Raise your hand if you’ve been taught that your church should develop a 3, 5, or even 10-year plan. (I’ll wait.) Hey, me too!

When seminary and denominational leaders started to look toward the corporate world for answers to membership decline, many adopted the strategic plan model. It seemed like a good way to regrip the control that seemed to be slipping through our fingers. We even put religious language to it, though sometimes it took on a subconscious prosperity gospel message: “If we are faithful in these steps, God will reward us with…” Unfortunately, strategic plans have often proven to be a set-up for discouragement (though they are sometimes necessary for resource-driven projects like a capital campaign). After all, when we are dealing with people rather than products, we cannot predict that these efforts in Q1 will result in those “profits” in Q4. Discouragement can lead to panic, and panic can lead to doubling down on an inward focus that belies the church’s call to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

The pandemic has shown us that the control we seek though a 10-year trajectory is largely illusory. In fact, those who are often locked out of leadership such as people of color, women, and the LGTBQ+ community have been telling us this for decades. The ability to plan far into the future is a function of privilege. Strategizing is possible only when we think we have certain things that we can count on. This stability, though, can be out of reach for groups that don’t get to make the rules. And when the world shut down, those of us with privilege got a taste of the chaos that these communities experience on a daily basis.

So in solidarity with these groups and with acceptance of the unpredictability of these times, let’s kick the strategic plan to the curb where we can and take a different approach. Let’s name our values, both those we live and those we yet aspire to embody. (You can do this by examining patterns in your history and in your current ministries. What do we do? Where do our resources go? How do these realities align with who we say we are?) Let’s discern our overall purpose, that big-picture invitation from God that gives us energy and direction. And let’s use those values and purpose to dream big but plan in stages, taking time to assess at the end of each:

• What were our expectations? What did we learn about our expectations and about ourselves as the people who hold them?

• What do we need to celebrate?

• What do we need to shift?

• What do we need to communicate, and to whom?

• What elements can we build upon?

• How did our efforts help us to live toward our understanding of who we are and what God is calling us to be and do?

• Where did we see the Holy Spirit at work?

• What relationships were formed or strengthened?

• What did we learn about our congregation, community, and/or corporate calling?

This way we are engaged in ongoing discernment - which is really a way of building our reliance on God - not simply enacting a one-and-done plan that gets shelved when the first benchmark isn’t met. We also celebrate regularly (which opens up our brains for greater creativity) and grow our ability to roll with what is going on in our world and in our congregational lives. Because, after all, a church must be looking for where God is at work and nimble to be poised for long-term spiritual growth, which is the kind of growth that really matters.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

[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.

Several years ago many of my pastor peers started going back to graduate school, some in ministry-related fields and others in programs outside the purview of seminaries. I cheered them on, and I knew that at that time, a focus on academics was not for me. I might someday pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree, I thought, but not unless I had a particular issue that I wanted to address through studies and a capstone project.

And then, pandemic. The changes that were in (very) slow progress in the Church were propelled forward. That push was - and is - painful for both ministers and their ministry settings. There is no going back, but we all remain uncertain what moving forward faithfully might look like. I think pastors are already tapping into possibilities, but how to make those innovations sustainable in the midst of grief and polarization and outsized expectations and downsized denominations is an open question.

I want to equip and encourage clergy and congregations in this challenging work of discernment. I can think of no subject that I have more passion for than supporting pastors in their essential functions and creative approaches and churches in their efforts to live out even more fully the love of Christ in a chaotic time. While I have been doing this work for several years now, it is time for me to reach for more than a book or a conference (excellent analog tools!) to enhance my understanding. I need a power tool to hook into my belt. And so, this week I started the Doctor of Ministry program at Lexington Theological Seminary to study the changing church in a changing world. As the LTS website states, “Lexington Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program, Building Capacity for Transformational Ministries, a graduate professional degree, is designed to enhance pastors’ capacity to critically interpret and engage contemporary cultures as a means to give fresh expression to the gospel and to transform congregations for effective ministry in the twenty-first century.” That is just about a perfect product description for the power tool I’m looking to acquire.

