Ask Fr. Cathie: Am I ‘sneakily sacramenting’?

A subscriber wrote that she interned at a church, left on good terms, and stayed in the same small town. The new senior pastor isn’t great at visitations or bringing communion to shut-ins — and after one shut-in waited weeks with nothing but excuses, she asked our viewer instead. She brought communion. Did she overstep?

• First, a story. Back when I was a senior pastor, an associate who hadn’t gotten the job started showing up at our Saturday feeding program, opening it with prayer, wearing his collar — basically presenting himself as pastor of the congregation. I told him, ‘you have to stop doing this.’ He was being passive-aggressive and undermining my leadership, and calling him out was right. But Sneakily Sacramenting — this is not what you were doing.
  

• Respect the boundaries of someone’s ministry — which I think you absolutely were doing. And if there’s any way to talk directly to the other pastor, that’s always a good thing.
  

• The Cage Free Ministry reframe: We live in an era - and a church - where one pastor no longer has complete authority over members’ spiritual care. Today people read books, listen to podcasts, use apps, watch online - and keep in touch with their former pastors on social media. I think it’s ALL great!
  

• Think of it like your health. I’m in charge of my physical health and I might go see a chiropractor, a massage therapist, or my regular GP. Our spiritual lives should work the same way: we take charge of them and seek lots of wisdom and guidance.
  

• Charge for your work. If you know me, and if you follow me, you know I’m going to say this. Ministry is work — vocational and sacramental and spiritual. And also work. I personally don’t think Sunday worship should cost money, but weddings and funerals? Absolutely. Pastoral visits? YES. It’s uncomfortable. But that discomfort is teaching us something.

• Make it collaborative if you can. If the feeding-program guy had come to me first and asked if it was okay if I lead them in prayer, I would have said ‘absolutely’! Because then it would have been collaborative ministry. If it’s possible, you could approach this senior pastor and tell him you’re happy to provide pastoral care for your members if they request it, and work with him to provide it. He might be thrilled with that idea!
  

• Then the pay could go through the church: Offer hospital visits and have the church pay you - something like: ‘we’ll pay you $500 a month to do up to four visits.’ Less awkward than charging someone for the sacrament (or appearing to)! You get compensated for your ministry, the congregants get the pastoral care they need, and the senior pastor gets some help.
  
  

  ---

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

This month’s question is about using Substack for Ministry

Substack helps you promote and organize your publication with lots of features, which can get overwhelming at times.

So I’m going to show you two things in today’s live stream:

• Sections (also called newsletters).

• the About header, which I’m now using at Free Range Priest for the table of contents.

• Also what ‘incognito windows’ are, and why they are useful when formatting and editing.

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

Sign up for the Newsletters - and manage your preferences HERE.

In the past few years, I’ve worked with small congregations, dioceses, part-time clergy, full-time clergy, entrepreneurial clergy and lay ministers, people preparing for ministry, retired clergy, digital ministry course participants, clergy retreat participants, and more.

When I asked what they liked the most about working with Free Range Priest, these are some things they said…

When I asked what they would carry with them as they moved forward in their ministry, here’s what they shared…

Here’s what others have said is most valuable about learning Cage Free Ministry…

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

Sign up for the Newletters - and manage your preferences HERE.

We all know what the ministry ‘cage’ is.

The 20th century institutional church system is collapsing. Ministers and congregations are exhausting themselves trying to hold it together: another budget meeting, another committee, another program we’re hoping will ‘bring in young families’ and more volunteers.

The work of upholding the institution threatens the reason it exists: sharing the love of God and having our lives transformed by it.

Cage Free Ministry is stepping outside the institutional system far enough to rediscover the JOY of serving the church and the people in it.

Most of us know in our bones that the 20th century institutional church is collapsing.
We feel the anxiety and burden. We know the pressure and exhaustion.

And mostly: we don't know what to do about it.

