You’ve spent months planning a ministry or one-off event. When the time comes for implementation, your heart is excited (and maybe a little nervous) and your brain is fried. Once this all-consuming project is in the rearview, your body is ready to hibernate. You stick all your post-its in a folder and dump all your virtual outlines in your Dropbox and ask, “What’s next?”

[Record scratch.]

How do you know what’s next if you haven’t taken the opportunity to consider what you’ve just done?

When fatigue sets in, it’s tough to name our criteria for assessing the fruitfulness of ministry. Yet, as CPE taught us, action-reflection-action is what keeps us growing as clergy and prevents us from offering a random assortment of programs that don’t build on one another.

I offer to you, then, this downloadable event debrief form. (It’s in Word format so you can keep digital copies of your responses.) It is designed to help you capture essential details and think theologically about how the event served your congregation’s mission. Please use it, share it, and let me know what tweaks to it you would recommend.

Committee 1 gathers monthly – more or less – to maintain one of the church’s ministries. It has a dedicated core group, plus some other participants that drift in and out. The meetings tend to be needlessly long and rehash a lot of the same issues each time. Action items are unevenly distributed, and implementation is hit-or-miss.

Committee 2 gathers monthly to carry out one of the church’s ministries. The members are clear on their task and have spent time agreeing on how to accomplish it. Before beginning their work each time, they revisit the covenant they created that guides how they interact with one another. Sometimes there are differences of opinion during discussion times, but each committee member makes an effort to understand where others are coming from. At the end of each meeting, the chair ensures everyone is on the same page about the action items, point people, and timelines they’ve agreed on.

What’s the difference between the two committees? Committee 1 is a group, a loose collection of individuals who share an orbital pattern. Committee 2, by contrast, is a team. In teams the members share a purpose, a grasp on the process for accomplishing it, and responsibility for seeing it through. Someone has taken up the mantle of leadership (which may be passed among the members) and someone has given this group the authority to move on their plans. There is a cohesiveness among the members that allows them to build on one another’s strengths and hold each other accountable.

There’s nothing wrong with being a group, if that’s what the situation calls for. The people gathered for a class or training, for example, co-exist well as a group. They’re all there for the learning, but there’s no project to require interdependence. However, church leadership teams will be much more effective if they embrace a team identity with all it entails.

To start making the move from being a collection of individuals to a true team, build mutual understanding by discussing together these four questions:

What is our shared purpose?

What is our process for living toward that purpose?

Who will be responsible for which pieces of the process?

How will we know we can trust one another throughout the process?

These aren’t the only considerations for team-building, but they’re a good start.

What groups in your purview need to evolve into teams – or be disbanded and re-formed as teams from the start?

Abraham sat on his front porch, fanning feverishly to break up the thick heat. The sudden appearance in his yard of three men brought him out of his reverie. Spry for a 99-year-old, he hurried over to them. Friendly faces were hard to come by, even around Abraham’s own home. There had, after all, been many an argument with his wife Sarah about his son by another mother. “You must be tired from travel. Please, take a load off, and I’ll bring you a snack.” Abraham didn’t just dump some pretzels on a napkin, though. He raced inside and asked Sarah to make bread. He ran out back and threw a few very fresh steaks on the grill.

As the mystery men devoured their feast under the shade of a tree, they asked, “Where’s your lovely bride? We’ve got some news for you both.” Sarah was stuck in the kitchen, and she had the hearing of an 89-year-old, but she could still make out the conversation over the clanging of pots. When the guests said that they’d be eager to play with Abraham and Sarah’s newborn when they came back this way a year later, she not only received the message, her laughter strained her obliques. The whole visit had an air of mystery, if not absurdity. And yet…in the hospitality Abraham and Sarah offered to three complete strangers, they received a blessing: the confirmation of a divine promise and – finally! – a concrete timetable for its fulfillment.

Hospitality is a central theme in scripture. Because Abraham and Sarah, because Moses and the Hebrew people, because Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were all once strangers in strange lands, we as their theological descendants are responsible for welcoming all who wander. And in a vocational sense, some of the most nomadic people are congregational ministers, looking not just for a job but also a place to fulfill a calling, to label home, and perhaps to nurture a family. Yet I don’t believe that most search committees think to approach their essential work as hosts.

