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

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

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

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

If you have never met me, you might not know something important about me: I am 4’10” tall.

Many short people bemoan their size. I understand the inconvenience of it in certain situations. I had to sit on a pillow when I drove my first car. (I still require multiple pillows below and behind me when I drive a 15-passenger bus.) I need my Spidey skills to reach an item on the top shelf at Publix. I wasn’t meant to be a basketball star, as much as I love the game.

For the most part, though, I welcome being the smallest adult in the room. I connect well with children because they think I’m one of them. It’s easy to tell a new acquaintance how to find me in a crowd. Adults consider me non-threatening, which means they honor me by sharing more deeply about themselves. I also have the element of surprise when I say a firm or difficult word, because no one expects that from the lady who looks like a kid. And my height has been key to my parenting, because I could always join my son in what he was doing, whether he was sitting at a table in a tiny chair or climbing in a play place at a fast food restaurant.

My experiences as a short person have no doubt shaped my love for small churches. Megachurches hold no interest for me. Program-sized churches have a lot to offer, but they’re not where I choose to spend my time either. I want to be in and work with those churches that are tied to a specific neighborhood or that are thinking about going from a full-time to a part-time pastor or that create communities of belonging and service for those people who would never set foot in a big box church. These congregations are thinking every day about how to be faithful with what they have. At their best, they are nimble and innovative and have an impact far beyond their small size. They are not slowed down by bureaucracy but can more easily experiment, reflect, and make changes based on their learning. They understand the importance of bringing everyone along. They make things happen together, not just depend on the pastor to get it all done. They incorporate all ages into most ministries, because siloing children and youth is not an option or a desire in a small church.

Sure, most small churches would like to have more resources and people, and there is real struggle that comes with having less. But there is so much good in being small. Claim your advantages and use your gifts, and in the process you will honor God and grow in the ways that really matter.

“Well, at the [insert denomination here] church they are doing [insert program here].”

“Our [insert family relationship here]’s pastor checks on us more than our own pastor.”

“Twenty years ago we didn’t have enough Sunday School rooms for all the kids. Now we just have a few children who attend occasionally with their grandparents.”

Every clergyperson hears (and maybe even sometimes says) statements like these. It’s natural. We all have hopes and expectations. We look around at other people’s situations as a way of understanding our own. But comparison - even with earlier iterations of ourselves - can quickly turn poisonous. Seeing what we don’t have fuels a scarcity mindset: there’s not enough people, money, air time, power, love, or whatever else to go around. When resources feel limited, we see church as a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. We grab what we can and stash it away. Needless to say, this is not a growth mindset in any sense. It is focused on survival, which quashes experimentation and playfulness and, often, faithfulness.

That is why it is essential that your church has some sort of guiding statement. It might be a purpose statement, an articulation of why your congregation exists. It could also be a list of core values, those priorities that your people attempt to embody in all that they do. Whatever your touchstone of choice, it can cultivate a sense of possibility while also weeding out initiatives that don’t fit who your congregation is and what it aims to do. It can keep you focused and looking forward rather than lamenting and looking backward. It, in short, is an agent of abundance, and that is scriptural. Anytime people in the Bible tried to hoard, God showed them the error of their ways, often by bringing ruin on their stockpiles. But when they opened their hands in the trust that God was paying attention and wanted good for them, they found themselves holding plenty.

Are many churches shrinking in members and money? Yes. But the best response is not to double down on what we’ve always done or to try to be something that we’re not. It is to claim our purpose and live toward it. This is not a magic recipe for growth in numbers, but it is a key ingredient in increasing our impact on those who need to know about Christ’s love for us all.

Photo by Vanesa Giaconi on Unsplash.

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.

October has been designated - by whom, I’m not sure - as Pastor Appreciation Month. I am in favor of showing gratitude to clergy all year round. But since greeting card companies give us the reminder in this particular month, let’s use it to raise our awareness of all that our ministers (in congregational settings and beyond) do on our behalf and thank them for their hard, holy work. Here are some thoughts on how to do this:

• Ask your pastor what a “typical” work week looks like, listen deeply to the response, and affirm their use of their time. Ministry is often behind-the-scenes work, made even more invisible by the pandemic. Many clergy would be heartened that a church member took a real interest in the rhythms of ministry simply for the purpose of seeing and valuing that leader’s efforts.

