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.

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an astronaut. That was not an uncommon goal in those days. The space shuttle program was relatively new, and the teacher-in-space program – as disastrously as it ended – made space travel seem more attainable. I’m still not so sure what was so enchanting about this dream. Maybe my budding introversion loved the idea of so much, well, space. Maybe it was the enchanting solar system photography that captured my imagination. Maybe I just didn’t know what all my career options were. Maybe I watched the movie Space Camp too many times. (The answer is probably all of the above.)

My parents encouraged me in this low-likelihood endeavor. They took me to the Marshall and Kennedy Space Flight Centers. They helped me write letters to request the scientist equivalent of head shots. They signed me up for Space Camp (which, by the way, was fun but nothing like the movie). My space fixation went strong for several years until I realized I didn’t enjoy science and math nearly as much as English. When I hit junior high, most of my astronaut posters and training manuals (yep, I’m a nerd) were put into drawers as artifacts of nostalgia.

I still love space, though. One of my favorite places continues to be the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. My husband, who went to Space Camp the same summer I did, gets giddy about it too, and now our son looks forward to going. On our most recent visit there was a new (to me) experiment about the context of the space race. As a child, the history of space travel was interesting, but it was just a timeline of progress. But the space program was never just about exploration. It was set against the backdrop of wars (hot and cold) and a struggle for the identity of the country, and the choices, the pressure, the setbacks and achievements cannot be fully appreciated without putting them in this larger context. Suddenly the stakes were clearer to me, as was the tenacity of those engineers who made the improbable happen with very little tech.

So it is with our congregations. The ebb and flow of membership, the beginnings and endings of ministries, patterns of pastor tenures, and even the architecture of church campuses must be set against the backdrop of all that was happening locally, nationally, and globally in particular eras. Then we are able to look for God’s presence through it all, identify values and legacy, and discern future direction.

When looking ahead, don’t forget to direct your gaze backward first, noticing cultural and political trends in the process. Only then, with a full grasp of context, will you be able to get clear on the character and gifts that will launch your church into a future in which the sky proves no limit.

In churches that have January-December lay leadership terms, fall is the nominating committee’s active season. In many congregations the nominations process consists of looking at the rosters of all the committees and boards, noting who is rotating off, and plugging in (often recycled) names. It’s not uncommon for nominees to be approached with either apologies (“I’m sorry – I know you’re really busy – but we need you to fill this spot”) or guilt (“If you don’t fill this spot, I don’t know what we’ll do”).

I believe we can do better.

A big part of the problem is that we’re starting the nominations process too zoomed in. There’s no reason to look at the rosters of committees and boards until we’ve spent some time considering why we have these working bodies and how they fit into the overall direction of the church. Here, then, are some questions to help nominating committees broaden their thinking.

What is God inviting our congregation to consider doing in the next nine months to three years? Hopefully this question will have already been discussed at the congregational level. If not, the combination of nomination and stewardship seasons could provide opportunities for discernment.

What is the relationship of each working body to that invitation? If a new initiative is in the cards, that will impact what committees and boards do and how they work together.

What will the capacity of each working body be to live into that relationship when members with expiring terms rotate off? Notice that even three questions in, the focus is still on the bigger picture.

What gifts are needed to help each working body hold up its part of God’s invitation going forward? Think broadly about spiritual maturity, talents, perspectives, energy, and expertise.

Who are the people with those gifts or with the potential to develop them? Look for a balance of experienced and new nominees, making sure that all the various constituencies of the church are represented across the rosters. When contacting nominees, name the gifts the nominating committee sees in them, how they would strengthen the working body, and how the working body helps the church live into its mission.

If we still have holes after hearing back from all of our nominees, what does that mean? Consider what barriers to participation exist, whether committees and boards need to be right-sized or combined, if there is good understanding about what each working body does and how it contributes to the overall direction of the church, and whether further big-picture discernment is needed before resorting to the any-warm-body-will-do approach.

What lay leadership needs do we anticipate beyond the coming year, and what work can be done now to prepare those who are not yet ready to serve? Here we broaden back out to lay the groundwork for a pipeline of ready leaders. Communicate responses to this question to pastoral staff for further deliberation.

The nominating committee might kick into gear at only one time of the year, but its work is significant. Getting the right people on the right working bodies ensures not just functionality but energy and creativity that in turn propel the church toward its God-given vision. Blessings upon this hard, holy work.

I went to junior high and high school at an academically and socially intense college prep academy. The deal my parents and I struck was that they would pay for this not-cheap education if I would be responsible for earning my way through college. That seemed more than fair to me.

During those six years a certain notion of success was drilled into my noggin: enrollment in a prestigious university. An “important,” high-paying career. A family (in the heteronormative sense, of course), complete with kids in smocked clothing. Membership in the Junior League and other part-sorority, part-community service organizations. This vision was imparted in a variety of direct and indirect ways, like advertising the dollar amount of merit scholarships each graduating senior had been awarded and featuring alumnae who checked all of the boxes in the school magazine.

