This week we talked about Belonging

and had a lively livestream conversation this week!

Here’s the highlights of what we said:

Loren Richmond Jr. highlights:

• People instinctively want to know how to be “in” or “out” — group boundaries are a sociological reality, not just arbitrary lines.

• Key distinction: excluding people based on who they are vs. welcomin…

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Why belonging requires boundaries—and clear ways to cross them

This week in Substack Seminary, we’re asking questions about membership and belonging:

What does “membership” mean in your community? Or, to ask it more bluntly, how does someone know if they are in or out?

It reminded me, perhaps strangely, of Christian summer camp.

The strange power of belonging

I was recently watching the 2021 Netflix movie A Week Away to kill some time one evening—and relive the glory days of ’90s CCM music.

What I’ve always found fascinating about youth summer camps is the team aspect. Teenagers arrive at camp and are divided into rival teams that may have little connection to anything outside that particular week.

And yet, almost immediately, people begin developing surprisingly strong allegiances to their team—and opposition to the others.

There is nothing particularly unique about summer camp here. Human beings are remarkably good at creating groups and identifying ourselves as part of them.

We saw the same thing during this summer’s World Cup. Millions of people passionately cheered for teams based, ultimately, on where lines have been drawn on a map.

We want to belong to something. And belonging inevitably creates some distinction between who is inside and who is outside.

The problem isn’t boundaries

Understandably, there has been a tendency in some church circles to respond to the destructive ways boundaries have been used by acting as if boundaries themselves are the problem.

I understand that impulse.

Churches have used boundaries to exclude people for all kinds of terrible reasons.

But I don’t think the answer is pretending boundaries don’t exist.

As and others have noted, the ubiquitous church phrase “all are welcome” can become so vague that it tells people almost nothing. Welcome to what? What does belonging here mean? How would I know whether I actually belong?

People want to know how they can get in.

Jesus doesn’t eliminate belonging

This is where I think an important distinction gets lost.

The problem isn’t having an inside and outside. The problem is creating unjust qualifications for who is allowed to cross the boundary.

A country club saying only white men can join is obviously exclusionary.

But saying, “Here is what membership means, here is what we commit ourselves to, and here is how you can become part of it” is something quite different.

Sometimes Christians say that Jesus erases boundaries. I’m not sure that’s quite right.

Jesus radically broadens who is invited to become an insider.

That’s a significant difference.

The Christian story is filled with language about belonging: body, family, citizenship, covenant, community. The invitation is expansive, but there is still something we are being invited into.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of question we’re wrestling with in Substack Seminary—not simply how to make ministries more welcoming, but what exactly we are welcoming people into.

A healthy ministry doesn’t need to eliminate its boundaries.

It needs to make its invitation clear, its expectations meaningful, and the path toward belonging genuinely open.

If you’re building or reimagining a ministry and trying to figure out what belonging should actually mean, join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

Paid FRP subscribers join Conversations live on Thursdays at 3:30 Eastern (during Quarters), and get the replay + chat invitation on Mondays.


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How are you welcoming people into God’s presence?

That’s the question and consider in today’s Covnersation.


Three models of Welcome, from the Orthodox, Quaker, and Anglican traditions:

Sacred Sanctuary. people are welcomed into the mystery of God’s presence through the atmosphere of the bldg (light, silence, beauty). A refuge of quiet and healing.

Neighborhood. people are welcomed into relational hospitality though a close group who follow Jesus together.

Shared Activity. people are welcomed into Christian practice and worship.

Conversation highlights:

• Your church is not friendly. Everyone thinks theirs is.
  Cathie: When my job was to visit congregations, I made it my business to go to coffee hour, get my coffee, and stand in the middle of the room by myself. Mostly, nobody spoke to me at all - even though I was their preacher and celebrant!
  
  Sierra: It’s like walking into your own house. You can’t see the problems.

  ---

• The pastor’s real job is host.
  Not just preaching or hospital visits — welcoming people into life with God.
  
  Sierra: Pastors rarely see themselves as hosts, but I think that’s really what we’re doing… hosting is a vital job. And it’s vulnerable, scary work that mostly goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
  

  ---

• “All are welcome” is a lie - and that’s the good news.
  
  A close community has a culture. If somebody walks in and it isn’t for them, that’s information - for them and for us. Appealing to everybody means appealing to nobody.
  

• We can only offer hospitality we’ve already received.
  
  Cathie: My reading of the Gospels is that Jesus received hospitality far more than he offered it.
  
  Sierra: If we don’t see ourselves on the receiving end of God’s welcome, our hospitality comes from a false place - it’s just works, trying harder to be gooder.
  
  

  ---

• We’ve lost the thread.
  
  Cathie: I always ask people why they love their church and they say (almost exclusively)

  • ‘I love these people’

  • ‘we do good work’

  • it helps me be a better person’
    
    Almost never : ‘I come here to grow my relationship with God.’
    
    

  Sierra: If the ministers have lost the thread, the congregation can’t hold it.

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How do people experience you?

This week in Substack Seminary, we’re asking questions around welcome and ministry, specifically:

How do people first experience your ministry? And what are you inviting them into?

In the opening post, shared three “Models of Welcome” drawn from Orthodox, Quaker, and Anglican traditions: the Sacred Sanctuary Model, the Neighborhood Model, and the Shared Activity Model.

