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.

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.

By now many clergy have been introduced to the good work of the Nagoski sisters on burnout, which they define as emotional weariness, the inability to give a crap anymore, and the persistent sense of yelling into the void. The Nagoskis talk about completing the stress cycle as a way to avoid the desire to collapse in a heap or run like your hair is on fire in the opposite direction from your current one. This means going all the way through the feeling (once you’re safe from the stressor itself) instead of stunting the emotion. If you haven’t read Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, I highly recommend it. The book offers some practical tips for mitigating a persistent problem for people, and particularly women, in the helping professions.

But even as I read Burnout, there was something nagging at me. It wasn’t until reading a recent piece by culture study author Anne Helen Petersen that I figured out the issue. When we talk about burnout, we largely frame it as a personal problem: we need to set good boundaries and take better care of ourselves. And while that is absolutely true, completing stress cycles alone will not fix what I think is weighing heavily on so many ministers - demoralization. Petersen quotes an article on teachers by Doris Shapiro:

“Demoralization occurs when teachers cannot reap the moral rewards that they previously were able to access in their work. It happens when teachers are consistently thwarted in their ability to enact the values that brought them to the profession.”

Many teachers approach their vocations as callings, just like pastors do. And I see a direct connection from the difficulties teachers have faced during and even before Covid to those clergy are reckoning with. Yes, ministers work too much and bear responsibility (though not sole responsibility) to tend to their physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual health. But underneath all the stress is a bigger problem, which is that pastors were called to partner with God in transforming lives and communities, and many of the people in our pews mightily resist even the smallest of changes. That is neither a personal problem nor an easy fix.

We cannot control what those in our care do. They might not ever change, and if that’s the case, it might be time to move on. But we can adjust how we show up as leaders and what questions we ask so that we invite our people to consider new modes of being and operating. We can do what some see as “soft” work but is actually wisely playing a long game, building the trust, spiritual muscle, and imagination required to make permanent changes. We can start with curiosity, simply saying, “Tell me more” or “What’s important to you about that?” We can bring in spiritual elements, musing aloud, “I wonder what God is up to in this.” We can incorporate regular reflection as individuals and teams to celebrate what we’ve done well and learn from our mistakes, taking the sting out of “failure” in the process. If we take this posture with our congregations, it might just initiate incremental experimentation that can pick up momentum.

Teachers, unfortunately, have limited say in curriculum standards, teaching methods, and learning benchmarks. Pastors have much more freedom. Let’s leverage it, encouraging and noticing a widening gap between what we’ve always done and what is possible so that we all can live fully into our callings and not become mired in the quicksand of demoralization.

Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash.

Two weeks ago, I started having trouble getting out of bed. Once I did, I felt foggy and sluggish all day. My usual discipline and drive felt blunted. Whenever I had an unscheduled hour, I’d curl up in the guest bed, hoping to regain some of my strength.

What is going on here? I wondered. I didn’t have the usual symptoms of physical illness, like fever or chills or congestion. I was sleeping terribly, but that was nothing new. There hadn’t been any significant changes in my circumstances, and any minor alterations were for the better, like warmer weather and my first Covid shot.

Then it clicked. It was the one-year anniversary of lockdown. 12 months of pivoting in parenting and working. 52 weeks of not going much of anywhere. 365 days with no time to myself. 525,600 minutes of worry about the state of the world and the physical, mental, and spiritual health of the ones I love. Of course I felt like I’d run full-tilt into a cinder block wall.

Once I realized what was happening, I started making changes immediately. I’d gotten lax about my internet use, checking email and Facebook before I got out of bed in the morning up until I went to bed at night, and it was ramping up my anxiety. I began enforcing a boundary of no internet until after I got ready and none after dinner. I also purposefully left my phone in a different room at points between those start and end times so that I would be less tempted to look at it.

I paid more attention to what I was eating. As someone who had gestational diabetes, I am at risk for developing the non-pregnancy kind, and I’ve been sensitive for years to big fluctuations in my blood sugar. I made sure I was getting more protein into my diet, particularly at breakfast and snack times, so that my blood sugar wouldn’t bottom out.

And - arguably most importantly - I acknowledged what was happening in my body and mind and what my limits were. This was (and is) a time to be gentle with myself, not to bulldoze ahead as I typically do.