Well, I studied my tookus off and was admitted to several state and private universities offering varying levels of scholarship incentives. And after visiting probably over 100 colleges over the course of my high school years, I proudly and confidently enrolled in the main campus of my state’s university system: the University of Tennessee. I didn’t choose UT-Knoxville because my parents had gone there or because my closet was already full of Volunteer orange. (Neither was the case.) I didn’t even choose it because they made me a full scholarship offer I couldn’t refuse. I chose it because when I made my visit, it felt right. I chose it because of the broad range of course offerings, majors, and other opportunities. I chose it because I could see myself thriving in a bigger, more diverse environment after six years in a school of fewer than 500 students. I chose it because it was close enough to home that I could visit my family regularly.

I notified my current school of my college selection as was required, because college enrollment was a foregone conclusion for students. The upper school principal snarled at me and said, “Get on the bus with the rest of them.” (There’s all kinds of wrong with this statement.) I was third in my class. Students ranked ahead of and behind me were headed to Princeton, Penn, Northwestern, Brown, Stanford, Harvard, and many other big-name universities. And I was going the University of Tennessee. The implication was clear: my pricey college-prep education was wasted on me. Gone were my (ahem, their) hopes of a big alumna donation, smocked children, and Junior League membership.

That was the beginning of a long process of separating out what others thought success looked like and what success would be for me. Because, somewhat surprisingly for an impressionable seventeen-year-old, the snarl and insult did not lead to any second-guessing on my part. It only made me more eager to get the heck out of an oppressive atmosphere. I went on to receive an excellent education at UT. I studied abroad, and I designed my own major tied up with a thesis that won a national honors project competition. And thanks to the scholarship, I graduated with no educational debt. UT prepared me well for seminary, where I again was fully scholarshipped. Nopity nope, no regrets here. (Please know that I recognize the privilege that set me up for this daisy chain of no educational debt, and each day I work to accept the responsibility it entails.)

Still, many years of messaging meant my subconscious had an upwardly-mobile idea of what my professional life would look like. Begin my ministry as an associate pastor, stay there five-ish years, then step into a solo/senior pastorate. From the beginning, it didn’t work that way. I left my first call as an associate at a wonderful church in North Carolina about a year-and-a-half in because I wanted to marry my seminary sweetheart, whose ordination status and indentured servitude to the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church made him less geographically mobile. As a progressive Baptist in Alabama and as the spouse of an itinerant (read: go where the bishop says) minister, I struggled to find my vocational place for a long time. I was a traditional interim solo minister. Then I worked in a non-profit. Then I did piecemeal ministry as a chaplain and designer of pastoral education programs and guest preacher. Then I was a children’s minister.

It was in the ashes of the dumpster fire that was my brief tenure as a children’s minister that I found my footing. Suddenly, my call was clear: promote well-being in congregations and their leaders so that no clergyperson would have to endure what I just had and so that churches could focus on their real work of discipleship and relationship-building. I became an intentional interim minister. I was trained as a consultant and then as a coach. And suddenly all of my divergent experiences coalesced into a vocation I love, with room to experiment and create and grow and with the flexibility to be mom. My career is not what I thought it would be. It’s more “me.” I believe it’s faithful to what God wants for and from me. My salary is not what it could be. (Again, I acknowledge there’s a lot of privilege in not having to be at a certain earning level.) But my quality of life is so much better than it would be if I had held tight to others’ visions of success.

In the church we know the standard metrics no longer mean much: average worship attendance, weekly offering, etc. They don’t tell the full story of a congregation’s impact on its members and the world. So why do we hold to outdated (if they were ever relevant) metrics about what our personal success involves? Let’s question those notions of success just like we press on the whole nickels and noses approach in our churches. My generation and younger will likely not be as well off as our parents were. Full-time ministry opportunities are shrinking. As long as upward mobility in terms of salary and church size is our measuring stick, we’ll come up short. We need to define what success and faithfulness look like for us, and we need to own our impact wherever we serve.

Now let me be clear that this is not to say that we should not do what we can to make inroads as leaders and seek respect and appropriate pay. I am all in for getting more women into larger spheres of influence and making sure they are compensated as well as (or better than!) anyone else. Lord knows the world really needs the innovative, passionate, and compassionate voices of women now more than ever. But may we do so with discernment, making sure our reasons for doing so are healthy, helpful, and fit with our gifts and call.

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?

In many congregations there is a generation or two that pines for a bygone era, one in which Sunday School rooms were bursting at the seams and regular worship attendance meant coming to church every week. There is a movement in Christianity that pushes back on this nostalgia. It says that things were not as good as we remember. That the Church’s success then sowed the seeds for its current struggles now. That marginalization of religion allows us to be more prophetic. (After all, the church in Acts operated from the fringes.) That faith requires us to be nimble and to meet people where they are, not enshrine ways of doing ministry and make others come to us.