She noted that many ministries contain elements of each, then asked:

“Which is closest to yours? Or do you have another way of welcoming people into life with God?”

I’m excited about this question, if only because I’m taking a very different—and far less liturgical—approach than my high-church counterpart Cathie.

What came to my mind was a sales funnel.

From sales funnel to ministry pathway

A sales funnel is essentially a map of a customer’s journey—from first becoming aware of an organization through stages like interest, decision, and action.

I was working on something similar recently for , a Christian nonprofit I consult with. Instead of a sales funnel, I’ve been calling it the GRL Pathway.

The question is essentially the same as Cathie’s:

How do people enter into relationship with us, and where are we inviting them to go from there?

For Green Room Leaders, worship leaders and churches tend to enter the organization’s orbit in a couple of ways. Sometimes the organization reaches out directly to worship leaders and begins building relationships. Other times, a church comes looking for help filling an immediate worship leadership need.

And that second entry point has been particularly interesting.

An entry point is not the destination

A church might approach the organization because they need someone to lead worship next Sunday.

But Green Room Leaders doesn’t ultimately want to be a fill-in musician service. The larger goal is to strengthen worship leaders, ministries, and ultimately the culture of the churches they serve.

The immediate need is the entry point. It isn’t necessarily what you are inviting people into.

That distinction matters.

If someone comes to you needing a musician next Sunday, they probably don’t want to immediately hear your pitch for technical consulting or a year-long cohort.

Welcome begins by recognizing why someone walked through the door in the first place.

Welcome requires a pathway

But good ministry also asks what might come next.

Once you understand how people first experience your ministry, you can begin building a pathway appropriate to that entry point.

What do they need right now?
What relationship needs to develop next?
What deeper need might emerge over time?
And ultimately, what are you inviting them into?

This is where I think the language of a sales funnel actually has something to teach us.

Welcome isn’t simply opening the door. It’s thinking intentionally about where the door leads.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is exactly the kind of work we’re doing in Substack Seminary: taking seriously both the theology and the mechanics of ministry.

Because it’s not enough to say, “Everyone is welcome.”

We also need to know how people find us, what they encounter when they arrive, and where we’re hoping to go together.

If you’re building or reimagining a ministry and need help creating that pathway, join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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How is your ministry actually ministry?

That’s the question and I were discussing today ( is out this week)

• ‘Ministry of presence’ is a skill. Loren talks about his blog this week, which focuses on his chaplain role.
  “Focus on being out of the gifting and grace that God has given to you”
  
  and we talked about how that presence doesn’t just happen. As Loren …

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What I thought chaplaincy was

When I was training as a hospital chaplain several years ago, I understood the role primarily as emotional support or crisis response—something closer to a social worker than a minister.

Part of that was probably my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) training. Part of it was that I was training during the chaos of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. And part of it was simply my own misunderstanding of the role.

It wasn’t until I stepped away from chaplaincy, returned to parish ministry, worked in social work, and then came back to chaplaincy that I began to understand the difference.

Learning to “be”

Along the way, ’s memoir Walk with Me helped put words to what I had begun to experience.

She writes:

“CPE is the process of discovering the ‘how’ of bringing ourselves into the room and making ourselves selflessly available to the other… Learning to be vulnerable amid suffering is a process requiring an internal excavation of the soul that frees us to be the empathic creatures God made us to be.”

Later she contrasts parish ministry and chaplaincy this way:

“A pastor is a bundle of ‘to dos.’ A chaplain is merely ‘to be.’ Chaplains merely present themselves to others in the whirlwind of their pain. I had to learn ‘to be’ and not ‘to do.’”

That distinction has stayed with me.

Doing versus being

This week in Substack Seminary, we’re asking what makes our ministry actually ministry.

Corcella’s insight offers one helpful way to think about it: the difference between ministry as doing and ministry as being.

Much of what we celebrate in ministry is measurable. We count impact, budgets, participants, and outcomes.

Chaplaincy pushes in another direction.

It teaches to enter spaces in need of ministry stripped of agendas, productivity, and to-do lists.

To simply be a visible reminder of God’s love, presence, and grace.

Corcella puts it beautifully:

“Chaplains get to take a person’s spark of hope and turn it into a flame burning in love. The sick, injured, ill, and traumatized need witness to their suffering, and they need witness to the survival, not of the body, but of the sacred spirit.”

The deeper question

I wonder if this is one of the best questions we can ask of any ministry.

Is its value found primarily in what it produces? Or in how it embodies the love and grace of God?

Corcella reminds us that faith points to “a transcendent being—God—who is at our side offering unconditional love and unending compassion.”

That doesn’t mean ministry never does anything.

It means that everything ministry does should flow from who it is.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of discernment we’re cultivating in Substack Seminary.

Not simply building better ministries, but becoming the kind of leaders whose work flows from God’s presence rather than endless production.

If your ministry has begun to feel like an endless list of things to do, perhaps it’s worth asking whether God is inviting you to recover the ministry of simply being.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Substack Seminary is now a newsletter of Free Range Priest!

If you are already a subscriber of either Free Range Priest or Substack seminary, you will get blogs and emails from Substack Seminary.

