I was with you until I read this quote "Irritation: why didn’t they try harder? If they had just gotten more help, worked through the burnout or the trauma, they might not be leaving too soon, and bitterly. And they, and their church, and all the churches they might serve in the future, would be better for it" Where should they be getting the help? Judicatory staff of whom many are more concerned about keeping the congregation happy and in the denomination that providing backing (after all I can find another position - been there, done that, got that t-shirt in my first call.) Or should they find it from professionals such as therapists who are sparse everywhere but especially in many of the rural areas that most ministers serve, and who don't have insurance/money to cover it? From the leadership of the church who has been allowing bullies/hostage takers to do this for decades through multiple pastors, or who refuse to allow a consultant to come in? These don't happen in all cases, but in enough. I'm sorry that you are irritated that some didn't stick it out. I did, but I know others who didn't or couldn't. If they had tried any harder they've have been working 24/7 and still not getting results, or would be burned up, not just burned out, or there families would have been consumed. I truly hope that when your congregants are feeling overwhelmed you don't advise "just try harder". Sometimes one has to shake the dust off one's sandals and leave behind the church, and even the ministry. And even that "Roman collar" doesn't work when you are a woman who is surrounded by churches that not only don't ordain women, but believe that woman pastors and those they serve are doomed to eternal damnation. I've stayed, and am glad I did. I have had some great support from judicatory staff most times when needed, therapist/spiritual advisors as well as collegial support to stay in those moments when it seemed easier to walk away. I am able to serve in situations my younger self would never have been able to separate self from the conflict. But I would never think of telling my friends who have left that "you should have tried harder or gotten more help." If only 10% of us are making it past 20 years (which I am grateful to say I have) that indicates a systemic issue, not a lack of effort by individual ministers.
Deborah, I don't disagree with anything you say at all. Maybe you didn't read past my irritation, to where I say I would never judge any individual pastor for leaving or accuse them of not trying harder. Jesus doesn't need us to die on that cross. I have written more extensively in my latest book and elsewhere about church conflict and how pastors can survive it--and didn't want to rehash it here. But in short, with all the legit obstructions and difficulties you name, you can still: 1) find good wise friends and mentors to dump out to, 2) use a little bit of church money to pay for training/coaching by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, which has helped me immensely--see in particular the Clergy Clinic, 3) invite/voluntell the healthiest lay people in the church to do their trainings for lay leaders, and to the degree that you are able, make it a condition of future leadership in the church. I didn't (ask for or) get much help from the wider UCC when I was going through my conflicts either time. I did make sure I had a spiritual director, re-read From Generation to Generation, did the Lombard trainings, and gradually got about 35 people at my church to do the trainings as well, then PRACTICED PRACTICED PRACTICED doing the family systems work to unearth old wounds and grief (that long predated me) and begin to heal. It was very slow work. But if I'd left, either time, I think I would have left the ministry myself, embittered and angry. Instead, one of these days, I get to end well, and on my terms.
