Each year, 18 pastors are invited to participate in an experience of deep listening to God, themselves and each other. Pastors report life-changing experiences of connection and deep renewal, such as the comment below:

“Spending time in safe and vulnerable community with others who have had similar experiences in the unique vocation of pastoral ministry has been such a fruitful experience – the hours of prayer together with the sisters, the time being held in sacred conversation and listening, the space for renewing the soul feeding practices of our tradition. Sacred listening and stillness of soul – the intentional quieting of my mind so that I am able to listen – are all practices I will take with me.”

Participation in the cohort involves:

• A one-year commitment to the Contemplative Renewal experience.
• Serving a congregation within a 4-5 hour drive of the monastery.
• Attendance at three residential retreats at Holy Wisdom Monastery:
  • Summer 2023 – Opening Retreat – July 10-17, 2023
  • Winter 2024 – January 18-24, 2024
  • Summer 2024 – Closing Retreat – June 17-20, 2024
• Attending additional offerings of day-long, in-person and online gatherings and ongoing Lectio Divina groups and Centering Prayer.

Additional program requirements:

Participants will be invited through an application process. This is open to those who:

• Currently serve as an ordained pastor of a Christian congregation.
• Hold a Master of Divinity or equivalent graduate degree from an accredited Seminary or Pastoral Ministry Program.
• Have approximately 3-15 years of experience in ministry since graduation and ordination.
• Are able to participate in the full scope of the year-long program – both the onsite and ongoing community.
• Can assess their experience of spiritual renewal over the course of the year.

Applications will be received from October 15 – December 31, 2022. Please share this information with pastors who might be interested.

The post Seeking pastors for the next ECCSR cohort appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Middleton, WI—The Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR) offers Christian pastors contemplative renewal experiences into the monastic rhythms of Holy Wisdom Monastery, and an ongoing community of resources and support. As the ECCSR begins its fourth year of bringing experiences of contemplative renewal to early and mid-career clergy, it is blessed to announce that The Rev. Dr. Scott Stoner will begin his work as a co-director of the Center.

“I was blessed to have been on the planning team for the ECCSR and have been a small part of the cohort programming from the beginning. Thus, I know firsthand what a gem this program is and how fully it meets the deeply felt need so many clergy have for spiritual renewal. I see my new work with the ECCSR as a Spirit-inspired next step as it provides for the opportunity to integrate the national work that I have been doing with the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Ministry for the last 12 years. To have the opportunity to come alongside and work with Nancy Enderle (the other co-director) and the communities of Holy Wisdom Monastery is a dream come true for me. The excitement I feel about this opportunity is matched only by the immense gratitude I feel for this opportunity to support the well-being of clergy and the people they serve,” explained Scott Stoner.

Scott has served the community for almost 40 years of ordained ministry (Episcopal) as both
a pastor and a marriage and family therapist. His passion in ministry is the integration of spirituality, healing and wellness, with a special emphasis on clergy wellness and creating resources for use in local congregations. In addition to his coaching and counseling work, he also served as a senior pastor of a congregation in the Milwaukee, WI area from 2001-2008.

He is the founder of the Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Ministry, a national wellness ministry that creates and provides a wide range of educational and small-group resources for adults, teens, parents and congregations. From 2013-2020 Scott led wellness retreats and trainings for clergy and laypeople at the Nicholas Center in Chicago, and now looks forward to integrating that work into the work of the ECCSR at Holy Wisdom Monastery.

“The ECCSR has always been a Spirit-led endeavor since the time it was conceived in 2018, through the recent successful completion of the second cohort of pastors from across the country. It is no surprise that the Spirit nudged Scott Stoner to Holy Wisdom Monastery at precisely the right time. Scott’s tremendous gifts and depth of leadership in ministerial service are the perfect match to continue to expand the work of the ECCSR. The opportunity to combine the strengths of two, highly successful, programs with national and international reputations will empower both Living Compass and the ECCSR to have broader and deeper impact in our collective efforts to help clergy thrive in ministry,” explained Holy Wisdom Monastery’s CEO Charles McLimans.

“I am excited to shape the next chapter of this important work with Scott. He brings wonderful skills and a deep contemplative heart for helping pastors,” said The Rev. Nancy Enderle who has served the ECCSR as co-director since 2019.

Holy Wisdom Monastery is a retreat and meeting center and Benedictine monastery in Middleton, WI that is open to all. The monastery, established in 1953 is home to a Community of Communities, including the Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR) which was started with a Lilly Endowment grant. The mission of weaving prayer, hospitality, justice and care for the earth into a shared way of life is lived out by all of the communities at the monastery. Holy Wisdom Monastery also offers spirituality experiences and environmental education programs throughout the year, prairie restoration volunteer opportunities and Christian church services every Sunday. More information on Holy Wisdom Monastery and the ECCSR is available on their website at HolyWisdomMonastery.org or by calling 608-836-1631.

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When asked what first attracted her to Holy Wisdom, oblate and volunteer Phyllis Lobdell shares, “It’s the quiet and contemplative nature. What I was really attracted to when I read about it on the website was the Benedictine spirituality and having a certain rhythm to your life. And also kind of being accountable to a community.” Phyllis was living in Illinois at the time and became a regular retreatant at the monastery. Over time, she got to know the sisters and became an oblate candidate and started thinking to herself, “You know someday I’ll just move up there.” And so she did. 