When so much is out of my control, these were three steps I could take that were in my purview. I am still weary. After all, Covid hasn't gone anywhere. But these changes have helped a lot, and I hope that they have laid the groundwork for ongoing adjustments as the ebb and flow of the virus impact continues. If you have hit the wall, what are some tweaks you can make to clear out the concussive fog?

Photo by Pete Willis on Unsplash.

The healthiest pastors - the healthiest people - I know either are currently in or have been in counseling, or they have a plan for whom they would call if they experienced a mental health crisis.

To me, health - mental or otherwise - is not indicated by a lack of vulnerability. Instead, health begins with an awareness of and willingness to engage vulnerability.

Looking health issues squarely in the face is easier said than done, of course. There’s a lot of fear around admitting that one is not well, especially when we’re talking about mental well-being. What will this acknowledgment and treatment of vulnerability mean for my quality of life? My work? My relationships? Others’ opinions of me?

These last two questions in particular can create a fog of shame through which it is hard to see the path forward and to reach out to those who could be grounding companions - even those closest to us. That’s why Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund’s new book Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage is so important. In it she shares stories about marriages impacted by mental health struggles and the ways those couples dealt with them. She gives short, easy-to-understand definitions of the diagnoses included in the anecdotes. She notes available resources. And, most noteworthy, she bookends each chapter with verses from and interpretations of 1 Corinthians 13 at the beginning and a plain-spoken prayer that acknowledges God’s love and asks for God’s help at the end.

Since I am a clergyperson, a clergy spouse, and a clergy coach, however, the aspects of the book that most grabbed me were the stories about mental illness in a pastor or a pastor’s family, including the author’s own. It is time for the church to recognize that ministers are human, that we might have treatable mental illness in ourselves or in our families, that church support (or lack of) can have a big impact on leaders’ wellness, and that the vulnerability of mental illness can - if managed well - can open up important discussions and ministries in the faith setting around mental health.

These conversations are all the more crucial right now, as study after study shows that navigating the pandemic has adversely affected everyone’s mental well-being. Not only that, some research is indicating that having Covid-19 can cause psychosis.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of Blessed Union and to work through the reflection questions and journal pages that allow you to make the content personal. Let’s make it ok to talk at church about mental health, a subject that affects us and so many of our loved ones and people in our care.

You did it!

You made it through 2020, a year like no other we’ve experienced. Maybe you were like me, staying up until midnight on New Year’s Eve for the first time in years, wanting to make sure the year got on out of here and shedding tears of relief when it did. Maybe you were understandably too tired to care or too convinced that 2021 would just be a second verse, same as the first, since nothing substantial changed overnight on December 31.

However you skidded into 2021, it is upon us. And it’s typical at the outset of a new year to set goals: what are the areas of your life that are within your control and in which you’d like to see progress or change? What are the differences you’d like to see, and what are the steps toward them?

I am a big fan of goals. They are arrows with ropes attached that you aim at targets, and once you’ve lodged your arrow, you can pull yourself forward using the rope. Goals keep us focused and motivated. Goals keep us aligned with our purpose.

There are no minimums or maximums on goal size, though. Your objective might be to get out of bed every morning, or it might be to become president of the United States. Both aspirations have merit. And it’s worth noting that when life is chewing you up, it can feel as impossible to get out of bed as to become Commander in Chief.

So if you are hanging on by your fingertips, more exhausted than you’ve ever been, unsure what the future of your ministry (or ministry period) looks like, bracing for the deaths of beloved people because of the post-holiday Covid surge, dealing with the grumbles of those who are nonetheless clamoring at the church doors for in-person worship, worried about what the election that somehow hasn’t ended yet (in the minds of some) might still bring, jonesing for human connection or waiting on the hot second your kids will return to daycare or school, and staring down the barrel of Lent in just a few weeks, simply surviving mentally and emotionally as well as physically is a real feat and a worthy goal. You don’t have to map out the next three months, much less the next three years. You don’t have to beat yourself up - please don’t! - for not meeting your normal-time standards. You don’t have to possess all the answers.

Really, January 1 is just a day. But the turning of the calendar offers us a reminder that things can be different. We can make positive changes, and one of those might be to let ourselves off the hook a little after ten months of constantly living in crisis leadership mode, which our bodies and spirits were not designed to do. Yes, hold the line where safety is concerned. Fulfill your essential duties (and be honest about which ones really are essential, because they’re fewer than you think). But in other areas, model for your also-exhausted laypeople what it means to take care of the beloved image of God inside the vessel God created for it.

