On my last work-related trip in the Before, I watched the CBS Morning News in my hotel room as I got ready for the day. It was March 10, and Italy had just gone into lockdown. I shuddered at the tv footage of desolate public spaces. With equal parts naivete, willful denial, and internalized American exceptionalism, I thought, that could never happen here. Then I went to my conference, where I sat in a room full of people crowded around tables, shook hands with new acquaintances, and ate my buffet lunch after touching the same serving utensils as everyone else.

The reality of what was unfolding didn’t become real until the next day. The NBA suspended operations until further notice. The SEC men’s basketball tournament sent fans home in the middle of a game as a precursor to canceling the event entirely. These actions grabbed my attention since pro and college sports are big moneymakers with a lot of beneficiaries. Decisions to pause or end seasons would only be made under the most dire circumstances.

The dominos toppled from there. Church gathered for the last time in the building, but hardly anyone was there. The school system made attendance optional the next week before ending in-person instruction for the rest of the year. Stores began closing. Toilet paper became scarce.

All of this unprecedentedness drove me to a depth of uncertainty and fear that I had never known, compounded by the fact that it was taking place everywhere. There was nowhere a person could go within the surly bonds of earth to escape it. How could we stay healthy? Where could we turn for reliable guidance and help? How long would all of this last? What would it mean on the other side? How could I keep from pulling out every last chunk of my hair in the meantime?

I adapted, of course, like we all did. We had to. I mourn all that we have lost along the way: people, trust in leaders and institutions, jobs, small businesses that couldn’t hang on, time with loved ones, planned experiences we had to cancel, milestones we couldn’t celebrate in the same ways, position descriptions that have long since been tossed out the window, relationships with our church members uncomplicated by disagreements about masks and re-opening pressure, and so much more. And, as we all army crawl toward hope in this season of evermore available vaccines, some of the ways I am different now are good.

I’ve written before about reflecting on lessons from the pandemic. I decided recently to approach this from a slightly different angle, that of asset mapping. In this exercise you take all of the gifts you have access to - financial, physical, relational, skill-based, and anything else you can think of - and put each on a separate sticky note. Then you put them all on the wall, take stock, and dream of new ways to put those gifts together in service to your (individual or corporate) mission.

I decided to do this virtually, using Google Keep to visualize gifts I gained or unearthed during the pandemic. (If you haven’t used it before, Google Keep is very intuitive. You can find it in the Google apps tab in your Google-based email account.) I brainstormed all the gifts I could think of, then I color-coded them:

• brown for new physical assets

• yellow for new outlets/platforms

• blue for new teaching/leading opportunities

• green for new products I’ve created or credentials I’ve earned

• pink for new discoveries about myself

• purple for new skills

Here’s what this looked like:

If you want to do this exercise for yourself, your leadership team, or your church, you can start with specific gifts or with categories that prompt thinking about particular assets. Create any buckets you’d like, and make sure you think broadly about intangibles. Note that you don’t have to come up with a lot of post-its or pins for the reflection to be fruitful.

Now that I have my virtual sticky notes, I can easily refer to them when I get discouraged, and I can group them to think about what my ministry looks like in ways that take into account what this year has wrought. This asset mapping is a means of honoring the experience of this year and to using it to reimagine as necessary, even as I do the parallel process of muddling through grief.

On this one year anniversary of my initial (and slow on the uptake) understanding of what this past year would look like, I celebrate with you all the resilience you have tapped and survival skills you have developed. I can’t wait to see how you will put these gifts to faithful, ongoing use in the After(ish).

Impostor syndrome is all about imprisonment by expectations, whether they are our own or someone else’s, whether they are spoken aloud or unstated. We’re afraid that we’re not going to stack up to what we “should” be. (“Should” is a more toxic word than any four-letter curse.) Then we wish away who we are in an ill-fated attempt to put on a public persona that doesn’t fit, like when I wore a navy pantsuit to an interview for a job in college. I didn’t initially get the job, and part of the reason was that stupid suit with the ginormous shoulder pads. My interviewer, who offered me the position after the first choice candidate turned it down, later let me know that the suit made my 4’10” self look like a little girl playing dress up. It hid my superpower, which was an unassuming look that belied my toughness in conflicted situations.

