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.

I have had a number of conversations lately with coachees who feel overwhelmed by their workloads. Some have even expressed shame that they can’t seem to get their arms around all they need – or at least think they need – to do.

Here are my responses to that:

You are not alone. Not by a long shot. Most ministers are generalists, which makes your work big and amorphous.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s because you care. You love your calling and your people. That’s a good thing!

It is ok to reclaim your time. There are some things that only you can do or that you are specifically called to do. You are allowed to prioritize those tasks.

There are strategies that can help you toward that end. Some of the following suggestions will work better than others for you based on your work style and personality type, but you might consider:

Developing a work flow. Think about tasks that recur weekly or monthly and schedule standing blocks of time for them. These don’t have to be big chunks, but blocking time creates touchstones that reduce anxiety and the number of decisions you have to make in a day.

Postponing and/or limiting time spent on email. If you open your email as soon as you sit down at your desk, you have ceded control of your day to whatever awaits you in those messages. Get some of your important tasks done before you check your inbox. A related strategy is to dg into email only at a couple of designated times each day. (Rest assured that real emergencies will get through to you by other means.)

Thinking in longer arcs. Take time at the beginning of each month or season to set goals, plan sermon trajectories, or create outlines for Bible studies. That will offer continuity to your work and make sure your best ideas don’t get shelved.

Breaking big projects into smaller tasks. Projects on the whole can feel too overwhelming to start, but they are made up of mini projects and shorter deadlines that are much more manageable.

Working somewhere else when needed. It’s ok to set up shop from time to time somewhere that you won’t be interrupted every five minutes. Let your admin or lay leaders know where you are for accountability and how your deep work during these windows benefits the church.

Getting curious. Ask yourself questions such as, “Why am I doing this?” or “Who could do this better or with more enthusiasm than me?”

Empowering others. Ministry is about equipping people to follow Jesus. What opportunities to use God-given strengths and to share the love of Christ can others take on and free you up for other responsibilities in the process?

Loving the people in your care is not the same as responding to their every expectation, real or imagined. I encourage you to be proactive about your use of time and to notice how your ministry and your stress level change as a result.

According to many studies done over the past couple of decades, clergy burnout is epidemic. At least half of all pastors leave vocational ministry for good after five years of service. (Some surveys put the number closer to 85%.) Fewer than 1/10 of clergy make it to retirement. These are sobering numbers.

Symptoms of burnout cover the range from relationship problems to poor physical health to feelings of isolation from God to anxiety and depression. But what is the root cause of this burnout? According to Sarah Drummond in Discerning Dynamics: Reason, Power, and Emotion in Change Leadership, “A leader becomes burned out not from long hours, but from working under unrealistic expectations set by others or themselves. When responsibility and power are insufficiently proximate in the work environment, burnout is possible.” This means that clergy who are tasked with making congregational shifts (or keeping a lot of people with disparate hopes happy) but who are not given the resources and authority to put changes in place are most at risk.

What can pastors do, then, to avoid burnout?

Get clear. Use every avenue available to you to find out what the stated and unstated expectations of the pastor are. Read old newsletters. Paw through meeting minutes the previous minister left behind. Know what is in legal documents. Information itself is power.

Get curious. Talk with formal leaders, informal influencers, and people who have a long history with the congregation (including those beyond the church, such as judicatory leaders and other clergy in the community). Whenever a weird dynamic pops up, probe what’s going on beneath the surface. Illuminating unhelpful norms is the first step in reshaping them.

Communicate, then communicate some more. Let everyone – especially your core leaders – know what you’re doing. Use the newsletter, the pulpit, and social media. Make your pastor’s reports available to everyone when appropriate. The role of minister is shrouded in mystery for some folks, leading them to believe you only work a few hours a week. That can prompt them to lay on the pressure even as they grab tasks. Sharing what you’re doing can reshape unrealistic expectations.

Create constructive feedback loops. Advertise when and how you hear questions and concerns best (e.g., a Monday morning email instead of a pre-worship ambush). State what kind of feedback is off limits, such as your parenting approach or hairstyle. Say how you handle anonymous notes. Setting boundaries allows you to claim – appropriately – your power.

Build support for new initiatives. Before you take any big steps, identify the people who will be most affected and get backing from them, particularly from those with the most clout. In other words, pool your power for positive purposes.

Say what you need. Could you use more time away for rest and renewal and professional development? An increase to a line item in the budget? Introductions to potential community partners? More layperson power for a particular ministry? It’s ok to ask, no matter what the response is. In fact, it’s an opportunity to share your thinking and to give folks a peek into what happens in ministry.

All of these approaches work toward more alignment between responsibility and power.

The church needs you and all your gifts for the long haul. So while the onus isn’t – or at least shouldn’t be – all on you to match expectations and authority, it’s well worth your effort to gain new awareness for yourself, shift others’  understanding, and seek more resources.

You have been working with ministry leaders for months on a new initiative. In the process you and your team have carefully gathered input, communicated decisions out in a variety of ways, and provided pastoral care to people for whom proposed changes to the way things are currently done might spark anger or grief.

When implementation time comes, however, the initiative dies on the vine. Why? Well, you’ve attended to reason and emotion, two key aspects of transformation, but it’s possible you and your team overlooked the most potent one: power. According to UCC minister and seminary dean Sarah Drummond in her book Dynamic Discernment, all three areas must be addressed for lasting organizational change to occur.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? You’ve got to have the investment of influencers for anything new to have a shot at succeeding. But here’s the thing, says Drummond: people with power often deny that they have it: “Oh, as board chair my voice is just one among many.” “I haven’t held any [formal] leadership roles for a long time.” “It’s not my fault that others look to me for my opinions.” That’s because those who acknowledge that they have power for whatever reason (position, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, race, age, length of membership, etc.) might be asked to give up some of that advantage, which even well-meaning people are reluctant to do.

