reflections from the ISI community
Reading a New System
by Jennifer McCurry | May 2025
Beginning with my sabbatical two years ago, I have spent energy contemplating my identity, calling, and formation. I hoped for this reflection to strengthen my life and ministry where I was serving, but it turned out that God invited a change. After a couple of decades spent in a series of congregations, I shifted to serving in a full-time role in an interfaith spiritual life position at a university. While I was prepared with many relevant skills, commitments, and experiences, I was not trained with a particular template for staff ministry in higher education.
My seminary training clearly focused on congregational ministries of word and sacrament or service, including all the extra leadership roles. By that, I mean the many other assumed forms of leadership, like interactions with a council (or a similar body), ministry committees or teams, and staff members, financial stewardship and investment; and perhaps my favorite, missional decisions, such as expressions of Christian care and witness in both the congregation and community.
I remember learning in a seminary class about how different unofficial decision-making structures could be across congregations even in the same denomination. Whether or not the professor intended it, I heard that statement with a tone of judgment. When there was an aberration from the pastor’s assumed role as Master of Ministry Vision and CEO of the congregation, then something was clearly wrong, something that needed us to fix it. I became quite familiar with our denominational constitution and the way that things were supposed to be.
Looking back, I see how this information restrained my curiosity about how congregational priorities were identified, decisions were made, and why. I may have asked the right questions, but I suspect that I interpreted the answers from a limited perspective. I was eager to be the hired expert or facilitator, which they appeared to seek in the call process, and to offer guidance that would help them grow into the proper model.
With my recent ministry change from church to university, I quickly found that I could not fall back on old understandings of what my role in the system should be. My most extensive experience was not in academic systems, and even my academic experience wasn’t in a system like my new institution.
This lack of authoritative model required me to apply appreciative inquiry strategies on an entirely new level, on the system as a whole. I could not rely upon my past experience or professional formation to understand how I would relate to coworkers, colleagues in other offices and departments, and administrators. I needed to observe the complicated relationships in the system around me, consider how my identity, gifts, and job description overlapped with those of others in complementary roles, contemplate how mission was clarified and leadership was offered, and learn how to show up in answer to my new call. The radical change in context brought me to a posture of more complete humility, receptivity, and discernment. After fifteen months in my university position, I am grateful to be looking back on this hard season of transition and acclimation.
I am curious about how starting ministry with judgment-free inquiry about the new relational system would translate to a congregational setting, while honoring the pastoral or diaconal call. There is joy in seeking out stories of members who have participated and led their congregation in hard decision-making, innovation, and missional leadership, while it also offers valuable space to reflect on what those stories reveal about the minister’s relational place in the system.
I don’t intend to change calls in the near future, but I am making a note about how I have learned to be in new places, reading systems as I have not before and remaining spiritually open in the process.
Darkness as a Womb
by Charis Weathers | April 2025
As a pastor, this year has certainly felt more than I can manage. The social justice team at my church requested that we have concentrated time to lament, to grieve the effect that our nation’s politics are having on those we love, to name our own anxieties, fears, and losses. Things have felt more than anyone can manage. I have sensed congregants looking to me for answers, “What can we do? How do we help?,” when I am carrying those same questions and struggling with my own powerlessness. Nobody likes to feel powerless.
This kind of experience is new to me and so many white folx in the U.S. But it’s certainly not new to those who have been on the receiving end of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, Manifest Destiny, the Doctrines of Discovery, and countless other names for the evils of humanity when it gets wrapped up in righteous entitlement.
So I was grateful to stumble upon a book by Steven Charleston, Choctaw Elder, Episcopal priest and former bishop of Alaska. Since COVID he’s been posting spiritual insights on Facebook, and the book I picked up, Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder’s Meditations on Hope and Courage (Broadleaf Books, 2021), organized and expanded on some of his posts.
The driving metaphor for his book is the kiva.
If you have ever traveled among the Native American nations of the Southwest, you are probably familiar with the kiva. The kiva is a square or circular underground chamber, covered by a roof of wooden beams with an opening in the center. You enter a kiva the same way you enter a submarine: by descending the ladder. Once inside the packed earth chamber of the kiva, you are in darkness. Without a fire in the kiva, the only light comes from above you. To reach it, you have to ascend the ladder.
Charleston’s book gives meaning to eight rungs of a ladder that leads up and out of the kiva. As a sacred space, in contrast to soaring cathedrals, the kiva points us downward.
The spiritual resilience of North America’s indigenous peoples is legendary. Our traditional religious practices were banned. Our sacred objects were taken from us and either destroyed or put in museums as a curiosity for our conquerors. Our families were scattered into diaspora. Even our languages were forbidden.
But we are still here. Our voice is still strong. Our vision is unimpaired. Native America knows something about resisting darkness. It is what we have been doing for more than five hundred years.
The kiva symbolizes this spiritual resilience. It reminds us that we began in darkness—not the stark, ominous darkness we imagine we face today, but the nurturing darkness of the womb, a place of formation and growth…It tells us that if we are in a time of darkness, we need not be afraid of it, because it is only the beginning for us. In other words: we have been down this spiritual road before. The kiva tells us we have been through this process of birth and rebirth more than once. As a people, we have entered into darkness before, only to emerge into light.
The rungs of the ladder to the light revolve mostly around seeing one another not as enemies but as kin.
Kinship is the core. It is the guiding principle that makes community work, not only among human beings, but throughout the entire matrix of creation…Renewal in my ancestors’ tradition is about the eternal kinship of all life, of all people, of all creatures, of all creation. No exceptions. No outcasts. No one left behind.
We are all related to one another, and as such we can find our common hopes.
Why do Native Americans dance so much? … the dances focus on what we all hope for together. And that’s the point. Celebrating what we hope for together is better than fighting over what we believe separately.
