Leadership, Creativity, and the Future of CPSP
By George Hull Editor, Pastoral Report - The Newsletter of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy
“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” – John Buchan
Leadership transitions are rarely simple or straightforward. They are shaped not only by organizational structures but by history, memory, and the loyalties that form around founding authority figures. CPSP provides a vivid example of this dynamic. From its earliest days, the organization was never modeled on corporate hierarchies or conventional structures. Instead, CPSP was born from lived experience, from the memory of transformation, and from a shared commitment to preserve something vital and enduring. As Raymond Lawrence reflected:
“CPSP was formed out of the memories of our own experience in clinical training. It was not formed around the corporate bureaucratic model, that by its very nature smothers criticism with public relations and undermines collegiality by promoting patterns of domination and submission. We remembered the redemptive process of our own clinical training, an experience that was marked by deep criticism and deep respect and care, an experience that we would never demean or trivialize by calling it skill training. We experienced our own clinical pastoral process as transformative. We sought in creating CPSP to rekindle the transformative process that seemed to be diminishing in our professional lives. We constructed the Chapter model out of our memories of the clinical training group as the best hope for fostering continuing transformation, individually and corporately.”
The story of CPSP begins, as so often do such ventures, with courage and precariousness. In 1990, fifteen individuals came together to create the organization ex nihilo. Lawrence recalled the fragile balance that hung over that first meeting:
“Had we been fourteen instead of fifteen, we may have opted to withdraw from the field.”
Over the decades, these founding members, each with their own strengths and limitations, developed a community of shared vision, commitment, and care. Lawrence often reminded the CPSP community that leadership is as a practice, uneven, at times flawed, and profoundly human:
“None of us exercise competent leadership consistently. Like our time on the baseball diamond or on the links, sometimes in the batter's box are better than others. Our batting average or golf score is just an average. Sometimes just showing up is an act of leadership.”
Perry Miller, another founding member, captured the essence of CPSP’s work from a different perspective, one that emphasizes creativity, imagination, and the courage to innovate:
“As a community dedicated to the ‘care of soul,’ let’s create space where the creative, the artistic, the imaginative, and the poetic within, and often untapped, can be identified, emerge, grow, and be nurtured.”
As CPSP matured, it confronted a challenge familiar to all organizations born of visionary founders: the difficulty of letting go. Lawrence acknowledged the limits of his own continued leadership and the need for emerging guidance:
“I cannot think of anything more important than the emergence of strong, wise leadership for the decades to come. Without it, we will be a forlorn community… Competent leadership consists of: strength that does not bully; a caution that is not afraid to act boldly; a vision of what is up ahead that protects a community from too many bad surprises; and perhaps most importantly of all, empathy for the weakest among us.”
To support CPSP’s ongoing vitality and growth, the governing council enacted new bylaws that removed the office of general secretary, facilitating Lawrence’s transition from formal leadership. CPSP could only ever have one General Secretary, and that was Raymond Lawrence. Eliminating the office of General Secretary was a structural acknowledgment that leadership must emerge from within the CPSP community itself. It was a decision that respected the past and prepared the way for future leaders to exercise imagination, courage, and thoughtful stewardship.
CPSP honors the profound contributions of its founding members while recognizing that its ongoing strength relies on the collective insight, courage, and creativity of emerging leadership. By creating space for pastoral clinicians to develop the imaginative, poetic, and transformative aspects of their practice, CPSP ensures that its mission endures. The torch of leadership passes, not extinguished, and is carried forward, its flame fueled by memory, commitment, and belief in CPSP’s transformative work.
“What we call leadership, Parker Palmer reminds us, is often the gentle art of helping others see what they already know deep down.”
