How can I thank thee?
Let me count the ways!
Coming to the close of Three Minute Ministry Mentor’s first year, I want to pause and offer my personal thanks to our sponsors and partners! It has been a joyous and full year, and I could not have done it without you!
Thanks to Central Seminary and the Formed for Flourishing Grant, which became 3MMM’s first financial sponsor in Year One. Central has been preparing leaders for the practice of ministry for more than 117 years. Thanks for your commitment to women called to ministry, for lifting up spiritual formation alongside biblical and theological information, and for reaching out to be a global citizen.
“Two goals of the Formed for Flourishing program include connecting ministers through mentoring relationships and putting accessible tools in their hands to aid in their practice of ministry. The 3MMM video segments support each of these calls! We are delighted to share the videos in mentoring groups as conversation starters that are both formational and informational, and to offer the video library as a resource for one-to-one mentoring relationships.” – Rev. Dr. Angela Jackson, director Formed for Flourishing, Central Seminary
Thanks to Glendale Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee for opening your doors to the first and final filming sessions of the year. You are the model of open doors and a welcoming spirit. Thanks for being my spiritual home for many years through thick and thin. Thanks for the work you do over decades of consistently nurturing the next generation of pastoral interns affectionately known as Glenterns.
So many thanks to Adelicia Company, Nashville, Tennessee, for your amazing film work, editing, production and general good sense of grace and humor. Ben Saunders and Kyle Jonas understand the vision of this project. They are gifted at their work and patient with me and with our process. I’m so delighted that this partnership will continue in to Year Two of 3MMM! We’ve already been filming in Nashville and San Diego. Excited to see how the second year of conversations with pastors, scholars and mentors will look!
Thanks to Saint John, African Methodist Episcopal, one of Nashville’s leaders in the era of Civil Rights and a servant to their local community in North Nashville. Saint John has been a seed bed of leaders in many professions from medicine and law to ministry and higher education. The day we filmed at St. John’s they regaled us with history and hospitality. What an honor to be in the space built with bricks of the previous church house that stood on Capitol Hill, and was forced to move in the I-40 project of the 1950s. They have endured and thrived in spite of many challenges. Living history!
I am grateful to Helping Pastors Thrive, a new initiative of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, funded by the Lilly Endowment. The vision of this program to surround pastors at many stages of their practice of ministry with resources and support. I am delighted to be walking along with seven new pastors as they anchor their vocations with congregations and seek to become wise and compassionate leaders.
Thanks to Christ Lutheran Church of Nashville, Tennessee for opening up your space for a day of filming 3MMM. Thanks for opening your space to other community partners, more than one congregation, and to artists and jazz musicians.
Thanks to the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project for ten years of gathering the stories of people called to ministry and following with them in the only longitudinal study of ministry in the U.S. It is my privilege and deep honor to interview people called to the practice of ministry and learn alongside them how that work unfolds across time. Thanks to my partners in the study, Chris Scharen and Catrina Ciccone. Thanks to each participant who has graciously shared their stories, insights, foibles and defining moments. What a joyful journey this has been and continues to be!
Thanks to Second Presbyterian Church of Nashville, Tennessee, for providing beautiful space both inside and outside your buildings for us to film episodes of 3MMM. You have been a witness to the city of Nashville for what it means to rise from the ashes and start again. Your love and nurture of people at every age and stage, sexual orientation and gender identity, your care for the earth, and your service to people who are among the neediest in the city … all are so inspiring.
Thank you to St. David’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee. You are a beacon in your neighborhood lifting up the values of community and music, education and the enduring rituals of the church. I am so grateful for a day spent on your campus and in the green space that you steward so lovingly! I am grateful for your pastor who embodies your sense of both the sacred and the silly, what a gift!
Thanks also to Vine Street Christian which provided a warm and inviting shelter on a cold and rainy day in Nashville last winter. I am grateful for your welcome to me and that you are a congregation that welcomes all God’s children. Thanks for inspiring us with your creative partnerships and vision for being the church in a new context of rapidly growing Nashville. Thank you for continuing to make space for people learning the practice of ministry through field education. Grateful!
Toward the end of 3MMM Y1 we also formalized an exciting partnership with Ethics Daily! Starting this fall episodes of 3MMM are featured on the Ethics Daily site on Tuesdays. We are grateful for the ways Ethics Daily is taking on the challenging and demanding issues of our day. Grateful for a partnership to share good work!
And thanks to Adam DJ Brett and Erin Robinson Hall, who help me keep it all running week in and week out. Who keep me laughing and do things beyond my hopes for this project that seeks to inspire and inform the practice of ministry. I could not do this work without them!
And finally my thanks to my family. I could not have launched this project without your love, support, patience, good sense of humor and willingness to live with me just as I am – your wife and mom. <3
