Marcuson’s Church Leadership Blog:

Ministry is about relationships – no relationships, no ministry. This month my husband, Karl, and I celebrate our 32th wedding anniversary (yikes!). As I reflect on the many things I have learned from our marriage, I see elements that have kept us going that can help church leaders, too.

Humor and fun. Keeping a sense of humor about the quirks and foibles that we each have makes life a lot easier. “There she goes again,” I’m sure he thinks, when I look through the groceries he brought home looking for the one thing he forgot to buy. And when I can laugh at myself as a spouse or as a leader, I am less hooked and more able to think creatively about the challenges at hand. We also do things together we enjoy: talk about books, listen to music, watch movies, and go for walks in the city. Church leaders don’t have to do all our socializing with those we lead, but adding an element of enjoyment and fun helps us connect with our followers, an essential part of leadership.

Recognizing the only person I can change is me. It took me nearly half of those 32 years to start to learn this lesson, and I’m still in the process of learning it. I can’t change any another human being, only my response to them (which automatically changes the relationship, if I can stick to it). This is as true of those we lead as of those we live with. As leaders of churches or of families, when we try to willfully change others, we are doomed to burnout and failure. I find it hard to work on myself, but it is a more productive use of my energy.

Commitment to something larger than ourselves: We both value faith, our children, our extended families, and making a contribution to the world at large. With a larger sense of purpose beyond our own survival and benefit, it is easier to make decisions. Leaders and churches who have a broader perspective in fact do better over time than those who only consider their personal and institutional survival. And of course it’s more satisfying to make a wider contribution.

Lifelong learning. After all these years, I am still learning about the man I married, and I want to keep it that way. I can assume things about him based on my experience which may or may not be fully true. Those assumptions restrict my ability to see him as the complex human being he is. As leaders, we can limit our followers by our assumptions about them. Maintaining curiosity about those we lead (and those who lead us) can help us function better in our own leadership role.

Balancing individuality and togetherness. Things go better when we can give each other space, find room to disagree, and pursue our own separate interests. Yet it is important to spend time together and to maintain our relationship. The right balance is tough to find in every relationship. As leaders, we need appropriate distance from our followers, yet we can’t be too distant or disconnected. Each of us can spend a lifetime working on this challenging balance.

When is it time to push, and when is it time to rest? The New Year is a time when our culture tells us to push on with those new resolutions, but winter is a time our bodies may want to slow down and, if not hibernate, at least sleep more.

For church leaders, Lent and Easter come inexorably, and preparations must be made. Preachers must have something to say on Sunday, and pastoral needs don’t slow down just because it’s winter. Beyond the weekly and yearly cycle, leaders also need to think about the big picture.

However, this winter I suggest you pay some attention to your own body’s rhythms, in addition to the pressures of ministry. If you’re tired, rest. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re full, stop. Remember the words of the psalmist, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” (Ps. 127:2, NRSV) One year I used a devotional guide where I read that verse every day. It was a good reminder that everything was not up to me.

What are your real sleep needs? I’ve always had a low tolerance for sleep deprivation, which for years I viewed as a curse. If only I needed less sleep, I thought. With new research on the importance of sleep for the brain, I’m beginning to think it’s a blessing.

Exhausted leaders don’t make good decisions. They don’t bring their best creative thinking to their work. They get cranky with other people. If you want to do your best work, try resting more. You may find you actually get more done.

Here are some questions to consider:

• How much sleep are you getting?
• What do you do when you get too tired? (Get irritable, indecisive, eat too much…)
• How might you plan your creative or hardest work for the time when you have the most energy?
• How do you think about rest?
• How did your family of origin view rest?

I usually get a laugh from the Reverend Fun cartoons. The latest one is about money.

How well do you listen? I’ve come to realize that I practice selective listening. When I was a pastor, I was pretty good at listening when I visited people in the hospital or had a conversation about a pastoral need. As a coach to pastors, I’ve become quite good indeed.

But I don’t listen well to those closest to me. I had a rude awakening last year when I attended a workshop where one of the homework assignments was to listen to someone at home for five minutes. I told my husband about the assignment, and asked if I could listen to him. Before we started, I confessed, “I don’t listen to you very well.”

