Developing Young Leaders: The Church’s Need for Good Grandparenting Skills

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The Interview

Scene: An interview
Setting: The church parlor
Characters: Pastoral search committee and the candidate

First Church of the greater metropolitan area just west of the bypass has seen its pastor of more than two decades retire. The congregation has entered into the search process with great trepidation, and perhaps a small amount of expectancy. On the one hand, their retired pastor is the only pastor many of them can remember. On the other hand, many people who’ve carried the load for so long are excited about the prospect of the new energy they believe a new pastor will bring.

The pastoral search committee is made up, for the most part, of faithful members–which means that almost all of them have been chairperson of the board (session, consistory, etc.) at one time or another. The congregation sought to offer a good cross-section of the membership on the search committee, but a “good cross-section”–owing to a dearth of young people–invariably means that the median age is upwards of 50. There are two young people in their thirties (both with children), the search chair is careful to point out. They have, as everyone is quick to acknowledge with nodding heads, “the core of a children’s program,” upon which, they hope (perhaps a bit too fervently) that the young minister will help them build.
They greet the candidate in the nicest room in the church, having laid out a tray of Snickerdoodles and a carafe of designer coffee, hoping to give off a good impression.

Search chair: “Welcome! We can’t tell you how glad we are that you’ve agreed to meet with us. We’ve read your pastoral profile (resume, C.V., etc.), and we’re extremely impressed with what you’ve managed to accomplish. Additionally, your references are all quite positive.”

Candidate: “Thank you. I appreciate your invitation. You have a lovely church. My compliments on the Snickerdoodles!”

Search chair: “We’ve devised a set of questions, which we’ve divided up among ourselves. I think we’ll let Arthur go first. He’s sung in the choir for years, and was, if I’m not mistaken, in one of the first off-Broadway productions of Guys and Dolls. I believe he’s going to speak with you about your feelings on worship styles. Arthur?”

The conversation carries on for quite some time, ranging over a wide spectrum of topics:

  • What does a typical day look like for you?
  • Would you rather we take out radio advertisements to announce your cell phone number, or should we just publish it at the top of the first page on the web site?
  • What is your strategy for growing our church? Take a quick shot; we know there’ll be minor changes.
  • What committee assignments will your spouse be assuming? Only chair of one, though. We like to look out for the pastor’s family.
  • Do you have any felony arrests? Arrest warrants? Arrests without convictions? Have you ever spoken with the police?
  • What things do you believe, things that we haven’t thought to ask you, but that might come back to embarrass us should they become known?[1]

Finally, the questioning process makes its way around to Gladys.

Gladys: We’ve got good leadership in this church. The problem, though, is most of us have been at it for a long time. We’re tired. We’re looking for a pastor who can develop young leaders. What will you do to train up leaders to take our place?

Arthur: I don’t mean to step on Gladys’ question, but this one is crucial. We’ve had great leadership here in the past, but time marches on, and all that. We’re extremely concerned that the new pastor attract and train young leaders. We’ve had our time. Now, we want to hand the baton to another generation.”

Candidate: I’m very interested in developing new leadership, investing them with the authority to make the kinds of adjustments necessary for the congregation to change and adapt to new social realities.

Search chair: (Nervous chuckle) I’m sorry, I thought I heard you say, “change and adapt.”

“Oh, now he’s going to start with the beating-up-on-lay-people-thing again.”

Sorry. That last one was sitting on a tee.

No. It’s too easy to say all churches are old, staid, and intransigent. It’s not necessarily true, nor would my saying it again be particularly interesting.

I’m more interested in another dynamic … grandparents.

In Which I Reflect on What It Means to Be a Grandparent

I was in a church one time that announced it was ready to bring in and develop young leadership. Yay! Music to a young minister’s ears.

Turns out, the folks in charge did want very badly to bring in young leadership–but not to lead. The old guard wanted fresh blood to take over the work, while retaining veto power.

I had a colleague at the time who said, “What that church needs is some people who know how to be grandparents.”

I asked what she meant.

“You spend so much time during your adult years, raising your kids. Then, one day, they’re grown up and gone. You grieve, but you figure out how to go on. Then, one day, they show back up at your house with babies. Now, your kids have kids of their own. And something shifts dramatically. Your place in the world is different now.”

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“At first it’s kind of exciting. The babies cry and fuss. You haven’t done this in awhile, so you’re kind of relieved when they pack up and go home.”

