Most pastors enter ministry expecting to do the frontline work of preaching, teaching, and providing pastoral care, with a side of meetings. But once they are in their contexts, they realize that they have significant responsibilities for other full-time or part-time staff. Not all seminaries prepare ministers-in-training to perform those responsibilities well. I can help pastors address the questions that will allow them to develop a supervision strategy that fits their leadership style and their context. This package includes a free introductory call, 6 one-hour coaching sessions, and the Core Values Index (a short assessment to help coachees gain awareness of decision-making and conflict styles among other leadership tendencies).

Here are coaching questions we can tailor to help you formulate your approach to supervision:

How do I want to show up as a supervisor? What makes that possible?

• What is my pastoral leadership style?

• How do I want and need to show up as a supervisor?

• What is my conflict style, and how does it affect my approach to supervision?

How do I build a staff team, especially if my staff is part time?

• What must we covenant around?

• What is our shared vision?

• How do we communicate most effectively?

• Who does what?

• How can we collaborate well?

• How do we show care for one another?

• How do we make decisions as a staff?

• How do we address conflict effectively?

What help or resourcing do my staff members need, and how do I make sure they have it?

• How clear are staff members clarity about their roles and their contributions to the larger vision?

• What level of supervision does each staff member need?

• What information does each staff member need to do their job well?

• What person power (e.g., volunteer help) does each staff member need to do their job well, and how do they get it?

• What tangible resources does each staff member need to do their job well, and how do they get it?

• What training does each staff member need to do their job well, and how do they get it?

• What boundaries need to be established if staff members are also church members? For example, which hat is the staff member wearing when relating to other church members? When am I wearing my pastor hat and when am I wearing my supervisor hat with my staff member? What are the limits of information sharing beyond the staff for all staff members?

How do I help my staff members do their best work?

• How often does each staff member need a check-in from me?

• How and when do mutual ministry reviews happen?

• How do I help establish clear expectations and outcomes for staff members? What can staff members expect from me as a supervisor?

• How do I help establish positive working conditions (including adequate pay) for all staff members?

• How and when do I advocate on staff members’ behalf? What additional avenues of advocacy for staff members are appropriate and useful?

• How do I provide gentle challenge and room for staff members to grow?

• What accommodations do staff members need to feel fully part of the staff and to do their jobs well?

• To what personal/interpersonal/structural dynamics do I need to be sensitive in order to be a good colleague and supervisor to my staff members?

How do I hire new (non-ministerial) staff?

• How and where does the church advertise?

• Does the church hire members? Why or why not?

• What does the church need this staff person to do toward the shared vision, and which candidates are capable and compatible based on these needs? How do we determine that?

• Who else should be involved in hiring? What do our personnel policies say?

What do I do when staff members aren't pulling their weight?

• How do I approach staff members compassionately to get a sense of the situation?

• How do I determine what help staff members need in order to improve their work, then look for ways to provide it (within reason)? 

• How do I determine if expectations placed upon staff members are unrealistic (and if so, why)?

• How do I/does the church create a performance improvement plan with clear dates and benchmarks?

• How do I/does the church terminate as needed, with compassion and fairness to all involved and in accordance with polity, personnel policies, and/or the church’s organization chart?

The base rate for this package is $975, with a discount for members/alumnae of Young Clergy Women International. Contact me for more details, or schedule a free exploratory call to talk through the possibilities.

Photo by Dawn Kim on Unsplash.

Recently I was talking with a coachee who is leaving her current call. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “No one tells you how tiring it is.” She wasn’t referring to all the mental work of details she’s preparing for her successor or the physical efforts involved in cleaning out the books and files she’s accumulated over a long tenure. (Those are very real too, though.) She meant the grief work - her own and others.’

So let’s talk about it.

It is emotionally taxing to manage the time between when a pastor announces a departure and when the exit actually happens. You are feeling a range of emotions, and so are your parishioners. You might be deeply sad to say goodbye to some people you’ve grown to love. You might feel relieved to leave behind those who have antagonized you or taken up a disproportionate amount of energy. You might be thrilled to go to a new challenge or to take a much-deserved, much-needed break. You might feel scared because you don’t know what is next. You might be miffed that people seem largely unaffected by your news.