Yes, I read further to where you write you wouldn't blame individual pastors, but yet who are there but individual pastors? It sounded to me like the people who I've run into who were "hate the sin, but love the sinner." If you are irritated that pastors don't try harder, then why not with those you know? What makes them different? You mention great resources, but sometimes they just aren't readily available. My second call I lucked into a group of women ministers from different denominations who somehow found each other and would travel anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to gather each week (now we'd do it on Zoom, but this was in the old days.) I also have been able to do the LMPC training, which I did shortly after seminary with graduation money gifts I received. For smaller churches, $800-$1,500 is not a little money but one or two week's pay for the minister that they are barely reaching - plus travel and accommodations. And when the church is unhealthy, sometimes its the unhealthiest person who controls the purse strings (whether treasurer or other leader) so getting a "little" money can be impossible. I have been blessed/lucky enough to have family and others who have supported me through those tough times and availed me of resources, so that I've remained. I have too many friends who have not had the same support, and so left. My first church as a student pastor had a conflict and both the Conference and the Seminary supported me at the time beyond what I would have imagined, and that allowed me to exit with grace and go on. But as you know from family systems theory, just because one person changes for the the healthier, that doesn't guarantee anyone else will, or even be willing to engage in the process (or be willing to stay themselves when all the blowback starts until it ends.) There is also digging into denial, or blaming the person who recognizes the elephant in the room - others are so used to the smell that fresh air seems pungent. Sometimes it's so ingrained, one just has to leave for their own health and safety. And other times, one is pushed out for disrupting the system that's been there for decades. As I said at the end, if only 10% of us are still at it 20+ years, and (and 85% have left after 5) there is a systemic issue that no individual pastor is going to be able to fix no matter how long they stay in the ministry or how hard they try. Even your last sentences here hold the implication that if only a pastor would do what you did, then they could stay and end on their own terms. I'm currently working with a congregation that just had pastoral misconduct and termination so am aware of the slow and long process any healing and restoration to health will take. Especially as I uncover how much the congregation had systems, or lack there of, that unintentionally enable the pastor to end up this way. My previous experience with those unwilling to engage in those processes are helping me here. But I am also very aware that those congregations that are able and willing to go through those processes are getting less and less as other fears overtake them about losing members. There are clergy killer congregations, even if its unintended, and nothing an individual pastor does will prevent that. Until the judicatory of the various denominations start to address those issues, and not expect individual pastors to work through them with only crisis support, then without divine intervention, the number of pastors burnout/burnup and leaving will just increase. So I pray that either God's direct intervention or moving of the Spirit to enable and make willing others will come soon.
I'm SO glad you did the LMPC training. They are all online now (as well as in person), and most of them are less than $150 for the daylong workshops. I'm really happy to see that they are offering a new one in Restorative Conversations which is something my church did and was *the* single most healthful/healing thing we did to move through the conflict. It took a long time and was exhausting but it really WORKED like nothing else I've seen.
and: absolutely, some churches are clergy killers and the trauma/trauma response/toxicity goes deep, the patterns deeply set. It's better to walk away. All I'm saying: there's a gradient, and what I'd love to see is more clergy stay until the conflict is resolved, for their own healing as well as to give the church and the people in it who are willing to learn better ways a chance at a future.
Happy, happy, happy ordination anniversary ... I can tell you that the next 18 years are pretty amazing, too!! Enjoy (somewhere a clergyperson is burning and is not consumed!
I'm so glad, Maren, and you are one of my role models in ministry! Honestly! You have such a gentle joy in the gig. And how lucky am I that I got to follow you in Somerville?!
From one Rev. Molly to another--thank you for this beautiful reflection. You have been ordained a slightly lower number than years I have been alive ;). Very encouraging for this young clergywoman at the beginning of her career to hear from another clergywoman who has had years of faithful service.
Yay, Rev. Molly! I wish you so much joy and many Holy Spirit moments in this wonderful, terrible, always fascinating gig. There are so many days when (apart from the drudgery) I do a little Ignatian Examen and it's stunning to me the encounters I've had, the conversations I got to be a part of, the rooms I have been in, the loving nudge or comfort I got to offer. May God also direct your feet to healthyish churches where your people listen and grow alongside you.
Happy Anniversary and congratulations on the milestone in ministry!
Maybe it's because I am a PK and have been witness to MANY similar situations in the churches I have grown up in or been part of, but I am totally convinced here and by some of your previous posts in something my father told me many years ago . . . that God "calls" people into ministry for reasons that we may never understand (I'd add that sometimes we may just be slow to recognize).
Clear to me is that God knew exactly who to send a call to. Best wishes!
Great read! As a female physician, this feels so incredibly similar to the beauty, frustration, brokenness, injury, and calling of my female colleagues and myself. Trade out Church and replace with Hospital and hospital administrators.