Do you know who else didn’t live up to expectations? [Insert the standard, but correct, Sunday School answer here.] Yup. Jesus was not what the people anticipated a Messiah to look or act like. He was not mighty in a military sense. He did not use force to overthrow unjust institutions once and for all. He did not sort people easily into those who do and don’t follow the rules, into the clean and unclean. He didn’t bluster. He didn’t usher in God’s full reign shortly.

Sure, the distance between expectation and reality was what got Jesus in trouble. (It can be dangerous for us too, because we’ll at times be pushing against long-held yearnings or deep-seated biases.) It was also what made him a savior and the harbinger of God’s realm, characterized by grace and peace. The Incarnation was intended to be a reflection of God and God’s dream, not the people’s expectations.

Not trying to be something we’re not and instead moving about our work and lives authentically is an act of following Christ, then. It is courage embodied, as it makes others face their assumptions and biases, which many will fight hard to maintain. It encourages others to be faithful to their unique expressions of God’s image within.

If you could look squarely in Jesus’ face, then, what would he say to you? What would he lift up and affirm in you? How would he gently challenge you? Imagine yourself in conversation with this God-in-flesh who knows how hard it is to shake off the shackles of unhelpful, status-quo-protecting expectations. Then turn, in your mind or in reality, toward someone you’d like to encourage to be more fully themselves. What would you say to that person? Allow those words to volley back as wisdom and compassion for yourself.

If you like this post, check out week 1 and week 2 of this series.

Photo by Will Myers on Unsplash.

The tightening of the gut. A higher-pitched laugh. Strain in the lower back. Restless sleep. An inauthentic display of extroversion. Extreme overfunctioning. Increased sweat production.

These are my internal and external impostor syndrome tells. (That last one is particularly lovely.) What are yours?

The symptoms that accompany impostor syndrome seem harmless enough. But are they? The physical symptoms indicate stresses on the body that can wreak havoc if they are persistent enough. The emotional, spiritual, and vocational effects might be even more detrimental, though. Impostor syndrome makes us undervalue our gifts and ministries. (What do I know anyway?) It urges us to lead in ways that are not authentic to us (How can I seem more authoritative?), and as a result we don’t leverage our God-given strengths as faithfully as we could. It causes us to doubt our decisions and avoid calculated risks instead of using them as ongoing discernment. (What if I mess up and people realize I don’t deserve their trust in my leadership?) And the comparison that impostor syndrome is often rooted in can lead to such discouragement (Why is everyone doing so much more or better than me?) that we consider leaving the ministry altogether.

Well, here’s the thing about being wonderfully made. We’re supposed to learn from others but not copy them. Our backgrounds, challenges, epiphanies, relationships, and more have been woven together in such a way that we speak and act in ways that aren’t exactly like anyone else, and God uses that for good.

Right now, you being you is changing the face of pastoral ministry, is altering the perception of what a clergyperson looks like. Ministers don’t have to inhabit outsized pulpits at big steeple churches to be effective, thanks be to God! We don’t have to have 20 years of experience under their belts. We don’t have to be male, or white, or straight. We simply have to listen for the nudging and wait on the equipping of the Holy Spirit to be pastors who work for the full arrival of God’s reign. If we do that, we’ll be surprised and delighted by what can be done with what we’ve been given.

This week, spend some time in a breath prayer. Breathe in God’s care for you. Breathe out your care for others, expressed in your own way. Do this for at least a minute.

If you like this post, check out week 1 of this series.

Photo by Noah Näf on Unsplash.

I come face-to-face with self-doubt on a weekly basis. More often, it’s daily. (Ok, ok, multiple times per day.) Why should churches or other ministers think I can help them? Who am I to think I can speak to [insert complex issue here]? What do people think when they look at my rate sheet?

Impostor syndrome is feeling like a fraud, moments away from being exposed, despite having a verifiable track record. When you are your own employer, it’s easy for impostor syndrome to make itself at home in your psyche. After all, your ability to work in your field depends on constantly putting yourself out there. And in my case as a coach, I am not so much offering a thing to purchase as I am myself: my presence, experience, and gifts. That feels very tender and risky if I think too much about it.

