The Ministry Collaborative Podcast: Highlights from Our First Year
For most of us, surprises are overrated. Just ask your fellow board members how much they really enjoy surprise parties. Life as we like it thrives on certainty. We are better able to sleep at night if we expect to awaken to a world that...
Vinyl records are making a big comeback, with over six million sold in 2023. An interesting note: half of all people buying vinyl records don’t own a record player. Why do they buy them? According to several assessments, buyers say they want a “tangible connection”...
Our post two weeks ago, on the fact that most Americans feel like they are on “the losing side” of politics, garnered many responses. Pastors and lay leaders told us they are struggling with the ways tribalism is causing tension and division in their churches. ...
Entering our local gym, we hear the same instructions every time. “Stretching helps prevent bad things and enables good things – lean into it!” Despite this regular refrain, stretching remains an underappreciated practice in exercise, in life … and in how pastors and church boards guide...
Church boards have limited time and energy after addressing staffing, budgets, buildings, schedules, and the semi-regular concerns coming from members. However, congregational leaders do have the opportunity, upon occasion, to change the categories of conversation within a faith community. This election year may present one...
Among the questions I receive most often from pastors: How can our congregation change things that need to be changed? How can we challenge our focus for more effective ministry? In the shifting ground of post-pandemic life, with politics upstream of faith and everything up for...
Digging a Deeper Well has taken an extended holiday break. What started out as a few weeks off over Christmas and New Year’s became one month, and then two, thanks to work, travel, the ACC basketball schedule, and other essential events. But somewhere in the...
Ministry Collaborative program staff (Adam Borneman, Adam Mixon, Beth Daniel, Mark Ramsey) discuss our wariness around grace in community; the offensive nature of grace's radical message; and the need for church leaders to receive grace ourselves, since it's all we have to offer. Read the original...
On a recent podcast, my colleague Jennifer Watley Maxell offered that “hope is not scarce, and it is not fragile.” Our conversation took other turns, leaving that important insight behind. I want to return to it now. “Hope is not scarce, and it is not...
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I was the Facilitator for the first New York City cohort, and at the time, I was working in theological education on Christian leadership formation, so it seemed like a natural fit. What I discovered, though, was something quite different from my “day job.” While the content and topics of the curriculum was a crucial part of our gatherings, it was the community of mutual care and support that made the content relevant, not the other way around. And second, having three years of strong bonding created an extraordinarily resilient community that, in turn, was able to build up resilience in our leaders. I think every member of my cohort went through significant seasons of both joy and heartache, professionally and vocationally, during our time. And the cohort, in turn, lived out the exhortation of Romans 12:15, “rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep,” with a depth and integrity that I have rarely experienced, and often doing both in the same gathering. It was a privilege and a blessing to me and my own faith and ministry to be their facilitator, and I am eternally grateful to the Ministry Collaborative for calling me to that work!”
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was unique to my particular situation. It was needed, appreciated and healing. It was affirming. Most valuable was the unspoken understanding of what we all were facing in our ministry context. There was a sense that we could finish each other’s sentences. Solidarity and empathy.”
Graduation Date:
May 23, 2021
“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was unique to my particular situation. It was needed, appreciated and healing. It was affirming. Most valuable was the unspoken understanding of what we all were facing in our ministry context. There was a sense that we could finish each other’s sentences. Solidarity and empathy.”
Graduation Date:
May 23, 2021
“I truly looked forward to this every week. The discussion topics, activities, and small group conversations were all very rich and meaningful. This experience gave me space to reflect on what’s happening right now in my congregation and community. It helped me to think about what might be next in my own ministry. It offered some very concrete ways I might work on equipping leaders in my congregation. I really enjoyed meeting colleagues from different places, denominations, and contexts–and learning from their experiences and reflections. I also appreciated hearing further conversation and reinforcement in the podcasts.”
Graduation Date:
July 14, 2021
“The experience was, in one word, enriching. It was timely as well. I was at a critical point in my own ministry and this literally breathed life back into me. The time went by so fast that I didn’t even realize two months had passed. To be able to share that type of camaraderie with other preachers, and realize that my struggles are not isolated, was liberating.”
Graduation Date:
March 18, 2021
“It was great to find confirmation and affirmation of my ministry through the voices of other pastors. I particularly enjoyed the focused time on talking about each of us as individuals and pastors, and not so much on what our churches look like.”
Graduation Date:
January 31st, 2020