC – and associate professor of Management at Notre Dame) reported on surveys results which we were asked to fill out online in regards to what makes our work as clergy fulfilling and meaningful. In a very small nutshell, what I got out of these survey results – which are still being processed and looked at - is that there is a great passion for service among our clergy but also a sense of discouragement and loneliness were very much present. Being in a pastor in our day and time is much more challenging than it used to be. Long hours and comparatively small pay (for pastors with a Masters’ degree when compared with other professions requiring Masters’ degree) is a source of frustration for many.

Dr. Joyce Moore, associate Dean for the Center for Lifelong Learning at Duke Divinity School talked about this sense of community we all need.

Current Calumet DS Michelle Cobb briefly talked about an upcoming Clergy Wellness program, which will partly be underwritten by a Lilly Foundation grant to help with increasing the mental and physical health of pastors and decrease the sense of isolation among us. More accountability will also apparently be required. I do not have any more details about this at this time.

Lastly we laughed with Mishawaka comedian Craig Tornquist who had already made us laugh at our last Michiana district Christmas party.

We hear interesting people at these kinds of gatherings. The worship was good: More quiet and reflective on the first day and more upbeat the second morning. The last worship of the gathering, Tuesday afternoon, included communion which, for me, is always a moving moment. Seeing hundreds of pastors – some I know and whom are friends – come forward to receive the bread and juice is a powerful thing.

But I would say the most meaningful thing for me – not that these other things are not – is to see pastor friends I had not seen in a while. There was some free time Monday night and the group of pastors I was ordained with (minus of couple) gathered together at a local restaurant for dinner. It was great to see these people whom I have grown to love in the course of our ordination process together. Some I see more often because we serve the same district but some are geographically distant and we had not seen each other in months. Getting together was the highlight for me.
I also felt a great sense of belonging to something more important than me as we were together worshipping a great God. I am grateful.