Supervising - or Pastoring - the difference matters

Good morning God,
Can you please explain to me why the Church feels the need to Supervise its ministers rather than provide them with Pastoral Care?
When I worked in industry, when I employed people with job descriptions and measurable outcomes and provided a foot in the door for young people on YTS or BTEC or similar programmes, supervision meant comparing expected measurable outcomes against achieved outcomes.
If the company expected 20 units a day to be tested or put through quality control and the person being supervised only managed 15, then we could have a conversation about whatever it was that was causing the difference.  Supervision allowed the person being supervised to compare how they thought they were doing  to how the company thought they were doing. It allowed us to identify future training needs and to give praise where praise was due.
Supervision was always a two way process - but I was never under any illusions about which way power was slanted: as the employer, it was the supervisors assessment of the area under supervision that mattered - not the employee's. We could talk all we liked, and I was always open to hearing constructive criticism about the working of the company - but in the end - it was not the company that was being supervised. This is what made it perfectly possible and acceptable for employees to be supervised by  line-managers and a member of the Human Resources team - both of whom could be (and often were)  less experienced and less knowledgeable about the actual work being done by the employee than the employee was.  They had taken a course in supervision - and it really didn't matter what the employee thought. Supervision was never about a relationship of equals, or even first among equals. Super-vision implies that the person conducting the interview has greater ability to 'see' what has been and needs to be done than the person being supervised.(i.e. seen by this superior vision)

My first Superintendent was a senior minister, someone who had spent their entire life in the service of the Church. He knew the joys and the sorrows of circuit ministry. He knew what it was like to be loved into the work, and what it was like to love the work in spite of those you are called to serve. He didn't 'supervise' my probation - he provided genuine pastoral care: Honesty where it was needed, advice where it was asked for, and support and encouragement to develop and grow further. He walked with me, not once a year at a staged supervision - but weekly as we met in staff meetings. I learned and grew as a minister by listening to my colleagues discussing ministry, by sharing in prayer and learning how to be open and not possessive or defensive about my own calling, We shared the contents of our diaries and watched over one another in love. He inspired me, by his pastoral care of me,  to become all that I could be in your service God - even though my own particular gifts and graces were very different from his. The only power at work in all this that I was ever conscious of, was your power God.

The Church's most recent vote of no confidence in its circuit ministers means that we are set to turn Superintendents into line-managers and supervisors. At a stroke we deny the theology of pastoral care which once meant so much to us and create a sub-structure of the Church in direct contradiction with one of the most fundamental aspects of circuit ministry - collegiality. As a line manager and the person designated to conduct the annual supervision, the Superintendent ceases to be a colleague, a fellow minister, the 'first among equals' described in the 'What is a superintendent' report. Instead the Superintendent becomes the boss, the record keeper of a minister's attempts to measure up to some unwritten 'measurable outcomes' of ministry - and the (potentially unqualified) judge of their performance. So who will pastor to the pastors - because supervision is NOT pastoral care. There is nothing 'pastoral' in supervision, nothing 'gracious' or deliberately of you God - supervision is a performance indicator - nothing more and nothing less. And I doubt that it will be too long before annual supervision reports are held in the new personnel files for ministers.


I hate to think that I will end my ministry outside of the discipline of my Church - but I object to the very idea of being 'supervised' in the manner currently being proposed. I am opposed to it on both theological and practical grounds.  Will I reflect on my ministry - of course, I have been and always will be a reflective practitioner: will I do so with my Superintendent as part of a formal, recorded annual supervision of my 'performance' in the Church - I very much doubt it. Why not - because it may be good management - but its just not good pastoral ministry. 

I am happy to reflect on my ministry with an experienced practitioner and spiritual director and to then share those reflections with colleagues in staff meetings as part of our pastoral care of one another. I am happy to be held accountable to my colleagues and to the Circuit meeting for the conduct of my ministry - isn't that what circuit ministry is?


I do understand why the Church feels that it needs to introduce supervision - its a neat, tried and tested way to bring employees to heel and maintain discipline amongst the work force. It allows the managers to set standards and outcomes and task the workforce to ensure that those outcomes are achieved to the desired standard.

And it's so tempting to think that that will solve our problems out in circuit. There can be no denying that we do have a problem, the increase year upon year in discipline cases tells its own sorry story - as do the terrifying tales of abuse of care in circuits. But am I alone in wanting to challenge the very idea that something that so completely undermines the theology and value of circuit ministry and the collegiality of ministry is the best answer we can come up with? Make no mistake, I believe it is important that ministers do reflect and are held accountable for their ministry: But is 'Supervision' by the superintendent really the best way to achieve this?

If, as a Church we have problems with discipline - then why not deal with the root cause of it.
Might our problems be caused by the practice of sectional instead of circuit ministry? We now actively encourage the idea that the minister is assigned to a Church or Churches rather than to a circuit as part of a circuit team.  Is this because we are too 'busy' or unwilling to practice 'circuit ministry - to meet regularly - to spend time in prayer and conversation with one another - to watch over one another in love - and yes, that does mean censure one another where appropriate?
 
On second thoughts God - perhaps the Church is right - it's just so much easier and neater to supervise staff once a year..
after all - who needs pastoral care?