Certainly impostor syndrome is not limited to those who run their own businesses. I felt it in congregational ministry as well. Who am I to speak on God’s behalf? What if I hear wrong? Does anything I say or do matter, or am I yelling into the void? I know from talking with coachees that many pastors wrestle with these questions and many more, despite feeling confident that they have been called to ministry and are continually being equipped by God.*

Humility is a good thing. It helps us stay in our own lanes, and it reminds us that we need God and those around us. But when humility mutates into something corrosive, it is no longer a gift of the Spirit. It becomes an obstacle to right relationship with God and God’s beloved.

That’s why I’ll be spending Lent - the season when we focus most intently on removing all that comes between us and God - on impostor syndrome. How does it manifest, and what kind of spiritual reflection can we engage in to step back from self-doubt into a humility rooted in being made in God’s image?

I invite you to join me.

*Some of these struggles are prompted by internalized structural inequities and the prejudices of others. Even so, we must learn how to maneuver through them as we seek to dismantle them.

Photo by Kyle Head 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.

[Note: interim pastors, settled pastors planning to transition out, and judicatory leaders, please share this post with your churches.]

You’ve been selected to serve on your church’s search team for a new pastor. This is an exciting task! You will be part of a process that will deeply impact your congregation’s ministry for years to come. Pastor searches are daunting for that very same reason, along with the time commitment required to do the search work well. If you are feeling a swirl of emotions about being named to the pastor search team, that is completely normal.

After your initial reactions, your next concerns might be about how to carry out the work of the search. Most members of pastor search teams have never served in this capacity before and have no background in hiring (or in the case of a pastor, calling). You might not even be totally sure what a clergyperson’s day-to-day schedule looks like.

That’s ok. A congregation’s laypeople are still in the best position to call a great-fit pastoral candidate, because you know your church better than anyone. You just need the search framework and tools to carry out your task faithfully.

In the new online course version of Searching for the Called, you will find what you need to set up your search process and ground it in God, tamp down your own (and the congregation’s) anxiety, engage well with pastoral candidates, discern which candidate with which you can envision fruitful ministry, and help your new minister get off to a fast start. The course breaks the pastor search into bite-sized chunks to eliminate overwhelm and utilizes videos, tools, and assessments to move you along the search timeline. There are also sections dedicated to helping your search team think through common questions that pop up during pastor searches, including anytime questions as well as pandemic-specific issues.

You can purchase two years of unlimited access for your entire search team for $250. (For reading this blog post, I’m happy to offer your team 10% off! Enter the code BLOG10OFF at checkout.) Simply have one member of your search team enroll in the course, and then I will contact the enrollee with login information for fellow search team members. You will also have the capability to contact me through the course with brief questions about your search.

The pastor search can be formational for your search team members, church, and pastoral candidates. Let Searching for the Called assist you in claiming that opportunity.

Judicatory and denominational leaders, I invite you to use my contact form to email me for a free preview version that will allow you to see all course content so that you can recommend it to your churches with confidence.

We’re in a time when many pastoral departures are imminent. Some clergy were on the brink of retiring or searching for a new call when the pandemic began. Not wanting to leave their churches in the lurch, they decided to hang on for a while longer, not realizing the pandemic would go on for nearly a year now. Others were already actively looking for a new place to serve and hit pause on their searches for the same reason. Then there are those ministers who were happily serving when the pandemic hit. Maybe conflict started or deepened in their churches over the challenges of the past months. Maybe they don’t want to pastor in the ways that the pandemic has required, some of which will carry forward afterward. Or perhaps they simply - understandably - want to protect their own health and that of their loved ones.

In short, many churches are looking down the barrel at a time of leadership transition.

If your settled pastor is thinking about leaving or has just departed, here are ten questions to guide your congregation into the early stages of the between-time:

• How do you bring healthy closure to your departing pastor's tenure?

• What are the primary pastoral tasks that need to be picked up by others?

• What are the opportunities and challenges presented by the time between settled pastors?

• What does your church need to figure out about its identity, direction, and pastoral needs before starting a pastor search?

• Keeping responses to all of the above in mind, what kind of leadership does your church need in the transition time?