If hospitality is a foundational virtue for Christians, what would it look like for search committees to create space for welcoming fully the gifts and the challenges of ministerial candidates – people who are just names on a page at the outset? What if search committees asked themselves how they could not just give a nod of acknowledgment to the Holy Spirit, but invite the Spirit into their conversations, listen for her wisdom, and wait for a blessing? What if search committees took ample time to build trust among committee members so that they could bring the fullness of their talents and faith and doubts – even their incredulous laughter – to the search process? What if search committees greeted their candidates with outstretched arms – including the ones who seem a bit mysterious, if not downright strange – and asked them questions that really got at their stories, passions, and capabilities? What if search committees engaged their churches and their communities ‘round the tree, giving them appropriate means for input into the process? What if search committees and congregations, instead of handing their candidates of choice a cup of pretzels and some tap water, killed the calf and baked a cake and really celebrated the start of a new relationship?

As Christians we tend to love hospitality as a concept, but putting feet to the ideal is scary because it involves welcoming the unknown. There’s no way to predict what danger awaits. Hospitality in search & call is no different. Maybe the Holy Spirit will prompt us to do something hard or unexpected. Maybe we’ll disagree about whom to call or how to go about it. Maybe we’ll fall in love with a candidate who will really stretch the expectations of our congregation. Maybe our church members will want to unearth skeletons or our community will say they need something from us that we’re not ready to provide. Maybe our minister’s worth and needs will strain our budget.

While there’s no way to anticipate the dangers in hospitality – though goodness knows we try – there’s also no way to predict blessing. As Abraham and Sarah found out, in God all things are possible, even a woman of very advanced maternal age giving birth to her long-awaited joy. In God a congregation’s self-study in preparation for a search can help it understand itself anew. In God intensive spiritual work done by the search committee can generate seeds for discernment that are then blown and take root across the whole of the church. In God the arrival of a new minister can breed needed energy and excitement. In God a good pastor-parish match can lay the groundwork for fruitful mutual ministry, one that is focused on living toward a divinely-given vision instead of on playing whack-a-mole with various conflicts.

Blessings beyond that which we dare hope for await those churches who take hospitality seriously. I believe this deep in my bones. Now, I did not start out this project with hospitality as my lens, but as I read and interview and survey all parties involved in searches, the recurring pitfalls keep pointing in that direction. The problems I hear about are rarely intentional; search committees often don’t know how to seek out the Holy Spirit’s counsel throughout the process. How to meet candidates’ disclosures with their own compelling, truthful narrative about their church. How to communicate effectively with candidates and with their own congregation. How to welcome a variety of candidates, then decide well which ones remain friends and which one becomes family. How to ask useful questions of the ministers they interview. How to have hard but needed conversations about the expectations of everyone involved in the process. How to compensate ministers in ways that honor their professionalism and personhood. How to formalize new calls in covenantal language. How to help the called pastor become “one of us.”

Search committees are made up of extremely capable, faithful people. They have the wisdom of judicatory leaders, theological school partners, and parachurch organizations at their disposal. The foundation is there. Here’s the contribution I hope to make. One year from now, I want to be able to offer to search committees and the folks who counsel them an approach to the call process that is grounded in practices of hospitality. I do not envision this approach as do this, then this, then this. My project is an ecumenical one, and call processes vary across denominational lines. And in free church traditions, searches look very different from congregation to congregation.

Instead, this work aims to be a tool for teaching search committee members how to ask each other, their church, their candidates, and the Holy Spirit questions that remove the barriers keeping each party from appropriately sharing with and fully listening to one another. These may be nuts-and-bolts questions like, “what do our by-laws say about how to handle this part of the process?” But more often they will be questions such as, “What does the Spirit have to say about this direction we’re leaning toward?” “What do our candidates need from us?” “What has not yet been said that must be said?” “What’s causing us to feel this way?” When search committee members are able to discuss these deeper-level concerns, hospitality, with all its short- and long-term blessings for congregation and minister, can more fully take root.

A friend talks about you behind your back. Your significant other makes decisions that impact you both without your input. Your supposed advocate throws you under the bus to protect her own reputation, position, or livelihood. We’ve all had our trust broken at one time or another. And put simply, if inelegantly: it sucks.

That’s why it is so tempting to frame trust as predictability. When we can anticipate the actions of others, we can exhale. I can let my guard down a bit at a green light because the Department of Transportation has promised me that crossways traffic will be halted by a red light. If I know what you’re going to do, I can trust you.

But is predictability the full measure of trust? Some of the most relationship-deepening moments I’ve experienced were the result of surprise. Unexpected words of affirmation or acts of care. Sharing a hidden piece of one’s soul. Defending another at great risk to self. Anticipated? No. Trust-building? You’d better believe it.

I may trust that oncoming cars will obey the law, but I’m still going to drive defensively. (I hope others will do the same!) But in the world of relationships, people will know and be known only at a surface level if we stay on our side of the double yellow line. The more foundational level of trust, then, involves risk-taking. Being vulnerable and creating space for others to do the same.

