One of the first things I wanted to do when I became Bishop was to provide for clergy and their families the support of a chaplain to the clergy. I realized from my own experience as a parish priest that there are sometimes issues of a sensitive personal nature that clergy feel uncomfortable discussing with their bishop. For awhile, our Diocese was lucky enough to have the help of the Rev. Bill North, a skilled priest and pastoral therapist, who was on our staff part-time. Sadly for us, Bill left to take a wonderful new job in Texas.

In an effort to make the office of chaplain to the clergy more geographically accessible, I have asked three capable clergy, located respectively in Prescott, Chandler, and Tucson, to serve as "on-call" chaplains to the clergy. The Rev. Pamela Mulac has done supply work for us since moving here from Los Angeles and holds a Ph.D. in pastoral counseling. The Rev. David Davidson-Methot is a former rector and has a Ph.D. in psychology plus a private practice in Chandler (he is also bi-lingual in Spanish). The Rev. Joe King is a psychiatrist in Tucson and serves as deacon at Christ the King Church.

All three are available on a free and completely confidential basis to clergy and their families. I will never know whom they are seeing or the content of these sessions. This total confidentially is crucial to their functioning. They simply bill me for their hours-no specifics. In a few weeks, the clergy will be receiving information about how they may contact these chaplains and arrange for an appointment.

The three chaplains will also be playing a key role in providing training for the "Safeguarding God's Children" program of sexual misconduct prevention. I will write more about that program, and how it functions in next week's E-pistle.

The health of our clergy is important, but is often neglected, both by them and their congregations. I hope that providing the finest mental health support to them and to their families will help make for happy pastors, as well as happy congregations.

 

A Final Thought

I am in the midst of a great new book, A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren (http://www.brianmclaren.net/ ) who is one of the leading thinkers of what is sometimes called the "emergent-church" movement. He seeks to transcend the differences and distinctions that divide Christians such as Evangelical/Catholic, liberal/conservative. Biblical/charismatic, etc., to find a place were we can celebrate those different traditions without being tied to any of them.

His book is a passionate and sometimes humorous look at Christianity and contains something both good and bad to say about all our traditions, as a way of asking the old question, "Would Jesus consider himself a Christian?"

Here is just a sample:

 

"I have realized that my deepest passion isn't for church people; it has always been for those outside the church. I want to welcome them in, to help them become part of our life and mission. But often I have felt like an ambulance driver bringing injured people to a hospital where there's an epidemic spreading among the patients and doctors and nurses. You know the feeling? What do you do? You try to help the hospital get the epidemic under control again, so they can get back to helping people heal."

I'm naïve in many ways, with an uncorrected leaning toward optimism and hope. But, then again, I'm not as naïve as I may seem. I've been around long enough and involved deeply enough to see the dark downsides, the dirty closet, and the ugly realities of the Christian community in its many forms. The hospital can be a pretty sick place sometimes. A friend of mine once said that every new Christian should be equipped at baptism with a manure detector (not his exact words) because there is plenty of it around in the church world, and I agree. I've seen it and smelled it (and too often tracked it through the house). Sometimes, honestly, I've felt like giving up and walking away in search of fresher, healthier air. But there's something here that I love and can't stop loving, and that something is actually Someone."

+Kirk