If you don’t want to hear things about Substack Seminary, you can adjust your Newsletter sign ups (and your notification preferences) here:

Newsletter preferences

(look for the link near the top of this page that says ‘account settings’)

From now on, a paid Free Range Priest subscription gets you into Substack Seminary, Trexo, Cage Free Ministry, and more — making it more accessible to all.

Substack Seminary is the home for weirdo orphan pastors

• Ministers doing church in new ways, whether inside, outside, or alongside the institution.

• Q3 - Theology and Community - starts Monday and runs six weeks, through September 13.

• The guiding question: how is your ministry actually ministry — how are you sharing the faith, forming community, and bearing the tradition into the world?

• Those who are enrolled in the full program will stay enrolled and continue with the same process.
  

  

What does it mean to be ‘outside the box’ and creating theological connection and community?

• Loren: hospital chaplaincy. He didn’t understand the pastoral work until he was really doing it, saying a word of truth: you’re forgiven, God loves you.

• Cathie: Cage Free Ministry - when you’re outside Sunday worship, the role isn’t proscribed, it’s organic and riskier.

• Sierra: in her small town, a lot of her job is being publicly a pastor — people ask her to do funerals and weddings, and when something bad happens, they come find her. They may never come to church, but you can tell them: you are loved, God is with you, he is near.
  

We talked about the burden of feeling like we’re carrying it all, but we don’t have to: denominations change, the church never fails, because the church is something bigger. Institutions come and go, but the institution of us in the church goes back to the beginning and goes to the end.

We talked about the loneliness of being clergy - especially Cage Free Ministers. We found each other because of that - it’s what started Substack Seminary. We need each other.

Learn more about Substack Seminary

Loren dropped a shameless plug: his book, The Church as Community Hub, comes out September 8 and is available for pre-order wherever books are sold. Cathie has already pre-ordered hers!

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Most churches are not asking pastors to do more—they are asking them to do the impossible.
The modern pastoral job description would require several full-time positions in any other organization.

William (Bill) Harrison is president of Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, former chair of the Saskatoon Theological Union Common Faculty, and the author of Leadership in a Shrinking Church. While I’d recommend his book for pastors and church leaders more broadly, Harrison clearly names dynamics of pastoral leadership that are often assumed without being explicitly named.

Specifically, he describes how the demands of the pastoral role have continued to expand over time, even going back hundreds of years. He writes:

“We have accumulated, in the lives of most [pastors] the following priorities: eucharistic leadership, building construction and maintenance, preaching and teaching, therapeutic level pastoral care, trained management, and numbers oriented mission…

We have placed very high expectations on the shoulders of presbyters. At the same time, we commonly offer small salaries and an assumption of mobility that tests personal relationships and family ties. This would be tough even in a growing church.” (p. 82)

How we got here

Notice what Harrison points out. Pastoral leadership began as Eucharistic leadership—word and sacrament.

With the construction of church buildings, even beginning in the Middle Ages, came responsibility for construction and maintenance. More recently, the pastor is expected to function as a counselor, corporate executive, and—since the COVID-19 pandemic—a digital outreach specialist.

These are, in themselves, full-time roles in larger organizations.

Yet within a church setting, a pastor is often expected—sometimes unwittingly—to fulfill all of them.

This is not a failure of effort. It is a failure of structure.

Doing less with less

So what do we do instead?

Harrison suggests that “there are some things that can be done about this situation.” First, he argues, churches must clarify what church leadership is about today.

At minimum, this means being explicit about what a church expects from its pastor—and what can reasonably be completed within the scope of pay and time.

“The second,” Harrison says, “is to foster a team that can pick up necessary work that clergy need to drop in order to do their primary work.”

“The third,” and likely the most underrated, “is to let go of tasks that do not contribute sufficiently to the work that needs to be done” (p. 82).

Harrison summarizes this posture as doing less with less.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

One of the recurring conversations in Substack Seminary is the decline of institutional Christianity. While there are many reasons to grieve this reality, there is also an opportunity embedded within it.

Decline creates permission to rewrite expectations.

Especially expectations around the role of the pastor or clergyperson.

This kind of work—naming misaligned expectations, reclaiming sustainable leadership, and reimagining ministry for a smaller, leaner church—is exactly what Substack Seminary exists to do.

Substack Seminary is not about doing church better by working harder. It’s about learning how to lead faithfully within real limits.

If you’re a pastor, church leader, or thoughtful practitioner navigating ministry with fewer resources and greater complexity, this is the conversation you belong in.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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What makes this work so hard is precisely why Substack Seminary exists.

Like my colleague , I am—by necessity and calling—a kind of “free-range priest.” I work across multiple contexts and roles, many of them outside traditional parish structures. Another pastor recently suggested I call myself a “New Era Pastor.” That phrase tracks in more ways than one.

I work part time as a hospital chaplain. I work part time for a ministry nonprofit. I podcast. I read. I write. I teach. I do this work here on Substack.

None of this is accidental. It’s adaptive.

What makes it difficult is that even as churches and denominations acknowledge institutional decline, most still operate as if institutional stability is the norm. The structures have changed. The assumptions have not.

The lingering assumption of institutional margin

Here’s a simple example.