I greatly appreciate the honesty, transparency, and faith with which you share your story and thoughts!
oh Laci! thanks for commenting! and thanks for doing what you do, pushing through the nonsense, subtly changing the culture just by staying, in a grounded way.
For me, it wasn’t the meanness of people or their lack of valuing me, it was more the changing institution and drive to survive (I.e. money making and building maintenance). So little felt like ministry anymore.
"And there’s the fact that I can walk into pretty much anyplace, from a queer wedding in a West Oakland warehouse to a state prison to an ER to a mass protest, and wearing that Roman collar, can get respect (or at least: grudging curiosity and maybe some kid gloves). " Loved this, and loved meeting you at my queer daughter's wedding reception in that crazy warehouse! You were there when Bree Elle needed a community most, and I'm so grateful for that!!
I felt *so* cool to be invited there Judy! (well actually, I felt so nerdy--but so welcomed nonetheless). So grateful to Bree Elle for those lovely years--and think of zer often!
Molly congratulates for making the journey. I am a retired Director of Christian Education, and I sure identified your experiences good and hurtful. May your next years offer you opportunities to share your gifts.
I am a frequent visitor/kinda member of First Church Berkeley. I started an Mdiv in 1989 and finished an MA in Religious Studies in 1992. I decided against ordination for a lot of the reasons you cite here in your blog. I'm so glad you stuck with it. I found a way to do my own ministry in teaching older adults. I've never regretted my decision not to pastor. But I'm certainly glad you stuck with yours.
Oh Molly. This made me laugh and cry and feel joy and gratitude and compassion (like so much of your writing does for me). I'm so grateful for your honesty and vulnerability and holy spirit stubbornness and strength and did I mention honesty? <3
I was with you until I read this quote "Irritation: why didn’t they try harder? If they had just gotten more help, worked through the burnout or the trauma, they might not be leaving too soon, and bitterly. And they, and their church, and all the churches they might serve in the future, would be better for it" Where should they be getting the help? Judicatory staff of whom many are more concerned about keeping the congregation happy and in the denomination that providing backing (after all I can find another position - been there, done that, got that t-shirt in my first call.) Or should they find it from professionals such as therapists who are sparse everywhere but especially in many of the rural areas that most ministers serve, and who don't have insurance/money to cover it? From the leadership of the church who has been allowing bullies/hostage takers to do this for decades through multiple pastors, or who refuse to allow a consultant to come in? These don't happen in all cases, but in enough. I'm sorry that you are irritated that some didn't stick it out. I did, but I know others who didn't or couldn't. If they had tried any harder they've have been working 24/7 and still not getting results, or would be burned up, not just burned out, or there families would have been consumed. I truly hope that when your congregants are feeling overwhelmed you don't advise "just try harder". Sometimes one has to shake the dust off one's sandals and leave behind the church, and even the ministry. And even that "Roman collar" doesn't work when you are a woman who is surrounded by churches that not only don't ordain women, but believe that woman pastors and those they serve are doomed to eternal damnation. I've stayed, and am glad I did. I have had some great support from judicatory staff most times when needed, therapist/spiritual advisors as well as collegial support to stay in those moments when it seemed easier to walk away. I am able to serve in situations my younger self would never have been able to separate self from the conflict. But I would never think of telling my friends who have left that "you should have tried harder or gotten more help." If only 10% of us are making it past 20 years (which I am grateful to say I have) that indicates a systemic issue, not a lack of effort by individual ministers.
