As of October 1, 2023, my weekly articles will be posted only on Substack. I have been playing around with Substack, cross-posting articles there and here on my website for the past couple of months. I’ve found that I really like it over at Substack because 1) it is even more flexible and user-friendly than Squarespace and 2) there’s a greater potential to build community. Here’s what you need to know:

• I will still update the rest of laurastephensreed.com regularly.

• Entries on my laurastephensreed.com blog will remain here. I will not migrate or delete them.

• If you are a subscriber to my laurastephensreed.com blog, I have switched your subscription to Substack for you.

• If you are a subscriber to my monthly Mailchimp newsletter, I will not automatically add you to my Substack. (You are certainly invited to join me over there, though!) I will continue to send out a monthly newsletter, because I think that’s a better place for announcements than Substack is.

• There will be free and paid subscription options on Substack. With your free subscription you’ll get new content every Tuesday like I’ve offered here. With a paid subscription you’ll get an additional article, resource, or giveaway once a month that is exclusive to those who opt for a monthly ($7) or annual ($60) plan.

Questions? You’re always welcome to contact me!

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash.

I have been playing around with Substack, cross-posting articles there and here on my website for the past month. I’ve found that I really like it over at Substack because 1) it is even more flexible and user-friendly than Squarespace and 2) there’s a greater potential to build community. Over the course of September, then, I will begin migrating my current writing to Substack. Here’s what you need to know:

• I will continue cross-posting articles for September. Starting in October I will post new writing only on Substack. (I will still update the rest of laurastephensreed.com regularly.)

• Entries on my laurastephensreed.com blog will remain here. I will not migrate or delete them.

• If you are a subscriber to my laurastephensreed.com blog, I will switch your subscription to Substack for you.

• If you are a subscriber to my monthly Mailchimp newsletter, I will not automatically add you to my Substack. (You are certainly invited to join me over there, though!) I will continue to send out a monthly newsletter, because I think that’s a better place for announcements than Substack is.

• There will be free and paid subscription options on Substack. With your free subscription you’ll get new content every Tuesday like I’ve offered here. With a paid subscription you’ll get an additional article, resource, or giveaway once a month that is exclusive to those who opt for a monthly ($7) or annual ($60) plan.

Questions? You’re always welcome to contact me!

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash.

With the start of Lent, many pastors are looking ahead to some hard-earned rest after Easter. Here’s a resource I created last year that can help you plan ahead to get the most out of your time away.

If I had to bet, the week after Easter Sunday (followed closely by the week after Christmas) is the most common period for pastors to take vacation. You will have accompanied your congregation from the wilderness to the foot of the cross to the empty tomb. That is quite a journey. You’ll be ready to rest.

Having a vacation to look forward to is a great start. But have you ever felt like it’s just as much work to get ready to be away as it is just to keep on plowing ahead? Have those extra tasks worn you out so much that you’re just returning to baseline, not even close to refreshment, when vacation is over? You’re not alone.

That’s why I have created a vacation prep sheet. It prompts you to record your hopes and intentions for your time away, then to sift and break down what you need to do beforehand in order to live into them. This sheet can be helpful to you the week before vacation, but it will be even more useful if you start using it further out. Feel free to download the sheet for your own use or to share it with others. Happy rejuvenating!

Recently I read Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey, who is popularly known as the Nap Bishop. Hersey makes the case that all of us are caught up in grind culture, which is a hyperfocus on productivity around which our entire lives are oriented. Grind culture feeds and feeds on many modes of dehumanization: white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, individualism, and more. It makes us think that we are what we produce. It causes us to see rest as a reward that we can only claim when we have worn ourselves down to a nub. It keeps us stepping on one another to get ahead. And it is killing us physically (as seen by our collective sleep deficit) as well as mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.

Hersey says that our response to grind culture’s demands that we do more must be to rest. Rest includes but is not limited to sleep. It can be anything that helps us slow down, replenish, and reconnect with ourselves, one another, and God. It can be lengthy, but it can also be a series of shorter breaks. I often hear from coachees that they struggle to find time for rest. That is largely because of the overlapping issues named above, and it is partly the result of grind culture’s drain on our creativity. It’s hard to come up with ways to rest that fit the moment when we are already so very tired.

