Spoiler alert: it's flexibility! Why you need it, how to develop it, and how to encourage your congregation toward it - plus an ear toward the Holy Spirit's leading.
Click on the player to listen to the conversation, or scroll down to read the transcript.
Our Reads of the Week
If you purchase through some of the following links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Thank you for supporting Called!
Gossip - Rocky Supinger The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Racial Justice - Cara Meredith
About Called - At the Intersection of Life and Ministry
For 50 years between them, Pastor Bill Smutz and musician Sarah Bereza have survived and thrived in churches big and small, urban and rural, good and not so good. With generous hearts and healthy boundaries, they share practical advice for church staff about working smart, cutting out the bs, and embracing the good in ministry. New episodes on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays.
Check out all the Called podcast episodes here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Transcription of Called Ep. 8: The One Thing You REALLY Need in Ministry (That You Didn't Learn in School)
Sarah: Welcome to Called, a podcast where we explore the intersection of ministry and the rest of our lives as church workers.
Bill: I'm Bill Smutz.
Sarah: And I'm Sarah Bereza.
Bill: Join us on the first and third Tuesdays as we talk about cutting out the bs in our lives and embracing all that is good.
Sarah: Between the two of us, we have ministered in churches for over 50 years, and we haven't burnt out yet.
Bill: It's been close, but we're not there yet. I have pastored primarily Presbyterian congregations, urban, rural, big, small, and and for the last four or five years I have been doing interim transitional work in United Church of Christ congregations.
Sarah: And I have been a church musician all over the denominational spectrum - Mainline, Evangelical, Catholic. Basically if they hire organists, I have probably worked for them.
That One Thing They Didn't Teach You? Sarah Learned It in Middle School
Sarah: Today we are talking about the one thing you need in ministry that they didn't teach in school. You never took a class on this. You probably didn't even hear professors talk about this in seminary or grad school. But you have to have this, or you going to be miserable. So let's see if you can guess what this is. We're going to start out with a story.
Sarah: I was 11 years old, almost 12, and the lead pianist at my little Baptist church moved away and at nearly 12, I was the next person in line. And so for the next six years I was the lead pianist in a Baptist congregation where that meant, I was like the main lead musician for the church.
Sarah: And I played for three services a week, and the choir, and most of the solos and the prelude and postlude, all that. Not always , cause there were other musical people in the church, but I was the person. And what that means is that I was the person who got hymns that morning right before the service started. And I was the person who a visiting evangelist would call up during the middle of the sermon. "Hey Sarah, come accompany me while I sing this hymn." I was that person as a middle school, high school student.
Sarah: And you know what, as I look back on those six years at that little Baptist church, I think that was the best training I could have had. I mean, yeah, I had great music lessons, I had good teachers, all that good stuff. But that insistence on turning on a dime, of suddenly in the midst of a service, "Oh, here's the hymn that the Holy Spirit has led me to sing for our altar call." That kind of stuff. Like, go right now. Do it now.
Sarah: What is it that we're talking about? Flexibility. Flexibility is where it's at for church workers.
Bill: Anybody in a ministry setting knows that or is suffering because they don't.
Why You (and Your Church) Needs to Practice Flexi...