In my role as a part-time hospital chaplain, I work on-call overnight shifts. Most nights, I’m not called in. I earn a very modest stipend for being available. When I am called in, families or patients often ask, “What church are you from?”

The assumption is telling.

They assume I’m a community pastor—employed full time by a congregation with enough institutional margin to absorb late-night crisis care. And, to be fair, the hospital system assumes something similar, based on how little it pays for that availability.

This same logic shows up in denominational and church contexts.

Cathie has shared stories of awkward conversations when she explains that she charges for her time. I’ve had those same moments—the pause, the raised eyebrow, the confusion—when I explain why a church or judicatory should hire me rather than assume my labor is already subsidized somewhere else.

The problem with fractional ministry

This exposes a deeper issue with how part-time and fractional ministry roles are framed.

Even when a church funds a part-time position, it often assumes the remaining income needed for a full-time living can be easily made up elsewhere. In reality, those remaining hours are almost impossible to replace with stable, meaningful work—especially on a one-to-one basis, and especially with work that aligns with a clergyperson’s training and vocation.

Ministry does not scale cleanly into fractions.

A 1/2 or 3/4 role still carries full-time emotional, cognitive, and relational demands. Schedules are inflexible. Emergencies don’t respect job descriptions. And the remaining income often has to be earned in work entirely outside one’s specialty.

What looks like flexibility on paper becomes precarity in practice.

This is why cobbling together part-time roles so often fails—not because clergy lack creativity or effort, but because the work is being measured with the wrong formula.

Why the contractor metaphor matters

This is where the language of a contractor becomes helpful—not as a redefinition of ministry, but as a metaphor.

When you hire a contractor, you are not paying for the number of hours they spend on the job. You are paying for their experience, skill, and judgment—the ability to build something correctly the first time, avoid costly mistakes, and respond when things don’t go as planned.

Pastoral work often functions the same way.

Churches are not simply purchasing time.
They are engaging formation, discernment, and lived experience.

This helps explain why fractional ministry so often fails. A church may pay for “part-time hours,” but still expects full-vocation availability, wisdom in crisis, and long-range pastoral judgment.

The contractor metaphor tells the truth: churches are not buying hours; they are paying for expertise.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is why Cathie and I keep pushing for different ways of imagining clergy employment—and why Substack Seminary exists.

We are trying to help leaders navigate ministry after institutional certainty has faded. To name the mismatch between expectations and reality. To advocate for fairer, clearer, and more sustainable ways of structuring clergy work.

Substack Seminary is not about restoring an institution that no longer exists.
It’s about forming leaders who can live faithfully within real limits.

If you are navigating ministry across multiple roles, wrestling with fractional employment, or trying to articulate your value clearly and honestly—this is the conversation you belong in.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

Paid FRP subscribers join Conversations live on Thursdays at 3:30 Eastern (during Quarters), and get the replay + chat invitation on Mondays.


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Right now, most churches are saying some version of this: we need to grow to survive.

But when growth becomes the condition for survival, churches are pushed into a posture of desperation rather than discernment.

Every organization—and every church—has the same basic limits.

Capacity is made up of three things:
time, money, and people.

When churches begin to believe they must grow to survive, they often stop asking what faithfulness looks like within those real limits.

Growth or viability?

Instead of asking, How do we grow?
we might need to ask, How do we stay viable?

For many churches and nonprofits right now, viability matters more than growth.

Not because growth is bad—but because growth that outpaces your time, your people, and your money eventually breaks the system.

When growth becomes a theological problem

We often treat growth as a sign of divine favor.

But sometimes chasing growth assumes the future depends on us—

our energy,
our cleverness,
our ability to do more with less.

I’d argue the opposite.

Faithfulness looks like honoring the capacity you actually have.

Being faithful within your real budget, your real volunteers, and your real time is far more realistic—and far more sustainable—than chasing growth that exhausts people and empties accounts.

Viability is not giving up

Viability isn’t resignation.
It’s stewardship.

It’s choosing:
sustainability over spectacle
presence over pressure
depth over scale

And maybe, in this moment, the most faithful thing a church can do isn’t to get bigger—

but to get honest about its time, its money, and its people,
and learn how to live well within them.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This kind of discernment—choosing viability over spectacle, faithfulness over frantic growth—is exactly the work of Substack Seminary.

Substack Seminary exists to help pastors and church leaders think clearly about capacity, sustainability, and leadership in a post-growth church.

If you’re tired of being told that bigger is the only faithful option, and you want language and frameworks for leading well within real limits, this is the space for you.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
a Free Range Priest subscription.

During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Passion is never the problem. Capacity is (Part 1).

I recently sat in on a board training for a newly forming nonprofit. It was early—very early—in its life. The mission was good. The people were earnest. There was genuine passion in the room.

And yet, the longer the conversation went on, the more alarm bells started going off in my head.

A few days later, in a one-on-one with the board chair, I said something that felt almost taboo:

You might need to shut this down.

I didn’t expect to say it out loud.


Part 2:

When passion outruns capacity

The issue wasn’t vision or values. It was simpler—and harder to admit.

The board chair is leaving.

In this case, the board chair is also functioning as executive director. They carry operations, relationships, public visibility, and day-to-day decision-making. There is no redundancy. No staff ED. No one else positioned to absorb that weight.

