It’s hard to muster up the will to be vulnerable when we absorb criticisms and failures into our identity: “I’m not good enough.” “I’m a screw-up.” That’s why Brené Brown’s distinction between shame and guilt is so helpful.

Shame focuses on our own or someone else’s (lack of) worth. It is rooted in the need to assign blame and in the reluctance to change, and it can quickly lead to a sense of powerlessness and even desperation in the shamee.

Guilt, on the other hand, focuses on behavior – not so much who was wrong but what went wrong: “I messed up” rather than “I’m messed up.” It fosters reflection about how to do differently and a sense of agency for making changes, resulting in hope for future successes.

In many churches those self-reflective muscles have atrophied, leading either to shaming (“Pastor So-and-So killed our congregation with X initiative”) or to feeling ashamed: “Pastor So-and-So left us to go somewhere else. What’s wrong with us?” “Our church is so much smaller than First Church. Why would people choose to come here when they could join a congregation with so much more to offer?” These kinds of mindsets, whether they are expressed aloud or not, can kill a church’s energy and become self-fulfilling prophecies.

How, then, can we help our congregations lay claim to hope? Questions can help flip the narrative from one of shame to one of guilt. For example:

• What do we do well? What are some things we’re able to do that bigger/better resourced/more established/etc. churches can’t?

• With regard to particular situations, what do we need to do differently the next time?

Notice that these questions focus on actions rather than personalities.

What narratives in your church – or in yourself – need to be flipped, and what questions will help you get there?

A few years ago I made a series of pastoral visits to a woman whose husband had died several months prior. Her grief repeatedly manifested as anger at her petite stature. Her husband had been a tall man and had always helped her reach the dishes and spices in her highest kitchen cabinets.

Recognizing these complaints for the expressions of anguish they were, I tried to empathize. I knew she was describing one way her relationship with her husband was symbiotic, and I did not want to discount her pain. But part of me was befuddled. This woman was an inch or two taller than me, yet rarely had I considered my height a handicap. (Perceptions of my age are another story.) When I need something that’s way above my eye line, I climb the shelves Spiderman-style, grab the item, and go on my way. In fact, I’ve found a number of outright advantages to being 4’10.” Most importantly to me right now, I can sit comfortably in children’s furniture, squeeze into playhouses, and ride playground equipment without worrying about size limits. Before my son was sure of foot, he got to do many more fun things (like go in bounce houses) because I could do them with him.

My visits with this parishioner prompted me to reflect on this flip side of my “short”coming. I wish I had more effectively returned the favor, asking her to tell me stories about how the height differential contributed to her happy marriage and getting her to think practically and proactively about the adjustments she would now need to make.

Shortcomings can be opportunities, if we embrace them as such. What muscles have we had to flex because of our quirks or circumstances? What specialized knowledge have we gained? To whom are we more connected? To what are we more sensitive? How are we more resolved?

It’s important to know our limits and own our pain. How can we then take hardship and use it not just for our own good, but also for others’?

My newest pop culture obsession is the Gilmore Guys podcast, which features two men in their 20s discussing each episode of the now-defunct series Gilmore Girls. It is by turns hilarious (though I do need to slap a language warning on this endorsement) and deep with discussions about gender and race, entitlement and selflessness. The hosts, Kevin and Demi, are employed behind the scenes in the entertainment business, so they use some writing and production jargon.

At times Kevin and Demi have noted that some of the minor-but-recurring characters are “underwritten,” meaning the show’s creators missed an opportunity to give them a lot more dimension. That term caught my attention, and I began to wonder where the underwritten characters are in church life. Maybe they’re the folks we call on to help with one particular ministry, even though they have other gifts to share. Maybe they are our antagonists, the people we have trouble empathizing with because we haven’t grasped their deeper motives and backstory. Or maybe we as ministers seem underwritten to our parishioners because they can’t imagine us “out in the wild” (e.g., at a concert, or even in the grocery store).

How then do we flesh out our perceptions of underwritten characters, and how do we let the people in our care see our complexity?