With that in mind, I have developed a list of practices that offer rest. I stopped at 40 because that is the number of days in Lent, not counting Sundays. If you choose, you can take on a rest practice each day as a Lenten observance. Let me be clear, though, that I don’t intend these practices as 40 more to-dos to pile on your already-full plate. (That would defeat the purpose!) They are intended simply to give you ideas for some easily accessible breaks if you don’t have the mental space to come up with a means to get some much-needed rest. Click here to download the list. Feel free to print and/or share it.

Stay tuned for an article that elaborates on how rest doesn’t just cause us to feel better and more present but also equips us to push back on dehumanizing forces.

[Since this is one of my favorite resources I’ve created, I like to share it annually in time for congregations to distribute it before November 1. Enjoy!]

Sometimes I wish All Saints’ Day could be more than, well, one day. Our lives are shaped by so many people who have gone before, whether we knew them personally or not. I think we could all benefit from reflecting on their influence and considering what parts of their legacies to carry forward.

Since All Saints’ Day is November 1, and since we are already inclined toward thanks-living during November, I have put together a month-long prayer calendar with daily prompts to remember a departed saint whose impact has been significant. This calendar is available as a copier-friendly PDF. Feel free to share the calendar on social media, print it for your church members or yourself, or use it as your November newsletter article.

Many of the pastors I talk with are operating within viewing distance of overwhelm, that fog of fatigue and disorientation that can’t be fixed by a good night’s sleep, a vacation, or maybe even a sabbatical. They want to remedy this situation, but all the demands on them are so tangled that it’s hard to know which one to pull on first.

In March I am offering a four-week cohort to help pastors think about where they might tug on a thread to begin not just to unravel their overwhelm but also to build toward ongoing wellbeing. The timing of this cohort is intentional. It’s designed to see you through the first half of Lent and give you tools as you approach Holy Week, often one of the busiest weeks of the year for clergy.

We will use these four weeks to consider the points along the Results Cycle, a model developed by Thomas Crane:

If the current result we’re getting is that sense of overwhelm, then we can intervene anywhere else in the cycle to get a different outcome. In week one, we’ll talk about what the result is that we do want - what is our understanding of, our purpose in, our ministry? In session two we’ll examine and replace the beliefs that keep us locked in overwhelm using Martin Seligman’s three Ps (personalization, pervasiveness, permanence) as a framework. For our third gathering we’ll consider our tolerations (in other words, what we’re putting up with) and take steps toward habits and systems to eliminate them. And in the final week we’ll think through strengthening relationships via setting and communicating boundaries and guardrails. The goal of each cohort meeting is to find one small tweak that can make a big difference in how we move about the world.

Of course, the real benefit of this cohort is the participants - the shared wisdom and companionship you will offer one another. I will provide tools and the space, but you will bring the oomph, the encouragement, the heart. Together we will find daylight through the soupy fog.

Find out more and register by March 1 here.

I recently interviewed several pastors for a Doctor of Ministry class assignment. My topic was how the shift to virtual/hybrid ministry during Covid has impacted pastors’ role and vocational identity. Some of these clergy have found renewed hope and purpose in the midst of the chaos. Some of them feel like they have been robbed of the joy of ministry and are hanging on to their jobs by their fingertips. All of them, though, talked in some way about the overwhelm that the pandemic has prompted: the expansion of their position descriptions just as other responsibilities (such as caregiving) ballooned, the decision fatigue, the million mini pivots in ministry, the arguments over Covid precautions, the reduced access to typical stress-reducing strategies, the increased profile and accompanying performance anxiety that has come with uploading or livestreaming worship. The struggle is very, very real.

