PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS
A retired Baptist pastor reflects on his time at a monastery and how it helped him shift from nonstop doing to simply being.
The Gifts of Being
A BAPTIST PASTOR REFLECTS ON A LIFE-GIVING STAY IN A MONASTERY
Who is this weeping man?
During my first visit to New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Calif., I pondered this question as I wept freely amid the rugged hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
What was going on with me? I remembered Bill Coffin, then chaplain at Yale, saying he went on a sabbatical "to pay a visit on myself, to see who's at home."
So I wondered: Who is this weeping man?
Was I weeping from stored-up grief? Was I weeping at the raw beauty of the breathtaking coastline? The tears dripped as if they had been stored up, waiting for this time of release. I learned to call it the gift of tears.
The doing of ministry can be harmful to your health. I learned the hard way. After two hospitalizations -- bleeding ulcer and, a few years later, heart arrhythmia -- I knew I had to get serious about moderating my hurry-up-and-rush method of ministry. I had to learn to take care of my health, or I'd soon be no good to the 500 members of my congregation. Physical health and spiritual health are connected, and I needed to attend to both.
I was in mid-career, then in my seventh year as pastor of my third church. I decided to take advantage of our sabbatical leave policy. I wanted three months to think, write, meditate and reorient my life and ministry. Since I'd spent snippets of time at monasteries, I decided that my first step was to spend a longer time in a monastic setting.
A wise friend recommended the Hermitage. He told me, “Go. Trust me. Prayer there is palpable.” With this prompting, and my own inner urging, I departed from wife and children and headed like a bird, migrating from North Carolina, to a far-off feeding ground on the West Coast.
I discovered there a monastic community located two miles up a winding road, a place of spectacular beauty, 900 acres of pristine redwoods and bay laurel. It was a long journey from North Carolina, but my dear congregation gave this journey to me as a gift.
I had entreated the monks to let me live “inside the wall,” in a cell, so I could experience the life they live. The cell had a single bed, a bathroom, a chair and a desk, where I wrote in my journal and kept a candle lit whenever I was there. It was a place of solitude and light.
Rising at 5 a.m., I walked in semidarkness down the path to the chapel. The quiet was so delicate that the crunch of my footsteps was loud. In the small chapel the 16 monks, age 25 to 85, entered with the swish of their white robes, bowing first toward the altar and then taking seats in two rows facing each other.
Sitting directly behind the monks, I relished chanting psalms with them, adding my tenor to their resonant a cappella voices. We sang psalms at every service -- 5 a.m. for Vigils, then 7 a.m. for Lauds, 11:30 a.m. Eucharist, 5:30 p.m. Vespers. This was followed by 30 minutes of velvet silence as we sat around the wall of the small rotunda chapel.
Yes, occasionally I felt wet eyes during the silence, too.
During the day, I spoke with the monks to learn why they had come to live in this remote community. Father Raniero stated what the other monks implied: “I’m here to deepen my communion with God.”
Reflecting now on this first of 18 consecutive annual visits to the Hermitage, I’ve come to the conclusion that my weeping has come from feeling at home in this space where communion with the Holy One is the raison d’être, the reason for being.
Being is the right word. After the rampant busyness of my life as a 24/7 on-duty pastor, at the Hermitage I found a major missing component of my health -- a focus on being, not doing. Uncluttered by rush and noise, I discovered a deeper part of my self -- my being-self, where love flows. That’s worth some tears!
The result is that I became an oblate, an associate member of New Camaldoli Hermitage. Yes, I’m still married and still Baptist, but I am now part of a wider community devoted to contemplative life.
These monastic journeys have prompted reflection on Evelyn Underhill’s haunting statement in “The Spiritual Life”(link is external):
“We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. … [But] the fundamental verb [is] to Be. … Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.”
As a long-standing member of the tribe of clergy, I dare say that we clergy (and our lay leaders) spend most of our time wanting, having and doing. But we typically do a mediocre job of attending to our being.
