Sept 2019 Update: Pastors in the 21st Century, Prosperity and Pursuit of the Good Life

I heard an argument on a podcast today between a woman who claimed that September 1 signals the end of summer, while someone else insisted on the Autumnal Equinox.  All I know is that #PSL is already available at Starbucks, so there you have it!

I had a GREAT August full of bike rides, travels, fresh produce and interesting work. As always, I came across many outstanding resources I want to share with you.

What is the Good Life? I went to a tremendous conference at Pepperdine University hosted by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture titled "Pedagogy of the Good Life." (Here's an article about the Center from the Huffington Post.) 

Turns out there are several amazing courses being taught around the country that explore the question, "What is the Good Life?" I believe this is our most pressing task for the church (creating dialogue and discipleship around this question). So many young adults I know are asking some form of this question. Will the Church be brave enough to truly engage this sort of dialogue? That's what I wanted to explore at this conference, and I was not disappointed. I found the discussions and presentations throughout the week utterly riveting. Here are just a smidgen of the resources I found:

• Life Worth Living curriculum. The faculty generously make their syllabus available publicly. Truly, I find their approach really intriguing. And it is the MOST popular class at Yale; so many students want to take this class that they have to actually require applications for taking the course! Here is the 7-week course they've created for adults as well. 
• God and the Good Life. An equally amazing course (and just as popular) is being taught at Notre Dame. First of all, the tech design of this syllabus is breathtaking! Think about adapting this and using it with a small group or perhaps even (gasp!) as a sermon series. I love the home page of this course as well.
• Let Me Ask You a Question. This book was written by Matthew Croasmun, one of the creators of the Life Worth Living course at Yale. Bottom line: I BELIEVE in this book as a truly outstanding discipleship tool. Just buy it and try it out.

The Challenge of Being a Pastor in a Secular Age. The third sentence of this article caught my attention: "'I’ve been a pastor for 15 years, and most days I have no idea what I’m doing. It makes me nauseous,' he continued." I have had that conversation with so. many. pastors. The article continues: "He’s not alone. I find myself talking with more and more pastors stricken with uneasy nausea and fatigue that they can’t name. It’s as though their calling has been stripped of meaning... We now live in a time where the very idea that God is real and present in our lives is no longer accepted. Indeed, it’s widely contested. Belief has been made fragile -- for the pastor as much as for those in the pews." This article won't solve our existential questions, but I find great encouragement in seeing them put into words.

A New Kind of Prosperity Gospel. I am fascinated by how our world is seeking to scratch our need for meaning and purpose. Recently I came across two articles that examine this in very interesting ways. Check this quote from Relevant Magazine: "The Prosperity Gospel is no longer houses, cars, money and health. The New Prosperity Gospel is a hip city and a follower count that ends with a K." The other article was in the New York Times: The New Spiritual Consumerism. We MUST stay attuned to our culture. These articles are helpful roadmaps.

Books I'm Reading. Other than seeing some BEAUTIFUL places (this was the view from the AirB&B I stayed at in Maine with my best friend!) and eating some great food (hello lobster and Whoopie Pies!), my favorite vacation activity is the freedom to read to my heart's content. Here are some of the things I've been reading:

• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi. Very thought-provoking and provocative at the same time. The New Yorker also did a fascinating article about it.
• Enneagram Transformations: Releases and Affirmations for Healing Your Personality Type by Don Richard Riso. Yep, I'm on the Enneagram bandwagon. I've been riding it for a couple of years and finding it tremendously helpful for my own spiritual formation. I bought the $1.99 Kindle version of this but can't currently find it.
• Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott. She never fails to make me laugh out loud AND journal at the same time.
• An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. Fondly called "BBT" by many, I found this a great devotional read.

Final thoughts. These words are remaining with me still despite reading them several days ago. Let them sink in:

What is in ruins? The invisible church, composed of all Spirit-baptized persons, is indefectible, it cannot be ruined; against it "the gates of Hades shall not prevail." The local assembly may indeed be sadly ruined; but it can be restored, as, by the grace of God, has been seen times without number--at Corinth, for example. The only other institution in question is that agglomeration of sects that is called "Christendom." But that is unrecognized by the New Testament--it is not of God at all: and that it is "in ruins" is no matter for our regret.

    ... G. H. Lang (1874-1958)

Feel free to pass this along to friends, and reach out to me with questions or feedback at kelly.soifer@ksleadershipdevelop.me. Happy end of Summer 2019 ~ may your fall be a lovely one!

Fall Adventures 2012 - Day One

I appreciated a friend's email today, asking about my blogging silence. He just wanted to make sure I was ok.