On Thursday, February 10, I will be joining my clergy colleagues Heidi Carrington Heath and Callie Swanlund in offering a workshop about dealing with this overwhelm. Callie, a Brene Brown Daring Way Facilitator, will help us differentiate between stress and overwhelm. Heidi, a spiritual director and writer, will provide tools for spiritual resilience. I will share a wellbeing assessment to help participants untangle their overwhelm and reclaim agency and presence. And that’s just the first 30 minutes! We’ll take a break after the panelist presentations, then move into 45-minute breakout sessions for deeper dives into the material and for group engagement. After the workshop, participants will have the option to join a 4-week cohort led by one of the three presenters to continue applying insights and tools.

The workshop on February 10 is being hosted free of charge by Practical Resources for Churches, and everyone who registers will receive a recording of the introductory 30-minute panel discussion.

You are not alone in your overwhelm. You also don’t have to stay mired in it. Join Heidi, Callie, and me to begin finding your way out. Register today for the overwhelm workshop.

Many pastor search processes gear up or reconvene after Christmas. If your pastor search team doesn’t know where to start, has hit a snag, or has a Big Question it’s not sure how to answer, good news! Practical Resources for Churches is hosting (and I am leading) a free webinar on best practices for pastor search teams on Thursday, January 20, from 7:00-8:00 pm eastern.

In this webinar your pastor search team will learn best practices for conducting a search that not only results in calling a great-fit pastor but that also promotes spiritual transformation for those involved and blesses the candidates that come into contact with your process. I’ll give a brief overview of all the opportunities baked into a pastor search and the head/heart orientation that will allow your search team to make the most of them. I’ll provide an introduction to the five main stages of a pastor search, explaining how their completion contributes to a successful search process and a great foundation for mutual ministry with your new pastor, along with best practices for each stage. I’ll take a deeper dive on some questions that are common to many search teams, such as where to search, how to review materials, what questions to ask of yourselves and the candidates, and how to communicate with candidates. There will be particular tips for small churches and part-time calls. Ample time will be reserved for questions specific to your situation.

Even if you aren’t able to attend the webinar live, you can register and receive the webinar recording afterward. I encourage you then to register and to share the webinar information with others who might be interested. If your search team needs more guidance after the webinar, I offer affordable, remote coaching and training options.

I look forward to my first opportunity to work with Practical Resources for Churches, a nonprofit ecumenical resource center for churches. It presents over 60 webinars each year, many featuring nationally recognized presenters and authors, in the areas of faith formation; children's, youth, adult, and intergenerational ministry; church management; stewardship and finance; technology; worship; caring ministry; and more. Each year thousands of people from around the country and the world watch or register for these webinars. All of PRC’s webinars are free.

Last year I wrote an e-book about visioning in the small church. It details a process for dreaming, listening for God, and planning out of a sense of gratitude for what your congregation has. Some of these gifts are individual while others are collective. There are both tangible and intangible blessings available for your use. They include money and facilities, but they encompass so much more than that. Together, they point your church toward God’s invitations to all kinds of ministry.

The book was written for a pre-pandemic church, but just like you’ve done with so many other aspects of your congregation’s life, you can adapt the outlines to online or hybrid formats.

It seems fitting to me during this week that I give thanks to you for all that you do by helping you learn how to celebrate and operate out of all that your congregation has to offer. So for today only, you can download my book for free. Feel free to share this link far and wide. We will all benefit from a church and a world infused with gratitude!

A couple of weeks ago I led a retreat session for clergywomen. My instruction from the retreat organizer was simply to facilitate a conversation among the participants: after twenty months of pandemic ministry (plus other stressors exacerbated by Covid), what is their state of being?

I knew that if these women were like me, it might be difficult for them to separate areas in which they are doing ok from those in which they’re not. After all, our lives have become a tangle of tugs on our energy, brain space, and time. So I put together a very non-scientific assessment based on the PERMA model developed by Martin Seligman. In Seligman’s field of positive psychology, the focus is on what supports flourishing, not what will relieve distress. The assessment, then, asks takers to evaluate the truth of statements on a scale of 1 to 5 in those areas most tied to thriving: positive emotions, sense of engagement in their lives and work, health of their relationships, overarching sense of meaning, and feeling of accomplishment. I tailored these statements to ministry and added in a few other statements about caring for physical health. The goal of this tool was to help my session participants celebrate what’s going well (4s and 5s) and become more aware of parts of their lives that might need further attention in order to increase overall wellbeing (1s and 2s).