I recently retired after more than 40 years in pastoral ministry. I’ve loved being a pastor. I’m well-acquainted with the delights and blessings of ministry. We ministers are privileged to be in relationship at the crucial times of people’s lives -- from birth to student years, family life, work transitions, health issues and the death of loved ones. While surely blessed by these relationships, ministers are also too familiar with the pressures, fatigue and frustrations that come with the role of pastor.
Ministers seek to be available to parishioners, especially at the decisive, crisis moments. In addition to the many relationships, there are also the tasks of preaching, leading worship, directing staff, teaching, guiding mission efforts in the community and overseeing the work of various committees. It’s a daunting assignment, at times overwhelming.
Underhill’s challenge screams like a rebuke: We spend our lives wanting, having and doing. But what about the essential verb: to be? Because of duties and distractions, I find that most ministers make a puny investment in being. We’ve sidestepped Shakespeare’s classic words from “Hamlet”: “To be or not to be: that is the question.”
Following my first visit to the Hermitage, I finally made a confession to my church officials. With Underhill’s words pressing down on me, I got up my Type A courage and said in my annual review with the personnel committee, “My No. 1 goal is to take care of my spiritual and physical health.” Gasp!
Why did it take me so long? I grew up with drilled-in instruction that other people come first, then the dog and the cat, and yourself last. Idealism run amok! Even the flight attendants tell us, “Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then turn to help others.” Some of us are slow learners.
During the lovely service of Eucharist at the Hermitage, I was watching intently as the presiding priest, concluding the liturgy, reached to take the bread and cup, partaking first, before inviting the people to come forward. That was a revelation!
At communion in my tradition, the minister is served last, after everyone else is served. The symbolism was striking. How can the minister give what he or she has not received? Or, as one of my members said, “You can’t pour from the pitcher what’s not in it.”
To do ministry (yes, it’s “doing”) for the long haul, one must find practices to sustain health and well-being. Flying off to a California monastery may seem exotic, even unreachable.
But there is a “monastery” within a day’s journey for most of us. One needs to find the sacred place, the sacred center that invites a deeper communion with the Holy One, who is the Ground of Being.
But first we must get quiet, stop doing and start receiving the gifts of being. Even if one of them is the gift of tears.
A BAPTIST PASTOR REFLECTS ON A LIFE-GIVING STAY IN A MONASTERY
Who is this weeping man?
During my first visit to New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Calif., I pondered this question as I wept freely amid the rugged hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
What was going on with me? I remembered Bill Coffin, then chaplain at Yale, saying he went on a sabbatical "to pay a visit on myself, to see who's at home."
So I wondered: Who is this weeping man?
Was I weeping from stored-up grief? Was I weeping at the raw beauty of the breathtaking coastline? The tears dripped as if they had been stored up, waiting for this time of release. I learned to call it the gift of tears.
The doing of ministry can be harmful to your health. I learned the hard way. After two hospitalizations -- bleeding ulcer and, a few years later, heart arrhythmia -- I knew I had to get serious about moderating my hurry-up-and-rush method of ministry. I had to learn to take care of my health, or I'd soon be no good to the 500 members of my congregation. Physical health and spiritual health are connected, and I needed to attend to both.
I was in mid-career, then in my seventh year as pastor of my third church. I decided to take advantage of our sabbatical leave policy. I wanted three months to think, write, meditate and reorient my life and ministry. Since I'd spent snippets of time at monasteries, I decided that my first step was to spend a longer time in a monastic setting.
A wise friend recommended the Hermitage. He told me, “Go. Trust me. Prayer there is palpable.” With this prompting, and my own inner urging, I departed from wife and children and headed like a bird, migrating from North Carolina, to a far-off feeding ground on the West Coast.
I discovered there a monastic community located two miles up a winding road, a place of spectacular beauty, 900 acres of pristine redwoods and bay laurel. It was a long journey from North Carolina, but my dear congregation gave this journey to me as a gift.
