Editor’s note: This week we welcome Rev. Sarah Jackson Shelton as our guest. Sarah helps us think about how to offer genuine appreciation for clergy. A retired Baptist preacher with 44 years of ordained ministry, she now serves as Pastor…
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3MMM | Episode 216: Clergy Appreciation Month
It’s clergy appreciation month and we have some ideas for you to express gratitude to the ministers, pastors, chaplains, and ministry professors in your life. Maybe you In this week’s episode, you will find: 5 questions to ask 4 studies…
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3MMM | Episode 195: Appreciation for Bonnie Miller-McLemore
This week and next I invite you to join me in celebrating two of my senior colleagues, so I’ll be offering appreciation for Bonnie Miller-McLemore and Pamela Cooper-White. Vanderbilt Divinity School marked Bonnie’s retirement on Saturday night along with six…
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3MMM | Episode 169: Clergy Appreciation for a New Era
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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3MMM | Clergy Appreciation Week
This week we are focussing on clergy appreciation! This year has challenged us all. And this seems like a good time to pause and be grateful for our clergy leaders. We are going to spend the week in gratitude for…
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3MMM | Best of 2025 and Anticipating 2026
Best of practice in 2025 This morning, on the fifth day of Christmas, we want to share some of our best from 2025 and anticipate 2026. So we are looking back to what landed most often with our readers last…
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Writing Table Gallery
With more than five years of nurturing community, building habits, and finishing our projects, we are happy to share some fruit of our community’s labors here in the Writing Table Gallery. The following books and projects were writing in part…
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3MMM | Episode 262: Call the Roll
This week we begin a series of conversations with Dr. Charisse Gillett, president of Lexington Theological Seminary. She published a memoir this summer. The book honors both her own young life and also speaks to the lives of young people…
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3MMM | Remembering Craig Dykstra
In early June three significant public figures in theological education died. Each one contributed through teaching and writing to the education of ministers and the doctoral training of seminary professors. They each held up distinct nodes in the ecology of…
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Remembering Kat Baker
Today I am remembering Kat Baker, my friend and fellow doctoral alum from Vanderbilt University. Her obituary reports that Dr. Katharine Haywood Baker, “passed away peacefully at her home on August 28, 2024, following a brief bout of pancreatic cancer.”…
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3MMM | Episode 257: Conflicted Callings
What do you know firsthand about “conflicted callings”? Welcome to Part III of my conversation with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore about her new book Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling. This week we are taking her third chapter about…
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Episode Index | Season Five
Welcome to Season Five! This index will help you link to weekly episodes: blogs, videos, and podcasts all from year five of Three Minute Ministry Mentor. Ten Things That Matter | video | blog Discerning Vocation | video |…
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3MMM | Episode 227: An Introduction
I just returned home after being away most of January. I took a lovely vacation with my daughter and my mother-in-law. We traveled to Hawaii, a beautiful place that I truly love. It was the only state of the United…
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3MMM | Episode 226: Notice, Appreciate, Wonder
Happy New Year’s Eve! This is not a post that will scream about the last minute, or rush you to give, buy, do, support, or show up somewhere. Instead it is a post that looks back a little and forward…
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3MMM | Episode 220: Vocational Reflection Questions
This week I had the joy of interviewing four senior scholars by asking them vocational reflection questions. The occasion was the gathering in San Antonio, Texas of the American Academy of Religion. The AAR program unit “Psychology, Culture, and Religion”…
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3MMM | Episode 218: Appreciating Ministry Volunteers
During this clergy appreciation month, I want to take time for appreciating ministry volunteers. Let’s also give thanks for the volunteer clergy who serve without pay. And offer gratitude for the variety of Christian vocations to which God calls people.…
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3MMM | Episode 217: Vocational Grief
Gratitude is rightly our focus during clergy appreciation month, yet as part of our acknowledgement of clergy today, let’s also attend to the reality of vocational grief. While it can be hard to name and process, and typically remains out…
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3MMM | Episode 196: Appreciating Pamela Cooper-White
Last week I had the joy of appreciating Rev. Dr. Pamela Cooper-White, at her retirement dinner. A wonderful group came together May 4 at Union Theological Seminary to celebrate our friend and colleague. My task and honor was to reflect…
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3MMM | Episode 193: Finding Our Way
Everyone I know is simply trying to find our way. Living in a new world and navigating a new era of ministry. Maybe you’re getting tired of hearing me say this?! But I think it’s important. So I keep saying…
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International Women’s Day 2023
March 8 is International Women’s Day. It is a good day to celebrate women and work. Because, women labor for a better world all around the globe. They work for the good of their children, families, neighborhoods, faith communities, companies,…
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3MMM | Episode 172: Life-Giving Rituals
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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