If this tool could be helpful to you, I offer it for your use. Feel free to download and/or share it. And, if you identify a particular aspect in which you’d like to make strides, let’s talk about how coaching could help you with that.

Click on the image to download a PDF of the wellbeing assessment.

[Note: I originally offered this resource five years ago, and it continues to be one of my favorites. Like 2020, I think this might be a particularly poignant and important year to spend ample time remembering those we have lost.]

Sometimes I wish All Saints’ Day could be more than, well, one day. Our lives are shaped by so many people who have gone before, whether we knew them personally or not. I think we could all benefit from reflecting on their influence and considering what parts of their legacies to carry forward.

Since All Saints’ Day is November 1, and since we are already inclined toward thanks-living during November, I have put together a month-long prayer calendar with daily prompts to remember a departed saint whose impact has been significant. This calendar is available as a copier-friendly PDF. Feel free to share the calendar on social media, print it for your church members or yourself, or use it as your November newsletter article.

You’ve almost made it! That promise of extended leave in order to rejuvenate and to reconnect with God and others is just around the corner. Maybe you are army crawling toward your departure date. Maybe you have concerns about being away from your congregation during a pandemic, as conflict simmers, or with a big event or part of a significant planning process overlapping with your leave. Whether you are looking toward your respite with desperation, hesitation, or another emotion (or combination of emotions) entirely, I highly encourage you to take the breather and to think through all the pieces of getting ready, being gone, and re-entering your context.

That’s why I have created Hitting the Refresh Button: A Workbook to Help Clergy Plan for Renewal Leave. This 38-page PDF workbook helps you notice the current states of yourself and your congregation and name your hopes for what you’d like them to be after you take some time apart. The included reflection prompts then help you identify the scaffolding for a leave that will bridge the gap between what is and what could be. Details that are covered include framing, timing, identifying needed resources, budgeting, communicating with the church, departing well, checking in with yourself mid-leave, preparing for coming back, and much more.

The Church, your church, and the world need you at your best. That means we need you physically rested, spiritually grounded, and emotionally nurtured, whether or not we do a good job of telling you this! Hitting the Refresh Button could be the guide you’ve been seeking to get you there during your renewal leave. Purchase it for $15 here.

Pastoral turnover is happening, and more is to come. Part of this is due to normal cycling in the mutual ministries of clergy and congregations. Much is related to the stresses ministers experienced during the pandemic, when they were called upon to take on more responsibility (and sometimes authority) than ever before, often with less support. These shifts created fissures or widened pre-existing ones in ways that now seem difficult to bridge as Covid continues, particularly in pastors’ exhausted states.

Whatever the cause, if churches and their leaders are parting ways, it is essential to conduct an exit interview. This kind of meeting offers the pastor closure and provides the church a wealth of insight that it can use for discernment during the transition between settled leaders.

Here are some considerations when planning a fruitful exit interview:

Framing

It’s important that the leadership group setting up the exit interview sees the departing pastor's insight as a gift, a way to get a head start on the church's self-assessment work in the interim time. Pastors can view their full participation as one of their final acts of care and leadership for the congregation. This mutual understanding sets the table for a productive, even if at times difficult, conversation.

Timing

Set aside ample space in the last couple of weeks of the pastor’s tenure. If the exit interview is too early, the minister might not feel comfortable being completely forthcoming, and if it is after the pastor departs, she might not have the same level of investment in giving complete answers.

Parties involved

Typically exit interviews are conducted by the personnel committee or other leadership team to whom the pastor goes to ask questions or express concerns about how the mutual ministry is functioning. You might consider inviting a third party to facilitate this conversation, particularly if you think the conversation might become contentious. Judicatory leaders, pastors of nearby churches, coaches, or consultants could fill this role.