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“But as time wears on, you have to sit and watch their parenting decisions. These decisions, many of them, are not the kind of decisions you would have made. In some cases, they do the exact opposite of what you’d do.”

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“So, you start wondering: Are they doing things differently because they thought we did a bad job? Does their failure to raise their kids the way we raised themamount to a repudiation of our parenting?”

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“And your first impulse is to try to correct your children’s obviously shoddy parenting decisions. ‘No, dear,’ you say, ’don’t you think it would be better if you didn’t let little Sally eat quite so much kale?”

.

“You comfort yourself with the rationalization that you’re just trying to help. You’ve got years of parenting experience, after all. You’re doing them a favor. If they don’t listen, you owe it to them to press the point a bit harder.”

.

“Sooner or later, though, you come to realize that you’ve made it about you–and it’s not about you. It’s not even about the legacy you’ve left them; it’s about allowing them the grace and the freedom to take what you’ve given them, and let them become who God wants for them to be.”

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“Grandparenting is about biting your tongue and watching your kids make mistakes.”

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“It’s about standing by and watching them throw up your mistakes from their childhood to you, while choosing to do something completely different.”

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“It’s about standing by and applauding them when they accomplish something you could never in your wildest imagination see them doing, as well as stooping down to help pick up the pieces of their failed dreams.”

.

“That church,” my colleague said, “needs some folks to learn how to let go and be good grandparents.”

“We need young leaders!”

Yes. The church needs young leaders.

But just as importantly, the church needs some good grandparents.

  1. Just joking … mostly.  ↩

Flee to the Desert

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Been thinkin’ a lot lately about St. Anthony of Egypt, whose feast day was January 17th. Love his vision of the Christian life, rooted completely in Jesus’ way: give up EVERYTHING for God. No, really, everything, that you own and possess, get rid of all that shit, if you really wanna find God. So Anthony did, sold off everything in his rather comfortable life, and took to the Egyptian desert. Everything that we all just take for granted in our lives- food, house, clothes, wealth, all possessions- given up, for God.

It gets better, though, because Anthony begins to really understand why Jesus calls us away from our possessions. See, all those things that we cling to, they keep us from dealing with ourselves. That’s what Anthony got to learn out there in the wilderness, that all those pleasant distractions help us forget about the Self, that is our worst enemy. Anthony’s famous for wrestling with those demons out there in the sand, but the worst part of his struggle was the temptation to give in to sin and evil, centered ultimately in Self.

Anthony woulda made a great Buddhist, as he teaches us to cling to nothing, not even, and especially, the Self. Anthony would also made a great Mulsim, because he teaches that our greatest struggle–in Arabic, jihad–is with the sin that we allow into and control over our Self. But in the end, Anthony became one of the great Christians of all time. Jesus calls us to give up everything, not just so we can find our way to God. That’s actually the easy part. Jesus calls us into the desert life so we can also confront our Self, and the sin that we keep all nice and tucked up within it. When we understand the discipline it takes to make the Self a servant of God, rather than a servant of wordly possessions, or the sin that creeps so easily within, we understand the life Jesus leads us all to live on our way to God.

Now, I obviously don’t live in the desert, and certainly have just as many possessions as anyone else! So I usually have to improvise to make my way to a “desert.” I have found it now and then. I push all my possessions away, and take a deep breath into my Self. I wrestle wtih all the demons that I find there, and confront the worst of Me. Right in the midst of this cloudy and cluttered world that Anthony fled. I still have the luxury of returning to all my distractions, but I do look forward to the day when I don’t. Yea, by God’s grace, and a lot of work, I’ll just go set up some lean-to somewhere–the middle of one of those big old cemeteries has always appealed to me- and take up this life of a monk, a “monad”–alone, like Anthony…like Jesus. Like Siddartha, and Muhammad, and the great saints of God’s Truth. Alone with the gift of the Self God gives me, that, with discipline, leads me right to her…

St. Anthony of Egypt, please pray for all of us, especially as the Lenten season approaches….that God may help us find our way to our deserts, and into Her heart, and a more complete Self, as certainly as She helped you….

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Time (and Money) For Family: What Clergy Need to Know About Family Leave

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The last two weeks I have advocated both for an end of clergy student loan debt, and adequate compensation and benefits.  I feel very strongly that all clergy need to advocate for these things.  All too often we leave it up to denominational bodies to argue this for us, but we need to be our own advocates.

