Summertime Greetings to our Colleagues in Ministry!

Our 10th Annual Gathering, under Atlanta's Big Tent was another great event, thanks to all who joined us!  The PPCN Board is developing plans for the 11th Annual Gathering to be held in late October, 2010.  If you share your ideas with us, by January 2010, the PPCN Board can include your feedback, along with the evaluations we have, as we listen and clarify God's future for the PPCN.
 
We invite you to visit the PC(USA) News Service - Pastoral Music, June 2009, submitted by John Sniffen, concerning the CD A Deep Well, which PPCN Board Member Steve McCutchan and musician david m bailey produced. 
 
One of the big tent bonuses was an introductory release of a PPCN Toolbox of Pastoral Care resources.  Everyone there took home a free copy to share with their presbytery. Updated and Revised Best Practices and Toolboxes will be available at the 11th Annual Conference.  Thanks for the shared resources you brought which are always appreciated by new and seasoned pastoral care network members!!!  It is always fun to welcome newcomers to our Conferences.  We encourage you to email a board member, if you'd like follow-up consultation in your personal ministry-setting or presbytery before the next Conference. 
 
We're honored to be journeying with you in this exceptional time when exceptional pastoral care is so critical for Healthy Ministry!
  
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Our Readers Respond

Many thanks to our Readers who respond to our Newsletter!  Here is one reply to the Article "Caring Enough to Offend," published in an earlier issue:

"I read your article Caring Enough to Offend and the situation you describe is not uncommon.  I have been a pastor for nearly 30 years, having served the last 19 in the same parish.   Pastoral ministry is a machine with a lot of moving parts that are capable of offending the parishioners.  You mentioned the Gospel as one cause, but I doubt that most of the conflict between parishioners and pastors has anything to do with theological imbalances.
 
Sometimes, pastors are offensive.  We are fallible human beings and we mess up.  We neglected the hospital visit we know we should have made.  In those cases, pastors should own their mistakes.  In other cases, pastors are dangerously dumb.  In one instance, a pastor didn't like the proposed slate of church officers that the nominating committee had proposed so he had his wife stand up in the congregational meeting and make nominations from the floor.  Pastors sometimes are their own enemies.
 
Sometimes, the pastor is the easiest person to blame when parishioners feel disenfranchised by their church.  Someone opposed to the addition of large debt to pay for a new building program may turn their anger at having been out voted by the congregation toward the pastor.
 
Sometimes, people who have little or no control over other aspects of their lives (jobs, economy, etc) feel that they have control and influence in the life of their church. They can be angry as new members take leadership positions and move them into the  background.
 
The possibilities are endless.  If anger toward the pastor is warranted, we should acknowledge our faults and try to make amends. If the anger is unwarranted, we look for the underlying cause and address those if we can.

More often than not, however, the anger is idiopathic, we may never determine the cause.  I do believe that there is an intelligent, evil force at work in our world that seeks to destroy life. It is not a battle against flesh and blood (individual people) but against powers and principalities that seek to rob us from the ability to live together in harmony. The best weapon that I have found against this enemy is a love for and commitment to the church.  That love and commitment should, and often does, allow us to live, work, and even play together in spite of our differences."

                                    (from Greg Koskoski) 

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