But there are things we can change - small, practical steps that can lead us to more ministry sustainability and JOY.

Cage Free Ministry gives you those steps.

At St. Paul’s in Salisbury, NC, I serve alongside the congregation rather than being ‘in charge’ of it. We agree on the work I provide, while the community takes responsibility for its leadership and decisions (the story of that relationship).

From them - and in my years of serving my own Cage Free Ministry as a Free Range Priest - I’ve developed concepts for ‘bite-sized’ changes based on a new way of thinking about ministry and building a more agile system from the inside of church.

Cage Free Ministry is 12 rubrics built around:

Cage Free Ministry is NOT …

• The minister doing ‘everything’.

  • No boundaries around time or energy (regardless of what the minister is paid).

  • No explicit understanding of what the minister’s job is within the community (or what everyone else’s job is…)

  • Everyone assuming the minister does whatever the last minister did, or whatever this minister did at their last calling. Whatever that is.

• Whatever the pastor says, goes.

  • Clergy ‘in charge’, making all the decisions.

  • Opportunities for conflict/issues between minister and congregation.

  • Confusing apostolic teaching and theological authority with ‘being the boss’ of an organization.

• Organizing outreach and social service initiatives as the central work of the church.

  • Serving our neighbors is important! But it’s the fruit of the faith.

  • Ministry supports the spiritual growth and maturity that inspires members to serve their neighbors.

• Losing sight of the theology, liturgy, tradition, and authority of the church.

  • In fact, it is returning and reconnecting with the practices of the early church and the Scripture, creeds, and sacraments of the broadest tradition of the Christian faith.

  • It’s church being church - and retaining your own congregational/denominational traditions

  • … and canons, guidelines, structures, regulations.
    
    
    

• A static church website (that no one sees) and a social media account (no one keeps up with)

  • and calling this ‘digital ministry’.

  • Instead, it’s using today’s technology as the center of ministry operations

  • … lowering administrative burdens and increasing evangelical reach.

• Another capital campaign. Another pledge drive.

  • More hoping for ‘young families’ and ‘more volunteers’ to shoulder the work we’re being exhausted by.

  • Instead, it’s using agile creative business concepts (including subscriptions) to create truly sustainable ministry.

• The expectation of being in a particular building several times a week.

  • Or having to have an app for all the ways we’re scheduled to ‘work’ at church.

  • Or having to find more ‘volunteers’.

  • Instead, it’s each member growing in their own ministry and deeper relationship with God.

Become a subscriber to Free Range Priest, and you’ll be on your way to becoming Cage Free!

You can be Cage Free

• There are small steps you can take to live into an agile, networked, technology-based system of being and doing church.

• Ministry can be sustainable for ministers and small communities.

• New ways of sharing the faith can thrive in the 21st century.

• We can have our lives transformed by the Gospel by bringing church to people.
  
  

Reimagine ministry with Free Range Priest.

Get unstuck from institutional gridlock and discover more sustainability and JOY in serving the church.

It's still ministry. It just tastes better.

Subscribe now

‘Ask Father Cathie’ is live the first Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern

if you’re ‘stuck’ in your ministry: Ask!

Ask Father Cathie

The question

• Think ‘Cage Free’

  • Start with what the job actually is – specific tasks, scope, and outcomes.

  • Instead of: ‘will you be our chaplain for $2,500 a year?’, ask ‘what ministry can we do together for this stipend?’.
    

    ---

• Task-based ministry vs. assumptions about what we do

  • Organizations and ministers often skip the part where we talk about what the job is!

  • Instead, we just ‘do what ministers do’ - which can lead to misunderstanding the frustration when both parties don’t have the same idea of what ministers do!

  • ‘We’re not paying a priest to pray!’ – how this lead to a Cage Free Ministry breakthrough.
    

    ---

• Ministers should NOT work for free!!

  • If you ‘don’t need the money’ and don’t ask to be paid, you undercut the ministers who do need to pay their bills.