Maternity leave is a relatively new concept for many churches.  Many congregations are not used to their pastor needing to take time off to have or adopt a baby.  Most congregations don’t expect fathers to take time off for paternity leave as well.  As seasoned pastors retire and younger clergy enter pastoral ministry, it is time to rethink our family/maternity/paternity leave policies.  I blogged my “top ten tips” for considering family leave for clergy and congregations last summer.  Please check out that post, along with your congregational and denominational guidelines to family leave.  Remember that sometimes denominational guidelines are seen as just that—“guidelines”—and aren’t always adequate.

I had a baby during my last pastorate.  But before I had my child, I went through six years of professional, full-time pastoral ministry, first as an associate and then as a Senior Minister, without a family leave policy in place.  As an associate the first church I served refused to add in maternity leave “because you aren’t married.”  Then when I became married, they said it would have to be negotiated in the future.  At that point, I was already looking to move on from that position.  At the second church I served as a Senior Minister, it was not included in my original contract and it took two years before they would include a policy for family leave.  As it was, it was finally unanimously approved by the Board of Finance less than a month before I announced my pregnancy at the end of my first trimester.  That’s cutting it close.

For an institution that is supposed to be like a family, to have a leader that models Godly family life, to not support families when they grow and expand is hypocrisy.  Clergy who are pregnant need a full paid maternity leave.  They need time to recover from birth and bond with their new little one.  They need not be worried or stressed about finances or benefits during this time.  Same goes for the spouse of one giving birth.  I have met far too many male clergy members who were not allowed any paid paternity time, or very little.  When bonding between infant and parents is most crucial during the first six weeks after birth, why would our church structures deny this basic need to its clergy and families at such an early stage?

And then there is the case of adoption.  Unlike a maternity leave that can be planned at least a few months in advance of the arriving child, adoption is waiting, waiting, waiting—and then it happens all at once.  It’s not something that can be planned out and known ahead of time.

I was blessed in the birth of my son in that when he arrived late and I had complications in my recovery, my congregation did not once mention money as a concern.  There first and foremost concern was me and my family.  They called us and prayed for us.  They set up a meal schedule for us.  They did not worry that my return date was going to be delayed a month nor that I could not return to a full-time schedule at first.  There was no question about continuing to pay me or my benefits.  The church ministered to me and my family.  They modeled a Christ-like response and care for me.  And that is how it ought to be, every time.

But again, like benefits as I mentioned last week, if you don’t advocate for them, you won’t get them.  Clergy and congregations need to advocate for family leave and they need to do it in contract negotiations.  Clergy need to do this whether they are married/partnered or single.  You never know when your circumstances will change.  And you need to do it not only for yourself, but for the pastor that comes after you.

Churches should be the most family-friendly institution and instead, we find our clergy often overworked, underpaid, not receiving the benefits they should, and not receiving the same benefits and care for their families as they should.

Overall, family leave is one of the least costly benefits to provide.  Most congregational policies I have seen require full pay and benefits, but churches do not have to pay for mileage or other professional expenses during this time.  Some churches that grant longer leaves may need to hire a short-term interim, but in my case and in the case of many others, it’s treated just like any vacation time would be: the church pays for pulpit supply and has a minister on-call for emergencies.  When my church finally budgeted for my family leave, they only budgeted for the preaching supply.  And when my leave needed to be extended, there was no concern (at least that I was made aware of, and I was usually made aware about budget concerns!) about going over the budget for the preaching supply as it was only a few more weeks.

So my challenge is this: for congregations to provide at minimum two months of paid family leave with the option of adding vacation time, and for clergy to all advocate for family leave in their contract negotiations.  Even if you never plan on having children, remember the person who will come after you.  For male clergy, I suggest advocating for a full family leave time as well—so that it isn’t unusual should a female clergy member follow you, or should you or someone else choose to adopt in the future.

And don’t forget, advocate for paid health care for your entire family.  Most plans (but not all) are the same cost for a family of three or more as they are for a family of two, though there are some plans that are broken down by number of members in the family.  Many healthcare plans offered by denominational bodies also don’t cover full maternity care.  Before my husband and I decided to have a child, we had to change insurance plans to one that did cover maternity.  If we hadn’t, we would have had to pay out of pocket at least 20% of the costs.  The plan we found covered everything after an initial copay and deductible.  Be sure to check your insurance policy and advocate for one that is more family friendly.

Advocate, advocate, advocate.  We clergy need to speak out and speak up for our families and for each other, to assure not only that we are cared for, but that we can be models of Godly families in the future, and also for our congregations to recognize the need to model God’s family in the congregational life.

