Interview with The Rev. Rebekah Mitchell
Summary:
In this episode of the Ministry Forum Podcast, Ministry Forum Intern Sara Traficante joins Rev. John Borthwick to host a conversation with Rev. Rebekah Mitchell, minister at St. Peter’s in Madoc and a two-time Knox College alum,. Rebekah shares her journey from pandemic burnout to rediscovering her call to ministry through psycho-spiritual therapy. Rebekah reflects on her studies in the MPS program, her practicum experiences in psychotherapy, and how those skills are now shaping her creative, community-oriented ministry. Together, they explore the intersection of spiritual care and mental health, how the church can meaningfully engage its surrounding community, and the importance of adapting ministry in a changing world. Plus, a delightful bonus for baseball fans: Rebekah’s passion for the Toronto Blue Jays!
Quotables:
“We have to do things in the community. We have can't just sit there and hope people are going to fill up. It hasn't been working forever. It's not going to work going into the future. So how do we move out into the community? And what does the community need from us? Because part of the reason people don't show up is because they don't think they need anything from us.” - The Rev. Rebekah Mitchell
“I thought, there are some people who will never darken the door of the church, but might like to talk to a minister, or might like to talk to a spiritual leader. And again, thinking about how I think people who don't go to church feel about the church these days, I was thinking, we need a way that some of the people who love St. Peter's can bring a friend so that they can meet me and find out I'm not at - whatever your bad image of Minister is, that's not what I am, I'm not going to be judging you, I'm not going to be, you know, mad at you that you aren't going to church regularly, or whatever the fear might be. That we could sort of alleviate some of that by just having the same community time.” - The Rev. Rebekah Mitchell
About The Rev. Rebekah Mitchell
Rebekah Mitchell graduated from Knox College with her M. Div. in 2006, and was ordained in early 2007. She served as the solo minister at St. Luke's, Oshawa, as the Associate Minister at St. Andrew's, Brampton, and then as the solo minister at Graceview in Etobicoke. In 2022, Rebekah returned to Knox College to study Psycho-Spiritual Therapy and earned her Masters of Pastoral Studies (MPS) by the Spring of 2024. In October of 2024 Rebekah accepted the call to St. Peter's, Madoc, with a mandate to do some mental health work within the community. She lives just north of Madoc, with her dog, Koski, who attends worship with her and is an emotional support animal. She loves the Blue Jays, lace and cable knitting, the band NEEDTOBREATHE and traveling whenever she can.
Additional Resources:
St. Peter's Madoc Facebook page
Rev. Roaming the Town Facebook Post
Rev. Lynne Donovan and The Andrew, learn more about their ministry here.
Rebekah's practicum was at St. Michael's Homes.
DBT - Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, learn more about it here.
If you've listened to the episode and you want to explore studying at Knox College in our Master of Psychospiritual Studies, here is where to start.
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Transcript
[Intro]
Welcome. Welcome to the Ministry Forum Podcast coming to you from the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College, where we connect, encourage and resource ministry leaders all across Canada as they seek to thrive in their passion to share the gospel. I am your host, the Reverend John Borthwick, Director of the Center and curator of all that is ministryforum.ca. I absolutely love that I get to do what I get to do, and most of all that, I get to share it all with all of you. So thanks for taking the time out of your day to give us a listen. Whether you're a seasoned ministry leader or just beginning your journey, this podcast is made with you in mind.
[John Borthwick]
Welcome to another episode of the Ministry Forum Podcast. We're delighted to have as our special guest this week, the Reverend Rebekah Mitchell, she's the minister at St Peter's in Madoc, and is a trained and licensed and all those credentialed, psychotherapist,
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Actually not yet.
[John Borthwick]
Hold the phone everyone, I've given too much credentials. Rebekah, who are you?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
I am working on becoming registered with the CRPO, and it's just been a little bit hiccup-y. They've just had their portal on hold so, but that is coming very, very soon.
[John Borthwick]
But we're excited. I mean, we, want to say that you it feels like you are already all licensed, because, from those of us who are hanging out with Knox College, you are someone who went to Knox College, not once, but twice, and graduated twice. All the times. And so we are delighted to have you as a Knox alum, a two time Knox alum. Is there a third in our future? Who knows what is going to happen? The other special thing about today's podcast is I'm not going to be interviewing Rebekah. You might hear my voice from time to time, I can't help myself. But Sara Traficanteis going to be interviewing Rebekah as a part of the Ministry Forum Podcast. She is one of our awesome Ministry Forum interns, and we are delighted that when she was thinking about, who could I talk to, who could I interview, we were talking about some unique characters, perhaps in the PCC today, and Rebekah Mitchell's name came up, and you'll maybe find out why, as the this beautiful interview begins, take it away, Sara, it's it's all on you.
[Sara Traficante]
Hi Rebekah, thank you so much for this opportunity to chat with you today here on the podcast. I just wondered if, as we open up today, if you could tell us what you'd like to share about yourself as an introduction.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Sure. Well, I am a two-time Knox grad. I've I went to Knox for my MDiv. hh, 17 years ago, or something, maybe more than that, even now, 17 years since I was ordained. So of course, Knox came before, and have spent many years in congregational ministry, took a little bit of a break from that to return to Knox to do my MPS, which, for those who might not know, because, you know, using letters sometimes just confuses people. It's a Masters of pastoral studies. And I always follow that up by saying, but it's actually a Masters of psycho spiritual therapy, because then people have an idea of what it's actually about, what I was studying. I thought I was out of congregational ministry, and then God had other plans, so I have found myself in in the pastoral charge at St. Peter's Madoc, and excited to be there. And we'll talk about that a bit more. It's an interesting call. It's not your average call. So we'll, we'll talk a little bit of it too.
