Marcuson’s Church Leadership Blog:

It’s no secret that many churches and pastors are worried about money nowadays. But Edwin Friedman used to say, “The issue is never the issue.” He meant that issues and problems which are perennial in church life, or the latest hot-button challenge, are really primarily a focus for people’s anxiety. We live in highly anxious times, and there’s a lot of free-floating anxiety around. Somehow we attach it to certain issues. In church life a few are favorites: music, children and youth ministry. And, of course, money. As one pastor said, “There always seems to be an exclamation point when money is involved.”

Of course there are genuine financial challenges that must be faced. Bills must be paid. Staff must receive their salaries. The endowment must be managed. Budgeting must be done (and sometimes cuts must be made). But if we can delete that exclamation point and stay calm even when others are anxious, we’ll provide better leadership and the church will make better decisions about financial matters.

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” Francis Bacon

My husband, Karl, a reference librarian, sometimes brings me home quotes he has come across in his work. This week he gave me this Francis Bacon quote. In church leadership and in pastoral care, sometimes questions are more important than answers. Our need to have the answers sometimes comes out of our own anxiety — we can feel like we are there to solve problems, to help people and to fix things. Asking thoughtful questions can help others find their own resources. It can be tempting to make the questions leading ones: “Don’t you think you should….?” But it’s more helpful to ask open-ended questions, the kind that cause people to pause and stare into the distance and truly reflect on their life, or on the life of the church. I notice when someone asks me a good question, I calm down and can think more clearly.

What’s the proportion of questions to answers in your conversations with folks?

This week we had the chance to visit Olympic National Park for the first time. My friend and colleague, Joey Olson, with her husband, Ole, hosted us for our visit. We drove up from Port Angeles, Washington to Hurricane Ridge, about a half-hour drive. It had been foggy but was supposed to clear off. But the fog didn’t actually lift to reveal the mountains until we were back down the mountain. But as we walked along the trail, Joey said: “If it were sunny, I wouldn’t be noticing all these wildflowers.” We spent as much time looking uphill at the flowers than we did looking at the fog.

We saw all kinds of alpine wildflowers, such as this lupine:

I know I can all too easily focus on what’s not there, what’s lacking, what people aren’t doing. This was a good reminder to focus on what is present.

If you’d like to see the view from Hurricane Ridge right now, click here. What can you see today?

Are you feeling discouraged? Is it hard to see signs of hope? Last week I had the chance to visit another great museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I was delighted to see they had a special exhibition of the abstract painter Mark Rothko. I had enjoyed his paintings at my recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where I was struck by the rich color in his work. I went up the steps to the tower room in the National Gallery — and entered a room with nine black paintings. The museum describes this exhibit as Rothko’s “black on black” paintings, done in 1964. I was disappointed — I wanted to see color. But as I looked more closely, I could see that the work was far more subtle than that. Rothko used not only black, but rich shades of purple and gray. Every painting was different, and beautiful. Here’s an example of one of the works from the museum’s website.

I can see gloom and doom in a situation, or write someone off as hopeless. But if I can take the time to be curious and actually look and listen, I usually find some signs of strength and resourcefulness — and beauty. Where might you take the time to pay closer attention, to look beyond the obvious?

On Writing Well is a classic book on writing by William Zinsser. Jill Kelly, my writing coach, blogged about it last month here. I bought it for myself, and I highly recommend it for every pastor — for everyone, really. I’m about halfway through, and I see how much clutter and lack of clarity there is in my own writing — and I have an idea of how to improve. Clear writing is important for leaders, whether you are writing sermons, newsletter articles, blog posts or e-mails. Zinsser’s book will help you improve your writing and assess the writing of others. He’s also entertaining. The book has been in print for over 30 years, with good reason.

Charles LaFond had some fascinating things to say about money and spirituality in the life of the church in Thursday’s teleconference. He said only half of the financial stewardship task is to raise the money: “It’s also a pastoral ministry with people who are having to deal with money every day.” He suggested that people are longing for the church to speak on this topic. “They know in their gut that spending money on themselves is not the goal. People are in this maelstrom, this storm in which fear and money converge. They are looking for a way to make right their relationships with God and with money.” This struck me — how often do we think of the stewardship campaign as pastoral.

He suggested that talking about the issue of money and how we live our life in relationship to it is an urgent matter, similar to what priests and ministers in London where people had experienced death and destruction in plague and the Great Fire. Preachers had to talk about it, and in the same way, clergy need to address the issue of money. “Our version of plague and fire is money, our greed, and the commercialization of language.” He suggested that in this day, clergy need to “preach boldly about money and possessions.” They also need to be teaching the essentials of the spiritual life such as silence, sabbath and spiritual practice — even beginning by suggesting families light a candle for five minutes in the morning.