Don’t Kick Her While She’s Down

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I am unabashedly hypocritical at times.  And this is one of those times.  So as you read further you’ll have to note my recognition of this fact and understand this post as both my external critique and internal struggle.

If you’d visited here much you probably know that I am not shy about critiquing the Church.  I am strongly opinionated and my views on ministry are heavily influenced by problems I see or have experienced in the Church.  I consider myself to be a progressive, looking toward the future of the Church and our needs to adapt in a changing society.  I consider myself to be somewhat of a post-modern, refusing most times to accept “the rules” as the rules just because and constantly suspicious of institutions and forms of authority.  I also consider myself to be somewhat of an emergent.  Though I serve in a settled congregation in a modern-era environment I am aware that the forms and practices of the Christian faith which will carry our faith into the next century are considerably different than what we are accustomed to seeing.

But at the same time I love the Church.  I love the community of the saints.  I love the Church when it is healthy and beautiful and vibrant; when it is faithfully representing the nature of God and genuinely extending Christ’s love to all peoples.

But I love the Church when it is sick, too.  I love the Church through all its faults, with all its baggage, even when I am the victim of its dysfunctional ways.

When I read old posts on my old blog or read those of friends and colleagues I often find a much-needed critique of the Church’s present forms and practices.  After all, the faults are often the easiest to see.  And it’s no secret that many of us in ministry today spend a great deal of our time undoing damage the Church (or congregations within) has done in people’s lives.   I deal daily with people who’ve been hurt, abandoned, betrayed, or abused by the Church in some way shape or form through the years.  And I want to stop it.  I want to change it!

But I am not ready to give up on the church yet, either.

For each heartbreaking story of hurt at the churches hands I hear a story of renewal, or a story of compassionate grace given, or a testimony of unconditional life-changing acceptance.  And it is these encounters that give me hope in the Church.  These encounters give me encouragement that God still has big plans for us.  These encounters testify to the transforming power of Jesus still at work in the Church in spite of our problems, in spite of our divisions, and in spite of our institutionalized stubbornness.

When I was a child the pastor of our church was caught having an extra-marital affair.  Almost immediately people began jumping ship.  Families were leaving the congregation left and right.  On the way home one day I asked my father if we were going to start worshipping somewhere else.  I’ll never forget his answer:

“The church is going through a hard time right now.  And we’re not going to kick her while she’s down.”

 

My fellow emergents, my fellow progressives, my fellow radicals, my fellow post-moderns, the church is going through a very hard time right now.  And while critique is necessary to spur on needed changes we must be careful that our critique is deeply rooted in a love for Christ Jesus and a deep love for his Church.  It is too easy for us to focus on the ways the Church has let us down or let others down that we love and root our critiques in anger or self-righteousness.  We must do the hard work of offering ourselves, our lives and our work, alongside our critique as we hope, quest, and dare to dream of brighter futures for the Christian faithful.  It may be hard, but it is what we have to do.  The church is going through a very hard time right now.  Let’s not kick it while it’s down.

Just A Spoonful: Why Congregations Can’t Just Get By

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One of my best friends is a funeral director. He told me the other day about a family he’d had dealings with at one point in his career. It seems that a woman had died, and the family had my friend’s funeral home take care of the arrangements.

The family, according to my buddy, was especially difficult to deal with. They didn’t know what they wanted, and they never brought up the subject of how they were going to pay for the funerary services. They fiddled around long enough without making any decisions that, after fourteen days, my friend had to do something. So, he shipped body off to be cremated.

When the woman’s cremains finally came back to the funeral home, my friend invoiced the family for the cost of cremation and embalming. The bill went unpaid for quite some time, until a member of the family (the woman’s sister) eventually called and asked for the woman’s ashes. My friend said that they would gladly be turned over to the family upon receipt of the bill–$2,250.

“We don’t have that kind of money.”

.“That’s no problem. She’ll keep till you can locate it,” my friend informed her.

“Couldn’t you just give up her ashes, and we’ll pay you later?”

“Sorry, mam. It doesn’t work that way. I’ll be happy to turn loose of them after you pay your bill.”

She was, of course, upset and hung up the phone.

Not long after that another sister called, “I heard you won’t let us have our sister’s ashes.”

“That’s right, mam. When you’ve paid your bill, I’ll make sure she’s turned over to you.”

The sister persisted. She was torn up over the loss, and just wanted to have something by which to remember her loved one. In a choking voice she said, “We ain’t got much money. Can’t you just let us have her?”

