Falling in Love Again...

Searching for a new position as a Pastor is different from other kinds of job searches. Everyone wants to fall in love with their employer and be loved by them in return, but at one time or other, we've all taken a job we knew we probably would not love just to stay afloat financially while looking for something better. That doesn't work with Pastors. Our jobs are referred to as our "calling" for a reason: if we don't truly love the folks we serve, we will not be successful (and also will not likely be employed for long.)

Finding that "just right" fit--the ministry that feels right to both Pastor and congregation--doesn't always happen, and that is a frightening fact for Pastors and churches alike. The bond between a Pastor and ministry position is more like the bond in a marriage marriage than it is like a conventional job situation. Compatibility is a key factor, and it goes beyond merely finding someone with the right skill set. The personality of the church has to mesh well with the personality of the Pastor. Another fact that isn't always acknowledged and dealt with in a healthy way is that churches and Pastors change over time. That has happened to me more than once. A position that felt "just right" for a long time started to feel less than perfect. It's difficult sometimes for a Pastor to realize this and to seek a new position in a timely fashion.  After all, we do truly love the folks. It's hard to acknowledge that just because we still have love for people that we are no longer called to serve them in the same way anymore. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. And because we're human, we hesitate to leave, fearing that we will regret leaving a good situation for the unknown.

The truth is, falling in love, whether in a romantic situation or metaphorically, as is the case when seeking a new Pastoral position, is scary and risky. Things don't always work out. Heartaches happen. There is no surefire road map. Back in the stone ages when I began preparing to be a Pastor, we got little education in discernment--the art of figuring out what God wants for us. Now there is more emphasis on practicing discernment as a type of spiritual discipline. St Ignatius came up with a technique for discernment that is still widely used. I have used this method and find it useful.  Others swear by engaging in regular sessions with a Spiritual Director, a trained professional that helps people stay in touch with their spiritual side. There is, however, no substitute for a daily spiritual practice to allow you to get and stay in touch with what God is calling you to do. It's easy even for Pastors to let this fall by the wayside, especially when we get busy. A time of seeking a new calling can be an especially busy time; in many cases it means holding down one full-time position while actively seeking another--which can seem like a second full-time job at times. It is, however, important to trust your heart and trust God's leading--even if at first it seems as though God expects too much of you, or that God is calling you in an unexpected direction. God is full of surprises. That's one of the best things about Ministry--a miracle is always just around the corner, and we get to witness an above-average share of them. If you are searching for a clergy position, may you find the right calling, and may it feel miraculous and amazing when it happens.
I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.
Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

Do Pastors Need an Elevator Speech?

                       
The "Elevator Speech" has entered the common lexicon in the last few years. If you haven't heard this term, basically it is a short verbal summary about who you are and what you do that you should be able to rattle off at a moment's notice, for the purposes of career networking.  It's called an Elevator Speech because it is supposed to be short enough to get through in the length of an average elevator ride.

Do Pastors need an elevator speech? After all, most people know what Pastor's do--more or less, and how much knowledge can you impart about your work in 20 or 30 seconds?

I would argue that all Pastors, not just those looking for work, should master the following 20-30 second speeches:

What a Pastor is/does
Why I became a Pastor
Why I am a Pastor
What it means to be a Christian
What a church is/does
An invitation to your church

I realize that most of us are more comfortable talking in longer blocks--like, 20 minutes or so. But studies show that we have to grab the attention of our audience, no matter how big or small, within the first 30 seconds of talking anyway, so at minimum it makes a great exercise.

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.

Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

The spectacular now

When you are seeking a ministry calling it can feel like a not-so-spectacular time in your life. That is why this blog is called "The Wilderness Time."  Even if you are fully employed, you no longer feel called to remain in your current situation. That does not mean, however, that God does not have work for you to do.

A few weeks ago I preached to a congregation that is between pastoral leaders. My sermon, based on a passage in which God speaks through Jeremiah about the Babylonian exile,  was called "Bloom where you are planted." (You can check out my blog entry for that Sunday, which includes an inspirational video, here.)

God tells the Israelites to "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile." Did you catch that? God says the Israelites have been put into exile by God. Even if you feel strongly called to change your current job situation, it is also important to remain mindful that God has important work for you to do right now--even if you are unemployed, underemployed or in a position that you feel you have outgrown.

I was reminded of this as I looked over my job references today. Many of them spoke of how they had initially come into the church where I served during a time of personal crisis and I had ministered to them and helped shepherd the through their crisis and into a better life. Yeah, it makes a Pastor feel good to read testimonials of this nature, but there is a larger message. God has work for you to do in whatever situation you find yourself. In fact, you may be having trouble moving on precisely because you have not completed the work that God has for you in your current situation. On some level you may be having trouble letting go and moving on, and as a result you may send subtle signals that sabotage your job hunting efforts. That idea may be hard to accept. It may even make you angry to hear me say that, but it happens to the best of us. It has happened to me. Asking God searching questions such as, "Why am I in this situation?" or even praying the prayer of Samuel: "Here I am, Lord. Send me," can help you gain clarity and refocus your efforts in a more productive way.