I had entreated the monks to let me live “inside the wall,” in a cell, so I could experience the life they live. The cell had a single bed, a bathroom, a chair and a desk, where I wrote in my journal and kept a candle lit whenever I was there. It was a place of solitude and light.
Rising at 5 a.m., I walked in semidarkness down the path to the chapel. The quiet was so delicate that the crunch of my footsteps was loud. In the small chapel the 16 monks, age 25 to 85, entered with the swish of their white robes, bowing first toward the altar and then taking seats in two rows facing each other.
Sitting directly behind the monks, I relished chanting psalms with them, adding my tenor to their resonant a cappella voices. We sang psalms at every service -- 5 a.m. for Vigils, then 7 a.m. for Lauds, 11:30 a.m. Eucharist, 5:30 p.m. Vespers. This was followed by 30 minutes of velvet silence as we sat around the wall of the small rotunda chapel.
Yes, occasionally I felt wet eyes during the silence, too.
During the day, I spoke with the monks to learn why they had come to live in this remote community. Father Raniero stated what the other monks implied: “I’m here to deepen my communion with God.”
Reflecting now on this first of 18 consecutive annual visits to the Hermitage, I’ve come to the conclusion that my weeping has come from feeling at home in this space where communion with the Holy One is the raison d’être, the reason for being.
Being is the right word. After the rampant busyness of my life as a 24/7 on-duty pastor, at the Hermitage I found a major missing component of my health -- a focus on being, not doing. Uncluttered by rush and noise, I discovered a deeper part of my self -- my being-self, where love flows. That’s worth some tears!
The result is that I became an oblate, an associate member of New Camaldoli Hermitage. Yes, I’m still married and still Baptist, but I am now part of a wider community devoted to contemplative life.
These monastic journeys have prompted reflection on Evelyn Underhill’s haunting statement in “The Spiritual Life”(link is external):
“We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. … [But] the fundamental verb [is] to Be. … Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.”
As a long-standing member of the tribe of clergy, I dare say that we clergy (and our lay leaders) spend most of our time wanting, having and doing. But we typically do a mediocre job of attending to our being.
I recently retired after more than 40 years in pastoral ministry. I’ve loved being a pastor. I’m well-acquainted with the delights and blessings of ministry. We ministers are privileged to be in relationship at the crucial times of people’s lives -- from birth to student years, family life, work transitions, health issues and the death of loved ones. While surely blessed by these relationships, ministers are also too familiar with the pressures, fatigue and frustrations that come with the role of pastor.
Ministers seek to be available to parishioners, especially at the decisive, crisis moments. In addition to the many relationships, there are also the tasks of preaching, leading worship, directing staff, teaching, guiding mission efforts in the community and overseeing the work of various committees. It’s a daunting assignment, at times overwhelming.
Underhill’s challenge screams like a rebuke: We spend our lives wanting, having and doing. But what about the essential verb: to be? Because of duties and distractions, I find that most ministers make a puny investment in being. We’ve sidestepped Shakespeare’s classic words from “Hamlet”: “To be or not to be: that is the question.”
Following my first visit to the Hermitage, I finally made a confession to my church officials. With Underhill’s words pressing down on me, I got up my Type A courage and said in my annual review with the personnel committee, “My No. 1 goal is to take care of my spiritual and physical health.” Gasp!
Why did it take me so long? I grew up with drilled-in instruction that other people come first, then the dog and the cat, and yourself last. Idealism run amok! Even the flight attendants tell us, “Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then turn to help others.” Some of us are slow learners.
During the lovely service of Eucharist at the Hermitage, I was watching intently as the presiding priest, concluding the liturgy, reached to take the bread and cup, partaking first, before inviting the people to come forward. That was a revelation!
At communion in my tradition, the minister is served last, after everyone else is served. The symbolism was striking. How can the minister give what he or she has not received? Or, as one of my members said, “You can’t pour from the pitcher what’s not in it.”
