John Louk

The chapel at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary was packed. It was brimming with all the excitement of graduation Day, June 3, 1994. Commencement was still a few hours away. Senior chapel was just beginning, and I had been asked to preach. In my three years of graduate school I had never seen so many people in that large hall of worship. As the grand procession moved down the center aisle, I looked into the many faces and felt the fervor rising in me. The sermon started with a prayer that God might breathe life into my words. And then when I put my hands to the plow, I never looked back. At times when I was preaching I felt like I had taken a step back from the pulpit as if I was watching myself preach. In that hour I felt the power of God’s Spirit surging through that place of worship as it surged through me. In a speech to a group of teachers, Martin Buber once said that if he ever met the great Christian theologian, Karl Barth, there was only one thing this bearded Jewi...

A couple of months ago I participated in an ethics workshop for all clergy of the Iowa Annual Conference. The keynote presenter was Dr. Karen McClintock, psychologist and congregational consultant. She is the author of   Healthy Disclosure: Solving Communication Quandaries in Congregations . McClintock emphasized that pastors and congregational leaders are information trustees,  having a sacred trust with information . That is, we are entrusted with intimate details and stories from the lives of parishioners and we must act in a trustworthy manner with this information. There are several levels of information disclosure: Private (information known by only one person); Confidential (information released to a second person, usually    with the assurance that it will not be shared    with anyone else without permission); Limited Access (information known by three or more people but protected from further distribution); Open (information shared openly withi...