Ministers must have a clear-eyed understanding of power dynamics in order to help their congregations live into hope and inhabit new realities. And they have to be able to help others see the forces at work, own where they have clout so that they can leverage it for healthy purposes, and willingly share some of their authority so that new voices can be heard.

As in many matters, curiosity is key, whether you wonder to yourself, “What is really going on here?” or if you ask others to tell you more about people, roles, and expectations to heighten their awareness as well as your own. This questioning not only illuminates previously hidden systems but also makes it possible to note what Drummond calls “pockets of possibility” where established power and grassroots energy could converge.

Who, then, holds the power in your setting? If you don’t know, how will you find out? And how will you then use that information in wise and compassionate ways to affect changes so that your church can be creative and faithful?

You see, you’re already pretty great.

First of all, you are a beloved child of God, made in the divine image. That means you glimmer with God’s imagination and care. Wow.

Second, you are tenacious. After all, you’ve had bad days and Really Bad Days in among the good. And the world sometimes feels like it’s crumbling around us. Yet here you are, keeping on keeping on. Great work!

Third, you do really valuable ministry.  I feel confident saying that you are not just smart but also wise. That you are resourceful and innovative. That you are compassionate. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have the role and the responsibilities that you tend so faithfully. I’m grateful for who you are and what you do.

So the world doesn’t need you to become a whole new you in 2020, despite what the weight loss commercials might tell you. The world does need you to become the best you, though, because you have unique ways of seeing and being in and moving through all that is wonderful and terrible. And we need this particularity from you, from each other.

Coaching can help you embrace this best self. In this new year, I’d love to help you discover:

• what your hard-won and God-given aspects of greatness look like,

• how to channel that greatness for more impact,

• how to remove obstacles to that greatness, and

• how to share (and enlist others to share) the good news of that greatness with others.

Are you ready to explore the fullness of who you are and what you can do in 2020? If so, let’s talk. Click here to schedule a free discovery call.

I know a lot of clergywomen. I run in different networks designed for them. I coach them. I am one myself. And I cannot think of a single one that is not creative, smart, and committed. Why, then, aren’t more clergywomen serving as senior pastors in big pulpits or leading middle judicatories or denominations?

Some of the reasons  are cultural and structural. Women, socialized for humility, are more likely to be shamed (by men and women) for assertively sharing their successes and ideas. Women’s contributions are sometimes co-opted by men, who repeat and get credit for what women have said, sometimes just moments before. Women often have smaller spheres of influence because of the ministry roles to which they are called, giving them less exposure for big steeple pastor searches and elections to leadership on a larger platform. That’s why I piloted a cohort called Trinit-A this fall to help the participants become more comfortable and confident sharing their successes and innovations, celebrate each other’s gifts and accomplishments in ways that encourage continued growth, and go to bat for one another and themselves in spaces dominated by male voices.

During the first session, I asked the members of the cohort what their personal hopes for our time together would be. The group named a desire to share what we learned with others. One of our chosen methods was a blog post. And so, with the cohort’s blessing, I would like to name some of the themes that emerged from our conversations.

Affirm specifics. The group members noted that often they hear their male counterparts celebrated for specific talents and tasks, while they are generally – even generically – referred to as “great,” “sweet,” or “wonderful.” They encouraged affirming in others and in ourselves particular gifts or accomplishments. That makes it more likely that the clergywoman in question will stick in hearers’/observers’ minds and will stand out more in search processes.

Re-write your bio. When we guest preach or speak or lead a retreat, we are inevitably asked for a bio to put in the bulletin and other marketing pieces. Look at yours. In what ways have you undersold your credentials? (If you’re unsure, consult with one of your biggest cheerleaders.) Then take another run at a bio that captures the fullness of your track record and abilities.

Take your rightful seat at the table. Sometimes we’re invited to the table. More often we have to invite ourselves. Either way, it’s important to show up to leadership conversations, reframing, questioning, challenging, and offering our insight on our own behalf and others.’

Network to connect others. For some, networking is still a dirty word. For others it’s not, but it feels awkward. Networking, done right, is intended to benefit both parties. But there’s a way to make it not just win-win, but win-win-win as Michael Scott would say. Consider how you can use your relationships to introduce people who would be of interest to one another but might not meet without your help. Then those people (and the ones they serve) have benefitted, and you lodge in others’ brains as someone who is connected and generous and wise about potential collaborations.

Link hands across denominational lines. Some denominations have more women in ministry than others. Regardless if you’re a pioneer or a third wave clergywoman, though, it helps to have relationships and sounding boards among female clergy in other denominations. These spaces offer perspective, a greater pool of support, and opportunities to share more honestly than is sometimes possible in small denominational worlds. They also lay the groundwork for multi-denominational collaboration.

Highlight positive voices. This fall a certain (male) evangelical leader made a big hubbub about telling a certain (female) author, speaker, and Bible teacher to return to her domicile, among other offensive statements. That incident got a lot of play on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, but it didn’t do much for women other than accentuate how entrenched the patriarchy remains. Instead of giving men who belittle women a bigger platform, the cohort advocated for pushing the voices of women and their allies. It’s just as easy to click share or retweet if you see a clergywoman doing something good or saying something insightful as it is to pass along outrageous content.

Keep track of all you do. The cohort was built on the participants’ willingness to announce recent accomplishments. There were long pauses on the first couple of calls, though, as the members scrolled through their days to remember something worth sharing. After a couple of weeks, one of the women suggested keeping a running list between calls. That shifted the conversation. Responses included, “I didn’t realize how much I do!” and “I thought this was something everyone did. It never occurred to me before now that it is a legit accomplishment.” We’re better prepared to talk about ourselves when we acknowledge all that we do.