What relationships, either with individuals or groups, need to grow roots down into that lower layer of trust? How can you take the first step by sharing something about yourself that lets the other know it’s safe to return in kind?

I sighed deeply, knowing a difficult conversation with a parent was in my near future. A children’s worship leader – one with extraordinary patience and skill in managing rambunctious behavior – had just expressed her concerns about a second grader’s ongoing disruptive and defiant actions during Godly Play.

I needed – I really wanted – to work with the parent on making children’s worship a sacred space for all of the kids, including her son. But I had experienced this mom as not very solution-focused on several occasions. So I tapped my go-to resource: I called my coach.

My coach asked me questions that surfaced my hoped-for outcomes. Her queries prepared me to ask the mother for a meeting in a non-threatening way, have the right people in the room for the conversation itself, voice the interests shared by all involved, name the point at which we’d made as much headway as we were going to, and communicate the results to those who needed to be in the loop. It was a hard meeting, but it went as well as it could because of all that pre-work.

Conflict is inevitable in ministry. And while the word “conflict” may strike terror in many hearts, conflict is actually value-neutral. It is simply a difference of opinion. Conflict done well can build trust and buy-in. Bungled conflict can lead to…well, we all have our horror stories.

I have found coaching invaluable when I’ve stared down the confusion, vulnerability, and fear that come with conflict, and I believe it can help you too. Specifically, a coach can help you:

• define the conflict and see its potential value

• separate conflicting ideas from the people who hold them

• explore the dynamics of the situation and sort out your role (if any)

• take a step back and see the issue or pastoral care need behind the issue

• pinpoint what you don’t yet know but need to find out about the conflict

• prompt you to name and assess options for taking action

• strategize specific conversations

• think about resources and partners available to you

• empower you to say or do difficult but necessary things

• build in some accountability for following through with your action plan

If you recognize value in these conversation points for your own ministry, let’s talk.

I sighed deeply, knowing a difficult conversation with a parent was in my near future. A children’s worship leader – one with extraordinary patience and skill in managing rambunctious behavior – had just expressed her concerns about a second grader’s ongoing disruptive and defiant actions during Godly Play.

I needed – I really wanted – to work with the parent on making children’s worship a sacred space for all of the kids, including her son. But I had experienced this mom as not very solution-focused on several occasions. So I tapped my go-to resource: I called my coach.

My coach asked me questions that surfaced my hoped-for outcomes. Her queries prepared me to ask the mother for a meeting in a non-threatening way, have the right people in the room for the conversation itself, voice the interests shared by all involved, name the point at which we’d made as much headway as we were going to, and communicate the results to those who needed to be in the loop. It was a hard meeting, but it went as well as it could because of all that pre-work.

Conflict is inevitable in ministry. And while the word “conflict” may strike terror in many hearts, conflict is actually value-neutral. It is simply a difference of opinion. Conflict done well can build trust and buy-in. Bungled conflict can lead to…well, we all have our horror stories.

I have found coaching invaluable when I’ve stared down the confusion, vulnerability, and fear that come with conflict, and I believe it can help you too. Specifically, a coach can help you:

• define the conflict and see its potential value

• separate conflicting ideas from the people who hold them

• explore the dynamics of the situation and sort out your role (if any)

• take a step back and see the issue or pastoral care need behind the issue

• pinpoint what you don’t yet know but need to find out about the conflict

• prompt you to name and assess options for taking action

• strategize specific conversations

• think about resources and partners available to you

• empower you to say or do difficult but necessary things

• build in some accountability for following through with your action plan

If you recognize value in these conversation points for your own ministry, let’s talk.

Most self-care is pretty fun. (I don’t know about you, but saddling up in the stirrups at the OBGYN’s office and trying to answer the dental hygienist’s questions while she stabs my gums aren’t really my idea of thrill rides.) Talking about self-care isn’t always that pleasant, though, because we can begin to realize how much we’ve been neglecting our health or our relationships and we often start stressing about what our church members will say if we leave the office at 3:00 on the Thursday of a 55-hour work week. That kind of thinking can sap some of the excitement over a night out with friends. (Kind of defeats the purpose of self-care, eh?)

I want to make reflecting about our self-care practices enjoyable! To that end I give you self-care bingo. Ten different PDF bingo cards are available for download here. Use them however you like, but here are a few suggestions:

• Play a traditional game of bingo at a clergy gathering. Cut up one of the grids into 25 cards, shuffle the cards, and have a caller shout out one self-care action at a time. Offer a prize to the first person to get a BINGO.