On the church members’ end, they might be excited for new opportunities for you. They might feel lost and anxious because they have benefitted so much from your ministry and from your steady presence. They might be angry at you for leaving and even more so for setting boundaries around contact with church folks after you go.

So you have your big emotions and they have theirs. But they are not one-and-done feelings. The process of bringing closure to relationships happens over and over in that pre-departure window. And even with some sense of finality, the tenderness does not go away. So how do you navigate this span of weeks, or even months?

Know that this will be hard. It is hard because you have invested significant periods of time and parts of yourself in this holy work. Thanks be to God for what you have done and who you have been in this context!

Feel the feels. Honor what is going on in you and in others. You are in a thin space, where the buffer between you and God and between you and your people is less substantial than at other times.

Focus on relationships more than details. Yes, it will be good for the next minister to know who the homebound members are and what signature events for the congregation are coming up. But those are notes the new person can get elsewhere, if needed. Your successor cannot bring good closure to your relationships with parishioners.

Take good care of yourself. Don’t fill your last weeks too full. Set up emotional supports such as a video call with a non-church friend or some time with your watercolors so that you can recoup enough energy to do the relational work your soul and others’ must have.

Pray for your people. Pray for them to be ok without you. Pray for them to love their next pastor (and vice versa). Pray for them individually, since you know their specific situations. You will soon no longer be their minister, but you will always care about and want good for them.

I am a firm believer that we do as much ministry in this time between announcing our departure and leaving as we do in all the time leading up to the transition. On behalf of church people everywhere, thank you for wanting to wade through that time thoughtfully and compassionately.

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash.

Recently I wrote about the differences between change, transition, and transformation based on William Bridges’ work. Basically, change is a technical tweak to behavior, and it’s prompted by a shift in circumstances. Transition and transformation, though, nudge us to see and be, not just act, in new ways. They are adaptive challenges, and as such, they are much harder.

There are times when all we need is to do things a little bit differently. I might need to find a different route if there’s road construction on the way to one of my regular destinations. No big deal. But if I decide to stop driving my car altogether because of the environmental impact, that’s trickier. I might say I want to make that change, but then I justify hopping behind the wheel just this one time, which then turns into many times. Something is keeping me from shifting my behavior.

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Associate Director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group respectively, have written a great book about why meeting adaptive challenges is so tough. In Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, they introduce an approach to sussing out how we get in our own way. First, we identify the transition or transformation we seek. Second, we name the things we are doing that run against that end. Third, we consider what it would look like to do the opposite of those counter-productive behaviors, which allows us to surface our deeply-held worries and hidden commitments. Fourth, we then articulate the assumptions behind those worries and commitments.

Using my example of no longer using my car, I might change that into a positive statement for the transformation I’m looking for: I want to start walking, using public transportation, or carpooling instead of driving my own car. The counter-productive behavior is that I still use my car. After all, it’s a tough habit to break! If I really think about not ever using my car, I start to worry about how reliable I can be if I only use other modes of transportation. (Reliability is a core value for me.) Will I always be able to be on time? Also, I might spend much more time in transit. What will that mean for my available work windows? And, of course, there’s a comfort factor. It’s 90-100 degrees from May-October in Alabama. I’ll practically need to hook up to an IV to stay hydrated if I’m in the heat that much more because I’m walking or waiting for a bus. These concerns highlight some hidden commitments I haven’t previously thought about. I perhaps lean too hard and too often into presenting a very tailored version of myself. I can put work above justice efforts. I don’t like to sweat. (Ok, I already knew that last one.) These commitments lead me to assumptions that undermine my efforts to make this big shift: if I’m less reliable because I’m more beholden to a bus or carpool schedule, people will trust me less. I don’t believe I’ll have time to get all my work done well. Sweating makes me look and feel gross, which means people might not want to be around me.

