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One way of looking at ministry is a series of events where we get to know people "and then say goodbye." There are many farewells as people leave office, move away, or as friends retire, or other clergy take parishes elsewhere. To be a priest is to go through scores of farewells in a given year.
If we care about others we feel a sense of loss when they decide to leave. We need an appropriate length of time to express our feelings and say good bye, and after disengagement we are free to get on with the rest of life.
Good parting includes the' following:
1. It honours others.
2. It appreciates their contribution.
3. It does not leave a tangle of unfinished feelings and issues.
4. It frees others for an open future.
5. It allows a degree of emotional closure.
6. It delineates a new role for the friendship and envisages new and appropriate ways of staying in touch.
Good parting will avoid the following:
1. Shedding responsibility, "The Bishop made me do it."
2. Guessing games, "I'm leaving angry and you're going to have to figure out why."
3. Stomping, "You're loading too much on me so I am going to leave you in the lurch."
4. Clinging, "How will the Sunday School ever survive without you."
5. Controlling, "I'll pick my successor and determine the agenda prior to leaving."
6. Running, "You didn't appreciate me properly when I was here and thus I am going without saying goodbye."
7. Exploding, "I can't summon the courage to go so I'll search for a precipitating conflict."
In the Anglican tradition we have a custom amongst priests that "we don't go back." It doesn't mean we can never go back. It means that we recognize that people have to say farewell to us properly so they can attach and bond with their new Christian leader. We need to "clear out" so that can happen. If we go back, it should be at the invitation of the new leader after an appropriate space of time, perhaps for an anniversary.
We should never go back in ways that interfere in the new agenda, or that undermine the bonds the new leader is trying to make. Geoff Woodcroft said it well when he said, "I will always be your friend, but the day I leave I am no longer your Priest."
Item XIX
©1999 Ronald C. Ferris
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