Sometimes we have the gift of being a part of something that changes the way we see ourselves and how we engage with the world. This month we reached out to Rev. Jose Morales, a participant in the first cohort of HELM’s Disciples Leadership Institute (DLI) and asked him to reflect on the program and his involvement with it.
HELM: What do you remember about your involvement with DLI?
“I was a newly minted Disciple when I served on the first steering committee that developed the Disciples Leadership Institute, so it is a program that is near and dear to me. My favorite memory is still the first gathering. It was new. We all were hesitant and unsure as to how it would unfold. It really was the first of its kind among Disciples: focused on emerging leaders in the church, with hard-fought intentionality regarding race and ethnicity, gender, new church leaders and leaders from established congregations, regional/geographic diversity, liturgical expressions, everything! We reflected on scripture, worshipped, debated, ate, and played together. Out of that lived and living encounter, we were all changed, transformed.”
HELM: What are your thoughts on the impact of DLI on shaping leadership for the wider church?
Morales: Thinking of those who were in that cohort, we now see, today, the results of DLI’s impression and formation on us: from that group we now see prominent leaders in our denomination, who are doing significant congregational, regional, and general work, who are pastors, innovators, non-profit execs, activists, and professors. It really is amazing to see the fruits of DLI ministering among us today
HELM: What are some of the key lessons learned by those involved in DLI?
Morales: We sometimes overdo our active role in the church, depleting of our passive role in the church—especially when we come from places of privilege. Now, to be clear, we need to fight for access and agency, especially among ignored and underrepresented groups within our church—women, LGBTQIA persons, people of color, new church planters, etc. There’s a part of our call that requires that we simply open ourselves to the new things rising within our community, things we cannot take credit for, and receive both its blessings and its challenge for how we partake in this communion. We all like to see ourselves as the ‘Good Samaritan’. However, truth be told, many (most?) times we are the religious leader who ignore the suffering of our midst, not just beyond the church but especially within it. Sometimes, we are the wounded traveler in the roadside ditch. DLI taught me to see—honestly see!—my own wounds and to trust that within our fold, there are good Samaritans from unexpected quarters, who can offer me a healing touch and who can and should be the ones leading us all.
HELM: What did you learn specifically from your participation in DLI?
DLI was a foretaste of what a truly—and by truly, I mean ‘intentional’—cross-cultural community should look like. It was really hard work that required that we be open to both unexpected praise and necessary reprimand. At times I was a recipient of the latter, and I am better for it. In a way, DLI didn’t work on my agency (i.e., on what I can do for the church), but on my receptivity—that is to say, on readying and opening myself to this new way of being church together. This awareness of, and this openness to, the diverse church that we already are, but don’t live into fully, was the greatest gift that DLI gave me.
In addition to his participation in DLI, Rev. Morales’ ministry experience is broad, including more extensive denominational work, congregational ministry, advocacy/community organizing, and educational training. He is currently the Director of Pastoral Formation at Disciples Seminary Foundation in Claremont, CA, working with ministerial students on issues of pastoral identity and training. In addition, he is also a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Theology and Philosophy at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, CA. Rev. Morales has served as adjunct professor at Claremont School of Theology and Lexington Theological Seminary for their Certificate Program in Spanish.
Before moving to California, he served for four and a half years as the Executive Regional Minister of the Central Rocky Mountain Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which encompasses Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, northern New Mexico, and southeastern Idaho. Prior to this, Rev. Morales served as the Associate Pastor at Iglesia del Pueblo-Hope Center (now named Hope Christian Church), a multicultural Disciples congregation in Hammond, Indiana. During his pastoral tenure in Indiana, he was an adjunct professor at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and the Clergy Caucus Chair of the Northwest Indiana Federation, an interfaith community organizing network working on justice and public policy issues in northwest Indiana.
Disciples Leadership Institute engages leaders in a model of community that deepens understanding and develops relationships across the perceived boundaries of race, culture, and language. DLI seeks to create a place for these young leaders to deeply and authentically share experiences of God thus increasing the effectiveness in building up the body of Christ and sharing the Gospel. Click (here) to learn more about DLI.