How to Practice A Flourishing Ministry | Duke Clergy & Religion Research Collaborative
The summer is often when I catch up on reading material that I’ve collected… maybe you do too. One resource that I appreciated over the last few months - even just catching the Instagram posts as they released each part was this one from the Duke Clergy & Religion Research Collaborative called - Fully Alive: How to Practice a Flourishing Ministry. I commend this resource to you - it is amazingly aligned with the mission that we, at Ministry Forum, are all about - thriving, healthy, flourishing ministry leaders who feel connected, not isolated, to a community of support as they answer the call to follow Jesus in their life and work.
While it is researched and written from a US United Methodist Clergy perspective, I think anyone who is a ministry leader today (lay to ordained, clergy to psycho-spiritual practitioner, and so on) could glean some excellent insights, questions to ponder, and hopefully practical approaches to paying attention to and cherishing their well-being in ministry.
Love to hear what resonated with you!
What Duke Clergy & Religion Research Collaborative says about Fully Alive
The second-century Church father, Irenaeus, would say a flourishing life is one that abides in God. Throughout the history of the Church, this is how Christians have talked about being well. When we are well, God is delighted, inspired, glorified.
Since 2007, the Duke Clergy Health Initiative has assessed and worked to improve the health and well-being of United Methodist Clergy (UMC) in North Carolina. We know that clergy face challenges to their physical health, such as obesity and high cholesterol. We also know that clergy experience mental distress in the forms of depression, anxiety, and burnout. But a discussion of well-being isn’t complete if we’re only looking at disease.
We want to explore the basics with you of what it actually means to be well – physically, mentally, and spiritually – by highlighting our Fully Alive Resource.
Flourishing is a way of life, really. And better understanding this way of life can help us spot it, cultivate it, and celebrate it – not only in our own lives but in the fully alive leaders we hope to form along the way.
One thing that I discovered late in congregational ministry (through personal experiences of burnout and overwhelm) was the impact that secondary traumatic stress had on me - and has on ministry leaders and many who are in the helping professions. It sent me on a journey of learning that was greatly informed by my work with First Responders for a season of ministry. All of which dramatically changed the trajectory of my personal life and ministry for the better. As ministry leaders, we take on a significant amount of other people’s stuff. If we don’t pay attention to this truth, over time it can seriously impact our own well-being. What I’ve come to understand is that my own thriving in ministry is tied to understanding the ways in which trauma impacts others and seeps into my own experiences.
Sometimes the key to unlocking better understanding for ourselves is by learning more about how trauma turns up in the lives of the people to whom we serve.
That is why I’m so excited that through some ‘repurposed’ funding from the Lilly Foundation (related to our Listening Sessions that we held earlier this year to inform our application to Lilly that we hope to hear about in the Fall!), we are hosting an AMAZING upcoming webinar offered by TEND Academy, a Canadian Women Owned organization committed to developing evidence-informed training and resources to support people working in complex and trauma-exposed environments. This highly sought-after professional development opportunity is our gift to the Ministry Forum Community and friends—completely free.
Join me and our presenter, Marlene O’Neill Laberge, MSW - Specialist in Organizational Health and High-Stress, Trauma-Exposed Work for Trauma-Informed Practice: Fundamental Concepts for Complex Workplaces on Wednesday July 16 from 1 - 3PM EDT.