  • Offering ministry for free teaches people that ministry is not work, and it’s not valuable.
    

    ---

• Change starts with us, minister friends

  • Most congregations and organizations are not sure what to think about compensation - and have often been conditioned to believe that ministry is ‘spiritual’, therefore ministers don’t need to be paid.

  • Over-functioning - doing ‘everything’, all the time, and not being compensated appropriately leads to exhaustion, resentment, and eventual breakdown for both minister and community.
    

    ---

• This is what Cage Free ministry is

  • Building a way of serving out of multiple clear, paid contracts: small congregations, organizations, chaplaincy, consulting.

  • That’s how I do it with the small congregation I serve (and have for the last decade), plus consultancy, teaching, speaking, and online ministry.
    
    

    ---

• Advice for the Cage Free Chaplain

  • Be the consultant: help the organization see how this stipend can create specific ministry tasks now…

  • And show them how growth could lead to new opportunities to share God’s love, and draw others into community..

  Your ministry is priceless. That’s exactly why you can’t afford to give it away.

‘Ask Father Cathie’ is live the first Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern

if you’re ‘stuck’ in your ministry: Ask!

Ask Father Cathie

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.

Find all the latest ‘Ask Father Cathie’ posts in the archive:

Ask Father Cathie archive

It’s the first episode of Ask Fr. Cathie, and I got a great question!

Here’s what I said:

1. Christianity is about ‘nearness’. It’s about who is my neighbor - and how close they come.
   
   That’s what we do in Christian community. We work to become closer - more near neighbors.
   
   But we also live in a world mitigated by sin, so not everyone can come completely near (we reserve our nearest relationships for spouses - where we covenant to try and become as vulnerable as possible. To drop as many of our guards as we can in a place protected by love).
   
   So we do live in discernment of how near others can be - and through the lens of keeping others - and ourselves - from harm.

   
   

   ---

2. Congregants can be friends, but not peers in the same way
   I say yes, we can be friends with parishioners—laughing, loving, and sharing life together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
   
   This is where we do think about ‘Cage Free Ministry’. We’re not like a doctor, a judge or some other professional who must keep super strict boundaries.
   
   We are in the business of becoming near to each other.
   
   But like a parent with children, they can come closer to us than we come to them: we don’t unload all our anxieties on them or make them worry about us, because our primary role is their spiritual care and formation (one reason I like being a ‘Father’.
   
   

   ---

3. It’s about keeping our focus on growing in relationship with God.
   
   I encourage preachers to tell personal stories from the pulpit - I think we should. People need to hear about what we believe about God, and why. Also, good stories automatically make people think about themselves, and their relationship with God.
   
   But the minute they start worrying about me, instead of thinking about themselves and God, I’ve gone too far.
   
   This takes practice, discernment, and prayer.
   
   It’s the same thing with parishioners as friends.
   
   The nearness we seek above all else is their nearness with God.
   
   We don’t want to get in the way.
   

Ask Father Cathie’ is live the first Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern

if you’re’ stuck’ in your ministry: Ask!

Ask Father Cathie

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Get:
Christian Practice. Ministry Community. Small, practical changes. Good Stuff.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

It was a great party.

Laughing, dancing, eating good food (and a little wine), catching up.

Then a friend of a friend - someone I’d met only once - grabbed me and said,
‘You’ve got to help my congregation’.

I immediately sat down. (My husband was not thrilled.)

She poured out a story I’ve heard a hundred times (not an exaggeration):
church looked fine on the outside, but nothing was working the way it used to. Too much work. Not enough people. Budget woes. Exhaustion. Conflict. Leadership confused, stressed, unsure what to do.

I gave her my best advice. Then I went back to dancing.

At the end, I told her: have them call me - the leaders who are afraid.

Of course the call never came.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry. Right now. Today.
Become a paid subscriber to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

This is the joy and the challenge of being ‘Free Range’.

