10 Things I Learned in My First Year of Solo Ministry.

I recently read a blog from a colleague who reflected on his first year in ministry. It resonated with me as I have also just completed my first year in solo ministry. My time was a bit different though since I serve two settings and have already been active as a pastor. First, I’ve been an Associate at a large church (First UMC, Fort Collins, CO) and now have two years of service under my belt there. However, my main setting is a new church ministry at Wellington Fellowship, a five year old new church replant. It is a vastly different place than First Church and I have learned much in these first 12 months (complete with many lumps to prove it!). So, I thought I would reflect here and share the 10 things I discovered as a young clergy operating in the crazy world of church planting for the last year:


1) New Church Ministry is amazing. . . .

Honestly, I cannot imagine a more freeing and invigorating place to serve than a new church plant. My other ministry setting is a 150 year old, 1700 member church, which I absolutely love. Yet, there are so many traditions, expectations and social barriers to traverse when doing ministry there that it often becomes frustrating. This is not the case in the new church. Working up here in Wellington, it’s like I have been given a clean slate and free rein to design this ministry with my people. I remember coming in during Easter time last year and asking my leaders, “What traditions does this congregation have? What services do you all do?” They looked at me and said, “uh, we haven’t done anything regular around but Easter so far, what do you think we can do?.” Do you know how exciting it was to hear that? To know I had the chance to help this church build Holy Week traditions from the ground up? It was tremendous! So yes, it is so nice having flexibility to determine the structure of your church instead of amending an old model. But still. . .

2) . . . . it is also a double edged sword.

New church ministry is at the same time the hardest thing I have ever done. Some of that is due to the nature of Wellington , which has had six pastors in its first six years (it’s a long story, trust me). It was a beatdown at times dealing with the conflicts around here while also getting my people reanimated for ministry after all they have been through. In addition, since we are in the Rocky Mountain West we are on the front lines of the great culture change that is sweeping through the United States. There is simply not a church going attitude here in Colorado. Most of my people can only make it to church 1-2 times a month because their schedules are so crazy! Add in the difficulty of evangelizing the young millennials in or town and difficulty retaining leaders, you see the pickle we are in. I do recognize that almost all churches are experiencing this shift. We just see it more clearly here at Wellington since we are so new in the game. 

3) It is hard serving two radically different Church settings!

I love and am so blessed to serve two amazing churches, but overcoming the cultural divide between them is very draining. As I mentioned earlier, First Church is a large congregation, which presents its own dynamics. Yet, it also sits right next to Colorado State University, so almost everyone has a connection to the school. It is very much the “University Church” in this way and I am often the least educated person in the room despite my Master of Divinity degree. As such, the FC congregation thrives on the academic theology. They love having name theologians come to lecture or do complex studies on social issues. It's just the way the Spirit reaches them. The church at Wellington couldn’t be more different than this, as my people there are farmers/ranchers, young families or people who have recently retired to the area. Spiritually, they thrive on tangible action aimed at improving their community. When I have done Bible studies, they end up being lightly attended, but when we do a school supply or food drive for the community, donations pile up everywhere! We even got 100lbs of food donated in 20 minutes before. Lastly , my pastoral role differs in each church. So making the abrupt switch from being the man-in-charge to 4th Banana on staff is taxing. I like doing it, but a lot gets lost in translation particularly at First Church since my focus is always to the north.

4) New Church people are made of solid steel.

You have to be crazy to exist in a world of uncertainty where you don’t know what time worship is going to be, where it is going to be and who is going to be leading it. It is so hard to continue being a church when the world seems like it is always coming down on your shoulders. Yet, that is what my people at Wellington have done over the last 6 years. They are the most determined group of people I have ever met, and have survived occurrences that would have closed lesser congregations. This is a huge strength, so if God can encourage them to take risks again and put themselves out there once more, look out world because God we are going to end up in an awesome place.

5) Church Administration is draining

I am not a numbers person. Not at all. I got a C- in my “Math for Liberal Arts Majors” in College to give you an idea of how bad I am. And yet here I am, trying to help balance a church budget and dole out resources where they will do the most good. My most common thought during all this is that it would have been far better to get an MBA instead of an MDiv. I am also in the spotlight at most meetings; a role I am not used to playing. As an introvert it’s so very tiring, especially when the outcomes don’t go as I would like. Slowly but surely, I am getting better though. Maybe by the time I retire I will know how to handle a P/L statement.

6) It is so rewarding trying to find your Community’s heartbeat

A new church is all about vision; about finding ways to hear the heartbeat of your community and connect what your church is to what you context needs. Discovering this takes a lot of questioning and getting outside of yourself to converse with community officials, local business owners and such. It’s long, hard work, but it is validated the second someone tells you a bit of town news that you already know. At that point, you are tuned in, so you can start figuring out how to relate to what the real issues are for your community.

7) It’s all about Rhythm

Upon being assigned to Wellington, I went from preaching 4-5 times a year to 48+. This required a lot of reorganizing and adapting myself to doing a sermon on top of all the other meetings and activities I do every week. I sacrificed a lot at first, particularly my Sabbath as I was always struggling to finish that week’s message. This angered my wife and strained our relationship somewhat. There was a lot going on with our personal lives too, so at some points I questioned if I could keep this up. What saved me was creating a rhythm of doing certain things in the office at certain times and dedicating an entire day to sermon writing. It has made life so much easier, even though it occasionally gets thrown off by the odd funeral or wedding. 

8) It is so easy to become the Lone Soldier

In the new church, every one of my leaders wears multiple hats. They do so much for our congregation already so it’s hard to ask them to take on more. Plus, it is hard to get younger people into ministry since their lives are so full already! So I tend to take a lot upon myself and soldier through a lot of difficulties. Many of you (especially my clergy colleagues) are probably shaking your heads reading this. It is the classic formula for burnout. When you doing everything and do not giving yourself a break, where else can you go but down in flames? And boy did it almost end up that way. I was so tired by the end of Christmas that it was all I could do to come back to work in 2014. My mentor pastors were not happy with me at all, so they insisted I find time to rest and empower people to help me by telling them what I need. I have been fairly successful for the most part, but I still have trouble getting volunteers. I imagine this is the norm around the denomination, so at least I am on the right track.

9) Experience is the best teacher

Over the last year I have had so many situations pop up at Wellington. Many stem from the church’s chaotic past, so they were well outside anything I had dealt with before. For example, how do you deal with a parishioner who is so mad that she wants to contact your District Superintendent or Bishop? What about that long buried time bomb you discover that has hampered a ministry for years? How do you mediate between mindsets that are diametrically opposed to one another? I have dealt with all of these and learned a lot about myself in the process. Its good, practical knowledge too, but I am ready for a nice period of calm is that’s possible.

10) Amidst the Difficulty, Hope Always Abounds!

This is the main message I have trumpeted to my people time and again. No matter how bad the past has been, with God, there is always hope for the future. Even if everything was lost, if the world itself blew up into a million tiny little pieces, there would still be hope because of God. This means so much to us, because it tells us that the Divine Life has not given up on us and is dreaming up a beautiful future for our church as we speak. All we need to do is discern what that path is and do our best to live into it, knowing that God will serve as our strength, companion and trailblazer on the way. I am committed to this and it is going to work friends, I know it. Moreover, I look forward to the next year and the new lessons it will bring.
Thanks for walking with me.
Bryson

Keep Talking

“Just keep talking”

Sounds like something you would hear in a verbal squabble, doesn’t it? You can almost picture it actually. There is a person on one side making all sorts of empty threats and gestures while the other goads them on, telling them to “Keep Talking” because nothing is likely to happen. I don’t think there are many other social situations you might here this phrase uttered it. Most times, we want the opposite to occur. Someone has been yammering on long enough, so we ask them to be quiet and leave us alone for a while. Yes, urging people to talk is not exactly a popular thing to do in our world, which is why it might sound odd for me to ask you all to “just keep talking” in the months ahead.

Why am I asking this? Well, first of all it's ironic to ask this here being that I only blog about once a month of so. But beyond that, talking is a vital part of our Conversation Initiative that our church is doing this summer in order to prepare ourselves for further visioning in the fall. I have been talking it up for a while now, so I hope that all of you are familiar with it. But for those of you who may be newer to our group (and there are a few!), we have been using a technique called “One-on-One Relational Conversations” to get to know the people around us. It is actually a format that used by Franciscan Monks and Community Organizers in the inner city to promote change. It functions by helping people get to know one another so they build relationships, uncover passions, develop clarity and gather info about what is going on in the community. Essentially, relational conversations are a deeper form of networking; of establishing connections to help utilize the gifts people bring to our community.

So why are we doing this? Our Church Coach, Beth Estock, has asked have these talked to figure out what talents and drives are present here in our church before branching out into the community. They will allow us to discern who we are and what we can do to reach out to Wellington! But they have another outcome that I did not realize until I actually tried one, and that is to ignite hope in our church. As many of you know, we face steep challenges to grow as a congregation. We live in an age of church decline and shrinking cultural relevance, so it has been difficult for us to move forward. This is no more apparent to me than when I look at the facts and figures around our church. They tell me we are stable and solid, but that is not good enough for a new church like us! It is so disheartening to see all that has to be done for us to move. . . until I have a relational conversation with someone in our church. I have had about 4-5 now and each time I come out brimming with hope. The stories I hear are amazing. I learn about what drives our people, how they have dreams for their lives, our church and what they see us doing. I love it because God reaches out in every word we speak and by the end of our chat we know one thing for sure, this church is going to work, and when it does it will be absolutely amazing. These conversations have kept me afloat, my friends. In this difficult world of ministry, your hope is my hope, so “just keep talking” please!

For those of you who haven’t joined in on this, there is always time. I have links to the conversation guidelines in our update emails and there are a few copies on the info table out in the narthex. They are fairly rigid in scope (which is good for socially awkward people like me!) so please adapt them as you see fit.

In closing, I leave you with the words of Proverbs 18:20: Wise words satisfy like a good meal; the right words bring satisfaction. So if you are feeling anxious, if you are unsure about this church and where it is going, have a relational talk with me or someone else. Together, we can gorge on the content of deep relationship and gain a great satisfaction of what God is doing among us.

So again my friends, “Just Keep Talking” because God is in the words.

Always proud to be your Pastor,

Bryson