When the chair leaves, the executive function leaves too.

The response was familiar: We should add more board members.

That’s not wrong. But recruiting and onboarding takes time. Which means new members would arrive just as the current leader walks out the door.

That’s not succession.

That’s a leadership cliff.

Structure is not capacity

Nonprofits—and churches—often confuse structure with capacity.

We assume that if we fix the org chart, the work will continue.

But titles don’t answer emails.
Committees don’t manage partnerships.
Passion doesn’t replace executive labor.

Time is the hidden antagonist.

Creating a fundraising committee doesn’t help if there isn’t a viable donor list.

Creating an evangelism team doesn’t help if there are no relationships with unchurched people.

Creating a savings plan doesn’t help if you’re bleeding red monthly.

If nothing materially changes—money or people—the likely outcome isn’t growth.

It’s burnout.

Sometimes stopping is stewardship

Sometimes the most responsible advice isn’t push harder or believe more.

Sometimes it’s pause.
Sometimes it’s close.

That isn’t failure.
It’s stewardship.

Something does not have to live forever to have been faithful.

God may perform miracles.
But God also invented math.

Substack Seminary exists for precisely these conversations — the ones where discernment matters more than optimism.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

If you are leading something that feels one leader away from collapse, this is the space to think honestly about it.

Substack Seminary exists to help pastors and church leaders think clearly about capacity, sustainability, and leadership in a post-growth church.

If you’re tired of being told that bigger is the only faithful option, and you want language and frameworks for leading well within real limits, this is the space for you.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
a Free Range Priest subscription.

During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

Paid FRP subscribers join Conversations live on Thursdays at 3:30 Eastern (during Quarters), and get the replay + chat invitation on Mondays.


You don’t have to do this alone. Subscribe to join the ‘home for weirdo pastors’.

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Right now. Today.
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Passion is never the problem. Capacity is (Part 2).

Around the same time as that board training, sociologist Ryan Burge released more data on Mainline Protestant churches.

The short version is sobering: many congregations are financially propped up by baby boomers. As that generation ages and dies, decline is likely to be sharp—not gradual.

This isn’t cynicism. It’s demographics.



Part 1:

We confuse longevity with faithfulness

I say this as someone who believes deeply in the church. But I’ve also become convinced that something doesn’t need to live forever to be faithful.

I’ve helped launch multiple startups. I’ve led one that didn’t last.

In each case, passion was abundant. Calling was sincere. People prayed hard and worked long.

What we confused was passion with sustainability.
Faith with capacity.
Hope with a plan.

Mission validity does not automatically produce structural viability.

And spiritual language cannot compensate for the absence of time, money, or shared leadership.

What I would do differently

If I were leading a church heavily dependent on aging donors and volunteers, I would:

Build an endowment and have bold legacy-giving conversations — immediately.

Bring in building renters to offset fixed costs, charging realistic rates.

Have explicit conversations about the future—not vague hope-talk.

Draw clear lines about when we pull the plug.

That last one matters most.

In hospital chaplaincy, I see what happens when families don’t talk about limits. They carry unbearable weight because no one gives permission to say, enough.

Churches do the same thing.

They keep going—not because it’s wise, but because stopping feels like failure.

It isn’t.

Sometimes closing—or consolidating—is the most faithful move available.

Not because the mission didn’t matter.
But because it mattered enough to tell the truth.

Substack Seminary exists to help leaders navigate these endings faithfully—not reactively.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

If you are serving in a church sustained more by memory than momentum, this conversation is for you.

Substack Seminary exists to help pastors and church leaders think clearly about capacity, sustainability, and leadership in a post-growth church.

If you’re tired of being told that bigger is the only faithful option, and you want language and frameworks for leading well within real limits, this is the space for you.

Join us.

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• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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On belonging, calling, and why imagination fails in isolation

I recently finished the book Imaginable: How to Create a Hopeful Future by Jane McGonigal. It’s not a religious book, but it names something I see all the time in ministry—and frankly, in my own life.

The book is about imagination. Not in a vague or inspirational sense, but as a discipline. McGonigal argues that our ability to picture a different future—clearly, concretely—is one of the most important drivers of change.

That part wasn’t new to me.

What was new, or at least what I needed to be reminded of, was this:

imagination doesn’t fail because we lack ideas. It fails because we lack the right people.

That hits, doesn’t it…

McGonigal describes four ways we relate to the future: calling, belonging, hope, and power.

Most of us, especially in ministry, tend to fixate on calling.

We ask:

• What is God asking me to do?

• What problem am I meant to address?

• What future am I supposed to help create?

And for many pastors and leaders, those questions are not abstract. The challenges are real, visible, and pressing.

But there’s a second dimension that often goes unnoticed:

belonging.

Belonging, in McGonigal’s framework, is about whether you are connected to others who see the same future you do—who are working toward it, who recognize the problem, who share the urgency.

What struck me most is how practical her conclusion is.

If your sense of calling outpaces your sense of belonging, you have a few options:

• Begin to form that community yourself

• Find others already working on the problem

• Or Step into a different community that recognizes the work

Even one or two people aligned around the same future can change your sense of what’s possible.

Trust me on that.