Clarity about confidentiality

All participants in the exit interview should decide together how the information gleaned can be used. Who can take notes, and where will they be stored? What pieces can be shared, and with whom? Gaining agreement in these matters builds trust in the process, making it more likely that the church will glean useful knowledge.

Questions to ask the pastor

• What were your hopes when you started your ministry here? In what ways were they realized? What made that possible? In what ways were your hopes not realized? What were the contributing factors?

• How would you describe the initial welcome our church offered you (and your family, if applicable)? How did that welcome affect your ability to minister alongside us?

• What goals did you set for your leadership during your time here? What made living into them more or less possible?

• How would you describe the support and encouragement you received from our church for your leadership? For you personally? What was the impact?

• Where do you see untapped potential for our congregation? What do you think is the biggest barrier to living into that potential?

• What do we need to celebrate about our ministry together? For what do we need to forgive on another? In what ways might we go about both?

• What has been left hanging in your ministry that we need to attend to in your absence?

• What else is it important that we name in this space?

After the exit interview is over, the church must not simply stick the fruits of it in a drawer or argue with what was said. Instead, ask, “What does it say about us, in delightful or challenging ways, that our pastor feels this way?” This is a solid step toward transitioning to a new season of leadership with hospitality, direction, and faithfulness.

Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash.

[Note: This article was originally published in the July 2021 issue of Christian Coaching Magazine. It is republished here by permission.]

Confessions of a clergyperson: I love the church. I love ministry. I love working with lay leaders. And - I have banged my head on tables so many times during pastor searches that I have a permanent bruise on my forehead.

This action born of frustration and the resulting injury might be metaphorical, but they are also very real. I have either participated in or resourced a number of pastor searches as a search team member, candidate for the position, coach (to the search team or the candidate), and interim pastor, and the common thread through all of them is the anxiety pulsing through the searching church and its representatives.

Rarely are people at their best – their most faithful – when anxious. In the case of pastor searches, panicky churches ask questions that don’t give them the most helpful information or that are off-putting to candidates. They act on personal preferences rather than tuning into subtle nudges from God. They make decisions that are hasty or based on the wrong criteria. They fail to see their candidates as people who are also discerning a big decision and making life changes that are about family and faith community and calling as well as a paycheck.

Add to that the reality that very few pastor search team members have experience hiring an employee (much less calling a pastor, which has some significant differences from your standard human resources procedures), and there are any number of points at which the search process can go off the rails.

These are expensive mistakes, and not just in financial terms. Churches that have to search again shortly because of a poor fit are left spinning their wheels instead of sharing the love of Christ and making big impacts in their communities. Discouragement and distrust in processes set in. Power vacuums are created and filled, often by those who shouldn’t. Pastor carcasses begin to pile up outside the sanctuary door.

Even so, I believe that church members are best situated to find their next leader. They know their congregation, its history and culture. They are deeply invested in its future. They want to do this good, hard search work well. And they absolutely can – with the right resources.

About five years ago I applied for a grant from the Louisville Institute so that I could devote significant time to putting together some kind of toolkit for pastor search teams. I wanted to help them navigate their anxiety so they could harness the opportunity that comes with a leadership transition, that time when a church is most free to assess its direction and needs because it is unattached to a pastor’s personality and vision.

A how-to guide wouldn’t cut it, because each congregation is different. And, as any coach knows, simply telling people what to do cheats them of owning the work and its rewards. What emerged from my eighteen months of research and development, then, was a framework for coaching pastor search teams, a set of handholds by which pastor search teams could feel their way toward calling a great-fit leader.

Searching for the Called is divided into five major stages, with substages in each:

• Pre-search

• Developing the search team

• Designing process and core documents

• Engaging with candidates

• Covenanting with the new pastor

Within every substage search teams can find:

The goal of that stage. This is the big-picture view of what a pastor search team is trying to accomplish and how that work fits into the longer arc of the search as a whole. This framing helps a search team understand why it’s important not to skip ahead in the process. The primary coaching questions here are, “What will the impact be if you complete this stage well? What might happen on down the line if you don’t take the time you need?”

