Susquehanna LINK - January/February 2011 By Jerry Wolgemuth


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BOARD OF ORDAINED MINISTRY


The formation of a new annual con-


ference also created a flurry of activity around the formation of new agencies. For the Board of Ordained Ministry (BOOM) there was a “getting acquainted phase.” “We used the opportunity to review all of our procedures and policies of Boards of Ordained Ministry of the boards of the for- mer Wyoming and Pennsylvania Confer- ences,” says Board Chair Rev. Roger Men- tzer. “We didn’t feel as though there were any particularly sacred cows. So we began a conversation. Our biggest challenge was to bring together effectively the two boards which cared for their duties and responsi- bilities, in some ways, quite differently.” Rev. Mentzer’s experience


reaches


across the denomination. “As I go to meet- ings where chairs of Boards of Ordained Ministry get together and talk, it is interest- ing [to learn] how each conference cares for its work in different ways. And that was true as we went through the [forma- tion] process with our Board of Ordained Ministry.”


A leadership team was formed of the of-


ficers of both boards and committee chairs of the former Wyoming and Central Penn- sylvania conferences. Their responsibility was the initial review of procedures and policies and discerning best practices from each conference that would help the new board achieve it goals. Rev. Mentzer points to two examples from each former annual conference. Across the denomination Central Penn- sylvania had demonstrated a strong enlist- ment and interpretation effort with a very powerful influence. “And it is showing it- self now, because we have a wonderfully large group of candidates coming through [the process] that I think would be the envy of a lot of conferences,” says Mentzer. “They are good, strong candidates.” Wyoming had good strengths in their in-


terview procedures as well as local pastor training and follow-up. Those strengths are expected to contribute significantly to the strength of the new BOOM. That blending of strengths freed the Board to imagine where making major procedural changes could strengthen their future.


THREE CHANGES IN THE NEW BOOM


PROVISIONAL IN-SERVICE PROCEDURES


In 2008 the General Conference allowed for a move from a three-year provisional membership requirement, to two years. Both Wyoming and Central Pennsylva- nia Conferences had endorsed this which brought about a re-write of the Susque- hanna Conference provisional in-service procedures. There are some things that will remain the same because they are required, but there are other things that the confer- ence will see as markedly different. “We want to strongly encourage effec-


tive leadership, Rev. Mentzer says. “We want our pastors to be the best leaders they can become. We want them to try to find ways to evaluate that component, and help them know how important it is. It is a com- ponent of effectiveness that we really want to embrace. So to that end, a major change has been what we are calling the Moving Forward Ordination Project. This has nev- er been required before, but as a person ap- proaches ordination, we want them to plan, execute, evaluate, and present a leadership initiative that they have taken in the life of the parish.” Guidelines for this are published online at susumcboom.org. These guidelines fa- cilitate standardizing this procedure with the hopes that everyone will understand how important leadership is, and will ac- tively embrace leadership.


CANDIDACY PROCESS “From the standpoint of the district committees on ministry, we reviewed our candidacy process,” says Mentzer. “We have met with the cabinet and the district committees, hoping to bring all of this into focus on the requirements that we are mak- ing, and to get all the district committees on the same page. Sometimes district com- mittees start operating differently from one another, and it gets confusing for the can- didates. So we want to make sure that we are operating in the best way we can from the same assumptions. And we produced a new document around that and have had


some training things already underway. “We are absolutely convinced that the


district committees are extremely impor- tant to the effective work of the Board of Ordained Ministry and are extremely im- portant to the whole ministry process in the Susquehanna Conference.” Another related change is a requirement. Between the first and second year provi- sional members will be required to study the book “Three Simple Rules.” Candi- dates are required to evaluate how they are living out these rules, and how they main- tain accountability on two fronts: account- ability with the parish and accountability with their colleagues in ministry.


IN-SERVICE TRAINING RETREATS


The Board has evaluated its in-service training retreats. Retreats and training op- portunities are provided periodically for provisional members and attempts to tight- en up topics and presentation procedures in order to ensure that these experiences are valuable.


* * * * * NEXT STEP


“The next step is living into all of this for a while,” says Mentzer. “I think we have done a lot of homework that is going to need some re-evaluation as time goes on. I don’t think there is any way to do that except live through it for a year or two.” An issue that may get attention soon is the term for members of BOOM. Central Pennsylvania had a rule that Board mem- bers could only serve for eight years. Wyo- ming did not have that rule. The new Board feels it more appropriate to have people on the Board serve for a twelve-year pe- riod. “We lose a lot of corporate memory when we move people off of the Board so often,” says Mentzer. “I found this true of the superintendency, too. I think that if a person is good at being a superintendent, six years, eight years is too capricious. If a person is good at that job, then the cor- porate memory that they bring to that job is very valuable. I can’t tell you how often I have seen initiatives rise and fall just be- cause of the fact that we don’t remember.”


Rev. Roger Mentzer, Chair Board of Ordained Ministry


So, what will be the visible signs that


there is, in fact, a NEW Board of Ordained Ministry?


“I will make a case for this from the viewpoint of someone who has been a dis- trict superintendent as well as an advocate for the Board of Ordained Ministry,” says Mentzer.


I would like to see every pas-


tor be a strong, wise, compassionate, and effective leader. So that when the parish faces the issues that the people in the pew must face from time-to-time, they will see effective leadership on the part of every pastor that steps through their door to be- come their pastor.” When that kind of leadership becomes


that norm, Rev. Mentzer says that “eye- brows will rise” in the pews of the church- es of the Susquehanna Conference. “Let’s just say a pastor goes into a church where there are issues surrounding stewardship,” he says. “That is something that many churches are facing right now. I would say that it is my responsibility as a leader to become an expert in that field, that I should be the one who does the reading, does the interpreting, does the planning or leads the planning along with the lay peo- ple to come up with the means by which to struggle and to devise an effective way to move it to the next level. To raise the bar, so to speak, or whatever term you want to use, so the eyebrows would be raised by saying, ‘wow, this pastor is on the ball on this thing. We had a problem and that pas- tor helped us face our challenge and took us to a new level.’ ”


* * * * *


“We want to strongly encourage effective


leadership. We want our pastors to be the best leaders they can become. We want them to try to find ways to evaluate that component, and help them know how important it is.” Rev. Roger Mentzer


PHOTO: JERRY WOLGEMUTH Visit the Susquehanna Conference web site at www.susumc.org


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