The Collective Body – Map for a Residency Reactor in the Northeast

One day a Northeastern church leader of the future walks into a church. No one recognizes him as a pastor yet. He has a journey ahead. This is a crossroads moment. He has grown in his faith and the clarity and focus of it is like he has never known before. His backstory may be surprising or it may be mundane.

Perhaps he was the wandering, perpetual student who dropped out of college when tragedy struck his family. Than he found himself inexplicably drawn to a born-again Christian woman who led him to the first church service he ever understood and drawn even more to the Bible and to Jesus.

Maybe he was a pastor’s son. He trusted Jesus as a boy, but college became a blur in an endless string of parties, poor choices, and bad relationships until he started going to a new church – a church plant – that changed his life. Though he believed at a young age, he then came to know Jesus through a different experience and with a different faith. He became ready to commit.

He may have been the young athlete who had competed successfully since his teens. One day an epiphany struck him and he realized that his sport could neither last nor serve as his true identity. He then sought to reconnect to the faith he saw and learned from his parents. Sometimes still covered in dirt and iced down after a game, he found himself sneaking into the balconies of churches to listen to sermons. Soon after, he quit playing and began to pursue training to serve the Church.

He may be raised in the church or come to the church from outside. He may realize calling early or discover it through exposure to a healthy church. One thing is sure; he is led by Jesus and empowered through The Spirit to practice purity, prayer, and ministry to the Church. He will continue, grow and face new challenges. He is one of many.

What’s a Pastor to do?

The pastor, confident that this man is headed to ministry, now has to prepare him for this calling. He likely meets with him and trains him the way rabbis have done for centuries past. The pastor lets him into his world, teaches him his words, and leads this pastor-of-the-future in his ways. At some point, perhaps to learn with more focus, he sends him to seminary.

That future pastor could be half a continent away for the next 2-5 years, faced with a new world filled with vibrant churches, committed peers, and deep, godly, men & women to teach him. That place may become a second home. (After all, alma mater is Latin for “nurturing mother.”)

This nurturing process may not always result in this new pastor returning to the Northeast. In fact, he may realize that he does not want to be, nor called to be a pastor. However, if he is still led to the Northeast, will he be able to come to an existing church as a place to further mature, gain confidence, and prepare for the task of leading and/or planting a new church?

What can the Church do? How does the Church work to help the pastor-of-the-future, especially in such a largely un-churched region?

Defining Terms.

Words are containers for ideas. Anyone who is careful about communication knows that to use one word, hundreds must be employed up front to give it shared and proper meaning. It is the tedious work of lawyers, philosophers and theologians.

When I say “residency,” some people may think “internship.” At Terra Nova, an intern is typically one in their early to mid twenties who is trying to figure what ministry is and whether or not they’re drawn to it.

A resident is more likely in his late twenties to early thirties. He has completed seminary and could likely pass ordination exams and enter into local church ministry. The Residency becomes the bridge from seminary back to the church. It would be the finishing touches that can help a ready young pastor to have a foundation in the church, and the tools for an enduring and effective ministry.

The Goals.

We are preparing to launch a Residency program this fall. The Residency is an 18-month ministry program to shepherd future church leaders. There will be an emphasis on spiritual life in community with other residents at other churches. This will provide a cohort in the program and a trusted peer network in the future.

Spiritual Health: In order to be effective in ministry, you have to be spiritually healthy, growing as a person and a leader. Most of our time is spent preparing our heads for ministry and learning the craft of church leadership and preaching – the hands of the work. We can inadvertently create a heart bypass that puts men on a crash course with burnout.

Local Church Based: It has been said that students need a year in the church to reorient for every year spent in seminary. It’s true. Young pastors can spend so much time with the ideas of the church that they can sometimes forget the reality of the church.

Northeast Focused: When the reports came out that the northeast was the great un-churched epicenter of North America, I began to regularly receive calls and emails from people who want to plant here. Many thought it would be the same as planting in their home regions of the West, South or Midwest. Some thought Albany-Troy-Schenectady was a mini Manhattan and that New England was either Boston or fishing villages.

The Northeast is a unique place. With a residency site in Troy, NY, we are lodged in its geographic center, in a city we love to pastor. Sharing the practice and experience of what it means to pastor a small city in the Northeast will be part of the orientation of the Residency.

Future Biased: There is focus on launching the resident into ministry. From team building to fund raising, from strategies to cultural architect, the Resident is given practical fine points to prepare him to partner and launch well.

The Residency is being worked-out with churches in Connecticut and New York, para-church movements, and individual key leaders.

Your Part

Please take time to learn more about the Terra Nova Residency. Feel free to ask questions about the Residency.

Please pray for us from now till September as final steps are being taken to prepare for the program’s launch.

Please financially support this seedbed of the church of the future. There is a financial need for staff, residents, and facilities. You can designate a gift to Terra specifically for this.

Psalm 127 speaks of children being like arrows in an archer’s quiver. As the artillery of the ancient near east, the archer shot farther than he himself could go. The arrow would make an impact out of his reach. For parents, this is true of children. They will outlive the parent and impact a world that a parent might not understand or even see. And so with the church, the pastors of tomorrow will reach a mission field that is uniquely theirs.

The future is held in a tension of being certain and unknown. These leaders will go farther than their instructors and mentors. In an America yet to come, they will be missionaries and church leaders there.