An outline of essential tasks. These to-dos are the foci of each substage. Without checking off each, a search team knows it is not ready to move on to other tasks. Here I ask, “How will completing these to-dos help you meet the goal of this stage of the search?”  

Key questions. These reflection prompts contain coaching questions and allow pastor search teams to customize the goals and tasks of the substage to their particular contexts.

Best practices. Giving search teams a picture of what it looks like to complete the essential tasks well allows me to ask, “What would it look like for your church, with its gifts and challenges, to embody this best practice?”

Tools for carrying out the essential tasks. Here I have developed some resources that pastor search teams to use on their own to do such things as facilitate congregational discussion, ask great interview questions, and put together a fair compensation package. Coaching questions around these tools could include, “How might you use these resources in a helpful way? What do you need that you don’t find in this toolkit, and where might you locate it?”

Candidate perspective. This aspect of the framework is critical. We all have a limited ability to walk in another person’s shoes, but a search team’s willingness to try to understand what their candidates are experiencing allows them to carry out their search process in the most compassionate way possible. Here I ask, “If your candidates are feeling this way, what does that mean for the way you interact with them?”

An assessment so that the search team knows whether it’s ready to move to the next stage. This checklist provides a bookend to the goal and essential tasks of each substage: Here’s what we were trying to do. Did we do it? If not, I can ask, “What’s left hanging before you can move forward? What will it take to complete it?”

Deep dive resources for those who want to know more. Sometimes there is a member of a pastor search team who gets very energized by an aspect of the search process, so I offer books and articles by which that person can learn more.

The word that kept bubbling up for me as I read books and interviewed ministers, judicatory leaders, and search team members in building this framework was “hospitality.” I felt a clear imperative to create a process and coaching around it that warmly welcomes the voices of pastor search team members, the congregation as a whole, the larger community, candidates, and the Holy Spirit. As a result, every aspect of Searching for the Called is geared toward developing relationships, with the hope that pastor search teams will both bless and be blessed by their work.

What I like about using this framework in coaching is that it gives pastor search teams confidence – the counter to anxiety – that they can carry out the important job their churches have commissioned them for as they tailor the process to the specific needs of their congregations. Many search teams emerge from this framework coaching experience not only having called a great-fit pastor but also having developed deeper trust with one another; greater understanding of themselves, their churches, and the ingredients to a healthy process; and a renewed sense of God’s work in, around, and through them. (With regards to this last benefit, the most meaningful feedback I’ve gotten on coaching around Searching for the Called is that it “feels like church.”) The effects can ripple out even beyond single congregations, as candidates who are released from hospitality-rooted search processes feel valued and affirmed in their ministries in ways that positively impact the churches they end up serving.

When individual or team coaching clients are embroiled in change, a service we can provide is not just our coaching skill but also clarity about how they can get where they want (and avoid where they don’t want)to go. A framework like Searching for the Called can do just this, letting prospective search team coachees know that I as coach have an understanding of what they’re trying to do and what they need in order to do it. This builds their trust in our work together even before our first conversation, making it more likely that clients will take a courageous leap toward a hope-filled new normal and saving us all from indenting hard surfaces with the shapes of our skulls.

Schedule a free discovery call here if you’d like to talk about pastor search team coaching. (If there are no available times that work for your search team, email me to coordinate a day and time.) Alternatively, your search team can enroll in the Searching for the Called online course for guidance with your search.

When I started my coaching practice eight years ago, there was so much I didn’t know. I’d gotten my initial coach training and was seeking more, and I was eager to work with coachees. I was guessing about almost everything else, though. A few of my many questions were:

• How do I find people to coach?

• What are reasonable goals to set for myself?

• How do I manage my time and energy so that I can still parent and do my other job that pays a steady income as I build my practice?

• What are the logistics of getting paid when I don’t have an employer cutting me a check every two weeks?

• How much labor do I give away for the exposure?

• How do I find my distinct voice and approach?

• How do I get my arms around all the tasks I have to do now that I’m a solo practitioner instead of part of a staff or surrounded by volunteers?

• Who will want to know what I’m up to?