I will maintain a full coaching schedule, though other pieces such as weekly blog writing and the development of new resources might become more infrequent when I am in classes. I am excited about diving into school once again, and I invite the company of your prayers on this new journey.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

Pastors are some of the last true generalists. Their day-to-day work is rich and varied, which is one of the aspects of ministry that is most appealing to some clergy. A pastor is:

• A proclaimer of scripture, interpreting the meaning of ancient texts for our modern lives

• A spiritual caregiver who accompanies people through life’s celebrations and devastations

• A face of the church to the larger community, building a two-way bridge over which people can cross to connect with those similar to and different from them

• An equipper of people as they discover and utilize their gifts and live into God’s calls on their lives

• A leader or facilitator of important conversations and processes about faith and being the Church

• The holder of a bigger picture, a vision into which the congregation is attempting to live

• An administrator of details related to that larger vision

Aren’t we lucky to have leaders who are made for this kind of compassionate, hard, life-changing work?

Now, the list above is not comprehensive, and pastors do the work above in varying percentages according to their contexts, strengths, and staff situations. But it’s a good start, and I offer it in order to contrast it with what a pastor is not:

• The savior of a church

• The receptacle for a congregation’s anxieties

• The person who gets yelled at because someone can’t say what they feel to the person they’re actually mad at

• The paid help that does all the ministry (or even non-ministry tasks) church members don’t want to do themselves

• A scapegoat for conflict or for the numerical decline of a congregation

• A one-person planner and implementer of strategies to attract young people

• A warm body to occupy the office 40 hours a week so that she is there whenever a person wants to drop by and shoot the breeze

• A compensated buddy

• A referee of political or personal conversations

• Someone to make people in the pews feel comfortable and finished in terms of their theology and contributions to the world

There is so much upheaval in the world that we’re all looking for a person, a practice, or a perspective that seems solid, and leaning on pastors in list #2 ways feels like it could be that thing. The effects of doing so are significant, though. Clergy aren’t just thinking about leaving their current congregations. They are contemplating leaving ministry altogether, because they don’t feel free to pastor in the ways they’ve been called. And that in turn leaves congregations without the spiritual guides they need, thereby lessening the possibility of faithful meaning-making, deep connection with fellow disciples, and real transformation.

Mercifully, there is grace for us all when we disappoint and are disappointed by one another. And, I urge church folks to consider thoughtfully the ways you interact with your pastors. Let them love and lead you. (And love them in return!) Let them challenge you, because in that gentle nudging is the promise of spiritual growth and richer relationships with others made in God’s image. Let them invite you into mutual ministry, because ministry is not the work of the paid staff alone. If you open yourself in these ways, you won’t want or need your clergy to fulfill list #2, and you will be journeying arm-in-arm with your pastor closer to the heart of God.

Photo by Florian Schmetz on Unsplash.

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

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

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

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

So what are your options?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash.

[Warning: There are mild spoilers below for the Disney+ series Loki.]

Loki is the latest live-action offering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It follows the Asgardian god of mischief as he seeks to unmask and take down the Time Variance Authority, which protects the sacred timeline from simultaneously-occurring branches populated by chaos-creating alter egos. It’s a fun series, particularly if you have found yourself sucked into the MCU as I (unexpectedly) have. As I watched, I wondered if there was a way to play with the multiverse concept in church planning.

Many churches have some sort of “sacred timeline” in mind: grow, then grow some more, mainly in terms of attendance, budget, and physical plant footprint. We can be quick to prune initiatives and quell voices that point to futures that don’t seem to fit this linear path. But what if we took time to imagine these alternate scenarios? How might our imagination feed our discernment of the future God is inviting us to consider? Here are a few toys for your sandbox:

What is the nexus event? In Loki nexus events cause the branches in the sacred timeline. For your purposes, such nodes might be major decisions on the horizon or situations that you didn’t foresee (such as a conflict or the departure of a pastor) but that affect the future. Whether intentional or forced, these events fundamentally change the path forward.

Who might our variants be? In his travels between different branches, Loki meets many different versions of himself: a woman, a child, a much older and campier iteration, and even a crocodile. How might you show up differently - individually or collectively - depending on how the timeline branches? You can be as serious or as fun-loving as you want with this.

How might the timeline play out? Using the nexus event and the natures of the variants involved, wonder what might happen. Remember that there can be branches off of branches!

Which branches might you still prune if you can? As you work with the three questions above, you’ll find that not every scenario is a fit for your church’s God-given purpose and gifts. Those are the branches you’ll want to prune.