To do ministry (yes, it’s “doing”) for the long haul, one must find practices to sustain health and well-being. Flying off to a California monastery may seem exotic, even unreachable.
But there is a “monastery” within a day’s journey for most of us. One needs to find the sacred place, the sacred center that invites a deeper communion with the Holy One, who is the Ground of Being.
But first we must get quiet, stop doing and start receiving the gifts of being. Even if one of them is the gift of tears.
Read more from Mel Williams »
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: SABBATICAL
Not sure I want to be back: Thoughts on returning from sabbatical
I call it post-sabbatical stress syndrome, or psss. I have it bad and I’m struggling to figure out just what the cure might me. PSSS struck the Day last September when I returned home from a three-month sabbatical, my first extended break and rest after 22 years of local church ministry. Its onset was immediate and intense, a storm-like roiling of my internal spiritual waters unlike anything I’ve encountered before. PSSS’s symptoms are contradiction and confusion. For, after 90 days away and now 90 days returned, this I know: I want to be back again as a pastor in the church, and I do not want to be back in the pastoral life. I love the intensity and the depth of the work I do and I resent the claims that my call demands—the financial, emotional, and spiritual sacrifices that day-to-day ministry expects. I can’t see myself doing anything else and I can’t see myself keeping up the intense pace I maintained in the first half of my professional life. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, I struggle in these post-sabbatical days with almost daily questions of just how to do ministry faithfully while also keeping spiritually sane and centered.
Now, on hearing of my PSSS, some may label me ungrateful, or needing to just be thankful to God and the church I serve for any sabbatical at all. Don’t mistake my post-sabbatical blues for ingratitude. I am thankful. Far too many local church pastors are not able or willing to take a sabbatical leave from their work. In pastoral ministry and almost all professions, sabbatical leave is the exception, not the rule. Last spring, when I excitedly told friends, family, and church members about going away, their reactions ranged from enthusiastic support to outright envy. I was blessed to have so much time off last summer to rest, think, pray, play, and reflect. I pray everyone could be given the gift of intentional time away.
Yet, now returned, this respite threatens to radically change how I view myself as a pastor. Sabbatical was both wonderful and troubling because it opened my eyes to an unhealthy truth: the sin of overwork and over-everything on the part of far too many clergy like me. Preachers may preach about the need for Sabbath. We just don’t live it. No, instead, we embrace often unhealthy work habits like a badge of honor, even as the hours take their toll on our souls, psyches, and families. Six days a week we work. We’re out until 9 or 10 p.m. on weeknights. We’re available through cell phones and e-mail 24/7. Unlike most of the rest of the working world, we rarely have two days off in a row. Instead, we hop on board the runaway train that is the church program year on the first Tuesday after Labor Day and often do not disembark for a real rest until our parishioners flee to their summer homes and vacations at the end of June. When can we take a deep breath and just breathe?
To breathe! When I am asked what the best part of having three months off was, my answer is that. I was able to breathe, just breathe again—step back, step out, and leave behind, at least temporarily, the breathless pace that is modern ministry. The weight of pastoral responsibility that had stuck with me for almost a quarter century was miraculously lifted. My daily thoughts, usually caught up in all the details of church work, uncluttered themselves. I had no sermon to write, no trustees’ meeting to attend, no families to comfort, and no budget to fret over. My hyper-responsibility for the church left me.
Instead, I had space and time to just be. To ride my bike almost every day. To walk on the beach, and to fall asleep at night with the sound of waves crashing upon the shore. To spend precious uninterrupted days with my family and close friends as I had not since the church first beckoned me in. To read, uninterrupted, all the books I could, for fun and enrichment. To pray with intention and focus every morning and evening, and then fill up my journal with musings and thoughts. In that sabbatical sacred space, I found God again and God found me.
