Are you familiar with the term "generalist"? I am thinking about it a lot lately as I consider that I am one. A generalist, in my thinking, is one who can jump into almost any situation and by applying a particular thinking process can see through to move the situation forward.
When I began my work as a turnaround pastor in 2003, I remember thinking I had to know a little bit about a lot of things. I'll use photography as an example. If I took a photo of some kids in the church, what would be the next step to use the photo in church publicity? Well, of course, you need to have signed permission from the child's parents. So, you need to think about creating an institution wide policy of having everyone sign a photo release and be respectful of those who say no. Next, you have to think website?, newspaper?, cable tv?, power point in worship?, church brochure? Where am I going to use this photo? You see where I'm going here. One simple thing, one simple goal often leads to many far more complex questions for church leaders today with so many multi-media opportunities.
For turnaround pastors, generalists by nature, church and institutional systems like these are like our playgrounds where we live our mental gymnastics moment by moment. We must be generalists in order to know how to swing high, slide long, climb ladders, cross monkey bars with our feet dangling.....just another day on the playground of gereralist thinkers. Have fun with it today!
Mary Lou, so glad you are doing this! I just said that very thing to the student ministers I was interviewing this week--that our job as a field ed site is to train excellent generalists for parish ministry, because we all need to be pretty good at just about everything in parish life.
ReplyDeletePrimarily, I would say, my particular thinking process is: create a sense of urgency, then temper it with a pollyanna optimism: "We need to do this soon, or we'll be in trouble! And we CAN do it! Let's try something crazy, and if it doesn't work, let's try something else!"
Hi Molly, thanks for your comments and coming to my blog. Yes, starting with seminarians, we can introduce this term "generalist" in our Field Education sites. The skill set for pastors today in so extensive that this term can help students and the rest of us to deal with the overwhelming feelings of needing to be everything, an impossible task! Calling ourselves generalists allows us to know some things, but not be the expert on them all! Knowing who the experts are and how to tap into their expertise does help, though. I attended a discussion with seminary leaders earlier this week and was happy to see that each one is engaged in this same conversation about how to best prepare future leaders for the church. "FTE Listens" was the title of the conference given as part of the Listening Tour of Funds for Theological Education. I am hopeful that pastors and academics can work together to provide some new language in training future church leaders.
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