Everyone in the church wants to be “fruitful.”  

Sometimes this is code for what my Scottish pastor friend calls “butts and bucks” – rear ends in pews and a bountiful offering plate. While some good things grew from the church growth movement, weeds sprang up as well. One of the most tenacious tendencies that took root was the habit of equating attendance numbers with ministerial success. 

Plenty of ink has been spilled critiquing the downsides of the church growth movement and positing alternative ministerial models and visions for the future. 

The danger of fruitfulness and the danger of the church growth movement are two different things, however, if you’re not equating them in the first place. Models aside, how do you handle sudden fruitfulness? How do you handle a surge of involvement, engagement, and growth? Maybe you’ve worked and labored in the shadows for long, tedious months and years, to stumble into a situation where you’re unprepared for what feels like a Niagara Falls of ping pong balls you’re attempting to catch in a laundry basket. 

The disciples encountered that after a long, weary night of pointless (profitless) fishing. They had used all their skills, experience, and materials to do what they did best: go fishing. And sometimes even seasoned practitioners haul up empty nets. Sometimes you faithfully practice what you know you need to do, and there is no immediate, tangible result. You question if your investment of time was wasted, you recalculate what resources you have on hand to get through the day, to feed yourself and others. You check your best sources of the most recent data on where the fish are biting, what weather looks like. In short, you do your best, and best yields dripping water from an empty net.  

And then, Jesus. And somehow, around your well-earned experience and knowledge of the waters and migration patterns, around irritated, sullen fatigue, around your personal hunger, for seemingly no reason, Jesus comes. And Jesus says something counterintuitive to everything you’ve known and witnessed and accumulated over the years. But when you choose to follow, the nets lurch, sway, and fill, so heavy that they begin to break, so heavy you have to call in backup, so heavy that the haul itself becomes a problem as boats groan and equipment fails. 

No expert was able to forecast it, just like no Ted Talk speaker could’ve predicted the moment the Holy Spirit would whoosh through the upper room where over a hundred women and men were crowded in prayer, wondering if today would be the day, or if they would come back, again, tomorrow on a seeming fool’s errand.  How do you respond when – from your perspective – all of a sudden, the floodgates open? 

First, rapid growth sometimes needs reshaped and redirected. Organic fruitfulness will fill whatever space it can find, and with limited time and resources, you may not see the crooked shape it’s taking that you need to redirect early, before it becomes a problem. 

This past spring I planted seedlings in a garden, the first time I’d successfully grown tomato plants from seeds (often, you buy small plants in a package from a greenhouse or box store). I didn’t expect the seeds to germinate overly successfully. I didn’t expect the seedlings to harden off successfully, anticipating some loss when they moved from their cushy indoor lives to the outdoor elements. I had healthy expectations. 

But they survived. Even after being absent for ten days in their early lives, leaving them unwatered. Now, twenty plants had sprawled over the garden area, and their day to day growth was so sudden that branches hadn’t been caught in metal tomato cages. They sprawled, tangled together, growing outward.  

The organic growth followed whatever path it found, meaning that branches of the plant itself, while thriving, took crooked, awkward shape. This only became apparent during the process of driving stakes next to the thick green stalks to stake up the sprawling growth.  

Intercepting the branches to stake them, reshaping their direction and form, prevented loss. Branches against the ground were more apt to be yellowed, overly moist; sometimes they blocked the view of bunches of young green tomatoes that could’ve been exposed to too much damp and not enough sunlight. 

In the midst of facing twenty tomato plants creating a three-foot-tall jungle, stopping to take stock and assess the shape of the growth was vital to intervene in a shape of growth that would be additionally problematic later. It’s not a time to micromanage, but it is a time to glance at the big picture and identify potential trouble spots and retrain the growth to expand in the direction you’re aiming for.  

If your growth is taking a shape that could be unhealthy, go ahead and go to the trouble of redirecting as early as possible, because the cost could be more than tomatoes exposed to slugs or wet soil, it could be souls who begin to grow and then get choked out. 

Second, be ruthless in your pursuit to grow good fruit, not just lots of fruit. The idea of pruning is nothing new, but it feels odd to snap off smaller branches on a tomato plant so that those nutrients will go to tomatoes and not lots and lots of green leaves. 

But not every new member-initiated ministry is the best use of resources, is it? If seemingly spontaneous growth explodes, it can tend to go off in all directions, and that isn’t always as good of a thing as it seems. You don’t want activity for activity’s sake, or growth for growth’s sake.  

You want a healthy plant, a healthy garden, and good fruit that will last beyond hype and frenzy. 

Third, if you find yourself in a growing boom, prepare for a harvest that will tax your resources and creativity. I see what’s growing on the twenty tomato plants outside. And I really don’t want any loss or waste. So I’m researching canning, freezing, and storing. I’m researching recipes and methods. I know I’ll have to carve some extra, flexible time for the days when everything’s coming up tomatoes. I don’t want to miss the opportunity. I want to reach for a jar of marinara sauce when it’s five degrees and snowy and smile at the July sun that’s bottled up inside it. 

And you want to see a person who’s been planted and watered and is flourishing and growing and who, months and years down the road, is continuing to bear witness to the season when they came to Christ. The long-term effects of the harvest will bring joy and beauty in unexpected ways when subzero wind is howling, as it inevitably does in seasons of ministry and life. 

I don’t know if you’re in a season of plodding, laboring, or attempting to catch the harvest. Sometimes it seems more manure than miracle. 

But if, on the off-chance, Jesus has upended your wisdom, keep these things in mind as your nets strain, as your plants hang heavy, and be thankful. 

P.S. – and pray. The other day I found something bubbling up out of my heart. I was praying for the people who would end up eating some of the extra tomatoes growing on my vines. I was praying for whomever would end up with a jar of homemade marinara sauce at Christmas. I was praying…for my tomatoes. For them to give good nutrients to growing bodies. 

Sometimes one of the best things you can do in ministry is to plant a physical garden, not just a spiritual one. We all need to see results of our labor. 

I recently participated in an online roundtable about multiethnic women in ministry. Most of the women were connected to the Wesleyan Church, of which I am a member.

The conversation reminded me that I am not alone on the journey, and that while strides have been made, there are still many miles to go. Many of the women who shared their stories have parallels to my story. I could relate to the joys — and struggles — of saying yes to God’s call but hearing “no” when it came to fulfilling it. In the end, the focus was really on women in ministry.

Here are my three main takeaways:

*God is inclusive — God doesn’t exclude women from ministry. The identity of women called to ministry is not found in the people we are called to serve, but in the God who called us. “No” from people does not negate your “yes” or God’s call. Limits that people try to put on women do not change the identity God has given them as ministers of the Gospel. No matter what people do to limit her, God will continue to bring her back to her identity in him and provide opportunities for ministry.

*Not everybody has the same excitement about women in ministry, but we are slowly inching that way. While the rhetoric and the reality are at different levels in the church, some leaders and congregations have acknowledged that God does call women. They welcome women to join with them, not because of their gender, but because they are called — period. However, there still seems to be a disconnect — most notably among congregations and local boards of administration.

*Many women find joy in discovering their place to work and serve. When a woman is affirmed by a congregation and those she works with on every level of ministry, it allows her to thrive. That affirmation is rooted in genuine friendships where the gifts and skills with which God has equipped each woman are acknowledged and appreciated. Some women work alone; others work alongside their spouses, but all are trying to get to the place where they fit so they can thrive.

Sometimes it is a struggle to find a place to belong. And for a woman of color, there are unique challenges because of her skin color.

My journey has been a long one. I have heard “no” more than “yes” and faced rejection for jobs that I was more than qualified for. Most times, there are no replies to my applications or inquiries. I have also faced a backlash when I have talked about my journey — and had to learn that some people don’t like you to talk publicly about the less flattering things that have happened.  However, you can’t see what is in the dark unless you shed light on it and you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.  One pastoral position I applied for yielded a call from a board member who asked me if I knew I was a black woman.  “We aren’t looking for a woman, and certainly not a black woman,” the caller said. I am not sure how I was supposed to know that, especially since that information wasn’t in the job announcement.