Someday you may look back on the time you are in right now and recall it with great pride and a sense of accomplishment. You may see that the seeds of your greatest achievement were planted during a time you spent that felt like the years the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness, searching for the promised land and and begging God to tell you why everything that is happening to you is happening, and how long it will last.  Someday you will know why the time lasted as long as it lasted.

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.

Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

Self-Improvement

As my search for a settled position continues and rejections pile up, I'm spending some quality time on self-improvement. On the one hand, it's not an easy time to seek self-improvement, as a job search involves putting yourself out there in a way that feels personal. Self-improvement efforts tend to make just about everyone feel vulnerable, and self-improvement often involves finding, facing and seeking to shore up weaknesses. 

On the other hand, even if you are fully employed during your job search time, if your search seems to be dragging on, it is important to ask and answer the question, "Is it me?" It could just be that you need to tweak the way you present yourself a little bit, in order to make yourself seem more interesting and appealing to people who don't know you and are probably in a hurry to reject as many candidates as they can just to make their own job as members of a search committee a little bit more manageable. I know some successful pastors that experienced trouble getting their current job, and I also know pastors who got a job quickly and did not last long. 

If I had a formula for finding the right job just when you need to and keeping it forever, I'd freely share it. Part of getting into a job that is a great fit involves self-knowledge. Kate Matsudaira on the website Popforms suggests that a good way to increase useful self-knowledge involves asking others for feedback.

Send an email asking for insights into your strengths. Send it to one friend or peer this week. And try it again with someone new next week! And again!

Follow the link above for a suggested sample email format that includes questions, plus an extended explanation of why this technique is valuable.

In the meantime, I'm going to try it myself and report back....

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.

Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

“What God Has For You, Is For You”

(This piece is contributed by invitation. Rev. Malcolm Himschoot, MESA Minister for Ministerial Transitions, works in the United Church of Christ denominational office. He works closely with administrator Darrell Ludwig, who on a daily basis handles all Ministerial Profiles for the UCC. MESA can be found at www.ucc.org/ministers/. )

“What God Has For You, Is For You”

Malcolm Himschoot - October 8, 2013

A man walked past my office, headed for the Profiles desk. He had come from far away for a UCC meeting at the denominational offices. While here, he decided to see what had happened to his profile. In the current system, it’s like an inter-galactic black hole. You never know.

He found Darrell. Darrell found the problem. A piece wasn’t in yet. Darrell didn’t know it because the administrator only is alerted by the system when all pieces are in. The minister didn’t know it because he wasn’t alerted that a piece was missing. The profile was far from circulating, but neither one knew it. Meanwhile opportunities were passing by, and the man who was a qualified and dedicated minister waited, and waited, in search.

Of course this situation is unacceptable; the grief, understandable. MESA is tasked to finally improve the tools of the search and call system this year – to design something that resembles a modern, efficient task process, to fit together procedure and purpose, to align a functional product with the stated goals of numerous focus groups.

The denomination promises to have a better system soon. MESA can deliver on that promise with the help of professionals and suitable centralized technology. (It’s coming! See http://www.ucc.org/ministers/search-and-call/.)

Still, the UCC search and call process will always be more than a little mystifying. Far beyond the professional office, out there even beyond cyberspace, is where profiles are actually picked up and handled, touched and used.

The task before a Conference staff person is to find a batch of possible ethical leadership candidates for a church. The task before a congregation is to find a minister the church will respond to as they grow in God. There are as many ways of accomplishing this outcome, as there are people! Algorithms and heuristics, strategies and shortcuts. There are modern and ancient ways of doing this, there are European and African ways, cheaper and richer ways, speedy and slow ways, considerate and commercial ways, committee and consultant ways, happenstance and certified ways.

There is also, and despite it all, prayer.

The Holy Spirit has worked through stranger things than paperwork. The Holy Spirit has almost certainly moved in spite of paperwork! But the Holy Spirit does move, regardless.

It just so happens that a search process which makes no sense, which shows no rhyme nor reason, which takes too long or comes too sudden, may yet be a very faithful process. One in which God shows up, and has a leading role.

Which is why, for years and years, the starting instruction for the minister preparing their profile has not been, “Turn on your typewriter, computer or iPad.” And the starting instruction for the search committee engaging ministerial profiles has never been, “Locate the mimeograph, risograph, copy machine or PDF.”

The starting advice is always, “Begin with prayer.”

And so, next year when the profiles process is clean and transparent, when a strategic database exists, when authorized ministers in search know entirely what to expect, when colleagues across conferences are working together better than ever before, when each church in search is miraculously behaving as a rational engine no longer a called community of human beings, when the numbers of supply and demand equalize marvelously in the perfectly demographically-matched employment marketplace… unless that year is also the year in which Jesus comes, there will still be a moment when everything apparently breaks. Down.

Somewhere, a person of faith will be trying to discern their path while stressed out to the max, needing a secure place to be, enduring a time of flux and change, with many needs pressing upon them. Somehow this person, an authorized minister, will be doubting or at least wondering about grace and providence, vocation and justice. They’ll be praying that their spirit too may be called for a purpose, that their contribution will have a place in a heaven’s unfolding drama on earth, and that their employment needs will be met. Although anger, despair and fear will come naturally, this person must learn to rehearse, as the visitor rehearsed today in my office, “What God has for me, is for me.”

