{"id":1766,"date":"2016-02-03T15:48:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2016\/02\/03\/ministerial-health-in-scandinavia\/"},"modified":"2016-02-03T15:48:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:48:46","slug":"ministerial-health-in-scandinavia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/ministerial-health-in-scandinavia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministerial health in Scandinavia"},"content":{"rendered":"

3 February 2016 | Scandinavia [Victor Hulbert] January might be the coldest time of year to visit Scandinavia, but for Pastor Patrick Johnson, Ministerial Association secretary for the Trans-European Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the snow outside was balanced by the warmth of the ministerial welcome he received at venues in Denmark, Sweden and Finland.<\/p>\n

\"Selfie<\/a>
Selfie time with his Finnish coaching group<\/figcaption><\/figure>In Finland Patrick found the welcome warm enough to enjoy the traditional sauna \u2013 though he politely declined the traditional leap through the ice into the chill waters of the lake. While that might be called the art of diplomacy, Patrick would call it coaching \u2013 and that was why he was in Finland \u2013 joining with others to discover how coaching in an ‘open learning’ environment can benefit ministers and the whole mission of the church.<\/p>\n

\"Danish<\/a>
Meeting with the Danish ministers<\/figcaption><\/figure>Coaching is a concept that the leadership in Finland has been working with for more than a year, and the experience so impressed Patrick that when he spent time with ministers in Demark he put it into practice. Acting as a facilitator he encouraged them to have an honest discussion on issues including ministerial-burnout and how to motivate your ministry in what can sometimes be less than stimulating circumstances! Burnout is a real issue, not just in Scandinavia or Europe, but across the world. An anonymous survey Patrick is developing, is helping Pastors to recognise the symptoms, and may help administrators in seeking ways to prevent burnout from happening in the first place.<\/p>\n

\"Sweden\"<\/a>
Ministerial togetherness in Sweden<\/figcaption><\/figure>In Sweden he spent time focusing on the area of spirituality and how that affects our lives. Answering the question of why this is important Patrick states, “Research done by Kjell Aune in Norway indicated that 89% of church members and 91% of pastors feel the need for spiritual renewal, so this is an important area to focus on.” He especially emphasised the idea that spiritual maturity will never happen without emotional maturity.<\/p>\n

Talking frankly about his Scandinavian experience Patrick shared how he is working with TED Health Ministries director, Torben Bergland, to develop tools that will help ministers with their physical and emotional wellbeing. This is something he sees as important not just for the pastor, but also for their spouse, their children, and for the wellbeing of the whole church and the community where the pastoral family is based.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Patrick speaks from experience having served as a minister both in Norway, and more recently as senior pastor within the international environment of Newbold church, England. His background, having first trained as a nurse, also gives him insight into the needs for physical and emotional wellbeing and if he strays far from the mark, his wife Kari, also a nurse, along with his three children, do their best to keep him on the straight and narrow \u2013 even on his ability to take a ‘selfie’ during his travels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That togetherness is as important for ministerial teams as it is for ministerial families. “Teamwork is the best way forward”, he says. “We get more synergy working together.” He also sees the significant benefits of professional development and is currently in the process of developing a curriculum that will significantly benefit the more than 700 ministers who serve with the Trans-European Division.<\/p>\n

To see Patrick’s ‘selfie’ abilities and gain an insight into how he is working with ministers across the TED watch a five minute video<\/a> recorded following his Scandinavian visit at the end of January. [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, director; Esti Pujic, editor<\/p>\n

119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org<\/a>
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 February 2016 | Scandinavia [Victor Hulbert] January might be the coldest time of year to visit Scandinavia, but for Pastor Patrick Johnson, Ministerial Association secretary for the Trans-European Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the snow outside was balanced by the warmth of the ministerial welcome he received at venues in Denmark, Sweden and Finland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1574,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}