3 Minute Ministry Mentor

Challenge. Question. Conflict. Change.

How do you practice ministry in a no-win situation?

Eileen Campbell-Reed has noted some themes -  financial, staffing and volunteer challenges. Vocational uncertainty and the need for fresh discernment. Conflicts. Hope and resilience. Big transition.

And there are no easy answers. There is, however, a deep well of wisdom and support to draw upon. Have a listen to this conversation with four mentors who work with new pastors in the Helping Pastors Thrive initiative.  They talk about ways pastors are facing what looks like no-win situations right now - theological conundrums and pandemic pastoring. 

#pastoralimagination #pandemicpastoring #nowinsituations #churchinapandemic #helpingpastorsthrive #theologicaleducation #clergywomen #clergylife 

Collaboration. Listening. Getting around life’s brick walls. Understanding identity. Adapting to new places and situations. Each of these moments are part of the everyday work of ministry.

Recently, Eileen Campbell-Reed sat down with three new pastors to talk about pastoral imagination. It was a wonderful conversation about learnings and how the Pastoral Imagination book and journal can support and inspire the work of ministry.

In addition to being new pastors, Elizabeth Nance-Coker, Carrie Jarrell Tuning and Michael Ramsey are also participants in the Helping Pastors Thrive Initiative. The initiative is funded by the Lilly Endowment and sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.

#HelpingPastorsThrive #pastoralimagination #theologypodcast #newpastors #clergylife #clergywomen #clergyhealth 

Join our conversation with Rev. Alisha Smith Haddock. She is helping us see how multiple factors are impacting the community of North Nashville.

Back in March, Nashville was hit hard by tornados that ripped through Middle Tennessee and destroyed and damaged, houses, churches, businesses and schools. Just a week later, the pandemic was declared and the U.S., including Nashville, entered into a “safer at home” period, slowing the recovery.

North Nashville was hit especially hard. And as Rev. Alisha says, “Our issues didn’t start on March third.” She and other leaders in North Nashville have been working for years, decades, to “right some wrongs for people and a whole community that has been pushed to the margins.” Long before the tornado, the 37208 zip code was “a culturally rich place with tremendous historical significance.” Yet that area of the city has been coping with:

food desert conditions
lack of economic development
predatory lending practices
absentee landlords
police harassment and brutality
high incarceration rates
neighborhood gentrification 

Have a listen to how one faith community is called to collaborate.

#3MMM #pandemicpastoring #pandemicgrief #NorthNashvillestrong #Nashvillestrong #theologypodcast #clergywomenwpodcast #gentrification #37208 

Join us for a conversation about grief rituals. Author Lee Kravitz shares about his exploration, experience, and writing about death and grief.

Lee is a journalist and a former editor-in-chief at Parade Magazine. And he is also author of the memoirs, Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things* and Pilgrim: Risking the Life I Have to Find the Faith I Seek.

Lee talks about his life-long journey to understand death and grief and his participation in his synagogue’s Chevra Kadisha, or holy burial society. #3MMM Host Eileen Campbell-Reed asks Lee two questions to close the interview:
+ How are you living differently because of what you have learned?
+ How are you thinking differently about your morality during this time?

Listen in to hear these responses to inform and inspire your #practiceofministry.   

#griefrituals #pandemicpastoring #unfinishedbusinessbook #pandemicgrief 

Rev. Dr. Beverly Wallace has spent her life caring for grief. 

Many threads of personal experience, research, teaching, and pastoring are woven into her vocation of caring for grief. In this episode, she highlights those threads and how they have shaped her vocation. 

Caring for Grief in a Pandemic

During the present pandemic, Wallace sees the essential and ongoing needs for advocacy and liberation, two of the central purposes of pastoral care. For African Americans this season of isolation, grief and loss also amplifies disparities and inequities. Hear about the rituals we all need, and the questions that Dr. Wallace says we need to be asking in this time of pandemic grief.   

#3MMM #pandemicgrief #pandemicpastoring #liberationandgrief #pastoralcare #griefcare #caringforgrief #womenofcolorandgrief #griefconversations 

“So much of Zen practice is about warm hand to warm hand transmission.” Ian Case, Director of the Brooklyn Zen Center, joins #3MMM Host Eileen Campbell-Reed in this episode of our series on pandemic grief. 

With the “stripping away of ritual and form” members of the Zen Center now meet for Dharma talks (educational teaching), services of meditation, and practice groups in online platforms. Many members are also finding ways to “bring the temple into their own home.”

The community is experiencing some “lovely and surprising” side effects of the move to a virtual community. Listen to our conversation about establishing community intimacy, the importance of community agreements, and coping with community grief.  

#3MMM #pandemicgrief #pandemicpastoring #communitygrief #BrooklynZen #griefconversations