For Charleston, the light we seek is liberation. It is freedom. Freedom to live without fear. Freedom for human beings to live in dignity.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not entirely sure how to do this. And yet some sort of spirit of kinship is happening at my church. An atheist father has been attending recently with his four year old daughter, and last Sunday he brought her up for communion. He didn’t choose to receive, but I was struck by the generosity of his spirit to encourage his daughter toward this life-giving ritual. Another mother who has no church experience is accompanying her young children because she wants them to grow up in church. The mother of another new family has never been to church and her extroverted son has become a star of the children’s messages.
I take this new growth as evidence of people wanting to co-create and be a part of a community that is offering blessing and welcome. We can do this. Together.
We are all in the kiva together. Whatever our politics, whatever our religion, whatever our culture, we are all in the darkness together. We can see that as a frightening place to be and begin fighting among ourselves. We can be afraid and scramble for the ladder, pulling one another down in the process. Or we can take this moment as a period of deep spiritual formation. We can renew our faith in the Spirit and in one another. And then we can climb. We can begin our ascent from darkness together, in the confidence of our faith and in the commitment to the light we strive to share.
Love in Action
by Lois Annich | February 2025
My passion for serving immigrants was inspired by a beautiful woman and her children who changed my life during the first Trump presidency. I was one of the pastors in the first sanctuary church in northeastern Ohio. I had an up close and personal experience of the immense suffering caused by xenophobia and racism.
Currently, I serve as the Vice President for Strategic Planning on the board of a non-profit called Americans Making Immigrants Safe (AMIS). Since 2019 we’ve been serving asylum seekers caught in lengthy legal proceedings that delay their ability to work to support their families. AMIS ( a play on the French word for “Friends”) is mostly volunteer-run. As a result of strategic planning, we’ve grown our budget and are able to provide housing, food, and stipends when needed, as well as help navigating the health care and education systems.
We knew that the current presidency was going to be devastating to immigrant communities— the people we love!— so in addition to the usual resources we provide, we’ve been offering Know Your Rights training to businesses and individuals. We’re also working hard to raise money for legal fees since much will be adjudicated in the courts.
My recent work on the AMIS board has reminded me that leadership demands courage, clarity of purpose, and flexibility when the way forward isn’t so clear. Perhaps my title should be “VP for Innovation” as we make our way into an uncertain future with faith, hope, and love!
The Discipline of Inspiration
by Carey Wallace | January 2025
When we encounter art—or create it—we often have a transcendent experience: the sense that we’re touching something beyond this world. Many people’s most intense worship experiences are no longer within the walls of a church—they’re at Beyoncé and Taylor Swift concerts.
But what if those experiences aren’t just a mirage? What if they’re real encounters with God?
How would that change the way we think about God?
About ourselves?
About who is and isn’t an artist, and what is and isn’t art?
About our ministries, and how we live into them?
If God is present in art and in the creation of art, could art be a powerful method for spiritual formation?
And in a world in which we’re skeptical of so many kinds of speech—from news, to advertising, to what comes from our pulpits—could art be the last language in which we can still communicate about the things that matter most, and a way to welcome people into connection with God?
I’ve spent a lifetime exploring these questions, scouring the speech of great artists through history for clues, and working on them with other thinkers – including brilliant Iron Sharpening Iron cohorts. In the process, I’ve come to believe that the presence of God is the creative spark that we describe as inspiration – God’s constant continuation of the original creation, through the hands and minds of humankind.
It’s an idea that reminds us that the way forward may not be to think but to play, not to accomplish but to surrender, not to work but to create.
That can transform the way a songwriter writes a song – and the way we see our ministry.
Because what if, as we welcome God as inspiration, our ministries could become a form of art as well?
Wallace’s newest book, The Discipline of Inspiration, was released by Eerdman’s this month. Available for purchase here!
- “This book articulates things artists know in their being, but haven’t had words for, addressing the beautiful complexity of what drives us to create and what we encounter when we do.” -Patti Smith
- “Carey Wallace has genuine insight and wisdom into the creative process. This is a book that will be helpful to anyone who finds faith and making deeply intertwined.” -Christian Wiman
5th Anniversary Celebration Remarks
by Anne Stewart, Founding Director of Iron Sharpening Iron | November 2024
We are thrilled to gather with all of you this evening for a very special conversation with Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters. I’m particularly delighted by the occasion that brings us together tonight for the first alumnae gathering of Iron Sharpening Iron and to mark a milestone in the life of this program as we celebrate five years.
Before we launch into the conversation with Priya Parker, I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about what brings us together this evening to celebrate the network that we have built together. Because it has everything to do with the reasons why we gather.
This gathering tonight has its origin in another gathering. In 2018, a group of leaders gathered here at Princeton Seminary in this very room with a vision and an idea – to build something that we had not yet seen: an executive leadership program specifically for women clergy that takes pastors seriously as leaders, equipping them with a confidence born of competence in the art and science of leading well, with a vision for the flourishing of the whole church.
We gathered because we knew the statistics of lack of gender equality in the church. The most recent National Congregations Survey (2019) indicates that only 14% of congregations in the United States are led by a woman head of staff. And only 8% of congregants in the United States have the experience of attending a congregation led by a woman head of staff.[1]
That’s a problem for the church and for society. The leadership of women clergy has been linked to higher levels of trust and engagement in congregations, but it also has a powerful influence beyond the church. A recent study of women’s ordination in America by Cammie Bolin and Benjamin Knoll, published by Oxford University Press, found that having an influential female religious leader in one’s youth has lasting impact on levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and education, which in turn are linked to levels of employment, income, and leadership in adulthood.[2] They found that women who reported being influenced by a woman religious leader in their youth are, as today’s adults, productively employed at rates equal to men. The evidence of this research suggests that “gender equality in religious congregational leadership is a necessary precondition for gender equality in American society at large.”[3]
We gathered that day – we gather today – because we know that the leadership of gifted women is vital for the flourishing of the church and the world. We gathered that day in 2018 to dream together. That gathering included some of the people who are here tonight – Sarah Butter, Laurie Ferguson, Pam Driesell, Dayle Rounds – and the Holy Spirit, she was there too. That gathering led to a grant proposal and a major gift from the Lilly Endowment for the launch of Iron Sharpening Iron.