Know that your success is my success, and vice versa. We’ve probably all heard a congregation say, “Well, we tried having a woman pastor, and it just didn’t work.” It might be decades before that church is willing to call a woman again, even though the issue was likely not the minister herself but the fit or the church’s lack of support. On the other hand, you might have also heard, “We had a woman pastor, and she was amazing. Let’s call another one.” When one of us succeeds, we broaden the path for all our colleagues.

If we announce our accomplishments and affirm and amplify each other, our whispers of giftedness and faithfulness become shouts that skeptics can’t ignore.

Thank you to this pilot cohort of Trinit-A. I enjoyed being with and learning from you so much.

If you are interested in a future Trinit-A cohort, contact me.

Surprise! The old ways of doing church are no longer leading to the outcomes we’ve been conditioned to expect. Instead, numbers in most congregations have dipped (well, at least the ones that are easiest to measure). Churches are so desperate to stop the skid that they often tell God to take a backseat and lean on strategies more suited for the corporate world. The result is that congregations no longer feel so much like sacred centers but frantic, fractured gatherings of people who’ll do anything to avoid looking mortality – the congregation’s and their own – in the eyes.

There’s no denying that the “Big C” Church and many congregations are at a crossroads, or what seasoned consultant Susan Beaumont calls a “liminal space.” The old is in the rearview, and the new is not yet in sight. There is no easy path forward. This is not a situation that churches can strategically plan their way out of or pour more resources into until the trend rights itself. Instead, this season calls for a new kind of leadership, one that lets go of attachment to outcomes, tends the soul of the gathered body, and notices what emerges.

What this transition time requires, in other words, is true spiritual leadership. In her book How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going: Leading in a Liminal Season, Beaumont lines out what this leadership looks like. It requires the ability to live with discomfort. Every congregation wants to know now what the future will look like now, and that simply isn’t possible without experimentation and discovery. Humans in a world geared toward instant gratification will buck against this purposeful not-knowing, and the leader must point toward the faithfulness of this stance and the opportunities in it. Liminal leadership also necessitates the willingness and capacity to tune into who the congregation is at its roots, what God is up to, and what the Spirit is nudging it to do and be. It invites the church as a whole to join in this untangling of its DNA, this discernment, this identification of purpose. In the process, dependence on God’s timing and attentiveness to God’s presence bring about spiritual transformation for those who engage in this challenging work.

Beaumont’s book offers as much of a guide as we have available for how to navigate this weird, wild time. It outlines the postures a liminal leader must take. It points to where the soul of each congregation reveals itself. It teaches the spiritual practices that add up to discernment. It helps leaders detect and elevate new, more helpful narratives about their churches. It highlights what congregations do (e.g., core values) and don’t (e.g., a 10-year plan) need to move ahead with faithful purpose. And it reassures and emboldens leaders and their churches by emphasizing that it is good and right to stand in wonder rather than on certainty.

I recommend this book to pastors and lay leaders who are stymied about how to put one foot in front of the other. It offers a balance of spiritual and practical, realism and hope that I believe can move churches from liminal languishing to empowered, impassioned purpose.

In churches that have more than one clergyperson on staff, it is good and right for the congregation to look to the associate pastor(s) for leadership when the senior pastor is away. That associate pastor has the training and the big picture understanding to keep ministry moving forward during the senior pastor’s absence.

Things get tricky, though, when we’re talking about the long-term leave (such as sabbatical) or the resignation of a senior pastor. In these instances the capabilities of associate pastors do not change, but their capacities do. A senior pastor’s two-week vacation typically means temporarily-added stress for an associate pastor, who might take on more worship leadership, preaching, pastoral care, and administrative (e.g. meetings) duties than usual. That is doable for a short span. Carrying those extra responsibilities for months, however, could easily lead to resentment and/or burnout on the part of an associate pastor. After all, she is doing more than the job to which the church called her. And all too often congregations don’t recognize, bring in help for, or compensate this essential yet supplemental work.

How, then, can these common gaps in senior pastor leadership be navigated well? Here are a few thoughts:

Senior pastors can

• Make the effort to communicate to church leadership how much time they spend on the various aspects of their ministry so that those leaders can make good decisions about coverage.

• Invite their associate pastors to ask questions, share concerns, and state needs around the responsibilities that might fall to them during long-term senior pastor absences.

• Secure temporary assistance for their associate pastors during sabbatical periods and advocate for additional compensation during and time off after the leave for their associate pastors.

• Help the church be pro-active about budgeting for temporary assistance and additional compensation so that the funds will be there when needed.

Associate pastors can

• Talk with their senior pastors, pastoral relations committees, and/or personnel committees about their hopes and fears around their senior pastors’ absences.

• Keep track of all of their responsibilities and the time needed to do each well. Be prepared to share this information with church leaders and to help them do the math. (“If you want me to pick up X responsibility, what would you like for me to drop?”)

• Ask for what they need. What kind of help would be most useful? Who might provide it? How much recovery time will be required after the church is fully-staffed again? How much additional pay would be fair for taking on senior pastor duties?

• Go on vacation beforehand. Have something to look forward to afterward.

• Ensure they have breaks built into the time when they’ll be running point.

Congregations can

• Recognize their associate pastors as pastors, all the time.

• Take care to appreciate their associate pastors’ extra effort and to note the toll it takes when the senior pastor is gone.

• Acknowledge that associate pastors pick up extra emotional labor when senior pastors are absent due to added anxiety in the system.

• Mobilize to pick up some of the duties that would otherwise fall by the wayside when the senior pastor is away.