• Use the bingo cards for a get-to-know-you activity. If you’re at a gathering of ministers who don’t know each other well, give each person a bingo card and a pen. Ask people to mingle and find someone who has completed one of the self-care actions in the last week. Have the person initial that square and tell a brief story related to the self-care action.

• Create an ongoing self-care challenge. Distribute the bingo cards among your peers, then go about your week. See who can get a bingo first by completing five adjacent self-care actions.

Comment to let me know how you used this resource…er, game!

Healthy churches are much more likely to have healthy ministers. There’s a chicken-or-egg question involved, but the influence likely goes both ways. Here, then, are some thoughts on what clergy health looks like.

Taking care of self:

• Tends to own discipleship/relationship with God. A spiritual leader must continue to be formed by and connected to God.

• Knows when to call it a day/week. There is always more ministry to be done.

• Takes all vacation/professional development time. Those who can’t go on vacations take staycations. Those who can’t attend conferences plan their own reading or planning weeks.

• Attends to physical and mental health. Sometimes being healthy means tending to literal health by getting regular checkups, seeing a counselor as needed, and taking the advice (and the medicine!) prescribed by healthcare professionals.

• Asks for personal and professional help as needed. Requesting help is a sign of self-awareness and strength, not shortcoming.

• Asks for what he/she needs materially to be able to focus on ministry. Just wages offer freedom from the resentment and financial panic that distract from ministry.

• Has a peer support network. Isolation in ministry is the shortest path to burnout.

• Has a pastor. Many ministers who worry about gossip and politics look outside their denominations for a pastor.

• Has a life outside of church. All work and no play make for a tired, frustrated, dull minister. Make a friend. Find a hobby. Become a regular somewhere.

• Protects his/her family from the fishbowl effect. A less anxious family makes for a happier home.

Leading well: 

• Continues to feel called. Ministry isn’t just a job and a paycheck.

• Enjoys the challenge of ministry, even though not all ministry situations are pleasant. It’s a great feeling when gifts are being well-utilized.

• Doesn’t own issues/initiatives that shouldn’t belong to him/her. The triangle is my least favorite shape.

• Addresses conflict in a timely fashion. Conflict that isn’t addressed festers and then explodes.

• Sees the pastoral needs behind conflict. When people are behaving badly, they are usually acting out of their hurt.

• Identifies the line between being someone’s pastor and being someone’s friend. It’s very hard – if not impossible – to be both.

• Is transparent. Vulnerability breeds trust.

• Knows and owns strengths and weaknesses. Weaknesses can’t always be shored up, but strengths can always be built upon.

• Keeps learning and growing. The church is evolving, and so must her ministers.

• Is able to see when good ministry has been done. Even at the end of a hard or seemingly unproductive stretch, it’s helpful to reflect on where God was at work.

• Mentors, supports, and thanks leaders. Ministry is not done in a vacuum.

• Acknowledges when it’s time to move on. An appropriate level of challenge breeds effectiveness.

What would you add or remove from this list? What specific commitments do you need to make to your own health?

Churches are most able to focus on worshiping God and embodying the love of Christ when they are healthy. But what does congregational health look like? Here are some of my thoughts.

Leadership:

• Members trust lay and clergy leadership and vice versa. Mutual ministry is nearly impossible when trust is low.

• There is a balance of stability and turnover in lay leadership. Leaders stay in their positions long enough to get good at them but not so long that they stagnate.

• The leadership understands how the church’s size relates to its mission. The small church gets how its numbers allow it to be agile and responsive to the gifts and needs of the community.

• New lay leaders are identified, mentored, and empowered. Without some sort of process for training and placing new leaders, the face of leadership stays the same indefinitely.

• Leadership needs are revisited on a regular basis. The church assesses whether its structure is serving its mission well.

Mission:

• Everyone who has been attending for at least three months knows the church’s mission. The mission visibly shapes the life of the congregation.

• That mission is primarily about engaging the community beyond the walls. A church that exists primarily for its own sake is not Christ-centered, nor is it built to last.

• The membership claims the mission as its own. Church members know the mission and use it as a tool to evaluate existing ministries and to generate new ideas.

• The congregation revisits its mission on a regular basis. The specific shape of call evolves, not just for individuals, but for whole communities.

Life together: 

• People know how to disagree in healthy ways. The church values unity around decisions, even when there are varying opinions.

• The congregation gathers at least occasionally purely for fellowship. Laughter and play enhance worship and service.

• The different generations are invested in each other. Young and old teach and learn from one another.

• The church has clear processes and lines of communications in place. Everyone knows how to share ideas and address concerns.

