Pastors Who Row Together Grow Together in Eastern Ontario

Ottawa area ministry leaders, many of them pastors, rowed as a team in a dragon boat exercise on the Rideau River earlier this year.

It is just one of the many activities that leaders from the west side of Classis Eastern Canada have participated in.

A dragon boat is a traditional paddled long boat that has its origin in China.

Ottawa area ministry leaders rowed a dragonboat as part of their peer group activities.

Sue Halloway

Sheila Murphy, outreach coordinator for the classis, regularly practices and competes with a dragon boat team. She said that rowing with other ministry leaders “...was a real and tangible example of how working together as a team makes a huge difference.”

The inexperienced rowers were coached by former Olympic medalist Sue Halloway.

This group of pastors and lay leaders has been meeting together regularly through the support of the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence grant program.  The result has been a strengthening of relationships.

Rev. Cecil VanNiejenhuis, pastor and congregation consultant for Pastor Church Relations, said that there is a sense in the group “...of familiarity, of connection which is born of spending time together and knowing that there is safety in this group... and that's a pointed and poignant antidote to the loneliness often experienced in ministry.”