• When will I feel like A Coach and not just someone who happens to coach?

• How will I know this venture is sustainable?

There was a lot of shuffling my way along, of trying and reflecting and then trying again.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you want to establish a coaching, spiritual direction, or counseling practice; start a retreat center; create art that connects us to each other and God; write prolifically about things that matter deeply; take the speaking or preaching circuit by storm; or do something amazing that no one else has even conceived of yet. I want to help you offer your voice and your gifts to the church and the world. We need you!

That’s why I created a new e-course, available now on the Teachable platform. If you a clergywoman who wants to show up in ministry in a way that is new to you, carve out a space for yourself in ministry that doesn’t yet exist, or meet a currently unmet ministry need, this course can help you lay the groundwork. Starting with naming your purpose as a person and as a pastor, Called to Create: Becoming a Ministry Entrepreneur utilizes short videos and worksheets to take you through the tangible and intangible considerations in designing your new ministry venture. Click to see the titles of all the lectures and to preview the first couple for free.

Called to Create is available for $59 during the month of June. (On July 1, the price goes to $79.) As a bonus, anyone who purchases the course gets a discount on an initial coaching session. Happy creating!

[Note: interim pastors, settled pastors planning to transition out, and judicatory leaders, please share this post with your churches.]

You’ve been selected to serve on your church’s search team for a new pastor. This is an exciting task! You will be part of a process that will deeply impact your congregation’s ministry for years to come. Pastor searches are daunting for that very same reason, along with the time commitment required to do the search work well. If you are feeling a swirl of emotions about being named to the pastor search team, that is completely normal.

After your initial reactions, your next concerns might be about how to carry out the work of the search. Most members of pastor search teams have never served in this capacity before and have no background in hiring (or in the case of a pastor, calling). You might not even be totally sure what a clergyperson’s day-to-day schedule looks like.

That’s ok. A congregation’s laypeople are still in the best position to call a great-fit pastoral candidate, because you know your church better than anyone. You just need the search framework and tools to carry out your task faithfully.

In the new online course version of Searching for the Called, you will find what you need to set up your search process and ground it in God, tamp down your own (and the congregation’s) anxiety, engage well with pastoral candidates, discern which candidate with which you can envision fruitful ministry, and help your new minister get off to a fast start. The course breaks the pastor search into bite-sized chunks to eliminate overwhelm and utilizes videos, tools, and assessments to move you along the search timeline. There are also sections dedicated to helping your search team think through common questions that pop up during pastor searches, including anytime questions as well as pandemic-specific issues.

You can purchase two years of unlimited access for your entire search team for $250. (For reading this blog post, I’m happy to offer your team 10% off! Enter the code BLOG10OFF at checkout.) Simply have one member of your search team enroll in the course, and then I will contact the enrollee with login information for fellow search team members. You will also have the capability to contact me through the course with brief questions about your search.

The pastor search can be formational for your search team members, church, and pastoral candidates. Let Searching for the Called assist you in claiming that opportunity.

Judicatory and denominational leaders, I invite you to use my contact form to email me for a free preview version that will allow you to see all course content so that you can recommend it to your churches with confidence.

I originally developed this prayer calendar in 2014, and I think it holds up. The coming year offers us a glimmer of light at the end of the end of the pandemic tunnel, and this calendar can help you begin to orient yourself toward that hope. I welcome you to download and share this resource. A PDF version is available here.

My son last received formal instruction from his school on March 13, meaning first grade effectively ended for him on that day. Five months later, he is about to begin second grade. In that between time his school system, like every other one across the United States, has brainstormed, changed course, planned, and crossed its fingers for the academic year to come. In that time my spouse and I, like many parents across the United States, have wondered, fretted, been faced with impossible choices that we changed our minds about almost daily, and settled uneasily on the best path forward for our family. If you - or the people in your care - are in this situation, here’s a prayer that you’re welcome to use and share. Peace be with you.

God our help in ages past and hope for years to come,

we approach the beginning of this cycle of formal education with all the typical emotions:

excitement, uncertainty, disappointment at the end of summer, grief about the passage of time.