• Listen to associate pastors when they say that expectations are unreasonable. Even better, invite them to share concerns in advance of the leave and work to resolve them.

• Give associate pastors some choice in what they pick up and what they hand off to others during senior pastor absences. Some associates might be eager to preach more. Others might want to stay closer to the areas of ministry to which the church called them.

• Budget for additional pastoral help during stretches without a senior pastor in place. In other words, be ready to call at least a part-time interim minister following a senior pastor’s resignation, and be prepared to pay for temporary help during a senior pastor’s sabbatical.

A senior pastor’s absence can be a time of growth for the associate pastor and the congregation. In order to harness this opportunity, though, it is important to be thoughtful and pro-active. Otherwise, expect the associate pastor to begin imagining herself elsewhere.

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, but let’s be honest. You deserve to be noticed and thanked year-round for the ways you have committed your lives not just to the tasks but also to the intense spiritual, emotional, and mental labor of ministry. I want you to know that…

…I see you when you get up at 4:30 am for a pre-surgery visit after crawling into bed late the night before due to a meeting that ran long.

…I see you when you struggle over whether to take that much-needed vacation, knowing that a beloved church member is on hospice care.

…I see you when social media tells people in the pews to “walk out of worship if your pastor doesn’t preach on [insert current event here],” yet your sensitivity to the Spirit and to your congregation’s capacity tells you that doesn’t need to be your focus today.

…I see you when the lectionary is serving up softballs for addressing the world’s ills, and you go there, knowing some of your parishioners will be angry.

…I see you when it’s hard to date or make friends outside of work because of the assumptions about and demands of your vocation.

…I see you when you are pulled between wanting to be a whole person (including showing up for your loved ones and yourself) and wanting to be the best pastor possible.

…I see you when you feel like you have to hide part of yourself, whether a belief or an aspect of your identity, because you want to be able to continue in this vocation to which God has called you.

…I see you when you work so hard to encourage your church’s progress, only to have conflict burn it all down.

…I see you when your calendar looks like a box of markers exploded on it, with color-coded appointments leaving precious little blank space.

…I see you when you have to wear the mantle of spiritual leadership even as you wrestle with your own faith.

…I see you when you are moved to enter search and call and have to deal with the ickiness of feeling like you are betraying your current context.

…I see you when you are confined by circumstances to a ministerial role you have outgrown, and you keep showing up despite the chafe.

…I see you when you have no idea what to do next after a metaphorical bomb goes off in your congregation, so you keep putting one foot directly in front of the other.

…I see you when the Church or your church makes you representative of all of a particular demographic, such that you bear the weight of excellence on behalf of all your peers.

…I see you when constructive feedback is hard to come by, no matter how much you seek it out.

…I see you when others discount your voice because you are too something, yet still you keep raising it because your message is faithful.

…I see you when you toil in obscurity, leading small congregations, because you are making big impacts that will ripple out far beyond what you will ever see.

…I see you when you make (or lead your church to make) decisions that are hard but good.

…I see you when you offer care to people who disappoint or even hurt you.

…I see you when you want more for the Church, because it is Christ’s body here on earth.

…I see your love for God and neighbor, your tenacity, your creativity, and your wisdom.

Thank you, dear ministers, for all the seen and unseen work you do to bring more peace, connection, and understanding into this world.

When a church calls a new clergyperson, formally marking the new partnership is essential. In many denominations an installation worship service is the primary means for doing so. Installations typically take place after the new pastor has been in place for 1-3 months. This delay gives the minister (at least some) time to get acclimated and to meet people in the congregation, judicatory, and surrounding community that she wants to involve in the planning and leadership of the installation service. It also allows her to invite family, friends, and mentors who need advance notice in order to travel.

An installation service is a celebration. A new season in the lives of the minister and congregation has begun. Installing a leader gives church members and the pastor the opportunity to express gratitude to God for accompanying them through the transition time and for bringing them together for mutual ministry. An installation service is a time of covenanting. During the service the clergyperson and the congregation make promises about the ways they will journey alongside one another on mission for God. And an installation service connects church and minister with a broader community. Often a judicatory or denominational representative, clergy colleagues, leaders from community organizations, and/or someone from the pastor’s seminary will participate in some fashion.

For all of these reasons, installations promote positivity and connection that can lead to momentum for the congregation and minister. Often, though, churches and search teams do not think to budget for this worship service. Costs could include honorarium and travel expenses for the installation preacher (who often comes from out of town because the inviting clergyperson is from another area), a gift for the pastor being installed (such as a stole or a chalice and paten), and finger foods for a reception after the service. Larger congregations might easily be able to absorb these costs by pulling from line items such as pulpit supply and hospitality. Many small to medium congregations cannot, however. And having the forethought to include installation expenses in the search budget – no matter how many resources the church has – sends a message about welcome, attention to detail, and the desire to develop a long, fruitful ministry with the incoming pastor.

If you are deep in the process with a searching church, ask about the budget for your installation. (In some contexts, you might need to be prepared first to educate about the what and why of an installation.) If there isn’t one, make it a negotiating point. An installation service is not just for your benefit. It glorifies God and lays the foundation for your leadership and the church’s future.

It is important for your minister to thrive. Matt Bloom, a professor at Notre Dame, is well-known for his research on what contributes to thriving in various vocations. Here are some of the factors he names as crucial for clergy:

• physical health

• everyday happiness

• the opportunity to be authentic

• good boundaries

• a sense of meaning (and purpose within that bigger picture of meaning)

• relationships with others

• the ability to self-reflect

You can read more about Bloom’s work here.