But also, consider that it raises a harder question—not about imagination, but about reality:

What happens when your calling outgrows your community?

I don’t think the answer is to work harder or wait longer.

I think it has something to do with finding the right people.

That’s what we’re trying to do here. Stay Tuned…

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

If you are serving in a church sustained more by memory than momentum, this conversation is for you.

Substack Seminary exists to help pastors and church leaders think clearly about capacity, sustainability, and leadership in a post-growth church.

If you’re tired of being told that bigger is the only faithful option, and you want language and frameworks for leading well within real limits, this is the space for you.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
a Free Range Priest subscription.

During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Picking up from last week

Last week, I wrote about how we can’t imagine the future alone—drawing on insights from the book Imaginable: How to Create a Hopeful Future by Jane McGonigal.

The core idea from that blog, based on her book is this:

Imagination doesn’t fail because we lack ideas. It fails because we lack the right people.

If you missed that piece, it’s worth going back—because what follows builds directly from it.

Clarity without movement

One of the hardest moments in ministry isn’t confusion. It’s clarity.

You see the shifts.
You understand the limits.
You can name what needs to change.

And yet—nothing around you seems to move.

That right there is what’s so hard. You see things so clearly, yet others do not…

The missing piece

In Imaginable, McGonigal describes how our relationship to the future depends on more than calling or urgency.

It depends on belonging—meaning, finding a group of people who can understand, support, and encourage your imagination.

This is especially important for pastors and church leaders, as your church community may not initially be that community where you find belonging.

The point is this—many leaders don’t lack vision.
They lack a community that shares it.

Where burnout actually begins

Burnout is rarely about workload. People will work long and hard when there is energy and momentum towards a hopeful future.

But, when you feel like you are carrying all of that yourself?
Well, that’s absolutely a recipe for burnout.

Holding urgency no one else feels.
Seeing limits no one else names.
Trying to move something that isn’t ready to move.

Clarity without belonging is not sustainable.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

If your calling has outgrown your current community, there are only a few real options:

• Find others already doing the work

• Step into a different community

• Or begin to build one

Not later.
Now.

This is why Substack Seminary exists.

Not as content, but as alignment.
Not as ideas, but as shared imagination.

If your calling has outgrown your current community, the answer isn’t to shrink your vision. It’s to find the right people.

That’s what we’re trying to build here.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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The quiet bias in funding

I was recently talking with a nonprofit leader whose work is closely tied to churches.

She’s applying for a major grant. The challenge is that the funder has a long history of supporting established, legacy organizations.

At one point, I said—only half joking—
why does this funder keep investing in organizations committed to maintaining the status quo?

She laughed. Then agreed.

Institutional gravity

What’s at work here is something like institutional bias—or what I’d describe as institutional gravity.

Funding tends to flow toward what already exists.

Not necessarily because it’s most effective.
But because it’s familiar. Recognizable.
Considered Less risky.

Established organizations have:

• name recognition

• infrastructure

• a track record

But they also often carry inertia.

They are slower to adapt.
Less flexible.
More invested in maintaining what is than exploring what could be.

The irony no one names

Here’s where it gets more complicated.

An established organization she was in conversation with suggested they might contract with her to help lead the very work she was proposing—if they received the grant funding.

In other words:

The innovative work would still be done by newer leadership.
But the funding would flow through an older institution.

It’s not malicious.

But it does raise a question:

Why not fund the work where it is actually happening?

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

Substack Seminary exists in that space of emergence.

We’re not a legacy institution.
We’re not trying to preserve an inherited model.

We’re trying to make sense of what comes next—and help others do the same.

We may not be able to change how grant systems operate overnight.

But we can help you think clearly, act faithfully, and build something real in the middle of it.

If you’re working on something new—and finding that existing systems don’t quite know what to do with it—you’re not alone.

Join us.

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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

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• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Why we’re asking this question

This week in Substack Seminary, we’re wrestling with a simple question:

What’s in a name?

In most organizational development work, naming comes last. You focus on mission, purpose, and structure first—then worry about brand identity.

That’s usually good advice.

But I’ve started to wonder if, at least in ministry, that order might be incomplete.

Names as stories

In The Stories Congregations Tell: Flourishing in the Face of Transition and Change, the authors argue that congregations are guided by the stories they tell about themselves—both explicitly and implicitly.

That shift matters.

Because if ministries are shaped by their internal narratives, then names are not just labels.

They are identity-forming tools.

Names help a community “identify and clearly articulate who they are and are not, and how their organizational past, present, and future link together in their context.”

Why this matters now

We are in a moment of profound transition—especially within the church.

And in moments like this, clarity matters more than ever.

The authors note that “storyline consistency is an important hinge” for flourishing in times of change.

A name won’t solve everything.

But it can anchor a ministry’s identity when everything else feels unstable.

A good name holds the story together.

Reality and aspiration

There’s another tension the book names that’s worth holding onto.

The stories congregations tell “speak to both reality and aspiration.”

That’s the balance.

A name should:

• reflect who you actually are

• while also pointing toward who you are becoming

Dream—but stay grounded.

Don’t let aspiration outrun capacity.
And be honest about whether your structure can sustain the identity you’re claiming.

A simple framework

If you’re trying to name a ministry, this framework is helpful:

• Descriptive-empirical: What is going on?