• How might your church approach the search as a means of spiritual formation?

• What are the qualities needed in pastor search team members?

• How can your pastor search team members deepen their relationships with one another and their mutual trust with the church as a whole?

• What resources does your pastor search team need to conduct its process well?

• How can your church come alongside the pastor search team in its work?

If your church or pastor search team needs more resources, check out Searching for the Called. You can download the manual here, and an online course is coming next week.

Photo by KT on Unsplash.

Popular church wisdom about filling lay leader positions says that it’s important not just to get the right people on the bus, but also to make sure they’re occupying the right seats. Otherwise, your bus might run off the side of the road.

With the anxiety heightened by all of the events of the past year, some church buses haven’t just gone off the side of the road. They’re teetering on the edge of a cliff. That board chair whose inability to make a decision might frustrate you during normal times, but now that person’s indecisiveness could have public health consequences. That personnel chair whose power plays gave you heartburn before the pandemic might now have you questioning your future in congregational ministry.

Many churches have just completed a cycle of bus seat assignments, but it doesn’t hurt to begin thinking about what qualities you need in key lay leader roles for the next nominations season. Here are a few thoughts to get you started:

All people in key leadership roles:

• Spiritual maturity

• Deep listening

• Ability and willingness to communicate well

Personnel committee chair:

• Trust of the staff and congregation

• Empathy

• Ability and willingness to have hard conversations with compassion

• Generosity

• Consistency

Board/council/deacons chair or clerk of session:

• Trust of the staff and congregation

• Finger on the pulse of the congregation

• Creativity

• Vision

• Meeting facilitation skills

• Ability and willingness to have hard conversations with compassion

• Consistency

Trustee chair

• Sense of church’s physical assets as means of ministry

• Pragmatism

• Generosity

• Open-mindedness

• Ability to think both short- and long-term

Treasurer

• Sense of church’s physical assets as means of ministry

• Financial assessment skills

• Pragmatism

• Problem-solving

• Generosity

• Open-mindedness

• Ability to think both short- and medium-term

Spiritual caregiving team chair

• Compassion

• Equipping skills

This is not an exhaustive list of lay leader roles or qualities, just a jumping-off point. What would you add? How might you begin to cultivate potential leaders with these gifts? How might you help your nominating committee keep an eye out for these characteristics in church members?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash.

I got teary when I began seeing pictures on Facebook of people I know - medical professionals, chaplains, hospital administrators and support staff - getting the Covid-19 vaccine. (Thank you for doing your part to protect us all!) Every photo was a glimmer of hope that we are collectively headed in the right direction, that one day we might be able to move about the world and gather in groups again. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, even though the vaccines are something of a technological and chronological miracle.

It’s time, then, for you as ministry leaders to begin mulling what you will need after the worst is over. You have all worked so damn hard. Many of you have been questioned and criticized by your people more than you ever have. You’ve learned new skills out of necessity, not all of which you’ll want to carry forward. What, then, might you need to maneuver in a church and world that will be more recognizable but will never again look just like they did in the first quarter of 2020? Here are a few thoughts:

Renewal leave. If you read no further, this is priority one. Many of you have not been able to take the time away that you needed in the past ten months, whether it was because there was nowhere safe to go or plans were canceled or there was still worship to record for your Sunday “off.” Some of you even missed sabbaticals. I believe that all pastors will need at least four consecutive (paid) weeks for recovery and replenishment once they have access to safe avenues for it. Maybe this means your judicatory or denomination steps in with worship services they have recorded. Maybe you recruit seminarians or retired pastors to cover for you. Maybe you task your key laypeople with preaching and other essential functions. Whatever it takes, you need and deserve renewal leave.

Intentional re-prioritization of job responsibilities. Everybody’s duties changed when the pandemic hit - yours, those of other staff, and those of lay leaders. They will not and should not simply bounce back to what they were ten months ago. It’s possible you discovered new passions or tasks you never want to do again. It’s likely you took on more than you could sustainably handle, but you felt guilty delegating to others who were also feeling overwhelmed. Work with your personnel committee and key leaders to sort all of this out purposefully.

