Tag Archives: support groups

On Competition and the Church

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I ran a race on Saturday morning, the Fairfax CASA Run for the Children. Our church has gotten connected to this organization, which provides volunteers to support abused and neglected children making their way through the court system. It was a beautiful day for a run, and we had 8 folks from Tiny Church participating in the 8K run and 3K run/walk.

I love road races for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is that it gives me perspective on my competitive nature. I’ve always been competitive, which is strange since I’m not much of an athlete and never have been. So my competitiveness would come out in other ways: trying for first chair in the junior high choir, taking part in speech/drama events, and competing with the Academic Decathlon team.

A drive to improve and achieve can be an awesome thing. It can also be harmful to one’s self and one’s relationships. (Sometimes it’s neither great nor harmful, it just shuts down the fun. Just ask Robert about The Canasta Incident.)

But road races are a great check on competitiveness. Half a mile into any race and you get how ridiculous it is to compare yourself to other people. Yes, there’s a certain kick of motivation you get when you turn on the gas to pass someone. But how meaningful is that? For all you know, they’re nursing an injury, or just started running a couple months before. (Then there was the woman who passed me in my first half marathon wearing a T-shirt that said, “I just finished chemo three days ago.” Fierce!!)

I spent most of Saturday morning ten paces behind a guy who looked to be at least 75 years old. OK, that was a little depressing. Until I realized he’s a living reminder that I can keep doing this for the next 30 years, maybe not breaking any speed records, but keeping fit and having fun.

The drive has to come from inside yourself, and be directed internally.

You’d think the church would be a good model for cooperation and mutual support, especially among clergy colleagues. We are educated in a theology of call in which it’s all about “fit” and the work of the Holy Spirit. But it’s complicated. Search committees still look for certain traits, whether overtly or subconsciously. The deck is still stacked against women and people of color. Sometimes youth is an asset; other times the congregation wants “experience.” In the Presbyterian Church (USA), we have cleared the way for LGBT people to be ordained, but it’s a tougher sell in many congregations.

And as church membership rolls continue to shrink and full-time positions decrease, there will be more and more contention for fewer and fewer slots. If you’re one of those folks whose livelihood is on the line, it’s natural to read those glossy Meet Our New Pastor brochures and think, “Why did they choose that person and not me?” We take vows to be a friend to our colleagues in ministry, but jealousy rears its snarky, catty head. All the time.

This stuff was on my mind as I spent time with The Well last week. We have “tall steeple” pastors and pastors of small churches. We have folks who’ve been open to a new call for a long time, and others who frequently get contacted by churches even though they’re happy where they are.

But just like the road race, it’s silly to think comparatively. There are too many factors at play. Several of our members are geographically limited because of their spouses’ jobs or other factors. Others have had the benefit of stay-at-home spouses who manage home life so the pastor can pursue a career more intensively. And then there’s the fact that many of us simply don’t want the kind of positions that others might clamor for. (God might surprise me, but I am having too much fun doing writing and part-time parish work to imagine going back to a full-time pastoral position.)

All that said, members of the Well have been in contention for the same ministry positions. This has happened at least five times in our six years together.

So far, we’ve weathered these situations well. We’re not perfect at this, and it would be hubris to say that we’re immune from the hurt or resentment that can come from being passed over, or the “survivor guilt” of being the one chosen. But we have learned some things along the way. Again, I offer our experience for the benefit of other colleague groups.

Transparency. Our norm is that if we find out another member is interviewing for the same position we are, we talk to that person. It’s tricky because we don’t always know, but we do our best. (Third parties who are in the know can help this along.) We picked this up from another group’s experience. One year they met and had a member of the group come down at dinner time wearing a suit and heading off to an interview. The next day another person came down, similarly dressed… and off to an interview at the same church.

Grounding. Within the safe space our group, we see our role as to build one another up when a tough call is wearing the person down, AND to keep the person’s ego in check when he or she starts to believe her own press. And outside of the group, we have that person’s back 100%.

Increased Accountability. We’ve started talking about how we can hold one another accountable to good self-care and boundaries. We have a check-in time at the beginning of every week, but it’s easy to gloss over the hard stuff. A member of the group suggested an intentional question to ask each person: Is there anything else going on that you need to tell us?

Discernment among Friends. When I was discerning whether to stand for vice moderator, I talked with members of The Well. All were helpful in making sure I was thinking well about the situation. And one person put it plain: Give me three reasons why you want to do this… and be honest. I am grateful to her.

What do you think? What is your experience?

~

photo credit: mino2006 via photopin cc

Design Your Own Preacher Camp: What Makes a Clergy Group Work

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Design Your Own Preacher Camp: What Makes Clergy Groups Work

The nerdy group, doing what the nerdy group does.

I’m meeting this week with The Well, my yearly cohort group. I like to say that I laugh more during this week of “preacher camp” than I do any other week of the year. This year has been heavier than normal, with several concerns for friends, loved ones and ourselves. This has made the mirth all the more necessary and sweet.

Many colleagues have wished for their own preacher camp. This prompted me to write “Design Your Own Preacher Camp,” which has become one of my most popular posts. I stand behind those instructions, although they’re a few years old and some things have changed.

There are many different kinds of clergy groups out there. Some get together mainly to play, meeting in a beach house, say. That’s great, and in a demanding job like ministry, it’s not frivolous to do so. As for us, we’ve been called the “nerdy group,” and we wear the badge proudly. We play a lot, but we also each bring two papers about the upcoming year’s scripture texts that we share with one another and discuss. For me, it’s easier to justify an entire week away from family if I can come back with something that is going to make my job tangibly easier. And this year I’m returning with a head start on 30 weeks’ worth of preaching.

I know groups that have formed using our approach that are thriving. I know others that started out but didn’t “take.” I wish I knew everything that makes for success in a group like this—I really want such groups to propagate, as does everyone in The Well. We think it’s vital for the health of our congregations. So I asked our group for insight into why ours has worked for seven years now, and here are some things they cited.

  1. Deep prior relationships. As it happened, we started out with two circles of friends that were connected to one another through a couple of key relationships. What that means is that nobody in our group knew everyone. But everyone had a strong connection to at least one other person. We invited people we knew well, not people we knew only by reputation.
    ~
  2. The right amount of diversity. We range in age from young 30s to almost 50; we serve small churches and very large churches and everything in between. But we are all Presbyterian. And we represent a relatively narrow theological spectrum. Yes, yes: it’s very healthy to cross theological boundaries and be in dialogue with people who are more liberal or more conservative than you are. But this is not where we do that. That doesn’t mean we always agree. We push each other all the time. But that’s not the point of our group. The point of our group is support, accountability, and the scripture work.
    ~
  3. A shared focus. Most of us are pastors. We do have a woman who works for a presbytery and another who directs a national network of churches, but all of us are passionate about congregational ministry, and that’s the glue that holds us together. I’m not saying our group wouldn’t succeed if we had chaplains or seminary professors among us. But our focus is on pastoral ministry.
    ~
  4. Accountability. The papers we write are our price of admission. We all recognize that the minute we relax that expectation, we are sunk. Our group is so much more than the papers. But our group wouldn’t be what it is without them. Even if you don’t do papers, figure out what accountability you need. The group I mentioned above that gets together for recreation? Even they have an expectation: if you have two “unexcused absences” in a row, you are out.
    ~
  5. Interminable but important conversations. We set aside time each year for good-of-the-whole conversation. This may be as simple as deciding where and when to meet the following year. Or it’s a time to work through whatever group dynamics have come up. I’m contemplating a separate post on what happens when colleagues are in contention for the same ministry position—it has happened repeatedly in our group of 18. The point is, stick with those conversations, even when they are hard (or boring). Accept what you can’t change, but name and change the things you can.
    ~
  6. Adding people the right way. We’ve added people to the group twice, and each time we added them in a batch. Adding one person at a time doesn’t change the dynamic enough; adding two or three at a time shakes things up, but also makes us more mindful of inside jokes and communal norms we take for granted.
    ~
  7. Inviting healthy people with healthy egos. I don’t want this to come out the wrong way. We are all wounded and broken in myriad ways, and we do not have all of our stuff together. But our group works because we all understand the value of self-care, and we do not rely on this group for therapy. Our group has a level of intimacy with one another—and we have been through some very tough stuff together—and there are years when one person leans on this group more than others. All I’m saying is, do not invite a colleague to join a group of this nature because “he is really hurting and needs something like this.” Find other ways to support that person.
    ~
  8. Magic. There is an X factor to these things. There are cohort groups that have great people and do everything right (assuming there is such a thing) and just don’t gel. There’s some luck or grace at work here for sure. So don’t feel bad if your group doesn’t come together. Just keep trying and searching for the right fit.