[Sara Traficante]
That's fantastic. Thank you. I'm really excited to hear about where you're taking your ministry today at St. Peter's, but before we get there, I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about what brought you back to Knox College for the MPS degree. I'm also an MPS student, and so I have some context for what this degree is all about, but I'm always curious about ministers who come back and engage in this kind of psycho spiritual therapy study.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yeah, there's probably not a quick answer to that, and there's a lot of things that went into it, but I would say that really coming out of the two hardest years of the pandemic, I just hit a point of burnout, as many of my colleagues did, and I knew I needed a break. I was leaving a congregation that I had been through the pandemic with, and I just needed to step away from ministry and figure out what next steps were. And as I was sort of contemplating that, I had this interesting intake interview with a psychiatrist who was helping me to get some more mental health resources. And we were chatting away, and, you know, coming to the end of our conversation, or our appointment, and he said, you know, he said, you're very, articulate. Clearly, you've done studies before you understand what studying is about. You know, you can do what I do, and it would take you a couple of years. You could go back to school and you could become a psychotherapist. And he talked a bit, and then as he was talking, he sort of like realized what he was saying. His eyes kind of went live on the video call, and he said, I'm not telling you what to do with your life. I'm not telling you what to do with your life. I'm not, I'm not and I kind of laughed, because I was like, “no, don't, don't apologize for that, that feels like a door just opened” because I was very much stuck. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I knew I was I was leaving ministry, and I had no idea what the next step on the path was, so that very much felt like a Holy Spirit moment for me. He wasn't a religious person, so I didn't, you know, scare him by saying, no, that's just the Holy Spirit making you say that out loud. That's why you had to say that, even though you feel like you shouldn't. So I just sort of let that go, but for me, it was like, wow, yeah, this Holy Spirit moment. And I got off the call with him and started Googling. He said, look up CRPO, and you'll see listed, you know, programs that you can take there that will be accepted by them. And of course, as I did that Knox College was one of them, and so that just kind of made me go, wow, like I could actually do this training. I could do it in a place that is familiar to me, which in a moment, or in a season of feeling very, sort of burned out and stressed out and all of those things, just the familiarity of Knox felt comforting and felt like we're going to be speaking a common language. And then the idea that spirituality would be actually part of the psychotherapy studies was extra - because it just it felt like I was really struggling with the feeling that I had that if I was leaving congregational ministry, I was turning my back on God's call all my life, and that was really upsetting to me. I was crying over that a lot. And when I saw this program, I suddenly went, Oh no, this is just another leaf. This is just like another step on the path and wherever this leads, it's not me turning my back on my faith or on my love of God or even on my church. Even if I was taking some time away from church, it didn't feel like was turning my back on it. So that's kind of how that all happened. So I sent an email to Angela Schmidt and said I'd like to talk and I'd like to hear more about this. And I was considering other schools as well, but after talking to Angela, it for me, it felt very clear that Knox was the place I was going to go. That's kind of a long, long story, but there we go.
[Sara Traficante]
I love that. I love everything about this story. So I'm hearing, you're talking about continuing on with your call and not letting that go, and finding a new way to reorient your call and just this moment of seeing that it could be up even a kind of a homecoming back to Knox College is a beautiful connection, too. So, wow, that's really special. And so just wondering in the MPS program, because I'm there too now, I'm just the especially since you are coming out having an MDiv background, you only had to take maybe half of the courses that I'm taking in the program. But a big part of the MPs is also our practicum experience. And so I'm wondering if you could speak to your psycho spiritual or spiritual care practicum experience and just some of the experiential learning in the program.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the things that made Knox really work for me was that we were coming out of that pandemic, and we were doing a lot of things online. I've had two in person classes in my first semester, and then everything else from then on was online. I live just north of Madoc, it takes three hours to get from my house to Knox College, and that's on a good day, if everything goes right. And so doing in person classes would have been would have meant figuring something else out. And so being able to do stuff online was really important to me. When it came time for my practicum I was offered the opportunity to be with St. Michael's homes in Toronto and in their psychotherapy program. And that could all be accomplished online. It's a placement that they expect everything to be online or on the phone. And so it is a center for addiction recovery, and so you're dealing with people who have housing issues and addiction issues, but they've also expanded their psychotherapy, and they get referrals from other agencies. So I started there, and it was kind of interesting. I had, two clients in sort of the fall semester, and then in the winter semester, I co-facilitated a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Group, a DBT group. So that's both running the group several days a week, and then having one on ones with some of the people in the group. My co-facilitator and I split up the clients, so each had one on one clients through that, and I still kept my two clients through that. So it was, it was really interesting. I loved my experience. My two clients were polar opposites, one who was in a pretty steady life, and one who was in utter chaos. And then the DBT group was a whole nother thing, dealing with some people who have addiction issues, but we also had some - oh, I just lost the word. It's not bipolar - it's borderline personality. I always have to think bipolar first and get that out of my brain, and then I can come up with borderline personality disorder. So, you know, not your mostly steady, mostly fine people who just are dealing with anxiety or depression or, you know, tough season of life because of grief, for that kind of thing. These are people who were, you know, often and continually in crisis, and so that was a whole lot of learning. And it was, it was fascinating. I loved it. I loved my co-facilitator. She was wonderful. I was also glad when the DBT group came to an end just because I was tired bythe end of that. But it's, yeah, it was amazing experience.