• The congregation stewards its resources well – including its people resources. It neither holds them too tightly nor spends them too easily.

Spirituality:

• Everyone is growing in discipleship. People ages 0-99+ are actively learning about God’s love and what it means for their lives.

• People follow the leadings of the Holy Spirit instead of their own desires. There is an emphasis on true discernment: “not my will but thine be done.”

• Worship is part of everything the church does. At lock-ins and committee meetings people name God’s presence and greatness and call upon God’s power.

What would you add to or remove from this list? What are some specific ways you help your congregation attain health?

The church, like the culture around it, is evolving quickly. This means that strategic plans have a very short shelf life and that ministers are called upon to lead visioning-type processes more frequently.

But where do you begin? The thought of not just structuring the process but also inviting helpful participation and managing congregational anxiety around change can be so daunting.

I have worked with several coachees who were leading their churches to discern what God is calling them to be and to do – in this time and place. Coaching offers space for ministers to consider both the big picture and the tasks that will move the congregation toward realizing it. In our conversations we talk through interpreting the work theologically, making space for the Spirit to speak, involving various parties in healthy ways, naming available assets, sparking creativity, troubleshooting obstacles, managing polarities, and taking concrete steps.

Coachees are able to lead change processes with increased boldness and sensitivity when they feel more equipped. If your church is stuck in a rut, or if you’re already knee-deep in a visioning time and not sure what to do next, let’s talk.

I love lists. I always have. And there are few things that make me as giddy as crossing a task off my to-do list. Ministry, however, rarely lends itself to an agenda made up of bite-sized, easily quantifiable jobs. For us listlovers, then, it can be discouraging to get to the end of the day and see so few strikethroughs. It’s easy to wonder if we did anything worthwhile.

Enter the to-done list. When your day has looked nothing like what you’d planned – such is ministry! – or when intangibles have dominated your focus, cross out some items on this list and know that your day has been well-spent. Feel free to use and share. (Downloadable PDF version here.)

I don’t remember much, if anything, about being three years old. The furthest I can usually reach back is the year after that, when I suddenly had to share my parents’ attention with a big-lunged baby brother. I’m certain that who I am and what I know is built on experiences from those earliest years, but I’m also sure I could audit a few classes from a less-jaded version of myself. That is why I’m taking notes as I watch my son grow up. Here’s what my newly-minted threenager is teaching me:

Resilience. I have watched L outrun his own feet, causing him to leave several layers of skin on the concrete. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he doesn’t, but it’s never long before he has popped back up and started playing full-tilt again. He doesn’t understand shame, so he has no need to make his scrapes seem more dire than they are or to blame them on someone else. That frees him up to keep going.

Boundaries. I’ve seen other kids shove L when we’ve been in public play areas. He usually looks that child in the eye, points his finger, and says, “No hit!” in a firm voice. He knows he doesn’t deserve to be pushed around. (Let’s hope he always remembers that others don’t either…)

Feeling the feels. When something is really bothering L, he will break down in sobs and wail, “I’m so sad!” He gets it out, lets his dad and me comfort him, and moves on. He doesn’t stuff it down deep until it explodes at another time.

Love of self. This child loves the mirror. He tries out different expressions. He admires how he looks in a tie. He doesn’t brush off compliments; he beams at them. No body image issues here.

Un-self-consciousness. L loves planes, trains, and helicopters. He also loves Fancy Nancy, accessories, and the color pink. He doesn’t limit himself to a category, and (at least so far) he doesn’t try to impose labels on others either.

Persistence. L got a 24-piece puzzle (a real one!) for his birthday. It took a few days to complete. We left it out so he could work on it a bit at a time. He turned the pieces this way and that, trying to match the colors, lines, and notches. When he would find a fit, he’d take a moment to celebrate: “Great job. I did it!”

Forgiveness. No matter how often I mess up as a parent, he loves me. He gives me biiiiig huuuuugs. And he tells me it’s time to play again. He gets that our relationship is larger than one incident.

Yes, a lot of the great qualities that I admire in my son come from the fact that he is in the early stages of understanding how to relate to the world, which is itself still small in his eyes. He’s still very ego-centered. But I can’t help but think that he has much to teach me about myself – and that he is giving me pointers on how to help him as his challenges get larger – if I will only pay attention.

“I was so busy I forgot to eat lunch.”

“I want to take better care of myself, but I feel guilty when I do.”

“I don’t know anyone outside my church, and I don’t know where to look for friends who won’t censor themselves because I’m a minister.”