There are limits to this exercise, of course. You cannot fully predict or control the outcomes of the branches you explore. But simply removing constraints to imagination imbues any planning process with the curiosity and openness that discernment requires. Then, once you’ve played a bit, you can bring data and details into your conversations to refine your options and turn the one that seems to be rising to the top over to God.

Photo by Yuriy Vinnicov on Unsplash.

Pastor search teams are made up of capable people who know their church well and are invested in its future. That said, there is a steep learning curve for most search team members. They have never been involved in the search for a clergyperson. They might or might not have received training and guidance from their judicatory. They do not have the full picture of what a minister’s day-to-day schedule looks like. They have little to no human resources experience, and the experience they have may not serve a calling (vs. a hiring) culture well.

Pastoral candidates, then, have the opportunity and responsibility to provide guidance to search teams in the ways that they show up in interactions. This teaching falls into two buckets.

Assisting with process

• Search teams might not always know the order or range of tasks or the people that should or should not be involved in aspects of the search process. They might want to rush ahead before it’s advisable, be quick to express their desire for you to be the new pastor without getting consensus within the team or considering that you might be the “first” of a particular demographic (thus meriting more conversation with you and with the congregation), or make compensation promises before consulting the finance or personnel committees. You can help the search team slow its roll and think more carefully about the pieces of a healthy process and the purposes behind them. For example, you could ask about what exposure the church has had to a woman in the pulpit and the resulting reactions or who all might need to be involved in certain decisions for the search team to feel confident about them.

• Search teams are often laser-focused on their goal of calling a pastor, and they might not have taken the time to consider the opportunities and big picture questions that a pastoral transition prompts. Your queries might stump the search team, and you could wonder aloud what it would take for the search team to formulate the answers.

• Search teams sometimes neglect to ground the search process spiritually. The search process is long, the congregation is anxious, and the responsibility is heavy, so the team wants to cull as much “soft” work as possible. (I contend that spiritual grounding is not in any way soft or extra but the heart of the matter.) You could offer to pray for the search team and its discernment at the end of an interview, if no one else indicates a desire to close in prayer. You could also ask how their involvement in the search process has impacted their discipleship.

• Clarity and thorough communication (among the team, with the congregation, with the candidates, and with the judicatory) are often the biggest challenges for search teams. You can encourage both through questions such as, “What is the tentative timeline for your process moving forward?” “How are you bringing the congregation along as you do the good work of the search?” “Whom should I contact and by what means if I have questions about the search process?”

• Once a search team and church as a whole become excited about your arrival, they will want you in the church office tomorrow. You can lead by sharing the importance of saying goodbye to your current context well and having a bit of space between calls - that you want to show up in your new congregation on day one having done the emotional work and the rest that will allow you to focus fully on this new season of ministry. And, of course, you’re certain the calling church will want to celebrate well the good work of the interim minister. All of this intentionality honors important relationships and models healthy ones.

Becoming the pastor

• Simply the way that you enter a space says something about how you will be as a pastor. This is not about charisma, though. It’s about attentiveness and engagement. Think about how you want to show up in your interviews and what would make that possible so that the search team can begin to imagine what it would look, sound, and feel like to have you as a pastor.

• Stating your needs and setting healthy boundaries begin during the search process. For example, you might need to help a search team design an in-person visit that leaves space for downtime, nursing, and/or exploring the community on your own: “I am so excited to be with you and to see your church and your city! I want to be at my best when we are together. I will need transition time between events so that I can rest and process my experiences.”

• You will never be in a better position to share with your prospective new church what you require in terms of compensation. Be prepared to help the search team (and possibly other committees such as finance and personnel) think through the various pieces of pastoral compensation, particularly as they relate to your experience and the local cost of living. Urge them not to lump everything together (e.g., salary, insurance, retirement), because that obscures and often lowballs what your actual pay for the ministry being done is. You are teaching the value of the pastoral office, establishing your self-advocacy, and showing your attention to detail.