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash.

I recently posted the thoughts below on my Facebook page. They seemed to strike a chord, so I’m offering them here as well. Lay leaders, judicatory and denominational leaders, and ministers working outside the congregational context, I urge you to share these reflections on behalf of those local church pastors who cannot.

Churchgoers, I know you are tired of this pandemic. I know you want to hug your friends and see their full, unmasked faces on Sunday mornings. I know you are frustrated when your fellow church members start attending services and programs in congregations that are taking fewer precautions. I know you are heartbroken that Advent and Christmas observances won't look the same this year.

Your pastors are feeling all these same things. AND, their personal faith and their call to pastoral leadership are the reasons they are holding the line with - and doing all the additional labor that comes with maintaining - safeguards. You can't see it, but your ministers are working harder than ever. Worship, pastoral care, spiritual formation, and coordination with lay leaders all require many more steps and much more intentionality than in normal times, and pastors are taking these steps because they love you and take their jobs seriously. They have been getting extra creative (and exerting a lot of effort) to help you celebrate the coming season in new, meaningful ways.

Many ministers are feeling like people hired to do the bidding of their church members rather than leaders freed up to fulfill the call of God lately, though. When they get pressure to do things they don't feel are safe, or when they hear that the very people they're trying to protect are complaining that the pastor isn't doing enough, here's what happens. Their anxiety ratchets up. They overfunction or don't know what to do first. They can't sleep. Their health suffers. They question whether serving a congregation is worth all the angst. Any ticket out begins to look really good, and I'm not just talking about another job.

Please, please, please, pray for your ministers. Ask what help they need. Notice to them and to others what they are doing to help your congregation stay connected and encouraged. Join them in innovating. Above all, though, refrain from offering any feedback right now that is not constructive, because I guarantee it will be much more destructive than you intend, to the detriment of your pastor, your church, and the Church.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash.

As a kid learning to love basketball as Michael Jordan was emerging as an NBA superstar, I was curious about the Netflix docuseries covering his final season with the Chicago Bulls. I found several aspects of the series fascinating: Jordan’s exaggerated sense of competition, his rise as a cultural icon, his role in making individual endorsement deals as a team sport star commonplace. (By the way, did you know Nike was a small company specializing in track shoes until Jordan signed a deal with it straight out of UNC? I didn’t.)

But it was a quote from a journalist in the last episode that really grabbed me:

“Most people struggle to be present. People go and sit in ashrams in India for twenty years, trying to be present. Do yoga, meditate, trying to get here, now. Most people live in fear because we project the past into the future. Michael is a mystic. He was never anywhere else. His gift was not that he could jump high, run fast, shoot a basketball. His gift was that he was completely present, and that was the separator.”

— Mark Vancil, quoted in the Netflix series "The Last Dance," episode X.

Michael Jordan’s gift wasn’t his athleticism, it was his ability to be present.

That’s quite a statement. It’s also a ray of hope to me. I’ll never have great physical gifts. I’m a decent preacher, but no one will ever call me the GOAT. Sometimes I’m slow to respond in conversation. But being present? That’s something that I - that you - can conceivably do. That’s the real gift, and it’s available to us.

Sure enough, being present is especially tough right now when the demands are greater and our roles overlap in messy ways. That’s also why it’s even more important. If we can be where we are, if we can be with the people around us, if we can stay in the present without worrying about how our leadership will be received or obsessing about what our choices are doing to our loved ones, not only will this time be more bearable, it will also make us better pastors, parents, friends, and citizens.

What do you need in order to be deeply present? Keep it simple: a deep breath, a focusing verse of scripture or image, a ritual that helps you transition from one mode or task to the next.

I wonder what incredible, relational things we might be capable of if we leaned into this superpower.

Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash.

There are many ways I could describe the past six months, but I’m going with “revealing.” The pandemic has clarified systemic issues related to a broken healthcare system, racial inequities, lack of leadership at almost every level (governmental and denominational), and inefficient infrastructure for responding to crises. Specifically, though, I am thinking about how all the shifts prompted by Covid-19 have uncovered how unsustainable ministry is for so many pastors in their current contexts.