Can you relate to any of these statements? Many ministers seek coaching because they realize their work pace is unsustainable and their support networks need beefing up. It’s no wonder that self-care is a common theme in clergy coaching. Ministers are under pressure (from themselves as well as from others) to be available to church members constantly . . . while also preparing for programs or sermons, envisioning fresh ways to attract and engage newcomers, and representing the congregation to the community. Health, family, and personal time often take a backseat.

Coaching provides a safe space for the person being coached to vent frustrations about unrealistic expectations. From there we explore which roles really do belong to the coachee and which ones can be delegated. We talk through strategies for performing the claimed roles more efficiently and effectively, and I encourage the coachee to identify whom they will contact and when about the pieces to be delegated. We delve into what self-care itself looks like for the person being coached based on her personality type, family situation, and interests. I ask the coachee to name how she will hold herself accountable to her new plan. And then we celebrate (!) when she takes her days off, schedules coffee with a friend, or says no to a task she doesn’t need to own. If guilt at taking time for self-care persists, I challenge the coachee to point out how her health and well-being benefit others – her church, her family, her friends.

I’ve found that people (including me!) are more consistent about self-care when they are affirmed in their need for it, create a strategy for attending to it, have a place to share their joy that they are prioritizing it, and can reflect on how it contributes to their wholeness as pastors and people. If you could benefit from conversation around self-care, I’d love to talk with you.

My coaching clients are very brave. Almost all of them are young clergy women. They have responded to God’s call to serve in a youth-dismissing, increasingly-disparaged, male-dominated profession. Like I said, BRAVE. And they are doing amazing ministry. I am constantly in awe.

Still, I know from my own experience that it can be tough to remain confident when you are often asked, “Are you sure you’re old enough to be a pastor?” To stand tall when the people in your care take shots at you because they are anxious about personal matters or angry at God or unhappy with the church. To keep going when you see your male friends from seminary keep climbing into bigger and bigger pulpits when those same churches won’t even grant you an interview.

My clients are changing the culture of professional ministry with their faith, gifts, and persistence. I can see the shift happening. As it does, I offer these thoughts on how to stoke one’s courage as needed. (Printable PDF available here.) Please share!

It always mystifies people that I once played basketball, since my height has not changed since roughly the third grade. (Even then, I was in the front row for class photos.) Part of the fun for me was being part of a team. We worked out together. We pushed each other. We were united in our goal of having the higher number on the scoreboard when the final buzzer sounded.

Contrast that experience with group work in class. That was often the pinnacle of “ugh” for me during my middle and high school years. Inevitably, some group members put in more time and effort than others. One person was passionate about busting the bell curve, while another was happy simply for a passable project to be turned in.

There’s a difference between being an allied force with a goal and being a collection of individuals with an assignment. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators, Patrick Lencioni outlines the process of becoming an honest-to-goodness team.

• Build trust. Without creating a safe space for vulnerability, conversation will be surface level.

• Be willing to engage in conflict. When there is trust, participants are willing to put all possibilities on the table.

• Commit. When it’s clear that every option has been explored, a team can make hard decisions with confidence.

• Hold each other accountable. When teams have agreed on a course, the members are invested in making sure everyone does his/her part.

• Pay attention to results. When team members keep one another on track, they are generally able to focus on and meet the objectives they have set.

A significant piece of ministry involves working with committees, boards, and/or task groups. In your work, how many of these groups fulfill the five functions of a team? How might attention to these functions not just make the groups you work with more functional, but also affect a culture change in your faith community? What would it take for your leaders to embrace these functions?

The most tempting button on Facebook – for me, anyway – isn’t the trusty thumbs-up, a sign of celebration and solidarity. In this election cycle, in this climate of increasingly divisive and belittling rhetoric, my less-dominant hand often has to restrain my clicking hand from lunging for the “unfollow” option.

While the majority of my Facebook friends share my political and theological leanings, I know and care about a lot of people – highly intelligent, deeply compassionate people – who think differently than I do. It would be easy enough to boot their impassioned statuses and their links to opinion pieces out of my newsfeed. I wouldn’t be going so far as to unfriend them, after all. They’d never know they hadn’t made the cut, so I wouldn’t be hurting their feelings. I could then go about my day with fewer inclinations to comfort-eat…and without the occasional pause to listen for apocalyptic hoof beats.

But the unwillingness to consider others’ points of view is how we devolved into divisiveness and belittlement, isn’t it?

It’s the age-old myth of scarcity at work, in this case with regards to airtime. If I don’t shout the loudest, I won’t get the chance to share my side. I can’t afford to use my debate platform to ask clarifying questions. I’ve got to spend it all on advocacy.

