Interview with The Rev. Dr. Bill Lord, Retired Director of Continuing Education at Toronto School of Theology and Mentor
Summary:
In this episode of the Ministry Forum Podcast, John talks with the Reverend Bill Lord, a seasoned ministry leader with decades of experience in Christian education and pastoral care. Bill shares his journey from being a local pastor to becoming a leader in lifelong learning and continuing education for ministry.
The conversation focuses on the importance of listening, creating safe spaces for growth, and the shift in ministry education—from relying on experts to fostering practical learning and reflection. Bill offers insights on the value of asking reflective questions, learning from others, and staying curious about where God is leading.
Quotables:
“…most of us in Christian ministry, need to discover what our distinctive story is.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“I've always said, and I continue to say, that the journey is more important than the destination….instead of asking what's wrong with this situation, we ask, what am I being invited to do, to be, to pray, about, to think about, to act from this experience.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“it was the sensitivity of listening, and listening is a component of all ministry.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“One is, how do I listen long enough to tell the other person what's wrong with theirs, or I listen so that I can ask them a question that puts them deeper.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“Don't always listen for the literal meaning. Listen for the metaphors. “- Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“And so my invitation for anybody in ministry is listen to others. And the other component is listen to yourself, because there's invitation to do inner work in yourself that you need to listen to now.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“And what you triggered for me just now was in my psychotherapeutic training and in my reading recently on trauma therapy. If people don't have a safe space, you'll never hear those stories. And so I thought later in in life, I've described my role in talking with people is to provide a safe, sacred space. Safe but sacred. Because, you know, I'm there because I represent unconditional, the unconditional love of God, you know, or as Howard Klein Bell used to say, how are you the unconditional love of God in a broken and birthing world? And but if people don't feel safe, you're not going to get what matters.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“And the practice of ministry is more about helping people learn how to do two kinds of reflection.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“…it's the whole process of, if you're vulnerable, acknowledge it, but invite people in. Okay, this isn't working. What will work?” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“Not to put education down, but at a certain point in your life, you got to take responsibility for who you are and who you become. And sometimes that requires you, well, it always requires you to get feedback from somebody else. And that can be from a spiritual director, or a good mentor, or a therapist, or a peer group in ministry. All of those are different ways, and I've experienced all of them, and they've all been gifts to me because I want to learn about myself. I want to learn about how to be more faithful, and I want to learn about what I'm being called to as ministry in the world.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“When I was often invited to examine candidates for ordination over the years, I had a standard saying, well, we had to give one sentence to the so I would always say, remember, it's not about you. So, ministry is not about you. But now I would say it's, it's not about you, but don't neglect yourself.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
“So that's why I think there's work to be done in listening to the world, and there's work to be done listening to yourself, and you can't listen to yourself unless you got somebody to help you. For a while, I thought reaching out for help was a weakness. I think now reaching out for help is a strength. If you're really going to be faithful to what call to ministry is, it can't be what used to be. You know, what got what got us here, won't get us there.” - Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
About Rev. Dr. Bill Lord
The Rev. William (Bill) Lord is a retired United Church minister who resides in Guelph, Ontario. In his ministry life, Bill served in congregational ministry with a passion for the educational ministries of the church. Eventually, this would lead to a call to become the Director of Continuing Education at the Toronto School of Theology. A position he held for over a decade plus - it was here where Rev. John met him. Bill describes his story more fully in this episode.
Additional Resources:
The late Rev. Canon Dr. Herbert O'Driscoll who passed away in July 2024
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Transcript
[Introduction]
Welcome. Welcome to the ministry Forum Podcast coming to you from the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College, where we connect, encourage and resource ministry leaders all across Canada, as they seek to thrive in their passion to share the gospel.
I am your host, the Reverend John Borthwick, Director of the Center and curator of all that is ministryforum.ca. I absolutely love that I get to do what I get to do, and most of all that, I get to share it all with all of you. So thanks for taking the time out of your day to give us a listen. Whether you're a seasoned ministry leader or just beginning your journey, this podcast is made with you in mind.
[John Borthwick]
Welcome. I'm delighted to have the chance to talk to the Reverend, Dr William Bill Lord, friend and mentor for decades, who I mentioned on the first episode of our ministry Forum Podcast. I'm sure that Bill has had to deal with this kind of silliness his whole life long. But let me add to today, any day that you get to speak with the Lord, is a good day. So I'm delighted to speak with Bill and to share him with the Ministry forum community. So on all that note, welcome Bill, and thanks for inviting us into your home today to have this conversation.
[Bill Lord]
Thanks.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, I wonder if you could start by telling the folks a little bit about yourself. Yeah, actually, you probably can share a whole bunch about yourself. So wherever you want to start and however you want to talk about yourself. I'd love to hear.
When I got to your questions. I did reflect on, first of all, I don't have a doctorate. I have all the coursework for a doctorate and three chapters, but I never finished it.
[John Borthwick]
Let us allow a ministry forum to give you an honorary doctorate.