• Entering a new call is not like showing up to the first day of a secular job. You are assuming a position, yes, but also joining a faith community. You also might or might not be bringing family into that faith community with you. All of this merits more than a passing welcome on the church’s part. You might have to share explicitly with the search team and congregation what hospitality looks like to you. Is it helping with the move (or not)? Are there connections the church can help make regarding a spouse’s employment? What would help kids feel cared for? These invitational aspects come naturally to some congregations but not to others. It’s good and right for you to be clear about what you need so that you can engage deeply and meaningfully with your new congregation.

In short, remain curious and open and ask for what you need. This stance will get the pastor-parish relationship off to a solid start, paving the way for your mutual ministry. But beyond that, it will seed a way of thinking in the congregation that can bear fruit in future processes, pastor search and otherwise.

Photo by Paul Green on Unsplash.

On Sunday my eight-year-old tested positive for Covid. Our family had done all it could, short of keeping him in virtual school for another year, to protect him. My spouse and I are vaccinated. All three of us wear masks when we are out and about. We assess the risk before we go anywhere. Our hands are raw from handwashing and using hand sanitizer. In the end, it wasn’t enough. Alabama’s full vaccination rate is the lowest in the country. My son’s school is old and poorly-ventilated, and I was particularly worried when I saw how small his classroom is. Our governor is begging people to get the vaccine, but she has refused to re-institute a mask mandate. Our school system is using her statement as justification for not requiring masks. (He is one of two students in his class who have been wearing masks.)

So, here we are. Our story is not unique, though. From the time Covid was first diagnosed in the U.S., we have all experienced the results of a cascading failure of leadership in federal, state, and local governments. In addition, some denominations and judicatories have been wishy-washy about Covid protocols, if their polity allows them to make any requirements at all of congregations. This has left pastors and lay leaders with hard decisions to make about precautions and little guidance or cover for making them.

No one entered the ministry to become a public health enforcer. But most did answer the call to help people grow in their love of God and care for one another. And so pastors worked with Covid task forces on how to do church safely, weighing needs for connection with the life-and-death realities of the pandemic. Clergy took on extra work, because every aspect of ministry is harder when you can’t be in a room with people. They also took on extra criticism from those who thought their leaders were being too cautious or who questioned the faith of people who also trust science.

In the spring, it looked like we were headed for better times. Vaccinations, which dripped out to the public at first, suddenly became widely available. It was exhilarating for those of us who had been hunkering down at home. And then…there were way more vaccines than people willing to take them. Delta arrived on our doorstep. Now we are right back in the soup, in some ways more protected, in others much more vulnerable than before.

Pastors, I want to thank you. As a colleague, as a parent, as a person of faith, as a believer in science, as a human being, I am grateful for the good care you are taking of all of us, even when we fight you on it. You are doing the important work that many leaders are abdicating. In her book The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker calls this exercising generous authority. You recognize that you have power, and you use it to the good of those you have power with. That sounds like someone I’ve read about in scripture.

Keep on being faithful. Know that even when the protests are loud, the support for what you are doing and how you are embodying the Gospel is deeper and broader than you realize. And be assured that your efforts are making a difference, not just through modeling what it looks like to be a follower of Christ but also by saving lives.

Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash.

Last week I shared one of the biggest challenges that the Church faces in this season. Today I’m sharing one of the other hurdles I’ve noticed in coaching calls and informal conversations with pastors and lay leaders: the Church’s tendency to operate out of scarcity rather than abundance. This scarcity mindset takes many different forms. The pressure to grow (usually defined numerically), whether from within the congregation or from the judicatory or denomination, arises from comparison with the church down the road and anxiety about survival. This causes congregation members to become mired in nostalgia for an earlier era when Sunday School classrooms were bursting at the seams with children or to pitch ideas for programming that are ill-suited to the congregation’s demographics, person-power, or theological commitments. Ironically, this worry about not being or having enough creates insularity and suffocates the imagination and willingness to experiment that could potentially result in growth in terms of spiritual formation and impact in the larger community if not nickels and noses. Instead, congregations hold tight to ministries that need to be celebrated and ended well so that something that better fits who the church is now can bubble up. 

This scarcity mentality takes its toll on members, who become discouraged or exhausted from being tasked with more responsibilities as the overall membership ages and decreases. It is particularly hard on leaders, both laity and clergy, who carry the weight of the church on their shoulders. Certainly pastors too often become the hired hands who absorb all the tasks that others don’t want to do or don’t feel capable of doing instead of being set free to be spiritual guides and partners in ministry. When their to-do lists are an endless scroll, these clergy feel guilty about self-care and time away, and they spiral toward burnout. 