• Inquire how you can be praying for your pastor. Yes, so much of ministry is more difficult right now. But many other things are hard for clergy too, like health concerns and worries about family. What a gift it would be to pray for your leader like she prays for you!

• Give your pastor additional paid time off. I cannot stress enough that clergy are tired, even the ones that have thrived creatively during Covid. Honor their need for rest.

• Set aside funds for your pastor to seek professional support. Spiritual directors, coaches, and other conversation partners can help clergy nurture their souls and/or strategize how to lead in life-giving, authentic ways.

• Send a note to your pastor, and encourage others to do the same. What has your pastor done that has been especially meaningful to you? How has church sustained you spiritually during the pandemic? Be specific. It would thrill your minister to know these things. (Note that kids can easily participate in this one. Pastors love to get drawings and letters from children!)

• Gather up gift cards. There are lots of options here: grocery store, restaurant, airline, hotel chain, pet store, and much more. Your choice could be geared toward meeting basic needs or helping your minister treat herself. Just make sure the gift cards fit the needs and preferences of your pastor.

More than anything, though, your pastor wants your engagement. This doesn’t necessarily mean coming to the church building, because not everyone feels safe doing that yet. It simply means communication from you to this effect: “Hey, we’re still here and paying attention! We consider this church to be our church even when we aren’t physically around. We are actively looking for ways to participate that meet a risk level comfortable to us. We continue to support all that is happening with our prayers and our giving.” For many clergy, those kinds of messages (as many people seem to be disappearing into the ether) would be the greatest form of appreciation.

Photo by Courtney Hedger on Unsplash.

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.

“The pastor search team will meet this Thursday…”

Normally I have a pretty good poker face. In this case, though, I nearly wrenched my neck swiveling it so fast from my notes on the pulpit toward the layperson making this announcement from the choir loft. The congregation’s previous minister had exited a mere five days prior, and a search team for his settled replacement was already up and running. (I won’t leave you in suspense about how this story ends. The church called a pastor who was almost the polar opposite of his embattled predecessor. He served for 3.5 years, then was asked to leave. This sequence of events fit neatly into a long-running, unexamined pattern in the congregation.)

When a pastor departs, a church’s inclination is to ask how quickly they can locate a replacement. That is totally understandable. When we experience change - whether positive or negative - there is discomfort. We want to return to equilibrium as quickly as possible. But the time between pastors is bursting with opportunities that are largely unavailable during more settled periods. Here are a few:

• Healing from conflict or grief associated with the previous pastor (or pastors, if there are still open wounds from situations with the most recent pastor’s predecessors)

• Remembering or discovering anew who the church is apart from the personality of a charismatic or long-tenured pastor

• Assessing the congregation’s purpose, gifts, and needs in a new season of ministry and a world changed by Covid

• Right-sizing or reconfiguring staff to meet those needs

• Inviting other staff or lay leaders to exercise or develop talents they haven’t previously

• Leaning more intentionally into potentially transformational practices as part of the pastor search

• Connecting or reconnecting with partners or resources that could inform the pastor search, and more broadly, the church’s ministry

• Receiving and mulling pastoral candidates’ thoughtful questions about the church’s nature and hopes

• Creating or shoring up procedures that improve communication and strengthen trust

• Considering how to welcome the new pastor in ways that develop mutual care quickly

All of this is the holy work of the transition time. It sets up not just your new pastor but your church as a whole to live even more faithfully into God’s invitations. And your congregation doesn’t need to fear taking the time needed to harness all these opportunities, because while you might want an interim pastor to keep things moving and to help you reflect on the points above, the congregation - not a pastor - is the church.

So please, do not form your pastor search team the moment your departing pastor steps over the threshold for the last time. Breathe deeply. Trust God. Open your hearts and minds to the opportunities. You will be so glad that you did.

If your pastor search team needs assistance with making the most of the transition, contact me about search team coaching or check out this self-paced e-course.

Photo by Nareeta Martin 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Pre-search

• Developing the search team

• Designing process and core documents

• Engaging with candidates

• Covenanting with the new pastor

Within every substage search teams can find:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.