Prior to the pandemic, a significant number of my clergy coachees and colleagues were working under unrealistic expectations, whether those came from their congregations or from their own internal “shoulds.” And then, mid-Lent, they had to change the ways they did nearly everything - and fast. They became not just preachers but tech experts with all that entails: recording, editing, sound mixing, lighting, inviting people to and teaching them how to participate in and managing online meetings, exploring the most accessible social media platforms, and monitoring cyber security. They spent many hours trying to get all of this right because worship and Bible study and fellowship are so critical, not knowing that they’d have to continue all that they started beyond a few weeks, often without much help from others. (Because, again, the shutdown was supposed to be temporary, so why ask for assistance from others dealing with their own altered realties?)

Now not only do many ministers’ jobs look very different than what they were before mid-March, but they may no longer align with these leaders’ senses of giftedness and call. They are doing work they did not sign up for, or at least work they didn’t particularly love has increased while the aspects that energized them have all but evaporated. And there is no end in sight to these changes, both because Covid-19 continues to spread and because pastors know that they’ll have to keep up at least some of their new tasks once churches re-gather to accommodate constituents who’ve found virtual connection works better for them.

In addition, ministers lost their best means of not just keeping tabs on how their church members were doing but also getting any kind of encouraging feedback, namely seeing faces in the pews during worship and interacting informally with folks on Sunday mornings. This loss made communication, pastoral care, and decision-making infinitely harder. Everything started to take more time, more intentionality, more energy. This, while many clergy have also been caring for and schooling children whose schools and daycares closed and whose other caregivers have had to isolate to protect their own health.

In return for all the extra effort, many pastors have received mostly anxiety and negativity in return. Part of this is because everyone is struggling, and church is an easy place for people to project discontent. (What’s your pastor going to do if you get mad? She can’t fire you, refuse to work with you, or give you a bad grade.) Part of this is the polarization in our culture, which has morphed public health measures like closing buildings and wearing masks into political landmines during a presidential election cycle. And part is simply that church members simply don’t know all that their leaders are doing since everyone is isolated in their homes.

The effects of all these difficulties are taking their toll. They have deepened pre-existing fault lines and created new ones such that clergy who already had some sense of discontent now have one foot out the door, and some who were very happy are seriously questioning whether their current context is still a good fit. The result, I predict, is going to be a tidal wave of pastoral departures once churches re-gather, and maybe sooner depending on how long the pandemic rages on. Clergy who have been hurt by accusing questions like, “What are you doing all day?” or “Why can’t we meet?” or “Why didn’t you do X (or call Y)?” “Are you really going to make me wear a mask?” are going to have trouble forgetting and will look for fresh starts elsewhere. Some lead clergy who have caught a lot of heat might want to step into positions, such as associate roles, where they aren’t the point person. Others are just going to feel chewed up and spat out and choose to leave the ministry altogether.

Church folks, this time is hard for everyone. It’s hard for you, certainly. And it’s hard for your pastor. If you want to keep your pastor after Covid-19 becomes more manageable, here are some suggestions to help ease your minister’s stress during the pandemic:

• Check on your pastor. Many clergy don’t have anyone outside of their family to ask how they are and to listen to the answer.

• If you have the bandwidth, ask how you can help. As mentioned above, ministers took an unsustainable amount of work on themselves early in the pandemic because it was easier in the short term, they didn’t want to bother others who were struggling, and they didn’t know they’d be doing all the extra tasks six months later.

• Speak well about your pastor to others. If other church members talk disparagingly about what they think the minister is or isn’t doing, reply with your belief that she is working hard and, like all of us, doing the best she can.

• If someone mentions a specific pastoral care need to you, urge that person to contact the pastor. She wants to know so that she can respond!

• Engage bigger questions with fellow church members. What are we learning about our church or our community during this time? What do we need to keep or stop doing as a result? If you can think beyond the moment and help others do so, your pastor will be so grateful.

• Send your minister an encouraging card, text, or email. Name specific things you see her doing that you appreciate. This noticing goes a long way in helping a pastor feel valued.

It’s normal for clergy to depart in the wake of an acute event like a disaster. It isn’t inevitable, though. People in the (virtual) pews can attempt to stem the tidal wave simply by being supportive and encouraging others to do so. Even if your pastor eventually leaves, she will treasure the affirmation, and your church will have established patterns for loving your next leader well.

Photo by Max McKinnon on Unsplash.

