[Warning: depending on where you are in your viewing of Ted Lasso, this post might spoiler-y for you.]

For a long time I resisted Ted Lasso. To be honest, it wasn’t that hard. I didn’t have Apple TV, because my spouse/IT support refuses to let Apple devices through our door. But then I got a free trial and, long story short, I will probably pay for Apple TV until I die or it ceases to exist, whichever comes first. There are a lot of good shows on there.

So now I’m all caught up on Ted. You might be, as I am, fascinated by the evolution of the character Nate Shelley from self-deprecating kit man (glorified water boy) to assistant coach with an uncanny knack for game strategy to seemingly evil mastermind and manager of a rival team. Underneath his arrogance and meanness, though, Nate clearly has some unresolved identity and worthiness issues. When he finds himself needing to be more blustery than he feels, he finds a mirror and spits on it. Then he can stand tall and confident.

This habit is obviously not without its issues, least of which is that it’s really unsanitary. But it did make me wonder, what is your hack for settling into your best self, the fullness of your wisdom, the authority vested in you by your training, experience, and role? We all have those moments when we need to stretch ourselves to all the length and height we can muster. Maybe it’s because we are in a conflictual situation. Maybe it’s because someone is trying to go around us. Maybe it’s because we’re in a room full of well-known, well-respected, and/or very charismatic people, and we need to remember that we belong in that space.

Whatever the reason, we need a way to connect to our calling, our values, and all that we bring to the table. A shortcut, if you will, for remembering who we are - an action, a mantra, an image, a literal touchstone.

What is yours?

In March 2020 pastors had quick decisions to make. The first one was whether to continue in-person gathering, if that choice was not made for you by your judicatory, denomination, or state or local government. Many other considerations cascaded from there, mostly around how to nurture church members’ souls and relationships in safe, accessible, and effective ways.

The questions haven’t stopped since, as guidance has evolved with our understanding of Covid-19 and with the availability of testing and vaccines, as spikes in cases have occurred at different points, and as the contagiousness of the virus has ramped up with the emergence of variants. One constant, however, has been the politicization of Covid precautions and the resulting polarization, making every decision harder - and more costly for leaders. Before we were made guardians of public health, many ministers would work toward consensus on contentious matters. In a pandemic, though, we do not have that luxury. This virus is stealthy and speedy, and it can kill whether or not people believe in the potential breadth and depth of its harm. And so clergy have cashed in a lot of chips to do what we believe is faithful and necessary.

Pastors, just like leaders in any arena, accumulate capital. (Note that I dislike this economic metaphor, but it reflects the framework within which we and the people we serve often operate.) Sometimes it comes from being new and thus being offered the benefit of the doubt. It can derive from the authority with which the pastoral role is imbued. Most is earned by showing up for people in key moments and by demonstrating competent leadership over time.

The pandemic, though, has poked a big hole in pastors’ buckets of capital. All the trust they’ve earned is streaming out the bottom as they make one choice after another that is likely to be unpopular with some segment of the church. By the time Covid is finally reined in, there could be little to none left.

So what are your options?

Talk openly about this reality with lay leaders. Share your concerns with your personnel committee, pastoral relations team, and board about the effects of using all your capital now. That will enable them to understand what is happening and step in as needed when pushback swells.

Shift more of the decision-making - and communication about decisions - to a team. Yes, you still need to be involved in conversations and even take the lead sometimes. But don’t be the only one talking about the decisions verbally or in print, because then detractors’ anger becomes personalized.

Be clear about what the baseline for making decisions is. Create a chart, make it readily available, and stick to it. When X is happening, we do Y. (For example, when the number of positives in our county reaches a certain level, then we transition back to virtual worship until the stats trend down to a safer, specific level.) Then you and your team are not constantly revisiting the emotions and ideologies when implementing decisions but simply following a plan.

Invite backup from outside your congregation. Recruit your judicatory leader to speak hard truths, or invite a coach to help you have difficult conversations.

To the extent that you have bandwidth, talk with those you disagree with about the decisions. Stay curious. Let your detractors know that you are listening and that you care, even if the outcomes don’t change. This starts to rebuild your capital.

We’re still in the soup, and it looks like we might be for a while. To avoid flaming out in your current call or in ministry together, it’s important to feel like you have some room to maneuver. Use all the resources at hand when making tough calls. You’re not in this alone.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash.

Because of my work across seventeen denominations/faith groups and counting, I define my ministerial context broadly: the mainline Protestant church in North America. Even so, there are variations on a couple of themes at play in almost every coaching relationship I have with clergy and congregations.  

The first is the difficulty that church members have talking honestly to and being real with one another. Lately this challenge has manifested most obviously in political and cultural polarization. We rarely engage in vulnerable conversations with those who share our pews about how our faith impacts our civic engagement, use of privilege, or interactions with people different from us. This shrinks our discipleship to a personal relationship with God, to a commitment we share about and act on only at certain times and in particular spheres.     