I believe we need an orientation re-set. We need to train ourselves to look for individual and collective gifts, defined very broadly. What talents are represented in our congregation? What relationships with the community do we have? What are people in the church knowledgeable or passionate about? What tangible assets do we possess? What infrastructure do we have in place for efficient use of all our blessings? What compelling stories do we tell about our experiences of faith? When we have a bigger sense of all that God has blessed us with, we can begin to dream of new possibilities. And when we dream, we can conduct holy experiments, calling our efforts just that. We can more intentionally build in times to reflect on what we’ve learned about ourselves, our neighbors, and God and whether we want to continue this trial with some tweaks or pursue another holy experiment. The learned helplessness begins to dissipate. We reconnect our programming with outreach and spiritual formation. We discover our potential and find our niche in our contexts. We help bring about the peace of God’s reign. (This e-book can help you assess, discern, and plan for experimentation.)

I believe we can solve the problems of not knowing and talking honestly with one another as I detailed last week and of being stuck in scarcity thinking. I think making progress on one of these issues can move us forward in the other. And I know that sometimes it takes someone outside of the system to help with either or both challenges. That is why I love the work that I do. If I can facilitate conversation that will help your congregation overcome these hurdles, please contact me.   

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash.

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Casey Thiebeau on Unsplash.

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.

I grew up Southern Baptist. I didn’t know there were other kinds of Baptists until I went to college, much less that there were lots of Christian denominations other than the United Methodist Church, which was my dad’s upbringing.

Seminary was like a denominational playground where a church nerd like me could excitedly sample several expressions of faith. (Oooh, this church has a book full of beautiful prayers and rituals! That one really delves into Advent and Lent!) Even so, when I graduated, I was still a (no longer Southern) Baptist. I am still one to this day because of the central tenets of Bible, soul, church, and religious freedom.

And yet, I have worked mostly outside of Baptist contexts. I have held staff positions in PC(USA), United Methodist, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in which I have ministerial standing. This ecumenism is due in equal parts to being the trailing spouse of a United Methodist minister in a state where my kinds of Baptists are hard to find and to building relationships with pastors of many denominations through Young Clergy Women International. I have both had to be and had the delightful opportunity to be broad in focus.

When I began coaching, then, I had a pretty big pool of ministers and churches to work with. That has translated into ongoing work with clergy and/or congregations of at least 17 faith groups:

• Alliance of Baptists

• American Baptist Churches (USA)

• Anglican (Canada)

• Assemblies of God

• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

• Church of the Brethren

• Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

• Mennonite Church (USA)

• Methodist Church in the United Kingdom

• Moravian Church in America

• Presbyterian Church (USA)

• The Episcopal Church

• Unitarian Universalist (congregation affiliated also with a Christian denomination)

• United Church of Canada

• United Church of Christ

• United Methodist Church

The list above does not include one-off coaching that I have done as part of group mentor coaching cohorts.

This variety makes my Enneagram 5 heart so very happy. I learn from every minister and church I coach. The benefits aren’t only my own; I take insights from one denomination and congregation into others I work with.

I’m a long way from the understanding of Christianity’s scope that I had as a young person. I can’t wait to be invited into more new-to-me spaces.

Photo by Lama Roscu on Unsplash.

Over the past six months I have worked with several congregations and groups of ministers, and I’ve found it absolutely essential that participants process their experiences during the pandemic. Otherwise there is an isolating, suffocating stuckness, a desire to get back quickly to whatever is familiar instead of moving forward faithfully as individuals and collectives. Here's where I believe we need to spend some time during our regathering:

We need to break the ice. As I mentioned last week, in some ways we are semi-strangers to one another. For this reason, we won't be able to go deep if we don't have some sense of safety first. Play is one way to create that, and I suggested a few activities designed to take power back from the pandemic's hold over us.

We need to slow down. The temptation is there to jump right back into all the programming our churches had in the Before, when so many people were constantly on the go. School will start in the next month or two, so we need to gear up Sunday School for all ages! And weekday Bible study! And have a fall kickoff! And…and…and. Instead, we need to add things back in layers, after taking a few deep breaths and considering what we’d be gaining and sacrificing by re-starting each ministry.

