Over the course of fourteen years in ministry, I’ve saved a few particularly meaningful cards and emails from parishioners. These notes name specific ways that my care made a difference in the life of the writer or in his/her church as a whole. I am grateful for the time these folks took to sit down and put their experiences into words. Whenever I feel inadequate in my vocation, I can re-read their thoughts from years ago and be emboldened to do good ministry now.

One of the biggest predictors of pastoral satisfaction is feeling like your ministry matters. According to Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruce, this factor is significantly more important than both compensation and the number of hours spent at work. However, some congregations and constituents are better than others at expressing (or even owning) their appreciation for your preaching, teaching, pastoral care, or administration. So if you don’t hear “thank you” enough, it’s not necessarily because you’re doing an underwhelming job.

It does mean, though, that you might want to strengthen your internal sense of your vocational worth. Here are a few ways you might go about that:

Take time at the end of each day to reflect on glimmers of God-ness you experienced. Where is somewhere unexpected that God popped up? How did God work through you or through someone in your care? Look for the smallest of sightings.

Take time at the end of each week to think about what you accomplished, even if there is no tangible work product. (In ministry, there rarely is!)

Follow-up with people who tell you a simple but heartfelt “thanks.” Ask what you did or said that made an impact. This helps you to know what you did well and trains that person to give you specifics.

Give yourself grace and space to learn if you took a misstep. Sometimes we gain the most useful insight for ministry that matters from those hard lessons – times we unintentionally affected people we care about in negative ways.

You are doing ministry that matters. Even if you serve congregations of somewhat reserved people – engineers, farmers, introverts – who rarely tell you what you’re doing right. Even if you have a few very vocal complainers who make you dread coming to the office. Even if the pastor-parish fit is not precise and you’re looking for a better match. Find ways to remind yourself of that so that you can persist in the work to which you have been called.

Your time and money are very valuable. When you come to a coaching call, I want you to get the most out of both! It’s up to me to prepare to coach you, and here are some things you can do on your end to make best use of our hour together:

Before our coaching calls begin:

Take advantage of the free introductory call. This is not a coaching call (though I might ask a few coaching questions to give you a feel for my approach), but it is a time for us to get to know each other, talk about the process, and build trust. I will ask about your overall goals for coaching and about your personality so that I can tailor my questions accordingly.

Utilize assessments. If you haven’t really thought through how you learn best, consider making use of a free assessment such as Mindframes. (It’s easy to complete in less than 10 minutes.) If you’ve never taken a test like the Myers-Briggs or employed a framework like the Enneagram, look them up online. We’ll be able to focus on action steps more quickly when we both understand where you’re coming from.

Before each call:

Follow through on actions designed on the last call. Once you have put your plans into place, we can tweak them to make them even more effective.

Minimize distractions. Close out tabs on your computer. (Or better yet, turn it off completely if we’re talking by phone.) Set your phone to silent. Put a note on your door that you’re not to be interrupted. This is your time. You’ve earned it.

Give yourself time to settle in. Make sure you give yourself a buffer before you coaching call. Take a deep breath. Refresh your coffee. Find a comfortable place to sit. Load up Zoom a few minutes early in case it needs to update. If you come into the session on two wheels, you’ll spend precious time at the beginning of the call focusing yourself.

Think through what you want to talk about. Consider challenges and opportunities you’re facing. Identify your desired outcomes for the coaching call. (This prep sheet can help.)

During the call:

Lean on your learning style to stay focused. It’s hard for anyone to stay fully engaged during an hour-long conversation. If you’re a visual person, find a focal point in the room or draw whatever our conversation brings to mind. If you learn by writing, take notes. If you’re a mover, stretch occasionally.

Ask me to rephrase. If a question doesn’t click with you, tell me to ask it a different way. Sometimes a new angle on the same question shakes loose some ideas.

Be willing to try new things. I might suggest we imagine or experiment. This might be a bit out of your comfort zone, but stretching provides the groundwork for positive change.

Tell me what worked and what didn’t. Especially if you are a new client, I will ask you at the end of the call what I should do more or less of during our next session. Even if I don’t ask, I am always open to feedback. I want to do whatever will best help you meet your goals.