But the problem goes beyond these bigger picture issues. Within our own congregations we can find ourselves so relationally hamstrung that we are not even able to tend effectively to the practicalities of doing church, such as talking about money, dealing with everyday conflict, or raising up new leaders. We interact at a surface level so that no feelings are hurt, and this lack of authenticity dings our trust in one another and prevents us from discovering our collective capacity for doing good. For too long we’ve been taught that niceness is the same as love, that our Jesus was meek and mild instead of a Savior who invested deeply in us by seeing and valuing us for who we are, telling us the truth about hard things, and giving us the power to forgive and heal.  

There is an incredible opportunity available to us in this season in the Church’s life. As we emerge from the pandemic, we will need to re-introduce ourselves to one another and to our larger communities all over again. Each of us has been changed by our experiences of the past year and a half, and even though we’ve found ways to stay connected during the pandemic, they have not fully captured the range of our griefs and graces. We can slowly and thoughtfully structure processes for sharing our experiences, worshiping together and more fully knowing and being known by one another. We can continue to utilize these processes going forward, building on them when the next tricky conversation arises. When we no longer feel so isolated even as we’re surrounded by people, we will be more ready to look beyond the sanctuary walls to partnerships and challenges that need the energy we’ve been using to guard our hearts. 

Next week I’ll share another big challenge I see for the Church in this season and the possibilities that accompany it.

Photo by Casey Thiebeau on Unsplash.

Whew! You’ve almost made it through 2020. It has been a year of unexpected challenges, hasn’t it? This has manifested in a number of ways, with just one of them being the inability to go to in-person denominational meetings, conferences, trainings, and retreats. This means that you might have a good bit of money remaining in your professional expense fund, even after you’ve attended all the virtual events and bought all the books.

Every December I offer a “round up” special: I will round the amount left in your professional expense line item up to the next session value. My intent has always been to keep you from leaving any of your hard-earned benefits on the table and to encourage you to invest in your leadership growth for the coming year. I can’t imagine a better time to hit both of these marks. While it’s important to steward your church’s money well in these uncertain times, it’s also essential to use your available resources to prepare to pastor in a rapidly-changing world. Coaching is a great way to do that, because it

• is done remotely,

• takes place at your pace and on your schedule,

• is geared toward reframing your situation in helpful ways,

• helps you make positive steps forward, and

• can be completely customized to your goals, leadership style, and context.

If you are looking to make progress in such areas as

• finding a good oscillation between caring for others and caring for yourself,

• developing and grounding yourself in your pastoral identity when others are projecting their anxieties about the state of the world on you,

• searching for a new call and/or leaving your current one well under the restraints imposed by Covid-19,

• helping your church members engage well among themselves and in the community when there is no end to the pandemic in sight, or

• addressing conflict that is even trickier when those involved are unable to gather in person for conversation,

coaching can help.

The round-up special is valid in December only. Contact me or schedule a free exploratory call by December 30 to take advantage of this offer.

We live in a time with many questions and few answers. Wouldn’t it be great to get just a few?

In a webinar I recently attended, presenter Hal Gregersen suggested the way to obtain those answers was to - wait for it - ask more questions. In an exercise he calls “question burst,” he sets a timer for 2 to 5 minutes and invites individuals and teams to name as many queries about their current challenge as possible. Don’t filter, just jot down a question and move on to the next. When time is up, those participating are encouraged to look at their lists of questions. Often a deeper concern to be addressed or a first step forward emerges.

This exercise makes a lot of sense to me. Too often we stop at obvious or surface questions, moving quickly to trying to solve the problem. But because the questions don’t get at the root, the responses don’t actually fix anything. If we just keep asking, though, we’ll start to get somewhere.

Next time you’re facing a challenge or planning a new initiative, take a few minutes to engage in the question burst exercise. You might be surprised by how much more and meaningful progress you’ll make.

Stay curious, my friends.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.

Recently a few different people recommended to me - for different reasons, interestingly - The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. In it Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s leading experts on trauma, explains what happens to us when we are traumatized. We are unable to give complete voice to the experience and integrate it into our self-understanding. It keeps us trapped in vigilance, believing that danger lurks just on the edge of our periphery and prompting out-sized responses to triggers. Over time the trauma rewires our brains and sinks deeply into our bodies, manifesting in a number of conditions that are often diagnosed and treated as separate mental or physical health issues. On a social level, it prevents us from trusting others and deepening relationships. Despite all of this resulting unpleasantness, someone trapped in trauma continually revisits that time when everything changed. It becomes borderline impossible to live in the present, much less envision a different future than the current trajectory.

I am not a doctor or a mental health professional. I also do not want to minimize in any way the experiences of abuse survivors, veterans, and others who live with post-traumatic stress. As someone who works with ministers and congregations, though, I kept thinking this sounds so much like some of our churches as I was reading. We don’t know how to name what our issues are and work through them to integrate them into a coherent narrative. The problems we do see are more symptomatic than root. Conflict simmers just beneath the surface until an incident - often a seemingly benign one - ignites it. Trust is hard to come by. We live in the glory days of how church used to be. We are unable to imagine a different future.