Kegan and Lahey propose experiments to test these assumptions that hold us back. We do, in micro-doses, the things our assumptions scream at us not to do, then we collect data on how others react and how we feel about our own functioning. So I might take the bus the next time I need to go somewhere that I’m expected to be at a certain time. I’ll assess whether I’m actually late and what happens if I am. I’ll notice what the impact is on my work time of a longer journey to my destination. If I’m sweaty when I get there, I’ll note how far people stand away from me. As I continue to experiment, the effects of my assumptions will start to erode, and I will build new routines and new neural pathways.

We live in a world of adaptive challenges. The Church is no different. We see shifts we want to make, but we often can’t get there in large part because we are incorrectly assessing the situation as simply requiring a change in what we do. In this time, there are very few situations that call simply for technical solutions. We must be ready to see and be in new ways. Kegan and Lahey offer a framework for digging deep enough to see what’s getting in our path and then to remove that barrier.

Photo by Kalei de Leon on Unsplash.

You’ve probably heard of Gary Chapman’s five love languages. We typically think of them in terms of our personal relationships. But what if there are ministry applications as well? Read more here on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash.

“For a long time there has been commonly-held wisdom about church size dynamics and the role of the pastor at each church size….One of the casualties of COVID, though, might be the applicability of these tenets, because churches are starting to realize the limitations of this thinking.” Click here to read more on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog about these limitations - and the opportunities inherent in them.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

“Over the course of their vocational lives, many pastors find themselves charged with leading a church staff.” Click here to read my article on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog that names the challenges and the opportunities of supervision, plus some questions to help you navigate this responsibility.

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash.

I love the work I do, and I feel like I am more faithfully using my gifts than at any other point in my vocational life. I know that for a variety of reasons, many gifted pastors are now exploring different ways to live out their calls to ministry. This new path might include coaching, consulting, spiritual direction, founding a nonprofit organization, creating art, writing books, developing spiritual formation resources, and much more. This venture might be part of a multi-vocational professional life, or it might be the primary focus. I celebrate the many possibilities!

Starting and sustaining something from scratch is often not easy, though. We all need to get and give support and wisdom to keep at whatever we are building. I have been mulling whether to gather a monthly gathering of spiritual entrepreneurs to meet those needs. Here is a form where you can note your interest if you are a spiritual entrepreneur. The form will remain open through the end of May so that I can plan for a possible start date in August or September of a three-month experiment. If you complete the form, look for an email from me in June about what this monthly meet-up might look like based on your responses and how you can join it.

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.

[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?

Mystery/thriller writer Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series used to be a guilty pleasure of mine. There was a point in the last decade in which I was gobbling up two or three books per week. Then the 2016 election happened, and I took a long, hard look at my reading list. Coben is a great author, but I needed a lot less machismo and a lot more diversity.

I didn’t pick up any more of his books until I needed a quick read last week. I tore through The Boy From the Woods, the first in Coben’s new series. I was cruising along until a character (who bears a lot of similarities to our most recent former president) spouts off a PR plan in response to the release of a video in which he is sexually harassing a woman who might or might not legally be an adult. The character tells his people to put out all of the following messages and more: it’s a training tape about proper workplace behavior, it was a run-through of the woman’s (nonexistent) Me Too screenplay, she was asking for the harassment, the tape was faked.

Again, Coben is a great writer, but I remembered then why I took him off my reading list for my own mental health. The calculating nature of this character was too much for me. How do we work for change in the world when so many people will do anything to preserve their own power?

At the same time I was reading parts of Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity for my DMin ethics class. (Talk about whiplash.) I grabbed onto one of her concepts in chapter 14: everywhere in nature there are fractals, which are patterns that reiterate infinitely, forming versions of themselves at different sizes. What this means is if we are able to live in our integrity, faithfully doing the internal and external work to which we have been called, that work scales up so that we are shaping the people around us and the institutions in which we participate. It might not be very visible - we must have eyes to see the fractals in nature, much less in human interactions - but it is happening as surely as hydrogen atoms bonding together in rings of six when water molecules collide at low temperatures, creating snowflakes made up of variations on a hexagon shape.