I agree with all of these arguments. That said, I don’t know that they address what I suspect is the real issue underlying nostalgia: in the mid-20th century, the church morphed from a community into a system. Communities are built on connection, on investing in our neighbors and our neighborhood, on drawing on one another’s gifts to make life work. Systems, by contrast, breed disconnection. They focus on areas of (sometimes manufactured) discontent and then propose solutions to that unhappiness – a product or service that we must purchase. The signs of this shift in the church include:

Congregation-shopping. If my needs aren’t fully met at one church, I’ll keep looking until I find the “perfect” (for now) church instead of pitching in to make my current faith home look more like my vision.

Outsized staffs. If laypeople aren’t covering all the responsibilities, we’ll pay more people to take on those tasks.

Siloed ministries. Noisy, questioning children and youth are shuffled off into their own classes and worship services, rarely to be heard or seen.

Inclination to hire experts to come in and tell us what to fix.  Someone else must know better than we do what changes we can make to become vibrant again.

Now, we don’t need to recreate the 1950s for a number of reasons. But looking for ways to move church culture from a systems focus back to a community mindset is a worthy endeavor. Some ways to do this include encouraging more interaction between church members and the community, not in a “we’re here to help you” kind of way but in mutually-beneficial relationship-building way. Looking for more opportunities to foster understanding, connection, and investment among generations within the church. And making a deep and wide exploration of the congregation’s collected gifts and considering what God might be inviting us to consider through this assessment.

The point of these efforts will not be to get more bodies in the pews or more dollars in the bank. After all, God told us to go forth to make disciples, not bring them in so that we can pad our attendance rosters and our budgets. But if we can transform a congregational system into authentic community, people eager to know and be known by others will undoubtedly be much more eager to join us.

In recent months I’ve had the opportunity to coach several co-pastor teams, each a bit different in its composition. Some of the teams are comprised of married couples, others are not. A few of the co-pastors have solo or lead pastor experience in their backgrounds, but the majority are in the first chair for the first time.

In addition to coaching these co-pastor teams, I have received inquiries from search teams about whether they should consider calling co-pastors. These questions often come from congregations that started out looking for one person to fill the role of pastor, then candidates have asked whether the church would be willing to call two ministers to fill the position.

Since the co-pastor model seems to be growing in prevalence, I think it would be worth most (if not all) search teams’ time to have a discussion about what that paradigm of leadership could look like in and whether it could work for your context. For search teams that seriously explore this staffing possibility, here are some advantages I have noticed from the co-pastors’ perspective:

Each co-pastor has a built-in sounding board. This cuts down on isolation, allows budding ideas to be more thoroughly thought-through before they are acted upon, and lets the congregation know that at least two minds are always at work on problems that pop up.

Complementary gifts mean that each co-pastor can lean more fully into strengths. There are some combinations of skill sets that are extremely rare to find in one person, causing solo pastors to have to work at times out of areas that are very challenging for them. It is very possible, however, to find co-pastors who are each good at different things. Thus more ministry areas are covered with greater competence, with less pastoral energy expended on working out of a growing edge.

Co-pastors can be in two places at any one time. Ministers often feel like there is not enough of them to go around. With co-pastors, the hospital visit and the finance committee meeting can be  covered simultaneously.

There are challenges to the co-pastor model, of course. Married co-pastors will, naturally, want to be on vacation at the same time. (I would argue, though, that this presents no more issues than a sole lead pastor being away.) And married co-pastors need to be careful that their ministry doesn’t consume their home life in unhealthy ways. On the whole, though, it is definitely worth search teams’ time to mull calling co-pastors if great-fit candidates present themselves.

As with any candidate, search team members should ask themselves what excites them about co-pastor possibilities, what support the co-pastors would need to thrive, and what educational pieces would help the congregation embrace this new-to-it way of doing ministry. These questions are opportunities for the church to grow in imagination and faith with the potential to expand pastoral leadership capacity.

These are interesting times indeed for the church. Membership, budgets, and staff in many mainline congregations are shrinking. Attendance patterns are changing such that “regular” participation is now 1-2 times per month instead of 3-4. The Sunday morning and Wednesday evening time blocks, once considered off-limits by school, sports, and other community activity schedulers, are no longer so. Many people define themselves as spiritual but are uninterested in the institutional church.

For these reasons some congregations are fearful about survival. This anxiety often manifests in a scarcity mentality, a focus on what we no longer have (or never had). In turn this mindset generates a wide range of potential “solutions,” which are rooted either in personal preference or observations about has worked for the megachurch down the road. This is a recipe for scatteredness - as everyone’s preferences will likely be different - and discouragement, since what works for one church rarely lands the same way in another.

Luckily, there’s a different approach we can take, one that is grounded in abundance. (Don’t we believe, after all, that God’s love and creativity know no bounds?) Instead of beginning by naming what we need, let’s start by laying out all that we already have. This is called asset mapping, and it’s a tool we can borrow from the world of community organizing. Gather your lay leaders, or possibly even your entire congregation. Write down on sticky notes all of your church’s advantages:

• Physical plant

• Geographical location

• Finances

• Leadership (lay and staff)

• Current ministries

• Skills and interests of members

• Denominational connections

• Relationships (congregational or individual) with community institutions, associations, or influencers

• Name recognition

• Any other assets you can think of - be creative!