In some cases congregations might be recovering from trauma, such as a serious breach of ethics by the pastor or the sudden death of a key leader or a natural disaster such as a fire or flood that significantly damages the church. In other cases shame might be what we’re seeing the effects of: we once had an ASA of 1,000 and now it’s 100. We haven’t had a new member in years. Church members have left over controversies. We don’t feel relevant.

Whether congregations are experiencing trauma or shame, I believe Dr. van der Kolk offers helpful ways forward:

Address the issue from a place of safety (as much as safety can be guaranteed). People need to know that they are not just seen and heard but also valued, no matter what their experiences. A leader’s first task, then, is to build this kind of culture. This is long, ongoing, and necessary work.

Help people put words to their experiences. A problem that can’t be named can’t be dealt with, but most people can’t be invited into this acknowledgment until they feel safer.

Encourage people to feel what they feel and to be in their bodies. This is not a license to harm others emotionally or physically. It is a mining for the data those feelings and sensations offer.

Together craft a narrative that distinguishes between past, present, and future. There is always more than one true narrative. Which one is most helpful? Which one allows us to move forward with hope and in relationship? In choosing this narrative, individuals and congregations reclaim a sense of agency that they had lost, making it possible to get unstuck.

All of this is easier said than done, of course. But these bigger picture tasks mirror scripture: there is a life-altering chasm between us and God, between us and others. The Bible is about finding away to bridge those divides by examining what isolates us, including what causes alienation within our own selves, so that we can move forward in coherence and connection.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

In his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt covers a range of themes about which liberals and conservatives disagree. One is the care/harm theme in which the two polarities differently attribute definitions and causes of hurt and assign the responsibilities of society toward those who are vulnerable. In another, the polarities take varying stances toward people with power.

Our relationships toward these two themes are running beneath the surface of many COVID-19 conversations. Who is to blame for the spread of the virus? Who is supposed to do what about it? How well are our leaders serving us in this crisis? Who is the boss of me and my comings and goings as recommendations for ever more stringent social distancing guidelines are urged?

Right now these questions are only helpful insofar as they reduce the spread of disease. Beyond that, they are ingredients for introducing even more anxiety into a system that is already highly reactive. Still, the questions aren't going away.

For leaders, then, the need to self-differentiate is more important (and difficult) than ever. If we can be with our people rather than react to to them, we'll model ways to manage self and begin to infuse the system with more stability.

What does self-differentiating in a pandemic mean? Here are some thoughts:

Listen deeply to others. When people feel heard, seen, and valued, the tension in a conversation drops.

Stay curious. Seek to understand, whether or not you agree.

Don't try to change minds. Be clear about what you believe, but prioritize the relationship over the position.

Neither under- nor overfunction. This helps distribute responsibility throughout the system, evening out the emotions.

Balance thinking and feeling. You need both, but too much of one or the other will make it hard to keep connected with people.

Stay present with people. If you can be grounded where you are, there is always the potential for care and respect.

Take care of yourself. Self-differentiation is hard work. Shore up your support system as needed.

Your leadership matters. While others panic, blame, or scoff, your self-management is helping make it possible for those in your care not just to cope, but to assign meaning to this unprecedented experience.

There is more than one way to assess the dynamics at play in conflict. We have the intrapersonal elements: what is going on within each person? Internal struggles are sometimes good fodder for conversation with a therapist or counselor, a professional who helps individuals understand how their current reactions are shaped by past experiences. Once that awareness emerges, healing becomes possible.

In conflict there are also the interpersonal aspects: what is happening among people? I don’t know of an approach that offers more insight into relationships than family systems theory, which explains how different emotional units interact in healthy and unhealthy ways.

To be certain, the intra- and interpersonal overlap when conflict threatens to boil over, and a basic grasp of both is essential to pastoral care at multiple layers. But I think an additional filter is helpful when we’re dealing with issues at the congregational level. Otherwise we can quickly get into the weeds, analyzing who is where in the system or what each person’s triggers are, so that it’s hard to zoom back out to the big picture. Meetings grind to a halt and initiatives die because we’re so focused on managing problems at the micro level.

In my mind, then, congregations live on an x-y axis. Individuals are points on the plane. Family systems theory orients us along the horizontal axis, helping us see how one person relates to the next. The vertical axis can in turn offer us a deeper though perhaps simpler way in to focusing what’s going on by taking us from symptoms at the surface to underlying issues.

At the outset we deal with logic. What are the arguments the involved parties are making? What are the counterpoints? If conflict is not resolved through reason, through adding up pros and cons and taking the most apparently advantageous path, then something else is going on.

The next level down to probe, then, is emotion. Who is feeling what and why? How might those feelings need tending? Whose heart or relationship needs mending?