But why is it so important that clergy thrive? Well, as it turns out, there is a link between flourishing ministers and flourishing congregations. One party’s health contributes to the other’s. (The same is true of languishing.) Wouldn’t you prefer to be part of a church that has some of the characteristics of thriving mentioned above rather than one that pretends to be something it is not, is constantly conflict-ridden, has no self-awareness, and doesn’t connect to a larger sense of purpose? I know I would.

Ok. But why, then, is it important that congregations thrive? This is often where the reflection stops. We don’t need clergy and churches that flourish simply for flourishing’s sake. We need to be able to contribute to one another’s thriving so that together we can then answer God’s call to contribute to a more loving, just, and generous world. Our congregations are situated within local and global contexts that are hungry for love, justice, and generosity. And these contexts are part of God’s good creation and our spheres of influence, just like our little patches of physical plant are, so our partnering with and participation in them is a condition of faithful stewardship.

But back to the minister. What can congregations do to help that clergyperson thrive, so that the minister then offers quality pastoral leadership and a good model to the congregation, so that in turn the church’s flourishing takes it into the world to do great things alongside God? This is an important question for congregations to consider as they search and negotiate with pastoral candidates. Ministers want to thrive, but they often jump into new calls with both feet without first thinking through what they need to flourish. They are so quickly consumed that it is then difficult to back up and set good practices. Search teams can help incoming pastors not only by giving them permission to set up the conditions for thriving but also by covenanting with their clergy at the start around maintaining those practices.

Here are some questions search teams can ask their ministerial candidates to form the basis for this covenant:

• What do you imagine thriving might look like for you in this context?

• What practices would you like to put in place to make this flourishing possible?

• What time do you need to carve out to implement these practices?

• What spaces will it be important for you to inhabit?

• What support do you need from the congregation to follow through on your plan?

• How might you share with the church about the impact of your practices?

Putting the conditions for clergy thriving into place at the outset will reaffirm for that minister that your church is a great fit and is invested in mutual care. You’ll have laid the groundwork for a long, fruitful ministry together.

“JEEEE-susss, it’s no fair. Mary is making me do all the work. Make her help meeee.” This quote is often used to pit Martha against her sister in Luke 10:40, thus retconning the catfight trope into holy scripture itself.

Not today, Satan. Not only does the typical translation of these women’s relationship set up a false binary between doing and being, service and leadership, it keeps us from more deeply seeing ourselves reflected in the scripture.

Martha says, “Tell Mary to get off her butt.” She speaks to Jesus with the confidence of someone who knows her hearer will certainly see her side. Instead: “Sorry, Martha. I’m enjoying this conversation with your sister.” If she’d had access to an ice pack, Martha would no doubt have used it on her floor-bruised jaw and her indignant-red cheeks.

How often do we approach God authoritatively, knowing God will agree with us? If you’re like me, it’s more often than I care to admit. “Not my will, but thi…yada, yada, yada, I’m sure you’d like to bless me with good weather for my road trip and a change of attitude for that person who has been a thorn in my side and a new on-sale dress for Easter.”

Whole congregations can do this too. We pray for more people to join our membership – because God must want that for us – but what if we’re already the right size to do the job God has for us? We pray for more resources, but what if more money leads to more distractions and excuses from spiritual growth and disciple-making? To the best of my understanding, God doesn’t think in the same categories and metrics that we do.

This is what makes the prayer of indifference – a key component of discernment – so important and so dang hard. It means acknowledging our short-sightedness. It means giving up some control. But unless we can offer prayers that sound like, “Here’s what I’m worried about, please do your God thing” without prescribing what we’d like that God thing to look like, we’re too attached to a particular outcome. That means limiting God, or at least limiting our openness to God.

The prayer of indifference is made a bit easier by cultivating a habit of gratitude. Noting where God has been at work in, around, and through us in big and small ways reminds us that our faith in God’s presence and goodness is warranted. God doesn’t do on-demand prayer responses, but God hasn’t abandoned us yet.

What adjustments to your prayer posture would you like to make? How might you incorporate noticing gratitude into your routine to make these changes possible?

I first sensed a call to ministry when I was a youth. I tried to talk with my youth minister about the vocational stirring I felt, but he wouldn’t engage. I met with my pastor, who encouraged me privately. (He didn’t think our church was ready to throw support behind a woman in ministry. He was right, but he also wasn’t pushing the culture.) For a long time, then, my mentors were either strong women who weren’t clergy or clergywomen I “knew” through books and periodicals.

In seminary I found a congregation that had no qualms about bringing me on as an intern and later ordaining me. That business about women being barred from ministry because they were “first in the Edenic fall” (see: 1984 Southern Baptist Convention) seemed far removed from my burgeoning career in more progressive contexts.

And yet, it wasn’t. Microaggressions abounded among staff and congregants, sometimes making churches unpleasant places of ministry. Clergywomen peers found themselves toeing the glass cliff, looking over their shoulders at church people who were willing to “take a chance” on women’s leadership only as a last-ditch effort to slow decline – and then crowding them on that precipice when the long skid was not reversed quickly enough. Other highly-qualified women ministers noted their male counterparts professionally leapfrogging them as they heard “no” again and again from search teams. All of this was – is – happening in mainline denominations that have supposedly conquered sexism.

Let me be clear. The Church needs women in the pastorate. It is shrinking, in part, due to the lack of tenacity, wisdom, innovation, and compassion that women in ministry have to offer. Time and again, though, women pastors hear that churches are not ready for them, or these clergy realize after accepting ministry positions that congregations had misjudged their own preparedness. The ramifications for this miscalculation are huge. If a clergywoman is not successful because of the church’s failure to lay groundwork, that congregation often thinks, “Well, we tried having a woman as a pastor, and it just didn’t work out” instead of examining its assumptions. The church hesitates before calling another woman, thus missing out on deeply-needed gifts and perspectives. Additionally, that pastor might begin to question her effectiveness and call rather than her fit with the context, possibly leaving the ministry for good and ensuring that no congregation benefits from all she has to offer.