• Interpretive: Why is this going on?

• Normative: What ought to be going on?

• Pragmatic: How might we respond?

If you can answer those questions clearly, you’re already close to a name.

The deeper point

The authors write that “stories are the currency of congregational flourishing.”

I’d push that just one step further:

Names are the currency of your flourishing.

Because a name doesn’t just describe what you do.

It tells people who you are—and who you’re becoming.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of work we’re doing in Substack Seminary.

Not just building projects—but naming them.
Not just launching ideas—but clarifying identity.

Because in a time of transition, clarity about who you are—and who you are becoming—matters more than ever.

If you’re working on something new, or trying to name what God is calling you into next, this is the space to do that work.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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The question we’re asking

This week in Substack Seminary, we’re wrestling with a simple but uncomfortable question:

Who is my ideal client?

In many mainline church contexts, the instinct is to be inclusive and welcoming. That instinct is good. It reflects something essential about the Christian message.

But it often leads to a problem.

When inclusion becomes ambiguity

Too many churches try to be all things to all people.

And in doing so, they end up saying nothing clearly to anyone.

The message becomes a kind of religious-sounding gobbledygook—language that feels spiritual but doesn’t actually connect.

Not because the intention is wrong.
But because the audience is undefined.

How we were trained

This isn’t accidental.

Many of us were trained this way.

I remember in seminary being coached to strip prayers of anything that might be offensive or misunderstood.

You’ve heard those prayers:

“To all that is holy…”
“To the divine we pray…”

They’re technically inclusive.

But they’re also forgettable.

Because the goal wasn’t clarity.
It was avoidance.

What clarity actually requires

The goal is not to offend.

The goal is to know who you are speaking to.

Even in preaching, one of the most consistent pieces of guidance is this:
preach to a specific person—even if they’re imagined.

Because specificity creates resonance.

The same is true in ministry, communication, and leadership.

You have to be clear:

• Who are you trying to reach?

• Who will benefit from what you offer?

• Who might not?

• What are their struggles?

• What are their desires?

Clarity about your audience is not exclusion. It’s effectiveness.

Why this matters now

In a time of institutional decline and limited capacity, churches can’t afford to be vague.

Trying to reach everyone usually means reaching no one.

But when you name your audience clearly, something shifts:

Your message sharpens.
Your energy focuses.
Your impact deepens.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of work we’re doing in Substack Seminary.

Not just thinking about ministry in general—
but getting clear about who we’re called to serve.

Because calling without clarity leads to frustration.
But clarity creates traction.

If you’re trying to name who your work is actually for—and how to serve them well—this is the space to do that work.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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Where I started

I grew up in a conservative context and attended a Baptist Bible college—back when it was quite literally named Baptist Bible College.

Bible colleges tend to differ from other theological institutions in one key way: they are shaped by a strong missionary perspective. The college I attended focused on training missionaries to share the gospel overseas, as well as pastors and ministry staff for local Baptist churches.

There are parts of that world I’ve left behind.

But one thing has stayed with me:

the clarity of purpose.

Clarity we don’t talk about anymore

In that context, there was very little confusion about what ministry was for.

If a group of students went out into surrounding neighborhoods to knock on doors—and that did happen—everyone knew exactly what it meant to “share the gospel.”

More importantly, everyone knew what counted as transformation.

We were trying to move someone from point A to point B:

From no profession of faith
to a clear, identifiable profession of faith

That clarity drove everything—alignment, collaboration, urgency, and shared effort.

What changed

In the nearly twenty years I’ve spent in mainline Protestant contexts, I’ve often found the opposite dynamic.

There is far less agreement on what the gospel is—or what it means to share it.

This isn’t primarily a theological critique. It’s a practical one.

When you can’t name the transformation, you can’t organize around it.

And without that clarity, it becomes much harder to align people, energy, and resources toward a shared outcome.

The problem with vague outcomes

Too often, especially in mainline settings, we default to language like:

• “finding community”

• “gaining a greater sense of purpose”

These are not bad outcomes.

But they are also not unique to the church.

People can find community at CrossFit.
They can find purpose volunteering at an animal shelter.

If our outcomes aren’t distinct, our work becomes indistinct.

What clarity looks like

The point here is not to settle the theology of evangelism.

The point is simpler—and harder:

What transformation are you actually aiming for?

After someone engages your ministry, what is different in their life?

One ministry I work with, , names this clearly. They exist to help worship leaders get off the treadmill of chasing Sunday after Sunday—and toward a vision rooted in Psalm 1:

A leader planted by streams of water,
bearing fruit in season,
not burning out,
prospering in what they do

That’s a defined transformation.

When I work with pastors, churches, and nonprofits, I’m trying to help leaders move from feeling like they’re banging their head against a wall to becoming leaders with clarity, energy, and forward momentum.

Start smaller than you think

Clarity doesn’t require grand ambition.

In fact, it often requires restraint.

Not:
“We’re going to solve world peace.”

Not even:
“We’re going to feed the entire community.”

Maybe it’s:

“We want to make sure kids come to school on Monday with a full stomach.”

Or:

“Every child in our county has food for the weekend.”

Clear. Concrete. Actionable.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of clarity we’re working toward in Substack Seminary.