Everyone wants it to be easier to be in ministry today - clergy, lay ministers, congregations, denominations, dioceses, etc.

I get weekly calls, emails, texts, social media messages, smoke signals, the works. People launch into their stories of ‘stuckness’.

At the same time, the big, systematic changes required to really move into the Future of Church are scary.

They seem like too much work. We don’t really want to do things differently. We’re too exhausted - and have too few resources, to muster this kind of transformation.

(Incidentally, if you’re organization really IS ready for this, call me! I really can help. Or better yet, sign up for 30 minutes on my calendar…)

Free consult

So here’s some advice for free

(and some advice you have to pay a lot less for than traditional church consulting…)…

#1:

WE have to be the change.

The most common question I get:

’How do I get my congregation to change?’
(also insert ‘priest’, ‘bishop’, ‘denomination’, ‘church board’, etc).

The answer: You don’t.

• We cannot get others to change (repeat that as your mantra).

• Institutions are not built for change - so they aren’t going to (or if they do, it will be very slow)(repeat this, too).

• The change has to come from us, individually - and most of it is changing our perspective, our vision. (‘Be the change’. Repeat as needed).
  
  

And we can change our vision.
We can learn to see what is the Gospel and what is the institutional ‘stuff’ around it.
And we can learn to lean into one and have the courage to let go of the other.

#2
You don’t have to grab my arm at a party.

(though BLESS the brave person who did!)

I really, really want to talk with everyone - all the time! - about how to re-imagine ministry. But it’s seriously not practical.

Which is why I’m extremely excited to start:

‘Ask Father Cathie’

advice for those experiencing church ‘stuckness’ and ministry that feels ‘caged’ by institutional collapse.

Once a month - the first Wednesday of the month, starting May 6, I’m going live at noon Eastern to answer your questions.

It’s for paid subscribers only - both the submission form and the livestream - but you can get a whole year of Free Range Priest (all the articles and the advice, plus discounts on mini-courses) for $80.

Completely affordable - and doable - bite-sized church consultation.
One small change of vision at a time.

So pretend we just bumped into each other somewhere, or take the email you were about to send me, and instead, submit the form below and send me your worst place of ‘stuckness’…

(and if you haven’t upgraded to paid yet, do that now and then submit the form…)

Ask Father Cathie’ is live the first Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern

if you’re’ stuck’ in your ministry: Ask!

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Get:
Christian Practice. Ministry Community. Small, practical changes. Good Stuff.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

It was Easter Sunday, 2016

I was scheduled to supply at ​St. Paul’s Episcopal Church​ in Salisbury, NC.

I knew from the minute I walked in that this was a special place: a small church with a big spirit. I loved the time I spent there.

Afterwards the senior warden called me. “We’re looking for a new vicar, and we want you to be that person.”

But I had just started a new ministry - I had just gone ‘Free Range’. Precisely because I knew the struggles that congregations - and clergy - were facing.

I said no.

But still … I felt something very holy about serving alongside them.

So I proposed another possibility to St. Paul’s:
what if we designed a new way to serve ministry together, that best supported everyone sharing the Gospel with minimal stress?

Over a decade has passed since then.

And along the way, we’ve worked out what I call ‘Cage Free’ ministry - a way to get to the most important parts of ministry - prayer, worship, formation, hospitality - with as little institutional ‘overhead’ as possible.

We’ve figured out 5 steps to Cage Free Ministry with a congregation (paid subscribers, see below)…

Join us at . A place where innovative ministers - lay or ordained, serving in a traditional congregational setting or setting out on their own as entrepreneurial clergy and faith practitioners -

can find a community for ministry development, training, and support.

It’s where ‘Cage Free’ ministers of all kinds feel less alone.

You’re not weird - you’re early. And now you’re right on time.
Join Substack Seminary - a year-long development, networking, and training community for ministers.