Here, then, is my attempt to give churches an assessment they can use to judge their true openness to a pastor who also happens to be a woman. (I want to thank alumnae of Young Clergy Women International for their input on the points below.) You can download a PDF of the assessment here, which I encourage you to share.

Pre-pastor search work:

• The church has had a woman in its pulpit as a guest preacher, and it referred to her sermon as such rather than as a “talk” or a “devotional.”

• Church leadership has discussed any members’ protest (such as staying home from worship or walking out before the sermon) of inviting a woman to guest preach and publicly re-affirmed support of the preacher.

• The church has had women in significant lay leadership roles (elder, deacon, warden, clerk of session, moderator, etc.) and has worked through any conflict that arose as a result of their election/selection.

• The church has eliminated exclusively male pronouns/descriptors on its website and in its social media.

• The church regularly uses curricula or other materials written by women (e.g., seminary professors, pastors) with theological authority.

Pre-interview pastor search work:

• The pastor search team is representative of the demographics and commitments of the congregation as whole, thus making it better able to reflect accurately the fullness of the church’s story to ministerial candidates.

• The pastor search team has structured its work so that it is rooted in listening deeply to God’s guidance.

• The pastor search team has discussed its assumptions and the congregation’s about a great-fit pastor, probing the reasons behind them.

• Having surfaced these assumptions, the search team has named specific competencies (rather than personality traits) as the criteria for a great-fit pastor.

• In communications with the congregation, the pastor search team has helped the church broaden its imagination about a great-fit pastor.

• The pastor search team has eliminated exclusively male pronouns/descriptors for the hoped-for pastor in all search team documents (e.g., position description, position advertisements, church profile).

• The church as a whole has earnestly prayed that God will lead it to the best-fit ministerial candidate, no matter how that candidate might differ from church members’ expectations.

• The pastor search team members have covenanted to run all questions to and about candidates through the filter of “Would we ask this of a male candidate?” (Examples of questions to be sifted out: “Who will watch your children while you’re working?” and “How will your spouse’s employment affect your ability to move here/stay here for a long time?”)

Interview/call pastor search work:

• The pastor search team is aware of and open with all candidates about potential challenges that await.

• With all candidates the pastor search team inquires about the needs of the candidate’s family to ensure hospitable on-site visits, and later, to help integrate the incoming minister’s family into the life of the congregation (to the extent the family desires).

• The church leadership has discussed the possibility of conflict arising from calling a woman (noting that this conflict might come disguised as an issue about something else) and is prepared to stand behind the candidate of choice/incoming pastor.

Ways you can use this assessment:

• Churches in pastor searches. This assessment provides a readiness test for calling a clergywoman.

• Churches with settled pastors. This assessment offers action steps to lay leaders and current pastors. (The “getting ready,” after all, doesn’t just happen. It takes intentional work. And if your church is not willing to do this work, spend some time mulling the reasons why and praying about them.) Even congregations that think they are ready to receive a clergywoman – including those who have or had women ministers – could benefit from working through the points above. Often moderate to progressive churches think they are more welcoming than they actually are.

• Clergywomen. I invite you to use this assessment in your call processes to help gauge whether a congregation might be a good fit.

• Judicatory bodies. Use this assessment to help congregations and search teams work through the steps needed to set up the possibility for long and fruitful ministries between churches and clergywomen.

Note that some aspects of this assessment can be adapted for considering a congregation’s preparedness to be led by a pastor who would be another kind of “first,” though there would be additional work specific to the variety of first. Often a candidate will be more than one kind of first – identities are intersectional, after all – making it essential for a church to take readiness steps in multiple areas.

This welcoming work is worthy of intentionality and intense listening to the movements of the Holy Spirit, and not just because of the clergyperson in question. This attentiveness and the resulting actions can lead to spiritual transformation, deeper discipleship, and increased connectedness among people and between people and God. These benefits are available to all involved.

Download a PDF of the assessment here.

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.

You hang up the phone or press “leave meeting” on Zoom after a great coaching call. You’re seeing your situation in a new way, and you’ve got some clarity about what you need to do next to reach your goal. Your heart feels light, and you are motivated to take the steps you designed for yourself.

Fast forward a week or two. Your to-do list is about to consume you. Your calendar looks like a rainbow has bled on it. You just want a nap. What happened to all that energy you had coming out of the coaching call?

Chances are, your insights and actions needed a bit more attention to lock them in. That’s why I have created a coaching call reflection form. Intended as a bookend to the coaching call preparation sheet, the questions on this form prompt coachees to write down what it is they want to carry forward from a coaching session. Boiling an hour-long conversation into the essential takeaways – and making connections between a single session and the overall arc of the coaching relationship – can solidify the learning and planning and provide a reference point when the glow of a coaching call fades.

Here are the questions contained in the coaching call reflection form:

• What insight did you gain in the coaching call that you would like to retain?

• What action steps did you design for yourself?

• What accountability (e.g., support, designated time) do you need to carry out those steps?

• What do you want me to follow up on in our next coaching call?

• How do your takeaways from today’s coaching call move you further toward your overall goal(s) for coaching?

Don’t let all the good work you did in a coaching session be for naught! You earned those perspective shifts and dug deep to come up with solid steps appropriate to you and your context. To download a Word version of the coaching call reflection form, go here.

Last week I talked about the challenges of moving as a clergy spouse. This week I want to address an issue of even greater concern to me personally: moving a preacher’s kid.