Deborah, I don't disagree with anything you say at all. Maybe you didn't read past my irritation, to where I say I would never judge any individual pastor for leaving or accuse them of not trying harder. Jesus doesn't need us to die on that cross. I have written more extensively in my latest book and elsewhere about church conflict and how pastors can survive it--and didn't want to rehash it here. But in short, with all the legit obstructions and difficulties you name, you can still: 1) find good wise friends and mentors to dump out to, 2) use a little bit of church money to pay for training/coaching by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, which has helped me immensely--see in particular the Clergy Clinic, 3) invite/voluntell the healthiest lay people in the church to do their trainings for lay leaders, and to the degree that you are able, make it a condition of future leadership in the church. I didn't (ask for or) get much help from the wider UCC when I was going through my conflicts either time. I did make sure I had a spiritual director, re-read From Generation to Generation, did the Lombard trainings, and gradually got about 35 people at my church to do the trainings as well, then PRACTICED PRACTICED PRACTICED doing the family systems work to unearth old wounds and grief (that long predated me) and begin to heal. It was very slow work. But if I'd left, either time, I think I would have left the ministry myself, embittered and angry. Instead, one of these days, I get to end well, and on my terms.
Hi Molly-
Yes, I read further to where you write you wouldn't blame individual pastors, but yet who are there but individual pastors? It sounded to me like the people who I've run into who were "hate the sin, but love the sinner." If you are irritated that pastors don't try harder, then why not with those you know? What makes them different? You mention great resources, but sometimes they just aren't readily available. My second call I lucked into a group of women ministers from different denominations who somehow found each other and would travel anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to gather each week (now we'd do it on Zoom, but this was in the old days.) I also have been able to do the LMPC training, which I did shortly after seminary with graduation money gifts I received. For smaller churches, $800-$1,500 is not a little money but one or two week's pay for the minister that they are barely reaching - plus travel and accommodations. And when the church is unhealthy, sometimes its the unhealthiest person who controls the purse strings (whether treasurer or other leader) so getting a "little" money can be impossible. I have been blessed/lucky enough to have family and others who have supported me through those tough times and availed me of resources, so that I've remained. I have too many friends who have not had the same support, and so left. My first church as a student pastor had a conflict and both the Conference and the Seminary supported me at the time beyond what I would have imagined, and that allowed me to exit with grace and go on. But as you know from family systems theory, just because one person changes for the the healthier, that doesn't guarantee anyone else will, or even be willing to engage in the process (or be willing to stay themselves when all the blowback starts until it ends.) There is also digging into denial, or blaming the person who recognizes the elephant in the room - others are so used to the smell that fresh air seems pungent. Sometimes it's so ingrained, one just has to leave for their own health and safety. And other times, one is pushed out for disrupting the system that's been there for decades. As I said at the end, if only 10% of us are still at it 20+ years, and (and 85% have left after 5) there is a systemic issue that no individual pastor is going to be able to fix no matter how long they stay in the ministry or how hard they try. Even your last sentences here hold the implication that if only a pastor would do what you did, then they could stay and end on their own terms. I'm currently working with a congregation that just had pastoral misconduct and termination so am aware of the slow and long process any healing and restoration to health will take. Especially as I uncover how much the congregation had systems, or lack there of, that unintentionally enable the pastor to end up this way. My previous experience with those unwilling to engage in those processes are helping me here. But I am also very aware that those congregations that are able and willing to go through those processes are getting less and less as other fears overtake them about losing members. There are clergy killer congregations, even if its unintended, and nothing an individual pastor does will prevent that. Until the judicatory of the various denominations start to address those issues, and not expect individual pastors to work through them with only crisis support, then without divine intervention, the number of pastors burnout/burnup and leaving will just increase. So I pray that either God's direct intervention or moving of the Spirit to enable and make willing others will come soon.
I'm SO glad you did the LMPC training. They are all online now (as well as in person), and most of them are less than $150 for the daylong workshops. I'm really happy to see that they are offering a new one in Restorative Conversations which is something my church did and was *the* single most healthful/healing thing we did to move through the conflict. It took a long time and was exhausting but it really WORKED like nothing else I've seen.
link to their events here: https://lmpeacecenter.org/all-events/
and: absolutely, some churches are clergy killers and the trauma/trauma response/toxicity goes deep, the patterns deeply set. It's better to walk away. All I'm saying: there's a gradient, and what I'd love to see is more clergy stay until the conflict is resolved, for their own healing as well as to give the church and the people in it who are willing to learn better ways a chance at a future.