Substack Seminary

Cage Free Ministry Basics

1. Clergy (and professional lay ministers) on task-based contract.

A new minister shows up at a congregation - what is the actual work they’re supposed to do?

Often enough, this is never spelled out!

Clergy do what they think clergy should do (they lead worship, they preach, and then what? Pastoral care? (what does that mean, exactly?) Christian formation (what does that mean, exactly?)

Clergy end up doing everything. And congregations just assume that this clergy person will do what the last one did (why shouldn’t they?) And they basically expect full-time work regardless of whether it’s part-time, because clergy are usually doing everything.

The simple yet paradigm-shifting solution to this: a contract that states exactly what work is being done by the minister. Based on the task, not the time.

It’s not about ‘30 hours a week’, it’s about ‘preaching on Sunday’ (how many Sundays? What about other days/services? etc)

2. Clergy not ‘in charge’ of congregations

The 20th-century model of church is clergy as CEOs of small non-profits - making decisions for the community on everything from service times to personnel to programs.

In the Cage Free model, clergy serve alongside congregations, bearing the sacraments, Scripture, and traditions of faith. Praying and leading worship. And supporting the leadership of the lay ministers - and the whole congregation.

It’s not the clergy person’s church!

Personally, as a Free Range Priest who has been serving with a small congregation for a decade, I:

• Don’t have a key to the buildings

• Don’t know what their budget is

• Don’t attend any meetings (unless I’m specifically invited - for a reason)

Cage Free Ministry is about being a ‘consultant’ for the ministry of the congregation or community.

3. Asking ‘Where is God in this?’

After clarifying what our job is NOT, it’s important to clarify what it is:

Theological presence and process.

Helping others grow in their relationship with God, and helping them become the disciples they’re called to be.

The ‘cage’ of the institutional church often puts clergy in the role of social worker, therapist, community organizer, business manager, and other jobs best suited for those who are so called.

As ministers, we have a very important calling, and it’s important to keep this central:

Sit with people and ask where God is in this. Tell them where you see and feel God’s presence. Create space for discernment and listening for God’s voice.

Don’t solve or fix. Be a faithful presence.

4. ‘Root’ not ‘Fruit’ of Christian ministry

Churches should not be doing ‘outreach’.

This may seem contradictory to our faith - because of course we’re called to love and serve our neighbors!

But this is the ‘fruit’ of Christian ministry.

Ministry is where we share the root.

There is nowhere else in today’s world for people to learn and practice and experience the Christian faith than in church (or participating in another ministry).

Ministry should focus on forming disciples - who then feel compelled to share the fruit of Christian ministry in their community.

5.Focus on sharing the Gospel - NOT saving the institution.

This step requires brutal honesty and not a small bit of courage.

Most ministers and lay leaders are exhausted because they are trying SO hard not to let the institution collapse on their watch.

• ‘We’ve got to meet our budget’

• ‘We’ve got to bring in new members’

• ‘We’ve got keep this small group of people happy’

• ‘We’ve got to find more people to help with this program’
  
  

Or else - what?

Or else the church doors could close. Or else the minister’s hours will have to be reduced (or at least their pay…). Or else we might have to let someone go…

The painful truth: the institution is collapsing anyway. We can’t save it through the force of our will.

The Good News: We can let it go. We really can.

If we focus on the love of God, and loving and serving our neighbors, if we preach the Gospel and use our energy to share it - then we know God is leading us forward into new ways of being and doing church.

We just have to follow faithfully.

And be not afraid.

The ultimate goal of Cage Free Ministry isn’t efficiency or

cost savings—though it provides both. It isn’t even supporting clergy and small congregations - though it does this, too!

The goal is breaking out of the institutional cage that is crushing us - and sharing more Good News that is giving us life.

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

It’s 4:22am.

I’m an early riser, but this is getting ridiculous. I wake up at 3, then convince myself I must get at least one more hour of sleep.