[Bill Lord]
The Methodist Church in the US, I did a lot of work for them, and they invited me to a Christian education event where they asked five Christian educators to tell their life story, their life's adventure. And so I was the only Canadian, and I decided to do it with symbols and metaphors. So when I was first ordained, and, you know, I came out of college, like everybody else, thinking that the two most important things was preaching and pastoral care. And so in the little town where I went to high school, there was a butcher shop that had a sign in the front that I never forgotten, purveyor of quality meats. And I thought I was a purveyor of quality Christian information, and it sort of worked.
But then, after one year in the parish, I went to I was part of the young literature's new curriculum, and I went to a training event for people to interpret for the presbytery the new curriculum. And there I learned that my role might be that of a facilitator, and so the symbol for that is a flip chart the magic markers. And so for years, my work in the conference office, after I left pastoral ministry, I did a master's degree in adult learning and went and then went on the conference office as consultant for congregational development, and I also did all kinds of training. I think I trained about 2500 church school teachers. But I also got involved in continuing education for ministry with the ministers. And I'll talk more about that in a minute. I then discovered that as a facilitator, I thought they have the answers. I have to have the right questions, and I'll write them on a flip chart. And then something happened to me, and I said, No, that's abandoning who I really am. So I became what I wanted to be, an artist. So and I thought an artist offers something, and you let people respond however they do. But I was talking to a friend once, and he said, Oh, you're a particular kind of artist. You're a folk artist. In other words, he said, you know, you work with whatever shows up, and that was true.
I had two peers who helped me with that one was Herbold Driscoll, and herb used to teach for us a couple of times a year. And he'd ask students to prepare a five minute sermon on a text. And so they would bring that and give her it. And then herb would say, well, lend me your paper. So that Herb never changed the words, but he changed the expression and the way and people saw the potential that was in their sermon that they hadn't seen before.
And Fred Craddock, who was there, told me a story about he every year when exams were on, he offered his services to preach for a student so the student could study, and he preached. When this student got him and he said, But Dr Craddock, you got to come an hour early and do a Bible study. But don't bring any of that sophistication stuff that you have about the Bible. No, don't do that. These people don't want to hear that. So Fred walked in, and he said he looked around and he said, I saw there were five different translations of the text. Well, translations. So he said, I wonder if we could start by having each of you read those so they did, and then they said, he said, did you notice any difference? Oh, yeah, people notice significant difference. And he said, you know something right in this room now we've got the debate that biblical scholars have had in this passage for 100 years. And the students sat there in this jaw dropped, and then Fred talked about the debate and the people were just very moved.
So the last movement in my life as and it's more since I've been retired, but as I've become a wandering storyteller. Sometimes I wonder whether I tell the same stories too often, then I might be laughed at as an old man, and that's okay, because the stories I tell, I tell for a reason.
Milton Erickson, the psychotherapist, used to work with people, and he would hear their story, and he would identify with it at three or four emotional levels, and then he'd tell them a story that connected with those emotions, but what had of a totally different ending, and his theory was, my voice will go with you. So I hope that part of my contribution in in pastoral learning and ministry is really about my stories that go with people.
And that was a that was affirmed by two of my students on this was unsolicited. I met a student one day and he said, Do you know what you taught me? I said, No, I'm not sure. He said, You taught me that whenever I do something, a pastoral call, an event, a board meeting, I ask reflective questions. What went well? What might I change? You never told me to ask, What's wrong, but what might I change? Which is the positive of that? And I said, thanks, that's an important gift you picked up from me.
The other is, I had a graduate student. I was supervising his dissertation, and he came in and he said, I said, what happens in our sessions? And he said, I come in and you assume I know more than I know, and you talk to me as if I know more than I know, and by the time I leave, I know more than I know.
So that's been my experience. And a powerful story for me in my life, and most of us in Christian ministry, need to discover what our distinctive story is. My distinctive story is the Emmaus road story. I've found myself on the Emmaus road with many people, but it's only recently that I realized I always thought of myself on Emmaus road as one of the two walkers. More recently, I realized that I have been the representative of Jesus with a lot of people on Emmaus road. So that's a metaphor for how I understand ministry. So that's enough about me, John.
[John Borthwick]
That's amazing, Bill. I always appreciate your stories. One of the themes that we're discovering on the ministry Forum Podcast is people use the word adventure, and you used it right off the top. The adventure you've been on. And I think the more that people can discover that life is an adventure, and it leads to so many different places and spaces we may have never thought of before. And that's part of, not to say it's easy because adventures aren't easy, but it's an amazing, I think, another kind of metaphor for how we understand, just living life doesn't necessarily mean about ministry.
[Bill Lord]
And, you know, I've always said, and I continue to say, that the journey is more important than the destination. And I read a statement once, and I don't know the source, but it said, my life has been a series of beautiful experiences. Too bad I was absent for many of them. And I think that's one of the things that can happen when, when we're not clear what we're focused on. It's about intentionality, and it's the gift, and a word that I use all the time, and I I don't know how to avoid it is, instead of asking what's wrong with this situation, we ask, what am I being invited to do, to be, to pray, about, to think about, to act from this experience. And I've found that when I look for the invitation, it's full of surprises. And there's an old saying by the rabbis that says, if there's no surprise in it, God probably had nothing to do with it.