Step back and look at all the gifts. Ask what God might be telling you or inviting you to do through them. Combine your assets together in new ways to birth initiatives. These are the efforts that will bear the most fruit, because they are rooted in who your congregation is and what it has.

This activity is very helpful during a pastoral transition. Congregations can have a hard time imagining what the future will look like now that the former leader is gone. Mapping assets can remind them that they are the church and that God is still at work through and around them. This exercise can also help a congregation understand what kind of pastoral leadership is needed to help them leverage their strengths and share a more accurate narrative and expectations with pastoral candidates.

Go forth, then, to take stock of what is good in your church and to plan out of grateful awareness.

We’re coming to the tail end of the traditional stewardship season, and it’s highly possible that you are sweating pledge numbers that currently fall short of your ministry dreams for 2019. You might also have a treasurer or bookkeeper whispering anxious nothings in your ear about how much people need to give between today and the New Year’s ball drop to end 2018 without a deficit. It’s ok. After all, you didn’t have anything else to stress about as Advent looms large! [Sarcasm font]

Here’s the thing: we will always struggle with money – and our feelings about it – as long as it is only a means to an end: “We’ve gotta make our budget so that…” It’s not a sentiment that will make people whip out their checkbooks and credit cards and smartphones with money transfer apps. But you know what might? “God is calling us to do this exciting thing, and we don’t want you to miss out on being part of it!”

This is what Henri Nouwen called a spirituality of fundraising. He approached the ask not as an unfortunate necessity to be apologized for (a tack that makes so many stewardship sermons cringe-worthy) but as an invitation to others to join in the work to which God has called us. As such, fundraising is relational and community-building, not transactional. For Nouwen, fundraising was a “call to conversion,” an opportunity to re-orient our focus to the world beyond ourselves – to begin to see things as God sees them – as well as to transform our relationship to our own resources. In the process, we partner with God in bringing the reign of God here on earth. In taking this loftier view of fundraising, we are free to make the request out of our sense that we are ministering not just to the people we might serve but also to the givers themselves. To me, that is a compelling message. It is inclusive. It is formational. And it recognizes that those with resources have needs that can be met by relationship, so all parties involved are both giving and receiving.

So as you come to the end of this year and the brink of the next, I encourage you to view stewardship and fundraising as opportunities to grow disciples of Christ as we move together into the future God is compelling us. See what a difference this approach makes in your willingness to ask for money and in the generosity with which givers respond.

Among my clergy coaching clients, I’ve noticed a spike recently in ministers who realize they’re doing work that ideally would have been completed before their arrival: helping the congregation grieve the loss of the last pastor, addressing issues with under-functioning (and sometimes outright sabotaging) staff, creating or making long-overdue revisions to basic documents such as personnel manuals and by-laws, right-sizing lay leadership teams, and visioning for the next chapter of the church’s story. This work, which is time-intensive and emotionally draining, can leave clergy wrung out before they celebrate their first anniversary with a congregation. They find themselves asking, “Can I keep up this pace? Do I see myself here long-term?” More than occasionally, the answer is no, and the call these ministers envisioned lasting for many years ends up being an unintentional interim stint.

There are many good reasons to call an intentional interim minister in between settled pastors. Interims expect to enter systems in turmoil, and they are trained to handle the challenges. Interims can manage all the extra pastoral duties (with ample breaks, that is) that come with a highly-anxious congregation because they know their time there is limited. Interims, with one foot in the church and the other out, can offer insights that neither a consultant (outsider) nor a settled pastor (insider) is able to see and voice.

The costs to a congregation of an unintentional interim minister, on the other hand, are high. Full-blown pastoral searches are pricey, not just in terms of money but also time and energy. Severance packages can hamstring a church’s budget. Congregations are often hesitant to invest in the next settled minister, not wanting to get attached to a leader who could turn out to be another short-timer. Throughout all the uncertainty, trust among church members and between members and staff/lay leaders begins to suffer, and the congregation’s focus shifts from mission to survival.

With all the benefits of interim ministry and the downsides of not utilizing this transition resource, why doesn’t every church call one? There are a couple of reasons. First, congregations think the interim is a time to save money on personnel costs. They see stop-gap measures such as a revolving door of guest preachers as a way to protect the budget. Additionally, they want a settled minister in place as quickly as possible because they fear the loss of members and a decrease in giving during the transition.

But the second reason, I believe, is the real one. Churches think that calling an interim minister means that they’ve failed or that they’re unhealthy. There’s a myth that only “messed up” congregations need guided introspection during the time between settled ministers. In fact, it is a sign of health and maturity as well as an investment in the future to call an interim minister. It never hurts to breathe deeply, take stock, and move toward what’s next with purpose – in other words, intentionality.

