I read recently a pastor suggesting these roles for a pastor: Professional Speaker, Master of Ceremonies, CEO, Counselor, Fundraiser, Human Resources Director, Pillar of Virtue.

While the writer is leaving ministry for many reasons, and points out many real problems with ministry, for me what was stood out was how different my list of roles is. Having a different list or roles would not solve the challenges he has faced. His experience is real. Many are sharing it because it speaks to their hearts.

My experience of ministry is quite different than his. I too am a good “professional speaker” and while I’m uncomfortable with the title Master of Ceremonies, I’m a good, although quite informal, worship leader. I also do some counseling, although I’m not overwhelmed by my parishioners lives. The small size of my churches might explain that feeling, but I think it is mostly that I don’t see it as a primary purpose of my ministry.

Beyond those two items, the rest of the list is simply not my calling as a pastor. For sure, I’m not a pillar of virtue. Of course none of us are, but most importantly, I do not hide my foibles and failures. I refuse this role when people try to hoist it on me.

Most importantly, I’m not a CEO, fundraiser, or human resources director. At every church I’ve served, the board holds all those roles. At my first church I accidentally took over some of those roles, but I learned from those mistakes and have not done that since.

I’m instead the in-house consultant. I give advice. I ask questions. I help the council and the congregation to imagine the future. I read legal documents and notice if there is weird language. I propose alternative ways of looking at the budget. I seek out grants. I ask where they see God in their work. I look for theological foundations to the work. Sometimes I grumble about their choices. But I am absolutely not in charge.

Part of why I am not CEO is because I don’t buy the idea that it is the purpose of any church to grow in finances or in people. In fact I spend a lot of time helping churches to get off the bigger is better bandwagon.

I do think church is a place to grow spiritually, and so spend a lot of time creating studies of biblical texts, theology, public discourse around faith, and more. Small numbers of people join me for those studies. I design worship, speak at council meetings, provide trainings, all with the idea that one of my roles is educator.

And I think that church's primary role is to serve the community, so I spend time hanging out with people who are not in the church. On the top of my list of roles would be Community Organizer. A small part of my congregation joins me in that work.

The thing that makes me consider leaving is the work that is over-the-top-impossible for me: Administration. Clerical work. Details. Emails. The bulletin. Finding artwork. The calendar. The to-do list. Help me Jesus! Like literally, please take these away!

My list of roles: Community Organizer is most important, Educator is most fun. Although Worship Leader is most expected, it is not most important, but also it is where I get the most positive feedback. My roles as Consultant as most meaningful, and most focused on hope for the future. Clerical Assistant is the most annoying of my roles. 

I think what keeps me spiritually healthiest is when I remember I’m a Theologian. I don’t do much counseling, but I ask where God is in people’s lives. I don’t do much CEOing, but I ask how God is at work in the church. I don’t run outreach programs, but I search for God in the relationships we build. Not many people come to our faith formation activities, but I love the thrill of looking for God’s way together. Not enough church people are involved in our local outreach, but the work we do makes a difference in our community.

I, like most clergy, am tired. It's a wide diversity of roles, and I can't be good at them all the time. I, like most working people I know, wonder if my work is where my heart is right now. I want a weekend off with my family. I want to prioritize my home. I have great sympathy for those who cannot continue the work they thought was their calling—whether that work is church work or not. 

For me, now, the roles fit my skills. I'd say more, but I've got to get the bulletin finished. What are your roles as a pastor?

When I was in eighth grade I won the local science fair with my project Sliding Friction. I felt we hadn’t effectively used the scientific method in our classroom lab, so I redesigned the experiment to show how weight, surface area, and incline affect friction.
People tell stories of very fancy equipment and high level experiments in science fairs, but what made me a winner is that I did each run 5 times, eliminated the highest and lowest readings, and graphed the results.
I felt like a huge success. Later I realized that it was even a bigger win—eighth graders competed with grades 8 through 12. I had won against students who had much more science education than me.
And I never entered another science fair.
Sometimes success is the hardest thing to overcome.
When your science fair project doesn’t win, we don’t call that a failure, although as a very competitive kid, I perhaps treated it as such. Every year I had entered, looked for the winning projects and asked, how could I do better. What would be the steps to making a better project?
I checked out the notebook, and the display, and even what topics people chose for their winning projects. I asked “what is it that makes this a winner?” Each year I used my loss, my non-win, as an opportunity to learn.
What was there to do with my win? How could I ever come up with an idea that was as good? How could I ever develop a project that compared.
Race ahead to 2019. Over the previous year I worked my way up from walking a mile or two at 20 minutes per mile, to the end of September when I walked 14 miles at 18 minutes per mile.
I was a walking machine! I got up at 5 in the morning for that 14 mile walk, but even more significantly, every week I got up 2 or 3 times a week to walk—2 to 3 miles on weekdays, and increasingly longer distances on Saturdays. When I started, my first 5K in under an hour was a huge success. I built up to 7 miles, 10 miles, 12 miles, and then 14. When my knee hurt I went to physical therapy, and unlike any other time in my life I did every exercise as directed, every day.
I took part in a half marathon, celebrated with friends.
And then I didn’t walk again. I didn’t do the short week day walks, and I didn’t do the longer weekend walks. My spreadsheet with times sits un-updated. I was proud of my success, but why couldn’t I keep going?
In 2010 I decided I wanted to write a book. I started writing every day, with the idea that to be a writer I must spend my time writing. I enrolled in a PhD program, dropped out, found a Dmin program, wrote a thesis, took a writing course, wrote a book proposal, and in March of 2020 my book came out. I just kept doing whatever needed to be done to be the author of a published book.
As part of my book proposal I suggested that I would write a weekly blog with additional stories from my research. I suggested that I would write articles in scholarly journals supporting the research in my book. I imagined that I’d keep writing.
But I did not. Once the book came out I’ve never successfully written for even two days in a row. I write a blog post here and there, but I never get back into the mode of prioritizing writing as an integral part of my life.
It seems like my life’s successes have all been the cause of, or at least the precursor to, continued failure. What do you think?

I don’t love Mothers’ Day, but I don’t hate the day. I have a great mother and I’m a fan of the original mother’s day proclamation against war. And I think it’s okay to have days that apply to some people, but not others.

Some of my not-loving of Mathers’ Day comes from the fact that I universally don’t like sweetness and chocolate, flowers and light. Or more accurately I don’t like the simplification of complicated things. If I haven’t appreciated my mom all year, I don’t think Mothers’ Day flowers will fix that. And if I can’t wrestle with what’s wrong with the stereotypes of mothering on the day that’s about mothering, then am I really appreciating it at all?

Mothers’ Day is awful for mothers who don’t have homes. Many have had their children taken from them, some due to abuse, but most simply because they are poor, or black, or brown. Not surprisingly, mothers who have lost their children have a harder time with recovery and a harder time with managing their mental health. That creates a circle, as managing recovery and mental health is necessary to the plan that will perhaps earn them  contact with their child. It’s a horrible system we have where we try breaking mothers hearts to see if that will possibly make it better for their children.

Mothers’ Day is complicated for children. Complicated for children who are adopted, children in foster care, children whose parents have hurt them, children whose parents have passed, children whose parents are drunk or high, children whose parents stay too removed, children whose parents are smothering, for children who cannot ever live up to their parents, and for children who cannot let go of their parents expectations. Who is left?

Mothers’ Day enforces a binary that doesn’t exist—a gender binary, a parenting binary, and a good vs. evil binary.

My distaste for the day comes in part from the fact that I am not a mother, and wish that I had had that opportunity. It comes in part from sitting with my sister who has lost a daughter. It comes in part from sitting with unacknowledged trans moms. It comes in part from sitting with so many people with such complicated lives.

But I think it comes mostly from our ability as a culture to sanitize every radical and complicated thing. Julia Ward Howe was not asking for chocolates or a card when she declared “‘Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.’ Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.”  Link to the full proclamation.  That this holiday was first proposed by a woman who both hated motherhood, and yet stayed with her husband rather than be separated from her children, makes the hallmarkification of the holiday that much worse. Link to book review of The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe.

And yet I loved my chance to chat with my mom on this day, and was jealous of my brother's chance to cook for her. It was a joy when, during worship, someone interrupted my welcome to the mothers present to shout “and aunts”. It pierced my heart when my sister thanked me for the way that I mother/aunt my nieces and nephews.

I don’t love Mothers’ Day, but I don’t hate it, either. It’s complicated.