Columbia Seminary contextual education director stresses that leadership thrives when it is shared
The Rev. Dr. Kimberly L. Clayton contends that the situation no longer exists in which a pastor has the only say in matters involving the church and parishioners hand over their authority to the minister.
The Rev. Dr. Kimberly L. Clayton
“We are in a time now where pastors and laypeople want to, and need to, work together with a lot more mutuality than I think in decades past,” said Clayton, director of contextual education at Columbia Theological Seminary.
That is why she wants the student she nurtures in her role at the seminary to know that “leadership at its best is leadership that is shared in mutuality with colleagues and with the congregation or the constituency.”
Clayton has served Columbia Seminary in a number of ways, including as interim director of lifelong learning and in her current role. A Presbyterian minister, she also holds both a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Columbia.
Currently she works primarily with students in the MDiv and Master of Arts in Practical Theology degree programs. Contextual education envelops a range of experiences, including congregation-based and agency-based internships, she said.
“It’s a recognition on Columbia’s part that we can do a lot of very important academic training … but there are some things that can best be learned when you are actually in a congregation doing a ministry itself,” said Clayton, whose experience also includes serving congregations in places such as Hopewell, N.J., and Atlanta.
Within the context of a congregation placement, she said, Columbia requires that students have both a supervising pastor and a lay committee that they meet with over the course of the internship.
“That’s a really important piece,” she said. Both pastors and lay committees “have a conversational and instructional role.”
“We certainly want our student to be academically … prepared to be leaders in the church,” but they also need to recognize that leadership in congregations is not a lone-ranger leadership, Clayton stressed.
Toward that end, students learn to value the various voices they will engage with, Clayton said. Students in worship classes, for example, not only learn liturgy and the sacraments, but they also are sent out to observe worship services in and out of their own traditions, she said.
Clayton said all of the seminary’s efforts to emphasize contextual training and congregational collaboration stem from Columbia Seminary’s leadership. The Rev. Dr. Stephen A. Hayner, Columbia’s president and professor of evangelism and church growth, champions building transformational leaders for God’s missional church, she said.
Additionally, the Rev. Dr. Deborah F. Mullen, the seminary’s new dean of faculty and executive vice president, has a background that includes contextual education, Clayton said. Mullen understands this interplay between the seminary and the church, Clayton said.
“Our leadership is poised in that way,” Clayton said. “It is very exciting to be here.”