Shortly after moving to Middleton in 2013, Sister Joanne Kollasch invited Phyllis to volunteer.  So she took an opening at the reception desk, working Wednesdays from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.  In between welcoming visitors and answering phone calls, Phyllis also helped the coworkers put together fundraising materials for the Wisdom Prairie project. “I enjoy being able to relieve a staff member from having to place a thousand stamps or stuff envelopes. There’s this welcoming and appreciation by the coworkers. It helps you feel like you belong, and if you make a mistake, it’s okay. You feel good when you’re helping someone, and then you get to go home at the end of the day!” she laughs. 

Phyllis also shares her talents as a qigong instructor each morning with the Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR) pastors during their annual immersion at Holy Wisdom. Qigong is a practice of coordinated movements, breathing and balance that encourages practitioners to focus internally and manage their thoughts and bodies. A lifelong learner and educator, Phyllis gained certification as a shiatsu practitioner and qigong instructor after retiring from a career that spanned kindergarten classrooms, Air Force training, and federal education standards.

Since 2013, Phyllis has only missed a handful of Wednesdays at the front desk, tracking more than 1,600 hours of volunteering. She also serves on the Oblate Formation Circle and the Beacon of Benedictine Spirituality task force. “When you contribute some little thing, you just feel more a part of it, which has been really valuable to me. Working with others and on these task forces, you learn more about yourself and the monastery and its direction. You get to be a part of something bigger. And as Sister Joanne has often told us in the Oblate community, ‘Benedictine spirituality is not taught, it’s caught.’ So just being here, you get to inhale the Benedictine spirituality; the silence, the joy, the sisters, eating lunch. It’s just nice.”

Thank you, Phyllis!

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Where can pastors and clergy leaders go for spiritual renewal and support? Being a leader in a faith tradition isn’t easy, and it can sometimes be difficult to find peers with the same calling. This need for connection and community naturally led to the formation of one of the newest communities at Holy Wisdom Monastery: The Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR).

Join us in this inspiring dive into the creation and meaning of the ECCSR experience with co-directors Reverend Nancy Enderle and Reverend Jerry Buss.

Where to Listen?

You can listen to The Holy Wisdom Podcast at any of these online locations:

Our Blog, under the “Podcast” Category

Anchor.fm

Apple Podcasts

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Spotify

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The post ‘A Space for Clergy Renewal,’ The Holy Wisdom Podcast appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

The co-directors arrival culminates the work of more than 16 volunteers, many of them oblates, who served on the Lilly Foundation Inc. grant writing team and the search team to find the co-directors.

The new co-directors are Reverend Jerry Buss and Reverend Nancy Enderle.

Jerry Buss is an ordained Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) clergyperson who, across 30 years, pastored three congregations in Washington state and served as a judicatory leader in the NW Washington Synod of the ELCA. While working for the synod he guided the development of 15 new church starts, supervised clergy engaged in new innovative ministries, designed quarterly support gatherings of first-call and multi-cultural clergy, and collaboratively started a coaching and mentoring ministry for clergy and lay leaders.

Jerry says—

“In my heart-of-hearts, I know how important spiritual renewal is for clergy. My knowledge begins with my own experience and need for renewal. After many years as a pastor, my renewal journey began with a contemplative-based, emotional intelligence intensive. A few years later, my sabbatical included training and practice in both centering prayer and mindfulness. This helped me establish these practices in my daily life and to maintain them as I returned to my work. Trusting that God can bring new life out of impossible situations is a trust that the Holy Spirit has shaped within me. I am energized to start new things, where the Spirit guides and with the skills I’ve been given.”

Jerry and his wife, Darlene, moved from Seattle, Washington to Madison, Wisconsin in 2018 to be near their new grandson.

Nancy Enderle, an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) clergyperson, pastored congregations in Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York and served as Interim Executive Director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians where she guided the work of a national movement toward inclusion and ordination of LGBTQ Presbyterians in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She leads retreats and workshops nationally, and in 2018 completed the Living School program from the Center for Action and Contemplation, where she was introduced to transformative teachings about contemplation and spiritual practices by Father Richard Rohr, Dr. James Finley, and The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault.

Nancy says—

“In 35 years of ordained ministry, I have witnessed and experienced the exhilarating sense of purpose that grows out of a call to serve God, as well as the sometimes soul-crushing weight of the demands and requirements of religious leadership. Key words of the ECCSR speak to what I value most in my ministry: Ecumenical points to the movement of the Spirit to unify us and create a new vision for Christ’s church in an age when so many are leaving organized religion; Center indicates that this is a place of gathering—not defined by a particular tradition; Spiritual is at the heart of attending to the transforming, indwelling presence of God’s living Spirit; and Renewal highlights the ever-present possibility of God’s Spirit breathing life back into us when we have run out of ideas and our activities leave us exhausted.”

Nancy and her husband, Gordon, live in Madison, Wisconsin. They have two children in college.

Please stop by Nancy and Jerry’s office beside the Garden Room in the Retreat & Guest House and introduce yourself!

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