These days, I serve as a volunteer assistant pastor at a church where I am welcomed and affirmed. I have a pastor who is not threatened by me and recognizes that I have gifts that are important to the Body of Christ. I am called to full-time vocational ministry and I hope that door will open.

What I pray for my sisters as we work together in different places towards acceptance,  affirmation and a place to belong, is that each of us will find people to keep us encouraged. I pray that each of us will find churches willing to take a chance. I pray that each of us will find leaders who push back against the status quo.

I also pray that God will continue to give us courage as we live into the calling God has placed on our lives. 

Now that the heat sparked from the light shed on Vice President Mike Pence’s personal rules of not attending cocktail parties without his wife and of not dining alone with women has dwindled, let’s take a few moments to reflect more evenly on the practice of personal rules and boundaries in opposite-sex professional relationships in the pastoral context. I do not presume to speak to fields other than pastoral ministry and Christian leadership, nor do I presume to offer a rule for all people. Rather, I want to help pastors and Christian leaders understand some of the framework for developing their own rules. While the issue of professional boundaries is not limited to opposite-sex relationships, this article most clearly addresses that context.

Let me start with a story. When I was about 10 years old, a neighbor paid to have a small parcel of land surveyed in order to build on it. Little did I know that land surveys cost more money than I could earn in an afternoon of grass cutting; all I knew was that those little sticks poking out of the ground at various points hampered playing football in the open lot next to my home. So, up the stakes came, removed from the field of play before each game. We did our best to put the stakes back in the right spots, but who could really tell if we did? And who cared? We had a sense of where the property started and stopped.

There are different stakeholders when it comes to boundaries. My friends and I had a stake in not being impaled by inconvenient objects when running, diving, and jumping as we pursued professional football dreams. Being impaled could hurt your draft status! The property owner had a stake in having clear markers of the land that belonged to him. To put it playfully, we both had stakes in the stakes. The same is true in boundaries in professional relationships between opposite sexes in Christian leadership and pastoral ministry. The boundaries that are set up have implications for different people. Different parties have different stakes in the stakes. Thus, boundaries are not—and cannot—be individual constructs. They are formed in relationship and these relationships will often plant stakes that are in tension with each other. Without being aware of the stakeholders, we do a disservice to a few people that we ought to be honoring. In ministry settings, I’ve identified four stakeholders—four people who ought to help determine where the boundaries get drawn. These are four people with stakes in the stakes.

1. The pastor/leader has a stake in the stakes.

   Whether a woman or man, the leader is a stakeholder in professional boundaries. She or he has an internal compass, a sense of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, wise and foolish. Their stake is set by their own tradition, foibles, weaknesses, experiences, narratives, and opinions. A person in spiritual leadership cannot disregard their own sense of propriety or conviction when creating boundaries with the opposite sex, so they must consider their own self when setting boundaries. Recognize, then, that you have a stake in your boundaries.

2. The spouse of the pastor/leader has a stake in the stakes.

   No less than the conviction of the pastor/leader, the conviction of the spouse must be considered. In Christ, there is mutual submission between wives and husbands so the convictions of the spouse matter. The pastor/leader must factor how his or her spouse feels—not just thinks, but feels—in setting boundaries in professional relationships. In unhealthy relationships, one spouse, either the one setting boundaries or the one sharing their own convictions, can call all the shots, always using their veto. Of course, this is not the goal of healthy relationships. Rather than mutual submission, this is a kind of domination. Instead, mutually submissive relationships will seek to factor both convictions in pursuit of practical wisdom in boundaries in professional relationships. Recognize that your spouse has a stake in your boundaries.

3. The professional colleague has a stake in the stakes.  

   This stakeholder is becoming more and more visible. And they must remain a prominent stakeholder because their interests matter. The boundaries that the leader draws have real implications for the people they impact. Boundaries are useful only inasmuch as they mark someone or something “in” and someone or something “out.” The leader/pastor’s boundaries will do just the same. And they will not always do so fairly. When men in leadership only meet alone with men, then key decisions are skewed with a set of values that might not represent both sexes. If the pastor/leader has a rule not to meet with the opposite sex privately, but is not aware that private meetings with the same sex will inevitably develop deeper professional friendships, trust, and confidence than their other friendships, then there will be professional injustice. Some will get more opportunities simply by virtue of their gender and the boundaries of the leader. Of course, while less often considered, unhealthy relationships can develop between members of the same sex, too. Unhealthy relationships may include same-sex attraction, codependency, and groupthink. Appropriate boundaries will not simply focus on sexual issues, but any interaction that may keep the colleague from thriving for accidental reasons. Recognize that the professional colleague has a stake in your boundaries.

4. The church/organization has a stake in the stakes.

   Finally, the church or organization that the pastor/leader serves is a stakeholder. The pastor/leader’s boundaries will have implications for the church and the church/organization also has boundaries. Sometimes these boundaries are written; sometimes they are not. When they are written and approved by a formal board as policy, then there can be clarity. More common, however, is an unwritten boundary that many people know about and that remains unshared until it is crossed. Moreover, people know why it is a boundary. Sometimes boundaries exist to keep sinful, wrong, and inappropriate things from happening. Sometimes boundaries exist because sinful, wrong, and inappropriate things have happened. Organizations do not always craft and publish boundaries in the fallout from these breakdowns. Pastors/leaders will do well to discover what stakes their church/organization has already laid down and to see how their own stakes line up. The church and organization has a stake in your boundaries. 

 So, how do these stakeholders influence crafting appropriate boundaries? Obviously, there will be tension in the boundaries that each stakeholder would draw. If each stakeholder was allowed to put down stakes, some might have a nice, square boundary with four pegs, trusting a person will know when to step outside the boundaries without issue. Some would have thirty stakes, weaving in and out at various angles to accommodate the various contingencies that could arise. The complexity of life demands the complexity of the boundary. Yet, tension is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing. It can help us get outside our own considerations, to be stretched, and to have collective wisdom. With the various stakeholders in mind, here are some internal and external actions that could help develop working, consistent, and wise boundaries in professional relationships.

1. Take periodic surveys.

   Every day provides new twists in traditions, new experiences to be assimilated, outside opinions to be considered, and growth (or regression) in the weaknesses and strengths in the leader. Thus, the stakes of this stakeholder will be changing. The boundaries that made sense at one point in time will not make sense at others. Leaders and pastors should take periodic review of their own personal boundaries because their personal stakes might be changing. The same is true of the pastor or leader’s spouse. Spouses are not static. They grow in wisdom, maturity, grace, and insight. Sometimes general rules of relationships shift over time and the practice stops matching the policy, whether written or unwritten. In other words, stakes do not make boundaries; they mark boundaries. Take periodic surveys to see if your stakes are still marking the boundaries that need to be marked or if they need to be changed and re-aligned.

2. Think creatively inside the box.

   Once your stakes are understood, think creatively inside the box. For example, if you have a boundary not to meet with a person alone, can you invite along their spouse? Several times in my own pastoral ministry, I would invite a married couple to my house (or out to a restaurant) to recruit them both to a team or project. I would often have one of the couple in mind, but would try to recruit them both. Sometimes the person I had targeted would respond; sometimes the other person would respond. Sometimes they both did. Technology provides many ways of communicating, influencing, and engaging in professional relationships without surpassing boundaries. However, technology obviously provides a new context for crafting boundaries. And people use technology differently. Some people use their cell phone for all forms of communication—social media, texting, email, etc. Others use it for less tasks. While technology provides ways of remaining inside boundaries, technology also provides a new land that requires surveying and consulting the four stakeholders listed above.

3. Move stakes with sensitivity.

   When Jesus re-drew covenantal boundaries, it cost him his life. To set aside enmity between Jews and Greeks, Jesus was lifted up on the cross. To be one in Christ required the cross. Moving stakes is serious business. Especially when it comes to spousal and church values, work at understanding the full rationale for why the stakes exist in the first place. What might not be a sensible boundary marker to you that needs to be plucked up and re-established likely stems from a narrative that remains untold.

4. Set boundaries in light of barriers.  

   It is naïve simply to say, “Jesus met the woman at the well” as though this settles professional relationships. What is not naïve, however, is to consider all our boundaries in light of the cross; to recognize that any barrier that Jesus tore down by his death on the cross may influence any boundary we consider staking. Jesus’ death tore down status barriers, gender barriers, ethnic barriers, so we must set conscious boundaries in light of Christ’s work and consider what unconscious boundaries within which we might be operating.

Conclusion

Whatever your opinion of Vice President Pence’s boundaries, the scrutiny he faced is something pastors and leaders might face. Rarely will your boundaries be so widely scrutinized, but with various stakeholders, scrutinized they will be. Stakeholders will not always agree or appreciate boundaries, even when their opinions have been sought and considered. So, be ready to have your stakes yanked up and tossed aside while people might run football routes across the boundary. But the stakes are much higher in your life and ministry than they were in my football game. You might need to plant the stake again and again, keeping confidence with the stakeholders who really matter. So, what other stakeholders have you discerned in this situation? What other advice would you give in the midst of finding, setting, and moving stakes?

While I have not fought cancer in my own body, a lot of folks I’ve shepherded over the years have been on that side of the doctor’s desk hearing one of the most dreadful things you can be told as a human: “You have cancer.” I haven’t been through this particular ringer, so I write this knowing that other voices might speak better to this than I can.  But we’re all familiar with the fact that depending on the type and stage of the cancer diagnosis, one of the primary ways to seek to cure or to control it is with chemotherapy.

And then comes the battle – the nasty side effects of assaulting the body with chemicals that are not meant to be there. Walking through that dark valley is brutal; indeed, sometimes it is so much so that it takes the life of the one going through the fight. Even for those who make it through, it seems so inhumane, so harsh, so ruthless; so much pain, so much grief accompanies this. Yet as I hear the stories and witness the testimonies of survivors, the reality of the greater good of this harsh treatment is exposed.  

This has led me to wrestle through the following notion – the times when the first two rules of Methodism – “do no harm” and “do good” seem to be at odds. More directly, it seems that there are times when harm must be done in order to do good. But perhaps we need to dig a little deeper, to go underneath the surface, like Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader needed to go deeper than the outer layer of dragon scales to get down to the core.

In that story, when the dragon (who had been Eustace) comes to the awareness that he will have to allow Aslan to peel off the dragon layers, he is hesitant as he ponders the pain that will accompany this process. Yet there is a word that he used to describe it that has caused me to see this apparent contradiction somewhat differently:

 

I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away… he peeled the beastly stuff right off … and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. 

I don’t know if C.S. Lewis intended as much by his selection of the word “hurt” as I am inferring, but there’s quite a significant distinction to be made here. Perhaps this is because at the heart of it, there ought to be a difference between our concepts of “harm” and “hurt.”  Perhaps on the surface and even in experience they might “feel” the same, but when it comes to the general rules of Methodism – indeed, when it comes to the life of following Jesus – there are times when a particular “hurt” may have to be inflicted in order to truly “do no harm” or to “do good.”

Yet anytime an action is taken that causes pain, a party cries, “Foul! Quit doing harm!” And because the church is a complex emotional system and there is a desire to “do no harm” in our hearts when they are at their best, the action is called into question and a retraction and apology are demanded. The allure is to either go along with this demand, on the one hand, or to simply dismiss those who cry, “Foul!” and tell them their ideals or concerns are not welcomed. Yet when we take either of those approaches, we put the body at risk to truly be harmed and not just hurt. We are often so averse to experience anything associated with pain that we would rather die a potentially unavoidable death than to address an illness that needs to be resolved. 

Several years ago, I was at a conference about Christian revitalization movements across the world and a statement was uttered by John Witvliet, Director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, that has stuck in my mind. He spoke about the relationship between the theological sustenance of the church and the role of the prophetic voice. He said, “The ‘both/and’ approach to theology is the vitamin to sustain the life of the church. The role of the prophetic is chemo to take on a specific illness/injustice.” 

The better approach, then, is to do the hard work of discerning “hurt” from “harm.” That is not a license to inflict pain or hurt on a whim. A doctor or medical team, after all, doesn’t just prescribe a treatment of chemo on a patient until several tests reveal as specifically as possible what exactly is going on in the body. At best, doctors consult with one another, even those from different specialties, perhaps even those who would be inclined to see it from a different angle, before going forward. One of my parishioners is a seven-year pancreatic cancer survivor. Every time a complication or medical need arises in his body, the doctors overseeing his care take a “committee approach” (it’s a Methodist hospital network,what else would you expect?). They come together to consider his case and work through the right avenue of treatment for the particular issue that has arisen.

Only then, when a clear diagnosis is given and a plan of treatment is agreed upon, comes the undesired yet necessary “hurt”—medicine or surgery—to deal with the illness. And this system of treatment is not the same thing as “harm.” Our Wesleyan Methodist heritage has a great history of promoting healthcare. I live in Memphis, a city that has a truly wonderful and comprehensive Methodist hospital and healthcare system. Given this heritage of valuing healthcare, which deals quite extensively in the area of discerning “hurt” from “harm,” one would think we would be well-poised to grapple with how this plays out in the life of discipleship and even of actions taken in the life of the church, which in the best biblical analogy is likened to the “body.” Yet we struggle. Conflicts happen. Feelings get hurt.  

So why don’t we start engaging our problems and our sensed feelings of being harmed by working through the diagnostic phase of discernment and using Wesley’s own spelling out of the first rule of Methodism (see http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/the-general-rules-of-the-methodist-church) as a way of “getting to the issue”? Perhaps then we will discover not as much harm is being done as we previously assumed. And then whenever true “harm” is identified, we can talk treatment.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. – Psalm 139:13-14

A couple of caution signs:

• Introversion and extroversion are too easily over-simplified. Lumping people exclusively into one or the other camp is to miss all the nuances that make us … us. Chances are, all of us have a little of both worlds in our being.
• The terms “introversion” and “extroversion” are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. They are not — strictly speaking — biblical concepts. Which is not to say that I am not more extroverted or that my husband is not more introverted. Those things are true. It is simply to say that since these distinctions are not in the Bible, we will need to look more deeply for the enduring truths.

When we look, here’s what we find. We discover that we humans are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14) and that we are endowed with certain spiritual gifts to serve God and strengthen the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13). From these biblically-based foundations, we can explore more deeply the ways our personalities have been designed, in order to best employ their advantages and best compensate for their disadvantages; and in order to help us appreciate why — for the Church to best spread the Good News — extroverted Christians need introverted Christians. And vice versa.

In a previous post I discussed extroversion in the Kingdom of God. For this post on introversion, I have the help of my husband, Steve, who is without doubt my favorite introvert in the world. Most of the words in this post are his.

Why did God make introverts? At least one reason God made introverts is to model spiritual intimacy. In the Kingdom of God, introversion is not primarily about “being alone” but “being with” God. God loves us and wants us to get closer to him. Healthy solitude is getting away from distractions (that can mean others) in order to get closer to God, and introverts are naturally wired to be more comfortable seeking solitude where they can experience spiritual intimacy. Solitude fuels their walk with Christ and their service to the Church. Kingdom solitude is not inward-focused or an end in itself; it is a God-focused state that empowers introverts ultimately to be more lovingly outward-focused at the appropriate times.

Was Jesus an introvert? Absolutely! The fact is that Jesus was probably the perfect balance of introvert and extrovert (and in another post, I defend his extroversion), but he never allowed his own desires to get in the way of serving others. To feed intimacy with the Father, Jesus got up early and separated himself from the company of others in order to be closer to the Father. He bent down and drew on the ground when a crowd pressed him for a judgment on a woman caught in sin — unwilling to act or respond without taking time to think. As with most introverts, Jesus was able to focus on the goal and didn’t let distractions get him off track. He listened well; he was a deep thinker.

In his book, Evangelism for the Rest of Us, Mike Bechtle says introverts are sensitive, listening evangelizers — quiet, deep thinkers who can reach other quiet, deep thinkers. The world could use more “listening evangelizers.”

How do introverts sometimes trip up? It may be tempting for those who like “alone time” to forget that according to Psalm 139 we are never truly alone. Healthy, Kingdom-oriented introversion is not an escape hatch. It is designed for the purpose of developing intimacy with the Lord, then using that deep well to draw from in serving others. As my husband Steve says, “If I allow my introversion to cross over into self-absorption, I am surely passing by a world of people who need me to open the door for them.”

Unhealthy introversion may be the product of insecurity or fear. It becomes an “out” for those who simply don’t want to grow in their love for others. But the responsibility to share the good news of Jesus Christ belongs to all of us, not just those who like a party or an audience. It would be easy to use introversion as an excuse to check out on the uncomfortable parts of the Christian life, like evangelism or community. But the healthy choice is to develop the gifts God has given so we can stay checked in, in ways we not only tolerate but enjoy.

What do introverts wish extroverts to knew about them? Well, first … that we need each other. The world is complicated, and sometimes the extroverted “act/ think/ act” way of approaching life is the right thing. There are definitely times, though, when a “think/ act/ think” approach is the wiser choice. Extroverts need introverts to keep a balance between thinking and acting, but introverts also need extroverts for that same balance.

Even if an introvert doesn’t get energy from a roomful of people, they can still have a heart for loving others and can particularly enjoy being with a few people who appreciate their approach to life. They want to contribute to the Kingdom, but need the patience of the extroverts around them when they don’t jump on the big party wagon every time.

The closing lines are from my Steve, and are wisdom for all of us:

Extroverts, just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I don’t have something to say.

And introverts, as Susan Cain says, it is okay to speak softly. But you must speak.

This post originally appeared at www.artofholiness.com.

Most churches aren’t big.

Most churches say they want to grow.

Many pastors hope to serve at big or growing churches. Most pastors won’t.

It’s simply a matter of numbers in the United States: there aren’t that many megachurches. If you happen to be the pastor of one, you can sell a lot of books to pastors who want to get from here to there, even though – and this matters, stop multitasking and read this – the skill set for revitalizing a small church is very different from the skill set for growing a church from large to blockbuster ultra mega church. It’s like the difference between working for a small local struggling but beloved business vs being hired as a new executive for Microsoft.

I’ve actually been the pastor of a small church, so in that sense, I’m more of an expert than a person who has only been in staff positions or senior pastor positions of medium to large congregations. In fact, I was part-time, the church was located in a rural area in a small town that had been dying economically since the highway bypassed it, and it was my first church.

So what went right? (I could tell you stories of what went wrong and the specific razor-sharp edges of my own learning curves, but your time is valuable so we’ll save those for a rainy day.)

What went right at the little frontier church that will never be a blockbuster ultra mega church?

Several things: While I was there (three years), we made major property improvements and repairs, expanded Sunday morning discipleship opportunities, updated safety policies and procedures, added new members, engaged in new and different modes of outreach prior to what had been practiced previously, and I baptized (immersed, United Methodists – I immersed, by request) three teenagers who wanted to show their faith. And I only alienated one elderly woman, who stopped coming but forgave me in the end and requested I preach her funeral sermon (a big step, allowing me the definitive last word).

But why did it go right (except for the stories of what went wrong that we’re saving for a rainy day)?

I think these are helpful principles for any pastor of a small church (usually defined by being under 100 members, but my congregation was less than 50).

First, honestly assess your goal. If your goal is to become blockbuster ultra mega church, it needs retooling. First, because that’s really not what Christ called you to or why you got into ministry, and second, it’s statistically very unlikely. But if your goal is to faithfully worship and witness in your unique community to bring about its transformation, that, we can work with.

My tiny town had zero grocery stores and over ten churches. We couldn’t “compete” with the big prominent church on the edge of town (nor, might I remind you, are we called to). So what were the specific needs of our town, what were the specific passions and gifts of our church members, and how might they converge? When you have a limited budget and limited pool of (usually tired, burned out) volunteers, it is vital you keep harping on the truth that you are not called to be everything or do everything but to be something and to do something.

Second, be a missionary. Many pastors have favorite programs or approaches they like to put in place, and they cart those around like the boxes of books from seminary that they move from town to town. The problem is that especially with small towns and small congregations, many of those program ideas simply won’t fit or, just as bad, they disappear as soon as the new pastor comes with her or his ideas of How To Be Awesome the Biblical But Relevant But Inexpensive Way. It’s not good for the health of a congregation to constantly be adopting new but short-lived programming. The church will be there after you go, and you’re there to help invest in its long-term well-being…right?

Instead, utilize a basic missiological or anthropological perspective. The first year, you’re there as a learner, an observer, noting the basic community calendar, the prominence of the local school, big regional events, vacation and travel patterns, long-standing church activities, deeply held values and practices, etc. This was in starker contrast for me because I’d grown up in a completely different part of the country in a very different regional culture. I didn’t know anything about ranching, growing cotton, rodeos, kolaches, or bluebonnets. But if I wanted to serve (there’s that word again) the people in my spiritual care, then it was my job to watch, listen, and learn.

It doesn’t matter what your local context is – you may live in a small Pacific northwest fishing town or a California tech town or a Michigan hunting town or an Ohio manufacturing town or a Georgia peach-growing town or a New England lobstering town. The point is, notice it: what’s unique? Do most people work locally or commute to a bigger city? Is there a festival everyone leaves town for? What are most of the arrests in your county related to? Is there a problem in your town with stray animals, or high suicide rates at the local high school, or funding for a new wing of the hospital?

Because this is where your congregation’s giftedness and interest will intersect with your community. So let the town’s culture and the congregation’s personality guide you, not the latest program ideas from a pastor with a staff of a dozen working in a completely different region.

Third, work on your preaching skills. There’s a practical reason for this. Smaller churches have less programming throughout the week. Sunday mornings are the one time everyone gets together. It’s your chance to help keep vision and encouragement front and center; it’s your chance to help even out uneven preaching from the past (small churches are accustomed to taking whomever the Bishop appoints or whomever they can afford, and the quality of preaching that came before you might have left some huge gaps).

I’m not advocating personality-driven ministry, but whether you follow the lectionary or prepare a sermon series, keep preaching front and center in the way you spend your time. Record yourself with video or audio so you can note habits you haven’t been aware of. Listen to really good preachers – here’s a great example – and note how they approach the text, how they use illustrations or examples, how they pace their sermon, and what the takeaway is. You don’t have to mimic their style (and always cite or credit your content), but if you could focus on just one thing to improve about your verbal and nonverbal public communication, what would it be?

A couple of additional notes: Ministry is hard, no matter what size your congregation is. There will be good days and bad days. You need prayer partners if you’re in ministry, whether you’re serving in Zimbabwe or Chicago or Kansas. From the moment you begin as a church’s pastor, you need a couple of friends or family members or ideally both who you can email with occasional updates about ministry life and things pressing on your heart.

Also, and this is hard-won experience (though it helps if you’re a pastor’s kid), learn to discern whether a church is depressed, dysfunctional, or toxic. A depressed church can slowly and gently regain hope, vision, and purpose. A dysfunctional church can slowly and gently regain equilibrium, health, and momentum. A toxic church will be very difficult to survive, and in those very rare cases, be faithful, then move on.

And hey – you’re doing great. The ministry you’re doing is valuable. It’s making a difference. You’re not alone. And yes, there may be a dog under your church giving birth to puppies during worship service. But that’s something that blockbuster ultra mega pastor will never get to say.