Sure, I’m biased. But I believe coaching is more valuable now than ever. Pastors are facing so many new situations for which there is no expert advice. We are all feeling our way along, and coaching can help you think through your gifts, needs, resources, and context so that you create a path that fits you and the people in your care. For example:

Is your church continuing to meet online for the foreseeable future, yet you’re exhausted and not sure how to make this means of ministry sustainable? Coaching can help you think through goals for this time, cull the to-do list down to the tasks that make accomplishing those aims possible, and a make plan for tackling the tasks.

Are you undecided about how to approach the traditional start of the program year in this very untraditional season of social distancing? Coaching can help you tap into your creativity and place this program year in a larger spiritual formation trajectory, making it easier to focus on and get excited about what is most important.

Are you looking for a new call during this pandemic, wondering whether churches are searching for pastors and how a candidate can tell her story well in these changed circumstances? Coaching can help you identify the added opportunities and challenges of being in search & call right now, enabling you to capitalize on the former and manage the latter.

Are you scratching your head (or, let’s be real, panicking) about how to balance supervising your child(ren)’s virtual or blended school while staying faithful to your ministerial role? Coaching can help you name how you want to show up for your family and your church, then make an actionable plan for how to operate that way.

Do you want to explore a new self care strategy since many of your usual outlets are unavailable to you? Coaching can draw out the characteristics that make self care effective for you and broaden your thinking about tactics that meet those criteria.

Has your pastoral position been downsized from full- to part-time because the offering has tailed off during the pandemic? Coaching can help you make the transition to being truly part-time - not just full-time with part-time pay - and to discover additional income streams if needed.

Is the polarization over mask-wearing morphing into political debate in your congregation - with a U.S. presidential election looming - and leaving you caught in the middle? Coaching can help you discern how to self-differentiate so that you can tend well to relationships rather than get hooked by arguments.

Not only can coaching assist in these areas and more, but it is fully customizable to your goals and your schedule. If you had professional development funds earmarked for conferences you can no longer attend, there is no better use of that money than to contract with a coach who can help you navigate all that 2020 is throwing at us. I welcome you to schedule a free discovery call here to learn more about how I approach coaching and to ask any questions you might have.

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash.

In the pastoral model that pops to mind for most Christians in the United States, the minister is a generalist. She preaches, visits, attends meetings in the church and community, and might even repair broken toilets and run the bulletins. That means the clergyperson accompanies people through the valley of the shadow of death and to the tops of mountains, with many mundane pit stops in between.

Right now, though, pastors are not just being asked to care and officiate during all the milestones between the beginning and end of life. They are being forced into making decisions that actually impact life and death. As states and local municipalities begin to re-open, ministers are faced with decisions about physical re-gathering for worship and other church activities. They are reading the Covid-19 statistics, comparing the weekly offering to budget needs, hearing about the congregation down the road re-opening, negotiating tricky conversations about the pandemic that often fall along political lines, and feeling pressure from church members who yearn to be in a familiar space for comforting rituals in a disorienting time. Clergy are doing these things as they continue to preach weekly, check on folks (who have even more emotional needs now) by phone or text, drop into a seemingly-infinite number of Zoom meetings, and record, edit, and upload worship services.

Pastors, for better and worse, are used to wearing a lot of hats. But there are only so many hooks on the rack.

Ministers, be gentle with - and take care of - yourselves. Otherwise, you cannot be the grounded leader your people need. It’s ok to knock some of your hats onto the floor to do this.

Church folks, be gentle with - and take care of - your pastor. I know you cannot see everything your minister is doing right now, because she’s doing most of it from home. But to a person, every clergyperson I’ve talked with over the past two months is working incredibly hard to care for and lead you in new ways. Some of these ways take longer. For many, there’s a learning curve. If you want to complain that your pastor has not set a date for physical re-gathering, please understand that decision is made out of a combination of attention to statistics, careful consideration, and - most importantly - a love for each and every member of your congregation. If you want to delight your pastor, however, reflect on what you’ve learned about your discipleship and your church during the pandemic.

Be well, all.

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash.

According to a 2018-2019 National Congregations Study, 43% of mainline congregations in the United States do no have a full-time (paid) clergyperson.

43 %.

That’s almost half, and the number is rapidly increasing.

