Counting the Costs of “Independence Day” If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:26, CEB) If we want…
Read More3MMM | Episode 73: What are you here to do?
Sometimes the word of the Lord comes. It might be while you’re doing the dishes. It happened that way for Dr. Stephanie Crumpton. It was her first semester teaching at Lancaster Theological Seminary. It was 2014. Her new students were…
Read More3MMM | Episode 72: Caring for Black Girls & Women
“You can’t keep ignoring the particular kind of grief that women and girls carry to the altar each week.” Dr. Stephanie Crumpton Dr. Stephanie Crumpton, McCormick Theological Seminary, joins us again this week to talk about the practice of ministry.…
Read MoreThe World is on Fire | Cultivating Empathy
For men of color, White women, and White men to stand in solidarity with women of color (and for us to stand in solidarity with one another) requires them to adopt an ethic of caring, a position of receptivity, trust,…
Read More3MMM | Episode 71: Self Care in Community
There is something about collecting myself… so I can expect to be collected and depend on the capacity to stop. ~Dr. Stephanie Crumpton In this week’s episode of 3MMM, it is my delight to begin sharing a conversation with my…
Read MoreShifting from Victim to Witness: Doing Our Internal Work
How do we shift the balance of our internal narratives, so that we become witnesses rather than victims of our fear, grief, pain, and trauma? Recently our host, Eileen Campbell-Reed led a webinar for the Wayne Oates Institute: “Working with People in…
Read MoreThe World is on Fire | How will we respond to the movement for Black lives?
The world is on fire. How are we going to respond? In the past week, my attention and all my news and social feeds were riveted to the protests in more than 140 cities in the US and globally, over…
Read More3MMM | Episode 70: Pastoral Questions
Not only has the world turned upside down in this long pandemic season, now it is also in flames. It burns with fires that seek change. It burns with holy calls for justice. Even as the world burns, even as…
Read More3MMM | Episode 69: Caring for Grief
Rev. Dr. Beverly Wallace has spent her life caring for grief. Although she is currently associate pastor of Congregational and Community Care at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Wallace did not start out with any intention of being a…
Read More3MMM | Episode 68: Community Grief
“So much of Zen practice is about warm hand to warm hand transmission.” Ian Case who is the Director of the Brooklyn Zen Center is our guest this week on Three Minute Ministry Mentor. Ian will also be graduating from…
Read More3MMM | Episode 67: Fertility Grief
This week we want to share a wonderful guest blog by my friends and fellow ministers, Erin Robinson Hall and Mary Elizabeth Hill Hanchey. Today marks eight weeks of pandemic life at my house. The pile up of grief is…
Read MorePandemic Pedagogy
Teaching and learning are essential aspects of human development. From parenting to governing, from sports team to PTA, and from ministry to industry, human beings are creatures who can learn and grow from first cry to final breath. How we…
Read More3MMM | Episode 66: Teaching Practice
Teaching. What is important to you about teaching? How has your teaching practice changed over time? How has your pedagogy (designs and plans for teaching) changed in this pandemic season? This week’s episode of 3MMM is especially for everyone who…
Read MoreNew Rituals for Pandemic Grief
We need new rituals for #PandemicGrief. This is our space to gather and collect our best practices for grieving in this season of isolation. Part of the struggle of leaning into joy or beauty — which are desperately needed for…
Read More3MMM | Episode 65: Beauty and Joy
If we talk about joy all the time, are we ignoring the great needs and suffering of the world? ~ Mary Clark Moschella In the season of the Coronavirus Pandemic, this is a very important question. Can we indeed hold…
Read More3MMM | Episode 64: Caring For Joy
Anyone else wake up tired? Easter Monday is a day for taking a big exhale. If you work in and for the church, you just finished the biggest week and high, holy Sunday of the year. You are also carrying…
Read More3MMM | Episode 63: Listening for the Holy
Holy Week Stop. Drop. And Listen. Holy week is upon us. As one of the two most intense weeks of the church year, perhaps you feel tempted. I know I have been. Tempted to make everything as meaningful and wondrous…
Read More3MMM | Mini-Ethnography Resource
Paying attention fully to a ministry setting, requires some practice and skill. Pastoral attention can be learned and cultivated over time. One way to grow in those skills is through the work pastoral ethnography. Professional ethnographers spend many years of…
Read More3MMM | Episode 62: Paying Attention
We are living in a whole new world. In just a matter of weeks everything has changed. Most of us are spending a vast majority of our time “sheltered in place.” We are physically distanced from family and friends. We…
Read MoreResources for Pandemic Pastoring
Are you a minister or chaplain, an activist or congregational pastor? Whatever your role in ministry, you are now living and working in an unprecedented worldwide season of the coronavirus pandemic. And we want to support you as you bring…
Read More3MMM | Episode 61: Pastoral Seeing
Right now millions of people in the U.S and many other countries around the world are sheltering at our homes. We are living in an unprecedented time of global pandemic. As religious leaders, we are also living in an unprecedented…
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