My denomination, the Evangelical Congregational Church (ECC), has something I love called the Pastoral Assessment Center (PAC). The PAC is one of the early steps a pastoral couple or single attends on the road to becoming a licensed pastor in the ECC.
When my wife and I started at Faith Church in October 2002, I was hired as Youth/Associate Pastor. But I was not yet a pastor in the ECC. I was solely a Faith Church employee.
A few months later, January 2003, Michelle and I attended PAC, hoping we could move forward in the process to become an EC pastor. At PAC, current EC pastors and leaders serve as assessors. In 2003, we were assessees, and the assessors were assessing us, to see if we were pastoral material. Many years later, Michelle and I would serve as assessors for a few years at PAC.
The PAC environment is quite fascinating, as assessees know their every move is being watched and evaluated. And not just in the formal interview sessions. Assessors observe assessees when they are eating, relaxing, and talking in the hallway. Assessors only have a few days, so they want to glean as much information as they can about the assessees. Assessors have a big decision to make. Will this person be given the green light to move forward in the process of becoming an EC pastor, or not?
As you can imagine, then, PAC is an intense environment. When you know you are being watched, it feels heavy, emotional, like you can’t let down. What if you say the wrong thing? Will you not be allowed to become a pastor? Your mind is racing. That high stakes environment can be exhausting.
Maybe it is because we got a good result from PAC, but when Michelle and I were being assessed in 2003, we came away from the event feeling cared for. I know that is not always the case, especially when a person doesn’t get the result they want.
I tell you about PAC to ask you how you might feel if you were being assessed. Not to become a pastor, though. Instead, how would you feel if your pattern of discipleship to Jesus was being assessed? What result would you get in your discipleship evaluation?
This coming week on the blog, we’ll all be assessed, kind of. How so? I’m starting a new preaching series through the New Testament book of 1stThessalonians. In chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, Paul gives the Christians in the town of Thessalonica the result of a discipleship assessment. Is it good news? Bad news? How are the Thessalonian Christians doing as disciples of Jesus? Check it out ahead of time and see for yourself. Then join me back here on Monday, as Paul’s words will help us have an evaluation of our practice of discipleship to Jesus.
Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash
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