The default perspective is to see a church’s lack of a full-time pastor as a step toward closure. But in the newly-published Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy, UCC minister G. Jeffrey MacDonald makes the case for revitalizing a congregation by distributing the traditional workload of a full-time pastor among part-time clergy and laypeople. Drawing on his own experience as a part-time minister and on research he conducted among various mainline denominations, MacDonald asserts that intentionally claiming this distributed model does not just save a church money. It also allows the pastor to explore other facets of vocation and the laity to reclaim the fullness of the priesthood of all believers, all the while tapping back into a leadership approach that was the norm pre-Industrial Revolution.

For the move to a part-time, paid pastorate to take deep root, MacDonald says that a church must have the courage and creativity to choose it before finances necessitate it. The congregation must develop clear expectations of both staff and members. Laypeople must have access to practical, low-cost training to draw out and build upon their gifts, and pastors must understand how to unleash the strengths of these laypeople. MacDonald calls upon denominational leaders to shift their mindsets from “part-time as a prelude to death” - which is rooted in fear and scarcity - to “part-time as an opportunity for innovation and vitality.” He also urges seminaries to re-think how they offer education, to whom, and at what price tag in order to support a distributed pastorate.

MacDonald’s premise might cause heartburn those of us who trained and planned for a full-time career in ministry - and have the debt to show for it. But for pastors who are looking for a steady (if not lucrative) income that frees them up to parent, create, work in another field, or keep a hand in ministry without burning out or feeling the burden of others’ unrealistic expectations, part-time as plenty might be very good news.

Two months after most of the United States began feeling the sucker punch of Covid-19, states are moving at various speeds to “re-open” the economy. I have a number of feelings about this, many of them related to the dangers faced by vulnerable populations and the likelihood that we’ll all be sheltering at home again soon.

And then, there’s this: the reality that many of the people whose work drives the economy will be unable to return to their positions because childcare is so scarce. (It was virtually non-existent pre-Coronavirus in my rural Alabama county, where there was one daycare, no extended day at the schools, and no summer programming.) Schools are closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year, as are many childcare centers for the foreseeable future. Parents can’t ask neighbors or family to look after kids because of the possibility of spreading the virus or because they’re taking care of their own children.

We all know what this means, right? Disproportionately, the responsibility of caring for kids in the absence of outside help will fall to women. Women generally earn less, so they’re the ones to give up their jobs when there isn’t adequate childcare. Both women and men have internalized misogyny that characterizes childrearing as women’s work. And these two issues are for two-parent households. Single parents face a range of additional barriers to work when reliable childcare is out of reach.

We simply cannot lose women’s work in any sphere, ministry included. We cannot sacrifice their innovation, their perspectives, their gifts, their tenacity, their tendencies toward collaborative leadership - especially now, when the world is topsy-turvy and demands grit and fresh thinking. I don’t have any answers for solving the childcare dilemma, unfortunately, but I would urge that women consider the following:

Accept that the ongoing crisis is hard for everyone - and that its not changing anytime soon. It would be easier to ride out a time-bound frustration, but there’s no expiration date on this pandemic. We need to make shifts, then, where we’re able.

Notice ongoing and new patterns that de-prioritize your vocation. The pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing problems at every level of society and creating new fault lines. Reflect on what is happening in your household and community so that you can make the aforementioned shifts.

Ask your partner (if you have one) clearly for the time and space you need to work. I, for one, have a bad habit of believing that if I sulk enough, my spouse will intuit the nature of my resentment. It never works.

Support other women in naming what they need. When we encourage one another, it becomes easier to say hard things and harder to take the easy (but soul-crushing) way out.

Raise your voice. The lack of available (and affordable while still paying workers fairly) childcare is a long-running problem, and we’re about to see what happens when an untenable system collapses entirely. Raise a ruckus with those who might be able to do something about the short- and longer-term needs.

Moms, I see you. You are trying to care for kids with big feelings and help them with schoolwork and squeeze work in here and there and maintain your own physical and mental health. Don’t be afraid to seek out whatever support is available to you right now.

Recent scenes from my house:

I am sending emails from my desk, my seven-year-old curled around my feet as he plays with Lego minifigures.

I am wrestling internally with how hard to push my kid to complete the math worksheets assigned by his teacher, even as I seek to lower work expectations for myself.

I am coaching in my office, noting the sounds of my son humming the Jurassic Park soundtrack filtering through multiple walls.