After the call:

Reflect on your takeaways. Think about new awareness you gained or action plans you put together. (This reflection form can help.)

Act right away. To move your learning into long-term memory, you must act on it quickly. Take at least one small step within 72 hours. With every effort you will move closer to the results you’re looking for – or at least to awareness that will make change possible.

Build in accountability. Ask a friend or colleague to ask you how your action steps are progressing.

When coach and coachee both bring their best to a session, amazing things can happen.

It’s tough to get traction for forward movement when there’s no trust in people or process. Instead of focusing on what’s ahead, you’re busy looking over your shoulder to make sure there’s no one with a knife within stabbing distance.

So, unless a compromised relationship is abusive – in which case wariness if not complete separation is called for – it’s generally worth the effort to try to rebuild trust. Here are some thoughts on how to go about it:

If your trust has been broken:

Listen to yourself. Your limbic system has kicked in for a reason. Maybe the situation is harmless and a word or deed triggered some old trauma. Or maybe the red flags are waving to protect you from present danger.

Be kind to yourself. You do not deserve to have your trust violated.

Take a deep breath. It sounds so simple, but a deep, cleansing breath can interrupt a limbic loop. (Limbic loops keep us locked in survival mode, keeping us from learning more about our situation or finding a creative solution.)

Ask for perspective. Talk with people whose counsel you value. Ask them to help you understand the situation more broadly and discern how to move forward.

Be honest. When you’re feeling more brave – or can fake it! – tell the trust violator about the impact of her/his choices. The response will let you know what the immediate possibilities are for saving the relationship.

If you have broken someone else’s trust:

Own up to the breach. Acknowledge – first to yourself and then to others – that you have messed up, and ask for forgiveness. Otherwise the process of rebuilding trust stops before it starts.

Exchange stories. Share a bit about the reasons behind what you said or did, not to make excuses, but to pave the way for understanding. Invite the person whose trust you compromised to tell about how your words or actions have affected him/her.

Change the rules. Decide together what needs to change in your relationship for there to be trust again.

Overcommunicate. Make extra effort to be transparent. Nothing undermines rebuilding trust like guessing games.

Give space. The person(s) who feel violated may not be ready to jump back in to relationship. Pressure will only slow down the process.

Ask for feedback. Check in with the other person about how you’re doing and how s/he is feeling. What course corrections still need to be made?

Be worthy of trust. Enough said.

(Note that I did not include prayer in the steps above because conversation with God – whatever that looks like for you – should be woven throughout the process.)

Rebuilding trust, at its root, requires vulnerability on both sides. The violator must be willing to admit fault and make changes, and the violatee must be willing to try again in a relationship that has brought pain. There is no cheap grace. Be brave, be patient, and be assured that the Holy Spirit will go with you.

You share a closely-guarded piece of your heart with a friend, only to have her discuss and dissect it with others.

Your significant other tells you he has to stay at work late for a meeting, but someone tips you off that he was somewhere else…with someone else.

Your governing body holds a secret meeting, after which you are blindsided by the “request” for your resignation.

Trust. It is what crust is to pizza. Rails to your bed. Axles to your car. It is not only the thing on which relationships rest, it’s what holds them together. I can disagree with you, I can even dislike you. But if I trust you, I can stay engaged with you. And if you prove yourself consistently worthy of my trust, I can overlook a multitude of mistakes.

Trust is not just the bedrock of individual relationships. It’s the glue in the pastor-parish partnership and the connective tissue in congregational life as a whole. Trust between ministers and members allows them to say hard but necessary things to one another. Trust in processes keeps the church functioning. Trust in the pastor, in God, and in one another paves the way for a congregation to name a vision and pursue it, even when the plan hits a pothole. When there’s no trust, none of these things happens, and the energy churches could be spending on mission is wasted on secrecy, gossip, and agendas.

As important as trust is, it can be annihilated by a single word or the commission or omission of one action. But re-building trust is possible. In next week’s post, I’ll suggest some ways to go about it.

Scenario one: Your congregation has discerned the need to reach out to an underserved population in the community. Several church members have put forth ideas about what this outreach might look like. Some suggestions are re-hashes of previous enterprises. Other recommendations would take the church in innovative directions.

