Keep your clergy well by encouraging creativity and crafting

From Austin-

“Jesus was a carpenter,” I point out.

“Yes, but God is a potter,” my wife, Madeline, counters.

We are discussing the limited room in our shed. She has a kiln she wants to keep there, and I have a new drill press I want to setup. Since we’re both Episcopal priests, these decisions tend to take on biblical proportions.

“God created humanity from clay, and that’s not just in Genesis, that’s in the Quran too. ‘Clay is the source of life on this planet. The first DNA was formed in the crystals of clay!’” Maddie plays the interfaith card and ends with a quote from Paulus Berensohn, the iconic ceramist and dancer she studied with at the Penland School of Craft.

“The way of carpentry is the way of the Buddha,” I retort.

“Who said that?” she calls my bluff.

“Nick Offerman,” I admit, “but I’m pretty sure he got it from his Zen Buddhist mentor.” For those unfamiliar, Nick Offerman is the actor who plays Ron Swanson on the sitcom “Parks and Recreation”. The kiln stayed in the shed, but because my wife recognized our overall wellness depends on each of us having a creative outlet, she helped me clear a space for the drill press in the garage.

More here-

https://www.austin360.com/entertainmentlife/20190624/keep-your-clergy-well-by-encouraging-creativity-and-crafting

Priests and pastors shoulder a huge emotional burden, but they're burning out ... alone

From Canada-


When we were 16, one of my closest friends told me he wanted to be a priest. I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because he reassuringly added "a Protestant priest, dear."

He read me right.

Having been raised Catholic, my mind jumped straight to celibacy, a concept that made my hormonal teenage mind reel. I was relieved to hear my friend wasn't committing to a life of total abstinence. For a moment, I had been afraid that I didn't know him at all.


Celibacy aside, I was still puzzled. I couldn't imagine joining the clergy. I realized that part of the reason I was confused was because I had no idea what being a priest entailed.

What do priests actually do?

More here-

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ainsley-hawthorn-pov-priests-1.4982116?fbclid=IwAR0-jsOEMpQhKJdeVhhUnHthkxPE7LhyZUGsFptb8fk3yLHyQ__mu7OhP7Q

As a vicar, I know better than anyone why so many clergy are close to the edge

From The Telegraph-

Two days before Christmas, at 10.30 in the evening, the vicarage doorbell rang in my parish of Gilesgate, Sherburn and Shadforth, former pit villages just to the east of Durham city centre. It was a police sergeant. He had a young woman in his car who had just been removed from a situation where she was suffering domestic violence.

The woman had said she knew me, and that I would be able put her up for the night. If I couldn’t help, the sergeant explained, she was going to be on a chair in the front office of his police station until the morning.

My two grown-up children, both of them now in professional jobs and living away from home, were back to spend Christmas with me and their mother. They watched this scene unfold on our doorstep. Afterwards – when I had taken the woman to the local Travelodge, where we have an arrangement, and found her a room for the night – one of them remarked: “What a strange way of life you live, Dad!”

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/vicar-know-better-anyone-many-clergy-close-edge/

First step towards Covenant for Clergy Well-being

From Church of England News-

Plans for a new deal between clergy and the wider Church of England - modelled on the ideas behind the Military Covenant - have taken a step forward after a panel was established to begin drafting.

The Church of England's Appointments Committee has set up a group, made up of members of General Synod, both lay and ordained, alongside others with expertise in areas such as health and education, to draw up a Covenant for Clergy Well-being.

It is being produced in response to a vote in the General Synod in July of this year after a debate which heard of the impact of stress, isolation and loneliness on clergy's lives and ministries.

The debate heard how the Military Covenant recognises that the nation relies on the sacrificial service of those in the armed forces and in return has a duty to support and value them in practical ways.

Although the parallels with the Church are not exact, Synod heard how a similar pattern of mutual commitment could be recognised in the Church.

The working group will begin work later this month and aims to bring proposals for such a Covenant back to this Synod by July 2019.
More here-

https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2017/11/first-step-towards-covenant-for-clergy-well-being.aspx

Sitting in a pew -- I'm the worst!

From Clergy Confidential-

Sitting in a pew -- I'm the worst!

I'm lousy at sitting in pews.

Of course as a "professional" church goer, I don't do it very often. On Sunday mornings I strut around the altar in fancy vestments, stand in the pulpit for 10-12 minutes, and sit only when other people are doing liturgical things -- like reading from the Bible or singing a choral anthem.

But as Summer rolls around and vacation looms, I'll be spending a few weeks sitting in pews at some yet-to-be-determined churches. And I'll again realize just how easily annoyed I can be. Uncharitable thoughts inevitable arise. Like:

"I can't believe how many typos are in this bulletin. 'The Lard be with you?!' Come on!" 

"That is not the proper order in which to light the altar candles. What kind of liturgical yahoo trained this acolyte anyway?"  

"If this hymn was played any slower, I swear I'd fall asleep standing up." 

"Would it be rude to yell, 'I object!' in the middle of this vaguely heretical sermon?"

More here-

http://www.clergyconfidential.com/2017/06/sitting-in-pew-im-worst.html

Riding Shotgun: On Being the Clergy-Adjacent

From Mockingbird-

I was hauling a giant luggage container, the kind that attaches to a car roof, across my driveway with the woman who bought it from me on craigslist. It wasn’t heavy, but it was awkward and large, and we were having a bit of a hard time maneuvering it. It was dark outside, and we couldn’t really see what we were doing.

“Oh my god, this is like hauling a dead body by dark of night.”

I said it, and then I immediately wished I hadn’t said it. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that my husband is clergy, and so death is…just…”

“Don’t sweat it,” my new friend said. “My husband is a funeral director. It’s a big family business. I was thinking the same thing.”

We laughed—hard—at the coincidence, as we wedged the empty container into the back of her large SUV. I wish I had kept her number, because it’s not every day that you meet another pilgrim on the highway of Husbands With Strange Careers, and who can haul a giant luggage container through a dark driveway.

More here-

http://www.mbird.com/2017/06/riding-shotgun-on-being-the-clergy-adjacent/

Staying Put: A Look at the First 10 Years of Ministry

From Alban-

During my years in parish ministry I offered spiritual direction for clergy in the area. In the span of two years, four pastors came to me with what seemed to be the same symptoms. Each felt a sense of restlessness, malaise, and vague anxiety about the future of his or her current congregational ministry. Puzzled that their struggles seemed so similar, I looked for a common factor in these pastors’ lives and their widely differing church contexts.

The only common element all four shared was the length of time they had served their current parishes. Each was in either the seventh or eighth year with one congregation. Moreover, none of these pastors had previously stayed with one parish for more than five years. Could this common thread of short pastoral tenure be the source of their restlessness?

More here-

https://alban.org/archive/staying-put-a-look-at-the-first-10-years-of-ministry/

AVOIDING BURNOUT IN MINISTRY

From The Living Church-

Shortly after being ordained, I found myself completely overwhelmed. I was then rector of the only Anglican church in a small city in northern Canada. My wife and I had just moved into the rectory beside the church, and we had a newborn. All these changes happened within a month. I felt ill-prepared to navigate the complex intersecting realities of parish ministry and family life.

A big factor was the scope of ministry in that parish. My time was spent not with only a growing number of church members, but also people in the community with minimal connection to the church. As well, my community being a hub, I was called upon by people outside the community who were in town for one reason or another (this broad scope of ministry is actually quite common in northern Canada). Additionally, there were many challenges in the community and limited resources to meet those challenges. I saw firsthand what Eugene Peterson describes as “the sheer quantity of wreckage around us — wrecked bodies, wrecked marriages, wrecked careers, wrecked plans, wrecked families.”


More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/04/24/avoiding-burnout-in-ministry/