Lately I’ve been playing a game with myself like I’m a kid - ‘you can’t get out of bed till the big hand hits 5’.

So I lay here and worry.

Maybe it’s not worry - it’s more like simply being overwhelmed. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in.

I’ve always been a big picture person, and things come into my head fully formed. Then I feel like I have to produce every last detail of this vision today.

I’m always kind of amazed at myself that I think I can do this. I’ve grown to appreciate my own heedless optimism - my sense that of course I have endless time and energy.

But of course I don’t. And I have even less when my body is revved up before I even open my eyes.

Hearts up!

During Lent, I’m inviting paid subscribers into my process (or in this case, into my creation of a process…) while I sort out how to:

• Develop Christian Practices to share with individuals and communities

• Build a network of innovative ministers

• Walk with the small congregation I serve as they face the challenges of today’s church landscape and get ‘unstuck’

• Create a series of ‘mini consultations’ I’m calling ‘re-imagination packages’

It’s sort of like inviting you to watch while I rehab a house - there’s things that are messy and hard, but underneath, there’s good bones.

I’ll also keep you updated on the training and the fasting, in case you’re interested.

I’m building all this into what I’m calling the Stained Glass Project - all four of my separate ministries (the Four ‘Panes’) and how they work together…

My work is about turning my own spiritual life inside-out.

That’s what I’ve finally come to realize. Or at least, today I have that insight…

I love the church. I see how it is struggling. I also see how it can transform. I want to share that - in a way that is transformative for others.

But just like I’ve learned over 30 years as a preacher that every sermon I give is really for me, I’m starting to get it that the only thing I can do as a church reformer is understand and share how following Jesus and practicing the Christian faith is reforming me.

My own struggles in traditional ministry can be traced back to not just institutional collapse, but my own sense that it was my job to keep it going - by sheer force of will. By thinking I was in charge. By thinking I needed to do God’s job for God.

Now, at 4:22am, I realize I’m still doing the same thing.

So I go for a run.

I’m training for a half marathon in April. I’m turning 60 in the fall, and by then I want to be back in really good shape. My fabulous husband is coaching me, and I’ve got 10 hill repeats (plus 1 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down) on the schedule.

Running is a magic elixer. I often tell myself I don’t have time to run, I have too much work to do, I’m tired, etc., etc. But once I’m out there, my body calms down and my soul fills with joy.

The air is cold. The sun is rising. I feel alive, and I feel God being in charge. I let go of myself.

Hearts up!

I’m fasting, too, for Lent. Following the spiritual exercises I’m developing from the ancient church at the ‘gym for your soul’.

I’m eating, for sure. But a little bit less at every meal, and the simplest foods. I quit eating at 5pm, and break my fast at 6am. It’s amazing how clarifying this is - how it gives me focus.

I realize, although it’s not my nature, that I have to do one thing at a time. I have to discern the next most important thing, and get it done. I ask God to show me what it is.

This week it’s finishing what I call the Golden Document. I’m using AI to build it, and it’s also meant to be for AI to help me run the ecosystem of my ministry.

I can’t do everything myself - but I do have immense technological resources at my fingertips to assist.

The Golden Document is where I’m feeding in every last thought I’m having about how to build the architecture of what I’m envisioning:

• a freestanding ministry of Christian Practice - Trexo.

• a community for innovative ministers building their own ‘faith practices’ - Substack Seminary.

• guidance and direction for a small congregation re-imagining its own ministry - St. Paul’s.

• the theory and principles that undergird it all - Free Range Priest.

The institutional church system is definitely collapsing, and in so many ways I see this as something necessary. It’s time for new systems to be born and thrive.

But it also means a lot of chaos in the meantime. How’s all this supposed to work?

And is it my job to create a whole new system by myself?

Is it? I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it is. Sometimes I realize how grandiose that sounds - and is. I just have to keep walking the path that God has given me, and trust that it is a small piece of what is necessary.

