Dialogs on Integration in Ministry
In April 2007 Joy Anderson facilitated two days of conversation convened by Dr. Herbert Anderson and Dr. Edward Foley, Capuchin, on the topic of ministerial integration. The conversations took place in Chicago with a group of gifted theologians and ministers who embody integration. These conversations helped launch and effort between Dr. Anderson and Dr. Foley to co-author a book on the subject of integration, digging into questions such as the following:
- What is ministerial integration?
- How does it develop?
- How much can be achieved before leaving seminary?
- What impedes it?
- How does it change as we move through ministry?
All of these are questions both authors have explored in a variety of venues, and the writing project proceeded after the meetings with ongoing literature review, further interviews and research.
Integration is a fascinating topic for study, as examining it brings you to questions about how beliefs, morality, and values work in context, and in the real world. Even after years of ministry and teaching, Dr. Anderson said in 2004:
“[when] I retired… in 2001 and became a practicing pastor again, attending to human and divine stories became my daily work again… I have become painfully aware that walking along with someone who is dying or in despair or floundering in their faith or fearful of love is always more complex than our best theories. What has been most difficult in a parish context is to make tangible the connections between care and education and preaching and worship. Even when we have been clear about a wholistic view of the human person, we have had a compartmentalized view of ministry.”
Joy’s work with Dr. Anderson, Dr. Foley, and their invited colleagues lead them through examination of questions connected to what happens if integration is approached as a process rather than a product. The authors went into these conversations with the belief that the whole range of partners in theological enterprise could expand their capacity for integration in direct relationship to the support integration receives through the whole system from top to bottom.
Publication of Dr. Anderson and Dr. Foley’s book is anticipated in Fall of 2009.