Truth be told, those on the opposite end of the spectrum are unlikely to change my approach to the issues with their Facebook activity. It would be arrogant of me to think I would have any more success persuading them. But I believe I have a responsibility to try to understand why others feel the way they do, to note how policy intersects with the lived reality of another human being. Because when I get the history, the reasoning, the pastoral care pieces behind the position – and when I share my own hopes and fears – I can still be in relationship with someone who comes at complicated matters from a different angle. (The exception here is when the way someone speaks sends me into a mental health spiral. Then self-care does need to kick in, so that I can tend to the parts of my soul that allow me to be in community with those who aren’t abusive.) Relationship leaves the door open for collaboration, or at least for compromise, in view of the common good. Even if we can’t work together, we still retain the ability to see one another as children of God.

If I can’t do something so simple as read a status update that challenges me, then I really should be listening for hoof beats…and it will be my need to be right hastening them.

Last week this beautiful post by a Presbyterian minister in California popped up in my Facebook newsfeed several times. It was timely for me. A beloved member of my former congregation had just died, and I was deeply grieving the loss of a man who not only left his fingerprints on virtually every ministry in the church, but who was also a giddy grandfather, a mentor to young children, and a friend to many – including me.

Several people made sure I’d heard this hard news. I very much appreciated their efforts, especially since they were so busy with all the care and the details that fill the days leading up to a memorial service. But this influx of info strained my ability to maintain my boundaries. There were so many people I wanted to check on, pray with, and hear stories from. I didn’t, of course. I am a former minister at that church. I wonder sometimes if keeping this kind of distance seems cold to the people I have loved and served, though, and so today I share a few things I wish my former parishioners knew.

I still care about you. A lot. And I think about and pray for you.

I keep up with what’s going on. I subscribe to the newsletters of most of the churches I’ve served. (And I probably read them more closely than many church members!) If you ever friended me on Facebook, I read your status updates, even though I generally don’t “like” or comment on what I read.

It’s really hard for me to let someone else be your minister ... I want to be the one celebrating milestones with you and offering a listening ear when you’re going through difficulty.

… but the line between friendship and pastor/parishioner is razor thin … As time passes – and as you claim your newer minister as Your Minister – we’ll be better able to see each other simply as friends.

…and I believe strongly both in the ethics of separation and in the abilities of your new minister. If I don’t step out of the way so that the current minister can share big moments with you, he/she will never earn your confidence. And because I trust in her/his competence, if I insert myself into your situation, I will have done so myself primarily to meet my own needs.

If this delineation seems harsh, it’s because I’ve seen – and experienced firsthand – the ill effects of predecessors with poor boundaries. It’s hard enough living in the shadow of the one who has served before. It’s downright frustrating when a former minister actively maintains his/her influence so that the new minister’s care isn’t wanted or needed. So I tend to err on the side of holding the line.

I will always carry with me all the experiences that we shared together and the lessons you taught me. You encouraged me, enlightened me, emboldened me, and ministered alongside and to me.

I am and will be a better minister to others because of having been your minister. Thank you for allowing me into your life, your home, your heart. It is one of the great privileges of my life to point you to the holy, and I have often encountered the sacred in you.

Have you ever felt like your time was being sucked into some sort of chronological Bermuda Triangle? Where did all the hours go? Most of us live at such a breakneck pace that it’s hard to remember all the things we did today, much less last week or last month.

Or have you wondered why you always seem to react a particular way to a certain person or in a certain kind of situation? Where did that anxiety come from? At times it seems to tackle us from behind.

Or have you been feeling exhausted or restless, with no apparent reason? Why am I feeling this way? It’s hard to focus on the people in front of us and the tasks at hand when all we want to do is sleep or go somewhere – anywhere – else.

Enter the usefulness of tracking and reflecting. When we take a few moments each day to make notes on our activities or our state of mind, we can begin to notice patterns that help us understand ourselves better and point to potential changes.

Here are a few examples:

Where did all the time go? Use your calendar to keep detailed notes on how you spend your days, even marking how you use short bursts of time for things like email, Facebook, or hallway conversations. After a few weeks, sit down with your calendar and look for the time leaks. (You might even consider color-coding the different categories of time use to help with this reflection piece, especially if you’re a visual person.) What changes could you make to plug up these leaks?

Where did that anxiety come from? Keep a journal handy. When someone or something prompts you to act in a way you don’t like, write down what happened, who was involved, and what your mindset was going into the situation. Think through what you could do differently next time to come away with a different result. After you’ve made a few entries in your journal, consider whether there’s a pattern in your triggers and what that might mean for how you prepare for appointments and/or when you schedule them.