And of course, that means that clergy need a spiritual life of their own. He said that in his ministry of spiritual direction at a retreat house for several years, he was struck so often by how exhausted and “un-sabbathed” the clergy were. Now in his conversations with churches before he does stewardship consulting, he first talks with the clergy and key lay leaders about their own spiritual lives.

The Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire has some wonderful stewardship resources on their website. The recording of the teleconference is available. E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com, and I’ll send you the link.

I had the chance to spend the day in Manhattan yesterday, after leading a retreat on Monday-Tuesday for the American Baptist Churches Ministers Council of New Jersey. I was able to go to the Museum of Modern Art for the first time. I found the art moving and inspiring. I was particularly struck by Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy, which is enormous.

Seeing art in person is so much different than looking at images in a book. The colors are so vivid, and you can see the scale of the artist’s vision. It takes courage to keep working and creating, especially when you are an innovative artist like so many of these represented. Van Gogh, Picasso, Jackson Pollock – these and many others faced extreme criticism of their art. I heard someone in the museum say of Pollock, “he just shook paintbrushes at a canvas,” as if there was no creativity involved. You don’t have to like Pollock’s art to admire his hard work and vision. I think creativity involves both.

Join me this Thursday, June 17, at 9 Pacific/10 Mountain/11Central/12 Eastern Time for a one hour conference call conversation with Charles LaFond on the topic, “What Does Prayer Have to Do with Money?”

The Rev. Canon Charles LaFond is Canon for Congregational Life in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. His current ministry combines a decade as a fund raiser and non-profit management executive and a second decade as a priest and monk. Charles comes at stewardship, congregational development and spiritual conversion of life not so much as logistical issues, but rather as pastoral, spiritual and theological issues. Charles’ interest is in calling the Church to a deeper awareness of how much we are loved by God and to a simpler and more aware life in that context.

This is the next of a series of conversations with leaders on money and ministry, the topic of my forthcoming book. 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 hope you can make it Thursday!

Do you look for spiritual support or guidance for your leadership? Whatever your own way, whether it’s private prayer, consulting a spiritual director or mentor, or taking a retreat, make sure you use it when you are leading in the area of money. If we can act on our spiritual principles rather than out of fear and anxiety, we will be able to make different financial decisions. If we seek to be thoughtful and not reactive, we will make different decisions. If we are able, out of spiritual power, to stick to our plan in the face of the reactivity of others, our churches will be healthier and more resilient places.

One pastor decided to go back to a basic daily prayer life at a time of financial crisis in the church. He found that this alone helped him to relate differently to the church finances. He simply went to the worship space every morning and sat there for five minutes. It wasn’t much, he knew, but he had spent so many years grinding away at his ministry, especially the financial and administrative side, without any kind of spiritual support. He intentionally prayed about the church’s finances and asked for the ability to let go. He noticed a small change almost immediately, and over time, he found that he was able to be quite different in church finance meetings. He began by saying, “I’d like us to begin this meeting with a time of prayer.” The hard-headed business people looked at him with a bit of a shock the first time. He made a little joke of it, “I’m the minister, after all; I decided it was my job to make us do this.” They chuckled, and then they went along with it. He found that he was more grounded in those meetings. There were still sharp disagreements. People still looked to him as the savior. But he was more able to let go and realized that the people had to save their own church if it was going to be saved.

Letting go of ultimate responsibility for the financial life of the churches we lead is a deeply spiritual matter. We can’t delegate leadership, but we can delegate anxiety: downward to those we lead and upward to God. That doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do or that we have no responsibilities, of course. But it positions us differently in relationship to the challenges. There’s a time just to go play golf or go to the movies or get ice cream, and simply let go. Then when we come back to work on the challenges of the ministry, including the finances, we’ll be more energetic and resourceful. We’ll be better able to hear the good ideas of others and respond.

Here are some questions to consider as you engage spiritually with money matters, personally and at church:

How have you experienced God’s abundance and provision?
What causes you to be distracted by anxieties about scarcity?
How can you incorporate your money life into your prayer life?
How can you bring your spiritual leadership at church into the area of money?
For whom do you need to pray about money: people in your church who don’t have enough? Or too much?

Helping is not necessarily overfunctioning, but the difference can be difficult to discern. Your child may need help with homework, but doing his or her science project is overfunctioning! My parents are in their late 80s, and my mother has Alzheimer’s. They are still living on their own, in another city. I just spent two days with them. My father has at last agreed to hire someone to help them. They definitely need more help now, and will need even more in the future. I’m struggling with how to be present appropriately with them, respecting the boundaries while being honest about what I see and what I think. I’m working on staying in my role as daughter even when I’m helping them. It is tempting to get parental. Clarifying responsibilities and choices is not easy when anxiety is high. But these challenging moments in life are also great opportunities to learn about ourselves and others.