[Sara Traficante]
Wow, wow. I can see just the connection between the service and ministry, especially with those populations that are in so much challenge, and economic, different addictions challenges and how the spiritually integrated element of the therapy comes into play there. I don't know if you can speak a little bit more to that, or how that would come in with using DBT. This is always sort of a fascinating exploration for me. How does the spirituality come in?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Well, I think, as you know, in the program, we're taught to focus and follow with our clients, so it's sort of up to them where the spiritual stuff comes in. And I found with my two clients who are not part of the group, they just went there naturally. And one of them, very much opened the door herself. She is quite devout in her spiritual Christian life, and therefore that flowed very easily. And the other was not, not so much about any sort of formal religion, but, did want to talk about God sometimes, so that was really great. Within the DBT group, our spirituality was less obvious. So in the group, it was much more implicit, but we always started with meditation, and there was a lot of grounding and centering and that kind of thing. And being in touch with what the emotion coming up here? What's, what's the thing behind this behavior, which are all spiritual conversations. They're just not explicitly religious conversations. So and you're dealing with people who are just, I mean, anybody who's addicted or has borderline personality disorder or is struggling to have housing is somebody who's got some pretty big wounds and some pretty big vulnerabilities in their life. And so the necessity for compassion and the necessity for that unconditional positive regard is just kind of next level, like you just have to come to these people with compassion, and sometimes it would be easier not to, because you know, out of all of that, comes problematic behaviors, and sometimes you just didn't want to be compassionate. But that was a big part of the learning too. What is the compassionate thing I can do in this moment? And it wasn't always just to be nice, “Nice”. Sometimes it was to set a boundary and say, “No, here's what happened”, “Here's what we need to do to fix it”. And “no, you don't just get to get away with problematic behavior”, especially in group that was really important. And we had several times where somebody sort of blew up and then had to come back and apologize. And as facilitators, we had to, we had to set that norm, and we had to hold them to that hold them to that boundary. But it was really beautiful to see when we held them to those things, that it made the group stronger. It made them as individuals, stronger. The group was incredibly compassionate and incredibly willing to welcome somebody back who said I messed up. So that was a really beautiful thing to see too.
[Sara Traficante]
Wow, that’s beautiful. Did you study DBT at Knox as part of your program, or was it more learning that was in the experiential practicum?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
I would say probably 40% of what I understood about it came from the coursework, but 60% came from actually leading the group. And there's a lot of learning about DBT that happened, cause when you're learning it in coursework, I mean, I did a presentation on DBT, but it's sort of, you know, you're, you're talking about it in this ethereal, not lived experience way, and then all of a sudden you're having lived experience. And a lot of the things you know, the pieces click into place, and you're kind of like, oh yeah, I remember that we talked about what a skills group was in our presentation, but now I'm running a skills group. And so what that actually means, and what it looks like is a big part of what you have to learn about DBT.
[Sara Traficante]
Yes, and I am finding that myself in my own learning, where I've spent all, you know, the time in the theories courses, and now I'm in my first practicum, and suddenly, oh, that's what this is all about.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yeah! You find that a little click that goes, oh, there's where that comes in. Oh, yeah, we did talk about that in class. Yeah. that's why the practicum is so important, right?
[Sara Traficante]
Yeah, absolutely. As you're talking about the group experience, it's kind of tying me back into the connection with congregational ministry, which is really a large group experience, and I just wondered if this would be a good time to switch over to talking about your recent call at St. Peter's, and just, yeah, what drew you back into congregational ministry, after this time, this break into the MPS program?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
So I said, I thought I was done with congregational ministry. I began my program, thinking that, and then as I went through the program, there was just all this confirmation that came to me, and in many different ways, it really came on strong in my second year, which was my practicum year, I was doing my practicum and leading a grief group with a minister, the Reverend Jennifer Cameron in Belleville, and then doing my capstone course. So I only actually had one course that second year, because I'd done some summer courses and things, and I had gotten some credits from my MDiv. So, the thing with the practicum is that you also have the class that goes along with it, where you're talking about all the things that are happening. You're doing some learning in that, but you're also talking about all the things happening in your placement and with your clients. And in that group, there was just so much confirmation for me, even, we would start with a spiritual reflection the day. And every time I did that, everybody would say, yeah, you can tell you're the ordained one here. It was a very kind, loving thing, like it was, it was really lovely. And when I got to the capstone course, which is kind of one of the you know, if you do things in the logical order, it's kind of one of the last courses you do. And what it does is it sort of has you reflect back on your program, especially, there's a final paper that we did where we had a number of different areas to talk about and to look back over our two years of study and or however many years, because some people do it as a part-time program. And as I was doing that, it just, It was one of those, everything sort of clicks into place. And it was like, wait a second, the first time I did a presentation for one of my classes in the MPS. It was Mi-Weon Yang’s worry and anxiety class, and I was presenting on CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, and I was paired up with Matt Vasari, who's an ordained minister now, and when we got through our presentation, he's like, “I can tell you're a preacher because you just speak so naturally, and like, you can just get up in front of people and do this, and it looks so you must be an amazing preacher, because it looks so natural on you”. And writing that paper for Capstone just brought that memory back to me. And then I started thinking through all the things that had happened over the two years, and it was just like, wow, I don't think I'm done with congregational ministry anymore. And especially during not so much in my first fall semester, but in my first winter semester all the way through the rest of the program, I was doing a lot of pulpit supply, some with congregations that I previously knew, some with congregations that were new to me, and again, that was just very confirming. And there were a number of congregations that through all of that I had relationships with, and were vacant and looking, and I was like, I think we have to apply and see what happens. And so I had three churches that I was applying to. I was thinking that I was going to be part-time ministry and part-time psychotherapy. None of the churches was St Peter's. I was actually the interim moderator at St. Peter's and helping them with their search. But I was also preaching there sometimes, because they're 10 minutes from my house. And in the midst of that, there was every first Sunday of the month, we do a birthdays and anniversaries lunch after church, and we celebrate anyone who's having a birthday or an Anniversary in that month, we just have a nice time together. And I happened to be the preacher on rotation for the first Sunday of the month, so I went down to coffee and sandwiches and goodies afterwards, and, you know, at the lunch and sitting at the table with someone in the congregation, and she said to me, we just wish you could apply Rebekah. And I thought about that, like that came back to me for about, like, just consistently, for about three days in a row. So I finally did what I do whenever I have a something that I need to solve in my life, and I called my mom, my father is a retired minister, and my mom is pastor's wife extraordinaire, and I always joke that she's my pastor's wife because I'm not married. I don't have a life partner in any way. And so I call mom when I when I need to talk about stuff. And I called her and I said, you know, somebody said this to me, and what do you think? And in the most typical Barbara Mitchell line ever, she goes, “you know, what? just throw all the balls in the air and let God decide”. And I went, Okay. She said, now you need to call the clerk of session and have a conversation with her about what happens next. So I did that, and we decided that I would resign as the interim moderator, and it would be up to Presbytery to figure out what their next steps were, but I would apply because I had resigned, and would be clear to do that. So I did that, and I was interviewed, and it was a lovely interview. And then the interim moderator was actually Lynn Donovan, who's at St Andrews Pickton and has been there for years and has a very creative ministry there, doing a lot of things with groups within the community, lot of community partnerships. And so, you know, we had sort of talked a bit about this idea of, I don't want to just abandon the two years of study that I've done. I want to still engage in psychotherapy work. And they were looking for a full-time minister. And I was thinking, you know, it's, it's a lovely town, but it's a town of 2000 people. It is not the same thing as a busy city church. So I was kind of thinking like, I don't know how this is going to work out. And Lynn called me and she said, well, they want to talk to you again. And she said, I think every conversation about ministry is a creative conversation these days, because nothing is working as it once did. And so she said, what, I'm asking you to do is to bring a vision to them of what it could look like for you to be their minister and to also engage in mental health work in the community. So I was like, okay, so we had a great conversation about that, and I went away going, I don't know what I'm gonna say to these people. And, again, called mom panicked about it for a while. And then the other thing I do when I have something that I'm trying to figure out is I have a very good friend named Tracy. And so I messaged Tracy and told her about it and said, I don't even know where to begin with coming up with this vision. She said, well, like, maybe make a graph of how your time would work and what that would look like. I kind of went, Yeah, yeah, okay, I can, I can kind of see, like splitting up the timing of tasks might be helpful. So I sat down to come up with this vision. And I thought, Okay, well, the first thing I have to do is get something from scripture, because I need that to be where things start. And so I'm not even sure how I did that. I just know that I remember having that thought, it has to start with scripture. I probably Googled scriptures and sending out, because one of the things we talked about in my first interview was that the church, so much has become about you come here and I don’t think that's the way Jesus wanted it. So of course, I came up with a verse from John that talks about, you know, As the Father has sent me, I'm sending you and, and so that became sort of the first piece of things. And I talked a bit about this idea that, you know, we have to get out of our buildings. We have to do things in the community. We have can't just sit there and hope people are going to fill up. It hasn't been working forever. It's not going to work going into the future. So how do we move out into the community? And what does the community need from us? Because part of the reason people don't show up is because they don't think they need anything from us. So in the midst of that, I came up with the idea that, you know, about 50% of my time would be doing the church stuff, all of the normal preaching, doing the meetings, doing whatever needs to be done for the church. And then the other 50% of my time would be mental health work, and I thought, you know, I'm going to split that into two, 30% being sort of community initiatives, and then 20% of it being like as though the church is sponsoring me to offer pro-bono psychotherapy appointments so that people who can't afford therapy have an opportunity to receive therapy. And so, yeah, so I put that all into a graph and wrote about it and came up with some ideas. Like, you know, we could run a mental health cafe and have that be like a monthly thing that we do where we just do some teaching and some discussion around things that are helpful for mental health. And you know, maybe we can partner with a library in Madoc that does a lot of things within the community. Maybe we could run an eco therapy walking group, again, just getting people out of their houses and together. And it doesn't have to be a religious thing. It can be a, you know, let's just move our bodies and notice the world around us, because we know both of those things are super helpful for mental health. So I sort of listed off all these things and brought it back to the search committee., and God bless them, they went nuts for it. They thought it was amazing. And you know, I was kind of like, again, it's this Holy Spirit moment, because I was just coming up with something, and I didn't even know what I was doing, but they loved it and thought it was such a refreshing thing to have a call not just be about, “I'm gonna preach and bury people who need to be buried and marry people who need to be married”. And one of the people on the committee said, we don't even have anything like that, like that would be a wonderful way for our church to be of use to this community. I feel like I talked for a long time, wow. But I get really excited about it, and then I just can't shut up and talk fast when I'm excited
[Sara Traficante]
