Archive for November, 2011
Spiritual Leadership, Part IV: The Parish
[Read the previous section, part III, here.]
Parish
The sphere of our spiritual leadership then extends further, to the realm of the parish. Up front, I’ll say that I have no intention of telling others how to lead their parishes. Ultimately, the decisions made by the priest in exercising spiritual leadership over his parish must be made in close consultation with his bishop.
The parish poses a different situation when compared to exercising spiritual leadership over one’s self or over one’s household, and it comes about because the faithful of our parish are there of their own volition. The priest is appointed as the spiritual leader of the parish, but that does not mean that the faithful of the parish will place themselves fully under his leadership in every instance. In practical terms, this means that extending spiritual leadership will require healthy amounts of suasion and trust. The priest who attempts to lead by giving directions accompanied by “because I am the priest” will almost certainly fail. Read the rest of this entry »
Spiritual Leadership, Part III: Family
[Read the previous section, part II, here.]
Family
Then there’s the matter of spiritual leadership within the family. Of course, I’m speaking mostly to the married clergy here, as that’s what I am familiar with myself.
The married priest lives in a constant tension. The tension can really be boiled down to the competing interests of what we can call the man’s first priesthood – namely his role as husband and father – and his second priesthood handling the Mysteries of God. Read the rest of this entry »
The Internet is Not the Problem
“Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water.” -Luke 8:24
Like many other clergy in the Orthodox Church in America, I’m attending the 16th All-American Council. Also like many other clergy, I attended the first plenary session (or was it an episode of Oprah?) Monday evening. During the question and answer period that followed Metropolitan Jonah’s address and the responses from some members of the Holy Synod, the Internet came in for some rather negative criticism. (See AFR for the audio; time references below are for that version). Read the rest of this entry »