This is what happens when we gather.
Soon others joined us – Lois Annich and Shelley Smith joined as coaches. Cathy Gilliard joined as pastor in residence. Thais Carter joined as Thais Carter. And then, class by class, and year by year, all of you joined us to build together something far more powerful than any one of us could accomplish alone. Five years later, more than 120 women have been through the Iron Sharpening Iron program and are now part of this network.
The energy of all of you dynamic, faithful, vibrant leaders when we gather is electric. I want you to look around tonight and see what you have been part of creating. This is the power of gathering. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. That is why we gather.
No one tells the story of this impact better than Gary Vazquez, an ISI graduate from 2022, who had one of those powerful experiences at her first ISI seminar. I invite you to listen to her story.
Gary is the first female presbyter elected in her denomination. She was encouraged to follow that call and raise her hand to lead because of her experience in this program. This is why we gather.
And it’s not only about you as individuals, but all of the people that your leadership impacts.
I hear a lot these days about clergy burnout as a major threat to pastoral ministry and the cause of many gifted pastors leaving the profession. But that is not the story I hear from Iron Sharpening Iron graduates.
You are equipped, empowered, inspired, engaged to lead. And, in turn, you are equipping, inspiring, engaging, and empowering others. And that has an exponential impact in the world.
When you lead, in your beautiful way, people flourish. Congregations flourish. Communities flourish. This is why we gather.
The purpose of our gathering is not for ourselves alone, but for the work that God calls us to do in the world. You are doing that faithful work, and it is inspiring. There is a hope and hopefulness in the power of your collective leadership and faith that I believe has a leavening influence in the world. As Cathy Gilliard, one of our pastors in residence, says the Church needs programs like this.
I will close with one more story of Iron Sharpening Iron in the words of Shelly Satran, an ISI graduate from 2022. I invite you to listen to her story. As Shelly says, “We can do this.” We are doing this. You are doing this.
This is why we gather. Thank you for your role in what we are building together. And we are only just getting started.
The impact of this program tells us that advancing the leadership of women clergy is one of the most productive investments we can make in advancing the flourishing of the church and of society as a whole. Our world urgently needs the leadership of all of those whom God has called and gifted for the work of ministry.
Together, let’s continue with the work we have begun. Because when you lead – when we lead – people flourish. Thanks be to God!
——
[1] See https://www.nationalcongregationsstudy.org. Similar trends prevail in other professions. Women have been entering the professional and managerial ranks of American corporations at the same rate as men for at least the past twenty-five years. Yet in 2018 women comprised only 4.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Globally, women make up just 25% of senior managers and 15% of corporate board members. There are comparable levels of under-representation of women in leadership around the world in government, law and the media: 23% of national parliamentarians, 27% of judges, and 26% of news media leaders, according to the The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College London. Similar trends prevail in higher education, where only 26% of college presidents in the United States are women (see Bryan J. Cook, “The American College President Survey: Key Findings and Takeaways,” Spring Supplement 2012, http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/The-American-College-President-Study.aspx.)
[2] See Benjamin R. Knoll and Cammie Jo Bolin, She Preached the Word: Women’s Ordination in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
[3] Ibid., 204.
Don’t Hide the Cracks
by Mignon Jones-Spann, ISI ’21 | October 2024
Several years ago, I discovered the 15th-century Japanese artistry of Kintsugi, also known as Kintsukuroi. While living in Japan, I somehow missed this beautiful tradition of not discarding broken pottery but instead repairing it with gold and lacquer. Kintsugi means “to join with gold” (kin = gold; sugi = joint). Artisans who practice this craft embrace the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which values simplicity and finds beauty in the incomplete.
These artisans look beyond the brokenness and imperfections of a vessel and engage in the painstaking process of gathering the shattered pieces. They clean, dry, and carefully reassemble them using sap from a lacquer tree. After sanding, they repaint the cracks with lacquer and dust them with gold powder. This meticulous process can take weeks, months, or even a year, resulting in a piece of pottery that is more valuable than it was in its unbroken state. Rather than hiding the cracks, the artist accentuates them with gold, silver, or platinum.
Reflecting on Kintsukuroi, I’m reminded of the work and love of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who sees each of us in our various stages of brokenness and still recognizes our value. Jesus does not discard us when we are less than pristine; He patiently puts us back together when the weight and cares of the world cause stress cracks in our minds, bodies, and spirits. Jesus lovingly repairs our vessels, especially when we undervalue and misuse them.
In 2015, our church hosted a women’s conference based on Donna Partow’s book, Becoming a Vessel God Can Use. During that conference, I introduced the artistry of Kintsukuroi. A member of our congregation recently shared, with permission, a powerful insight from her battle with cancer. Standing before the mirror, she lamented the marks and scars on her body, feeling “marred and broken.” Then she recalled my words: “There is beauty and value in our brokenness.” When she looked again, the scars appeared to her as “streaks of gold running through her body.” In that moment, she recognized that her scars highlighted the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ.
Beloved, if you are broken and battered by life’s challenges and the demands of ministry remember that Jesus specializes in redeeming and repairing the broken. I invite you to meditate on the lyrics by Tramaine Hawkins: “You who are broken, stop by the potter’s house. You who need mending, stop by the potter’s house. Give Him the fragments of your broken life. The potter wants to put you back together again.” Trust Jesus the Master Artisan, to create beauty and add value to our broken pieces! https://youtu.be/C14OuEGghhk?si=kLn1w9TA9Xz-pd1A
Blessed are the Uncertain
by Darla DeFrance, ISI ’22 | September 2024
“You know what’s wrong with Christianity?” The question came from my third grader at the dinner table one night. This was during the feral schooling days of early Covid, and he was binging on all the Rick Riordan series on Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology. His days with filled with lively encounters with rambunctious gods.