If conflict remains after working with logic and feelings, then there is a struggle for power, whether or not it’s acknowledged as such. Who has control in certain situations? How did they get it, and how do they maintain it? What would it look like to give some of it up, and who would benefit? What would it take to convince the powerholders to cede some of their stake?

This approach, adapted from Sarah Drummond’s book Dynamic Discernment, provides a more streamlined on-the-spot assessment and offers a way to think about what it would take truly to get conversations and plans moving in a helpful direction. So the next time you’re blindsided in a conversation or banging your head on the conference table during a stalled-out meeting, travel the vertical axis of reason-emotion-power, taking care as you have breadth to tend to the pastoral care needs of individuals and emotional units.

Have you ever wondered how someone in a similar life station can experience the world or believe so differently from you?

Or have you ever been in a conversation that seemed benign until the other party exploded, leaving you to think, “Well that escalated quickly.”

An organizational psychologist named Chris Argyris developed a model called the ladder of inference that might be helpful for understanding what’s happening in scenarios like these.

Basically, each of us filters the world around us in a different way. We select among observable data, often without thinking much about it. We add meaning to that slice of data according to our personal experiences or cultural background. Those assigned meanings lead us to make assumptions, and we then make conclusions accordingly. As conclusions pile up over time, they solidify into beliefs. We act based on those beliefs.

The ladder of inference explains how even in a congregation that averages 100 in attendance – or in a discussion between two people – the parties can end up having very divergent perspectives. It can also help us learn to explore situations through others’ eyes. How might differences at each rung of the ladder lead to ranges of beliefs and actions? Where are potential points at which further discussion might result in understanding and collaboration?

The ladder of inference could be a useful tool for committees or teams that are having trouble coming to agreement. Start at the bottom and work your way up. What are each person’s observations? What data do they choose to work with? Keep going up. Note where there are divergences. Hearing from one another is the starting point for real collaboration.

Hard conversations are everywhere – or at least are needed everywhere – these days. Politics, faith, and the practicalities of everyday life are converging in ways that necessitate honest and vulnerable dialogue if we are to grow as disciples and tend to the well-being of our congregations, our neighbors, and ourselves. Before we can have helpful hard conversations, however, we must establish some degree of safety for people to share their deepest worries and highest hopes. Trust is the bedrock of this safety, and I’ve written about what trust is and how to build it.

In this post, though, I’d like to focus on signs that trust-building isn’t complete. (In a sense it is never finished, because the work of mutual respect is ongoing.) If one or more parties is engaging in either silence or violence, that means said party does not feel safe enough to be fully seen, and more trust-building exercises are required to create the conditions for real dialogue.

As defined in the book Crucial Conversations, silence is a fear reaction that can manifest as sugar-coating one’s feelings, avoiding the real issue, or walking away altogether. Violence is also a fear response, and it consists of such tactics as defensiveness, blaming others, and using power over another in manipulative ways.

All of these approaches to difficult topics are common in congregational life, and they are very frustrating (at best) to those of us who lead. I wonder how our perspectives and the conversation might change, though, if we were able to keep in mind that silence and violence are the result of feeling afraid. With a more generous read, how might our willingness to engage and our approach itself evolve? What might we be willing and able to do with that generosity to continue upping the trust factor?

A few weeks ago my area was under a tornado warning. (Tornado season in Alabama is pretty much year-round.) I turned on the tv to watch the continuous weather coverage, which was led by a meteorologist known for his suspenders and his uncanny knowledge of local landmarks. He was telling viewers that rotation could spin up at any time, so we should follow the “course of least regret.”

That phrase has stuck in my head ever since. It is an encouragement to look at the big picture. Don’t try to run out for supplies in this weather. Don’t decide today is the day to fulfill your stormchaser dream. Get to a safe place and hunker down until the danger has passed. Otherwise, you might get the batteries or see a marvel of nature but lose your life in the process.

Often, though, we find ourselves traveling the path of least resistance instead of the course of least regret. This perspective is focused on our present comfort level. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make anyone mad. Keep your imagination in check. We might stay safe in the short term, but we’ll have a lot of clean-up to do when suppressed emotions and long-held disappointments spin up.

While I like the thought of the course of least regret, I might reframe it more positively, like maybe the course of greatest possibility. We’re acknowledging what is going on in the present – as well as the potential impact – and responding pro-actively so as to keep future options open.

Where are you following the path of least resistance, and how is it limiting you? How might you take the on-ramp to the course of greatest possibility, earning trust among peers and creating more options in the process?

The most important ingredient in any process isn’t expertise or charismatic personalities or financial resources. It’s relationships. When the bonds are strong among the people involved, there can be productive disagreement, a full exploration of possibilities, deep investment in the work, and mutual support and accountability, all leading to forward progress.

The foundation of relationships is trust. Not simply predictability – I know your passions and hot buttons and how you’ll react to each being tapped – but shared vulnerability and risk-taking. Many congregational teams and committees start with some sense of predictability by virtue of the members attending church together for a long time. But most (if not all teams) will need to dig in before high-intensity work begins to develop the second-level trust that will allow for the most thorough and faithful process.

What does it look like to grow that deep trust? Here are eight Cs – from lowest to highest risk – to guide that essential work:

Clarity is getting straight within ourselves about our thoughts and commitments, then being honest with others about them.

Communication is putting our clarified knowledge and understanding out there, and in turn listening to others with open hearts and minds.

Curiosity is admitting we don’t have the whole picture and wondering about what we don’t know.

Compassion is showing care to and connecting at a heart level with others, believing the best about them as we do so.

Companionship is being present and authentic while still maintaining the boundaries that allow us to be clear and compassionate.

Consistency is showing up the same way every time and admitting when circumstances have thrown us off balance.

Conflict is being willing to disagree and to have our ideas improved upon.

Control release is relinquishing attachment to the outcome, trusting that the process will end up as it should so long as we bring our whole selves to it.

Jesus embodies each of these Cs in his ministry. He bookends his active period with a time of clarifying his identity and purpose in the desert and a prayer in the garden of “here’s what I want, but I’m here to finish the job.” His interactions with followers and adversaries alike are centered on getting his message out while asking about and listening to their hopes and fears. Time after time Jesus shows up for people, particularly the least of these, truly valuing them and radiating divine love for them. With those who want to hold on to what they know and have, he’s not afraid to offer a challenge. And in the end, he allows himself to be led to the cross so that he can expose all that is wrong with the hunger for power.

The eight Cs and the resulting trust can strengthen relationships not just within the team but between the team and congregation. The effects of deepened connections, in turn, extend beyond the process itself, cultivating beloved community with the Source of love at its center.

When I was growing up, I thought being a strong woman – since “strong” is a stereotypically masculine virtue – meant that I had to reject anything associated with femininity. I didn’t wear pink. I refused to learn how to cook. I cut my hair short. I played on the boys’ church league basketball team. (In fact, my short hair and blousy basketball jersey combined with a referee’s poor eyesight prompted him to refer to me – game after game – as “little man.”) I sought ordination and a ministry position in the Baptist world, even though I had only seen men in those roles.

So no one was more surprised than me when I bought a sewing machine ten years ago to make kitchen curtains for my new house. I then made placemats, napkins, pillows, and other domestic items in addition to some clergy stoles. I realized that I loved sewing, dangit. And, as it turned out, I was no less strong than I’d been pre-Singer. I began to understand that the feminine-masculine binary was not just hurtful but false. I deeply regretted subconsciously buying into the message that male (again, defined stereotypically) was better and female was lesser. I wondered what other joys I had deprived myself of in the effort not to be too girly.

Masculine-feminine binaries are not the only ones that keep us from living abundantly, however. At Nevertheless She Preached, Jaime Clark-Soles talked about the way traditional interpretations of the Martha-Mary relationship sort their roles into bad and good. In Luke 10 Mary chooses the “better part” by sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha is “distracted by her many tasks” (NRSV). But the latter descriptor is more accurately translated as “drawn away into much ministry,” with the Greek word for ministry used by and about Paul elsewhere in Acts and the Epistles. We have falsely pitted Mary and Martha against each other for millenia while both were attending to aspects of the life of faith.

In congregational life binaries translate into polarities, either/or pairings that are better viewed as both/and. Should we be a church that cares for those who are already here or that goes into the community to share God’s love? Should we have traditional or contemporary worship? Should we be pastor-led or lay-led? Generally, the answer to all of these questions is “yes.” Too often we think we cannot do or be both and must choose. But polarities cannot – should not – be solved, only managed, in order for us to accept the fullness of the work and the abundance that God wants for us.

These days, I wear pink (and most days, a skirt). I’m a mom who revels in that role. I’ve also cut my hair short again and enjoy crude jokes way more than I should. My strength and joy are enhanced, not diminished, by this complexity. Where do you need to rename binaries as polarities, and what do you and the people you care about require to thrive that in-between space?

[Note: this is the fourth of four posts inspired by the Nevertheless She Preached conference.]

There are times when we get stuck because we’re lacking a piece of the puzzle. Why can’t this person and I get on the same page? What’s keeping me from tackling that task that never drops off my to-do list? Why does my work feel so overwhelming or confining?

These are situations in which an assessment could help. Assessments help us better understand aspects of our personality, habits, and approach to relationships. With this new awareness, we are more equipped to lean into our strengths, read rooms, develop systems that compensate for our weaknesses, and surround ourselves with people whose skills provide the yen to our yang.

A lot of ministers are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (which was my first introduction to assessments), the Enneagram (which I’m still learning about), and Prepare-Enrich (which many regard as the go-to for counseling couples before and after marriage). Here are some others I really like:

Core Values Index. In this 10-minute assessment takers identify 72 words that best describe them. The combination of words chosen reveals the taker’s innate nature and primary motivators. This test helped me understand how two very disparate parts of my personality and work preferences relate to one another. (A free version of the test is available here.)