I think this is what’s keeping me up at night. The feeling of overwhelm.

How to balance how clearly I see things and how strongly I feel called to create with the truth:

• I can’t do it all myself.

• I need God’s guidance and protection.

• I need other people.

I know I’m not alone. I feel God with me. I also have my wonderful partners at Substack Seminary - and , and the amazing people of St. Paul’s.

This week, though, it’s the Golden Document. I just feel like if I can get everything out, and use AI’s help to organize everything I’m envisioning it, then I can share it more clearly with others.

And then maybe I’ll get the courage to let others help me modify the vision, to help me shape it by sharing theirs with me.

Maybe I’ll learn to trust that whatever work is put before me, it is helping me grow closer to God.
And whatever work I don’t get done is doing the same.

Each ministry in the Stained Glass Project has its own Substack site:

Free Range Priest
Substack Seminary
Trexo: a gym for your soul
St. Paul’s, Salisbury, NC

You can subscribe - Free, Paid, or Founding - to each of these to be part of each community.

If you want to be part of everything - and get the discount, and support the Future of Church - you’re invited to become a Founding member of Free Range Priest.

This will give you access as a monthly paid member to all four communities (Subscriptions to St. Paul’s go directly to them. The others support Free Range Priest).

Subscribe now

Hearts up!

Fr. Cathie

St. Paul’s is just like your church - or one you know:

• They’re a small town, mainline Christian church.

• There aren’t too many of them.

• We’re all getting a little older!

• They’re pretty traditional in their faith and worship.

• They worry about things like bills and facilities and having the energy and time to get everything done.

• They would not call themselves super tech-savvy.
  
  

St. Paul’s is pretty special, though:

• They have what I call a ‘secret sauce’. A certain alchemy of place, people, faith, and God’s abiding presence that makes the sense of holiness just feel palpable here.

• It’s a place where loving God and our neighbor is incredibly present.

• I’m completely biased, I know! But then again, I’m one of those people who wandered in, pretty randomly - ten years ago on Easter Sunday - and was then taken in by the strength of the Spirit in this place.

• The ‘special sauce’ has changed my entire concept of ministry, and I serve with St. Paul’s as I’ve never done before - and I don’t think anyone else is presently.

• I’m their ‘Free Range Priest’ - not their vicar, not their part-time pastor, not there every Sunday.

• I’m not in charge.

• I serve alongside these beautiful people as they grow in their faith and in their ministry.

Oh, they tolerate my crazy ideas.

• They went along with my ideas about serving task-based rather than time-based ministry (so I’m paid according to the services they need: like leading worship, pastoral care, and tech support, rather than being ‘half-time’ or ‘quarter-time’).
  

• They hesitantly - then enthusiastically - embraced using church management software for organization and administration: and as a tool for sharing ministry.
  

• They use an app for ‘church chat’ to keep in touch with each other for fun and silly things, and for prayer and sharing information when someone is sick or in crisis. The bishop visited recently and was completely floored by how easily they use technology.
  

• They recently pointed that I’m part of the ‘special sauce’ now, too. I believe that. St. Paul’s has brought out the best of my gifts for ministry. They challenge and encourage me. They’re game for new things: but they’re also clear about what is a step too far for them.
  
  

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They are growing their online and in-person membership.

• This Holy Week, we decided to try something different.

• After the Maundy Thursday, we continued our all-night 'vigil at the altar of repose’ online.

• We symbolically sat with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane from 8pm Thursday until 8am Good Friday.

• Every hour we met online - live streamed here on Substack - for prayer or song for about ten minutes.

• About 10 people participated in all. Including one person who joined us fully online for several hours. We don’t know him - but he signed up, so we can keep in touch! - but he sat with us and prayed for hours.

• This is how we see that online and in-person ministry can work together to share the Gospel.

St. Paul’s is just like your church - and just like church can be.

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

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