So take heart. Root yourself in your values. Use your gifts. Stay true to your call. You are changing the world from the ground up. If enough of us do this, the lie-perpetuators and power-hoarders don’t stand a chance.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

It is now just over two weeks into the Easter season. If you are a Christian minister who was in the pulpit on Easter Sunday, you could not avoid mentioning the women who were called to be the first Christian preachers.

It didn’t matter which Gospel you used. In Matthew, the Marys are commissioned by both the angel and Jesus to go tell the disciples about Jesus’ resurrection. In Mark, the young man in the tomb gives a similar directive to the Marys and Salome. In Luke, the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus encounter two men in dazzling clothes who announce to them that Jesus is alive, and the women relay this message to the disciples. And in John, Mary Magdalene is the first person to encounter the risen Christ, and he asks her to let the disciples know that he is about to return to God. The details vary from account to account, but in all of them, faithful women are first called to proclaim the resurrection, which is the heart of the Christian story.

And yet, plenty of people still believe that women are not fit for ministry. Even more think they wouldn’t make good lead pastors, even if they don’t say this quiet part out loud. I’ve written elsewhere about how churches can do the work to be ready for a female pastor. But do you know who could potentially be the best ally for clergywomen? Male senior pastors, particularly those with clergywomen in second chair positions (e.g., associate pastor or ministers of specific age groups or programs - I’ll shorthand them all as associate pastors for the purposes of this post). If that’s you, here’s what you can do:

Go by a similar title. By this I mean if you ask to be called “Pastor [your name],” call the clergywomen on your staff “Pastor [their names]” rather than simply their first names (or, heaven forbid, “Miss [their names]”). Encourage church members to address them that way too.

Close the wage gap. I cannot tell you how many churches I know of in which the male senior pastor is making six figures and the women on staff are barely making a subsistence wage. (Yes, there can be differences in levels of experience and responsibility that must be factored in, but not to the tune of an $60-80K disparity.) Find ways to raise the clergywomen’s salaries or sacrifice some of your own to make take home pay more equitable.

Advocate for a parental leave policy. Whether or not you have young children or children at all, ensure there is a just parental leave policy in place at your church. (If you’re not sure what a just policy looks like, contact your judicatory and ecumenical colleagues for examples.) If a new child comes into your family, use the policy in full so that it becomes seen as a parent thing, not a woman thing, to go on this kind of leave.

Collaborate with clergywomen whenever possible. Look for ways to partner with female clergy at your church and other churches. Don’t just limit yourself to teaming up with ordained women, though. Pull women into your church’s lay leadership pipeline.

Share credit liberally with clergywomen when genuine and appropriate. “She did this this thing. Isn’t it great?” “We did this thing together. It is wonderful to have such a great partner in ministry!” On the flip side, support clergywomen when they are attacked by critics and naysayers for illegitimate reasons.

Model good boundaries. Some lead pastors work 60+ hours a week but tell their associate pastors that they don’t want them to overfunction. It doesn’t work that way no matter how good the intention. Senior pastors set the tone for associate pastors’ (many of whom are women) expectations of themselves and churches’ expectations of the entire pastoral staffs. The associate pastors will seem less available, interested, and capable if they stick to the hours they are paid for, and they will juggle an unsustainable load (which can include parenting younger children, caring for aging parents, and carrying the mental load of the household and often that of the church) if they don’t.

Amplify female voices. Welcome your own female clergy and laity into preaching and worship leadership. Invite women outside your church to preach, teach, and lead. Look for gifts in women in your church that they don’t yet see themselves. This creates a culture of call for women. I didn’t see a woman on the chancel for any reason other than singing or making an announcement until I was in seminary. (The first time I did, I sobbed with joy and relief that I wasn’t alone or hearing God incorrectly.)

Be a great reference. Many clergywomen will eventually want to be lead pastors. Talk up your female associate pastors and other clergywomen you know to others before they even begin looking for lead pastor opportunities. (This is especially helpful since some churches now search for a pastor exclusively using informal networks and looking for ministers who aren’t currently seeking a new position.) Give them outstanding recommendations. Celebrate when they leave to take on larger roles.