Your alarm goes off. You groan and bury your face in your pillow. Is it morning already?

Your fatigued body slumps into bed, and you can barely work up the energy to pull up the covers. Meanwhile, your brain is on overdrive, trying to process everything that happened during the day and all the tasks that await you tomorrow.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Real rest can be hard to come by, making for a slow start to the day. Real exertion of every variety – part of the deal in ministry – is hard on the body, mind, and spirit, making for a fitful entrée to much-needed sleep. It’s a vicious cycle.

Starting and ending the day with intentionality can help you frame your day more positively (thus giving you energy) and end your day with gratitude (thus sending you off to quicker and more satisfying rest). These bookends don’t have to be lengthy or cumbersome. They just have to work for you. Here are some suggestions.

Starting the day

• Breathe deeply for 30 seconds before getting out of bed

• Do a 5-minute interval workout

• Decide on a focus word for your day that you can repeat to yourself as needed

• Smile at yourself in the mirror

• Speak aloud a sentence prayer as you cross the threshold of your home or office

• Refuse to look at your phone until you get to work

• Read a short devotional at your desk before you turn on your computer

Ending the day

• Utilize the examen

• Pray in color or doodle or write in a journal

• Identify a way you helped someone or grew as a person or pastor that day, then name and give thanks for a way someone helped you

• Mindfully stretch out your weary body and remember that you are wonderfully made

• Tell someone you love them, whether in person or by technology

• Create a short ritual of letting go of undone tasks or unmet expectations for the day

• Meditate for a couple of minutes or do a body scan once you’ve gotten in bed

You cannot control all the events of your day. Bookending your day with intentionality can help you control your responses and their effects on you, however, thereby enabling you to release what is not yours to worry about and guarding your body, heart, and mind from an unhealthy level of exhaustion.

What would you add to these lists, and what might you try to frame your day in a new way?

In his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, journalist Malcolm Gladwell sets out to obliterate the myth of rugged individualism. No one is self-made, he asserts, no matter how humble that person’s beginnings might seem. Everyone who has reached the pinnacle of achievement has been afforded opportunities and advantages that provided a foundation for hard work and persistence.

Money and status are obvious springboards for success. But Gladwell digs deeper than that. Athletes get a leg up when they barely miss early childhood cut-off dates for sports signups, making them bigger and more physically mature – and thus getting more playing time, attention, and investment from coaches – than their peers. The peculiar demands of rice farming created a culture of year-round work in Asian countries that filters down to students, setting them up for an unwavering focus on schoolwork. Bill Gates came of age in exactly the right era to get in on the personal computing revolution, and he lived in the right place to capitalize on a series of opportunities that got him thousands of hours of coding practice on the newest – and scarcest – technology. Privilege comes in many forms.

Though the myth of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is inspirational, the real-life weaving together of generations and circumstances strikes me as profoundly biblical. Scripture is full of success (and failure) stories that have their roots in previous eras, others’ choices, and living in a certain place at a particular time. And Jesus makes it clear that we belong to one another, as the effects of our words and actions ripple out far beyond what we can see.

What, then, are the hidden forces that have contributed to our success? And how might we help others to see their own advantages and opportunities? One possibility is to map out our lives, starting with the present day and going backward to examine (to the best of our limited vision) the factors that brought us to where we are. Who mentored us? What were our lucky breaks? How did our birthdates, cultural heritage, physical makeup, access to options, and location shape our trajectories?

If we can unearth the forces at work in our lives and give up the narrative that we got where we are under our own power, the implications for widening our (individual and congregational) understanding of and call to mission are huge. And we might discover innovative ways to support others in less traditional ways when we don’t have much money and status to offer.

I was done. I had spent four days presenting, networking, and wearing only moderately comfortable shoes at General Assembly. I was grateful and better for the interactions, but I was also ready to crawl into a hole and hibernate. The problem was, I had an 8:50 pm flight (delayed a half hour, naturally) and then an hour drive home once I landed. So I was grumpy when I boarded the plane.

Thank goodness I was booked on Southwest. At the start of my trip, I was glad because this meant I had a non-stop flight to the smaller and closer airport, plus I could check a bag for free. (A luxury these days!) At the end of my trip, flying Southwest meant that the crew was free of the staidness of other airlines. The safety demonstration, then, included reminders about not using your neighbor as a flotation device, putting on your own oxygen mask and then turning to your seatmate to decide “if it’s worth it,” and using the emergency exits and slides in case the captain decided to go shark fishing. The lead flight attendant used funny voices and a few dance moves to share other pertinent information. And when we landed, he informed us that the local temperature was 37 degrees. (At 11:00 pm, it was 90.)

I’m sure I wasn’t the only cranky person at boarding time. Yet, when we disembarked (late) into the muggy night, almost everyone I saw was smiling. This borderline-miracle seemed instructive. The flight attendant’s humor:

Caught my attention. Confession: I never listen to the safety information. It’s always the same. But I turned off my headphones because I didn’t want to miss any of the standup act.

Lifted my spirits. I was worried about driving home at my fatigue level, and I dreaded my human alarm waking me up early the next morning, as much as I couldn’t wait to see him. I felt more awake and refreshed for the journey after a few laughs.

Made me want to engage with others. As a raging introvert, I avoid conversations on planes by listening to podcasts and trying to nap. But my improved mood made me open to looking at internet memes with the stranger sitting next to me.

Was contagious. Laughter – like yawning – often is.

When in our work could a bit of well-timed humor do wonders for the atmosphere and productivity? Maybe a committee meeting when everyone is zoned out. Or a congregational gathering where those present are discussing unavoidable (and expensive) repairs to the building. Or even a funeral. (That’s probably not the best venue to work on your Jim Gaffigan “Hot Pockets” voice, but some self-deprecation might do.)

Good-natured humor humanizes and connects. Tuck it into your toolkit for a time when you need to shrink the dimensions of your meeting space.

My son loves school, but every morning it’s like we’re living 50 First Dates. He forgets how much he enjoys learning and playing with his friends until he actually enters the building. He yells at our Amazon Echo when it reminds him that it’s time to get dressed for school. He mopes while he picks out (at an excruciatingly slow speed) his mismatched clothes.

Recently I’ve been using a coaching technique that has helped everyone’s mood. I’ve been taking his complaint and using it to broaden his perspective. Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1

Alexa reminds him to get dressed.

Him: Your reminders are terrible, Alexa!

Me: Are they really that bad? Let’s play a game. We’ll take turn naming things more terrible than Alexa’s reminders. I’ll go first: dropping my ice cream on the ground.

Him: [Thinks.] A monster destroying Ninjago city.

Me: Getting a cold and missing something really fun.

Him: A baby penguin dying. [Yikes.]

After a couple more rounds, he was laughing and we were declaring each other winners of the game. He then got ready without complaint.

Example 2

Child is refusing to put on his school clothes.

Him: I don’t want to go to school today. Today is Saturday. I want every day to be Saturday.

Me: Hmmm. I like Saturdays too. What would you do on your perfect Saturday?

Him: [Lets me dress him while he talks.] I would watch the Ninjago movie and play Legos.

Me: That sounds fun! What would you eat for breakfast on your perfect Saturday?

Him: Fish and krill. [He was a penguin that day.]

By then he was dressed, and he penguin-waddled across the hall to brush his teeth.

In both of these examples, it would have gotten us nowhere for me to keep askyelling for him to get ready. We would have both been grumpy and started our respective days in a terrible headspace. But by taking his lead and using it as prompt for us both to think creatively, he felt heard and reoriented his focus.

I use this approach in my coaching. If a coachee gets stuck in a thought spiral – often around the worry that she is not an effective pastor – I ask a question to help her widen the view: “What’s the best affirmation you’ve received lately?” (Often this is not an explicit “thank you” but a realization that she has been invited into a tender place by a parishioner.) She realizes that she is making a difference in tangible ways. Or, “what is one change you’ve seen in the congregation since your arrival?” One small change opens the door to thinking about several ways the coachee has led the church toward growth.

This can work for clergy in their ministry settings too. Consider the following:

Church member: This [ministry initiative] won’t work.

Minister: Hmm. Ok. Let’s think about everything that could go wrong.

After brainstorming the possible catastrophes, probe why these outcomes are so undesirable. Then name all the potential positive outcomes and discuss, in light of these different visions of the future, what the most faithful next step is. With this approach, you can acknowledge the church member’s resistance, unearth some unspoken – maybe even subconscious – norms and fears, move toward agreement on action, and stop many of the parking lot conversations that sabotage change.

Perspective shifts are invaluable when there is stuckness. Next time you feel mired down, try opening up the conversation with a question, brainstorming prompt, or game.

During a recent webinar, a judicatory leader asked how I advise search teams with regards to reading through candidates’ social media profiles. It was a great question. Search teams should absolutely do their due diligence with internet searches, background checks, and conversations with references. However, there are some potential pitfalls when it comes to perusing candidates’ posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Here are some things you need to know when checking candidates out on social media:

Timing is everything. Consider – and agree upon as a search team – the best stage of the search for scrolling through candidates’ social media. If your team members do this too early, you’ll have a lot of information with very little context, plus you’ve made extra work for yourselves.

Litmus tests don’t tell you what you really need to know. What I believe personally about a political issue might not directly correlate with how I would respond as a minister in a situation related to that issue. Your search team might needlessly weed out some great-fit candidates by making the leap from the title of an article a candidate shares and that candidate’s pastoral approach.

Many pastors don’t maintain separate professional and personal profiles. If all of your candidates’ worlds collide on social media, then that candidate’s parishioner, mom, middle-school nemesis, and softball teammate are commenting on the same posts. Keep in mind that without careful monitoring and a touch of censorship, it is hard for the candidate to control everything these people from various venues and eras write – including about the candidate.

We live in politically-charged times. Many ministers have waded into previously untouched waters on social media because they feel strongly about current issues they believe are life-or-death. This takes courage and shows leadership.