We need to lament. There's no denying we’ve all lost a lot: people we care about, jobs, routines, sleep, a sense of security, time in community, places we frequented, and much more. Milestones passed without full acknowledgment. Events we long anticipated were cancelled. It’s important to name these losses and offer them up to God.

We need to express gratitude. Without denying the difficulty of the pandemic, there are some surprising graces for which we can give thanks. We’ve learned new things. We’ve shifted or broadened our perspectives. We’ve received notes and calls and porch drop-offs. And if nothing else, we’re still here, and that in itself is worth a party. Grief and gratitude are both prayerful, faithful acts.

We need to explore how we've changed as individuals. We are not the people we were in early 2020. Some of those differences are minor or temporary. Others go to the core of who we are and how we show up in the world, making us fundamentally new people in positive and challenging ways.

We need to think about what those changes mean for how we are community to one another. In some churches, relatively surface interactions were the norm. Now that we all need to re-introduce ourselves, we can go deeper. Since we've had a shared experience of difficulty (even though the intensity has covered the range), we can have a shared vulnerability in naming what that difficulty has done to and for us. Out of that willingness to be real, our relationships can grow stronger, and we can look at the gifts and needs of our congregations and contexts afresh. We’ll then be able more effectively to live the love of Christ for one another and the world.

But what does all of this good work look like? Some can be done during worship, with leaders helping us make sense of all that’s happened, preaching about the courage in vulnerability, and creating ways for all people to participate in liturgy (e.g., naming grief and gratitude during prayer times or hanging a prayer wall for everyone to write on during or outside services). There's processing that can be accomplished individually through prayer stations set up around the themes named above. Christian education classes and small groups could be given discussion guides. And congregational conversations in ways that feel Covid-safe (and as emotionally safe as we can make them) can unearth a lot of what needs to be said.

My sense is that we will need some amount of all of the above means in the early going - and that the trauma will continue to pop up in surprising ways for a long time thereafter. But if we can just start talking in real ways with one another and God, we can begin to forge a faithful way forward together.

Photo by Morgane Le Breton on Unsplash.

When social distancing is finally in the rearview mirror, it will feel both joyful and strange. And once that novelty wears off, at church we could be looking at one another like we're semi-strangers.

Yes, we’ve found ways to stay connected during the pandemic. But those means have not fully captured the range of our experiences or the significant changes we’ve undergone. We will need to get to know one another all over again, and we'll have an opportunity to know and be known by one another more deeply than we did pre-pandemic.

Covid wasn't and isn't a laughing matter. But I think we can re-acquaint and challenge the pandemic’s lingering power over us by getting playful with the absurdity and isolation of the past year. Here are some ideas:

Mask fashion show. Who has the most bedazzled or unusual mask? Roll out a runway and let your people strut, showing off their face coverings.

Whose eyes? In person we’ve mostly just seen a 1/3 of one another’s faces for the past 16 months. Ask people to submit close-up photos of the top third of their faces (remove hair and other identifying features from the pictures as much as possible) and find out who can identify the greatest number of fellow church members.

Virtual background matching game. Request individuals to take a photo of what’s been behind them for Zoom calls during the pandemic. Print two copies of each photo and create a giant memory matching game.

What I did during lockdown. Think, “What I did during summer vacation,” but for Covid. You can encourage serious or light-hearted responses. Share in a storytelling session, or print a few responses in each upcoming church newsletter.

Drawing or Play-Doh symbols. Have each person sketch or shape a symbol about what the past year-plus has been like. Have them explain it, or have others guess what the symbols represent.

Old school get-to-know you icebreakers (or as they’re called in some spaces, “energizers”). You have likely been at a church or work event that kicked off with games to help those present meet one another. Use one or more standard icebreakers to deepen knowledge of one another.

Having fun together makes it possible for us to tackle the tough stuff we’ve dealt - and will deal - with. Next week I’ll share some thoughts on how to get into that.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.

For ministers in the search & call process, there are times when you look at a prospective church’s profile or job description and think, “Can this search team see inside my brain?” The responsibilities align with your gifts, the congregation professes values similar to yours, and the salary range is exactly what you’re looking for. When the search team representative contacts you to set up an interview, it’s the start of an exciting possibility.