As I flip through the photos and re-read my journal from those sweet days, it almost feels like a dream. God’s gift to me then was not a lack of scheduled daily work. The gift was living a more measured, paced, and God-centered life, one with the room for labor and play, thinking and doing, praying and listening, and working and resting. Now back into the race that is my modern urban pastor’s life, the memories fade. But the questions my sabbatical provoked remain: Do I want to live this way anymore? Does God want me to live this way anymore? Is the only way to be a “good” pastor to work such ungodly hours and maintain such a scattered life? I don’t have any answers yet and my PSSS is still stubbornly sticking around. Maybe it will help me learn a new way to be in ministry. I’m not sure. Writing this reflection in Advent helps. As the season calls me to yearn for the arrival of the Christ child, I yearn as well for some clarity around this spiritual restlessness that will not let me go. I yearn for a rebirth of my passion for ministry.
In the weeks after my return I sought counsel and wisdom from mentors and denominational colleagues. Their observations and advice were enlightening but not very helpful. They told me I was supposed to feel this way, that the first few months back were supposed to be hellacious and that my vocational equilibrium would return. I experimented with telling my church and staff about my PSSS, but worried that those not in the “sabbatical club” might mistake my struggles for petulance. Worst of all, many of the bad work habits I had before sabbatical and promised I would reform have started to creep back in. I’ve begun again to overworry about how the church is doing and egotistically imagine that my faith community’s “success” depends on me alone. I’m attending meetings I really do not have to go to and saying “yes” to another commitment when “no” would be healthier. I’m soaring too high when things go well and crashing too hard when things at church stumble. I fear I am getting right back on board the train.
But still my PSSS hangs on and perhaps this is a good thing, a nudge from God. It’s teaching me that periodically all of us must re-envision, renegotiate, and then re-enter all of the most important commitments and covenants of our lives: marriage, career, love, and parenthood. If every few years an event like a sabbatical does not give us the chance to spiritually examine and renew ourselves, we risk passionless pursuits—going through the motions, walking along all the various spiritual terrains of our lives but not really knowing anymore why we travel or where we are going.
So, grudgingly, I thank God for my PSSS. I know in my bones I cannot be the pastor I was before my sabbatical. I cannot work or live this way anymore. And so I search and pray to God for a cure for my PSSS. My advice for clergy preparing for their sabbaticals is this: Be careful. Enjoy the time away. But know in returning you may never be the same again.
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: SABBATICAL
Not sure I want to be back: Thoughts on returning from sabbatical
Not Sure I Want to Be Back: Thoughts on Returning from Sabbatical by Ryn Nasser
Pastor John Hudson offers a candid look at the unexpected challenges and gifts of re-entering pastoral life after a sabbatical.I call it post-sabbatical stress syndrome, or psss. I have it bad and I’m struggling to figure out just what the cure might me. PSSS struck the Day last September when I returned home from a three-month sabbatical, my first extended break and rest after 22 years of local church ministry. Its onset was immediate and intense, a storm-like roiling of my internal spiritual waters unlike anything I’ve encountered before. PSSS’s symptoms are contradiction and confusion. For, after 90 days away and now 90 days returned, this I know: I want to be back again as a pastor in the church, and I do not want to be back in the pastoral life. I love the intensity and the depth of the work I do and I resent the claims that my call demands—the financial, emotional, and spiritual sacrifices that day-to-day ministry expects. I can’t see myself doing anything else and I can’t see myself keeping up the intense pace I maintained in the first half of my professional life. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, I struggle in these post-sabbatical days with almost daily questions of just how to do ministry faithfully while also keeping spiritually sane and centered.
Now, on hearing of my PSSS, some may label me ungrateful, or needing to just be thankful to God and the church I serve for any sabbatical at all. Don’t mistake my post-sabbatical blues for ingratitude. I am thankful. Far too many local church pastors are not able or willing to take a sabbatical leave from their work. In pastoral ministry and almost all professions, sabbatical leave is the exception, not the rule. Last spring, when I excitedly told friends, family, and church members about going away, their reactions ranged from enthusiastic support to outright envy. I was blessed to have so much time off last summer to rest, think, pray, play, and reflect. I pray everyone could be given the gift of intentional time away.
Yet, now returned, this respite threatens to radically change how I view myself as a pastor. Sabbatical was both wonderful and troubling because it opened my eyes to an unhealthy truth: the sin of overwork and over-everything on the part of far too many clergy like me. Preachers may preach about the need for Sabbath. We just don’t live it. No, instead, we embrace often unhealthy work habits like a badge of honor, even as the hours take their toll on our souls, psyches, and families. Six days a week we work. We’re out until 9 or 10 p.m. on weeknights. We’re available through cell phones and e-mail 24/7. Unlike most of the rest of the working world, we rarely have two days off in a row. Instead, we hop on board the runaway train that is the church program year on the first Tuesday after Labor Day and often do not disembark for a real rest until our parishioners flee to their summer homes and vacations at the end of June. When can we take a deep breath and just breathe?
To breathe! When I am asked what the best part of having three months off was, my answer is that. I was able to breathe, just breathe again—step back, step out, and leave behind, at least temporarily, the breathless pace that is modern ministry. The weight of pastoral responsibility that had stuck with me for almost a quarter century was miraculously lifted. My daily thoughts, usually caught up in all the details of church work, uncluttered themselves. I had no sermon to write, no trustees’ meeting to attend, no families to comfort, and no budget to fret over. My hyper-responsibility for the church left me.
Instead, I had space and time to just be. To ride my bike almost every day. To walk on the beach, and to fall asleep at night with the sound of waves crashing upon the shore. To spend precious uninterrupted days with my family and close friends as I had not since the church first beckoned me in. To read, uninterrupted, all the books I could, for fun and enrichment. To pray with intention and focus every morning and evening, and then fill up my journal with musings and thoughts. In that sabbatical sacred space, I found God again and God found me.
As I flip through the photos and re-read my journal from those sweet days, it almost feels like a dream. God’s gift to me then was not a lack of scheduled daily work. The gift was living a more measured, paced, and God-centered life, one with the room for labor and play, thinking and doing, praying and listening, and working and resting. Now back into the race that is my modern urban pastor’s life, the memories fade. But the questions my sabbatical provoked remain: Do I want to live this way anymore? Does God want me to live this way anymore? Is the only way to be a “good” pastor to work such ungodly hours and maintain such a scattered life? I don’t have any answers yet and my PSSS is still stubbornly sticking around. Maybe it will help me learn a new way to be in ministry. I’m not sure. Writing this reflection in Advent helps. As the season calls me to yearn for the arrival of the Christ child, I yearn as well for some clarity around this spiritual restlessness that will not let me go. I yearn for a rebirth of my passion for ministry.
In the weeks after my return I sought counsel and wisdom from mentors and denominational colleagues. Their observations and advice were enlightening but not very helpful. They told me I was supposed to feel this way, that the first few months back were supposed to be hellacious and that my vocational equilibrium would return. I experimented with telling my church and staff about my PSSS, but worried that those not in the “sabbatical club” might mistake my struggles for petulance. Worst of all, many of the bad work habits I had before sabbatical and promised I would reform have started to creep back in. I’ve begun again to overworry about how the church is doing and egotistically imagine that my faith community’s “success” depends on me alone. I’m attending meetings I really do not have to go to and saying “yes” to another commitment when “no” would be healthier. I’m soaring too high when things go well and crashing too hard when things at church stumble. I fear I am getting right back on board the train.
But still my PSSS hangs on and perhaps this is a good thing, a nudge from God. It’s teaching me that periodically all of us must re-envision, renegotiate, and then re-enter all of the most important commitments and covenants of our lives: marriage, career, love, and parenthood. If every few years an event like a sabbatical does not give us the chance to spiritually examine and renew ourselves, we risk passionless pursuits—going through the motions, walking along all the various spiritual terrains of our lives but not really knowing anymore why we travel or where we are going.
So, grudgingly, I thank God for my PSSS. I know in my bones I cannot be the pastor I was before my sabbatical. I cannot work or live this way anymore. And so I search and pray to God for a cure for my PSSS. My advice for clergy preparing for their sabbaticals is this: Be careful. Enjoy the time away. But know in returning you may never be the same again.
A clergy renewal experiment
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP, HEALTH & WELL-BEING, VOCATION, RENEWAL
A clergy renewal experiment
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP, HEALTH & WELL-BEING, VOCATION, RENEWAL
A clergy renewal experiment
One United Methodist annual conference will grant a sabbatical leave every six years if a clergyperson will undergo a leadership evaluation, see a doctor, meet a financial planner and reflect on his or her vocation.
A United Methodist annual conference will grant a sabbatical leave every six years if a clergyperson will undergo a leadership evaluation, see a doctor, meet a financial planner and reflect on his or her vocation.
While clergy fairly consistently report being fulfilled and satisfied by their work(link is external), it’s no surprise that the work of ministry can really wear on a person. The constant wear can lead to burnout or dropout from ministry. I was excited to hear about a proposal developed a few years ago by the clergy of one United Methodist annual conference to help curb clergy burnout and dropout. The proposal offered each clergyperson serving a parish within the conference a three-month sabbatical leave every six years if he or she were willing to participate in certain life-shaping, ministry-changing assessments.
First, each clergyperson would undergo a 360° evaluation, that familiar tool that includes feedback from supervisors, colleagues, direct reports and church members alongside one’s own self-review. By participating in a 360° evaluation, clergy get understandable and applicable feedback on their practice of leadership -- the kind of feedback that can help people develop, grow and change in ways that sustain ministry over time.
Second, in order to receive a renewal leave, clergy must visit their doctor for a comprehensive physical. As the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke has found, United Methodist clergy in North Carolina are considerably less healthy than their non-clergy counterparts in the state; it is believed that this pattern is true across the country and across denominations. The designers of the proposal believe that, by encouraging clergy to see their physicians, clergy might be more aware of their health challenges. As a result, they might make better lifestyle decisions by incorporating more exercise into their daily routines, quitting smoking or choosing healthier food options.
Third, clergy would meet with a financial planner and go through a thorough financial review. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that a significant number of clergy-persons are financially unprepared or under-prepared for retirement(link is external), despite the retirement planning of their denominations. By meeting with a financial planner -- something they may never have done -- clergy can set goals and chart a path toward a sustainable and livable retirement.
Fourth, the granting of a renewal leave would be contingent on a theological review by the same body that reviews candidates at the beginning of their ministries for ordination. In this way, clergy would be asked to revisit their theological commitments and discern if ongoing participation in the ordained life is the proper expression of their Christian vocation. There is a kind of inertia in ministry that can keep one in a pulpit for too long; by interrogating one’s call and commitments, clergy can lean into the vocation more fully or exit gracefully.
The proposal has much to commend it. It is a kind of thorough-going review of many of the most important aspects of one’s life in ministry coupled with the kind of space and time required to develop new habits and practices. It represents a kind of a balance between accountability and grace, between responsibility and renewal. Sure, there are some elements missing from the proposal (a visit to a therapist or spiritual director and a significant provision for clergy families would be nice), but it isn’t a bad place to begin.
While the renewal of the church may not depend upon the renewal of the clergy, it is hard to imagine how clergy worn down by the pressures and demands of ministry can lead parishes into vitality.
While clergy fairly consistently report being fulfilled and satisfied by their work(link is external), it’s no surprise that the work of ministry can really wear on a person. The constant wear can lead to burnout or dropout from ministry. I was excited to hear about a proposal developed a few years ago by the clergy of one United Methodist annual conference to help curb clergy burnout and dropout. The proposal offered each clergyperson serving a parish within the conference a three-month sabbatical leave every six years if he or she were willing to participate in certain life-shaping, ministry-changing assessments.
First, each clergyperson would undergo a 360° evaluation, that familiar tool that includes feedback from supervisors, colleagues, direct reports and church members alongside one’s own self-review. By participating in a 360° evaluation, clergy get understandable and applicable feedback on their practice of leadership -- the kind of feedback that can help people develop, grow and change in ways that sustain ministry over time.
Second, in order to receive a renewal leave, clergy must visit their doctor for a comprehensive physical. As the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke has found, United Methodist clergy in North Carolina are considerably less healthy than their non-clergy counterparts in the state; it is believed that this pattern is true across the country and across denominations. The designers of the proposal believe that, by encouraging clergy to see their physicians, clergy might be more aware of their health challenges. As a result, they might make better lifestyle decisions by incorporating more exercise into their daily routines, quitting smoking or choosing healthier food options.
Third, clergy would meet with a financial planner and go through a thorough financial review. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that a significant number of clergy-persons are financially unprepared or under-prepared for retirement(link is external), despite the retirement planning of their denominations. By meeting with a financial planner -- something they may never have done -- clergy can set goals and chart a path toward a sustainable and livable retirement.
Fourth, the granting of a renewal leave would be contingent on a theological review by the same body that reviews candidates at the beginning of their ministries for ordination. In this way, clergy would be asked to revisit their theological commitments and discern if ongoing participation in the ordained life is the proper expression of their Christian vocation. There is a kind of inertia in ministry that can keep one in a pulpit for too long; by interrogating one’s call and commitments, clergy can lean into the vocation more fully or exit gracefully.
The proposal has much to commend it. It is a kind of thorough-going review of many of the most important aspects of one’s life in ministry coupled with the kind of space and time required to develop new habits and practices. It represents a kind of a balance between accountability and grace, between responsibility and renewal. Sure, there are some elements missing from the proposal (a visit to a therapist or spiritual director and a significant provision for clergy families would be nice), but it isn’t a bad place to begin.
While the renewal of the church may not depend upon the renewal of the clergy, it is hard to imagine how clergy worn down by the pressures and demands of ministry can lead parishes into vitality.
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Effective Financial Oversight by Boards and Finance Committees with Mike Batts
August 17 | 2:30 p.m. ET
This Church Network TeleWeb presentation will address financial oversight by boards and finance committees, including liquidity, cash flow, financial position, compliance, and internal controls. Participants will discuss simple and efficient ways to assess critical financial information, including:
Determining the most significant areas of financial oversight that a board or finance committee should ensure are covered;
Discuss an effective approach for ensuring that the board and / or finance committee gets the information it needs in a timely and useful format;
Evaluate overall risk management in ministry settings.
Learn more and register »
Clergy Renewal: The Alban Guide to Sabbatical Planningby Richard Bullock and Richard Bruesehoff
Planned time away from the parish for study, rest, and spiritual renewal can be beneficial-and often necessary-for any pastor, as well as for the congregation. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of Alban's popular Sabbatical Planning for Clergy and Congregations, Bullock and Bruesehoff provide the definitive guide to putting together refreshing pastoral sabbaticals that can help keep ministry vital and growing for the long term.
Learn more and order the book »
CONTINUE YOUR LEARNING: UPCOMING WEBINAR
August 17 | 2:30 p.m. ET
This Church Network TeleWeb presentation will address financial oversight by boards and finance committees, including liquidity, cash flow, financial position, compliance, and internal controls. Participants will discuss simple and efficient ways to assess critical financial information, including:
Determining the most significant areas of financial oversight that a board or finance committee should ensure are covered;
Discuss an effective approach for ensuring that the board and / or finance committee gets the information it needs in a timely and useful format;
Evaluate overall risk management in ministry settings.
Learn more and register »
FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
Planned time away from the parish for study, rest, and spiritual renewal can be beneficial-and often necessary-for any pastor, as well as for the congregation. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of Alban's popular Sabbatical Planning for Clergy and Congregations, Bullock and Bruesehoff provide the definitive guide to putting together refreshing pastoral sabbaticals that can help keep ministry vital and growing for the long term.
Learn more and order the book »
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