[John Borthwick]
I love that. And you talk about sort of, we've talked about this before, but this notion of having a foundational story, or a motivating story, or the story that sort of speaks into your life and how you live your life. For ministry forum, we've used the motto or the expression, “you are not alone in ministry.” And it's been recently, and actually just as you've been talking, sort of formed within me much more intensely. The you are not alone is, appears many times in the Bible.
[Bill Lord]
That's right.
[John Borthwick]
So I can't really say there's specific, a specific story that it drives for within me as an engine, but it's certainly how I approach congregational ministry. Lots of what motivated me, what made me do the things I did, was within the depths of who I am as a person, just that notion of, I wouldn't want anybody to be alone in whatever they were experiencing, whether that's, you know, by a hospital bed, or just in some of the stuff that people were struggling with, and even the congregation struggles with. I wouldn't want to leave them alone in that sort of sense. And so that's what we try to motivate ourselves by in the work that we're doing.
So Bill, we, we met a long time ago. I was doing my MDiv at Knox College.
[Bill Lord]
That's right.
[John Borthwick]
And I was this strange young man, a long time ago. So yes, I was a young man once, and I turned up, and I think a couple of your Saturday things, because you brought in, like, when the Albin Institute was full on as an institute itself, lots of those speakers, brought in a variety of people. And I remember we've talked about this just as I started in this new role. You always saw your role as connecting with the people who were attending, listening to them, hearing their stories. And I remember you sort of connecting with me in the earliest stages and saying, where are you from? What are you doing? And I said, Oh, I'm actually at Knox College doing my MDiv. And I think you weren't overwhelmingly surprised, but you were curious, as you would be, of like, what's a student doing their MDiv here for? And I said, because they're not teaching me the things that I think are being taught here, and I'm going to be graduating very soon, and I think I need some capacity in those things. Because you had some really good branded there was things about facilitating good meetings and right listening skills and some really good stuff. I think I remember your response that was, was, then you're in the right place, kind of thing, and it's no offense to the college that I work for and that I graduated from. An MDiv can only teach you so much.
[Bill Lord]
That's right.
So I know for yourself this passion for lifelong learning has been a part of who you are. Do you want to speak a little bit about, what I know you served in congregational ministry for a season within the United Church of Canada? Conference works, conference staff as well. And then what? What kind of led you to answering that call to be the Director at the Toronto School of Theology, Continuing Education Program.
[Bill Lord]
Well, let me start by saying I enjoyed pastoral ministry. I had the opportunity, of course, because I was on a multiple staff, to focus more in the Christian education. Although it was very interesting, my colleague said to me, because I developed study groups, and asked him, he said, I've done more Christian education since you've come and he said, than I ever did in ministry. Well, it was because I coached him and, you know, but anyway, I had four years in that, and we held the first, we held the first multiple staff ministry conference at Cedar Glen for the United Church. But a number of Anglicans came as well. Because people said, how can the two of you still be working together four years later and not fighting? But at that event, it became clear to me that there was something gnawing in me, so I decided, I was at lunch with a friend, and I said, I'd really like to do some more study on in adult learning. He said, why don't you? And I said, well, my wife and my mother and my in laws, they all think I'm going to be the great preacher, and I see my ministry in different light. Well, he says, when you go home tonight, I want you to put a picture of your mother and a picture of your father and mother-in-law and your wife, and bow down to them, because that's what you're doing. And I thought, that's not what I'm doing. He said, oh yeah, that's what you're doing. I thought so I was a chance came up to go to a seminar on adult learning in the church. It was the old Education building on College Street, Toronto. They had a big room on the top the United Church rented. That was we were up there. The speaker was Dr. Alan Thomas, who was then the head of the Adult Education Association of Canada. He spoke about adult ed. And so when I left that meeting, I reflected, on my journey from Jerusalem to Jericho, I fell among educators. He said, why don't you go to OISE and do an MEd?
So I was visiting in the hospitals, and I had about an hour left before I was going to go home. So I stopped by the department OISE, the old OISE building, 104 Bloor Street West. I remember it well, before the new building. And I went up the Adult Ed department, and I said, is there anybody here? Oh, yeah. They said, Dr Brundy, who's the registrar, will see you. So that was Monday afternoon. He said, Well, you can get into the MEd, but you got to have your marks from Emmanuel, your marks from Western two letters of reference to us before Friday. This was the this was the days before fax machines. I don't know how I made it, but I made it and I got in and did two years. Got a MEd. And when I was graduating, up came the job, position for the direct continuing ed and congregational development in Toronto conference. I applied for it, had an interview, and that gave me the opportunity to do.
What I've talked about before, but also, I became quite interested in continuing professional education for ministry. And so it was at that time that I became the, on the board of the what was called, so come then society for the advancement of continuing education for ministry, and later became president for three years, and that's an international group. And when the job came up at TST, I thought that's something I might like to do. And so when I was being interviewed, they said to me, what unique gift would you bring? I said I'd bring a Rolodex with the phone numbers for the key leaders in continuing education in North America. And when I call them up, they won't say Bill who. And so I guess they saw that was something I could bring to TST. And it really gave me the chance to focus on what was really burning in me, which was to be present with people on a learning journey. Because I knew the benefits to myself.
[John Borthwick]
Amazing, you served there for 15 years?
[Bill Lord]
I was 15 years there
[John Borthwick]
Is that where you retired?
[Bill Lord]
Yeah, I retired, full ministry. And, you know, it was always, it was always a struggle. But people said to me, oh, you must, you must really like hearing all those speakers. I said, I've heard very few of them. But I said, every coffee hour, I'm down there talking to the participants, and that's where I get my ideas. And we needed to do a publicity thing. And there was a consultant that we were interviewing for SACEM, and I took him to lunch, took him the materials that they used. And he said to me, you gotta, you gotta put a face on this program Bill, and it's your face, whether you like it or not. I said, I can't put my face on it. Well. He said, You got to put your stamp on it in some way.
I wrote a letter on the front of the thing. Every time a personal letter, you know. Here are some of the things I've been thinking about. I never realized that I would get 20 to 25 letters back in response to the letter. Most of them began by saying, you're forcing me to make choices. I don't have the time to do them all. But it was out of those dialogues that I knew what people wanted.
And so, I began to cultivate a whole group of people around Toronto who, as well as bringing in the names like Craddock, and Tom Long, and from the Alban Institute and that. But, you know, it was the sensitivity of listening, and listening is a component of all ministry. And I listened to a seminar recently from a podcast from Fuller Seminary. And you know, Fuller is conservative and very promotional, and the person on the faculty there said, maybe it's time for us to hold back on the promotion and listen. And I think that's a key insight for ministry today.
And there are two kinds of listening, I think that's more than that, but two kinds. One is, how do I listen long enough to tell the other person what's wrong with theirs, or I listen so that I can ask them a question that puts them deeper. And those are two radically different ways. I was taught originally to listen so that I could correct the person. I had to teach myself how to listen for the deeper things.
And John Savage, who taught for us several times. He said, if you want to know how hard listening is, he said, I visited my father before he was dying. And he said, my father said, I want to tell you some stories. He said he was in the Pittsburgh area. He said, it really saddens me to see the steel mills closing. And he said, you remember that old apple tree in our backyard? Well, we had to have a cut down last year. John Savage said, I just heard those stories, got in the car to drive home. All of a sudden, he said, my dad is telling me he's dying. And because, I missed the metaphors. So don't always listen for the literal meaning. Listen for the metaphors.
Recent four or five years ago, I was in the summer doing the pastoral care for Harcourt here in Guelph, and a person said to me, my father, who's in a nursing home, would like to have United Church communion. He says all they bring in is Anglican, and that's not his understanding of communion. So on Saturday morning, I made an appointment. I said, I'll be there. I went. He had a table with a beautiful white cloth on it. I put the elements on. Asked him what he wanted to pray about, and he told me, because his wife was in suffering from dementia, and we prayed for her and that and we had communion. His wife was supposed to come for the communion, but her Alzheimer's was that day, and she was not able to come. Then we talked, and I'd been told years before, always listen to the doorknob story when you're ready to leave, you got your hand on the doorknob. And he said to me, would you explain one thing, why in the new translation, does it say in my Father's house are many rooms. Why did they change from mansions, which, of course, is the King James Version. I said, I don't know, but I have a New Testament friend. I'm going to phone him up and ask him. So I phoned him up. Mike Steinhauser, a colleague of mine from TST. And I said to him, well, he says, Bill, that's simple in Greek, you can translate it either mansion. It's the same word. Mansions are rooms. Doesn't really matter. So I phoned him back. Three weeks later, I took his funeral. I said, there's no question what text I want to preach about. And I said he knew, and we knew that for him, it's mansions, and that's where he is now. And you know, just listening. And so my invitation for anybody in ministry is listen to others. And the other component is listen to yourself, because there's invitation to do inner work in yourself that you need to listen to now. John, am I rambling too much?
[John Borthwick]
Not at all like I'm I think our ministry forum audience will appreciate it. It's very good. I'll just add in a couple of things related to what you've just said. I found in congregational ministry, I had to get to a place of perfecting the length of the visit. It wasn't always successful because of the doorknob conversation. So I would be with somebody for an hour, and it would be a great conversation. We'd have a lovely chat about who knows what. It seemed to be going very well. And then I would say, I have to leave. We would pray. And then as I'm leaving, getting up and going to the door, that's when the doorknob conversation would come. And it'd be like, oh, I think we better sit down again. There was also another phase of it, there was often the refreshment phase. If you didn't get that early on, you were in trouble. Because if you just went talked for a while, then it's like you're thinking yourself, oh, I think, I think I probably could better go. Why I've prepared tea or I've baked some goods for you. It's like, oh, okay, well, then I guess I'll stay. So I was never in my earliest days. I enjoyed those times they but they would take a lot of time. I had to get to a better place of, how do you perfect what the especially if someone has invited you to come. How do you get to that space of getting to the real conversation. And it's really them just working up the courage, or working up that relationship, credibility or trust that gets into that place. Am I going to actually ask the question I really want to ask? And how's that going to go? And so I really appreciate that for sure.
[Bill Lord]
And what you triggered for me just now was in my psychotherapeutic training and in my reading recently on trauma therapy. If people don't have a safe space, you'll never hear those stories. And so I thought later in in life, I've described my role in talking with people is to provide a safe, sacred space. Safe but sacred. Because, you know, I'm there because I represent unconditional, the unconditional love of God, you know, or as Howard Klein Bell used to say, how are you the unconditional love of God in a broken and birthing world? And but if people don't feel safe, you're not going to get what matters.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, and interestingly, connected to a number of the things you've touched on. Part of, I think, the role of ministry leaders is also nurturing that in larger group settings, especially when you're going to be talking about challenging or difficult things, how do you create a how do you create a space for people that they trust you as the leader, the facilitator, the person with the microphone up front. How do you create an open enough space that they have a sense of that you will hold whatever this is with certain boundaries, and it won't, it won't go that far.
Let me say that again, you as the leader, how are you holding that space, that they have a trust, that that there's a limit to how far it'll go, or there's a there's a safety in their experience of that. Sometimes I find with some ministry leaders, they don't do that work, or they don't exude that kind of trust, and then that's where things can sometimes go sideways, especially in larger group settings. I think that can happen in worship sometimes, but also just the challenging conversations you might have to have in a ministry context, around big issues or challenging decisions. How do you create the space that they can look to you and go, you're not going to let this get totally out of hand, or I'm right. I'm not going to be centered out in a way that's going to make me feel uncomfortable. I think that's really amazing.
[Bill Lord]
And one of the things that just simple, two simple exercises. One is, what if you come into a room, what's the safest way you could have a conversation? Well, it's one other person, right? So rather than saying, get in a small group, I've done a lot especially when it's when a situation that has some emotion in it, and just say what you're wanting to do, we want to hear some ideas, but you can't offer your idea. You have to offer the idea presented by the other person that shifts the whole dynamic significantly.
The other is a process that John Savage taught me, talk, write and listen. You have a paper and a pencil, and you number off 123, and you put a flip chart up, 123, talk, write, listen, three times. And so, two minutes, and you just blow a whistle. Say, move. Blow a whistle, move. And when you've got, and the person who's the writer just writes, the person who listens, listens for clarity and asks, well, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, and the other person talked for two minutes. And then at the end of that, you say, Now, take two minutes or five minutes to distill what's on your paper so that you have one thing to share with the group. I've found that I've used that technique many, many times. I learned it from John Savage in Boston in 1972, and I've never forgotten that. Because he was running a whole group, and he wanted to know what people wondered, what their other interests were, and that's how he started.
[John Borthwick]
And he was a church conflict guru for a season?
[Bill Lord]
Yeah, he was a church conflict and listening skills. Those were his two strong points. And recently died, and I phoned the undertaker and said, could I express my sympathy to his family? And they said, well, you could, but his wife won't know she has dementia. You know, there's that kind, of it's hard because he was really important to me, and he and I had great conversations when he visited. He was an annual visitor for all 15 years.
[John Borthwick]
That's amazing. You build that rapport with some people.
[Bill Lord]
Yeah, with those people.
[John Borthwick]
So I know you're an avid lifelong learner. I know that anytime I meet with you. You tell me about new podcasts you're listening to, books, you're listening to stuff you sign up for to take a course, or this or that. You're never, ever stopping in that world. But in your experience, what? What kind of changes have you noticed over the decades when it comes to ministry leaders, maybe? Or their approach to continuing education or lifelong learning. What's maybe surprised you? Or just in general, what kind of insights come to?
[Bill Lord]
Well, when I first started and, and, and in my own life, my there were two things there. I was a minister in Manitoba, rural Manitoba. Young minister. I realized that there was a seminary in the States that would loan books. So I wrote a letter to the library and said, because this was the days of letters, no email or anything. He said, oh yeah, we'd be glad to have you. We have a course outline, and then we send you two books, and then you send them back. We send you the next two. So the first two books they sent me, I had to have them back in three weeks. So I had to write them a letter and say, if you're going to have me participate from Canada, it's got to be six weeks, not three, which he agreed. And so, I started taking responsibility for my own learning way back then. But the focus then was, who is the guru or who is the expert? And so they had all these course lines, but there was a guru had written the course and recommended these books. And even when I started at TST, there was a whole sense of the Guru approach. Like, who do you bring in, that's the big name in preaching, the big name in pastoral care, whatever.