“Not until the bill’s been paid.”

“How about part of the ashes?”

Puzzled, my friend said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, how much,” she asked, “would you charge us for a spoonful?”

“$2,250. And if you pay for that, I’ll throw in the rest for free.”

I know congregations like that. They want to know how little they can pay and still get by.

“We don’t have much. Isn’t there an installment plan we can get on? A little up front, and then we’ll pay the rest along the way? Anything like that?”

Following Jesus isn’t for the faint of heart: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” (Mark 8:34b–37).

Interestingly, congregations have gotten very comfortable with individual sacrifice. Stewardship month in November every year wouldn’t be the same without the reminder that “Jesus’ sacrificial giving of his own life ought to motivate his followers to be sacrificial givers in response.” Some aspiring greeting card copy-writer wannabe even came up with that execrably jejune bumper-sticker slogan: “Give until it feels good!”[1]

One thing congregations often have a more difficult time coming to terms with, however, is the idea of sacrifice on a corporate level. I know of congregations (not all, mind you–but a notable number nevertheless)

  • who would rather the minister learn to exercise a little personal financial discipline than to give up the professionally printed letterhead contract
  • who would be much more comfortable holding the line on educational curriculum than on waiting to invest in touchless paper towel dispensers
  • who would prefer to ignore, and risk alienating, their LGBTQ members (and the straight people who love them) than to risk making even one member uncomfortable by openly addressing the possibility of becoming Open and Affirming
  • who would sooner frustrate the attempts of young leaders to try something bold and new than to seek to withstand an onslaught of recrimination from the former leaders who’ve otherwise faded into the background
  • who would rather burn bridges with the old by continually treating tradition as something to be avoided at all cost.

Surely, there’s something in there to offend most people. The point, however, is not to offend people, but to alert us to fact that congregations are generally all for personal sacrifice, but are often surprisingly skittish about the collective sacrifice of the community.

Why shouldn’t congregations have to pay too? Congregations are no less bodies than individuals.

“Well, sure, but going out on a limb might cost us our lives if the limb fails.”

Welcome to the joy and excitement of following Jesus.

“Aren’t there safer ways?”

Absolutely! It’s just that none of them have to do with living and dying like that crazy Galilean.

“How much for a spoonful?”

Full price.

  1. I’m all for “giving” and “feeling good,” just not for distilling important theological concepts and experiences into bumper-stickers.  ↩

My Love/Hate relationship with Tim Tebow

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I’m a fan of the religious magazine Religion Dispatches and in a recent article author Carter Turner writes that in regards to all the Tim Tebow-mania, “there’s an elephant in the room, and it’s not wearing a football jersey.”  Turner tells that the driving issue behind all the Tebow curiosity goes beyond his public displays of religion, “people are watching because for many, his games are about whether or not a God exists who intervenes in human history—even in the mundane, like football.” Turner is definitely onto something here, and goes on to say that  “people are watching The Tebow Show because he’s a second-rate quarterback… and winning games, often against great odds while playing his best at the most opportune times.” Turner points out that a recent poll has found that 43% of those polled thought that God was intervening to help Tebow and the Broncos win. What Turner sees then, is that this elephant in the room is a theological question of whether God intervenes in history and rewards people who have faith.

While Turner is certainly smarter than me, I don’t think he goes far enough in his critique of conservative Christians and their love affair with Tebow.  As a former conservative and current liberal Christian I see what’s going on; amongst conservative, Evangelical Christians, it’s not a question that God intervenes in history and rewards faith—it’s an indisputable truth.  This Tim Tebow thing is a real-life example of their theological assumption that God rewards faith. It’s similar to the “Prosperity Gospel” way of thinking—if you believe, God will bless you.

Can’t get a job? It’s because you don’t have enough faith God will get you one. Things didn’t work out the way you wanted? It’s because you didn’t spend enough time in prayer.  Lacking the money to pay the bills this month?  If you trusted God, he would have provided.  Tim Tebow is exhibit A for this line of thinking, the “miraculous” wins by Tebow and the Broncos are due to God rewarding Tim’s great faith, just ask Tebow’s dad.

This is my real problem with Tim Tebow, or rather, the Evangelical Christian takeover of Tim Tebow is that rather than just appreciating his genuine personality and authentic spirituality, Tebow has been made into an example of why we’re not good enough—if we had enough faith, all these good things would be happening to us.  It’s like the convenience of every self-help book; if the program doesn’t work for you it’s because you didn’t follow it/commit to it/ dedicate yourself to it enough.  Just like every self-help guru, God conveniently gets off easy—it’s not God’s fault you don’t have a job, you should have had more faith God would provide, because then he would have.

