Mary Frances, Author at The FaithX Project

Jan 14 2021

Thinking Strategically about Your Next Leader

By Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant

This is post #2 of a 3-part series on Strategic Missional Planning

I remember when I was interviewing for my first call. Someone asked me how long I thought I would stay, should I receive the call. My answer was pretty standard, “Typically a first call is in the three-to-seven-year range,” I said. One of the committee members was crestfallen. She said, “I thought you would be here to marry my children!” That was 20 years ago and none of her children are married yet.

We tend to have lots of notions, romantic and other, about who our leaders should be and what we expect of them. But what if, instead of some a set of unclarified, unspoken expectations, we entered into a call process with a clear idea of where we were headed and who we needed to take us there?

Last year I consulted with a congregation doing just that kind of work. They were about to enter the call process; completing all the forms the judicatory sent to them. Yet they wanted to be sure about what they put on those forms and how it would serve them in the future. It turned out this congregation had lots of empty nesters and their child, youth and family ministries were dwindling. And, so as we talked, they sounded like most churches in their situation. “We want more families with kids,” they said. And, I thought, “Doesn’t everyone?”

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Dec 17 2020

New Year, Same Challenges. Follow the Light!

by Mary C. Frances

We couldn’t have imagined we’d still be here last March.

No, we couldn’t have imagined then that we would still be here now but here we are physically distanced, doing drive-through worship, showing up on Zoom, Facebook Live, and YouTube. And, somehow, some way…by the grace of God, it’s working, it’s all working. And it needs to keep working for quite some time.

Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time talking with a public health expert. Someone who lives in the world of exposures and workplace safety. Someone who has no skin in the game except to keep people safe. He said hunker down. The worst is yet to come. We have another 9-12 months ahead of us before we can feel safe gathering in groups indoors. A year?! Another year? We definitely didn’t see that coming last March!

But maybe that news could be freeing. Rather than looking ahead for each corner we need to turn in order to go back to the way things were before, what if we let go of that and just focus on what’s ahead, focus on the new year? What if we dove into the next year with creativity, energy, grace, and adaptability without worrying about being in our buildings? Could this be our best year of ministry yet?

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Oct 22 2020

Advent During Covid: Thinking Ahead

By Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant

Ever since the first Christmas in my first call, I have had the urge to downsize Christmas. The hustle, the bustle, the ever earlier decorating and store sales always feel like too much distraction from the reason for the season. And yet, the Church has, for centuries, had a built-in time of prayer and contemplation to counter the commercialization of Christmas. Advent, started in the middle ages and associated with the second coming of Christ, was more like Lent for Christmas. Fasting, prayer, and silence were hallmarks of this pre-Christmas season. The emphasis of Advent has shifted to a time of preparation for Christmas, a time of holy waiting for the Christ child. We wait to celebrate the birth of Christ; we also wait for all that is yet to come. When we jump past Advent to rush into Christmas, we skip over the invitation to look deep into the darkness of our world, of our lives, before we embrace the light.

It’s okay to admit it, there is a lot of darkness right now. Nothing is alright and nothing is easy. Sending our kids to school is fraught with danger, going to work can put you on the front lines as an essential worker, and to think of going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house for the holidays is just about out of the question. Fights over mask wearing, racial tensions, protests, violence and counter violence. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. We are not alright. So maybe what we really need right now as we look to the holidays is less Christmas and more Advent. We need to take time out to acknowledge the darkness that surrounds us, we need to look deep into the darkness and own our part in it. We need to grieve – the loss of loved ones, the changes in our world, the chaos and the confusion. Not for the first time in our history but definitely for this time in our history, we need space, we need silence, we need time to mourn before we take time to celebrate. What if we didn’t push it all aside for the sake of Christmas but instead we embraced it and reflected on it because of Christmas, because of the reason for the season, because God so loved the world…that he sent his son….for us.

What does it look like to truly practice Advent? Certainly, Advent will look different for each community but here are a few ideas to get you started:

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Sep 24 2020

Public Health Expert on Tap: What’s Ahead for Congregations

by Mary Frances

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed last week and came upon a congregation having a midweek service. The camera angle was from the back of the congregation and the quality wasn’t great but I could still see what was going on. People looked kind of spread out around the space. A few were moving around. I didn’t see anyone wearing a mask but some with their backs to the camera might have been. A worship leader was standing in front of a microphone at the top of the center aisle. She spoke about a song she wanted them to sing during Sunday worship and was going to teach it to them right then, let them practice it. I was so surprised! I felt like I could have been watching a super spreader event in action, somehow complicit by just watching. I quickly moved on.

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Sep 03 2020

Combating Clergy Burnout in a Pandemic

Mary Frances
FaithX Senior Missional Consultant

It’s become a regular refrain lately from my coaching clients: This just isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t recognize ministry anymore. I don’t know how to do ministry anymore. Maybe it’s just no longer my call.

The spring flush of the Covid-19 crisis has turned into the late Summer dog days of ministry. Let’s face it, back in March when we all locked down, no one believed for a minute that we would still be here. According to recent research from the Barna Group,

What Clergy Are Reporting

47%
struggling with ministry to children and youth

44%
struggling with a hybrid model of ministry

46%
facing challenges to maintaining growth and momentum

35%
fear they are nearing personal burnout

90%
concerned that outreach efforts will be disrupted by the pandemic

100%
concerned that fall worship will be disrupted by the pandemic
and that there is nothing they can do about it.

Barna Group (August 2020)

Certainly, this is a time of uncertainty and change. Going back to the way things used to be isn’t really an option. If you are among the 40% of churches open for worship, you know that it doesn’t look or feel the same as it did back in February. The longer this goes on, the harder it is to imagine what the future will hold for congregations, for denominations, for faithful people. It is precisely in this kind of uncertainty that we need to grow our resilience muscles.

I never thought much about resilience in my life until I was preparing for ministry. When I received the results of my required psychological exams, there was a whole section on my high level of resilience. I had sought support during my divorce. I went to counseling when faced with life’s challenges. I had a mentality of picking yourself up by your bootstraps. But, in the years since I received that report, I have, of course, faced other adversities. And in the back of my mind, this little voice reminds me that I have a high level of resilience. And another voice says, “it sure doesn’t feel like it today.”

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