Not just naming problems—but defining transformation.

Because if you can’t name the change,
you can’t build toward it.

If you’re trying to get clearer about what your ministry actually does—and what difference it makes—this is the work.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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The question we’re asking

This week at Substack Seminary we’re asking the question:

How are you sharing your ministry?

While there is definitely an evangelism side to this in that we are working out of calling that we believe God has placed on our lives to share the good news of Jesus, I’d like to explore for a moment the other aspect of this—marketing.

In the initial email for the week, the question was asked:

“Where and how do people find you?”
“Walk us through the actual path someone takes from ‘never heard of you’ to raving fan.”
“What’s working? What feels uncomfortable or confusing? Where do you feel most like yourself in how you share your work?”

I especially want to explore the question:

“What feels uncomfortable or confusing? Where do you feel most like yourself in how you share your work?”

Where it gets uncomfortable

A while back, I was reading a post from author and Executive Coach . In his Substack article from a few months back he shared:

“Most of us have something we know we need to do…A career move that scares us. Starting a business. Writing that book. Stepping into a leadership role... Whatever it is, we know. Deep down, we know.”

But we don’t move on it, and the reason we don’t move “sounds really responsible,” Foster says, “even wise.”

Foster suggests we make comments like:

“I just need a little more time.”
“I want to make sure I’m fully prepared.”
“I’ll start when the kids are older. When the money’s right. When I feel more confident.”

And then, Foster names this harsh but important reality:

“that’s not wisdom talking.”

Instead he says:

“That’s fear wearing a very convincing costume.”

Naming the real barrier

For many of us, especially pastors and ministry types, what feels uncomfortable or confusing is the very fact of even trying to “market” ourselves at all.

We have been rightly trained that ministry is a calling by God, and a humble, sacrificial one at that.

This is all true.

But I also think that a lot of the uncertainty and ambivalence around marketing ourselves comes down to what Foster names:

fear.

For me, it was fear of looking foolish, or ill-prepared, or inadequate. Something like that.

I always assumed I needed more information, more learning, more data before I could really put myself out there and say I had something to offer.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was just fear—fear of looking stupid.

The deeper question

So maybe the real question isn’t just:

How are you sharing your ministry?

It’s this:

What’s your fear? What’s holding you back?

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of work we’re doing in Substack Seminary.

Not just thinking about ministry, but naming what actually shapes how we show up in it.

Because until we name the fear, we’ll keep disguising it as wisdom.

If you’re trying to move forward in your calling—and something keeps holding you back—this is the space to do that work.

Join us.

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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

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• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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The question we’re asking

This week on Substack Seminary, we are talking about an important—but often overlooked—idea in ministry:

sustainability.

Or said differently:

viability.

And right away, there are two important tensions worth naming.

Not everything important is sustainable

First, just because something isn’t sustainable doesn’t mean it isn’t important or impactful.

Disaster relief is an obvious example. If you were starting a tornado relief ministry in your area, you would obviously hope it’s a one-and-done effort. Tornadoes ripping through your community every week would not be sustainable for anyone.

Similarly, writers like and Erin Cash have noted that churches can still be vital and faithful even if they are unlikely to exist long-term—such as congregations in dying small towns.

The point is to understand your context.

Is your ministry:

• responding to a short-term crisis?

• serving a declining population?

• addressing a temporary but urgent need?
  

If so, plan accordingly.

Not everything sustainable matters

But the reverse is also true.

Just because something is sustainable doesn’t mean it is impactful—or even alive.

Many churches with large endowments have relatively low per-capita giving. More, most of us probably know congregations that are financially secure but spiritually stagnant: a handful of attendees, little vision, and minimal interest in renewal or mission.

Sustainability alone is not the goal.

A ministry can survive long after it stops bearing fruit.

Faith, planning, and “God invented math”

Still, if you believe your ministry is addressing an ongoing need—and you hope it will endure—then planning matters.

Yes, I believe in trusting God.
Yes, I believe faith sometimes requires risk.

But as others have said:

“God invented math.”

I think of Abram and Sarai. God called them into an unknown future, but they still brought cattle and livestock with them. They trusted God while also preparing for the journey ahead.

The Apostle Paul made tents.

Faith and sustainability are not opposites.

Planning for the journey ahead

None of us fully know where we are going to end up.

But many of us sense that God is calling us somewhere new.

The question is not whether we trust God.

The question is:

How do we create structures, rhythms, and plans that allow the work to endure along the way?

Maybe that means bivocational ministry.
Maybe it means slower growth.
Maybe it means redefining success entirely.

Whatever the path, sustainability is not about control.

It’s about stewardship.

Why this matters for Substack Seminary

This is the kind of tension we’re exploring in Substack Seminary.

Not simplistic answers, but honest questions about ministry, leadership, sustainability, and faithfulness in a changing world.

Because viability matters.
But viability alone is not enough.

If you’re trying to discern what kind of ministry is worth sustaining—and how to sustain it faithfully—this is the work.

Join us.

Substack Seminary is a Newsletter that is part of
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During Quarters, you’ll get blogs thematic blogs:

• Q1: Vision & Systematic Change

• Q2: Structure & Business Model

• Q3: Theology & Community

• Q4: Technology & Collaboration

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