3 Minute Ministry Mentor

Episode 15: Emotional Intelligence

It’s the first Monday of Lent. How are your Lenten practices going? I am hoping and praying for mercy and grace to lead you along the way this season.

I have three things to share with you today.

First, today’s weekly post is about emotional intelligence. Certainly I have known pastors and ministers who don’t rank very high on their emotional intelligence quotient or EQ. Have you had that experience? In pastors, the effects of lack in emotional intelligence can be missed opportunities, ineffective leadership, or a lackluster pastoral care.

Yet in my observation effective and compassionate ministry is most often marked by significant emotional intelligence… #3MMM.

Episode 14: Contemplative Prayer

Prayer.

What is the connection between the practice of prayer and the practice of ministry?

The responses to this question could fill many pages of many books. (My own responses fill many posts in this blog.)

The connections we make between prayer and ministry also depend on how we understand each practice.

I grew up in a noisy, talkative tradition, where prayer was mostly words and communication with God – in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Jesus. In that same tradition, ministry was something white men called by God did. How they prayed outside of public worship was mostly hidden and unclear to me.

Read More about Episode 14: Contemplative Prayer #3MMM.

Episode 13: Stakes of Ministry

In this week’s episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor, I share a story from my first call in ministry. I have preached about this moment when I missed the point, thinking the call was for someone else. In particular it was an experience when I missed what was at stake when someone called for a pastor. I was looking for someone else, but the phone call came for me. Fortunately that failure to see what was obvious led to other learning when I began to see my mistake.

My sermon “Wisdom at the Crossroads” is published in This is What a Preacher Looks Like.  You can watch the episode here to get the story, but here’s the bottom line: someone called for a pastor, and I didn’t get that it was me. Instead I looked for our senior pastor, missing how I could have responded to the urgency of the moment. Read more about Episode 13 at #3mmm.

Episode 12: Mentoring for Skill

Mentoring for pastoral wisdom or imagination is important and complex work. It may look simple on the surface, but handing on the skills and knowledge of ministry takes time, insight and awareness. Remember there is always more than meets the eye in each ministry moment. Perhaps you are wondering: what should I look for when recruiting a mentor? How can I make the most of my potential mentoring relationships? Read more here about these questions.

Want to see more episodes of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor? You are invited to visit the 3MMM page and get caught up any time! If you want them delivered to your inbox each week, why not sign up today?

Episode 11: Listening

One of my favorite early feminist theologians, Nell Morton, is best known for her idea of “hearing to speech.” She writes about the power of listening deeply and really hearing each other in her book, The Journey is Home.

Morton says, “Hearing of this sort is equivalent to empowerment. We empower one another by hearing the other to speech. We empower the disinherited, the outsider, as we are able to hear them name in their own way their own oppression and suffering. In turn, we are empowered as we can put ourselves in a position to be heard by the disinherited (in this case other women) to speaking our own feeling of being caught and trapped. Hearing in this sense can break through political and social structures and image a new system. A great ear at the heart of the universe – at the heart of our common life — hearing human beings to speech — to our own speech.”

This week’s episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor is about listening. The story comes from two women who went from being mentor and mentee to creating a “circle of sisterhood.” At the heart of that transition was the empowering experience of listening, asking good questions, and building trust. #3MMM

Episode 10: Failing Creatively

There is so much to learn about the practice of ministry in courses like these, that mis-steps, stumbles and even more overt failure are unavoidable. And although failures large and small are inevitable, does not mean they are the end. In fact they can be the beginning of something very important!

This week’s episode of 3MMM turns our attention to how we might fail creatively on the way to learning the complex practice of ministry.

The resource I recommend in this week’s episode comes from author and art curator Sarah Lewis. In one of my favorite books of the last five years, The Rise, she explores how failure is an essential weigh station on the path to discovery, invention, and mastery of any complex, meaningful production.

I hope you will take time this week to do these things: 1) thank a field education professor or supervisor who has helped you along your pathway of learning; 2) consider how to reframe the failures you’ve experienced as creative opportunities for growth and discovery.

Have you missed an episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor lately? You are invited to visit the 3MMM page and get caught up any time!