Mindframes. This free test is based in neuroscience. It assesses which parts of the brain the taker operates out of most frequently for thinking and doing. Mindframes uses this information to identify how the taker’s brain processes information most efficiently. This test showed me my preferences so that I could capitalize on those strengths – and it revealed which areas of the brain I need to access when the situation calls for a perspective shift.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. This assessment measures how much the taker uses each of five approaches to conflict. It’s useful for identifying conflict-handling modes the taker might want to utilize more or less often. It is also helpful in team work for helping the members understand one another’s conflict style.

5 Love Languages. This might sound like an odd addition to this list, since the 5 love languages are primarily used for relationships with loved ones. I have found it useful in ministry, though, for pinpointing how to relate with others more effectively, particularly in pastoral care or shared leadership.

Learning styles inventory. This free assessment is geared toward educators so that they can strategize how to communicate best with their students. I have found it helpful for realizing that I remember best information presented to me visually. The test also reminds me to utilize other learning styles when working with others.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I hope these assessments provide some pathways to deeper understanding of self and others. Your results can be a great jumping-off point for coaching – now that I know this about myself, what do I do with this information? – so contact me if you’d like to explore that possibility.

Two weeks ago I began taking an eight-part course on the language of coaching. The class is designed to help participants learn how to harness the power of words for even more effective coaching. Last week we focused on distinctions: phrasing that illuminates the difference between two options or states of being. One of the distinctions we discussed was interest vs. solution. Interest is what I ultimately want to happen. Solutions are means of attaining that goal.

Sadly, during the time that we were in class, the latest school shooting was occurring in Florida. The deaths of 17 students, faculty, and staff provoked strong reactions, as they should. My Facebook feed began filling up with explanations for why these mass shootings keep happening – easy access to guns, parental failure, mental health issues, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, teachers not being armed, and the First Amendment, to name a few – and strongly-worded proposals for making needed changes. I watched as friends, family, and acquaintances doubled down on their positions when questioned. (Admittedly, I was guilty of this as well.) Conversations spiraled down or ground to a halt. Ain’t no knotty problems getting resolved this way.

Which is what made the distinction between interest and solution timely. If we start with our plans to eliminate the world’s ills, we will never get on the same page. There’s always a reason my approach is better than yours and vice versa. Before we can work together on the answers, first we must agree on the goal. For example, I have hardly seen mention of the fact that surely – hopefully – we can all stand on the side of protecting the lives of young people and the professionals who nurture them. When we understand that we’re all working for the same purpose, we gain trust in one another’s motives. We recognize our shared pain. We acknowledge that we are not alone in our efforts. That is a much more promising starting point. Then there’s potential for deep listening. For throwing out a range of solutions and then working together to improve them. For making legitimate progress toward the endgame we’ve agreed upon.

So I commit to identifying a shared goal with at least one person this week. Around what issue – and with whom – will you seek common ground in the next few days?

Contrarian 1: “I’m not so sure that starting this new ministry is a good idea. It will take a lot of financial and people resources that we don’t have to spare, and we can’t be sure that it will move us forward. Can you give examples of other churches that have tried this and had success?” 

Contrarian 2: “This new ministry isn’t needed. What we’re doing now is perfectly fine. Even if we did try something new, this particular idea is doomed to fail. I’m only thinking of the church when I say I can’t support this initiative.” 

If you’ve spent any time in congregational ministry, you’ve dealt with these two contrarians. Both of them can be very frustrating, especially when it seems so clear to you that change is needed and that there’s a solid plan for said change. There’s an important distinction between these two contrarians, though, and being able to identify and manage it could mean the difference between the congregation getting behind the change or staying mired in complacency.

The first contrarian is a skeptic, a logical thinker. Skeptics are cautious. They can help refine ideas. They can be brought on board to new initiatives with more facts. Skeptics might slow down processes, but their need for details can help churches guard against trying to do all the things. And once skeptics are convinced of a plan’s merit, they can become big cheerleaders and hard workers.

The second contrarian is what John Kotter calls a NoNo. NoNos don’t want change and will never support new ideas. In fact, a NoNo will actively work – loudly or behind the scenes – to undermine any change. When NoNos ask for more details, they are looking for selective facts to support their positions, not information to help them process the proposal. Many a NoNo has killed small-scale changes and ministry action plans coming out of a visioning process.

Last week I wrote about the importance of true urgency, and one of Kotter’s tactics for creating urgency is dealing with NoNos. Kotter says that NoNos will let the air out of congregational urgency if you spend time and energy try to convince them to get behind the coming change. On the other hand, they will gain power if you simply ignore them. Here, then, are some constructive ways to deal with NoNos:

Pray. Pray for the NoNo, for the situation, for discernment, and for your relationship and interactions with the NoNo.

Distract them. Identify their talents and recruit them to ministries (far away from the one they’re trying to kill) in which they can put their skills to good use and feel positive about their contributions.

Use positive peer pressure. Find someone who is a big proponent for the new ministry idea and is respected by the NoNo. Assign this person the task of neutralizing the NoNo’s negativity anytime the NoNo voices it. If this person can use humor gracefully, great! If not, the person can gently remind the NoNo – and more importantly, others who are listening – why the change-in-progress is important for mission fulfillment.

Remove them from leadership. This is really tough to do with volunteers and should only be attempted if the two tactics above don’t work. Sit down with the NoNo and at least one other congregational leader. (You might also want to give your judicatory leader a heads-up in advance.) Express that since all the voices have been heard and all the options have been explored, and the congregation has subsequently decided to move forward with the initiative, it’s essential that lay leaders be focused on how to implement it most effectively. If the NoNo is not willing to be solution-focused, you would be happy to help the NoNo find a different way to use gifts and skills in service to God.

It just takes one NoNo, even one working diligently at the fringes, to bring innovation to a grinding halt and make your vocational life miserable. Don’t let a NoNo keep you and your congregation from living toward God’s vision for your ministry.

Two-plus weeks into the new school year, our family is slowly getting into a groove. One big adjustment has been the loooooong afternoons. (My son got home from preschool around 4:00. At the end of his pre-K day, we’re pulling into the driveway by 2:20.) One of the gifts this “found” time offers is an opportunity to read. While L watches an episode of Nature Cat – the four-year-old’s equivalent of an evening at a NYC comedy club, judging by his laughter – I sit beside him and knock out a chapter in a book on systems theory, business, leadership, or practical theology.

I just finished A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter, a quick read that defines urgency and why it’s so important to organizational life. Urgency is an awareness in the head and heart that something must soon change for our church/business/institution to keep moving forward and that I have a role to play in creating that change. Urgency is the foil to complacency, which convinces us that things are fine as they are. True urgency is different from false urgency, which is driven by anxiety and characterized by busywork that has little to no impact.

I probably don’t have to convince you that a sense of urgency is very much needed right now in the church and in the world. Complacency keeps us from fulfilling our mission until that purpose is out of reach – or at least requires digging ourselves out of a sizeable hole. False urgency makes us think we’re doing something until we realize that all our busywork has actually been guzzling our energy and distracting us from moving toward our goals.

How, then, do we create real urgency as pastoral leaders? Here are Kotter’s tactics, reinterpreted for clergy.

First, feel a sense of urgency yourself and act out of it.

• Focus on your specific call to ministry and on the mission of your congregation. Run everything you do through those filters.

• Look for ways to shift or eliminate tasks and meetings that don’t relate to  personal or congregational mission. Unrelated “doing” likely falls into the false urgency category.

• Tell others what you are doing and why. “Here’s how I’m spending my day. Here’s how those actions move us closer to our vision.”

• Leave no open/loose ends. At the end of meetings, get clarity about who is doing what and by when.

[Note: much of ministry is “soft,” such as making pastoral care visits and dealing with contrarians. That doesn’t mean these tasks are not urgent. It is important, though, to connect these undertakings to the bigger picture.]

Second, communicate facts about the need for urgency in ways that speak to others’ heads and hearts.

• Create spaces for storytelling. Data is important, but narrative is convincing.

• Get an outsider’s perspective. Talk to the church’s neighbors. What are their gifts? Needs? Views of the church? Or bring in a panel of people who serve the community. In what areas do their needs for partners and the church’s resources meet?

Third, seize opportunities that come with challenges.

• Reframe problems. Don’t deny the issue, but also note how it creates new possibilities.

• Do things you can’t do during times of stability. Stability breeds complacency. Challenges shake up our perspectives and force us to act.

Fourth, deal with naysayers.

• This is a huge issue in churches that merits a blog post on its own. Stay tuned for part 2 on creating urgency, coming next week.

Last week I had a front-table speech for Brian McLaren’s early-morning keynote to a room full of clergy cohort conveners. When he dove into his very meaty content, I was glad I was already 2/3 of the way through my coffee. He had some challenging words for faith leaders who are very concerned with the direction of our congregations, denominations, and/or country. In these chaotic, divisive times, McLaren said, we must be intentional and honest about our pastoral approach. In choosing our tack, we have four choices:

Offend no one. We can limit our preaching and teaching to “safe” topics. (I imagine this list of subjects is pretty short!) McLaren noted that we will nevertheless discover new ways to offend people every week, because the Gospel is political.

Go where the wind blows. We can listen to what the people in our care want to hear, then echo it from the pulpit. McLaren warned that there is grave danger in this approach, as our constituents are being tugged by opposing forces, not all of which are in line with the Gospel. We might find ourselves espousing – or at least leaving unchallenged – convictions that are contrary to the core of who we are and what we believe.

