Supervision with a Twist

I’d like to share a good news story of how an idea that was shared over coffee in Bathurst one day in 2020 with several Uniting Church folks, has become a source of support for leaders in some rural communities, resourced by UME Vital Leadership. In March 2020 the Macquarie Darling Presbytery decided to form a small number of pastoral support groups for Lay leaders in rural congregations, led by trained professional pastoral supervisors. This is a modified form of group supervision.

They called these ‘Pastoral Partners’ with the purpose of providing pastoral support to lay leaders in congregations where there were no paid ministry leaders. This was funded through a grant from the Moderator’s drought appeal for a one year trial. Rev. Jan Reeve Supervision Development Officer in the Vital leadership team facilitated these discussions with Denise Wood, Julie Fry, and the MDP Ministry and Standing committees. The first group began in September 2020 on Zoom and included three lay people and Rev. Reeve as the facilitating Supervisor.

The groups met five times per year for two hours each time with each member bringing issues to share from their local church settings. The purpose and hopes for the group was:-

• to provide pastoral support and reflection on key issues facing them in their congregations
• a confidential space to share challenges and critical incidents that may have arisen for debrief
• to enable support and collegial connection to prevent isolation and to share resources that are useful for leadership in worship, pastoral care and spiritual reflection.

In 2021, three more groups began and an evaluation was done at the end of that year to consider the benefits and consider their continuity. A fifth group began in 2022. The feedback was very positive from the members including the benefit of being able to speak about local issues with someone outside the church and Presbytery setting in confidence. Whilst their needs were all different with some having no paid ministry leadership and others having some paid leadership, they found that by sharing together they understood each other’s challenges better. They had someone with fresh eyes to see, hear and help them to reflect on the challenges especially when they felt overwhelmed by their workload.

Another benefit was that they shared and received resources for worship, pastoral care and during the lockdowns, it was invaluable to get ideas about ways to support their people. They could share faith perspectives, think and talk through issues with others who cared and discuss conflict issues. The facilitating Supervisors were highly appreciated for the pastoral support they brought and their capacity to enable the members to listen and reflect. All participants felt they had grown in their leadership capacity, felt more confident in worship leading and better understood the ethos of the Uniting Church.

UME has provided some funds to continue these leadership support groups and five continue at this time. Our hope is that this model could be made available to people in other rural/ regional presbyteries and we are very open to further discussions with presbyteries and the Regional partnership across the wider church.

We see this as part of our Synod’s commitment in its ‘Future Directions’ priorities to support the Rural and Regional church. Some of my time will continue to be allocated to supporting these groups and providing additional supervisors for new groups as they begin and connecting with other presbyteries who would like to participate.

For more information, contact Jan Reeve at janr@nswact.uca.org.au   

Vital leadership will also feature an interactive  day about group supervision with Rev. Dr Michael Paterson on Monday 23 October, from 9:30am to 4pm at the Centre for Ministry. See the Synod Event Hub for details.

Jan Reeve
Supervision Development Officer
Uniting Mission & Education