Happy, happy, happy ordination anniversary ... I can tell you that the next 18 years are pretty amazing, too!! Enjoy (somewhere a clergyperson is burning and is not consumed!
I'm so glad, Maren, and you are one of my role models in ministry! Honestly! You have such a gentle joy in the gig. And how lucky am I that I got to follow you in Somerville?!
From one Rev. Molly to another--thank you for this beautiful reflection. You have been ordained a slightly lower number than years I have been alive ;). Very encouraging for this young clergywoman at the beginning of her career to hear from another clergywoman who has had years of faithful service.
May God continue to bless your ministry!
Rev. Molly Smerko
Yay, Rev. Molly! I wish you so much joy and many Holy Spirit moments in this wonderful, terrible, always fascinating gig. There are so many days when (apart from the drudgery) I do a little Ignatian Examen and it's stunning to me the encounters I've had, the conversations I got to be a part of, the rooms I have been in, the loving nudge or comfort I got to offer. May God also direct your feet to healthyish churches where your people listen and grow alongside you.
Happy Anniversary and congratulations on the milestone in ministry!
Maybe it's because I am a PK and have been witness to MANY similar situations in the churches I have grown up in or been part of, but I am totally convinced here and by some of your previous posts in something my father told me many years ago . . . that God "calls" people into ministry for reasons that we may never understand (I'd add that sometimes we may just be slow to recognize).
Clear to me is that God knew exactly who to send a call to. Best wishes!
Great read! As a female physician, this feels so incredibly similar to the beauty, frustration, brokenness, injury, and calling of my female colleagues and myself. Trade out Church and replace with Hospital and hospital administrators.
I greatly appreciate the honesty, transparency, and faith with which you share your story and thoughts!
oh Laci! thanks for commenting! and thanks for doing what you do, pushing through the nonsense, subtly changing the culture just by staying, in a grounded way.
For me, it wasn’t the meanness of people or their lack of valuing me, it was more the changing institution and drive to survive (I.e. money making and building maintenance). So little felt like ministry anymore.
yep--all of it, sister.
"And there’s the fact that I can walk into pretty much anyplace, from a queer wedding in a West Oakland warehouse to a state prison to an ER to a mass protest, and wearing that Roman collar, can get respect (or at least: grudging curiosity and maybe some kid gloves). " Loved this, and loved meeting you at my queer daughter's wedding reception in that crazy warehouse! You were there when Bree Elle needed a community most, and I'm so grateful for that!!
I felt *so* cool to be invited there Judy! (well actually, I felt so nerdy--but so welcomed nonetheless). So grateful to Bree Elle for those lovely years--and think of zer often!
Holding this all in my heart — in part because it’s too complex to hold in my head! And because I’m happy for you and grateful for you. Xo
<3
Molly congratulates for making the journey. I am a retired Director of Christian Education, and I sure identified your experiences good and hurtful. May your next years offer you opportunities to share your gifts.
thank you Bette! <3
I am a frequent visitor/kinda member of First Church Berkeley. I started an Mdiv in 1989 and finished an MA in Religious Studies in 1992. I decided against ordination for a lot of the reasons you cite here in your blog. I'm so glad you stuck with it. I found a way to do my own ministry in teaching older adults. I've never regretted my decision not to pastor. But I'm certainly glad you stuck with yours.
thank you so much Sara! And I'm so glad that you've been spending time with us <3
Oh Molly. This made me laugh and cry and feel joy and gratitude and compassion (like so much of your writing does for me). I'm so grateful for your honesty and vulnerability and holy spirit stubbornness and strength and did I mention honesty? <3
love you darlin! You are one of those people that truly makes my job a joy
Good for you Molly, Congratulations!
I have so many of the same feelings about my school colleagues and district. I have only one more year of teaching! 🥳
go go go sister! then rest rest rest! <3