For ministers, and aspiring ministers, who embrace that part of their calling involves service to others, self-denial, and self-sacrifice, investing in self-care can be a challenge. Whatever its source, feelings of obligation, guilt, or shame; or a lacking sense of boundaries, clergy seem prone to a high risk of burnout related to a lack of self care. There’s no denying that ministry is complex, and therefore, endlessly busy, but those clergy and staff who fail to practice self care fail themselves and their congregations.

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I’ve experienced the third instance in recent months of a classic pastoral triangle. It’s “classic” in the sense that it has all of the components of an “elegant” emotional process triangle: (1) it is generated by anxiety, (2) its source is family of origin relationships, (3) it is directed at the pastoral leader, (4) its content obfuscates emotional process, and, (5) it invites reactivity.

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One misunderstanding about basic concepts of Bowen Family Systems theory has to do with assigning value statements. For example, the notion that overfunctioning is “bad.” Overfunctioning, like other behaviors are not “bad” or “good,” they are merely functions, symptoms, or manifestations of emotional process played out in the way people relate to one another. This is why it’s more helpful to observe function in the system than it is to assign motives to people’s behaviors.

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A local church educator sent me this e-mail, a common dilemma: “I am in need of some real advice. I have a Sunday School teacher who is in her middle to late 20’s and has been teaching our senior high girls class for two years now, but is very distant from her class. Parents are now complaining to me that she spews out her opinions, but does not allow others to share theirs. The girls are disinterested and some have quit coming to class. There are other issues involved but this is the crux: how do you fire a volunteer without losing them totally?”

My response to her was:

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I recently read an online article along the lines of “10 Skills Every Man Should Have.” I was pleased that I had them all (although it’s been a while since I’ve had the need to weld anything). I wondered what a list of “50 Skills Every Pastoral Leader Needs to Have” would look like. Here’s my list:

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Some years ago I did a presentation titled “The Myth of Competence.” It developed out of my observation that so many leaders live under a crushing load of performance-anxiety and a frame of mind I called the myth of competence. Here’s the working definition of the concept:

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These past few weeks I’ve had ocassion to be reminded of what my friend Margaret says about bringing about change in congregations, which is, ”Everything takes five years.” While that’s a bit tounge-in-cheek, it’s not far from the truth. Over the past four weeks I’ve had casual conversations with as many church leaders related to how long it takes to get things done in congregations. Each highlighted a different aspect of the dynamic.

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At a recent workshop with a group of ministers from another denomination I asked the participants to introduce themselves and include in their introduction information about their context. When describing their context all participants shared the membership size of their congregation, specifically, the number they gave was the number of names on the church roll or register. I had to go back around and ask each participant to share the average Sunday morning worship attendance of their church (which ranged from one quarter to one third of the number they’d shared previously).

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Every once is a while (like last month, in fact) I get a call from a church leaders wanting guidance and ideas about creating a mini-seminary in their congregations. While that idea is driven by a desire to make Christian education more meaningful and effective in their congregations I am always suspect of that approach. I believe that any congregation will be well-served by taking Christian education more seriously, and, by go about its practice in more intentional ways. But I also believe that a seminary is one thing and a church another—and when it comes to educating in faith, the two should not be confused.

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Cleaning out some files I came across a listing of some businesses I’d done consultations for some years ago. The list was from the early nineties when I was doing more consultations with businesses and corporations than I do now. Going down the list I started checking off those businesses that no longer exist. By the time I finished I’d crossed out over two-thirds of the names on the list. If we were to engage in causal thinking we might ascribe two reasons for such a large number:

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