When our family relocated to our current city for my husband’s pastoral appointment, our son was two. He didn’t really understand what was happening. He was also a bit delayed in stringing together words, so he couldn’t ask us questions or verbally share many of his feelings. We tried to make him feel safe, and we explained as simply and as well as we knew how. Still, his anxiety ramped up as he saw boxes accumulating in our old house, causing behavior changes and stress-induced illness. And when we moved into our current house, which was a great situation in many ways, he spent the first day wandering around the house in tears. What was this place? Why were we here? Would we leave him here alone? Where was all of his stuff? It broke my mama heart.

He’s an adaptable kid, though, and it didn’t take long for him to love his new surroundings. So much so that my husband and I dreaded telling him that now, four years later, it is time to move again. We knew we would be moving months before we could tell our son. For one thing, we were bound by confidentiality. For another, we weren’t sure yet where we were going. Once we found out, we sat him down and gave him the news. “You mean I’ll have to leave my school? My NanNan and Papa? My church?” That last one really stung. When a clergy parent moves, the whole family loses its faith community and the anchor of its social connections.  (That is, if the family has been coming to church with the clergy parent. Some do not, and churches should not assume that the family will attend.) It’s hard to explain to a child that mom or dad’s job is the link to a particular congregation and that changing jobs means severing that link.

As you can hear, the grief is potent in a PK. Here our son made his first real friends. He claimed his church and his school, and they claimed him in return. He will move away from one set of grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and three cousins who are like his siblings. He will leave behind his own activities, like the martial arts academy where he has learned so many life skills and the music school that promoted his verbal development. In all of this sadness his dad and I are trying to balance honoring his feelings and helping him get excited about a new adventure.

One of my son’s biggest worries relates to parsonage/manse/rectory life. Not everything in our house belongs to us – some furnishings belong to the church. He is trying to get straight what will be going with us and wondering if some of his toys and stuffed animals were never really his. And what if we leave something behind? And where will I sleep in my new house? Will I have a bed since this bed stays here? These are all hard concepts for a 6-year-old, especially as the boxes tower over us and the anxiety mounts and the truck’s arrival date grows ever closer.

When we get to our new town, our routines (specifically our Sunday morning ones) will change. He and I won’t go to Panera Bread for breakfast before Sunday School at 10:00 and worship at 11:00, because there is no Panera Bread. We don’t know which worship service we’ll attend, traditional at 9:00 or contemporary at 11:00.  Our son’s Sunday School teachers will have to learn that he is always in costume, whether as a penguin or Batman or a book character named Galaxy Zack. And he’s a method actor, so expect the voice and persona to go with the character. He’s not going to be a sharply-dressed, perfectly still and reverent preacher’s kid.

You know from reading to this point that though the circumstances are causing some of my son’s anxiety, some of my own is probably adding on. It’s kind of a cycle. I’m working on it, I promise! But it is important for clergy to be aware of what their children might experience with a move – knowing adversity can be character-building – and for churches receiving new pastors with children to understand what the minister will be coping with on the home front. Make an effort to get to know clergy children, to make them feel valued in their own right. Soon they will be at home in your congregation, and your new pastor can focus more fully on ministry alongside you.

My husband and I are both clergy. I was ordained first, in a tradition that allows ministers to decide what positions to seek and where to search. Matt, on the other hand, still had a couple of years to go as a provisional minister in the United Methodist Church, in which clergy are appointed to congregations by the bishop. In other words, I was mobile, and he was not. So it made sense that I would move to where he was pastoring when we got married fifteen years ago.

As it has worked out, I have been the trailing spouse ever since. Though frustrating at first, those circumstances eventually played a part in my decisions to pursue interim ministry, consultant, and coach training as well as opportunities to serve beyond my denomination. I love what I do, and because of my education and network, I can do it anywhere.

It’s helpful to remember that, because it’s moving time again. Next week we’ll migrate our household two hours up the road so that Matt can take a new appointment. For the moving minister, this change is predictably bittersweet. It’s hard to leave a congregation you’ve pastored for several years, but the anticipation of new challenges is (mostly) exciting. There’s a tangible reality this clergyperson is reaching toward. For the spouse of a minister, this new thing is much more nebulous. There’s no pre-set title, role, or responsibilities waiting – there shouldn’t be, at least! – and contact with the new church and community is minimal before the actual move. The feelings of a moving clergy spouse, then, can vary widely, and I think it’s important for churches receiving new pastors to know that.

Specifically, there can be more grief than excitement because what we as spouses are leaving is much more definable that what the future holds. From my perspective, there has been good in our current church, even as there has been difficulty. I have cultivated networks in the surrounding community that I will deeply miss, and I have doubts that there will be similar counterparts in my new town. And I lament the unmet hopes and plans for our time in this city. (For example, I have had to put some developments in my coaching practice on hold to free up time to pack and to be able to put a more long-term address on legal paperwork.)

Also, developing a sense of home is difficult as a clergy spouse, particularly the spouse of an officially itinerant minister. The unknowns around how long we will be living in this place affect how much I invest in the church and community. I wonder whether it’s worth hanging pictures and art on the wall. I hesitate to make friends, knowing we will not be here forever. The anticipatory grief begins almost as soon as a bond is established. I note all these patterns in myself, even as I wonder how to adapt them to be more healthy and settled.

And then there’s the issue of expectations. I am not, will never be, don’t want to be the stereotypical clergy spouse. For example, don’t assume I’ll be at church whenever the doors are open. I also probably won’t teach Sunday School, even though I love kids and have been both a children’s and a youth minister, because I’m on the road some Sundays. This can be hard for a receiving congregation to understand. It’s not rejection. It’s just that I have my own call to ministry, and I’m very introverted to boot. And, of course, these expectations say nothing about my parenting. My kid is always in character. He’s painfully (for me) outgoing. He’s very inquisitive. While I want him to be respectful, I will not change who he is so that he can be a smartly-dressed, seen-but-not-heard preacher’s kid. (More on that next week.)