And I think over the years, I noticed the shift towards people not so much wanting that, as wanting responses to their questions around the practice of ministry. And the practice of ministry is more about helping people learn how to do two kinds of reflection. Donald, shown years ago, described two kinds of reflections. One is a reflection on action. So you take an action in ministry, or you look at a board meeting or a pastoral call, and you sit down and reflect what went well, what could have changed. But he said, ministry is mostly about reflection in action. So in other words, you're working with somebody in this, or working with a group, and it doesn't seem to be going where you want it to go. So you frame, what he called, frame a little experiment. So you say, okay, that is working. I'll give you an example. I was invited to lead a seminar on Christian development at the meeting of the America Association of Pastoral Counselors meeting in Toronto. A colleague of mine wrote me into to doing this. I knew Ken Mitchellm and some of the people that I knew were there. So I gave them an exercise to do, and then I said, now, when it was finished, I said, anybody like to share? And one guy stood up and said, you didn't tell us we were going to share this publicly. So I said, okay, that isn't working. What can we do? So we negotiated how we're going to work right on there. When the event was over, this individual came up to me, shook my hand and said, it takes guts to do what you did. I said, I didn't think I had a choice. I wanted to work with the people was there, and it was, it really developed into a really good seminar, but I hadn't thought clear enough about it. Somebody said to me, the next person said, do you know who that was that said that to you? I said, No. Howard Seinfeld. So I hunted him out Howard. I said, I want to thank you. He said, well, I just was reflecting what I saw happening in the minute. And so he and I became good friends. I invited him back at TST. He and Kathy and I taught at Claremont school, and he invited us out for lunch while we're out there. You know, it's the whole process of, if you're vulnerable, acknowledge it, but invite people in. Okay, this isn't working. What will work?
And it reminds me years before that I was a last minute fill in at Montreal. My colleague who committed to do it, his wife got sick and he couldn't go, so he said, you can go. They'd had four big name lecturers who gave four lectures each day, for four days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. They stayed over the weekend, Monday and Tuesday, the facilitator was to come in and help them learn what they learned. While I came I said, well, what do you want to talk about? It? They don't want to talk about one thing they heard in the lectures, not one thing. They want to talk about the problems they're facing in ministry. So I get my flip chart out, you know. Okay, we'll list these. Write the name of the person who you know, so they could tell us more. That's what we worked on. And they said at the end of the thing, we've had far better experience in these two days than the four days, because each of those four professionals, and they were big names like, but they came with their stuff, not with the stuff, and that that's the difference between education and learning, okay. And I'm about lifelong learning.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah
[Bill Lord]
Not to put education down, but at a certain point in your life, you got to take responsibility for who you are and who you become. And sometimes that requires you, well, it always requires you to get feedback from somebody else. And that can be from a spiritual director, or a good mentor, or a therapist, or a peer group in ministry. All of those are different ways, and I've experienced all of them, and they've all been gifts to me because I want to learn about myself. I want to learn about how to be more faithful, and I want to learn about what I'm being called to as ministry in the world. And what I've been called to as ministry is not what I thought I was going to do. Because I was sensitive and aware to the call. You know, it led me to OISE to the master's degree, and all the work for the doctoral degree in courses, all 10 courses, and I had three chapters written on dissertation. But never got too busy completing it, and realized later on that I got what I needed in all of that. So I didn't need the diploma or the certificate.
And that led me then, you know, I want to say this because it's really important. I was at a massage therapist, and I came out and I saw a little piece of paper up on their bulletin board, and it said, psychodramatic body work. And so the next time I saw the massage therapist, I said, why is that little piece of paper there? And she said, oh, I did that course. That's just a great course. So I took the phone number down, phoned up. Oh, yeah, you, you'd be welcome to come. I phoned up a friend and said, you know, I know enough about you that the that you need to come with me for this, which he did. And that led to three years of training in psychodramatic body work. And I had no idea that this one little piece of paper would invite me into the journey. I went. So I think the key thing for people in ministry today is saying, in what way is the spirit inviting me to re:image what my call is to ministry.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, it's not a fixed thing.
[Bill Lord]
It’s not fixed, John, you're not in pastoral ministry anymore. You're in another thing. I'm not saying that everybody has to go to another kind of ministry. I think a person could re:image what it means to be in pastoral ministry.
[John Borthwick]
It’s the same as many things in life. You're if you believe you're not the same, that everything leads to something. So another theme that we've been talking about, when we talk to people for the ministry Forum Podcast, it's that that we're pulling a bunch of threads together. You have one of the things for myself was, when I came into this role, people said, these are all the threads that you've experienced in your entire life, all the different things you've done, learned, everything else is now coming together in this for this season. But who knows what the next season looks and maybe part of that inner work is, is recognizing that within our own striving, how are we being open to like you say, that invitation. Part of what we try to do is, is not tell people what they should do, but, but put out enough sort of things just like you say, I love that image of like we're putting out enough little pieces of paper with a little note that says, maybe that's going to strike and that's going to lead you somewhere. That's what we're trying to do.
It also speaks to, I think, being curious about everything. That's been sort of a mantra for my life of just trying to have an adventure of curiosity and being interested and curious. And I know that it's, I love that image you were crafting around, sort of that idea of how to be in the moment. How are you, how are you adapting?