Try that line on. No matter how long or winding the journey. If it’s true, it’s true.

What God has for you, is for you.

Through such courage and conviction, a Way will be created to further Jesus’ gospel of mercy and hope, the sacrament of peace in the breaking of the daily bread. I pray such courage and conviction for each and every minister of Word and Sacrament in this time.

Amen.
(This piece is contributed by invitation. Rev. Malcolm Himschoot, MESA Minister for Ministerial Transitions, works in the United Church of Christ denominational office. He works closely with administrator Darrell Ludwig, who on a daily basis handles all Ministerial Profiles for the UCC. MESA can be found at www.ucc.org/ministers/. )

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.

Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

AFGO

If you've never heard this expression before, it stands for, approximately, "Another Fabulous Growth Opportunity." While I can't deny that searching for a new job is an opportunity for personal growth, sometimes the experience is less than fabulous. Rejection happens, and that can be painful. I have a number of go-to affirmations to deal with being rejected for a job that I really wanted and felt I could do well.

• "A better opportunity is coming up later."
• "This process has helped me learn what I need to know to successfully compete for a better opportunity."
• "The Lord works in mysterious ways. This job wasn't the right thing for me right now, for reasons I do not yet understand but will likely become clear in the days ahead."

You get the idea. I hope these affirmations don't seem lame to you, because there have been times in my life in which the conviction that something better is coming is the only thing that keeps despair at bay--and if I could not keep despair at bay, something better would be far less likely to come along.

There is such a thing as a downward spiral, and it takes work--spiritual work--to stay out of it.

I'm not saying that forces beyond individual control, such as an economic recession, don't play a role in job searches. I am saying that if we let the things that go wrong in life get us down, the weight can crush us. The only way to change the outcome of a job search is to learn from rejection and failure.

This is the third time in my life that I have had an extended job search. Each time I have learned and grown from the experience. It can be painful, but it  can also be joyful. It can provide the gift of re-invention.  We don't always seek this gift, and we probably need it more often than we seek it. Each time I have simplified my life and re-ordered my priorities. Here are the top tips that helped me cope:

• Keep yourself together. If you are unemployed or underemployed you may not be able to keep up a high-maintenance appearance, but when you are out and about when you might run into professional colleagues, try to look as though you have it together. You really never know when this will happen. I ran into a former Board member at a supermarket yesterday. 
• Think of finding a job as your job. A job gives a sense of purpose, so you need to believe that you have one in order to be the sort of purposeful person an employer wants to hire.
• Fit some volunteer work into your schedule. Coworkers help keep up morale in a workplace, and volunteering can help you experience the morale boost of working with like-minded others and accomplishing something of value. 
• Reach out for support. There are support groups for Pastors in many states. If you are not in one, talk to you denominational official. I have been a member of a group for years and during that time members have gone through employment searches and endured periods of unemployment. We have always been there for each other and it makes a big difference.                                                          

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.
Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.

The Skype Interview

I'm prepping for my very first Skype interview. I'm actually kind of excited. Skype interviews are the greatest thing to happen to job seekers in a long time. They can go a long way in overcoming the disadvantages of looking for a job in a different geographical area. Since a lot of human communication is non-verbal (experts disagree on how much), adding a visual element to a long-distance interview potentially provides an advantage over written and phone communication methods.

I do have a little bit of concern about skyping. A live video feed is similar to a snapshot, in that it can enable you to "crop out" distractions. On the other hand, being "boxed in" on camera can put the focus on something that distracts and distances interviewers, such as a hair twirling habit. Do I twirl my hair? I don't think so, but we all have habits, and sometimes we aren't very aware of them. Watch a few minutes of one of those cable TV shows that put pundits in "talking head" boxes and you will see what I mean. Some people come across as likeable and believable regardless of the content of their message, while others are instantly off-putting. Try watching it with the sound off, and then turn the sound on and close your eyes, and you will see what I mean. Communication is a combination of sight, sound and content.

There are a lot of sources of advice for Skype interviews online. I thought this brief video on Time.com was particularly valuable. The main obstacle to successful Skype interviewing for the novice can be mastering the technology itself. I'm planning to practice getting on to Skype prior to my interview. I will update you as to how the interview went.
Update: The actual Skyping went well but I was unprepared for a question about leaving my previous position that came up because this committee had received an earlier version of my Profile from their Conference office. I had informed them of my change in status but they forgot. Even though it was down to just a few applicants, it was wrong of me to expect the committee members to all remember every little detail about me. Lesson learned. I ultimately did not get the job but that was mostly because their theology tended to be much more conservative than mine. I have had no conflicts with church participants and members whose theology differed from mine, but that has always been in a context of a church with theological diversity so it might be different in a more homogeneous environment.

I blog, therefore I am. If you liked this post and want some food for thought about church ministry, check out http://creativityinchurch.blogspot.com/. If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a new Pastor, check out my professional profile blog at http://dclapsaddle.blogspot.com/.
Like The Wilderness Time on Facebook.