You will likely not feel so clear or enthusiastic about every initial interaction with a search team. This is normal! If it’s obvious that this is not the role or place for you, graciously withdraw from consideration. After all, your focus is better spent elsewhere, and search teams are made up of volunteers who are giving a lot of time and energy to looking for a leader. If, on the other hand, you are intrigued by what you read or hear but have a lot of questions, or if the position or context sounds great but seems like a stretch for your experience, don’t prematurely end the conversation. The Holy Spirit might be up to something.

That something might not turn out to be a great fit. But a search is about more than a minister finding a job and a congregation finding its next pastor. When you talk with search teams, you are changed - hopefully most often in positive ways. You meet new people who might end up playing a surprising role in your journey. You receive feedback that helps you grow. You practice showing up as a pastor in interviews.

Search teams are shaped as well by their interactions with you. It could be that you nudge the search team to make its process more hospitable, both for yourself and for others. Perhaps you ask a question that pushes the search team to face a reality or that challenges them to think bigger or that sends them back to the congregation for more discussion about identity or direction. Maybe your very presence, particularly as a “first” of some sort, cracks the door wider for someone else to serve this church on down the line. You might never know the results of your interactions with congregations that don’t immediately jump out as your dream scenario. This willingness to engage, though, is part of what it means not just to be surrounded by a cloud of witnesses but to be part of that community of the faithful across time.

So yes, absolutely look for that best fit and negotiate for what you are worth. And, along the way, remember that you are in ministry to churches through the way that you search, not just in the position to which you are ultimately called.

Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash.

“I dread pastoral care.”

This is the secret shame of a lot of ministers, especially introverts. For those of us whose energy is depleted at the very thought of making a phone call or scheduling a visit, looking at a list of names can automatically prompt us to curl into a ball or pull our hoodies down over our eyes. If you can relate, here’s what I’d like to say to you:

Not loving pastoral care is not the same as not loving people. I trust the beauty and tenderness of your heart and believe that God would not have called you into pastoral ministry if you didn’t care deeply for those in your charge.

Everyone is gifted differently for ministry. In his book Flourishing in Ministry, Matt Bloom cites a study that identifies sixty-four different competencies pastors are called upon to perform. (Thanks to pandemic, that number has no doubt grown.) You will enjoy and be good at some of these tasks more than others.

There are many ways to show compassion and provide spiritual companionship. Phone calls and hour-long visits are not the only means. Sure, you probably need to be ready to spend time with people going through an acute crisis. At other times, though, you might want to send a handwritten note, which is a tangible, lasting sign that you are thinking of someone, or reach out by text, which might be greatly appreciated by those who don’t like talking on the phone or don’t have time for a lengthy conversation. Beyond individual contacts, you demonstrate pastoral care in the effort you put into tending to the business of the church, writing sermons, and planning ministries with your congregation and community in mind.

Caregiving ministry is not yours alone. Even in small churches it is good to cultivate the idea that spiritual accompaniment is the work of the community. You will not always be the pastor of your congregation, and members in it will need continuity of care through leadership transitions. Your ability to encourage and equip people for this good work ensures that follow-through.

For those visits you do need to make, get help with scheduling. Sometimes calendaring is the most daunting aspect of pastoral care. See if your administrative assistant or a layperson who has a good sense of the church and a love for the phone to set up appointments.

Above all, remember that you are not alone in finding this aspect of the work especially hard and that you are not a bad minister because you find pastoral care particularly challenging.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

For me, emerging from the pandemic feels like the emotional equivalent of walking out of a cave into the sunlight at high noon on a clear day. I blink rapidly. I shrink from the brightness. I consider running back into the cool darkness of the cave.

In other words, I am not ready to be fully out in the world again. In my mask, I don’t have to worry about my arranging my face into appropriate expressions. With social distancing, I am not forced to make small talk with strangers. If large gatherings are discouraged, no excuses are necessary when I don’t want to have my (barely existent) energy guzzled by trying to find my place, my role, in a crowd. It’s true - this pre-pandemic introvert is in danger of becoming a post-pandemic recluse.

It’s not all my fault. I’ve hardly had any time to myself over the past 15 months, which means my battery stays well below a 50% charge at all times. So as the world opens up more, I’m going to need a minute.