Oh I heard every word. It was excellent. I am, yeah, and I'm right there with your excitement, because that the quote that you said from Lynn Donovan, or I think that's where you said that it came from. But every conversation about ministry is a creative conversation. It's right. It's right there with us.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Oh that woman speaks in sound bites like she just comes out with these quotable quotes without even trying. it's lovely. It's great to spend time with her, you just go away going, like, I need to write these things down.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, sorry, yeah. Like Lynn. I've known her for years. And what I really appreciate about Lynn is, is her the story she tells about going to St Andrews and Pickton and basically say, basically putting it out there. This is, this is what I'm willing to do. Are you willing to, join me in this journey that's going to be difficult and full of change, and everything's on the table. And the transformation, like her church, the church that she serves, is now called The Andrew in Picton, it's and they've transformed the building. And very much that outward focus, which I think is beautiful, I think what's fascinating to me these days, in the role that I have now, going to different places, and I saw it in the presbyteries where I served as well, but the congregations I served, the times when the church forgets to ask the question of like that outside question of, what does this community need, what would be helpful to this specific community, we rarely ask those questions. What's mostly about, what do we need and how should we be served? And we sometimes, will tick the boxes and do amazing ministry, and amazing mission, mission to the more obvious things, perhaps, you know, like partnering with food banks and those who are addressing poverty initiatives and homelessness and maybe even sometimes mental health. But it's but I remember talking to a congregation recently, a rural congregation, just a couple of people, and I was saying to them, maybe you need to go like, it's a very small community, so maybe, and you probably know everybody, maybe next time you're having breakfast or you're going to go out for lunch at the local restaurant, maybe you just start asking these questions. You know, what have you heard this community really needs? What's missing here? And is there a way that the church as a thing could be a space to make something like that happen, or support something like that happening? Maybe it's about the space of a church, you know, like, yeah, we have no space for this. And wouldn't it be nice? I was listening to United Church minister who serves up in the Bruce Peninsula. She serves not only United Church, but also, I think it's a Lutheran and United Church cluster kind of ministry. And she said, up in her neck of the woods, they had one of those kind of conversations, and someone said, There's no place. And it sounds strange at this at this time of our lives, in 2025 but it was, you know, the youth have no place to dance in our community. I'm like, this sounds a bit like Footloose, but okay, and they said they had no space like to hold dances or social events. And so one of the churches in that community heard this cry for like space to do this, and they've opened their church up for Friday night dances or socials for the youth of that community with no strings attached, just sort of like, hey, come and use our space. And so I really just want to really celebrate that notion of because actually, what surprised me in what you're telling one of the tracks that I hear people talking about with, how do we use, how do we continue the to lift up that those who graduate from a master of psycho spiritual studies and become eventually, you know, licensed, registered psychotherapists, how, but they also have gifts for congregational kind of ministries. How could this be a combo thing, where a church could carry on in a part time kind of way, and then the psychotherapist of the side of the minister could use that as a revenue generation to support the full-time-ish kind of role. But what I hear you saying, and what I think is even more beautiful, is, oh, my goodness, what if that was embedded into like this pro bono notion of this is the way the church uses the individual with the gifts that they do have to do things even beyond but I still see it as a collaborative thing. Yes, you're going to have the one on one psychotherapeutic sessions, but you're also doing collaborative things with the church community, in the wider community. And I just, I just want to celebrate that. I think it's amazing. Thanks. Thanks for sharing all this. Rebekah, it's beautiful
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Well, and I have to give, like, just huge credit to the session and the search committee at St Peter's, because I can tell you that there were bigger, maybe more, city kind of churches who just couldn't even see the possibility of this. So for them to be like, Yeah, we love this, we think we want to do this and God bless them for taking a risk and for being able to have some creativity within and that openness to maybe it won't be, you know, the way it's always been. Maybe we need to go in a bold new direction. Yeah, I can't say enough good about the people that I get to serve.
[Sara Traficante]
That's amazing. I noticed on your social media too. I've been peeking around your Facebook for St. Peter's. I saw one of the initiatives where you spend time out in the community at coffee shops. I wonder if you could just tell us a bit more about that. It's such a great idea.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
So this came about because I'm not an office hours kind of person. I'm not, you know, I know ministers who do actually really well with office hours, and they find that people drop in and it's, you know, it's meaningful for their community. And I was like, if you stick me in a room alone in a church for however many hours a day, like it's just not going to it's not creative time for me. It's not soul feeding time for me, just no. And so I do, do some office hours, I'm not completely without office hours, but I do office hours once a week, and then to give another option to people, I came up with this idea of doing an out in the community availability. So every Thursday, from 1 to 3pm you can find me somewhere in the community, and we post it on our Facebook page, and we announce it at church, so people know, and it's just a time to like, drop in, have a chat, ask a question, bring a friend, whatever. And really, I wanted to do that because I thought, you know, like there are some people who will never darken the door of the church, but might like to talk to a minister, or might like to talk to a spiritual leader. And again, you know, thinking about how, how I think people who don't go to church feel about the church these days, I was thinking, we need a way that some of the people who love St. Peter's can bring a friend so that they can meet me and find out I'm not at you know, whatever your bad image of Minister is, that's not what I am. I'm not going to be judging you. I'm not going to be, you know, mad at you that you aren't going to church regularly, or whatever the fear might be that we could sort of alleviate some of that by just having the same community time. So I think we're still at a stage where people are getting used to it, but I do. I have had a couple of people drop in and bring a friend, and so that's kind of cool. It's neat to see that happen.
[Sara Traficante]
Yeah, it's very cool. I don't want to go too far back backwards, but I am thinking about just how this kind of ties into those cask conversations that we have in our group time. And so right now, I'm taking this practicum, and you spoke to your practicum before, and I don't know if all the folks who are in the Ministry Forum world, they know about that our practicums, they do involve seven hours a week, of course, time, and it's this opportunity where we can share with each other in an open way about our own spirituality and spiritual practice and how that ties together, and ask clinical questions. Some of those harder conversations pop up in in those in that time together too. Because, you know, it's interfaith spaces, folks who are coming in and out of the church, or you know that everybody's drawn to the MPS from a different direction. And I can just see how having those open conversations in a safe space could tie into a way to bring that out into the community. I don't know, maybe I'm making a big leap here, but I just feel like it could, like I'm seeing that connection of being able to just speak freely in in a safe space, and how you could tie that into your ministry by bringing your ministry out into the world.
[John Borthwick]
If I could jump in. I saw the this when I was in the city of Guelph and minister there, a local community organization had discovered this thing called sidewalk talk. What I love about most of things that happen in the history of humanity, is, rarely is everything new. You know, I had all these innovative ideas, and then I go and do a Google search and go, Oh, someone's already doing that. So, there's this thing called sidewalk talk, and in the city of Guelph this a couple of community people were like, we want to have people who would volunteer to be listeners at sort of community events. And sometimes the more difficult community events. And so I got sort of wind to this, and I said, Sure, I'll volunteer. Even got a t-shirt, and essentially it was a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist, psychologist, somebody, Psych, something in California who decided to from, from their perspective – it wasn’t like a Christian kind of mission thing - but it was kind of the idea of the idea of them being stuck in an office all day, and they thought, you know, I'm gonna take two chairs, I'm gonna put a sign out, I'm gonna sit outside. And it basically says, free listening here todayAnd they ran this whole program free listening. And then it just grew and grew. And there are regional chapters all over the United States of America called sidewalk talk. So we did it in Guelph for a season where we did a little bit of training with folks just around how you listen to people. It was completely free. And so we did it at a local community market. We just set up a few chairs, and then people would come and sort of look and go, Okay, what is this, and then you'd sort of say it's just free listening. We could talk about anything, really, anything. And it's like, yeah, sure. Now in this particular case, I wasn't identifying myself as a minister or anything like that, and and we made it very clear that people were not professional in like, all the volunteers were not professionals. We were just willing to listen to somebody and hold space for somebody. So, you know, I had people talking about, you know, relationships, or the state of the world or whatever, and we just sort of had a listening presence kind of thing. We also did it for in Guelph, they have, like in many other communities, they have, they have a Take Back the Night experience. And so they set up a, you know, some chairs just for people who just needed to unpack or just wanted to have some time to talk. We had one around an Indigenous day. It was, this was before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but there was an Indigenous event. And we again, had some people who are willing to do that. And so, yeah, it's beautiful. I had this vision at one point I left congregational ministry as well. It was on my list to do, but I imagined this kind of idea where I'd go to a pub or a coffee shop, and I would say, like, essentially, Minister free listening, buy me a coffee or buy me a pint, just as a way of stirring that up. And one of our colleagues in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. And do you know Shalini? who's minister at University Community Church? So she has on her laptop, and she hangs out in a University Community. She has on her laptop, “I'm a minister, talk to me”, and it's, it's sort of, and she says this, this creates all sorts, because she's also got like, rainbow stickers and a bunch of stuff on your laptop, but it basically creates those kind of moments where you're putting yourself out in the world as a minister person. And yeah, people have a lot of things they might want to unpack, and it creates some really weird spaces and places. So yeah, check out sidewalk talk. I thought that was really neat how you're doing that. And so great for Madoc, way to go.
[Sara Traficante]
It's amazing. I'm just thinking, if you have any other reflections, just on the church today and and where we're at, and just even in, in light of your creative approach to ministry at St. Peter's. If you have any other reflections for us, on, our church, in our church today, on THE church.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
When I was leaving my congregation that I was leaving in 2022 we'd have a really good ministerial in that part of Etobicoke where I was ministering. And God bless them, they were lovely other ministers of other denominations, and I talked to them about the fact that I was leaving, and they said, well, let's have lunch like let's go out to lunch and celebrate the time we've had together. It was absolutely lovely. And as we were chatting over lunch, the Lutheran minister said, you know, every 500 years, there's some big shake up in Christianity, and we're 500 years out from the Reformation. And if you don't think COVID-19 is that kind of pivotal thing that has shooken up society in general, but also our churches. I don't think you're paying attention, and so I feel like church is at this very unstable. But that sounds negative, and I don't mean it in a negative way, you know? I just feel like our whole world is uncertain and unstable in so many ways today, and that's reflected in our churches, and it could be really upsetting and scary, or it could be an opportunity for us to go, okay, so how do we do things differently? What does the difference look like and for me, part of what is happening with St. Peter's is that they're willing to say, let's try different things. Let's do different things. Because, you know, we are a tiny congregation that it's been here for a million years, and people aren't beating down the door. So what? What can we do that is different than what's always been done and I think that's so necessary for our churches, because I think you know, coming out of COVID-19, just so many things have been impacted by that, and how we are as communities has been impacted like through that. A lot of people got out of people who were actually pretty committed to the church, got out of going to church every week. You know, a lot of churches are doing online streaming of services, and I hear all the time from people who, oh, they just weren't getting out the door quick enough, so they just decided to watch it online later. And so just a lot of things are in flux. I think that we're gonna have to be creative about how we come to ministry, and what that looks like. And it may even be that, churches stop being “Gulp”, stop being churches, and instead become something else, something new. I don't think that will, hurt God's kingdom. I think God will just find a new way to make it happen. So I think, we're in this real time of flux and change in a bigger way than we have been. I mean, I feel like the church has been changing for years and years and years, but then the pandemic happened, and everything just kind of went exponential through that. Then, of course, the years since the pandemic are still like, I said this to my my group that was working during my practicum. I'm like, it just never stopped, right? Like COVID-19 happened, and then George Floyd happened, and then, you know, the war in Ukraine happened, and then the war in Gaza happened. And now we've got Trump 2.0 it's just never stopped, and so, like, the need out there is, I think, just growing in the midst of all of this flux and change and major upsetting world events. I don't know if I answered the question or if I just talked there…
[Sara Traficante]
These are really helpful reflections. It's really great. Yeah, I really appreciate it. I have a closing question for us here, unless John has something else that you'd like to tie in.
[John Borthwick]
There were two things I wanted to sort of touch on. One is a celebration of what you what you sort of started with Rebekah in and it's been kind of a theme on the Ministry Forum Podcast, on a few of our different episodes, just this, this definition of what, what is real, ministry? These kind of questions and commentaries that happen. I mean, even, when I stepped out into this role as director of the Center of lifelong learning at Knox College, I had people who said, so, I guess you're stopping. You're not going to be you're not a minister anymore. And almost with a sense of, like, in some cases disappointment, in some cases, kind of, like, kind of a bit of judgment, I'd say of like, oh yeah, I guess you couldn't hack it. That's too bad. And it's like there are many, many, many different ways of doing ministry, and we've defined it for a good season, that the only way of doing real ministry is when you're a minister in a congregation, because we've got lots of ministers, people who are ordained, who are serving in different roles across the denomination and even in other denominations, for sure, and not to say that you I mean, I think we say this a lot. We say it carefully in certain settings, in the sense of if spirituality or Christianity, or, I guess, whatever flavor of institutional religion you're a part of is a part of your pursuit of becoming a psychotherapist, if it's spiritually integrated psychotherapy, that's a form of ministry as well. Maybe, if I stay in the lane of Christian ministry, it's a form of Christian ministry. In our opening conversation, Sara and I, before you came on, we were talking about how in her practicum, she's kind of feeling, I mean, she's not Jesus, but she's kind of feeling like Jesus in those spaces and places. Holding space, sorry, sorry. Holding space, yeah, you say, you say…
[Sara Traficante]
Yeah, I just did my practicum. I've just been really connecting the dots on the fact that this really is Jesus work. This is the real Jesus work. Yeah, Jesus work, right.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yes, that's, that's what discipleship is. That's what our faith is all about. And I think sometimes we've forgotten that in some ways, or we've embodied it in ways that aren't helpful or aren't enough. You know, we love going to church. We love studying the scriptures. We love Bible study. We love singing our hymns. What is that doing for the person outside our doors? And that's not to say we shouldn't be worshiping that's important for us as our faith develops, but yeah, how are we being hands and feet? What are we doing for the person outside our doors, and especially for the person that we might not even see outside our doors? Because I think that's a big part of it, too. You know, who is the person who's overlooked or just doesn't get noticed? Because that's the person Jesus would go to. So I love that. This is such Jesus work.
[John Borthwick]
Well and generationally, you talked about being from a generational clergy family system. I have a sense that just from how I received people 25 years ago to like over the time of my ministry in places where many had got to a place of, you know, I couldn't possibly do what you do, you're the minister like, even to this. Even to the simple pieces, and maybe they're not simple, but somehow we disconnected them, like the Minister is the professional prayer in the church. Like, I couldn't possibly do hat you do. What if I visited somebody, and what if they wanted me to pray? Well, let's, have a little chat about what that looks like. Or you're not visited unless the church hasn't visited you, because I used to get this line all the time, when is the church going to visit me? It's like, Oh no, that's just code for when is John going to visit me.
But when did we disconnect it from the notion that, you know, we read our gospels, but it seemed like, as I read them, those disciples had the power to heal and to do some pretty amazing things, and yet somehow we disconnected that that only the Jesus or the minister could is the one that has the real magic touch of all those things. And I think in a time when the church is changing a lot and professionalization of clergy is starting to diminish in the sense of how we can afford that and provide for that, and also just the numbers that are out there, we need to find ways of moving it back to no, your prayers are as good as anyone else's prayers, you have maybe gifts for preaching, you have gifts for care and supporting other people and even going out into the community and doing some hands on tangible Jesus work, and getting that in the hands of all the people, as opposed if liturgy is the work of the people, then getting it in the hands of the people is, I think, what we're called to in this in this time that we are in flux.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Absolutely
[John Borthwick]
So, anyways, the other piece I wanted this was on a totally different tack, just for humor sake, I'm aware, Rebekah, I think, because I've seen you on the socials, I think you like the Blue Jays, and you're not just like a you're not just like a Blue Jays fan, like you're not just one of those people who might occasionally watch a Blue Jays game or something…
[Rebekah Mitchell]
There is actually a Blue Jays game on right now. I want you to feel the compliment of, I am not watching the game right now because I'm doing this podcast.
