We need to talk about the mental wellbeing of our children and teens. These years of forming identity, re-modeling the brain, and flying further from the nest are already a big challenge. Add three calendar years of isolation, disrupted schedules…
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Leading in loss is one of the great challenges of this moment. Why? The losses are monumental. The leaders are overwhelmed. And grief is rarely easy. Our guest Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School shares wisdom for attending…
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Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is by author Kimberly Knowle-Zeller, one of the co-authors of The Beauty of Motherhood (Morehouse Publishing, March 2023). We honor the gifts and graces of mothering, and the many ways mothering that happens in relationships and…
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Self compassion. Who needs it? Well, all the humans. It is hard, however, to love others when we struggle to love ourselves. This can be reality for many people. Sometimes it is just a season. For others it is an…
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Today, we welcome Sandhya Jha (they/them), to help us in calling on our ancestors. Sandyha is a community organizer, anti-oppression consultant, and ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). They helped First Christian Church of Oakland convert their…
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Often at the Three Minute Ministry Mentor we write and share about integration, but integrating loss and grief is a slightly different topic. This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School about loss…
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What ambiguous losses are you facing right now? I want to speak openly and share a few ambiguous losses that I’m feeling. That is just what I’m asking you to do in this episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor (3MMM).…
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On this weekend of remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we invite you to focus on questions for discernment about your vocation. Dr. King invited people to think deeply and transformatively about their work. About justice. About being part…
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How are you discerning vocation in this new era of ministry? So much has changed about life in the last 33 months. Tonight at dinner we observed that the waitstaff in the restaurant was also bussing all the tables, cleaning…
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Happy New Year! ♥ I hope you enjoyed ringing in the new year… with friends or at a watch night service at your church or in a quiet dream state in your own comfy bed. Wherever you were, may this…
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Endings and Beginnings When I began blogging in 2009, I called the biweekly posts “Keeper of the Fire.” For the next nine years, I continued tending the fires of my life through writing and reflecting. The fires I tended included…
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How is it with your soul today? The last 33 months have been so much. They have taken quite a toll… on life, on church, on everyone who is called to ministry, on our relationships, and our embodied ways of…
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Happy Fourth Birthday, Three Minute Ministry Mentor! We are excited to celebrate and grateful for all the learning and connection over the last four years. In Advent of 2018, we launched 3MMM. It’s a story I’ve told many times and…
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What are the conditions of wellness that make life stable and meaningful? I considered this question over the past week while I attended the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Denver, Colorado. Along with the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL),…
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One of our most important tasks coming out of the last 30 months is to be listening to children. In the recently released #PandemicPastoring Report, I wrote, “teenagers, children and adults everywhere suffered social isolation and profound stress.” The multiple…
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For two months I have been saying daily that we need more space for lament and life-giving rituals as we transition into a new era of ministry. Today I offer three idea buckets to support you in our ongoing work…
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Coming Soon: New Mentoring Opportunities We have been listening to you. And we will continue listening to you. We are grateful for the ways that you are leading, guiding, and supporting many people in your care. We heard your needs…
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This is clergy appreciation month, and we are here this week to help you thank a minister. Who needs thanking? A minister or pastor from your past who helped you to discern a call? Or perhaps your current minister –…
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In Octobers past, I’ve written about Clergy Appreciation Month, and in 2022 we invite you to think about clergy appreciation for a new era. Because I surveyed an interviewed clergy between 2020 and 2022, I have a pretty good idea…
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This week we are celebrating mentoring! And we are also going to celebrate the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) of Central Seminary. I know we are still on the Lenten journey for two more weeks. And I am so grateful for…
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World Communion Sunday created an opportunity for reflection on theologies of communion and community in a new era of ministry. The following is a sermon I preached at Glendale Baptist Church on October 2, 2022. ++++++++ Philippians 4: 1-9 4:1…
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