“I know,” he said. Moment of truth! For years I have “listened” to him while taking care of tasks around the house. It always seemed like a good time to unload the dishwasher or put away the laundry. In the seven or eight months since that conversation, I’ve been trying to actually listen when he talks to me, without doing anything else. It’s been good for me, and good for our relationship.

In this age of multi-tasking, listening may be an endangered art. I’m not sure it’s possible to listen to someone while you are checking e-mail. This year, I want to continue to try to improve my listening, especially to those I’m closest to.

A second way I don’t always listen well: when I think more about how I’m going to refute what the other person is saying than about what they are actually saying. In a committee or board meeting, it’s easy to think about why the other is wrong and how I’m going to convince them I’m right. This year, I also want to practice better listening in meetings. I want to spend more time listening and less time thinking my own thoughts.

What do you notice about your own listening?

What are your resources? The end of the year and the beginning of the new year are a time when many institutions and families look at what they have financially (or don’t have). We are programmed by our culture, and often by our families, to think we do not have enough. Christians, however, are called to gratitude and celebration. Most of us have plenty to celebrate this New Year’s.

James E. Hughes is an attorney who works with families with significant wealth. You may not consider your family wealthy. Yet Hughes’ suggestions for how families think through their own values could be applied by any family or individual. He suggests that families have three types of capital: human, intellectual, and financial. Human capital is the people in your family (he’s thinking extended family, not just nuclear family). Intellectual capital is the collective knowledge of the family, through life experience and other learning. Of course, financial capital is the family’s tangible resources. So if you think about your family from this perspective, you may see that you have more wealth than you thought! (James E. Hughes, Jr., Family Wealth, p. 17.)

Hughes’ model has helped me to get above the fray of my anxiety about money to see what assets my family has, and what is truly most important to me. And it has helped Karl and me to have conversations about money that are genuinely productive and lead to better decisions. It’s been energizing to think this way about our resources.

Here are some questions to consider as you work on your own personal finances:

How do you make decisions about money?
If you are married, how do your patterns of relating to money differ?
What are your patterns of saving? Spending? Giving?
What resources do you have to help you make decisions? (Denominational resources, fee-based financial advisers, books or periodicals or online resources you like)
If you struggle to make decisions about personal finances, what would be one very small step you could take in January to help yourself?
If you are strong financially, what is the next thing you need to do?
What can you celebrate the most about your family “capital”?

Christmas is a time when you have the opportunity to be in touch with your family. Connecting with family is an opportunity for growth, if you choose to take it that way. If you can manage that family Christmas dinner, it will be a lot easier to handle the church board meeting. Leaders who are able to calmly stay in touch over the years with family are more likely to have calm, effective relationships at church, too.

Christmas is not always conducive to calm connection. Church leaders are exhausted by the time Christmas Day arrives. It’s easy to fall into old patterns. Children are overly excited. Financial stress about holiday spending can increase anxiety.

Here are three suggestions for relating to your family this Christmas:

1. Set some goals for yourself for your time with your family, whether you go to them, they come to you, or they live next door. You might decide to ask your father questions rather than argue with him. Or to talk to Uncle Charlie for at least five minutes. Or make sure to take a break at some time during the visit so you can stay grounded.

If you will only connect by phone this year, set a goal for your call. In some families, making the call is a good goal. Or you might want to stay on the phone longer, or set a time limit for yourself if you (or your mother) tend to go on and on.

If you set specific goals, you’ll be less likely to react automatically. You’ll have more choices as you relate to your family, this Christmas and in the future.

2. Think about what you want from the celebration. Especially if you tend to go along with everyone, think through what you want, and see if you can make some choices to get more of what you want. If you work hard to orchestrate the family gathering, don’t assume that everyone has to do everything together.

3. Stay curious about your family. Rather than rolling your eyes (even internally), see if you can view them like someone else’s family, at least for part of the time. Think of this time as a family research project. Listen to the stories with new ears, even if you’ve heard them a hundred times. What do they tell you, if anything, about that individual’s life hopes and dreams?