I’m not alone. Some people are So Very Tired in body and soul that they can’t imagine budging from their couches. Others have found online community life-giving. A few are simply not convinced that Covid is under control enough to take the risk of public re-entry.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people who are ready to give free bear hugs to anyone and everyone they encounter. They’ve been craving non-virtual interaction with other humans. They cannot wait to see real smiles and sing in groups and talk about all the things without worrying if their tech will crap out.

There are people in between these extremes too, of course, and representatives of every point along the range are in your church. It’s important to keep this in mind as you craft your re-gathering strategy. Here, then, are some relational factors to attend to in your plan:

• What are the needs and concerns of those who are hesitant to re-engage?

  • How might we help these people?

  • How do we leave a physical and/or virtual seat open for them until they’re (if they become) ready?

• What are the needs and concerns of those who need human touch and talk?

  • How might we help these people?

  • How do we foster meaningful and safe connection in person?

• What capacity do we have to maintain both online and in-person communities?

  • If we can faithfully manage both, how do we keep the two communities connected with one another?

  • If we cannot faithfully manage both, how do we either increase capacity (such as through delegating) or help one community or the other find what they need elsewhere?

In many ways re-gathering is much more complicated than going into lockdown, and people’s comfort level in being with others is one of the ways that the complexity is showing up. Keep in mind that it’s not because one group cares more than another, it’s because the ways of showing care look different depending on individuals’ personalities and experiences of the pandemic. Let us show compassion by remaining open in eyes and ears as well as in hearts and minds.

Photo by MIKHAIL VASILYEV on Unsplash.

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!

In travel terms, the shoulder season is that ambiguous time between peak and off-peak tourism. That feels to me like where we are here in the U.S. with Covid. Vaccines are widely available now to teens and adults, and many are fully inoculated. At the same time, children aren’t eligible for shots yet, and at last check the vaccination rate is under 30% in my county. Life in community is starting to resume, though what that looks like varies widely. Churches are deciding whether and how to dial back precautions. Pastors are juggling ever-changing public health information, growing levels of impatience among church members, the interconnectedness of programming (e.g., how can we start back Sunday School for parents if we don’t feel comfortable re-gathering their children?), and concerns about what responsibilities they’ll be left holding once we can all toss our masks into the bonfire. How, then, do we move forward in this weird and complicated time?

I have continually been delighted by how the book of Acts, which has been part of a regular lectionary diet lately, speaks to our situation. Jesus flies away into the sky, the Holy Spirit breezes through, and suddenly everything looks and feels and sounds different. The rest of Acts is about Jesus’ followers feeling their way along, making assumptions that the Spirit must correct, doing new things (and sometimes stumbling a bit), partnering with unlikely people, and generally figuring out how to share the gospel now that their leader is in their hearts and not before their eyes.

In other words, they experiment - constantly. Everything is up for discussion, because the movement is not what it was when Jesus was around, and it’s not yet what it will be once the momentum really picks up.

This is where we are. This Covid shoulder season is a chance to discover, to try and reflect, then to try and reflect again based on what we learn. This goes for long-time ministries and those we’re just now dreaming about. Here’s an outline for experimentation that you can adapt to your context:

Trying

• What is God inviting us to try?

• What excites us about trying this thing?

• How would trying this thing help us be more fully who God is encouraging us to be?

• Who will lead our attempt?

• What do we need (e.g., information, tools, partners, spiritual preparation) to get started?

• When will we try this thing?

• How will we pay attention to how God might be at work in, around, and through us as we try this thing?

• When will we reflect on what we’ve tried?

Reflecting

• What were the main tasks in planning and implementing this thing that we tried?

• What relationships did we start or strengthen as we tried it?

• What did we learn about ourselves (individually and/or as a congregation) and/or our larger community by trying this thing?

• How did we make faithful use of our gifts (e.g., time, talents, connections, space, money) by trying this thing?

• Where did we notice God at work in, around, and through us as we tried this thing?

• Based on our responses to the above, what might God be inviting us to try next?

These questions are designed to frame experimentation and discernment as the faithful processes that they are, generate excitement for what might be possible, provide a means for ending (without shame) initiatives that don’t work, and show how good things come from trial and error.

There is no full-fledged how-to for emerging from a pandemic. All we can do - actually, what we get to do - is try and have fun doing it.

Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash.