Category: Self-Care

Posted in Boundaries, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Pastoral Care, Preaching, Self-Care, Worship Tagged with

14 min 15 s

Rev. Quentin Chin

  • Thinking about what else I can do as a bi-vocational pastor
  • What is the congregation’s obligation to the pastor in terms of fair pay?
  • Setting healthy boundaries for time worked as a bi-vocational pastor
  • Get agreement on expectations ahead of time
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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, External Relations, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 59 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Is the church over?
  • Is this great experiment that was started by Jesus – this experiment that the Holy Spirit exploded on Pentecost – is it really over?
  • Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question….
  • If our role isn’t to preserve the Church, what is it?
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Posted in Change Management, Church Growth & Vitality, Conflict Management, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 50 s

Rev. Pegi Ridout

  • The difficulty with conflict isn’t that we have it, it’s that we don’t know how to do it well.
  • How do we treat conflict as gift? How do we get there?
  • Respectful communication guidelines developed by Eric Law at the Kaleidoscope Institute
  • trust, respect, listen, then speak.
  • Conflict skills/muscles are built through practice;
  • Pegi’s 3 types of practice for building our conflict muscles;
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Posted in Boundaries, Church Growth & Vitality, Conflict Management, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

11 min 59 s

Rev. Pegi Ridout

  • Why understanding and managing bullying behavior effectively is so critical to the health of a congregation;
  • Pegi’s 3 types of church bullies (Canaries, Porcupines, Skunks)
  • Strategies for dealing with each type of bully;
  • Some bullies have an important message for the congregation;
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Posted in Managing Expectations, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 27 s

Rev. Arlen Vernava

The 3 components of Body Budget: adequate sleep, nutritious food, exercise;

What to do when your Body Budget is in deficit, but don’t have time to attend to it;

How to advance the work of the church when Body Budget is in deficit;

Body Budget applies at the congregational level too;

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Posted in Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Finishing and Exiting, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 41 s

Rev. Arlen Vernava

Joining stands on the shoulders of farewell;

The nature of your last farewell will hugely influence how you join your next community of faith;

Joining has 5 practices:

  • Giving thanks
  • Celebration
  • Forgiving
  • Making friends
  • Blessing (both affirming & challenging);

Joining is about sharing your heart and receiving theirs.

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Posted in Boundaries, Church Growth & Vitality, External Relations, Preaching, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 58 s

Rev. Dawn Adams

Tips for making innovation and experimentation work for a small church;

Responding innovatively to the different church participation behaviors of younger generations;

Balancing it all: engaging the congregation while also maintaining healthy boundaries;

Examples of successful collaboration with other clergy for worship, Advent, Lent, that lessen one’s work load; Collaboration should make things easier not harder;

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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Faith Formation, Governance, Leadership Development, Self-Care, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

10 min 07 s

Rev. Dawn Adams

Innovative adaptions of governance to help engage younger generations;

Ways to make it easier for people to say, Yes, to serving;

Innovative ways to helps parishioners feel connected to the congregation and serve with joy;

The Spirit can often work through, No, not just through, Yes.

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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Governance, Leadership Development, Self-Care, Staff, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

11 min 25s

Rev. Joe Graumann

In smaller churches, pastors often spend lots of time on things that parishioners aren’t even aware they are spending their time on – especially things that others could do as well. This, of course, takes time and energy away from things pastors are specifically trained to do and people are expecting them to do. Consequently, the pastor feels overworked and exhausted, leading to resentment by the pastor and upset by parishioners when the pastor isn’t available to do what is expected of them – what they have been trained to do and is in their job description.

In this episode titled, “How I Enable My Parishioners to Support Me in Using My Time & Energy Wisely As Their Pastor,” Rev. Joe Graumann shares how he manages this challenge in a way that all parties feel respected, the pastor’s time and energies are employed well, and the needs of the church are met too.

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