Why do I feel so exhausted/restless? Sometimes these feelings are the stirrings of discernment. Sometimes they are due to temporarily overwhelming life circumstances. And sometimes they are simply related to personality type. Look back over your calendar over the last few weeks. Are you an introvert who has been covered up with pastoral care visits and meetings? Are you an extrovert who has been chained to her desk lately by the demands of study and planning? Where might you play to your personality type to strike more of a balance in your day?

Patterns can be adjusted, but only when we’re aware of them! If self-reflection isn’t giving you the answers you seek, ask for the observations of a person you trust.

I cried at church on Sunday. It wasn’t the first time, though I’m not a particularly teary person. But I wasn’t reaching for the Kleenex because a parishioner shared a heavy burden or because I was having to say goodbye to a congregation I love or because conflict had flared up on the busiest morning of the week. I cried because I was a grateful mama.

My two-year-old spends his Sunday mornings moving between the nursery and the adjoining one-room Sunday School for the older children. He’s really into vehicles right now, and his first order of business when he gets to church each week is to pull out the three school buses in the baby room. One of the buses is designed to light up and make sounds, though its batteries probably died long before my husband was appointed to pastor this congregation in June. On Sunday morning a fourth grade boy told his parents he needed to take batteries to church so that L could play with a fully-functional bus. I was still in the children’s area when this sweet soul walked in with a Ziploc bag full of different sizes of batteries and headed straight for the nursery to get that bus ready to roll.

It wasn’t just the gesture but also the forethought that made me a little weepy. And yet, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I have seen this child go out of his way to welcome my preschooler. He’s not the only one reaching out, either. There’s a teenage girl who has taken it upon herself to look after L on Sunday mornings. Other kids engage L in games, sing with him, and read to him – without much (or any) prompting from the adults.

These children and youth have been deeply formed in their caring behaviors by the congregation as a whole. The adults check in with and help one another without reminders to do so. They can disagree and still love and minister alongside each other. They tell my son to stop running in the sanctuary with his sucker (thank you!) and follow that gentle instruction up with big hugs. Their prayer lives are deep and broad in scope.

This abundant care that is nurtured by the intimacy of a small congregation overflows into the community. The church works with the local elementary school to help families in need. It takes VBS to a nearby apartment complex. It actively invites neighbors to participate in on-campus fellowship experiences like trunk-or-treat and content events such as special speakers. It brings crocheted blankets to people who are hurting or homeless.

I have loved all of the faith communities I have been part of as a minister and spouse. But this place is definitely the place for us now. As a mama, I would not trade the congregation’s investment in my son’s spiritual and emotional development and the modeling of being responsible for and to other people – not for uber-modern facilities, not for a regular rotation of high-visibility events with bounce houses and snow cone trucks, not for age-divided or super-techie formation experiences.

So take heart, small churches. There’s no need to compare yourself to the big guys. Yes, they have much to offer. But so do you, and there’s no standard metric that can gauge the impact of heart.

You’re sitting in your annual review. Most of the feedback you’re getting is positive. Not just positive, actually, but really encouraging. There are just a few minor areas for improvement: “I wish you’d handled your conversation with X a bit differently.” “We’ve received some complaints about an example you used in a recent sermon.” “There was a slight dip in numbers late in the year.” And all the steam you picked up from hearing about what’s going well dissipates into the strata. Why, when there are so many more items in the plus column?

Part of the reason is that feedback is, well, backward-focused. And there aren’t any mulligans for moves we’ve already made, so we’re left endlessly replaying situations we cannot change. But in Entering Wonderland: A Toolkit for Pastors New to a Church, author Robert Harris introduces the concept of feedforward. Instead of putting the past under the microscope, Harris suggests that questions intended to evoke improvement start with the present moment and look ahead.

• Instead of (or as a follow-up to) “I wish you’d handled your conversation with X a bit differently,” a feedforward question could be, “How do you want to relate to X in the future?”

• Instead of (or as a follow-up to) “We’ve received some complaints about an example you used in a recent sermon,” a feedforward question could be, “How do you determine what stories best support your messages? How do you decide when an anecdote might be hard to hear but needs to be included?”

• Instead of (or as a follow-up to) “There was a slight dip in numbers late in the year,” a feedforward question could be, “What changes can we make in communication, content, support, and timing to help our ministries be as robust as possible?”

This kind of reflection acknowledges that there is room to grow, but it channels that awareness toward action steps. We claim our capacity for positive change instead of being held captive by second-guessing.

Feedforwarding doesn’t automatically happen. It is a different way of thinking, both about ourselves and for the people who join us in ministry. How, then, might you introduce and model the concept in your context?