If I had to boil all this down, I’d simply say, “Normalize women in leadership and share your power.” That’s easier said than done. But some male senior pastors are already doing aspects of this. (Thank you!) And what could be more true to the Gospel in this season that started with women being the first ones trusted and commissioned by the Divine to preach the good news than to support clergywomen’s voices and leadership?

One of the most helpful classes I took early in my coach training was about change, transition, and transformation. (The class content built on the work of William Bridges, who was an expert in these areas.) Often we lump the three terms together, but they are actually quite different:

• Change is a shift in our circumstances. It is external. We can choose it, or it can be forced upon us.

• Transition is a response to change. It is learning to see things differently as a result of our shift in circumstances. Our insides work to catch up to what is going on outside of us.

• Transformation is a wholly new way of not just seeing things differently but being in the world differently. We are fundamentally altered because we have so fully embraced change.

We do not go directly from change to transformation. There is that transition time in the middle in which what was is now in the rearview, but what is yet to come and whom we are yet to be are still in the future. Think of this neutral zone as a bridge between two realities. One of the functions of bridges is to carry us over water or roads. Not having solid ground underneath feels very precarious for a lot of people, including me. Yet there we are, left having to move forward, not just stay parked in the middle of that bridge - even if we can’t fully see what’s on the other side.

In our lives we have all found ourselves on the bridge at one time or another, prompted by a move, a job change, a birth or death close to us, or an injury that has altered how we move about the world. In 2020 people all across Earth found ourselves in a neutral zone. There was a sudden call to go from all that was familiar into lockdown. If we got out of our house, we needed to mask and physically distance. If we brought anything from the outside into our home, we were told, at least at first, to wipe it down for pathogens. Schools ended the year abruptly. Churches moved community online. Nothing felt familiar anymore. We couldn’t hug our people. We couldn’t go to the places we wanted. We couldn’t observe milestones in the ways we were used to. And how long would we be in this profound disorientation? The epidemiologists were saying from the start of Covid’s spread that – optimistically – we were in a 2-3 year event, though many of us, including me, could not hear that for a long time. We just reacted to a drastic shift in circumstances. But when weeks turned into months, we adjusted our way of thinking: ok, we are now in a global pandemic. There is no quick fix. We will do what we must in order to get through this, one day at a time. Our seeing realigned with our doing. To some extent we are still in the latter part of the Covid neutral zone. The virus is very much still with us, and we don’t yet know what a world where we are fundamentally changed by our pandemic experience will look like. Thankfully, we have a lot more knowledge and tools now to blunt its effects.

As a result of Covid and so many other changes in the world, many of us individually and collectively are in our own neutral zones. Maybe we’re doing things differently because we have to. Maybe we’re even seeing things in new ways because of our shifted circumstances. We’re still on that bridge, though. So what do we need to get to the other side?

• Celebrate what was without getting stuck in it. What is the legacy that you are taking with you into the neutral zone that can help you navigate it well? What are the values to which you will stay true, no matter what the future looks like?

• Cultivate your noticing that that God is working in, among, and through you. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but we never leave­ God’s compassionate presence and the hope of communal salvation that Jesus offers.

• Assess the tools at hand. Every person, every group, every congregation has a wealth of gifts that put you in position to cross the bridge. Maybe they need to be redistributed, but you have – and are – enough.

• Ask lots of questions. ­­What if…? I wonder what…? When we stay in that stance of thoughtful and playful curiosity, or even faithful doubt, creativity and possibility are available to us.

• Trust in and mutually support one another. The neutral zone is not the place to get stranded or to strand others. This is a bridge best navigated together.

The good news is that we don’t have to transform ourselves. We just have to open our hearts and our minds to God’s invitations, being confident that when we do, God will work in us in ways that don’t just fundamentally alter us but also the world around us.

 Photo by Modestas Urbonas on Unsplash.

“When [your former pastor doesn’t set boundaries], the incoming minister will have a shorter tenure than necessary, because it’s hard to compete with a beloved predecessor who won’t go away. So, the cycle of the departure of the pastor, the interim time, the search for a new minister and the installation of that leader begins again. This is costly to a congregation in terms of energy and money. It particularly lessens momentum in fulfilling its mission.