This connecting time is not about being a “good daughter” or “dutiful” son/brother/sister. We all learn how to relate to others in the families we grow up in. When you learn more about your family and aren’t as caught up in the family script, you’ll have more options at church. And that will be good news for the New Year.

1. Read something spiritual daily. Find a devotional book, daily lectionary or read a passage of Scripture at a time in your day when you are most alert.

2. Find at least five minutes of silence every day. Sit in your bedroom, your office or the church worship space. If all else fails, turn off the music in your car for five minutes.

3. Give away some extra money: to the church Christmas offering, to the food pantry in your community, to the Salvation Army bell ringer. Cultivate generosity in yourself.

4. Buy yourself a small gift. You need some extra support this month.

5. Move at least a little every day. Your brain needs exercise as well as your body, and you need to keep your wits about you this month.

6. Listen to your favorite Christmas music, sacred or secular.

7. Breathe. Then think about what you need to do next (not the hundred things you still have to do).

8. Remember that you have enough time to do everything God really wants you to do.

9. Ignore the news, mostly. It will still be there in January.

10. Spend at least five minutes every day truly listening to the members of your family, if you have one. Try not to wait until after Christmas to do this.

11. Celebrate. Christmas really is worth it. Make a list of what you are celebrating this year.

Cynthia Maybeck spoke thoughtfully and inspiringly about prayer and money in Thursday’s teleconference. A couple of choice remarks:

I’ve seen churches function is with an assumption of abundance, so that money is energy. I’ve experienced that when the Spirit in the church is alive, the money flows, it just happens. It’s the responsibility of the clergy leader to cast the vision of abundance, to teach it, to model it, to believe in it.

For a church to be really healthy in the assumption of abundance, a church has to be willing to risk failure. That takes a lot of trust in God, not to trust the bank account, not to trust the endowment, but to trust God and be willing to take risks that may or may not bear out well. And yet, paradoxically, it also is important for church leaders to be savvy.

The recording of the teleconference is available. E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com, and I’ll send you the link.

Please join me this Thursday, December 1, at 9 Pacific/10 Mountain/11 Central/12 Eastern Time, for a one hour conference call conversation with Rev. Cynthia Maybeck on money and prayer.

Rev. Cynthia Maybeck currently serves as pastor of Trinity Church in Northborough, MA. With 22 years of pastoral experience serving ecumenically shared ministries, she maintains ordained ministerial standing in the American Baptist Churches, United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Rev. Maybeck studied Bowen theory with Rabbi Edwin Friedman and the Center for Emotional Process in Bethesda, MD. She served on the faculty of the Leadership in Ministry workshops in Boston, teaching the application of family systems theory and emotional process to clergy. An accomplished storyteller, Rev. Maybeck completed basic certification with the Network of Biblical Storytellers and performs as a teller of stories, both sacred and secular, in venues throughout New England.

To join the teleconference, e-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com with your interest, and I’ll send you call-in information. If you can’t make the call, a recording will be available. There is no charge for the teleconference (long-distance charges apply) or the recording.

I have the book 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, by Barbara Ann Kipfer. If I’m having a bad day, I read a page, and it always makes me smile. She includes items like, “brushing the dew from sneakers” (p. 98), “sub shops and fried-clam stands” (p. 179), and “horses in nippy weather.” (p. 393). I recommend it. I don’t have a list of 14,000 things, but here are 14 of mine:

1. Christmas cactus that blooms at Thanksgiving and Easter
2. Sharing a driveway with our great neighbors, Eric and Nancy (We’re having dessert with them for Thanksgiving.)
3. The way my father can talk to anybody
4. Orthodox Christian icons of Jesus
5. My hundred-year-old piano
6. The Bible with my name in gold letters that my grandparents gave me
7. Fall vegetables from the farm stand
8. Inter-library loan
9. The youth at my church
10. Chrysler Imperial rose (Yes, named after the car. Deep red. My mother’s favorite rose.)
11. Art made by friends
12. Cappuccino with a decorative swirl on top
13. Turkey (especially leftover)
14. The hymn “Now Thank We All Our God”

Why don’t you start your own list?