I am more than OK... I AM THRIVING!

I did have to shake my head though when I pulled up my blog just now and saw that I hadn't entered anything in just about a month. Yikes. Where did the time go?

So rather than drone on with a bullet list of what I am up to (I know I know, I have too many bullet lists....) I thought I would just share one update per post, and slowly fill things in as to what I've been up to. So here goes!

For this first entry, I don't know what to call it... The words "consulting" and "coaching" both have a negative ring to them for some, and I get a remark here and there at times when I use either one of these words to describe some of what I do now. What can I say? I love it, and it is really keeping me busy.

For lack of a better term, I come alongside pastors for a period of time and work with them on a variety of things. Since June 2009, I have met with youth pastors and directors from thirteen different churches located in Florida, Illinois, Washington, Nebraska, Arizona and California through a great group of people called Youth Ministry Architects. They gave me a chance when I first entered my big transition from day-to-day youth pastoring, and I am forever grateful to them. 

And starting in March 2009 I have done the same thing with pastors in the Free Methodist Church in Southern California, having worked with twenty-one churches so far. I've fallen in love with the people and the denomination. They labor long and hard and often in anonymity. I have worked with churches from 30 to 800 people. I've been translated into Cantonese, preached to an entirely Latino congregation and even went to three different churches in one day. It's an adventure and I love it.

But let's get specific... What does this coaching / consulting / coming-alongside "thing" look like? Honestly, it varies every time because my first question inevitably is, "What do you need?" Rather than crank people through a gimmicky program, I simply try to bring a big toolbox of resources and experience to every situation. I listen a lot, take a whole lot of notes, brainstorm, and pray.

Quite possibly the most interesting part is how it all works out week by week... after an initial on-site visit where I get to know the pastor and the church a bit, I then meet regularly with them via online video calls. I'm at the point where I am on Skype or Google Hangout just about every day. For example, this was my schedule today:

• 9-10am: meet with campus pastor who has launched a new service reaching college students and young adults in So Cal.
• 10-11am: meet with a senior pastor who is leading a church in the High Desert as he ministers to military, Native Americans, retirees, young families, a Christian school and people in recovery.
• noon-1pm: work with a board member in Rancho Cucamonga to keep shaping our Center for Transformational Leadership. We have at least ten different leadership development projects going on with undegrad and grad students at Azusa Pacific and Westmont. But that's another blog post...
• 1-2pm: meet for monthly training with a middle school youth director in a Seattle suburb.
• 2-3pm: meet with an associate pastor in a town near downtown LA.

Isn't that crazy?? Yes, I take breaks to go to the bathroom and eat, but other than that it's a blinger of a day. Yes, I get a little hoarse, and I need a good bike ride after sitting that long, but I consider it an amazing privilege to come alongside these friends. We work on strategic planning, youth ministry, preaching calendars, cross-cultural ministry, staff development, time management, leadership development, new initiatives, spiritual formation, social media, pastoral care, you name it.

I read these verses this morning and they made me think of the churches and people I am working with right now. I praise God for the opportunities before me:

May God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon. And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen. (1Thessalonians 3:11-13)

Thanks for reading... much more to share in the days to come. 

Year-End

I woke up this morning to a pleasant little surprise in my inbox: I received a weekly update from the Fuller Youth Institute about their Top 5 Resources for 2010, and one of my articles was listed.

I have another article coming out with them next month, along with a different article in Youthworker Journal. Allow me to be the first to tell you that this is no way to make a living. "Publishing" in the new millennium is a dicey proposition at best. But I'm also no starving writer. These articles are simply a way for me to be creative and reflective. They also give me the opportunity to share a bit of experience. I stumbled into writing, but I'm really enjoying it. Since spring 09 I've had some twenty articles come out. I really can't believe it. I guess being an English major turned out OK after all...

There is another small course change on the horizon. For close to two years I have been working with pastors in the Free Methodist Conference of Southern California, coaching and collaborating on strategic planning, staff management, volunteer development, church planting, cross-cultural ministry, project management, discipleship, and leadership. So far I've worked with thirteen churches from San Diego to Santa Barbara. In that time I've also started to partner with the superintendents on some other projects, to the point where they have asked me to become the Director of Recruiting and Development for the Conference. So starting in 2011 I will work with several Christian colleges to recruit interns to work in our Southern California churches. Once the interns are recruited I will train the supervising pastors and the interns themselves for this projects. Our hope is to raise up a bunch of new pastors for the future. We have a surprising number of tremendous ministries available, and I am like a kid in a candy shop as I prepare for this.

Because of this I will scale back slightly on my work with Providence Hall, but not by much. I will still be teaching there, plus giving direction to some projects, especially those related to admissions, parent support and community outreach.

I am grateful each day for such enjoyable, meaningful and supportive employment. Yet it would be aimless busyness if not for the great, eternal promises of Christ. As 2010 winds down, these two passages I read this morning sum up what is truly worth knowing and living for. As the prayer for today says, "Christ is coming. Christ has come. Christ will come again." The older I get, the more I really know that this is good news. Hallelujah.

^{Psalm 104}

³¹ May the glory of the Lord continue forever!
The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made!
³² The earth trembles at his glance;
the mountains smoke at his touch.

³³ I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
³⁴ May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
³⁵ Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth;
let the wicked disappear forever.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

Bishop N. T. Wright of Durham has written, “The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose — ​and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project.”

(Find all of this in Common Prayer for Dec. 20)

"So What's Up with You?"

I run into people and the first question I hear is often "So what's up with you?"

One by one, the details perhaps don't sound like much, but together, they add up to a rather eventful and interesting summer.

Here goes:

• I got to go to Alaska June 23-July 3. Two words: Uh-mazing. Here's one post I wrote about it. Stinkin' glorious. I cannot recommend it enough as a vacation destination. If you've been wondering and wavering, wonder and waver no longer. Book it.
• I moved on from Eden Reforestation Projects, and expanded my role at Providence Hall High School. After a really fun year juggling a whole lot of different projects, I'd reached a point where my roles at both organizations were expanding, and I needed to make a choice. After much prayer and consideration, I chose Providence Hall. I am continuing as the Campus Pastor, leading the Foundation of the Christian Faith class with the entire student body. This role also lets me work with the student leadership team, and coordinate the parenting seminars series we title Providence Presents. But as of July 1, I doubled my time there and have taken on some administrative projects as the Assistant Headmaster. My energies are focused on revamping the admissions process, strengthening our technological infrastructure, and working with our new Director of Advancement in terms of marketing and communications. Given that these tasks are often what I work on through my pastoral coaching projects, it's a treat to remain "on the ground" myself and keep sharpening my own abilities. We have 22-25 more students coming in September as we enter our 4th year as a school. Though we're still a start-up in most respects, it feels like we're getting some solid traction as well.
• I bought a new bike (and sold my old one). Pictured above is my new trusty steed, a Specialized Globe Vienna 4, which I think I'm going to name Blue Steel. To use a word from my students, this bike is sick. The photo shows many of its awesome qualities -- lightweight fenders, a front hub that powers the lights front and back, a built-in sturdy rear rack, a nifty bell, and best of all -- unlike the bike pictured -- an 8-gear internal rear hub. No derailleur (or dirty chain!). It's a smooth ride and a heck of a lot of fun. I take it on the bike bus to Providence Hall, then ride home a few days a week. I often stop on the way home on errands and am able to load up. Since I also have my scooter, I'm getting really close to selling my car. Not quite ready to jump off that cliff, but getting much closer.
• I've got a lot of church consulting projects -- currently I am working with five churches related to youth ministry, and with seven churches in terms of pastoral coaching (strategic planning, leadership development, staff management, casting vision, problem-solving, etc.) I go on-site at least once to each of these churches, but then maintain our working relationship through Skype. I love technology...
• I'm surprised to have a few speaking gigs coming up: I'm co-leading a ministry summit seminar for all So Cal Free Methodist churches this Saturday on Children's & Youth Ministries -- how to plan for the year and build a structure around it. On Aug 20-21 I'm speaking at church's youth camp near Big Sur. On Aug 27 I'm meeting with the staff and leadership core in Downey to coach them through Strengths-Finder. On Sept 18 I'm leading a seminar on the stages of adolescent development for a church's parents and youth ministry leaders. Fun fun fun!
• I had an article featured on YMToday this week. I actually wrote it awhile ago, but was grateful to have it circulated again. I have a new article coming out in September with Youthworker Journal, and am currently working on a larger project with YMToday and the Lilly Foundation on how to teach worldviews to young people.
• I'm still cooking up a storm... I can't believe that I flunked Home Ec in jr. high and now consider cooking one of my favorite hobbies. Tonight a little treat from the Whole Foods weekly email made me smile -- Banana Nice Cream. Heavenly.
  

I am speechless as I consider the many ways I get to experience God's creative and gentle grace. However, I do not mean to paint a completely rosy picture. Threaded throughout these many gifts is a painful journey with a close friend as she faces the end of a ten-year battle with brain cancer. I really hate cancer...

In my visit with her this week I read parts of Psalm 107 to her. I end with those lines, finding strength in the reality that this life is not all there is. Because of this, we are sustained.

1-3 Oh, thank God—he's so good! His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world!
Tell how he freed you from oppression,
Then rounded you up from all over the place,
from the four winds, from the seven seas.

^4-9 Some of you wandered for years in the desert,
looking but not finding a good place to live,
Half-starved and parched with thirst,
staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.
Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God.
He got you out in the nick of time;
He put your feet on a wonderful road
that took you straight to a good place to live.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
He poured great draughts of water down parched throats;
the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.

When It Rains....

(...you know the rest.)

I just had someone (you know who you are) email me to say, "You haven't blogged in awhile about you :) "

Which made me smile. Thanks.

Anyway, I haven't posted much in the last week or two because my plate is full. No doubt about it.

These are the plates spinning right now. Please don't ask, "How do you keep it all straight?" It's far too complicated to explain. Rest assured that it is all super fun and interesting. I am grateful beyond words.

• Pastoral coaching projects in East LA, two in Long Beach (starting tomorrow), Escondido, Hermon (near Highland Park), Garden Grove.
• Youth ministry consulting projects in Seattle area, Western suburbs of Chicago, Garden Grove and a new one near San Luis Obispo.
• Teaching a new series on apologetics out of C.S. Lewis' classic Mere Christianity for 8 weeks at Providence Hall High School.
• Coordinating a community-wide presentation titled "How to Talk with Your Teen about Drugs & Alcohol" on Feb. 10. Just organizing, not speaking - phew!
• Preparing to launch at least twelve coin can fundraising campaigns around the country for Eden Reforestation Projects to raise funds. We are currently planting 750,000 trees per month in Ethiopia & Madagascar!!

On the horizon:

• attending a conference in Orlando for Eden Reforestation Projects -- with churches from Maine to Florida in attendance.
• hosting a table at Santa Barbara's Earth Day Festival April 17 & 18.
• teaching my internships class again at Westmont during Mayterm.
• a trip to visit my niece and nephew in NYC over spring break!

It's all good. God be praised.

Put Me In, Coach

If you've known me for awhile you'll know I've been working through some major life transitions. It has been a wild ride. As of February 1, it will be one year since I officially resigned from my last position of fifteen years. That exit was akin to having several organs removed... I had so many years and relationships that I had invested in, and it was unimaginable to me that I could leave.

Yet so many things (including some significant shoves from God) had pointed me in that direction, and I felt ready, or at least willing, to take a big leap into the unknown. At one point I told someone that I felt like I'd flung myself off a cliff, and didn't know if there was going to be a net, a bungee cord, a parachute -- or absolutely nothing -- to catch me. It was mostly terrifying and a tiny bit thrilling.

I picked the worst time in modern American history to leave a well-paying, stable job with loads of great things about it. But God is bigger. And though it had days of real fear, I can say in hindsight that I am so grateful I took the step.

I don't want to paint a rosy picture. In the months following my exit, I made $0.00 the first month, $720 the second month, $2000 the third month... and this was still only about 35% of what I used to living on. But I was pressed to step into new places of prayer and risk and simplicity and humility and raw vulnerability. Somehow I do not want to ever forget how that felt. I learned a whole lot about what still needs work in me. Again I say, God is bigger. And more than enough.

But I must say that the thing I've learned THE MOST about is this: just admit that you have a terrible imagination.

In other words, just because YOU cannot imagine how something, ANYthing, is going to work out, does not mean it will not or cannot work out. Because, truth be told, it's really all about how incredibly limited your perspective is. The ability to see your life accurately is about the same as when you pick up binoculars and accidentally look through the wrong end of the lenses. Everything looks itsy bitsy small and indecipherable. And very far away.

I say this because I am now pursuing four, and really FIVE, different jobs right now. They all let me do things I enjoy doing like mad, and I would never have pictured myself doing any single one of them when I finally said, "I think it's time to go" from my other job. If you're in a big life transition yourself, write that one down.

For example... one of the biggest surprises to emerge out of all this has been this new venture into pastoral coaching. I still sort of twitch, maybe even cringe a teeny bit when I use that word "coach." I just have visions of websites with phrases like "Awake. Transform. Create." blazing across in floaty script with butterflies emerging from cocoons or people standing with arms outstretched on beaches or mountain tops. Barf.

All I can say is a I fell into it in a only-God-could-have-come-up-with-this sort of way. I still could not tell you how it all happened, but I ended up meeting most of last year with lead pastors from 3 different churches on a weekly basis (through video conferencing), started with a 4th in December, and have 3 more I'm starting with in the next month. (Don't worry, I'm not a freak who no longer sleeps -- I finished with my first project in November, and am finishing the next two this month. I can't really manage more than 3-4 at a time on top of the other stuff I'm doing.)

It's hard to quantify what we work on together. But there is a method in the madness as we work through identification of talents (and blind spots), places that need work, time management, moving from being reactive to proactive (sorry, I know that sounds very life-coachy, but it's true), leadership development, vision casting, management of staff, development of structures for growth, strategic planning... plus a whole lotta problem-solving in between. I have been privileged to work with several tremendous and gifted people from different cultures and backgrounds who are leading a very intriguing combination of churches. I feel so very fortunate.

Two passages come to mind:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

(Go to wordle.net to make one of these nifty little numbers)

Sept 09 Update on This 'n That

The school year has launched with a frenzy of activity, so I wanted to give some updates. I cannot believe this is my 28th fall with students. Zoiks.

Before school started I took my annual Central Coast camping trip with my niece and nephew. They are 9 and 11 now, and we had a great time. My nephew stayed up with me around the fire one night and saw the Milky Way for the first time. I love camping. (I don't like the dirt part, but the rest is great.)

I came home to a very full in-service week with Providence Hall, where I met with the faculty, coached the student leaders, and co-ran the New Student Orientation (our new students are in the photo below). These were great times of planning and connection, but I what I really enjoyed was the start of classes yesterday. Providence does a great job creating rites of passage, and yesterday was no exception as we started off with a "first walk" and Convocation ceremony. (I guess it's similar to what Westmont does at the beginning of each year.) Yep, that's me in my academia regalia... finally, that ol' Masters' Degree pays off! ☺

I taught my first class of "Foundations" today. I will be teaching on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the entire student body attends. I will be starting off with a series on the Book of Nehemiah and I am very fired up about it. Today's message was just an introduction. I played a clip of JFK's "we choose to go to the moon" speech from 1962 (it gave me chills -- not sure it made them even blink, but you never know with teenagers...) Scroll to the 7:32 point and listen through his reasons for going to the moon. I noted the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, and how audacious JFK's ambitions were. From there I asked the students what their own "moon landings" were -- those seemingly impossible things, and how we are going to talk about the impossible this fall. I love teaching students, FYI.

Meanwhile, my other projects are plowing forward. As for my consulting with Youth Ministry Architects, I return to the Chicago suburbs on Sept 17-19 for a follow consultation with a church I worked with in June, and in October I start up another project in Seattle. I am continuing with a church in Nebraska, and coaching a great little church in a suburb of Phoenix.

I'm meeting weekly (through video conferencing) with 3 Southern CA Free Methodist lead pastors for coaching in leadership development and I love it! Each church is extremely different, and I have loved drawing upon the diverse opportunities I have had in my ministry history in the past. I feel so blessed.

Eden Reforestation Projects continues to challenge and inspire me. I just got word today, after a lot of emails back and forth, that a major business has agreed to sponsor us -- I will let you know soon which one it is. I'm so stoked! For a limited time, for each product they sell they will make a donations to plant a tree for Eden Projects. I'm praying this could be the beginning of some cool sponsorships by companies seeking to act out some social responsibility.

On behalf of Eden, I'm also slotted to speak at a national pastors' gathering next week in Long Beach, a gathering of Pacific Northwest Pastors in October, and a conference for pastors on the entire Eastern Seaboard in April in Orlando. Pinch me, I'm dreaming! Please pray that this would bear fruit in terms of donors and vision. We need to keep planting millions of trees. I've also connected a church here in Santa Barbara with the president of Eden. The church here has ministered for 4 years in Haiti, and have been praying about how to dig even deeper in caring for this devastated country through reforestation. Through a providential meeting, I met the doctor who has led this ministry, and now Eden is going with them in October to explore tree nursery sites! This would become the 3rd country we work in.

Finally, I have another article coming out in Youthworker Journal soon, and my articles are posted regularly on Youthminblog and YMToday. It's really fulfilling for me personally, but it's especially great to hear from youth pastors serving faithfully in every corner of the US. A cool network of folks is out there.

I'll end with a quote that I read earlier this week. It hit me deeply. I won't even try to say why. I'll just let it speak for itself. Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me.

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do--
to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive
the world at its harshest and worst--is by that very act, to be
unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more
wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the
harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your
life against being destroyed secures your life also against
being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life
itself comes from. You can even prevail on your own. But you
cannot become human on your own.

... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), The Sacred Journey, San
Fransisco: Harper & Row, 1982, p. 46