There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense, February 2002

Poetry it aint. But buried beneath Rumsfield's mangled language is a truth - sometimes we don't even know what we don't know.

Ministry development is like that.

Ten years out of college, I still meet with some of the guys (and one of the girls) in my year. This year we're swapping stories of lessons learned in a decade of ministry in the Diocese. In our first session someone spoke about the need to keep recognising new areas of incompetence.

Ministry development is the ongoing commitment to learning which addresses freshly discovered fields of incompetence.

You come out of college (hopefully) with a solid biblical and theological foundation for a lifetime of ministry. It's not that you know everything. For most people, college is a humbling experience. A friend of mine described leaving college "believing less than he did when he came in, but being more persuaded of the things he did believe."

Sitting under God's word should leave you humbled but also confident - if God speaks then we must listen, but also be careful to speak his Word.

Learning can't stop when you graduate. I'm not saying that everyone should go on to Masters etc. I am saying you have to keep reading and praying and thinking and learning. Wardens should encourage their ministry staff to be doing just that.

But there is also a need to grow in (for want of a better phrase) 'professional ministerial competence.' This happens naturally when you leave college - you have to bury people, you meet people for baptisms, you make grand mistakes and grand plans. For a little while the diocese has its claws in you - forcing you through some form of compulsory ministry training and development. Most people resent anything compulsory and learn too little from it. The truth is you actually will need to learn more than what is on offer.

Most of us at college had dreams of heading out and just spending all out time in the ministry of the word and prayer. And while you have to fight tooth and nail to keep that central to what you do, there are a thousand other things you'll need to learn which are vital for ministry.

Here is a short list (you could add to it) of things the average College grad won't know a lot about:

  1. Financial Literacy - the church budget is an expression of the things you value and are planning towards - you need to be able to read it
  2. Diocesan Bureaucracy - there is a system, you need to know how to work within it
  3. Synod - if you don't make a contribution to Synod then don't complain about what gets decided
  4. Leadership - how do you lead a complex team which is mostly made up of 'part time' unpaid volunteers? How do you help lead a church to reform?
  5. Missiology - how do you apply the insights of missiology to the parish in which you serve?
  6. Depression and mental illness - how do you help people suffering depression and mental illness? Yes, this is taught in part but the overwhelming extent of it is news to many
  7. Property Management - how do you work with wardens and others in the management of complex and expensive property matters?
  8. Strategic Planning and Project Management? How do you move from good ideas to implementation?
  9. Team leadership - how do you look after those in your ministry team? What biblical, professional and legal responsiblities do you have?
  10. Technology - the internet has changed a lot of ministry practice - are you keeping up?

You can become competent in these areas by different means - learning along the way, from others, reading in the local libray, doing something like the Arrow Leadership or TEDS Doctorate in Ministry.

But the starting point has to be Rumsfeld's insight - there are unknown unknowns. We must therefore do what we can to get competence where we spot the deficits, but also keep figuring out what we need to know next.