I heard Granger Westberg
speak long before I met him. It was the late 1960s, and he was back to speak at
the Lutheran church in Bloomington, IL where he had pastored before he became
famous as a chaplain/professor/innovator who did ministry in medicine.
In his speech, he told of
how he had learned of the need for continuing education [CE] for pastors by
watching how doctors continued to learn. Indeed, you could not stay in good
medical standing if you did not acquire CE credits. He proposed to form an Academy
of Parish Clergy [APC], modeled on the American Association of Family
Physicians, in which clergy would have to accrue regularly a certain number of CE
units to be in good standing.
I was bereft, because I
really wanted to be a member, and I would not be eligible.
I would not be eligible
for APC because I was not parish clergy. Westberg was clear about that. He said
that the real experts in parish ministry were those who practiced it, and that
they could learn a great deal from one another by sharing that practice. If,
however, they admitted seminary and college professors, and denominational
officials, and chaplains and other ordained people who were not actually parish
clergy, those worthies would take over, because the church thought preachers
could learn from anyone who was not a preacher but had nothing of educational
value to contribute to other clergy, or to anybody else. So to be sure that did
not happen, only real working clergy could be members.
I had been a preacher, a
parish pastor, for eight years, but I was then a campus minister, and when I
finished my master’s in communication theory at IL State, where I was Director
of The Wesley Foundation, and got a doctorate in theology at Iowa, and applied communication
theory to theological methodology to create my own narrative theology, I
planned to be a seminary preaching professor.
I knew, though, that I
needed to be in the company of every-Sunday preachers as much as possible, to
keep being renewed in what those folks needed to learn to be good preachers.
APC seemed like a good way to stay in touch with real preachers, but I would be
the very type the APC would be most unwilling to accept.
In addition to needing to
relate to preachers as a professor of preaching, I just loved the company of
other preachers, the “goodly fellowship of the prophets.” I felt so blessed to
be in the company of thoughtful, educated, compassionate, open-minded men-all
men then-who took Christian faith seriously, not just culturally.
Those weren’t just
“liberal” preachers. I knew many pastors who were conservative, and several who
were fundamentalist. We disagreed about “taking the Bible literally,” but not
about being Christians literally. They insisted on the literal interpretation
of the virgin birth and the resurrection, but also on the literal
interpretation of “feed the hungry” and “clothe the naked.” We were in one
accord on Christian behavior, and that was before Hondas even made it to the
USA. [1] We were denominational then, but not tribal, as we are now.
I recall having coffee one
afternoon with one of my conservative friends. He almost cried when he told me
he had just learned that people called him and his ilk “fundies.” He was proud
to be a fundamentalist, but he thought “fundy” was disrespectful. I told him I
thought so, too, and vowed to myself to stop saying it.
Things did not go as I
planned, of course. I had some chances to be on a seminary staff for
administration, but nobody wanted me as a preaching professor. I went back to
parish ministry. The good thing about that was, I got to join APC! I became a
Fellow. I was even the President for a term. The sharing of the practice and
the fellowship were even better than I had thought they would be!
Not long before I retired,
we had an APC Midwest Chapter meeting at Grace Lutheran in River Forest, IL.
That was always exciting, because F. Dean Lueking was the pastor there, and his
presence made any meeting better. That particular day, though, it was more
exciting than usual, because Granger Westberg himself was there. He was retired
and living in Willowbrook, after a distinguished career in which he pioneered
almost everything having to do with pastoral care and holistic medicine in
hospitals, including creating the parish nurse program, with almost three thousand
parish nurses in practice by that time.
We had a lively discussion
that day, doing case studies of situations in the parish, in which we helped
one another see better ways to deal with certain practical pastoral concerns in
our congregations. Granger pulled me aside afterward to say that he was much
impressed with my insights and would like to get to know me better. He asked me
to come see him some time. I doubt that I was all that impressive. I think he
was just lonely.
I thought that it would be
great to visit him, though. I was honored. Talk about continuing education,
with Granger, himself?! It would not have been hard to do it. I lived only a
couple of hours south of Chicago. I was able to drive fast and long in those
days. But I never got around to it.
I was still recovering
from cancer. I was getting ready to retire. Whenever I had opportunity to leave
town, I went south rather than north, to see my granddaughter in Alabama. Then
she moved to Iowa and I retired so I could move there, too.
I don’t regret at all
going to see Brigid, ever. But I do regret that I did not make time to see
Granger Westberg. When you are no longer the innovator and enabler, people
honor you but they don’t pay much attention to you. He had read my cancer book
and thought we would be on the same wavelength. I’m sure he was right.
Now I am Granger Westberg.
Nobody wants my advice. Nobody pays attention to me. Personally, I find that
refreshing. It takes a big load off. I need to pay attention to myself, not
some young whippersnapper in his fifties. I hope Granger felt the same way.
JRMcF
johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com
1] Preacher joke: Honda is
the Biblical car because “the apostles were all in one accord.” [Acts 2:1]
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