Reflection with others on lessons from the pandemic. Covid was the crash course we didn’t ask for but learned from nonetheless. You likely identified areas your church thought were essential but turned out not to be. Conversely, congregations who were hesitant to do much online found out that they could reach more and different people than they ever thought possible. What is it that your church has paused that either needs an official end or new life? What is it that your congregation has picked up that it wants to celebrate and kill or lean more fully into?

Lay leadership that is willing to dream about how to incorporate those lessons. As you begin thinking about the next nominating season - which seems eons away for those who just went through it - what are the qualities that you need in key roles? Creativity, flexibility, and calculated risk-taking might be among them.

Outside voices to help church members understand that church will never again look exactly like it did in early March 2020 and to guide them in looking forward. Every congregation will have a significant percentage of people who will breathe a sigh of relief and expect everything to go back to business as usual. You know that’s not going to happen. You know it shouldn’t happen, because church needed to make big shifts even before Coronavirus. You might need help conveying that to people who are craving “normal.” Look to your judicatory or denominational leaders to say hard things that you can’t or that need underlining. Congregational coaches can help too, leading your church in conversations that focus on what is now possible.

Ongoing colleague support to be creative and courageous. There are going to be times you simply want to go back to what is familiar too. It’s understandable after such upheaval! Make sure you have pastor friends for mutual support and sharing best practices. It’s important you know you’re not alone in trying to move your church into its post-Covid iteration.

Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Instead, think of these suggestions as seeds to plant in the hearts and minds of your church folks as well as in your own for tending in the coming months.

Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash.

As a child, I was an avid reader. In fact, I read my eyesight into oblivion and required glasses (and later contacts) from second grade on. They would have been Coke bottle thick if not for the compression technology that prevented me from looking like Stephen Root’s character in Office Space.

Reading, then, has been a constant in my life, and it was a great comfort and companion to me last year throughout all the change and challenge. (Thank goodness for e-books during stay-at-home orders!) Here are some of my favorite books that I read:

Fiction

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale was formative for me from the summer I read it by the pool as a teenager, my mother having given me her well-worn copy. The sequel did not disappoint, filling in some of the other characters’ points of view and advancing the story with surprising twists.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. This the story of a Black young adult woman finding her place and voice in the world among several well-meaning white people who are unable to examine their own bias and condescension (which is to say, it prompted some soul-searching). I highly recommend the audiobook version.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. The author explores race and identity through Black twins who make very different life choices.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. This book is a delight, which is unexpected since death and suicide are ongoing themes. It is woven through with grace, humor, quirky characters who capture your heart, and a surprise you won’t see coming.

Non-fiction

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. The bulk of this book is a much-needed primer (for me) on the problems - not just for those in prison, but for entire communities and for us all - caused by the War on Drugs and related initiatives. But the background Alexander gives on race relations and the various iterations of slavery over the course of four centuries in America was especially important context for me.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Finally, someone has made it all make sense - how politics, patriarchy, militarism, racism, growing communications capacity, the entertainment industry, and conservative Christianity together have brought us to where we now find ourselves culturally.

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones. Jones shows how racism is strongly tied to the theology, practice, and roots of the Southern Baptist Convention, among other denominational bodies.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. The Nagoski sisters explain burnout and its effects and offer practical tips for women - and really all those geared toward helping - to combat it.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. I read this as I waited (and still wait) for my turn in the library queue for Caste. I’m glad I did. I knew ridiculously little about how so many southern Black people ended up in other parts of the United States and what kind of welcome they found there. Wilkerson tells this history largely through the stories of three individuals who made the journey north and west.

If Then: How the Simulatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore. I have developed a fascination with all things Cold War-era related, but I narrowed this year’s books down to one for this list. Lepore tells of the origins of Big Data, which has had huge repercussions for politics and global conflict, not just advertising.

Ministry-related

Dynamic Discernment: Reason, Emotion, and Power in Change Leadership by Sarah Drummond. Drummond not only gives tools for discerning a new thing but also helps the reader understand burnout and how it comes about, conflict and how to navigate it, and power and how to unearth it.

Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy by G. Jeffrey MacDonald. The church is headed toward more multi-vocational leadership. This book is an exploration of what is possible from someone who embraces part-time pastoring and who has talked to other pastors and churches who flourish under this model.