[John Borthwick]
Well, we need to wrap it up quickly, then for your sake. But I'm also aware that you like you're somebody who went to Dunedin recently to spring training, like, super exciting. So I just wondered, just for the all the Blue Jays fans who listened to the Ministry Forum Podcast, what is your prediction for this season of the Blue Jays? How are we doing? I mean, it's only March 10th. It starts up, what the end of March is that opening day?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yeah, the season opens March 27th but I could have that wrong. So I'm loving what I'm seeing in spring training. You know, a lot of Jay's fans are very cranky right now. They don't like the front office. They don't like some of the decisions that have been made with everybody else. I think it's an absolute joke that we haven't signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr, but all that aside, I just feel like there's a really good feeling in in the team right now, and in the players and even in the young guys who are, I call them the the baby Jays. So yesterday I watched the game, and it was an away game, and it so it was mostly the baby Jays, and then I think Daulton Varsho was, like, the one name there, oh, Schneider and Clement were in there at some point too. And they've actually had some experience in the big show, so, but I'm just, I'm loving the energy. I'm feeling like it's good. I don't know how the season is gonna go. I feel like you never know. Like the Yankees two years ago had spent like, this immense amount of money and just went nowhere with it. I don't I just like to dog on the Yankees. So I could be making that up, but I know that every year there's some team that looks perfect on paper, and the wheels just fall off right. So, that's part of what I love about baseball, because you don't know any given day, any given year, how it's gonna go, but I'm excited. So my favorite day is Bo Bichette, my friends and I jokingly, I understand it's a joke, but jokingly refer to him as boyfriend, my boyfriend. So people will text me and say boyfriend, and I'm like boyfriend did, and he seems to be doing really well in spring training this year, which is nice to see, because last year was hard. He had a couple of injuries, and that, even without before the injuries, was just having a not Bo Bichette year. So I'm really excited to for the season to start and see what happens, see how it all unfolds.
[John Borthwick]
Well, knowing your the way in which you enthusiasm, enthusiastically speak about your ministry at St Peter's Madoc, and the ability to integrate to your psychotherapy training in that, and hearing the way in which you speak about the Jays you had mentioned at some point that you want to maybe try your, try your own podcast. I mean, maybe you should do a kind of, I don't know, a blend of the whole thing, like you do a little Jay's talk, and then you move into some ministry stuff, or, how baseball is, some kind of, I don't know, some kind of parallel to Jesus work. I don't know, you got some stuff going on there. Rebekah, some things to ponder. Some ideas.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Yeah, that that's exciting. The thing that I feel like, the thing that makes a good podcast is when people talk about the things they're passionate about and that they love to talk about. So I was joking with a couple of friends about this possibility of a podcast, and we were joking how I could be like a modern day church lady, but then mix that with mental health. And I hadn't thought of baseball being part of that. But hey, maybe I need to find a way to just bring that in as well.
[John Borthwick]
And if you're looking for some other advice, Matthew Brough, one of our ministers in the PCC out of Winnipeg, he's dabbled in a variety of different podcasts, but I also know he has one specifically, I think it's with his sister, that's all about the Winnipeg Jets hockey team. So there you go, you could just have two or three, you know, get it. Get all your energy out on the Jays talk, and then you do another one about ministry mental health. Yeah, just, just dabble. Sara, do you want to wrap us up and sure bring us home.
[Sara Traficante]
Yes, just to close, is there anything you were hoping that we would ask but we haven't yet?
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Let me think about that. I don't think so. I had a thought earlier of I was going to touch on something, and it's gone out of my brain now. So whatever it was, I guess not this time. Yeah, no, I think this has been a great conversation, and I just love that I've I'm going to be leaving this conversation with some extra ideas that I didn't have before. So that's kind of a, you know, it's that reciprocal thing. When you do good things, when you put good things out into the world, it comes back to you. And so I certainly feel that that way about this conversation. So thank you.
[Sara Traficante]
Thank you so much. And honestly, it's just been so wonderful and inspiring to meet you, Rebekah and I thank John so much for the introduction, just to see the many possibilities and directions that the MPS grads can take their ministry work out in the world and finding pathways all over in the church, outside of the church and yeah, thank you very, very much for the time today.
[Rebekah Mitchell]
Thank you. Thank you both.
[John Borthwick]
Thanks for joining us today on the Ministry Forum Podcast. We hope today's episode resonated with you and sparked your curiosity. Remember, you're not alone in your ministry journey. We're at the other end of some form of technology, and our team is committed to working hard to support your ministry every step of the way. If you enjoyed today's episode, tell your friends, your family, your colleagues. Tell Someone, please don't keep us a secret, and of course, please subscribe, rate and leave a review in the places you listen to. Podcasts, Your feedback helps us reach more ministry leaders just like you, and honestly, it reminds us that we're not alone either. And don't forget to follow us on social media at Ministry Forum, on all of our channels, you can visit our website@ministryforum.ca for more resources keeping up with upcoming events and ways to connect with our growing community until next time. May God's strength and courage be yours in all that you do. May you be fearless, not reckless. May you be well in body, mind and spirit, and may you be that peace and.