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As you are no doubt aware, there are numerous levels of church governance in the Adventist Church, each with a specific purpose and reach.
While the exact functions of directing a Ministerial Department are not necessarily duplicated at each level of church governance, each level has something to offer you as a local conference Ministerial Director.
In most cases, your union's Ministerial Director is a person who has served as a conference-level Ministerial Director at some time in his or her experience, and can therefore be counted on to understand most specifically what challenges and opportunities you face as a conference-level Ministerial Director. That means they likely have experience that can be useful to you.
Though you do not work for your union Ministerial Director, a healthy relationship with him or her can be a source of support, mentoring, and encouragement for you. If time is taken to cultivate your relationship with them, they can be to you what you hope to be to your pastors. They can become that safe place where you can voice your own questions, doubts, frustrations, and joys. They can be a listening ear when you are out of sorts with your administration or when you sense a pastoral issue has the potential to blow up into a larger problem.
Your union Ministerial Director may also have access to or be aware of other resources with which you might not be familiar that can be helpful when specific needs arise. And your union Ministerial Director might also be instrumental in helping to make use of your particular areas of expertise by recommending you to other Ministerial Directors in your union who request presenters for their pastors meetings and training events.
Though the age and means of communication has almost made this aspect moot in our day, the union Ministerial Director is often your connection to the NAD's Ministerial Team. Because they may be privy to some conversations and developments, they can be useful to you when you need information about things you might have heard and about which having more information is helpful to you.
Finally, your union's Ministerial Director should take the time to know specifically about you, your family, and your unique issues that impact you in your conference. If you do not feel that they have this kind of knowledge about you and your work, take the time to contact him or her and arrange some time when they can gain that knowledge first-hand from spending time with you. It will be time well-spent.
While the union Ministerial Director's job is focused largely on knowing and supporting you, most unions do not have the resources and personnel to develop a broad range of resources for you.
Fortunately, the NAD Ministerial Department is well-funded by comparison, and they have used their resources to help develop large-scale, broad-stroke resources that can be a great help to you.
Resources such as development of the Core Qualities, pastoral evaluation, guidelines for pastoral education, continuing education, development of the Adventist Learning Community and much more.
Here's a link to their team's home page that let's you know the range of support and expertise that our NAD Ministerial leaders can bring to bear for you: