Who's in your network? And do they know what you're doing?

Building relationships when you're working outside traditional institutions

Fr. Cathie Caimano, the fearless leader of Substack Seminary, has often said in our internal—and even external—conversations that we are all quite literally practitioners ourselves. Meaning, we’re not only trying to teach you how to do the work; we’re learning, trying, experimenting, and growing ourselves in real time.

Here’s one real-life example.

If you haven’t heard, I’ve just had a book published! The Church as Community Hub: Sharing Spaces to Help Neighborhoods Thrive, published by Church Publishing, is a practical and hopeful guide encouraging churches to rediscover their purpose as neighborhood anchors through community partnerships.

Like most authors, I’m trying to tap into the vast reaches of my network to see who hasn’t heard about my book and who might be willing to share it more broadly with someone within their own networks.

To that end, last week I made that request of Cathie.

She was willing, but then, like she’s good at doing, she pressed me to go further and write about it this week for Substack Seminary.

After all, we’re talking about networks this week!

When you don’t have an institutional network

I’ll say this firsthand: many—perhaps most—of us within the Substack Seminary orbit are people who operate outside the orbit of traditional institutions.

Whether it’s someone like Pastor Sierra Ward, who quite literally started a church AND a denomination, or someone like me, who works within many denominations and ministry contexts, often to the detriment of having real, entrenched connections within any one of them.

In other words, most of us are much like the original “free-range priest,” Cathie Caimano.

We’re sort of making it up as we go along.

And I say this in connection with my book marketing efforts because when you don’t have an entrenched institutional connection—whether denominational or professional networks that can be easily tapped into—you have to work all the harder to intentionally build those relationships yourself.

Someone working within a denomination, university, or large nonprofit may have an established network of colleagues, newsletters, conferences, and organizational relationships to draw upon.

But what happens when your ministry doesn’t fit neatly within one of those institutions?

You have to be much more intentional about building a network of your own.

Building a network of your own

That’s one of the reasons, as I shared last week, why I’ve begun using Dex, a personal CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool.

I’m trying to build out a network of my own since I don’t have one easily identifiable institutional network to tap into.

Obviously, I do have some nontraditional networks, like Substack and my podcast, Future Christian. And those have been enormously helpful in connecting me with people I otherwise would never have met.

But the online space—while important—is also a busy, crowded space with so many competing demands for people’s attention.

Point being: personal connections, wherever possible, are still the best.

And I think that’s especially true for those of us doing ministry outside traditional institutions.

One of the reasons I like Dex so much is that it gives me daily reminders about who to contact. I can also assign each person a frequency for how often I want to keep in touch.

That way, I’m not simply reaching out to someone when I need something from them.

I’m intentionally maintaining relationships, keeping people within my network, and hopefully staying within theirs.

Because a network isn’t simply a collection of names or email addresses. It’s a collection of relationships that need to be cultivated.

Fr. Cathie Caimano and Pastor Sierra Ward talk about our own ‘tech stacks’ in this live stream replay.

For paid subscribers to Free Range Priest.

Be intentional about your network

So, that’s my/our lesson for this week: Be very intentional about building out your network.

Especially if you’re doing ministry in unconventional ways, working across denominational boundaries, or building something new.

Don’t assume the relationships will simply happen on their own.

And don’t wait until you need something—like, say, help promoting a new book—to discover that you haven’t been keeping up with quite enough people!

Who are the people you want to stay connected with?

Who might you want to get to know better?

And who could you be encouraging or supporting in their own work?

After all, networking isn’t just about finding people who can help you. It’s also about becoming someone who can help others.

And speaking of networking...

Which brings me back to what inspired this blog in the first place.

I have indeed published a book!

The Church as Community Hub: Sharing Spaces to Help Neighborhoods Thrive explores how churches can rethink the use of their buildings, land, and resources to become neighborhood anchors through community partnerships.

And to help me build my book network, I’d be so grateful for your help!

Please consider buying the book directly from the publisher (use promo code HUB20 for 20% off) or wherever you get your books.

If you’re an Amazon user and have already bought the book, please take a moment to leave a review!

And finally, if you know someone who might be interested in the book—a pastor, denominational leader, nonprofit professional, or someone thinking about the future of church property—please pass this information along.

Or, if you’re interested in connecting more about the book yourself, let me know!

Let’s build each other’s networks!

---

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’.

---

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.