I am closing the lid of my laptop as my child comes to me with a book and a need to snuggle.

I am wondering, as I drift off to sleep, how well I served anyone that day with my attention pulled in multiple directions.

Pastor-parents, I salute you. You are walking a tightrope right now, learning how to do - and doing - all the church things in new ways while your children also need your attention. And, of course, your own exhaustion requires tending as well. How do we strike that balance?

I am offering a group coaching session next Tuesday, April 28, in which we’ll work through that struggle for ourselves. How we want to show up for the people in our care (both at church and at home), what is essential to us right now for both pastoring and parenting, and what shifts would we like to make as a result? The session will take place 12:00-1:30 pm CDT via Zoom and limited to no more than five participants. The cost will be $25. Click here to sign up.

Pastor-parents - I see you. Thank you for the ways you care for the people in your personal and professional lives.

In his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt covers a range of themes about which liberals and conservatives disagree. One is the care/harm theme in which the two polarities differently attribute definitions and causes of hurt and assign the responsibilities of society toward those who are vulnerable. In another, the polarities take varying stances toward people with power.

Our relationships toward these two themes are running beneath the surface of many COVID-19 conversations. Who is to blame for the spread of the virus? Who is supposed to do what about it? How well are our leaders serving us in this crisis? Who is the boss of me and my comings and goings as recommendations for ever more stringent social distancing guidelines are urged?

Right now these questions are only helpful insofar as they reduce the spread of disease. Beyond that, they are ingredients for introducing even more anxiety into a system that is already highly reactive. Still, the questions aren't going away.

For leaders, then, the need to self-differentiate is more important (and difficult) than ever. If we can be with our people rather than react to to them, we'll model ways to manage self and begin to infuse the system with more stability.

What does self-differentiating in a pandemic mean? Here are some thoughts:

Listen deeply to others. When people feel heard, seen, and valued, the tension in a conversation drops.

Stay curious. Seek to understand, whether or not you agree.

Don't try to change minds. Be clear about what you believe, but prioritize the relationship over the position.

Neither under- nor overfunction. This helps distribute responsibility throughout the system, evening out the emotions.

Balance thinking and feeling. You need both, but too much of one or the other will make it hard to keep connected with people.

Stay present with people. If you can be grounded where you are, there is always the potential for care and respect.

Take care of yourself. Self-differentiation is hard work. Shore up your support system as needed.

Your leadership matters. While others panic, blame, or scoff, your self-management is helping make it possible for those in your care not just to cope, but to assign meaning to this unprecedented experience.

I am part of the teaching team for the Thriving in Ministry program co-sponsored by Wake Forest School of Divinity and the Center for Congregational Health and funded by the Lilly Endowment. Last week program participants gathered for the first time to mull what it means to thrive (and why it matters for that clergyperson, the congregation, and the world). Much of thriving boils down to relationships. We merely survive, at best, when our ties to others are tenuous. Here, then are some ways you can set up your incoming - or settled! - minister to thrive:

Pray for your pastor(s). Pray for them not just as leaders, but as human beings. Let your minister(s) know that they are part of your spiritual practice in this way.

Pitch in on ministries. The clergyperson is not there to do everything. Your pastor is with you to encourage you in your discipleship. Make it clear that you see your minister as a partner in service and worship, not a hired hand to do all the things.

Encourage connections within the community. Ministers are at their best when they have colleagues to learn with and vent to. Urge your pastor to join a clergy group, meet the minister down the road, or become involved with an organization, then be supportive when your pastor is away from the office for these reasons.

Encourage engagement with the wider church. Pastors need interaction with other leaders in the denomination, and that often means going out of town to be a camp chaplain or serve on a denominational committee. Building these relationships within bigger circles gives your minister a broader support network to draw on and connects your congregation to more resources.

Protect the minister’s time with loved ones. This one is so hard - and so necessary. Pastors know what they've signed up for when they accept a call to congregational ministry. And yet, they don’t need to miss games and plays at their kids’ schools, special lunches at their spouse’s place of work, and birthday celebrations with best friends. These bonds will last them long after the relationship with your church is dissolved, so they must prioritize them. They are also a clergyperson’s best daily protection against loneliness, which has not only emotional but physical health effects.

Thriving ministers help congregations answer God’s invitations to show love in a world so desperate for it. If relationships can make all of that happen, why wouldn’t we make sure our pastors are making life-enriching, life-saving connections?

