Mentoring Ministers

With a keystroke on his laptop, Dale Woods welcomes a seventh minister into the meeting. “Let’s start with a check-in,” he says. “Steve, how are things in Vancouver?”

Good news there—Steve survived boot camp in his chaplaincy training with the Canadian Forces Reserves. It’s good to be back with his family. In Toronto, one minister has just met the session of her new charge. Someone else wants advice about leading a congregational meeting as interim moderator. Another participant can’t stay long. He wants to be home helping to care for his wife and newborn son.

A unique mentorship program out of Presbyterian College, Montreal, is strengthening 31 pastors and their congregations across the country. Small groups—six at last count—meet monthly by videoconference with their mentors, each an experienced minister. Participants brainstorm approaches to challenges, study together, share resources, and pray for each other.

“I honestly believe that if I didn’t find some local connections and the Montreal mentoring group, I would no longer be in ministry,” says Steve Filyk, who has served seven years in his present charge, Kerrisdale, Vancouver. “This is not the sort of work that I could do alone,” he says. The group provides him a place to unload burdens and gain other perspectives.

Mentorship groups are the brainchild of principal Dale Woods and Presbyterian College’s newly-minted Leadership Centre.

“No one graduating from marketing ends up in the first day running Ford Motor Company,” says Woods. “Our vocation is unique in that grads are asked to take on a significant leadership role without first learning the ropes.”

“I have only nine years in ordained ministry,” notes Filyk. “But when you add up the combined years of the group, we probably have 50 years between us. The mentorship group helped me guide our session and the congregation through some tricky waters with, I think, greater wisdom and skill.”

Technology provides the platform, connecting people from across the country. But technology brings frustrations—insufficient bandwidth, faulty connections, computer crashes. Nothing beats sitting down, in person, over a beer or a breakfast croissant.

So, each year in June, participants head to Montreal for mentoring week: five days of conversation, relaxation and rest. Mentoring week allows groups and mentors to build community, explore big questions, worship together, pray for each other, and enjoy Montreal’s great jazz.

“Attending mentoring week is like drinking from a big well,” says Sybil Mosley, in her sixth year as minister at Livingstone, Montreal. She cherishes the opportunity to meet face-to-face with peers and hear their experiences. “Ministry makes more sense to me when it is shared,” she says. “More people are praying specifically for me and my congregation. There is a deeper sense of accountability.”

“Mentoring is close to discipling, which is how Jesus spent his ministry,” says Woods. “Jesus did two things as I understand it. He taught and he healed. There are many people who don’t know the wonder of God’s grace, and there is much healing to do in our communities.”

Woods says the advantages ripple out beyond the groups. New grads experience less anxiety than they would on their own. They’re freed to develop their innate creativity. Congregations reap those benefits, and they gain indirectly from mentors’ expertise.

And the mentors themselves? They volunteer their time. But Woods says the energy goes both ways. The mentorship group keeps him in touch with graduates as they embrace their calling. Working with creative and gifted new ministers, says Woods: “It continues to ignite my own passion.”
And Presbyterian College benefits as well. New pastors connect the school to the front lines of congregational ministry, helping the faculty hone their programs for today’s challenges.

“Congregational life is not what it was 50 years ago,” says Woods. Back then, new ministers often went to vibrant, healthy congregations. They enjoyed the luxury of learning on the job for their first five or six years. “Today many congregations are on the edge of survival. So we must be committed to congregational renewal.”

Woods envisions the program giving birth to something new. In Woods’ mind, mentorship groups can be a force for change. He’d like to grow the program to include 12 groups mentored by experienced ministers across the country. And he’d like them to fuel renewal among congregations.

“I’m hoping that our groups become centres for conversations of renewal. If we can grow the groups to 60 people, we have the opportunity to help bring renewal to 60 congregations. I know that is a wild dream, but I believe God dreams it.”