The congregation’s governing body puts a discussion of the issue on the agenda for its next gathering. At the meeting, proponents advocate for their proposals while those with different ideas point out why others’ plans won’t work. The recommendations are put to a vote, but everyone is so exhausted from the debate that there isn’t much excitement about getting started on the winning initiative.

Scenario two: The discernment of the need at hand is the same as above. When the governing body convenes to consider the various proposals, however, the leader suggests that everyone in the room work together to improve all the ideas put forth. After each recommendation is made as strong as possible, then the people in the room will discuss how to decide which one God is calling the congregation to implement.

I don’t know about you, but I would much prefer the decision-making climate described in scenario two. Yes, there will be some real dogs put into the idea hopper. But asking every person to improve every idea accomplishes a few things:

• It creates an environment in which everyone is on the same team.

• It deepens and broadens initial ideas instead of watering them down to the lowest common denominator.

• It ensures the end result has buy-in from each person in the room.

• It reminds us that our leadership is not about our desires but about the future to which God is drawing us.

Improving every idea runs contrary to the ways our culture (political and church) has taught us to make decisions. It will probably take some groundwork to prepare leaders to consider this approach. But wouldn’t it be worth it to get excited about meetings, knowing that the gathered body will be doing creative, Spirit-infused work instead of looking for all the possible holes in a plan with great potential?

Just before New Year’s Day I published a one month calendar of prayer prompts. The thought on the timing was that many folks commit (or recommit) to growing spiritually with the turning of the calendar. But May is also a transition point for many – warmer weather, the end of the school year, the end of the program year in churches – which can lead to changes in spiritual disciplines. I am thus posting the calendar again. I hope you find it useful, and I welcome you to share it. (Here is the print-friendly PDF version.)

'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the congregation
this minister was rushing to fulfill her vocation.
The greenery was rung 'round the sanctuary with care, 
in hopes that regulars and visitors soon would be there.

The figures were placed just so in the nativity,
waiting to add Jesus with Mary's natal activities.
The choir director in a tizzy, and I having sermon writer's block, 
were praying our health would hold out
'till we'd sung "Silent Night" with our flock.

When from the copy room there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the Xerox I flew like a flash,
dismantled the paper tray and pulled out the trash.

The machine had eaten all the Christmas Eve bulletins
and left me with confetti to distribute to everyone.
Little did I know that this was only the first mess
that would cause me no end of holiday stress:

The glow sticks I had purchased to hand out to kids
had been backordered because so many churches put in bids.
My nursery workers were bailing, wanting to be in the pews,
meaning parents would have to juggle their hymnals and babies
until the service was through.

Grieving members needed extra care as they recalled Christmas memories,
and suddenly I was unsure where to focus my flagging energy.
A water main broke and half our parking lot was a geyser,
and I wondered if I could just hide under my bed covers, no one the wiser.

Strong Mary! Doting Joseph! Smelly shepherds and sheep!
Sweet-singing angels
and gift-bearing wise men coming to watch the baby sleep!
To Bethlehem proper, to that small, crowded stall,
now come quickly!
Come quickly! Come quickly, all!

Time speeded up as the 24th drew nearer, 
and when was I supposed to shop for my family? That was no clearer. 
So to Amazon I went several nights, grateful for Prime, 
and shopped till my clock warned me it was nearly daytime. 

And then Christmas Eve came. It was showtime. 
I said a prayer that the worshippers would experience something sublime. 
As I climbed into the pulpit, white stole  'round my neck, 
I glanced toward the AV booth and gave a nod to the tech. 

Suddenly, I saw the faces. People smiling, expecting a Savior, 
glad to be snuggled together, on their best behavior. 
They were dressed in red and green, a few even in bells. 
They looked toward the creche, where God in flesh now dwelled. 

The music - how it filled me! The harmonization, how inspiring! 
The readings reminded me that I should be among those admiring. 
Communion brought us together with both future and past,  
Silence drew me into God's promise to be with us to the last. 

I then remembered that whatever did or didn't go right, 
the darkness would be pierced by Christ's growing light. 
Illumined by candles, the sanctuary filled with hope, 
and my heart beating gratefully, I scurried back up from the end of my rope.
 
God's love had been born anew, not just for me, but for all: 
good guys and bad guys, the worried and ill; 
the lonely, the wanting, the broken, and the raging, 
the hopeless, the imprisoned, the young, and the aging.

We all filed out when worship was done, 
Some to full, busy houses and some to a table of one. 
I headed home to pour a big glass of wine 
and to collapse on the couch, a hard-earned rest finally mine.

But as I drifted off to sleep, too tired even to remove my shoes, 
I gave thanks not only for the holiday's good news, 
but also for the privilege of witnessing to God's world being made aright. 
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. 

As a southerner and a lady (pronounced uh-LAY-dee), I have always received the telepathic cultural message that “no” is not a proper response to questions or requests – at least not without a lot of explanation or qualification. Of course, not saying “no” is at best a setup for my own resentment and passive-aggressiveness. At worst, it puts me in danger of violations big and small at the hands of others.

I recently had lunch with a couple of friends to discuss my interest in search committee training. In the midst of talking about all that can go awry in the pastor-parish relationship – both before and after a call is extended – we segued into a conversation about a church’s expectations for a minister’s family. One of my colleagues recalled a mentor who, when being asked if his wife and children would be at church that evening, simply replied no. He did not feel the need to justify their absence. “Because “no,'” the mentor said, “is a complete sentence.”

I was taken aback by the truth – and the power – of that statement. I don’t have to deliver a monologue in response to an inappropriate question. I don’t have to agree to an inappropriate request. In one sense that seems obvious, but in another sense it is revolutionary.

Certainly there are times when explanation is warranted. Our noes can be opportunities for teaching. Our noes may be misconstrued and cause problems in relationship if no context is given. Our noes to supervisors pretty much always need fleshing out. But sometimes (often?) our “no” sets a boundary that we have every right to set. An accompanying explanation would permit our hearers to expect that under different conditions, that boundary would be permeable.

Now, I think it is true that middle-aged white men feel much freer to say no and leave it at that than women of any demographic. But if I am hesitant to say it for myself, perhaps I can think of it as advocacy on behalf of someone else. I want to protect my family. I want to push against the message that women should smile and go along with anything. And if I say a simple no enough times for others, then maybe one day I’ll also be better at doing it for myself. I’ll be able to summon my inner Julia Sugarbaker at a moment’s notice.

Some questions to consider, then, are:

What requests do we need to say a flat “no” to?

Where do we find the courage to say “no” without justifying our boundary?

What are your expectations…

…about work? What is and isn’t your job? When is your job “done” for the day? How do colleagues work together?

…about relationships? How do you communicate? How do you argue? Where do you compromise?

…about finances? What’s your budget? How do you mesh your spending/tracking style with a significant other, aging parent, or child?

…about ways you spend your time? What time is yours? What blocks of your schedule belong to someone else?

…about the direction of communities you’re part of? What’s the vision? How do you participate in shaping and carrying it out?

We all carry around expectations, whether we put words to them or not. And as Brené Brown points out, there’s a strong correlation between expectations and disappointment: “Disappointment is unmet expectations, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment.” (Rising Strong, p. 139).

We’ve all been steamrolled by disappointment. The afternoon we set aside to binge-watch Netflix gets taken over by a lengthy honey-do list. The job we thought we wanted turns out to be a terrible fit. The Normal Rockwellian Thanksgiving dinner we imagined becomes a hot mess of overcooked turkey and battles between relatives with different political ideologies. The church we love loses steam, and the church friends we love slowly drift away to other congregations or to no congregation at all.

There’s no way to avoid all disappointment, but Brown prescribes a couple of steps to take away its power:

Put all your expectations on the table. Don’t expect your spouse, your kid, or your supervisee to read your mind. That’s a recipe for sunken-heart syndrome and broken relationships. It’s also helpful to raise our expectations to consciousness so we’re not caught off guard by our own strong reactions to tough situations.

Acknowledge which expectations are based on factors beyond your control. You might still have the expectation, but it might be easier to deal with the frustration if you realize you couldn’t have changed the outcome.

These are good exercises for congregations because we carry so many expectations about our community of faith. How do my expectations line up with my fellow church members’? And, more importantly, how do our human hopes fit in with God’s hopes for us?

Everyone deals with anxiety, some of us more than others. Two typical responses are:

• Overfunctioning – Keeping busy doing something – anything! – to keep our feelings from catching up with us. Not only will we refuse to delegate, we will rip to-dos from the hands of others. (This is my default.)

• Underfunctioning – Allowing emotion to immobilize us. It embodies the attitude, “I can’t fix things, so why try?”

A bit of one or the other might serve us well in the short term. In times of crisis, there’s often a need to TCB (take care of business). Or we may need to stop in our tracks before we do or say something irreversible out of anxiety. But in the long run, neither over- nor underfunctioning serves us well. It’s basic physics – an object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest.

It’s not just individuals that are prone to inertia. Communities can over- and underfunction as a collective. A congregation that is so afraid of shrinking numbers that it never takes time to evaluate its many ministries will press on until it has run off anyone interested in innovation. A church that is so depressed that it can’t dream or discern or do will slowly die off (spiritually and numerically).

There is no way to avoid the hard work of connecting the dots:

• What am I (are we) feeling? What won’t I let myself (we let ourselves) feel, and why?

• How did I (we) get here?

• What can I (we) control?

• Given what I (we) can control, what is the first step in moving forward?

Rising strong from tough situations requires us to combine the best aspects of under- and overfunctioning. We must feel, and we must do.

[Disclaimer: this is not really a Rising Strong post, but it goes along with the idea of helping each other live wholeheartedly.]

There is a very important skill that most of us could stand to fine-tune. Anyone can offer criticism, but constructive criticism is a wholly different animal. And we all need to hear this kind of helpful feedback since it’s tough to step outside ourselves and understand how our words and actions affect others.

Whether you want to share your thoughts on the preacher’s sermon, your teenage daughter’s outfit, or the school board’s re-zoning plan, here are some questions to ask yourself before giving voice to your perspective:

Is this a real issue or a personal preference? Real issues need airtime. Personal preferences usually don’t.

Is the issue really the issue? Am I really upset about something else? If so, what?

What is my intent/goal? What do I – honestly – hope to accomplish by speaking up?

What is my relationship with the criticism recipient? Am I the right person to bring this matter up, or would it be more effective coming from someone else who feels the same way?

How best can the recipient hear my message? How can I keep the conversation going instead of putting the hearer on defense?

What am I willing to do to help the recipient make change or to support the recipient in change? If the issue is important enough to raise, it is important enough to invest in the follow through.

May we all be willing to refine our criticism-offering abilities, and may we have the courage to use them. Compassionate honesty breeds connection.



Compassion is the heart of the gospel. When Jesus gives us our charging orders to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner, he is explicitly telling us to note the suffering of others and – rather than turning away from or pitying them – to be as kind to them as if they were Jesus himself. He is implicitly reminding us that we have all known suffering of some sort, that we have all longed to be connected and to be understood.

It’s not easy to see pain in others’ faces, though. Not only do we have to do something once we note the pain, we have to admit that those who suffer are just as deserving (as much as any of us “deserve” grace) of connection and understanding and help as we are. It’s more comfortable to tell ourselves the story that the sufferer made poor choices to get to where they are. That obviously we made much more responsible decisions to be in the position to choose our targets of compassion.

BUT. What if instead we went about our lives believing that people are doing the best they can, that some folks are trapped in systems not of their making? What if we loved these folks as they are? What if we remembered our low points and connected with those in need out of our shared humanity?

This is the framework that Brené Brown suggests we operate out of. It is not a call to doormat-dom, however. It is not wearing ourselves down to the nub. It is a balancing act. It is knowing and honoring our limits so that we can do the hard work of looking pain in the eye and extending compassion.

What would it look like if we believed the people who exasperate or frighten us are doing the best they can? The person who calls the church every month for help with the utility bill. The congregational antagonist. The ministry leader whose life is spiraling out of control. What inner work would we need to do first to be able to extend this generous interpretation? And what difference would it make in our individual and collective lives if we could look at others – all others – through these Christ-colored glasses?

My son is 2 1/2 years old, which means this will be my fourth Advent as a mom (or mom-in-the-making). As the lectionary takes us through the events leading up to and following Jesus’ birth, I will liturgically relive all the feels of the pregnancy and newborn stages: intense fear, hope, joy, love, the desire to share my very self with others, and the realization of how much help I need. It strikes me that these emotions overlap somewhat with the traditional themes of Advent, so I have used them to create a calendar of prayer prompts for Advent, Christmas, and the Feast of the Epiphany. While I used my experience as a mom to structure the calendar, the prompts are applicable to us all.

You are encouraged to print and/or share the calendar. The JPEG is below, and you can find a more printer-friendly PDF here.

Here is my single biggest takeaway from Rising Strong:

When I am feeling overwhelmed, I need to ask, “What is the story I’m telling myself?”

I am too quick to assume – that the person who just tore into me is irredeemably ornery, that I’m not good enough, or that I am too good to be the one creating the problem. None of these default narratives points me toward reflecting more deeply on the situation, reaching out for help, or looking for a solution. They are interpretations, and narrow, blame-inducing ones at that.

As an extreme introvert, I am especially prone to spinning a whole story in my head without fact-checking it, then acting on it like it is true. “What is the story I’m telling myself?” is a way of getting out of my head and sharing my perspective without making hearers defensive, since I’m not claiming that my outlook is gospel.

Instead, Brené Brown suggests I get at the whole story by asking myself:

• What am I leaving out in my default narratives?

  • What am I feeling? Why?

  • What am I thinking?

  • What am I believing?

  • What am I doing?

• What information do I need to flesh out and own this story?

  • about myself

  • about others

Not only are these the questions that I often neglect to ask, they are the ones that congregations need help raising to address subversive narratives of shame and blame. Churches – especially well-established ones – will have trouble moving forward until they are able to unearth and discuss sources of  resistance. Only when they are well-aware of feelings and dynamics will they be able to love and trust enough to risk doing new things.

In last week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory, the very logic-focused Sheldon was jarred into the realization that he does not have the ability to suppress all emotion. Unlike his hero, Mr. Spock, he has the capacity to hurt. So do we all.

Not all of us are as uncomfortable with emotion as Sheldon is. (Although I find Sheldon to be very relatable, truth be told!) But most of us do attempt to “offload” our hurt in a number of ways. If you’re interested in what those tricks look like, Brené Brown does a great job of identifying and describing them in Rising Strong (pp. 59-66). This unwillingness to feel the feels, though, only kicks the hurt down the road. It will have to be dealt with again later, often in messier form.

So it’s healthier – and easier, in the long view – to look hurt in the eye. But there are big differences between:

• feeling hurt and acting out hurt

• feeling disappointed and living disappointed

• acknowledging pain and inflicting pain

• caring about what others think and being defined by what others think

(Brown names these dichotomies in her introduction and first chapter.)

In the first half of each pair, we acknowledge our humanity and seek to understand what we’re feeling and why. When we can see the issue more clearly, we can deal with it better. If we lean toward the second half of these pairs, though, we’re really looking to avoid pain by passing it on to someone else. We disconnect from our inner life and from other people, making up stories instead about someone else and his/her intentions.

I believe much of the conflict in congregations comes from the desire to pass on pain rather than feeling and owning our discomfort. Church involvement is very personal. We encounter God and mature in our faith at church. We talk about close-to-home and sometimes controversial topics at church. We make some of our best friends at church. We invest much of ourselves and our resources at church. All of this growth-inducing vulnerability leaves us exposed to hurt, and we often don’t have the skills as individuals or communities to handle our disappointments in a healthy way.

In my next post I will outline what I believe to be the most helpful tool Brown offers us for reflection. This examination is the first step toward communicating, understanding, and connecting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notice that these questions focus on actions rather than personalities.

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

I just finished Brené Brown’s latest book, Rising Strong. Brown is a research professor whose work focuses on the negative effects of shame on individuals and relationships. She encourages her readers to embrace their vulnerability instead of being ashamed of it so that they can live with authenticity and compassion toward self and others.