What were your favorite books that you read last year, and what’s on your bookshelf for this year?

Photo by Susan Yin on Unsplash.

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 originally developed this prayer calendar in 2014, and I think it holds up. The coming year offers us a glimmer of light at the end of the end of the pandemic tunnel, and this calendar can help you begin to orient yourself toward that hope. I welcome you to download and share this resource. A PDF version is available here.

On this holiday week, as ever, I am grateful for who you are and what you offer to the world.

Normally, I’d be hard on myself for not composing a new blog post, even on a holiday week. Instead, I decided to practice what I write and link you to a piece I published recently on the CBF blog about setting new standards. I hope it resonates.

May you enjoy a time of reflection and rest this week.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska 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.

It is no secret that I dislike the metrics most commonly used - particularly by judicatories and denominations - to measure a church’s health. Giving and attendance are not only lagging indicators, which show us what has happened rather than give us a sense of what is possible, they are only loosely connected to spiritual growth and showing Christ’s love in the world. Those two things, after all, are what we are to be about as Jesus followers.

And in this time of Covid, these numbers tell us even less. You may have 40 views of your worship service on YouTube, but how many people were watching per device? How engaged were they as they watched? Did they hop on for five minutes or the whole service? What helped them feel most connected to others and to God? Depending on how we interpret online participation in worship, Bible study, meetings, and other gatherings, we can have an inflated or (more likely) a discouraging sense of our church’s and our pastoral leadership’s impact. Feeling like we’re spending all this extra prep time to reach only a few people can have a devastating effect on our sense of efficacy, our proximity to burnout, and even our call to ministry.

Lately I have been working with several coachees on establishing objectives and metrics that do not depend on these minimally-informative numbers. On the objectives side, what could the benefits of your worship service or event be no matter how many people attend? It could be that participants are spiritually nurtured or challenged or that they will have the opportunity to connect with others. It could be that you will have the chance to test out a new idea or approach and get feedback on it, allowing you to improve it for the next time. Metrics might include the takeaways from your offering, which you could ask for in live voices, chat, or comments, or the number of smiles or laughs you notice, or the amount of interaction among participants as opposed to responses just to you.

Notice that all of these examples are within some level of your control as the leader, unlike monetary giving and attendance. They also call for some creativity. Knowing your work matters and having the flexibility to adapt your framing are both essential for moving through this pandemic with your calling intact, which I hope for you, because the church needs your presence and voice!

Photo by pine watt on Unsplash.

Whew! You’ve almost made it through 2020. It has been a year of unexpected challenges, hasn’t it? This has manifested in a number of ways, with just one of them being the inability to go to in-person denominational meetings, conferences, trainings, and retreats. This means that you might have a good bit of money remaining in your professional expense fund, even after you’ve attended all the virtual events and bought all the books.

Every December I offer a “round up” special: I will round the amount left in your professional expense line item up to the next session value. My intent has always been to keep you from leaving any of your hard-earned benefits on the table and to encourage you to invest in your leadership growth for the coming year. I can’t imagine a better time to hit both of these marks. While it’s important to steward your church’s money well in these uncertain times, it’s also essential to use your available resources to prepare to pastor in a rapidly-changing world. Coaching is a great way to do that, because it

• is done remotely,

• takes place at your pace and on your schedule,

• is geared toward reframing your situation in helpful ways,

• helps you make positive steps forward, and

• can be completely customized to your goals, leadership style, and context.

If you are looking to make progress in such areas as

• finding a good oscillation between caring for others and caring for yourself,

• developing and grounding yourself in your pastoral identity when others are projecting their anxieties about the state of the world on you,

• searching for a new call and/or leaving your current one well under the restraints imposed by Covid-19,

• helping your church members engage well among themselves and in the community when there is no end to the pandemic in sight, or

• addressing conflict that is even trickier when those involved are unable to gather in person for conversation,

coaching can help.

The round-up special is valid in December only. Contact me or schedule a free exploratory call by December 30 to take advantage of this offer.

It’s Thanksgiving week in the United States! Yours might look a lot different than in years past, though. You might be observing Zoomsgiving, or you might be gathering with a much smaller group than usual because of the pandemic.