“So how can we all make this transition easier?” Click to read my thoughts on the CBF blog.

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash.

I am currently working with a congregation that is just beyond the redevelopment stage. The leaders are building and revamping organizational pieces that will allow the church to move from all of the responsibility falling to the pastor and to SuperVolunteers toward a more equitable and sustainable distribution of efforts. Because it can be hard to zoom out when you’re in the thick of the details, I created the graphic above to help the leaders see the importance of each aspect of the systemic work they’re doing:

• This congregation identified its values and vision as part of a discernment process a couple of years ago. Being clear about commitments and direction provides a strong foundation for all a congregation does and a touchstone for focusing efforts.

• Core documents such as by-laws make the values and vision functional: here is how we go about our church life because we have named these commitments toward this hope for our future.

• The by-laws set the leadership structure that carries out the various processes and procedures laid out in the by-laws.

• The leadership structure decides how to make faithful use of the many tangible and intangible gifts to which the congregation has access.

• The leadership’s use of gifts supports the day-to-day operations of the church.

• Smooth operations make it possible for the congregation to live into God’s invitations to ministry.

So, then, we can be much more effective if we’re clear about what our biggest commitments are and stay grounded in them at all times. By-laws are not just an irrelevant document that we maintain for legal reasons. Leadership must assess regularly and most effectively deploy its resources, which are much more than money and facilities. Ministry and operations are designed to support and speak to, not compete with, each other.

What questions or thoughts does this graphic prompt for you? How are the various levels in this image in conversation with one another in your context? Where is more communication needed? And how do you start that ball rolling?

I am hearing - across denominations, locations, and church sizes - that it is increasingly hard to find an interim pastor to lead congregations in between settled ministers. So what is a church to do? Click here to read my suggestions on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog.

Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash.

Even before the pandemic, I, like many of you, had begun thinking about how the Church needs to shift in order to be Christ’s body in the world. The twenty-first century has offered Jesus followers new awareness around individual and collective power (both having and lacking it), big questions to ask and challenges to overcome, and an increased number of tools for connecting with and on behalf of others. Covid-19 stripped us down to the studs, allowing us to see what is essential in a faith community. And now we as the body of Christ are moving through lingering exhaustion, fighting an illness that keeps popping back up (though thankfully with more ways to mitigate it now), and wondering which way to go next.

I don’t think any of us has answers about specific models of church. I know I don’t. But I think the characteristics of a flourishing church in 2023 are coming into focus. This month I will be sharing my thoughts on them via an alphabet of the evolving Church.

This week: letters U-Z. (See A-E here, F-J here, K-O here, and P-T here.)

Unity. I don’t mean politeness or agreement about things that, in the long run, don’t really matter. I’m talking about the kind of unity that is rooted in shared purpose. I’m talking about hanging in there with one another, even when there are hard conversations to be had and conflict to work through, because we are following God’s two greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-31) - not our own disparate agendas - to the best of our understanding and ability.

Values. Over the past few years I have really come to appreciate the exercise of identifying our core values, the foundational commitments that we are living into (individually and/or collectively) when we are intentional and authentic. When the pandemic hit, these values - if we were clear on them - became the touchstones. Nothing looked or operated the same with Church, but if we were operating out of our values, we were doing faithful ministry. In this time of ongoing change, values will continue to tether us to our purpose and allow the Church to have far-reaching impact.

Wonder. The life of faith is one of wonder, not just in the sense of wonder-ing or questioning, but also of awe. Isn’t it remarkable what God can do in, around, and through us? Small things, immeasurable things, and everything in between. Isn’t it unfathomable how deeply God loves us? Enough to send Jesus into the world in as vulnerable state as I could imagine - a newborn, birthed by a young mother, delivered far from home, hunted by a jealous king. What might be possible for us as Church if we fully inhabited that wonder?

(E)Xperiments. Now is not the time to spring back into all the church programs you did in The Before. It is also probably not the time to latch onto big, long-term commitments as a congregation. Instead, try something new, preferably small and time-bound, that seems like it aligns with your mission and for which you have some energy and willing participants. Then debrief and learn from it, applying what you now know either to try it again or to attempt something else that might be an even better fit with a more fruitful outcome. There is no fail here. It’s all fodder for discernment.

Yearning. Church shouldn’t be rote. It shouldn’t be mere obligation. It should be a community that speaks to our deepest longings, whether that’s to connect with our Creator, be seen and valued, to find true companions for the spiritual journey, and/or to band together with people as committed to making change in the world as we are. How are we as Church nurturing and speaking to that yearning in all that we do?

Zeroed-in focus. I think Covid broke congregations of the desire to be all things to all people, or at least I hope it did. Our church doesn’t have to offer a thing just because the congregation down the street does. (There are different churches, not to mention denominations, for a reason.) I’d love to see congregations take a good look at what they have, what they do well, and who is around them, then figure out what they want to do and how they want to show up for others. God can work with that!

I hope this alphabet series has offered some food for thought in a time of continued upheaval. I have great hope in the Church, and it’s time for the Church to reorient from being an unquestioned part of many people’s lives to living and speaking faithfully closer to the margins. That’s where Jesus operated, and it’s where we can both make big change and be changed ourselves.

“Back in the 1990s, when I was a teenager, youth ministry was relatively straightforward. My peers and I met for junior high and high school Sunday school and then attended worship. We came back on Sunday evenings for a less formal worship service and youth group (which often involved outings such as laser tag, mini golf or a scavenger hunt, plus the requisite pizza dinner) and on Wednesday nights for churchwide supper and seventh -12th grade Bible study. The youth schedule largely aligned with the adult schedule, and attendance was pretty consistent week-to-week and across Sunday mornings and evenings and Wednesday nights. 

This is no longer the world in which we live. Extracurricular activities associated with school spill over into all the times formerly considered off-limits for non-church obligations. The definition of regular church attendance has changed rapidly – and continues to morph –  as much social, academic and work life is lived online more so than in-person. For all of these reasons and more, the model of youth ministry must also evolve.” Click here to continue reading this article on the CBF blog.

Photo by James Baldwin on Unsplash.

"Whatever the case, it’s hard for those who keep showing up to acknowledge that we might not ever sit in the same pew or gather around the same fellowship meal or Bible study or communion table again with those who are missing. We have shared life with these people, and we grieve the loss of their participation." Read more about how some people aren’t returning to church and what your congregation can do in response at the CBF blog.

Photo by Christian Paul Stobbe on Unsplash.

In its report “Twenty Years of Congregational Change,” Faith Communities Today reported in 2020 that 44% of all US congregations averaged 50 or fewer attendees each week, with another 25% falling into the 51-100 attendee category. I would not hesitate to hypothesize that the numbers of churches in these size ranges have grown in the past two years. What this means is that there likely is a growing number of churches led by part-time pastors.

This reality presents some challenges, of course. It is becoming harder for pastors - and particularly associate pastors - to find full-time congregational ministry positions. They might need to piece together multiple jobs in order to bring in the income they need to pay monthly bills and to chip away at student debt. They are harder pressed to secure benefits such as health insurance, which typically come only with full-time roles. (I’m happy to get on my soapbox about why insurance should not be tied to employment, but that’s a conversation for another time.) It can be complicated to align the work schedules of two or more jobs.

But even as the numbers trend toward smaller churches with reduced financial resources, there are some real opportunities here. I am privileged to know some pastors who are purposely and purposefully serving in part-time pastor roles. I have learned a lot from them about the beauty of multi-vocational work. (I highly recommend that you check out Rev. Rachel McDonald’s substack “My Other Job.” She has taught me a lot!) Here are some of the advantages to part-time pastorates:

Pastors’ identities are separated from their congregational ministry positions. In this season of discernment and pastoral turnover, I’m hearing an amplified version of a theme that has often run through coaching conversations: Who am I if I am not the leader of [insert name of church here]? Ministers’ sense of self easily becomes intertwined with their roles at particular points in time, making the thought of vocational change - even welcome change - an existential threat. Having more life outside of the congregational context helps pastors sort out who is the person and what is the role.

Churches and pastors can cultivate more intentionality around work and rest. When pastors are paid for twenty hours a week, both they and their congregations must think more about what is essential for the pastor to do - and not do. This practice can lead to more focus on mission and values rather than all the tasks that get lumped under “other duties as assigned.”

Pastors’ income is not wholly dependent on one source. This offers pastors freedom not just in a financial sense but also in allowing them to take more faithful risks in preaching and teaching. This gives them permission to offer the gentle challenge that can lead to significant spiritual growth.

Laypeople can discover and use gifts they never knew they had. When pastors lay down some responsibilities, that creates space for others to take them up. There are no doubt others in your church who can deliver a good word from the pulpit. Pastoral care can become congregational care. People can tap into their convictions and connections to initiate new ways for fellow members to serve. This is the priesthood of all believers at work!

Pastors’ relational networks expand. Many pastors lament that they don’t have time or energy to make friends or serve the community outside of their ministry role. With more time available, they can meet a whole new demographic of people at another job. They can have interests and hobbies that have nothing to do with church. They can establish friendships with peers who are not clergy. They don’t have to be The Pastor in every space.

Churches’ ministries are not as built around programming. A lot of churches are still solidly buying into the attractional model: if we have a great [children’s ministry, youth ministry, etc.], people will come. Maybe, if you’re a megachurch. But most people are looking for relationships, not one more thing to add to the calendar. Having a minister who doesn’t have work time to start and staff programs takes off this pressure to overschedule and properly reorients planning toward mission.

Pastors can flex different muscles. Related to several of the points above, pastors have made themselves (or allowed others to make them) one-dimensional. But God made us all much more complex and contradictory than that! When pastors are part-time, they can try new things or use skills that don’t get called upon in ministry. This faithfully un-flattens them.

I have a lot of hope for the Church and for its impact on the world in the coming years. I don’t think the future of the Church, though, lies necessarily in bringing in waves of new members and their wallets. The part-time trend will only grow, and it’s much better to be proactive in moving from full-time to part-time staffing structures than to hang on to old ways of leading and being until the coffers are depleted. If you want to read about how to make this shift well, I highly recommend G. Jeffrey MacDonald’s 2020 book Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

In many churches, this is the time of year when annual reviews of staff take place. For some pastors, these conversations are the only times they hear what is and isn’t working from their congregants’ point of view. That makes reviews somewhat nerve-wracking for clergy. They wonder: What surprises await me when that conference room door closes? 

Here’s the thing, though: Your pastors want feedback from you! Click here to read my thoughts on how your perspectives can be shared in ways that are most useful for your ministers and, by extension, your church.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash.

Every December I offer a “round up” special to former, current, and potential clergy coachees: I will round the amount left in your professional expense line item up to the next session value. This is my way of helping you make sure you don’t leave any of your hard-earned money on the table at the end of the calendar year. Here’s what you need to know to access this special:

• If you are a prospective coachee, I welcome you to schedule a discovery call so that you can ask any questions you might have about coaching or the way I approach it.

• Contact me about your desire to use the special by noon your time on Friday, December 30.

• There is no minimum number of sessions you must purchase.

• If you are a current coachee, the session(s) you purchase using the offer will be added on to the end of your coaching package.

• You can use this special to pay now for sessions that start at your convenience, whether that’s immediately or after the busyness of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Those are the nuts and bolts. Let’s get to the good stuff, which is why you might want to explore coaching. The Church and world are in major transition, which means many ministers want to discern what this means for them and their congregations, re-think and re-tool their leadership, and take good care of themselves and the people they love in sustainable ways. Coaching can help you move ahead in all of these open questions. In fact, coaching is one of the best uses of your professional development funds because it

• is done remotely,

• takes place at your pace and on your schedule,

• is geared toward reframing your particular situation in helpful ways,

• helps you make positive steps forward, and

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

Invest in your 2023 with 2022 money. Contact me or schedule a discovery call to activate the round-up special by December 30.