Vulnerability, as Brown defines it, is “the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome” (Rising Strong xvii). Truth be told, I find this concept – and most of Brown’s work – to be spot-on, exhilarating, and … terrifying. I have a perfectionist streak that is about 4’10” long, and thinking about showing my less-than-best self makes me knock-kneed. I’m working on being more brave, though, because there’s a cyclical relationship between vulnerability and courage. It takes at least a bit of gumption to put myself out there, but the more I do it, the bolder I feel.

Rising Strong is a sort of culmination of Brown’s research because, as she points out, if we are able to risk being vulnerable, we will sometimes end up with our noses in the dirt. What then?

Throughout November I will be riffing on Brown’s insights about picking up, dusting off, and charging ahead and then making applications to congregational life, because communities as a whole can find themselves facedown as often as individuals do. My prayer is that we’ll learn more about how to be vulnerable together so that we can feel more alive, be more creative, and connect better with others, all with a view toward living more fully into God’s mission for us.

May we be vocal in our vulnerability, because our courage is catching.

You might be asking, “Is there an upside to fear?” Sure there is. Fear is the emotion that tells us to run when there is danger. It’s a survival instinct. Fear cannot be our persistent state, however, because anxiety blocks learning. The part of the brain that deals in fear – the amygdala – focuses all the brain’s resources on self-preservation, making it impossible to take in new information and strategize movement beyond the moment.

Logic, then, is not the ticket out of this loop. Luckily, we have other options. We can take deep breaths, drawing our focus to another part of the body. We can break down the fear-inducing situation and find the lowest-hanging fruit to pick. We can tap into our imaginations and name the step forward we would take if there were no risks. We can utilize metaphors to look at our problem in a different way.

If your amygdala is in hyperdrive, how will you stop fear from feeding on itself? If your congregation’s amygdala is stuck in an endless loop, what will you do to switch the current so that your people can live into their collective calling?

I’m not sure who decided it, but October is Pastor Appreciation Month. (Really, just one month?) I want to thank all the ministers out there who…

…work more hours than most of their care recipients realize.

…put their hearts and souls into creating worship services, learning experiences, and mission opportunities that help their people grow as disciples of Christ.

…don’t get real weekends.

…have trouble making friends or finding partners because others are leery of letting down their hair around a member of the cloth.

…are often the anxiety sponges for those who are mad at God, mad at the church, or mad at the world.

…lay down whatever they’re doing to be with a parishioner in crisis.

…stress about money because of seminary debt or shrinking church budgets, yet continue to serve faithfully.

…feel burdened by the ways humans do harm to one another and to the world, yet persist in hope that God is at work.

…risk their livelihoods by faithfully challenging their congregations to live toward God’s vision.

…live, along with their families – who deserve their own appreciation month – in the fishbowl.

…do so many tasks that weren’t taught in seminary and fall under “other duties as assigned.” (Emergency toilet repair, anyone?)

This is not an exhaustive list of reasons to appreciate a minister. I hope the people in your care tell you how much your leadership means to them, not just this month, but year-round.

Monday was the first of eight sessions in “Coaching as a Learning Catalyst,” an online class I’m taking. The course teaches basic brain science so that the participants can better utilize coachees’ cognitive preferences and learning styles to promote forward movement.

An underlying theory for this class is the knowledge model (from Smart Things to Know About: Knowledge Management by Thomas Koulopoulos and Carl Frappaolo), which divides information into four types:

• what we know that we know (I’m ready for the test!)

• what we know that we don’t know (I need to take a class on X subject.)

• what we don’t know that we don’t know (Ignorance is bliss.)

• what we don’t know that we know (I have bits of information, but I haven’t connected all the dots yet.)

The goal of learning is to know that we know. Traditional teaching moves students from knowing that they don’t know toward true understanding. The purview of coaching, however, is helping people get from what they don’t know that they know toward confidence and a well-informed plan. The focused questions that coaches ask prompt coachees to bridge the gaps between pieces of information they already have. Unlike purging the brain after a big test, then, the coachee is more likely to retain the connections and act on them, because the parts of the equation were already ingrained.

I’m excited about this class, and I look forward to sharing and using what I (currently) know that I don’t know!