[Bill Lord]
That's right.
[John Borthwick]
And for me, the key was being curious. So when I was in a ministry setting, and it wasn't easy, and I got it wrong lots. But the times when I could actually say, okay, don't be reactive, the line is, be curious, not judgmental. But I would also add, be curious, not reactive. Because I can do the inner work later, where I'm trying to figure out, why was I reactive? Yeah, but the times that I've been able to maintain a sense of curiosity in that moment that also allowed that non anxious presence to stay, stay within the room. That I'm sure you've done a lot of work.
I just want to touch, sort of wrap in what you've been talking about, around the changes that you've seen, and even some of the changes that I've seen only in a year of doing this gig, but also just from being somebody who's always taking lifelong learning. What I've noticed is definitely, I don't know if the age of the Guru is completely gone. There's still people who will latch on to somebody, and that'll be their person that they want to listen to and be guided by. And I think that's really important.
[Bill Lord]
It's now podcasts make it totally possible.
[John Borthwick]
Sure. I actually asked this question of retired ministers. I said, who was your guru throughout their career in ministry? I was a little surprised that the majority of them couldn't name them, could didn't have one, which was curious to me. They also didn't always do a lot of that lifelong learning, continued education stuff. But I feel it's also shifted from guru to content based. So it's like, I need tactical, I need tools. I need specific things. Which was the reason I went, when I was doing my MDiv to TST, because you were giving titles that were like, I think I need to know how to do that in congregational ministry. I'm going to go there for that Saturday and see what I can learn.
But the newest thing that I've had, it's just been happening over the last few months, in this role in conversations with people who run, you know, like big sort of lifelong learning events for for beyond the church, like even corporate kind of stuff, they're finding that the shift is turning into this idea of community. People are not coming to your event. They get weary from events that are, say, a day long, and it's just content, content, content, content, with a couple of breaks and a lunch. It feels like people are not actually wanting that. They're looking to figure out ways of being in community with people.
And the other thing I think we're aware of post COVID is that people don't have those skills in the same way, or if they ever had them. Many of us are introverts who are ministry leaders. So how do you how can you also facilitate community? Because even people we've noticed in the last year, we're noticing people being very intentional about who's going to be in the room, and that might actually be a barrier to them coming into the room for an event, for a retreat, or whatever that might be. They're actually asking those questions, who else is coming. Who else might be there? Yeah? Which I can't a long time ago, I would never think that would ever be a question. You just turn up and it's like, Oh, you're here, or, Oh, I didn't know that person was here. And maybe that speaks to the culture we're living in, where people are like, I don't know if I feel safe, being in a room with that person or I don't want to be in that, in a situation where there could be tension or difficulty, whatever that looks like.
[Bill Lord]
And part of the thing that is triggered for me when you talk about that, is all my life, I've been building communities of relationship that I decided. Early in my ministry, I decided I used to go to groups and I would, I would wait to be the last person chosen. You know, I thought, oh, I must be humble. And be and then one day, I woke up and I thought, I've ended up in some pretty poor groups doing that. There's another way. I'm not going to be the picky. I'm going to be the pick-er. And so I became intentional.
I went at an event, to one of the people I most respected for a one to one conversation. And he was very moved that I chose him well. I chose him because, if you want community, be intentional about it.
Yesterday afternoon, I met with a group that I formed nearly 40 years ago. It had four people in it. We're now down to three, because one person died with COVID, but we still meet. And one of the things we say is this is a group you can't hide in, because we all know so much about each other. But the conversation yesterday was as rich, you know, with each of us sharing, and we're all retired now. But each of us sharing, where the growing edge for us is as a person. And I take responsibility. It was formed with a colleague and two of my doctoral students.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, seems, would seem to me, it speaks to your Emmaus journey kind of notion. Who are you inviting on the journey? On the road.
[Bill Lord]
And in a sense, in that group, we're all Jesus for each other. But in other groups I've been in, I've been in that the other role.
[John Borthwick]
I can remember you started a peer group for United Church ministers here in Guelph, and then you probably a little jokey, in order to make the group more ecumenical, you invited a Presbyterian
[Bill Lord]
And an Anglican.
[John Borthwick]
We did get an Anglican, that’s true, just to get a little more diversity.
[Bill Lord]
Because I knew you people were in ministry and the focus was on ministry. And you know, there isn't just United Church flavored ministry, there's and my understanding of working in community is how do we discover the needs of the community, which is not Anglican, United Church, Presbyterian, Catholic, Buddhist, whatever, but it's the needs of people. And, you know, maybe talking to each other, we can invite each other to reach out.
[John Borthwick]
I think you said a quite a bit around why you think lifelong learning is so vital for ministry leaders. Was there anything else you were thinking of or wanted to add into that?