The problem with Christianity, the eight-year-old informed me, is that “God never makes mistakes.”
I know we can all think of a few Bible stories where God seems open to doing things differently next time: the 40-day flood, or Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman who responds to Jesus’ harsh dismissal with a humble and strategic request for just the crumbs that fall from the table.
But Christianity doesn’t really lean into these stories when we talk about who God is. And so what does that mean for us, when we claim our sacred identity as children of God, made in God’s image…and we make mistakes?
This Back to School season we are blessing backpacks and art supplies and freshly sharpened pencils. For all of us who are done with formal schooling, it can be harder to bless the learning — because most of the opportunities we have to learn come through our mistakes.
The wonderful new book Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure by Maggie Jackson starts with an epigraph from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: “‘I know’ seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, ‘I thought I knew.’”
This fall, let us bless curiosity, bless the uncertainty and humility and not-knowing that open us up to learn new things — even bless the things we’ve messed up along the way from “I know” to “I thought I knew.”
And let us bless the God in whose image we are made, the God who can learn, the God who might be wrong. Instead of brushing over and being embarrassed about those stories, what if we highlight and celebrate them?
Then we who are created in God’s image can find courage face up to the times we get it wrong, acknowledge the truth of those who challenge us, and stay with the discomfort of not knowing long enough to experience the joy and freedom and renewal of all that we may discover.
May the sacred image of the God who learns stir up curiosity and humility in us and open our minds, open our hearts, open our eyes. May we be gentle with ourselves and each other in our mistakes. May hold our regrets loosely, knowing that the lives we’ve lived make us who we are. May we live into wisdom and wonder and the freedom of not always needing to be right.
FINDING THE BALANCE
by Rev. Erin Jones (ISI ’23) | August 2024
I just celebrated my first anniversary at a new call. This time last year was full of transition, anxiety, grief, guilt and possibility. I was leaving a call at a congregation full of people I loved for a call at a state public policy office in my denomination. I was going to be separating from the daily grind of a parish pastor; and while I was on the wrong side of burnout from that grind, it was a rhythm I was familiar with, unlike the unknown rhythm of working fully remote for an office with one other co-worker, connected to a denominational structure of hundreds I would not meet in person until the next year. I knew it was a transition I needed to make, was indeed called to make, but was really unsure of how I was going to make it.
Now when colleagues ask me, “How is it being outside of a congregation?” I offer a deep sigh, knowing the answer is not what they might expect: “It’s wonderful,” I say with a big smile.
While I was so blessed to have served congregations with deeply faithful people, even the best congregations operate with unrealistic expectations of their pastors. People of faith not only expect their pastors to be good theologians, preachers, and pastoral caregivers (which I was well-trained to be), they also expect them to be financial gurus, fundraisers, conflict managers, referees, carpenters, painters, plumbers, landscapers, event organizers, super-human, sinless, shining examples of the faith (only some of which I was equipped to pretend I knew what I was doing thanks to ISI). It is only as I reflect on this anniversary that I realize just how much those expectations weighed on me, and continue to weigh on my colleagues in ministry.
I know many pastors struggle because they can’t escape that weight of expectations. For most on most days those expectations are counterbalanced by the blessing that it is to be someone’s pastor — the ways in which pastors get to walk with people through their highs and lows, in the ordinary and extraordinary moments of their lives. So many of my colleagues can’t imagine leaving parish ministry because they love so deeply the blessings of the work.
But for others, like me, at some point the calculation changes and the balance is never corrected. It’s not that my love of people diminished or that the privilege of being a part of people’s lives was any less cherished, but I needed the Church to treat me as a pastor, not like I was the whole Church. I needed to “right-size” my own place in the way I was showing up in the Body of Christ.
A lot of ink has been spilled about a perceived “pastor shortage” and the “decline of the church.” Certainly there are fewer congregations who are able to afford full-time pastors with the sorts of super-human qualifications for sub-standard-of-living pay we’ve come to expect. But what I’ve experienced in this past year is the beauty of restoring the balance. My call fits my gifts and my passions, and there are far fewer unrealistic expectations that I be everything to everyone.
The Body of Christ is going to survive because it is called by God to proclaim the love we experience in Jesus, and we don’t need over-sized buildings or flawless pastors to do that. What we need are communities of imperfect and broken people who show up with the gifts they have, and cherish those who show up with the gifts they have.
If you are reading this as a pastor, know that your deep love for your people is beautiful and appreciated (even if they don’t show it). If you are reading this as a member of a congregation, show it! Let your pastor be a pastor, and not a superhero! Help restore the balance in your community by telling your pastor that you see them, and cultivate a culture where they do not have to do All. The. Things.
I love my call and work because it is clearly what the Spirit has been forming for me for a long time, and I work with colleagues and a community who know my strengths and my boundaries. The weight of the work we do does not all fall on me, but is shared, or grace is extended when we need to let go of something. I’m sure that such a balance can be struck in congregations and communities throughout the Church. I’m even more sure we have to strike a better balance, so that all might feel loved and supported and part of a vital community, even our pastors.
THE IRON PROGRAM
Interview with You’re On Mute Hosts — Mary Anderson + Elise Anderson Brock, ISI’24 | July 2024
Anne Stewart and Thais Carter, the ISI program leads, sit down for an interview with You’re On Mute to discuss the formation and evolution of Iron Sharpening Iron, and why that work is so valuable to not only the individual women who participate, but to the church and the world.
YOU DON’T NEED PERMISSION TO BRING IT TO FRUITION
Interview with Carolyn Finney | June 2024
Carolyn Finney is the author of Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. We discuss the value of interdisciplinary learning, how to bring your full self to new spaces, acting in faith vs. hope, what leaders can learn from the latest Beyonce album, and more…
10 MINISTRY TIPS FROM THE THEATER
by Rev. Chrissy Westbury (ISI ’23) | May 2024
The place I feel most alive and most myself is, paradoxically, when I am being someone else. Theatre is my emotional outlet, my intellectual challenge, and the primary way I make friends outside of my ministry context. Amelia and Emily Nagoski write in their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle that one of the factors that contributes to burnout is failure to express emotion. Onstage, I can scream and cry and laugh and sing and dance with abandon.
Recently, I played M’Lynn in a production of Steel Magnolias. The very powerful monologue at the end of the show, when she falls apart in grief, was cleansing and healing. Being able to sob openly and yell at God about the unfairness of it all broke open scar tissue in me I didn’t even know was there. As a pastor and as a presbytery leader, I don’t have a lot of opportunity to be so openly wounded and to allow others to care for me. As M’Lynn, I had to. It was in the script. And it felt good.
Here are ten other lessons theatre has taught me that translate into ministry and leadership:
- Project to the back of the house – In ministry, we often have so many demands coming at us that we have to triage what needs to be dealt with first, and what may be able to wait. Sometimes, that translates into the loudest voices and the most in-your-face people getting a lot of our attention. Don’t forget about the folks you can’t see past the footlights, those whose voices aren’t always heard.
- Listen, listen, listen – Even a carefully rehearsed script does not guarantee that things will go as planned. Sometimes your scene partner will lose their place or skip over whole pages of dialogue. You have to be ready to go where they go and to do the work together to bring the conversation back to where it needs to be.
- Go big or go home – Commit to the scene, commit to your character, commit to the action. If you hold back, it shows.
- Respect the folks behind the scenes – Without the tech and front of house crews, you have no play. You have actors standing on an empty stage in the dark, with no clothes, nothing to do, nothing to say, and no one to hear them. Honor the people who do their work in the background.
- Deeply know and embody the character – Step into the mind and the spirit of another. Don’t just put on the costume and walk in their shoes, really try to understand their motivations, what it is that makes them react in certain ways and say the things they do.
- Don’t take it personally when you don’t get the role – You can be the greatest actor in the world, and not be right for a particular role or for a particular director’s vision. Sometimes you won’t connect with a person, or fit in a congregation, and it’s not necessarily about you.
- The ensemble can make or break the show – Dynamic and engaging leads matter, but if the ensemble isn’t committed, engaged, and fully immersed in the show, it will pull everyone out of the story, out of the moment.
- Yes, and… – This is the first rule of improv. When your scene partner offers something, you take it and build on it. Don’t automatically shut things down without giving them a chance to live and breathe and explore the possibilities. Resist “we tried that before.”
- At some point, you have to put down the script – you have to trust in what you know, even if it’s not perfect, even if you have to call for a prompt. You can’t fully immerse yourself in the action when you’re constantly checking yourself.
- Don’t forget to have fun – “There’s a reason we call it a play!” Find the joy in your ministry, find the places where you can play, laugh, experiment, let go. The audience can tell when the actors are having fun, and it translates to enjoyment, engagement, and commitment for the audience as well. The same can be said for ministry partners and congregations.
A FULL CIRCLE, LOPSIDED OVAL MOMENT
by Rev. Dr. Yvette R. Blair-Lavallais (ISI ’23) | April 2024
“Everything is connected. Life is circular but sometimes it looks like a lopsided oval.” This wisdom from my mother, a symphony of words, plays on repeat as background music in my life. I heard it loudly and clearly earlier this year and traced its lopsidedness to a pivotal point two years ago.
When I arrived on the campus of Memphis Theological Seminary on January 8, 2024, and stepped out of the car, the first person to greet me was President Jody Hill. When he smilingly said, “Hello Professor,” it was a full circle moment for me that I was here not as a doctoral student in the inaugural Land, Food and Faith Formation cohort (starting in the summer of 2018), but as an adjunct professor six years later to teach students in the Doctor of Ministry program. This was my opportunity for my iron to sharpen their iron.
This moment had been in the making for a while.
“We want you to come back and teach.” This invitation, spoken to me by the Academic Dean following my May 2022 graduation, was very present for me. I didn’t know if that meant immediately, the next academic year, or when. I just know it became a rhythmic tune in my mind. Arguably, these lyrics were the refrain of the song that I had played over and over. You see, in my Apple Music career playlist, I have two songs asterisked in my favorites: “It’s Pastoral Ministry For Me,” a contemporary gospel song of sorts, and “Some Day I’ll Be a Seminary Professor,” my personal anthem. Both are noted in my heavy rotation mix. And now, here I was making my way to Cumberland Hall where I have the honor of teaching DM50002, “Theologies of the Land,” this semester. Music to my ears!
The experience is humbling for me. As a student, I dreamed and prayed that I would one day return to the seminary – the very place where I learned so much about the intersection of faith, food insecurity and land injustice – to teach.
The invitation was extended, and the details were finalized Fall 2023. I was given the freedom to create my own syllabus (design thinking at work), introduce students to theologies of the land through an ecowomanist lens, and to assign readings and papers that center the voices of the Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) community in the narrative around ecological justice and food insecurity. Teaching now takes center stage in this work that I do as a leading voice in food justice, advocating for equity and parity, and dismantling the systemic injustices at every level in our foodways system.
Of course, our prevailing question is: how do we become ecclesial disruptors of land/food injustice? That’s my hallmark question that I always ask the faith community. It is a call, like a blaring trumpet, to do some holy wrestling and to sit uncomfortably in the tension. My class explored land as the body of God, water as our relative, ancestral practices of agriculture in the BIPOC community through a womanist lens and examined the horrors of legalized land theft in this country dating back to 1617 at the hands of the church.
Since we were in Memphis leading up to the MLK Holiday, we went on a learning journey at the Historic Clayborn Temple, the site of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike, that brought Dr. King to Memphis one last time (everything is connected). We looked at the layers of injustices that the Black sanitation workers faced, including environmental racism, and applied an ecotheological lens to it. After discussing it over lunch, we explored the US Farm Bill, land iconography in songs (This Land is Your Land & God Bless America) and reimagined a sacrality of land that is inclusive of all God’s people.
Mom was right. This is truly a full circle, lopsided oval moment!
WHEN LEADERS GRIEVE
by Rev. Amy Wiegert (ISI ’23) | March 2024
When I was about 11, I was taking swimming lessons. On one particular day, the fumes of chlorine were nearly overpowering, and I slowly started to sink. My pregnant swimming instructor dove in and boosted me to the side. After catching my breath and talking with my mom, my teacher did a smart thing: she insisted I get back into the water—if only up to my waist—so that I was not afraid of the water.
These past few months have brought that sort of sinking feeling back. I’m fully clothed on dry land. Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, I am drowning.
In the past 18 months, my spouse and I have buried his beautiful sister, weeks after a cancer diagnosis; we’ve moved our daughter to college and buried my father-in-law three weeks later; a few months after that, my mom died unexpectedly in her sleep. Somewhere in there we’ve said goodbye to two cousins and just last week, my aunt—my baptism sponsor. In those same 18 months, I’ve taken a new lead position at my church.
Grief comes in waves. At first, I tried to fight it, but it comes back more intense. I’ve learned to let it come, to stop what I’m doing and listen to it, even if that means crying in the grocery store. I’ve learned which congregation members actually want to hear my response to, “How are you doing?” and who asks to be polite. I’ve learned that caring for the congregation is an integral part of my purpose, and it’s not my only purpose. New life arrives in the folks who tell me not to start the new project right now but instead let’s get lunch. It is the finance guy who says let’s do what we need to today, the rest can wait. It’s in being my true self that the work takes places, even if there is visible sadness. Life feels precious, and a bit more urgent. This morning when my son invited me to watch him play basketball on the driveway, I put on my coat and watched.
When I went back for swim lessons, my new instructor was somebody’s skinny grandpa, who insisted that first I learn to float on my back. Why? So, I could see the sky—see there was more to the situation than me and the water. “Amy,” he said, “you’re working too hard to swim. You don’t need to fight the water, let it carry you the full stroke.”
Grief is borne out of deep, deep love. These months I’m learning I don’t need to fight grief, but let it carry me, and remember to notice the sky.
MICROAGGRESSIONS HAVE A MACRO MINISTRY IMPACT
by Rev. Tiffany C. Chaney (ISI ’22) | February 2024
“I didn’t know what to think when I heard we were going to have a Black intern, but you’re good!”
This quote came from a woman who came up to me after church the first time I preached as a vicar. I was the first Black person, the first person of color, to serve as an intern in this congregation. Without knowing me, because of my race alone, I was met with an air of skepticism that had to be deemed good, according to her standards.
Who are the people whose inclusion in ministry is still being debated in your context? People who we may not be quite sure we want to let in our building or go to their side of the tracks. People who – sure they can be members – but not leaders. I mean we’re not going to elect them treasurer or anything. Perhaps, there are people we’ll welcome if they are good with our ministry exactly as it is; but we are sure not making any changes to the way we’ve always done it to help them feel more included.
People who are homeless, people who are from a different side of town, people with disabilities, people with little children who make little children noises, people from a different race or country, people who are poor, people who identify as LGBTQIA+. Are there parameters by which certain people can be included? Parameters by which they cannot?
Far too often, there are people – people who we may find in our congregations – who take on the posture of treating those who are defined as “other” with fear; and regard them as “less than.” There is a fear that even interacting with the “other” will somehow diminish, pollute, or confuse their understanding of self and faith. Sometimes these feelings, these biases, are unconscious; and, these unconscious biases may show up as microaggressions.
Microaggressions are subtle, verbal or nonverbal insults or messages directed towards people of marginalized identity groups, targeting some aspect of their identity. These insults convey hidden messages that cause a hurtful impact. The term, microaggressions, was coined in 1970 by Chester M. Pierce, M.D. to describe insults and dismissals inflicted on Black Americans by non-Black Americans. In 2007, Derald Wing Sue, Ph.D. expanded the term, acknowledging people in any marginalized group in society who are targets of microaggressions.
I frequently have the opportunity to speak in both ministry and business settings; and, of all the things I talk about, microaggressions is, perhaps, the one thing people from underrepresented groups most thank me for including in my sessions. This is because microaggressions are infrequently discussed but so frequently felt.
Often conversations about racism, sexism, homophobia, and all kinds of oppression focus on large scale, macro-level systemic acts of oppression. Less frequently discussed are insidious acts of microaggression that are also very painful. Often called the papercuts of oppression, microaggressions may have a small mark but result in big pain.
People experiencing microaggressions are often questioning whether they interpreted what they know they experienced correctly, asking what the person meant by their comment or action, and debating whether saying something will be helpful or harmful. These mental gymnastics are what make microaggressions so painful and leave the recipient deliberating for hours, days, or longer about what they should do about their experience.
You may be wondering what I did about my internship microaggression. I shared the experience with my internship supervisor, who was very embarrassed this happened; but, to my knowledge, never said anything to the person who made the remark. And, as much as I respect my supervisor, I have never forgotten that this comment went unacknowledged. As a leader, it is important that we do not allow these acts to go unaddressed. It is important to teach about unconscious bias and how it impacts our ministries. It’s important to unpack these beliefs that might lie below the surface and influence how we treat people.
If I had a similar experience as a visitor seeking a new place to worship on that Sunday, instead of as a new vicar needing this internship for ordination, I likely would have walked out of church that day and never come back. Oftentimes microaggressions are excused as “that’s just the way they are.” A consistent, long-standing pattern of inappropriate, harmful behavior does not excuse it. An important part of leadership is having the courage to address those small acts of oppression, just as we are, hopefully, addressing large acts of oppression.
In our ministries, what boundaries do we need to encourage people to reconsider? What unspoken thoughts and acts need to be unearthed and addressed? Jesus heals us from the temptation to cling to stereotypes and biases that keep us from loving our neighbor. The goal here is not to assign blame; but, to move continually to a place of living transformed lives focused on inclusion.
There are no outsiders in the family of God. Jesus is in the business of meeting one deemed an outsider and giving them a place at the table. We should be also. When we abandon the urge to debate who’s in and who’s out, we can all the more attune ourselves to the persistent welcoming of those who we might once have considered best left on the margin.
MARY’S MAGNIFICAT REVISITED
by Rev. Shéree Jones (ISI ’21) | December 2023
Come Celebrate With Me!
I have found favor with the Lord
At the tender age of thirteen
I was chosen to do something never seen.
It’s like Lauryn Hill said:
An angel came to me one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
For unto me a man child would be born.
Oh this crazy circumstance,
I knew his life deserved a chance
but I feared what would be said about me
Would they ridicule, criticize or question my integrity?
I’m the first, no one has done this before
But I will tell you what I know for sure
People with nothing else to do
Will find reasons to talk about you!
I was scared and afraid
I didn’t know what to do
So of course I prayed
I think you would too
I prayed and I prayed I prayed so long
That my words became a notorious song.
I was unsure who would believe
I’d been chosen to birth Emmanuel
I hastened to visit my cousin Elizabeth
Who had a Divine encounter as well!
I received confirmation
As soon as I walked into the room
Elizabeth felt baby John
As he leapt in her womb!
Can you see us?
Two unlikely women
Who found favor in God’s sight
We were too excited to sleep
So we talked all night.
We celebrated each other’s blessings
Like a private baby shower
One day turned into three months
Afterwards I left feeling so empowered.
Now ready to answer God’s call
Scales from my eyes began to fall
I saw that people in positions of power
Really had no power at all.
God has power to cast down wicked rulers in high places
God has power to exalt the righteous from lowly spaces.
It was through prayer that I found my voice
Yes, this pregnancy was not my choice
But I willingly accepted God’s plan for me
Who knew my choice would make history?
I was silenced by some Gospel writers
They’ve given me no words to say
Like I didn’t scream and cry
In childbirth surrounded by hay.
Yes, I’m portrayed as a woman
Worthy to carry God’s child
Yet, they only show me as meek and mild
There’s more to me than what they see
There’s more to all of us, indeed
Ladies, you are more than your womb
Men, you are more than your seed.
You were born with a purpose
You can do more than just survive
God sent His only begotten son
So that you can THRIVE!
So what is this about
What am I trying to say?
If you want to thrive
The first thing to do is pray.
Stand humbly before the Lord
Know there’s nothing you can hide
God sees and knows all
So put away your pride.
Be willing to surrender your will
For God’s perfect plan
You know how the song goes,
“My life is in Your hands”.
CULTIVATING FERTILE SOIL
an interview with Camille T. Dungy and Tess Taylor | October 2023
Rev. Dr. Anne Stewart, Executive Vice President of Princeton Seminary and Director of Iron Sharpening Iron, interviews acclaimed poets Camille T. Dungy and Tess Taylor about their most recent work and how the garden is an apt metaphor for the work of leaders: rooting and growing, stewarding and tending, knowing when to weed or wild, and cultivating hopefulness.
WHO NEEDS A SABBATICAL?
by Rev. Jennifer Andrews Weckerly (ISI ’22) | August 2023
In my tradition (The Episcopal Church), sabbaticals are part of letters of agreement. After five to seven years of ministry, the priest is typically granted eight to twelve weeks of sabbatical. In my own vocation, I have moved around a bit, so I accumulated fourteen years of ordained ministry before being in place long enough to earn a sabbatical.
After fourteen years, including three years of pandemic-ministry, I wasn’t convinced I needed a sabbatical, but I certainly wanted one. For me, as someone who works at “full steam ahead” speed, I am not the best at assessing when I need a break. To my credit, I always take my full allotment of vacation, I tend to my physical, spiritual, and mental health, and I am intentional about work-life harmony. But to need a sabbatical seemed to me a sign of weakness. Surely I, who was more invigorated by the constant pivoting of pandemic ministry, didn’t really need a sabbatical.
But the experience of sabbatical has been incredibly eye opening about my own rhythms. It took me a solid week to truly put down the work of church. Even though I was not working, the remnants of work were lingering in my mind. The constant emotional labor of ministry just could not be turned off quickly. But the end of week two brought the most helpful insight. I have often taken two weeks in a row of vacation and thought I was being luxurious with my time. But by the end of week two of sabbatical, with ten more weeks ahead of me, I realized work was not seeping into my mind like it often does on day ten of a 14-day vacation. Somehow that realization made me understand how much ministry is infused into my body, and how long it really takes to get work out of my system.
I am not sure what one does on sabbatical really matters – whether you long to intensively study something, whether you want to travel to sacred sites or bucket list locales, or whether you just want time to not be doing ministry work. What really matters is the time of extended break. Your mind, body, and spirit need time to deprogram seven (or fourteen) years of rhythm. Your normal way of piecing together connection to God needs the food of time away from your ministry setting and ministering to others. Your family and friends need to see you outside of a collar, without the yoke of ministry weighing on your shoulders, and with the lightness that only extended time away can bring.
Not having reentered from sabbatical yet, I can only attest to the research on sabbatical that says clergy need sustained times of renewal for healthy ministry. But what I can tell you is that sometimes the things we are convinced we don’t need or even things we just want, are the things you, your support system, your relationship with God, and the people entrusted to your ministry really do need.
ENCOUNTER & INQUIRY
by Rev. Joanne Gallardo (ISI ’22) | June 2023
“Waitlisted.” That’s what the letter from Duke Divinity School said in early November of 2018. I was an associate pastor, unhappy in my job, wanting to be stretched intellectually. I wanted more opportunities, more connection to people like me, and for God’s sake, something outside of my Anabaptist tradition. Undergrad, seminary…surely not everything centered around the Radical Reformation.
I withdrew my name at Duke because I didn’t feel ready. I was already making a big life step by buying a house at that time, but I was also concerned that I was applying as a means of escape.
Enter a life-changing email from fellow ISI participant Megan Ramer saying she was recommending me to this “sort of new” program from Princeton Theological Seminary. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting into, but I did know that the aim was to grow my leadership skills. I had previously attended the Engle Preaching Institute through PTS and found it to be a great experience. I was eager to go back to Princeton!
The executive leadership part of the program was especially timely as I exited my associate pastor job and entered the role of Conference Minister for Indiana and Michigan. This was an executive role, and I had no clue how to be an executive.
Through cohort and class work, I learned 1) Yes, I do know how to be an executive and 2) Here are some skills you should have. The support of my cohort was invaluable. Lois “coached” most of us to leave our jobs! I say that tongue in cheek, but it’s true that 3 of us left jobs that were no longer lifegiving and entered jobs where we felt our gifts were being used. I needed the courage to do that, and I received it from ISI.
In my cohort I discerned that I did indeed want to go back to school, and the direction that would best suit my needs would be a D. Min. program. I bounced a “Should I? Shouldn’t I?” mantra around in my cohort gatherings. Their support, combined with the ISI program leaving me hungry for more, gave me the final push I needed to fill out Christian Theological Seminary’s lengthy application.
The degree I’m pursuing would be in executive leadership, inspired by my time at Princeton. My hope is that I can build on what I’ve already learned, along with my intuitive wisdom. I want to focus on the spiritual abuse of pastors, as in, congregations that do them harm. My own experience, along with that of many other women clergy I’ve encountered, calls for at least an inquiry. I don’t know what exactly this means or how it will change as I encounter coursework, but exploring this is important to me.
I am grateful to ISI for the gentle push in an academic direction.
THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFE(TIME)
by Rev. Frenchye Magee (ISI ’22) | April 2023
“So, what’s next?” my friend, Marilyn, asked as we sat together at her table. The delicate fragrance of basil and tomato teased our palate. Fresh bread with its salted crust was in our mouth, and the sheen of good olive oil glistened on our hands. Before I could answer, she winked and continued, “If I know you, it’s going to be an adventure.”
The last three years have been an unsought adventure—a global pandemic can do that. It’s hard to believe that 36 months ago, I sat in my office, reviewing a disrupted Holy Week schedule, wondering how to plan an online retirement party. Staff and I shared naïve jokes about the amusement park life, but I had no inkling that my own roller-coaster ride would see my life double back on itself in hairpin turns and force me to ask big questions.
‘What do you really want?’
‘Where do you want to put your energy?’
And, the ultimate, ‘When are you going to listen to the voice inside instead of all the voices around you?’
All the answers came to bear with a decision in 2021 to decline a new appointment. For the first time in a decade I was no one’s minister, servant-leader, pastor, chaplain, or preacher. Unlabeled, I left Marilyn’s home and arrived at the ISI fall gathering without a church, a plan, and (mostly) without my self. I felt like an imposter. How could I participate in a program for clergywomen when I wasn’t sure if the “clergy” label even fit me anymore? What was I doing, other than finding an excuse to fly to New York and see The Lehman Trilogy?
And yet, in the conversations and connections, the panels and preaching, the lunches and laughs, the stories and steps, I heard voices pitched at a frequency I hadn’t heard in years. Women…clergy…leaders. Unashamed to confess they didn’t have all the answers; unafraid to share that they too, had occasionally lost their love for the drudgery of ministry, even while they retained their love for the One who had called them into it. Most of all, undeniably committed, they pressed forward for the next thing.
Imposter or not, somehow, God had placed me right where I needed to be. The voices around me were ones I needed to hear. The faces that went with them were interested without being invasive, curious without being convicting. I felt safe and seen—in community, not competition. Space—our spaces—became holy ground, healing ground, a haven for a tired heart. I flew home with gratitude, carrying the experience with me. Over the next months, when I revisited it, I heard her (my voice) join the conversations. She emerged with strength, insisted on bold steps, and asked new questions. The most important one was ‘Is it life-giving?’
“What’s next” is still developing. But I already know that the answer is “life” in all its fullness as woman…clergy…leader. One who is centered, whole, and grateful.
A wonderful adventure? Yes, indeed.
Thanks be to God.
THE DIVINE IS IN THE DETAILS
by Rev. Dana Allen Walsh (ISI ’22) | February 2023
“In the beginning was the word.”
The concept of Jesus as the Word of God is closely connected to the idea of preaching. In this way, John 1:1 provides a foundation for the work of preaching, affirming the power and authority of the message that is being proclaimed.
This reflection on John 1:1 was from ChatGPT, written with generative artificial intelligence. It’s everywhere now. A.I. Chatbots can easily create text for your next social media post, a newsletter article, or even a sermon.
This new technology begs the question: are Chatbots only a threat to the high school English essay on Grapes of Wrath? Or might we see it impacting the preached Word in our pulpits?
The preached word is not a didactic essay – it is the beginning of a conversation. It’s not about answers or explanations – it is the opportunity to live into the Word – to encounter it and experience how the Word connects to this particular kairos moment.
In Advent, I gave these instructions to ChatbotGPT: “Write a sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent for a progressive Christian church based on the lectionary reading, Matthew 1:18-25.”
ChatGPT provided 250 words of text (too short for most preachers) that were vague and generic. Although I believe that generative artificial intelligence will only get better with time, the role of the preacher cannot be replaced by a Chatbot.
Preachers find a home in the Word. We inhabit the sacred intersection of the Word found within the ancient text, our own faith lives, and the community we serve. The act of preaching is rooted in our incarnational theology, embodied in the beautiful messiness of this human experience.
Will A.I. Chatbots be the ghost writer for preachers from now on? No, the preached Word requires the embodiment of our paradoxical faith: one that is both ancient and relevant, traditional and innovative, particular and universal, pastoral and prophetic.
