Most conversations I’m having with colleagues these days go something like this.
Me: "How are you?"
Colleague: (shrugs) "Doing ok."
Me: “Yeah?"
Colleague: "I’m proud of the way the congregation has weathered all the last year and a half have thrown at us. (Sighs) But I’m exhausted."
It’s no wonder. We’re enduring a multi-layered pandemic including, but not limited to, a novel coronavirus, systemic racism, economic inequality, and mental health crisis. It has been disruptive and disorienting. It’s torn down veils and forced us to confront painful truths about ourselves and the society we’ve built. It's required massive amounts of creativity, decision-making — usually with not enough time, not enough helpful data, and a million and one strong opinions from everyone.
While it is energizing to see how the church has adapted and changed in ways we maybe never dreamed we could, the actual living out of those changes is tiring.
United Methodist pastor and leader Jenny Smith has suggested that what’s being asked of church leaders right now is that we run a second marathon, having just come to the finish line of the first. We know what we need is rest, water, stretching, and recovery. Instead, we’ve re-opened! Now we are navigating even murkier waters of decision-making as more choices are left to church leadership, rather than being mandated. And we are doing so in the context of general weariness and stunted grief, which you might have noticed, prevents many of us from being our best selves.
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