I’m a Broncos fan, I’m a Tim Tebow fan, and I’m a Christian and I want to enjoy the spectacle of the unexpected happening, admire a guy who isn’t ashamed of who he is, and respect a guy who actually practices what he preaches (whether I agree with it or not).  What I don’t want is for some Christian personality to cram their theology down my throat while also trying to guilt me into thinking that my life would be better if I had the faith of Tim Tebow. Do I hate Tim Tebow? I guess not–what I hate is Christians constructing a Tim Tebow systematic theology. You can believe what you want to believe, but keep your theology off my quarterback.

Oh, and for the record, Tebow himself has blown off the idea that God is “miraculously intervening” on his behalf.

Overworked, Underpaid, and Inadequately Advocating

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Last week I wrote about clergy student loan debt and how for many congregations, they cannot afford to pay an adequate compensation that allows for both the high cost of living in some communities and the ability to pay back student loans.  This week, I’m going beyond compensation and into benefits.  But more specifically, I’m going to write about clergy self-care, as it is at the crux of this ongoing discussion.

If you are rolling your eyes at the topic of clergy self-care, I am guessing that you have read and heard enough about the topic and already practice good clergy self-care so these kind of discussions are just repetitions of what you already know.  You already practice good boundaries, stick to your days off, don’t answer the phone when you are not in the office and it’s not an emergency, take all your vacation and personal days, use all of your study days and go on retreats and spend enough time with your family and get enough sleep and eat right and exercise and have no stress-related illnesses or conditions.

Or, you are like many others, who think “yeah right” because there is no way you can work less than 70 hours a week, what the heck is a day off, and you can’t remember the last time you exercised or took a vacation in which you did not also work on a sermon or do your reading while visiting your parents.  Prayer time is what happens during worship on Sunday morning, and devotional reading is what happens when you are preparing for worship or Bible study.

But maybe I’m presumptuous and you aren’t rolling your eyes, but saying, “Yes, I hear you, but how can I get my church to hear you?”

One of the reasons I am writing about this now is that I have been thinking of my grandfather this week.  He passed away almost seventeen years ago at the age of sixty-seven.  He was a “retired” American Baptist minister who had to take early retirement due to complications of diabetes, but then worked as a pastor after his retirement part-time.  He died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but we all know that he worked himself to an early grave.  In the early years of his ministry he served two, sometimes three churches in a United Methodist circuit.  He worked part-time jobs at times along with pastoring churches to help make ends meet.  He did manage to take family vacations and some days off, but my mother remembers him getting up at 4 or 5AM on Sunday mornings to write his sermon because he didn’t get to it earlier in the week.

I love my grandfather and still look up to him in a lot of ways.  But I don’t want to be like him in my daily life.  I know a number of pastors who live unhealthy and hurried lives because they are trying to serve everyone at all times.

Getting back to benefits, clergy need to be better advocates for both salary and benefits.  We need to advocate for better healthcare (as a side note, I have never been offered a plan by a denominational or regional body that fully covers maternity care—I had to go find my own plan, but that’s a topic for the next article) for both ourselves and our family.  We need to advocate for full vacation time, at least four weeks a year.  We need to advocate for study time so we are not reading the latest theological and Biblical scholarship after we lie our head down at 10PM at night.  We need to advocate for retreat time, time for prayer and devotional reading as well as worship.  We also need to be our own advocates for our days off.  If we don’t take them, just like our vacation time, our churches may never notice.

And after you advocate for your benefits, use them!  Take your days off and your vacations. Spend time with your family and your friends (I know a lot of clergy who have no friends outside of the church or other clergy, because they don’t have the time to make friends).  Use your health benefits and schedule yearly physicals—don’t put off regular checkups.  Go on retreats, attend other church services rather than your own, and find time to pray.  Take time during the day to walk—even if its fifteen minutes—and use it to pray and get your exercise in.

Most importantly, though, we need to be our own advocates.  We need to advocate for each other as clergy and congregational leaders as well.  Otherwise, all too often, churches won’t notice that you haven’t taken a day off in months or that you didn’t take a vacation last summer or attend a retreat.  But they will notice a tired, short-tempered pastor.  But it all begins with you.  You have to make it, take it, and advocate for it.  And we clergy and church leaders need to work better together in advocating for our compensation and benefits—and then use them.