[Bill Lord]
No, not, okay, I don't, I don't think so. I think we pretty well covered what I the stuff I was thinking about. When I was often invited to examine candidates for ordination over the years, I had a standard saying, well, we had to give one sentence to the so I would always say, remember, it's not about you. So, ministry is not about you. But now I would say it's, it's not about you, but don't neglect yourself.
[John Borthwick]
You want to say more about that?
[Bill Lord]
It's not about you in the sense that that you're not the gospel. Okay, you're there to bring the love of the gospel to people. Somebody said recently he when he started this ministry, he thought he was to bring the love of God to people who love God. And now he says the role of Minister is to bring the love of God to people who don't love God. And so what does that what does that shift involve?
What is the focus of my ministry. The focus of my ministry is, how do I bring the benevolent love of God to a world that's not interested, okay? And in order to do that, I have to deal with my own biases about what I think ministry is, or what I've been trained to think ministry was in seminary, or what the mentor person that I'm following.
I had a very powerful Minister when I was in teenager. And he was at a seminar I led, 35 years later, and he said, Where did you learn that? I couldn't replicate his ministry. So that's why I think there's work to be done in listening to the world, and there's work to be done listening to yourself, and you can't listen to yourself unless you got somebody to help you. For a while, I thought reaching out for help was a weakness. I think now reaching out for help is a strength. If you're really going to be faithful to what call to ministry is, it can't be what used to be. You know, what got what got us here, won't get us there.
[John Borthwick]
You know, well, and even how, in my observations of how, not just Knox College, but other seminaries and other other traditions, other denominations, seminaries as well, about how people are being trained up to be, if we went specifically for clergy, there was a season and it was a different era, a different time, but you all went to school together as a cohort. You got to know each other over a period of learning. You got to see each other in different challenging times, ups and downs. You probably got to see each other in times when you were having fun and enjoying life. All the mishmash of life you were basically living life together for a season of that life in seminary. And then you graduate. In those many cases, I would assume those became your lifelong friends and your connection points.
In the way that education is done these days. And what I'm observing in varieties of seminaries, so many people are part-time. So many people want to do the program as quickly as possible. Life is the way life is wired, and it becomes a place where, when you graduate from, say, doing an MDiv, it's possible that you actually don't know that many people who you graduated with, or you're surprised you were at seminary same time. We never had a course together, or we hardly talked. And so then, if you get, if you get released onto the church, and you become ordained and inducted somewhere, you're pretty isolated, and who do you reach out to, and who do you connect with? That's part of what we're on a mission to do with Ministry Forum. Trying to make connections for people. It’s a different era, and to feel alone ministry is hard enough. When you feel alone in ministry, in the church, in the congregation, but it's even harder when you don't have those people to talk to, those people who will be honest with you, and those people that you can share.
[Bill Lord]
I don't think your cell phone can take the place of a colleague who's compassionate.
I was sitting recently waiting for Cathy to come out of an appointment, and I watched four people come out and three people were on their cell phone. That's a different world than I lived in. But I think there's the temptation to think that relationships on a cell phone are relationships in life. And they are not.
[John Borthwick]
Sometimes we need to walk that road together.
[Bill Lord]
That's right, yes, walk and walk the Emmaus Road. The Emmaus road was a road of sadness, and it wasn't till after the meal, there was hope. That's all the walk on this all now were captured by three words we had hoped. And then the surprise comes in the meal. And then the fascinating thing in that story, for me is Jesus disappears. Because he's on another road.
[John Borthwick]
There you go. Yeah, Bill, it's always amazing getting a chance to speak to you. I'm so glad for our connection, and the fact by the spirits moving somehow we reconnected in Guelph, when I came to Guelph. And then we've just, we run into we've run into each other at different continuing education events, being a part of the peer group. And then when I got this role at Knox College, I knew the first person I wanted to reach out to and talk to, and it was you. And so I so appreciate your mentorship, yeah, and your friendship. And so thank you for today.
[Bill Lord]
And it's, it's always exciting for me to see somebody else come alive with the interests. II don't think I'd cope very well with all the internet and social media things. That was not my era. My era of Continuing Ed was a lot of paper and mailing. But to see somebody do it with a smile on their face and enthusiasm warms my heart. Because it's like, maybe I've been able to, well, not maybe I did pass the baton to other people. So together, we're in this race. But I'm resting now, and you're carrying the baton.
[John Borthwick]
I'm happy to do so. Thanks so much, Bill. I really appreciate it.
[Bill Lord]
Thank you.
[John Borthwick]
Thanks for joining us today on the ministry Forum Podcast. We hope today's episode resonated with you and sparked your curiosity. Remember, you're not alone in your ministry journey. We're at the other end of some form of technology, and our team is committed to working hard to support your ministry every step of the way. If you enjoyed today's episode, tell your friends, your family, your colleagues. Tell someone. Please don't keep us a secret. And of course, please subscribe, rate and leave a review in the places you listen to podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach more ministry leaders just like you, and honestly, it reminds us that we're not alone either. And don't forget to follow us on social media at ministry forum, on all of our channels, you can visit our website at ministry forum.ca, for more resources keeping up with upcoming events and ways to connect with our growing community.
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