By Ed Thompson

What are your goals for this year? Here are mine:

1. Strengthen the relationship between congregations and the presbytery by worshiping with the 19 largest churches in the presbytery (since they have more than half the membership of the whole presbytery) as well as with at least 5 congregations I have not worshipped with before.

That’s almost exactly the same goal I set last year, though I did cut back from 10 to 5 the number of churches I have not worshipped with before that I hope to visit because there’s still a lot of uncertainty over when we will be able to safely return to in-person worship. I believe this still needs to be the highest priority for my work.

Last year, I worshipped with 47 different churches in this presbytery, although I was only at 18 of them for an in-person service. I don’t want to say that a worship service that’s done online isn’t worship because I don’t believe that. It is different, though, and sometimes the only way a church knows that I’ve worshipped with them online is when they get a check in the mail, which represents part of my weekly tithe.

When I worship with a church in person and I’m not preaching, I usually send an email or call the pastor or clerk of session to let them know that I’m going to be there because I don’t want them to be surprised or worry that I am showing up because something’s going on. I’ll plan to give that same heads-up when I’m going to attend an online service too.

2. Provide pastoral care and support to the ministers of the presbytery by continuing the Pastoral Leaders’ Zoom Gatherings (shifting to twice a month from the weekly schedule of last year), meeting with new pastors to the presbytery, and connecting with pastors in stressful situations. Again, I think this is an important priority for my work. I’ve also been thinking that I could start calling two pastors a week, just to check in.

3. Help churches in transition find good pastors by meeting with Pastor Nominating Committees as requested to provide training in the search process, developing scripts of the training I typically do, and having a Committee on Ministry member join me for each of these trainings.

This is one of the things I love to do. However, since I have been doing it for more than 25 years, it has dawned on me that I won’t be doing it forever, which is why it’s important for me to get down in writing the things I typically say. That’s also why it’s important to be more intentional about having a member of the Committee on Ministry with me on these trainings so that they can experience how I do them.

4. Provide guidance for the work of the staff by holding staff meetings twice a month during the duration of the pandemic and scheduling a staff retreat when it is safe to do so in order to brainstorm what we need to do differently and how we can be helpful to our churches in light of the new reality.

5. Encourage anti-racism training by reporting to the Leadership Team Retreat on options for anti-racism training, scheduling anti-racism training for the staff, attending the Leadership Toolbox course on anti-racism, and attending the White Privilege Conference currently scheduled for April 7-11, 2021.

This has been a growing edge for me this past year in terms of the reading I’ve done and in terms of my own awareness. Even though some may claim this is not really an issue for us in West Virginia because of the demographics of our state, I think this is an issue the church needs to address. I plan to continue working on this and might even lead another book study on this topic for the presbytery.

For the most part, these goals are measurable, although most of them don’t have a specific enough timeline, so they could be smarter. I’ve written them down on a half sheet of paper, which I keep next to my computer in the office. I need to make a copy of them so that they’re next to me when I’m working from home so that I’ll be reminded of them every day.

Without goals, we end up drifting through life. Goals allow us to focus on what’s important and what will make the biggest difference in our work. Where do you want to be at the end of this year? What goals can you set to help you get there?