This year, though, that’s not all.

Over this summer the Covid-19 infection rate has trended up.

So schools and school systems have pivoted and planned to the best of their abilities for the education and safety of their students.

So parents have debated the educational options and second-guessed their choices for their children.

So faculty and staff have asked hard, important questions - many of which remain unanswered - about adequate access to cleaning supplies and protocols if someone gets sick.

Now here we are on the precipice, hoping for the best but terrified to send our loved ones into potential outbreak incubators.

It is too much.

It is too much to ask of our educational institutions that they meet so many community needs that kids’ attendance at them becomes essential for some families.

It is too much to ask of parents to give up income and calling to stay home with virtual learners to decrease exposure.

It is too much to ask of faculty and staff to overhaul their teaching approach or risk their lives (and potentially those of their loved ones) for not enough pay or respect.

And so we pray, fervently.

For good health, above all.

For peace with our hard-wrought decisions, whatever they are.

For compassion toward all, recognizing we’re all doing the best we can.

For enough for those scraping by with less income.

For flexibility and resilience, which we’ll all have opportunities to deepen.

For learning, whether or not it’s of the “academic” variety.

For connection across the cloud and across physical distancing restrictions.

For an increased awareness of the struggles of those around us and ways we can safely help one another.

For a long-term commitment to change systems that don’t serve us all equitably.

May we remember that you go with us wherever we go - or don’t go.

May we grow our dependence on you through this time.

And may we yet wrestle a blessing out of this terrible mess, leaving us changed for the better.

We pray these things in the name of the Christ who hurts with us

and by the power of the Spirit who gives us courage.

Amen.

Photo by Vera Davidova on Unsplash.

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on almost every area of our individual and corporate lives. Our resilience, resourcefulness, and relationships have been stretched to their limits as we’ve managed ongoing drastic changes in our professional and personal lives over the past 3+ months. As we’ve been doing all the things and caring for all the people, ministers serving congregations with tenuous finances have wondered how much longer their church budget would support the amount of work they’ve been putting in. (Although, let’s be honest, many ministers were and are already underpaid for the fullness of their efforts.) At this point in an ongoing pandemic, some congregations have had to make tough choices, including cutting back the hours and pay of their minister or eliminating a ministry position entirely.

Are you a clergyperson who finds yourself in this situation? Maybe the amount of work to be done has not changed - nor has your care for your parishioners - but the paid scope of your position has. Or you suddenly find yourself searching for a new call in the midst of Covid-19. These are not easy transitions to manage without help.

I’d like to offer encouragement and partnership to you. During each week in July I am making two one-hour coaching sessions available at no charge to clergy whose positions have been cut or eliminated entirely. You can sign up for one of these sessions here. Together we’ll strategize next steps for making your responsibilities fit your salary or starting the search for a new ministry position. Your leadership is too valuable to the church and world for you to be doing work you’re not paid for or spinning your wheels!

Please share this information with colleagues who could benefit.

As I imagine is true for most coaches, the bulk of my new clients come from current coachees’ outreach to colleagues who might benefit or casual word-of-mouth recommendations. I am very grateful for these referrals! I want to make it easier for people to tell others about the value of coaching and reward their efforts in doing so.

To that end, I have made this referral sheet available in PDF format, and you can click on the image below to save it as a PNG file. It names the people and groups I work with, details my vision for and approach to coaching, differentiates coaching from counseling and spiritual direction (two disciplines that are distinct from but dovetail nicely with coaching), and provides information on how to get started. Page two, should you choose to keep reading, provides some testimonials.

When potential clients sign up for a free discovery call, I ask where they found out about my coaching services. If they name you specifically, you get two free one-hour coaching sessions. If you’re a current coachee, those two sessions get added to the end of your package. If we’re not coaching together right now - and even if we never have! - you get two sessions to use at your convenience. That’s a $200-300 value, because referrals are that important.

Thank you to all who have recommended my coaching in the past, and thanks in advance to those who will. It is a privilege to serve the church and its leaders in this way.