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

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

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

Senior pastors can

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

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

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

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

Associate pastors can

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

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

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

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

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

Congregations can

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• physical health

• everyday happiness

• the opportunity to be authentic

• good boundaries

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

• relationships with others

• the ability to self-reflect

You can read more about Bloom’s work here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have a decade-old memory of weeding with great ferocity. In the process I was telling my husband – who had joined me in yanking up a root system that spanned the entire backyard – that I was so tired all the time. I was constantly doing, and if I wasn’t doing, I was recalling information or researching or planning. How did people find the leisure time they seemed to have? I was truly befuddled.

Part of my problem was due to my personality. I am interested in a lot of subjects, and it was (is) easy to let myself become occupied. I also have perfectionist tendencies, so it’s hard to leave projects be when they reach the “good enough” stage. But I’ve come to realize that there is another reason it is so difficult to let myself rest – mental load and emotional labor.

Mental load is bearing the responsibility of remembering all the things. Emotional labor is tending to the feelings of everyone affected by those things. Both mental load and emotional labor are both invisible and labor-intensive, draining energy and leaving us to wonder where it went. And women are culturally-conditioned to be responsible for both.

But wait, there’s more! Ministry is itself a vocation laden with emotional labor. We hold the big picture for our congregations, with all the hopes and disappointments of individual church members wrapped up in it. We sit with people in intimate moments, deeply listening to thoughts and feelings so personal they might not have been shared with anyone else.

And then…parenthood. That added layer upon layer of remembering – when was the last time my baby pooped? what did he say his best friends might like for their birthdays? what time is karate, and who will take him and pick him up? – and tending to big feelings (his and mine).

All of this hard work was brought into the light by reading Gemma Hartley’s book Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward. I took away a couple of pieces of wisdom from the book that are currently helping me address the heaping pile of emotional labor in my own life. One is that I have to talk about all of that invisible work, proactively rather than when I am at my wits’ end. Only then can I begin to shift some of it. The second suggestion that struck me was that I am sometimes undermining my own desires to share the emotional labor load by thinking that things can only be done one way. If I have a standard that no one else can live up to, or if I go behind others to “fix” what doesn’t look like I think it should, then the emotional labor will be all mine, for all time. I must admit that my way isn’t the only or even necessarily the best way.

Where do you feel doubled-over with emotional labor? What strategies might you employ to hand some of it off, not just so that you can breathe but also so that others can enjoy the breadth and depth of emotional and relational life?

A few weeks ago I went on retreat with my four best friends, women I met in seminary before any of us had significant others, kids, or “Rev.” in front of our names. These are the people who finally busted me out of round-the-clock study mode – a habit fueled by perfectionist tendencies and the need to achieve – with their invitations to sing karaoke, watch so-good-it’s-bad tv, and eat cheese dip. (I am forever grateful to these friends. Without their intervention, I would likely be incapable of the self-care required by ministry and motherhood.) We have aspired to gather every year now that we are geographically scattered. We’ve missed some years due to church and family commitments, because we don’t retreat unless we can all be present. But especially as we’ve gotten older, life has become more complicated, and our kids have left diapers behind, we’ve moved our trip up the priority list.

Other than my husband, parents, and brother, these are the only people with whom I can totally take off the filter. They have known me half my life, so they take what I say in the context of 20 years of deep friendship. This is an incredible gift, because while I always want to be true to my values and act out of who I really am, there’s never a time when I don’t either choose my words carefully or spool through the tapes after conversations when I’m in ministry mode, wondering how certain statements will be or were taken. That pre- and post-thought takes a lot of mental and emotional energy, and I am grateful to get an extended break from it once each year.

If you’re a minister, I encourage you to make time for the people with whom you can take off the filter. Use technology as needed, but get in a room together when you can. It will do your heart and mind so much good. If you don’t have these unfiltered friends yet, carve out time and space to find some. They might turn up at a local hangout, beside you in a classroom, in a parenting group, or with a group of hobbyists or fans. It’s not easy finding friends as an adult – especially when you have a vocation that brings certain assumptions to mind in new acquaintances – but it’s worth the effort to know and be fully known by another. While these friends will likely beyond your ministry sphere, they will bolster your sustainability in ministry as much as (if not more than) any other kind of self-care.