{"id":23115,"date":"2019-05-30T12:21:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T19:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=23115"},"modified":"2019-05-30T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T19:21:31","slug":"counting-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/counting-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"Counting Sheep."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In What Clergy Do, Especially When It Looks Like Nothing, <\/em>Emma Percy drawing on her Ph.D. work and experience as a priest describes the life and work of modern-day priest using the model and language of motherhood. Many reviewers were aptly aware of the parallels between Percy\u2019s work and that of Naomi Stadlen\u2019s saying, \u201cthe book riffs off Naomi Stadlen’s book ”What Mothers Do: Especially when it looks like nothing’, and is focused around the mothering\/clergy analogy.[1]<\/a> Percy, while writing in an academic style, keeps the reader moving along and seeking more with concise material and rich imagery with the use of metaphors. David Warbrick in his review agrees writing, “What Clergy Do<\/em> introduces us to a rich store of work on motherhood, inviting us to enjoy a satisfying many layered metaphor[s] for ministry which opens up well-defended areas of embattled priestly hearts[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As a male reading this book, it was easy for me to relate to the motherhood metaphor(s) and I was particularly impacted about the section on Living up to the calling\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u2013being good enough.<\/em> Percy, in this section, talks about human to human contact versus statically analysis to determine the health of a baby\/church. She writes, “growth happens where people are healthy and well feed and where all the conditions are right, but it will not look the same numerically for all[3]<\/a> She then goes on the illustrate this by talking about how only when something goes wrong then we suspect there might be an issue with the child as it is assumed that some might be taller or shorter and different sizes than other kids. This again, was very easy to follow as I naturally thought of my own two kids and expect them the be different, and when my daughter was having some issues with writing, we discovered she needed classes. When something went wrong, we found a solution and were not focused on just her growth (numerically) but her well-being overall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I continue to research Spirit-led leadership, it is becoming more apparent that at some point during the “church growth movement,” leadership became fixated on numbers as the sign of God’s blessing. Dr. Clark during the Hong Kong face to face spoke of the Spirituality of Measuring<\/em> and pointed out that leaders need to measure but he also amply reminded us that \u201cthe enemy is quite happy to give us the wrong measurements to focus on[4]<\/a> While the church can learn from business principles, it should always use them as secondary principles to our theological understanding(s). Meaning a business model of leadership will lean towards numerical growth as the ultimate goal is to increase revenue. The church, on the other hand, the ultimate goal is to help people become disciples of Christ or grow people. The former can tend to focus solely on growing the organization to the expense of growing the people in the organization. Percy writes, “churches need healthy growth that is appropriate, and the affirmation of their size and shape is acceptable, even if it does not come close to the idealized models offered[5]<\/a> The church was never about a comparison to each other but completion in Christ. While we all fight the comparison disease, maybe the good physician <\/em>is prescribing a healthy dose of reality and humility that he is the builder of the church, and we are his helpers.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> “Book Review: Emma Percy, ‘What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks like Nothing.'” Brigid, Fox, and Buddha. July 25, 2014. Accessed May 30, 2019. https:\/\/brigidfoxandbuddha.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/25\/book-review-emma-percy-what-clergy-do-especially-when-it-looks-like-nothing\/.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>.” Warbrick, David. \u201cEmma Percy, What Clergy Do, Especially When It Looks like Nothing.\u201d Theology 118, no. 5 (September 2015): 391\u201393. http:\/\/doi:10.1177\/0040571X15588878aa.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>.”\u00a0 <\/sup>Emma Percy,\u00a0What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks like Nothing<\/em>, (London: SPCK, 2014), 154.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>.” Jason Clark Ph.D., Spirituality of Measuring <\/em>Plenary Session, Hong Kong Advance 2018.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>.”\u00a0 Emma Percy,\u00a0What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks like Nothing<\/em>, (London: SPCK, 2014), 155.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In What Clergy Do, Especially When It Looks Like Nothing, Emma Percy drawing on her Ph.D. work and experience as a priest describes the life and work of modern-day priest using the model and language of motherhood. Many reviewers were aptly aware of the parallels between Percy\u2019s work and that of Naomi Stadlen\u2019s saying, \u201cthe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[1520,1322,1541,1538],"class_list":["post-23115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-mystery-thriller","tag-church-growth","tag-lgp9","tag-spirit-led-leadership","tag-what-clergy-do","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23123,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115\/revisions\/23123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}