Push the congregation. We can prod our parishioners on the core issues of the dignity of all people, stewardship of the planet, caring for the poor, and ushering in peace – what McLaren considers the four core issues of faith. This is a bold move for those of us who pastor purple churches and/or who worry about making ends meet if our congregations can’t tolerate our stances.

Lead by anxiety. We can share our concerns about the fissures in our culture from a personal perspective, such as “I am worried about the normalization of bullying in our country.” (This is permission-giving for people to acknowledge their own concerns in a safe container, not a handing-off of our own worries.) After we have surfaced the tensions, we can discuss with our members what a faithful, corporate response might look like.

I have talked with many ministers who are mulling how to navigate our charged climate. What does it look like to be faithful both to our personal beliefs and to our call to the setting we serve? How do we exercise our prophetic voices in ways that our people can hear? How do we model ways of listening deeply to one another? How do we balance our desire to be engaged – even activist – citizens with our responsibilities as pastors?

I have struggled with these same questions as a guest preacher and a clergy spouse in a more-red-than-purple congregation. I found Brian McLaren’s framework helpful for making a more conscious decision about my own approach. Maybe there’s a nugget in there for you too.

I have been there.

I have been bullied by power-obsessed parishioners, then gaslighted by a senior pastor who denied the bullying was happening.

I have been left with few advocates – whose voices were diluted in a sea of people who either actively opposed me or didn’t know what was going on – even as I was forbidden to advocate for myself.

I have been afraid of what would happen to my vocational future if I got let go and if I resigned, even as those were my only two options.

I have faded away into a congregation’s ether when no one wanted to announce my departure, because then the folks caught off guard would start asking questions.

I have endured a last lunch I didn’t want with a staff that refused to back me, at which the senior pastor poo-pooed my next steps in ministry.

I have worried about my family’s ability to pay the bills, having just purchased a home, when my income went away.

As I said, I have been there. And it sucks beyond words.

But this lowest point in my career was also the beginning of my rising.

I learned from the missteps I’d made while also refusing responsibility for others’ bad behavior. I continued the work of shifting my pastoral identity from a job title to my unchanged sense of call. The shape of that call deepened and sharpened, making the approaching points on my professional trajectory crystal clear. I sought training for those next steps, loading up my ministry toolkit. I was going to be more discerning, more wise, and more prepared emotionally and spiritually for the next opportunity to serve.

As a result, the years of ministry since I found myself prostrate on my office floor have been exponentially more fruitful than the years before that moment. I feel more creative and impactful and I’m having more fun.

Who knows? I might find myself facedown again. But I have learned that there is life after noting carpet impressions on my face. I will thrive again, God willing and with God’s help. You can too.

So, when you’re ready, peel yourself off the floor. Let others help you stand back up, because we don’t rise on our own. And follow your call from God into what is next for your gifted, amazing self.

In several of the communities that I value, there are intense discussions happening about the nature of safe space. Whose sense of safety are we protecting? It’s an important question, one that is rooted in the reality of privilege. All of us are socially located at the intersection of our gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and other factors. Those of us with more privilege are accustomed to others deferring to our safety. I have been wrestling a lot lately with the nature of my privilege as a white, straight, cisgender, Christian, middle class person and the ways my obliviousness to that privilege has harmed others. I want to do better. I must do better. I am grateful for courageous voices that are calling me out, even if the new awareness they spark makes me uncomfortable. After all, what change was ever catalyzed by comfort?

The interactions that are urging me to examine both my innermost self and her outward manifestations are complicated. Listening and speaking can both be shut down quickly, hence the discussions about what makes space safe, and for whom. So what are some of the conversational skills that can help us hang in with one another in the midst of these tough, revealing conversations? Here are some of the thoughts I’ve had from my location as an ever-learning, trying-but-still-stumbling person of privilege:

Clarifying rather than (or at least before) advocating. Most of us speak to be understood before seeking to understand. Reversing that order – asking before telling – can stop a lot of arguments before they start.

Challenging rather than shaming. When we share our own perspectives, what is our goal? Is it to inform, to help our conversation partner grow (challenging), or to make him/her feel bad about her/his status or opinion (shaming)? Information and challenge can strengthen relationships. Shame rarely does that.

Defaulting to belief rather than doubt. Assume that the person saying something hard to hear is telling the truth.

Using “I” rather than “you.” “I” statements (“I feel angry when…” as opposed to “you make me angry”) are basic communication skills, yet we rarely use them. Starting a sentence with “you” tends to put hearers on defense. “I” signals I’m about to talk from my experience.

Avoiding exceptionalism. Don’t leap to self-defense when someone calls out privilege. Instead, take a moment to consider whether that person might be right.

Striving for unity rather than uniformity. We will never all agree. That is ok. But we can look for shared values and purpose to rally around. And in doing so, we will better get to know one another, our histories, and our points of view.

What would you push back on, delete from, or add to this list?