Some ministers use their social media outlets as discussion boards. Pastors might deliberately post something provocative to get a robust conversation going – and their sermons and teaching will likely be more well-rounded for having sought out different points of view.

Everyone has done things they regret. And the younger the candidate, the more likely that moment was caught on camera and shared widely. Consider whether the incident inspired repentance and was a teachable moment, both for the candidate and for the people the candidate has led since.

Bottom line: if your search team reads through a candidate’s social media posts and finds something that raises a question, then ask that question – to the candidate. You will build communication, trust, and understanding instead of cutting a candidate loose based on an assumption.

Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. Recently it ambushed me by way of an interview that entertainer/faux (?) journalist Samantha Bee conducted with pundit Glenn Beck. (If you click on the link, be prepared for strong language.) In it Bee and Beck, who inhabit opposite ends of the political spectrum, acknowledged that they have more in common than it seems. They celebrated their fledgling friendship by sharing a strange bedfellows cake.

That liberals and conservatives can work together on issues affecting us all was no surprise to me. What did catch me off guard was Glenn Beck’s warning that Samantha Bee was in danger of becoming – like him – a “catastrophist,” someone who reads the worst into every headline. As the earth has shifted beneath my feet the past couple of months, I’ve had to refocus myself continually on hope, courage, and justice. In those many moments when I’ve been less than successful at this, I too have been tiptoeing into catastrophist territory. (Vigilance and action are warranted in such a time as this. Catastrophism, however, consumes physical, mental, and spiritual energy that could be used more constructively.)

Surprised by this self-knowledge, three adjectives popped to mind, and they will serve as my touchstones for the year. I aim to be:

Curious. What’s really happening in this situation? What do I not yet understand? What’s going on inside of me? Denial and assumptions rarely lead to the best course of action.

Present. Who is around me? What do they need from me? What do I need so that I can stay engaged, insofar as it is productive? Insulating ourselves from the hopes and fears of others has led to a fractured church and a deeply-divided country.

Resilient. How will I stoke my resolve to be kind when kindness is not returned? To be brave when I am scared? To see things as they are, but still move forward in the confidence that this bad thing is not the last thing? 2017 promises many setbacks to the commitments I hold dear, but as matters of faith and integrity, I must keep showing up.

This is my mindset as we begin the new year. What word(s), phrase, quote, or song is guiding you? Let’s support and hold one another accountable.

Last week this beautiful post by a Presbyterian minister in California popped up in my Facebook newsfeed several times. It was timely for me. A beloved member of my former congregation had just died, and I was deeply grieving the loss of a man who not only left his fingerprints on virtually every ministry in the church, but who was also a giddy grandfather, a mentor to young children, and a friend to many – including me.

Several people made sure I’d heard this hard news. I very much appreciated their efforts, especially since they were so busy with all the care and the details that fill the days leading up to a memorial service. But this influx of info strained my ability to maintain my boundaries. There were so many people I wanted to check on, pray with, and hear stories from. I didn’t, of course. I am a former minister at that church. I wonder sometimes if keeping this kind of distance seems cold to the people I have loved and served, though, and so today I share a few things I wish my former parishioners knew.

I still care about you. A lot. And I think about and pray for you.

I keep up with what’s going on. I subscribe to the newsletters of most of the churches I’ve served. (And I probably read them more closely than many church members!) If you ever friended me on Facebook, I read your status updates, even though I generally don’t “like” or comment on what I read.

It’s really hard for me to let someone else be your minister ... I want to be the one celebrating milestones with you and offering a listening ear when you’re going through difficulty.

… but the line between friendship and pastor/parishioner is razor thin … As time passes – and as you claim your newer minister as Your Minister – we’ll be better able to see each other simply as friends.

…and I believe strongly both in the ethics of separation and in the abilities of your new minister. If I don’t step out of the way so that the current minister can share big moments with you, he/she will never earn your confidence. And because I trust in her/his competence, if I insert myself into your situation, I will have done so myself primarily to meet my own needs.

If this delineation seems harsh, it’s because I’ve seen – and experienced firsthand – the ill effects of predecessors with poor boundaries. It’s hard enough living in the shadow of the one who has served before. It’s downright frustrating when a former minister actively maintains his/her influence so that the new minister’s care isn’t wanted or needed. So I tend to err on the side of holding the line.

I will always carry with me all the experiences that we shared together and the lessons you taught me. You encouraged me, enlightened me, emboldened me, and ministered alongside and to me.

I am and will be a better minister to others because of having been your minister. Thank you for allowing me into your life, your home, your heart. It is one of the great privileges of my life to point you to the holy, and I have often encountered the sacred in you.

Have you ever felt like your time was being sucked into some sort of chronological Bermuda Triangle? Where did all the hours go? Most of us live at such a breakneck pace that it’s hard to remember all the things we did today, much less last week or last month.

Or have you wondered why you always seem to react a particular way to a certain person or in a certain kind of situation? Where did that anxiety come from? At times it seems to tackle us from behind.