It’s hard not being able to sit around the table with our loved ones. We don’t need to gloss over that heartache. I think that in 2020 in particular, we need to lament our losses before we give genuine thanks for our blessings. Lament is different from despair, in which we stay mired in our grief. Lament is clear-eyed acknowledgement of difficulty, followed by turning our hurts over to God in the confidence that God loves and wants good for us.

A few weeks ago I led a workshop on self-care for ministers. I included lament as a part of tending to ourselves so that we can be more fully present to God and to others (emotionally, if not physically). Below is a part of a psalm, interspersed with invitations to respond.

Psalm 42:2-6 (from The Psalter, (c) 1995, Liturgy Training Publications)

As a deer craves running water,

I thirst for you, my God;

I thirst for God,

the living God.

When will I see your face?

[Name times when God has felt distant lately.]

Tears are my steady diet.

Day and night I hear,

“Where is your God?”

[Name what you have shed tears about lately.]

I cry my heart out,

I remember better days:

When I entered the house of God,

I was caught in the joyful sound

of pilgrims giving thanks.

[Name what you miss about pre-pandemic times.]

Why are you sad, my heart?

Why do you grieve?

Wait for the Lord.

[Pray for the trust and patience needed to wait on God.]

When you feel ready, pray Psalm 42:6b: “I will yet praise God my Savior.”

It is amazing to me that a psalm written so long ago speaks powerfully to our current situation. To me that means that we fall in a long lineage of others who have endured difficulty and looked for God in it. It also gives me hope that God will bring us out on the other side.

May you have a deeply meaningful Thanksgiving, whatever it looks like for you. I am sincerely grateful for who you are and what you offer to the world, especially now.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.

A significant slice of my coaching involves working with clergy in search and call. Some of these coachees are just beginning to think about exploring other possibilities while others have already begun interviewing. Almost all of them experience anxiety, though, when it comes to the compensation negotiation part of the process. Is what I’ve been offered fair based on my experience and skills, the responsibilities of the position, the church’s budget, and the cost of living in the area? What changes is it appropriate to ask for in a counter-offer? How do I go about making these requests?

It’s hard for candidates to answer these questions in a vacuum. That’s why I am adding a new service: a one-off, one-hour coaching session that provides candidates with:

• a larger context for what fair compensation looks like based on my work with clergy and congregations,

• questions to help the candidate name the aspects and amounts of compensation that they deserve and that churches can sustainably offer, and

• coaching and encouragement around the negotiation process.

Candidates should be prepared to bring into the call information they have available about the church with which they are negotiating, such as budget/financial trends, previous pastor’s compensation, the availability of church-owned housing, and church or judicatory policies around various kinds of leave, salary recommendations/requirements, and other benefits.

Working toward fair compensation offers a candidate the opportunity to begin showing up as a pastoral leader during the end of the search process and allows the newly-called pastor to square away practical concerns, thus enabling her to turn her focus more fully to the work ahead. And in the longer view, pastors who are paid what they are worth are more likely to feel valued and as a result stick around longer, leading to fruitful mutual ministry.

If you are interested in this service, you can find the current rate here (see “base rate per session” at the top of the page) and schedule your coaching session here.

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.

It’s election day here in the U.S., God.

My head knows that you are at work in whatever happens.

But if I’m honest,

my heart is sick with worry about what the returns might bring.

My faith is not in vote tallies,

but they don’t just tell us who will hold office,

they reflect the lived values of our country.

My hope does not rest in institutions or leaders,

but both have the power to make decisions that lead to great good and great harm.

And this election in particular…it feels different.

The battle lines are sharp and thick.

We’ve all been army crawling through the past eight months.

The past four years have felt like the plot line of a YA dystopian novel.

While my heels rest on solid ground,

my toes wiggle over a precipice.

Help.

Send your Spirit of clarity to allow me - us - to assess the situation fully.

Send your Spirit of courage to gird us up to respond as needed.

Send your Spirit of compassion to bind us together in service to the good of all.

Send your Spirit of peace to ground us in what is eternal rather than in the anxiety of the moment.

May we be your people

just as you are our God,

now and forever.

Amen.

Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash.