Today in the Mission Yearbook - Time for more prayer, less talk

Bringing God into church decision making

April 9, 2021

Six months had passed since our elders transitioned to more prayerful session meetings. I was checking in with Vic, one of our crustier members who had resisted the change. “So, how are you dealing with the new meeting style?” I asked.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like this ‘listening for God stuff,” he said. I asked if he wanted to revert to the old way. He replied “no,” but admitted that it was just “really hard to ask what God wants.”

Vic captured the dilemma of most sessions or committees that adapt a more prayerful meeting process. As Presbyterians, we’ve conformed so thoroughly to decision making by motions, debates and votes of “All in favor say ‘yes’” that it feels like we’re violating the natural order by intentionally listening for what God wants, and then voting, “All who sense this may be God’s will, say ‘yes.’”

I first became aware of how necessary intentional group discernment was as an associate pastor. While sitting in a session meeting, a vivid image popped into my head as I realized what we were really saying to God was: “Glad you’re here, God. Please sit while we read to you this psalm and then pray. Afterward, if you don’t mind, feel free to wander around our lovely sanctuary until we call you back to bless what we’ve decided.”

How could we get better at including God? I had already been reflecting on how to create a more prayerful, discerning way of meeting while working on my doctorate in formative spirituality. So, shortly after becoming pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, Pennsylvania — where I served from 1996 to 2017 — I led a task force to intentionally invite God back into our meetings. The seemingly “radical” changes made were transformative. They included:

Extended prayer and study time — For Calvin Presbyterian, this meant 45 minutes spent praying and studying at the start of the meeting.

Discarding busy work — The reading of reports and other busy work that fatigued people during meetings was done away with, giving elders time for prayer, which led to renewed energy.

Silent prayer before voting — Silent prayer prior to voting was encouraged to allow elders to let go of their own thoughts and make room for God’s ways.

A search for unity — When voting, we sought unity. When there was disagreement, we postponed for more prayer, believing God may be leading us to other options.

We also began prioritizing spiritual qualities over skill sets when seeking new leaders. Over time, this helped prayerful discernment become the ethos for the whole church.

There are always arguments against creating prayerful meetings, with the most popular one being that it makes meetings longer. That’s not the case because we let go of time-consuming requirements such as reading reports and minutes. We expected elders to read these ahead of time. Also, this more prayerful, discerning style tended to push elders to a higher standard, so they argued less, collaborated more and made decisions more quickly.

We never truly know what God wants, but my experience is that churches that intentionally invite God into their meetings end up with a subtle but profound spiritual revival.

N. Graham Standish; Executive Director, Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting; Sewickley, Pennsylvania; directing their Caring for Clergy and Congregations program

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Ginger Harris, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Dennis Harrold, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

O God, we are bound to each other, as much in the needs we express as in the work we do. We are your people in vulnerability and in strength; in receiving as well as in giving. Help us to bring our whole selves to all that we do in service to you, and also to the community we share. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - What did we expect?

Expectations can sabotage ourselves and ministry

March 28, 2021

The Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish

Working with pastors of struggling churches, I’ve been increasingly asking them what they expected. How does it differ from what they’re facing? What’s clear is that many are disappointed with their churches for not meeting their expectations. Thus the question arises: Are our expectations realistic?

All pastors come into ministry expecting certain things. We expect that because we’re called by God into ministry, we should be successful. We expect that the churches we serve want to grow. We expect that church members will become passionate about whatever we’re passionate about.

Our seminary training, too, has taught us to have lofty expectations. We’ve been trained to expect our churches to be missional, spiritual, biblical, welcoming and thriving — or at least to respond to our attempts to make them so. We expect to go to a church that’s been declining and struggling for years, and (with a little bit of leadership and tinkering) help them become growing, thriving congregations. Is this realistic or just overly idealistic?

As a therapist I’ve learned to keep my expectations for my clients limited to what is actually possible, rather than on what I may want for them. In other words, I may want my clients to become fully thriving, happy and productive people, yet the best I may be able to do is to help them manage their depression, cope with truly terrible situations and reduce their anxieties to manageable levels.

From the field of spirituality, I’ve learned that joy and gratitude are found in accepting what is and how God is in it, rather than lamenting what isn’t and wondering where God disappeared to. The more we idolize our expectations and obsess about our disappointments over how they’ve failed to meet our expectations, the harder it is to find God’s presence in our ministries.

Recently I’ve been asking the same questions over and over with pastors: Is the problem them or your expectations of them? Are your expectations realistic or overly idealistic?

Throughout my career I’ve been cultivating an approach to ministry that starts with where churches actually are, rather than where I wish they would be. Grounded in my counseling and spiritual direction training, I’ve learned to start with an acceptance of reality in order to focus on what they can do rather than what I would like them to do.

For instance, in mission can they do better or is what they’re doing as good as they can do for right now? If all they can do is raise funds for mission, how do I appreciate and cultivate that while slowly developing small opportunities for hands-on mission — food bank collections, coat drives, Meals-on-Wheels, trash-and-treasure sales and more — that will train them for larger mission later?

I’ve tried to help them feel good about what they are doing, rather than criticizing them either publicly or privately for not doing enough. In the process I’ve slowly helped them become open to other ideas, such as a weekly worship service in a local retirement center.

I’ve lived by a motto, “One small step for the pastor may be too giant a leap for the congregation.” In other words, we often expect them to be more flexible, adaptable, energetic, passionate, insightful and committed than they actually are. When they don’t meet our expectations, we become hurt, disappointed, frustrated and even angry, which starts us down a path of leadership decline. At this point our ministry begins to diminish because we lose our energy and drive for lovingly leading them.

We’re in a period where perhaps 70% to 80% of our churches are in decline. Do we start ministering to churches where they realistically are, or do we start with what we idealistically want them to be despite their long-term decline?

For many pastors, the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them become grounded more in reality since pursuing the idealistic isn’t really possible. It is teaching them to temper their expectations and serve God by doing what’s possible.

The realistic foundation of ministering to a church is to start with loving them as they are, and then encouraging them to take faltering steps forward that by slowly build confidence, hope and possibility.

 Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish, Executive Director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting in Sewickley, Pennsylvania

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
John Glenn, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Thomas Goetz, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Gracious and loving God, encircle all of your Creation with your grace, love and peace that surpasses all understanding. Open our hearts to the ways you are calling us to be the body of Christ beyond the walls of our churches. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Is healing at the core of our congregations?

Jesus’ ministry was about more than preaching and teaching

February 20, 2021

the Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish

As a seminary student I heard a constant refrain from our professors: Jesus came to preach and teach. It was the pretext underlying our whole seminary education as they trained us to preach and teach.

It made sense to me. Isn’t that what pastors do, spending our weeks preparing to preach on Sundays? Isn’t our mandate to offer Bible studies, small groups and classes to nurture faith? We might lead boards and committees and offer pastoral care to those in need and in crisis, but our primary role is to preach and to teach.

Something happened early in my ministry to change my perspective. I was an associate pastor at the time, and a youth group member spoke with me about his recent experience. He prefaced it with, “Graham, do you believe in healing prayer?” I told him that I wasn’t sure. He proceeded to tell me about something amazing that had happened over the previous few weeks. His girlfriend, a champion high school swimmer, was set to race in the state finals. That week she tore her hamstring and her doctor told her it would be impossible to race. She was devastated.

Listening to her despair, he told her that he had been reading in the Bible how Jesus healed someone who couldn’t walk. He said that perhaps they could pray for her healing. They agreed. Not knowing how to actually pray for healing, he improvised. He stretched out his hand, asking Jesus to let it be a channel for healing. He then placed it on her leg as they continued to pray. Nothing happened.

The next morning, though, something did happen. She got up, took a shower, and while drying off realized that all her pain was gone. Her leg had been healed. She ended up competing in the state finals and won.

Over the ensuing months others told me of their healing experiences. It was disorienting. We Presbyterians are rational people who don’t easily succumb to tales of prayer and miraculous healings. So, I decided to learn more about it.

I discovered a remarkable book by John Wilkinson, “The Bible and Healing.” He started by researching healing in the gospels. He found that 25% of the stories in Matthew’s gospel dealt with healing, while in Mark it was 50%, Luke 34%, and John 36%. Further, 75% of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew dealt with healing, 50% in Mark, 66% in Luke and 64% in John.

This completely changed how I saw the church. I was awakening to the fact that Jesus came primarily to heal, and that preaching and teaching were part of that healing. He not only healed people physically, he healed the breach between us and God that formed whenever we turned possessions, law, rituals, traditions, and even beliefs, into false gods.

Subsequent research led me to study the world “salvation,” in both its Latin and Greek origins. When we think of “salvation,” we typically think of it as Jesus rescuing us from sin. There’s more there, though. The Latin root, “salvus” (the root of both “save” and “salve”), as well as the Greek word for it, “sozo,” mean both “to rescue” and “to heal.”

The radical change in my understanding of church was my realization that the healthiest congregations are ones who see themselves as healing communities. The early church saw themselves as places of healing. Why else would James suggest that the sick person call on the elders to pray?

What would it take to transform our congregations into places of healing? I believe it starts with reconceiving everything we do as a church. Do we see ourselves as helping heal the separation most of us experience with God, making it hard to pray, grow and live lives the way God calls us to? Do we see ourselves as helping to heal the pain of living in a divided, dysfunctional nation and world? Do we see ourselves as teaching people how to heal the conflict they experience in their lives? Do we see ourselves as being communities that offer compassionate healing for those with mental issues? Are we prayerful communities where people can find healing love, support and prayers?

Rev. N. Graham Standish, executive director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and director of its Caring for Clergy and Congregations program

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Chelsea De Lisser, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Sheldon Dennis, Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Gracious and loving God, you call us together as the body of Christ to love one another, serve those in need, and proclaim the good news to all. Help us encourage one another as we answer your call in our own congregations and as a denomination, that we may not simply conduct business but spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Hopeful Church - Pastoring in viral times

Are we harried or hopeful?

by N. Graham Standish

I met by video with a pastor the other day who told me how exhausted and overwhelmed ministering during this virus crisis has been. He’s struggled with figuring out what to do with worship and how to deal with new technologies of streaming and recording; with calling members every day (sometimes 10 phone calls in a day); with doing multiple Zoom meetings most evenings; with worrying about giving and how to keep people giving; and with working from home with small children while his wife also works from home. He lamented that the more he did, the more he got “helpful” critiques from church leaders and members to “help” him improve the quality of the videos and streams and his ministry.

I then met with another pastor in a similar sized church who has had the opposite reaction. She talked about how the challenges have been kind of fun. She’s been experimenting with recorded worship videos where she’s used props, toys, her children, videos from YouTube, and more. She streams a morning prayer time for no longer than three minutes each morning, has limited the number of Zoom meetings at night, has set up a home schedule that includes prayer and reading time in the morning and afternoon. She  has also been chatting with other pastors, and limits the number of phone calls she makes each day. She commented how appreciative her congregation has been.

These two pastors really exemplify what I’m noticing among the pastors I’m coaching and doing spiritual direction with throughout this crisis. It seems as though there’s a continuum of pastoral responses to the crisis. 

Those doing well share certain attributes:

• Working on themselves physically, mentally and spiritually — Those doing the best are starting with themselves. They’ve recognized that that they can’t lead others to a healthy faith in times of crisis if they aren’t being healthy themselves. So they’ve emphasized healthy living — making sure they moderately exercise every day, reduce comfort eating and increase healthy eating. They take regular breaks for something different. They spend time in prayer, reading and reflection. And they limit time on the web. No one’s perfect in this. They just work on gradually improving each day. 

• Working on their anxieties — Those doing well also  focused on admitting how anxious they’ve been, and then dealt with it by talking with others, taking time to center and calm, and some have sought video counseling (Samaritan is a resource for that). I’ve suggested to some to create a Meltdown Kit — a box filled with items to help us center when overwhelmed including a sheet with helpful Bible or spiritual quotes, a cross that can be held, a small stuffed animal, or anything else that can help us center and smile.
• Focusing on what’s essential in their role — It’s easy to become burned out by trying to do everything, especially replicating everything we did before the crisis. We can’t. Those doing well are focusing on what’s most essential to their ministry. For me it’s remembering that we are called to be people of hope who point out God’s presence in everything. People are getting enough bad news every day. We need to offer good news. Whatever we do, make sure that’s what comes through in our videos, streaming or writing; what comes through in our phone calls; and what comes through in our meetings. Perhaps take time to write down in a short phrase what’s your essential calling is through this crisis and post it somewhere to remind you.
• Shooting for authenticity rather than excellence — Many pastors I’ve spoken to are frustrated because they think that whatever they do to offer worship has to live up to the standards we’re used to on TV. We live in an age of YouTube where people put out so many low-quality, incredibly viral videos. Nobody’s looking for high quality. They’re looking for authenticity. We don’t have to be incredibly creative (although it can be fun to try). We simply have to be genuine and come across as trustworthy. They’ll forgive you for low production values. And if they don’t …  focus on what’s essential. For a short video I created to help with this, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=S1zAnZReBX4&feature=emb_logo .
• Setting clear boundaries and structures to keep burnout at bay —  It’s so easy to become overextended as we try to do everything. Those doing the best are those who do what they can and let go of the rest. They’ve set intentional structures for their days and weeks. One pastor has set a structure both for the day and the week. She created a new home routine that she set with her family. She has set periods for personal time, family time and church time. She monitors her own energy levels and makes sure she isn’t overextending in any one area. She also has set a clear boundary of my family and me first, and the church second. I said in response, “Yeah, I recognized a long time ago that I can always find another church, but I can’t find another family. And if I do have to find another family it will be 20x worse than finding another church.”
• Adapting by focusing on growing rather than lamenting — Those I’ve seen doing the best generally don’t spend time lamenting how hard it’s been to adapt. They’ve basically seen this crisis as an opportunity to grow. And with that growth is has been an awareness that growth takes time. As one pastor said to me this week, “I know I don’t have to be great. I just have to grow. And I know that as long as this crisis lasts, I’ll be better at the end than I am now.” We need to develop a growth mindset instead of a set Many of us want stability and we have as set mindset. But in times of crisis we have to adapt, and adaptation takes growth.

We’re in a really tough time. The Reformed Church televangelist Robert Schuller often said, “Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.” I’ve never liked that phrase, but I liked its rhyme. So I’ve changed it to, “Challenging times don’t last, but those who rise to the challenge with Christ do.” I hope these have helped you think about how to rise to the challenge.

The Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish, is executive director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and directs their Caring for Clergy and Congregations program. He is the author of seven books on spirituality and congregational transformation, with a new one, “…And the Church Actually Changed” due out in June (www.ngrahamstandish.org).

Today in the Mission Yearbook - The smallest things can make the biggest difference

Thriving churches pay attention to fostering genuine connections

March 14, 2020

The Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish

Over the past two years, I’ve been collecting a list of small things I’ve noticed that struggling pastors and declining churches perhaps don’t pay enough attention to.

See if rethinking these may help you either as a pastor or a church:

Sunday welcome

What always stands out in all the churches I visit is how well they welcome people. Do the greeters seem happy that I’m there, or do they just hand me a bulletin? Do any members notice me when I sit in a pew? How enthusiastically does the pastor greet the congregation?

In a number of churches, the pastor or a church member might read a formal, almost robotic, welcome from the pulpit. Nothing says “I’m glad you’re here” like a monotone, scripted welcome.

Meanwhile, in healthy churches, often the pastor or a member authentically says, “We are so glad you are here this morning. We are so grateful for everyone here. We hope you’ll stay around afterwards for coffee and get to know each other.”

Pastor greeting

As pastors, how well do we greet people, either before or after worship? Are we too busy beforehand to say hi? After worship, when shaking hands, do we enthusiastically greet people?

I visited a church several months ago and watched the pastor do a wonderful job of walking around the sanctuary before worship, placing her hand on the shoulder of members while sharing warm conversations.

After worship she shook hands, said hi to each member by name, and really demonstrated that she cared.

Pastor small talk

Many people who are attracted to ministry are introverts. They love studying theology and other disciplines. They love preaching. They love spending time alone in deeper thinking. The problem for introverts is that they are serving in a field that requires engagement and relationships — that requires extroversion as well.

In essence, pastors need to be ambiverts — people who are comfortable being both introverted and extroverted.

Many pastors hate engaging in small talk because they don’t know what to say. The secret to small talk is simply finding what interests people and listening and sharing. Once we’ve engaged them, the conversation builds a relationship, and that relationship helps them like and trust us.

Responding to emails and texts

This is so simple that it feels almost too simple to say. Still, a huge complaint is that pastors don’t respond quickly (or at all) to texts and emails. I have an eight-hour rule. I have to respond within at least eight hours. Even if I don’t have an answer or need more time, I let them know when I’ll be able to get back to them.

Following through

Too often I hear members complain that a pastor will say, “I’ll be there,” or “I’ll call you,” or “I’ll get back to you,” and she or he doesn’t. I’ve been guilty of this myself way too many times. There are so many legitimate reasons why. But follow through anyway because it builds trust.

Coffee time

I’m amazed at how many churches clear out within 10 minutes of the end of a worship service. In declining churches, the skedaddle happens quickly. Enthusiastically inviting people to stay for coffee after worship is such a simple way to help people build relationships — as long as the pastor lingers for it. Emphasizing it week after week eventually gets people to stay. In congregations where people linger, relationships grow.

Communicating “I like you”

Again, this is so simple, but I’ve talked with members of many churches who think their pastor doesn’t like them. Why? The pastor doesn’t engage with them in a way that says, “I like you.” To me this may be the most important thing a pastor can do, especially in a church where there’s some level of conflict. Often churches go where the leaders go. If the leader doesn’t remind members that they are loved, the church may respond with a lack of love.

Sometimes it is the simplest things, the smallest things, that can have the biggest, most profound impact.

Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish; Executive Director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting. This piece was originally posted in Presbyterians Today’s “Hopeful Church” blog.

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Brunhilda Williams-Curington, Office of the General Assembly
Jeanne Williams, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

I give you thanks with my whole heart and I sing you praise, Holy God. Thank you for blessing us with congregations who gather to serve you. May we rejoice and embrace one another to better serve God’s glorious Kingdom in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hopeful Church - Spiritual experiences in church

A ‘no’ or a ‘yes’?  

by N. Graham Standish

For years, when leading retreats and seminars on spiritually transforming congregations, I’ve often asked a revealing question:

How would we react to someone who told us on a Sunday morning, “Hey, I want to share an amazing experience I had the other day. A few us got together to pray. Suddenly, a wind started blowing through the room, even though the windows were shut. Papers and stuff were blowing all over the room. We looked at each other and noticed a flame flickering over each of our heads. Then we began to speak, and we were all talking and praying in different languages. Isn’t that amazing?!”

How would you respond?

Would we think the person was crazy, dismiss the expeience as a wild dream or assume it was some sort of group hysteria caused psychological illness. Or would we simply look back with a blank stare, muttering, “uh … uh … uh …”. Yet it was this very kind of experience that started the Christian church on Pentecost.

The reality is that we don’t know what to do with unexplainable spiritual experiences. We’re a realistic, rational people. Pentecostals have those kinds of experience, not us. Why don’t we seem to have these kinds of experiences? I’ve had them, although not quite as dramatic.

I had one years ago after preaching about the expeience of God all around us. During the sermon I played a video of the great jazz bassist Victor Wooten’s song, “I Saw God.”  He sang, “I saw God the other day/she looked like you/he looked like me,” as people walked by carrying signs such as “God in me” and the like. I was a little worried some might struggle with the theology of the video, but after praying I sensed that it should be part of my sermon.

After our first worship service, a church member came up to me and said, “Graham, stay here! I have to get something out of my car.” He came back holding a bumper sticker and said to me, “This morning, as I was leaving my house, I kept having a strong sense that I had to go get a bumper sticker sitting in a drawer. It was so strange and so compelling I sat in my car thinking I was crazy. Finally, I went in and got it.”

He continued, “All morning I’ve thought about how weird it was that I felt so compelled to get it. Then I heard your sermon and I knew why.” With that he handed me the bumper sticker and proceeded to tell me that he had gotten it years ago at a Victor Wooten concert. The bumper sticker was a quote using different religious symbols for various letters, saying, “I Saw God the Other Day.” Chills ran down my spine. The coolest thing was that I got to add this story of his experience to the sermon in the following service. The bumper sticker is now one of my most cherished possessions.

What do we do with experiences like this one? Do we encourage people in our churches to have these kinds of experiences? Do we validate them when they happen? Do we encourage people to share them, or do we give off a vibe that says “keep them to yourself”?

Experience matters more than thinking

Most committed churchgoers believe that they are committed Christians because it makes rational sense, but I don’t think that’s true. The reality is that Christianity doesn’t really make logical, rational sense. Think about these deep teachings: God is one and God is three; to be strong we have to be weak; to be rich we have to be poor; to live we have to die; to save our lives we have to lose our lives; faith withers in a garden and blooms in a desert; to be exalted we have to be humble; we’re blessed when we’re poor, mourning, meek; and so much more. These are paradoxes that lead to a deeper spirituality and to deeper experiences. Most people become committed Christians because of their experiences of God. They’ll choose the evidence of experience over the speculation of logic.

What causes people to become committed to a life of faith are experiences of the Creator, Christ, and/or the Holy Spirit. The most vibrant and committed churches of any sect are those that nurture experiences. Their worship services offer dynamic experiences through music, preaching, ritual, community and more that help people connect with the Creator, Christ and the Holy Spirit.

What really ratchets up a sense of congregational commitment is our embrace of spiritual experiences. In my ministry we did a number of things that nurtured and embraced experiences:

• We consistently evaluated our worship service and asked of each element, “Does this lead to a vibrant experience of God?” If not, we changed it. For example, we swapped a traditional responsive call to worship with a Taizé chant and a time of quiet prayer; put more art and color into our sanctuary; offered both projected contemporary songs and traditional hymnal songs; and much more.
• Listened to people’s spiritual experiences and shared them with the congregation. I encouraged people to share with me their experiences, and when appropriate I would share them in my sermons (of course getting permission from them first). Over time we gathered written accounts of people’s experiences, and twice published them as Lenten devotionals. It makes a difference when people know others in the church who are having these experiences.
• Created classes and groups that studied and discussed spiritual experiences. We created small groups around deeply spiritual books, offered a group exploring accounts of near-death experiences, offered several prayer groups including contemplative prayer ones, and invited guest speakers to talk about their experiences.

The key thing to reflect on for our churches is that mainline denominational Christians, and Presbyterians in particular, often don’t know what to do with experiences, especially if they clash with cherished theological beliefs. But vibrant churches are spiritual churches that not only allow for them, they nurture them.

Reflect on your church and ask:  Is it a safe place for people to experience God?

A pastor for 31 years, the Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish, is now executive director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting, where he leads their Caring for Clergy and Congregations Program. He is the author of seven books on spirituality and congregational transformation, with a new one, “…And the Church Actually Changed,” due in Spring 2020. For more information, go to ngrahamstandish.org.