Or have you been feeling exhausted or restless, with no apparent reason? Why am I feeling this way? It’s hard to focus on the people in front of us and the tasks at hand when all we want to do is sleep or go somewhere – anywhere – else.

Enter the usefulness of tracking and reflecting. When we take a few moments each day to make notes on our activities or our state of mind, we can begin to notice patterns that help us understand ourselves better and point to potential changes.

Here are a few examples:

Where did all the time go? Use your calendar to keep detailed notes on how you spend your days, even marking how you use short bursts of time for things like email, Facebook, or hallway conversations. After a few weeks, sit down with your calendar and look for the time leaks. (You might even consider color-coding the different categories of time use to help with this reflection piece, especially if you’re a visual person.) What changes could you make to plug up these leaks?

Where did that anxiety come from? Keep a journal handy. When someone or something prompts you to act in a way you don’t like, write down what happened, who was involved, and what your mindset was going into the situation. Think through what you could do differently next time to come away with a different result. After you’ve made a few entries in your journal, consider whether there’s a pattern in your triggers and what that might mean for how you prepare for appointments and/or when you schedule them.

Why do I feel so exhausted/restless? Sometimes these feelings are the stirrings of discernment. Sometimes they are due to temporarily overwhelming life circumstances. And sometimes they are simply related to personality type. Look back over your calendar over the last few weeks. Are you an introvert who has been covered up with pastoral care visits and meetings? Are you an extrovert who has been chained to her desk lately by the demands of study and planning? Where might you play to your personality type to strike more of a balance in your day?

Patterns can be adjusted, but only when we’re aware of them! If self-reflection isn’t giving you the answers you seek, ask for the observations of a person you trust.

What are your expectations…

…about work? What is and isn’t your job? When is your job “done” for the day? How do colleagues work together?

…about relationships? How do you communicate? How do you argue? Where do you compromise?

…about finances? What’s your budget? How do you mesh your spending/tracking style with a significant other, aging parent, or child?

…about ways you spend your time? What time is yours? What blocks of your schedule belong to someone else?

…about the direction of communities you’re part of? What’s the vision? How do you participate in shaping and carrying it out?

We all carry around expectations, whether we put words to them or not. And as Brené Brown points out, there’s a strong correlation between expectations and disappointment: “Disappointment is unmet expectations, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment.” (Rising Strong, p. 139).

We’ve all been steamrolled by disappointment. The afternoon we set aside to binge-watch Netflix gets taken over by a lengthy honey-do list. The job we thought we wanted turns out to be a terrible fit. The Normal Rockwellian Thanksgiving dinner we imagined becomes a hot mess of overcooked turkey and battles between relatives with different political ideologies. The church we love loses steam, and the church friends we love slowly drift away to other congregations or to no congregation at all.

There’s no way to avoid all disappointment, but Brown prescribes a couple of steps to take away its power:

Put all your expectations on the table. Don’t expect your spouse, your kid, or your supervisee to read your mind. That’s a recipe for sunken-heart syndrome and broken relationships. It’s also helpful to raise our expectations to consciousness so we’re not caught off guard by our own strong reactions to tough situations.

Acknowledge which expectations are based on factors beyond your control. You might still have the expectation, but it might be easier to deal with the frustration if you realize you couldn’t have changed the outcome.

These are good exercises for congregations because we carry so many expectations about our community of faith. How do my expectations line up with my fellow church members’? And, more importantly, how do our human hopes fit in with God’s hopes for us?



Compassion is the heart of the gospel. When Jesus gives us our charging orders to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner, he is explicitly telling us to note the suffering of others and – rather than turning away from or pitying them – to be as kind to them as if they were Jesus himself. He is implicitly reminding us that we have all known suffering of some sort, that we have all longed to be connected and to be understood.

It’s not easy to see pain in others’ faces, though. Not only do we have to do something once we note the pain, we have to admit that those who suffer are just as deserving (as much as any of us “deserve” grace) of connection and understanding and help as we are. It’s more comfortable to tell ourselves the story that the sufferer made poor choices to get to where they are. That obviously we made much more responsible decisions to be in the position to choose our targets of compassion.

BUT. What if instead we went about our lives believing that people are doing the best they can, that some folks are trapped in systems not of their making? What if we loved these folks as they are? What if we remembered our low points and connected with those in need out of our shared humanity?

This is the framework that Brené Brown suggests we operate out of. It is not a call to doormat-dom, however. It is not wearing ourselves down to the nub. It is a balancing act. It is knowing and honoring our limits so that we can do the hard work of looking pain in the eye and extending compassion.

What would it look like if we believed the people who exasperate or frighten us are doing the best they can? The person who calls the church every month for help with the utility bill. The congregational antagonist. The ministry leader whose life is spiraling out of control. What inner work would we need to do first to be able to extend this generous interpretation? And what difference would it make in our individual and collective lives if we could look at others – all others – through these Christ-colored glasses?