Prep 4 Min
About this blog
The Rev. Timothy Cargal, Ph.D., serves as Assistant Stated Clerk for Preparation for Ministry in Mid Council Ministries of the Office of the General Assembly.
“... the Land that I Will Show You” is the blog of the Office of Preparation for Ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This blog is designed to serve as a resource for those discerning and preparing for a call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament as ordained teaching elders of the church. It will also provide a place for reflecting on and dialoging about the changing context of pastoral ministry in the early 21st century.
For quick announcements about changes or developments in the preparation process, dates related to exams or other key events, discussion boards, surveys, etc., you can follow us on Facebook at “Preparing for Presbyterian Ministry.”
Recent posts
- Clarification of Evaluation Standards for the Standard Ordination Exams
- BCE Preparation Resource Released
- PCC Responds to September 2016 BCE
- PCC Letter on BCE Preparation
- Bible Content Exam Results
Categories
- Ordination Process (34)
- Ordination Exams (30)
- Ministry Context (16)
- Ordained Ministry (8)
- Bible study (2)
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Archives
Emotional Intelligence in Ministry
This fall the Office of Vocation has been partnering with the Center for EQ-HR Skills in a very small-scale study of the use of instruments that assess “Emotional Intelligence” with ministers and those preparing for ministry as teaching elders to promote awareness of how these skills contribute to leadership effectiveness.
As summarized by Daniel Goleman, one of the early and leading figures in this field, emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing one’s own feelings and those of others, for motivating one’s self, for managing emotions well in one’s self and in one’s relationships with others. The interrelationship between these capacities is often presented as interactions between four quadrants:
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Self |
Others |
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Awareness |
Self- Awareness |
Social Awareness |
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Actions |
Self- Management |
Relationship Management |
Those who have worked in this field emphasize that emotions play a much greater role in determining actions than we generally “think”; that is, culturally we emphasize the role of the intellect and rational thought in actions, but no actions happen apart from emotional input. They will cite a clinical case where an individual who literally had the connections between the emotional (limbic) and rational (neocortex) centers of the brain severed as a result of surgery could lay out all the possible options but was unable to decide upon a course of action from among them.
Research in this area has shown that while one’s intellect (intelligence quotient, or “IQ”) is the strongest predictor of what field or occupation someone will enter, it is not the best predictor of success within a particular field. If people lack the intellectual capacity to handle the “cognitive complexity” required in certain jobs that place high demands on specialized knowledge or training in advanced technical skills, then they will not be hired for those positions. But once a person enters a profession the strongest predictor of success and/or leadership is emotional intelligence (or “EQ”) because solid performance depends on how well people handle themselves and their relationships with others.
Given the highly interpersonal nature of ministry, it makes sense that emotional intelligence would be a key factor in effectiveness in pastoral and other ministry contexts. And the good news is that EQ—unlike IQ that is generally considered fixed within a limited range for each person—can be increased by focused attention on different dimensions of our self-awareness and self-management and of how we attend to the emotional cues in our interactions with others.
Our study is looking at whether a particular tool for assessing EQ can help those engaged in ministry to understand better their own ministry effectiveness and identify areas for growth that would strengthen their ministry. My question here is, What do you think? How would you rate the relative importance of IQ and EQ in ministry? Would having a clinically established tool for assessing EQ be a useful addition to personality inventories and intelligence tests that are currently widely used in the discernment of gifts among those under care in the preparation for ministry process?
September 27, 2012
Updated "Advisory Handbook" Available
Several actions taken by the General Assembly this past summer affect the preparation for ministry process. In conjunction with the annual “Polity Conference” the first week of October, we are releasing an updated version of the Advisory Handbook on Preparing for Ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This edition also includes new materials in response to requests for expanded treatment of some topics. “Release 1.3” of the 2011/2013 handbook is now available for download from our website. In all, six sections in the “Walking the Road Together” chapter of the Handbook have been updated. In order of their appearance …- Posted at 2:42 p.m.
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September 14, 2012
Of Carts and Horses
One of the great questions now before the church concerns how it relates to its changing cultural context, and the types of leaders and forms of leadership needed to bring to reality a new relationship between church and culture. In this post I want to look at one particular aspect of that question—the relationship between leaders and institutional change—and whether we are in some ways "putting the cart before the horse." I recently finished reading Diana Butler Bass's book, Christianity after Religion (San Francisco: Harper One, 2012). One of the key analytical structures utilized in the book is the study …- Posted at 4:21 p.m.
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August 31, 2012
"Early results are in..."
Well, the candidates have finished the first round of online testing for the senior ordination exams, and on the whole the early reviews have been very positive. That is not to say that there were not some problems or that there is no room for improvement.- Posted at 3:15 p.m.
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August 20, 2012
Countdown to Online Exam Launch
I’m using this post to encourage those who follow this blog to help us get the word out about two very important things related to the online ordination exams at the end of this week. We have sent this information via email to everyone registered for the exams, but not everyone is diligent in checking their email. Beyond that, specialists in advertising say that getting a message across requires multiple exposures in multiple formats. So if you or someone you know will be taking ordination exams on Friday and Saturday, I hope you will reinforce this message. Here is "The …- Posted at 5:25 p.m.
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