Clergy spouses, I pray with and for you when you go through a pastoral change. Churches, I encourage you to do the same and to ask your pastoral families what they – and I mean all the family members – need. When the clergy family feels seen, heard, and valued, it makes it much more likely that your pastor will be able to focus on the work at hand. It also breeds the kind of connection that makes the minister and family want to stay in your congregation for a long time.

In the field of positive psychology, focus is placed not on the diagnosis and treatment of maladies but on creating the conditions for human flourishing. A key aspect of thriving is engagement, when we are so into what we are doing that everything else fades into the background while we are doing it. The flow model developed by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi says that for a person to be deeply engaged in an activity, her skill level must be in relative balance with the challenge of the task. If her skill availability is high while the difficulty of the task is low, she will quickly get bored. If the challenge outweighs her talents, her anxiety ratchets up.

What does the flow model reveal to you about your work? Specifically:

When are you deeply engaged in ministry? At these moments you are most likely living into your God-given calling.

When are you bored? Though you might have developed some reliable skills to carry out these less scintillating tasks, you are not building on your innate strengths.

When are you anxious? There is such a thing as a healthy stretch, which is a challenge that fosters our personal or professional growth. When we are overextended, however, we can start to believe that we are frauds and worry that we will fail those who rely on us.

Take a look at your responses to the above questions. What are the percentages of time spent on engaging, boring, and anxiety-producing tasks? Everyone has some tasks that fall into the latter two categories – that’s part of work life (and adulting in general, for that matter). But if those aspects are disproportionately large, it’s time to look at ways to revamp your job description. What dull or stressful assignments can be eliminated or shrunk if they’re less essential or redistributed to others who can do them better and with more enthusiasm if they are truly important? Your personnel committee or pastoral relations committee might be able to help you assess this.

If there’s not much that can be changed, then it’s time to consider whether your position is still a good fit for you. If not, what might a great fit look like? Your gifts are too valuable not to be fully engaged.

Recently I had a conversation with a minister who is searching for a new call. The minister inquired whether it is appropriate to send a thank you note after an onsite interview, particularly one for which the search team has gone all out in terms of hospitality. “Of course!” I replied. Not only are thank you notes courteous gestures in general, sending one as a candidate provides yet another ping to keep your name fresh in the search team’s mind. And if the search team has obviously worked hard to tend well to all those little moments that add up to a multi-day interview, you can assume that noticing that hospitality will be much appreciated.

There was something behind this minister’s question, though. As it turned out, this minister had been discouraged from sending thank you notes by people who had previously served on search teams. To those folks, thank you notes looked like a candidate was “trying too hard” or was “too eager” to leave their current situation. Past search team members said that in their work, they were looking for pastors who were happy where they were.

Ok, a couple of things.

For pastors in searches (and I want search teams to overhear this): if manners mean you’re trying too hard, you’re probably looking at a church you don’t want to serve. Something is going on in a congregation where the default assumption about politeness is that it is a tool for manipulation.

For search teams (and I want clergy to overhear this): bracketing my feelings about poaching clergy for the moment - spoiler alert: those feelings aren’t rainbows and unicorns - just because a minister is ready to move on doesn’t mean that pastor isn’t very capable. Sometimes clergy outgrow their circumstances. Sometimes the fit isn’t good for whatever reason. Sometimes there’s that one toxic member who makes the minister’s life hell, and the pastor is just ready for a fresh start. Additionally, you want a clergyperson who acknowledges effort. Churches are full of volunteers who can get easily discouraged if their ministry efforts go unrecognized, which is a recipe for apathy and inward focus.

In sum, I encourage search teams and candidates to lean in hard to hospitality. Worry less about decoding on another’s intentions and more about building relationships.

As a minister with standing in my region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), I am required to attend boundary training at least every ten years. This is important work, not just because abuse by clergy is (sadly) in the news so much these days. It’s also essential because the emphasis in these conversations shifts. For example, we spent much more time discussing preaching in this iteration of the training than in my last go-round. That’s because the political climate is such that pastors have to check their motivations and their theology every week so that the pulpit doesn’t become, well, the bully pulpit.

The increased attention to preaching was not the only new piece for me, however. The training materials lifted out that boundaries aid ministers’ work; they allow pastors to recover from the emotional, spiritual, and sometimes even physical demands of their roles so that they can come back to lead another day. That seems obvious enough. For the first time, however, I heard that boundaries themselves actually are the work.

I bristled at that statement initially. Surely ministers are not being encouraged to walk around wrapped in caution tape! But the materials clarified that we are constantly crossing boundaries – anytime we step over the threshold into a homebound member’s home or a hospital room, get buzzed into a school to eat lunch with a youth, hear the intimate details of a parishioner’s hurt, embolden our leadership in the midst of conflict, share a bit about our lives to let others know they are not alone, or enter the pulpit to preach. It is the minister’s job, though, to acknowledge those boundaries, to be clear on why we are or are not pushing through them, and to ensure that those reasons are to help the people in our care grow closer to God.

At the same time, spiritual leaders are called to help others recognize the boundaries they have set up between themselves and God and between themselves and their fellow humans so that they can remove these obstacles. Clergy do this through preaching and prayer, teaching and serving the community alongside church members.

Boundaries, then, are in fact the heart of ministry, recognizing and then either holding to or tearing them down. The hoped-for end is the same, regardless: to see and celebrate the image of God in all people and to remember that rootedness in relationship to God is essential for us all.

May we thus be aware of boundaries, sometimes using and other times obliterating them to promote connection and wholeness.