A student said on Sunday that Christmas day is the worst, because once Christmas day arrives there’s nothing left to look forward to. From morning to night, December 25th is only a creeping letdown that advances by the minute, filling him with dread.

I get that. I live in a mental model that focuses on getting to and through the next thing for the sake of an imagined reward of leisure once its done. Christmas is the ultimate, then, especially for those of us who work in ministry, because it’s a ton of work and anxiety for the sake of a day, or even a few days, of rest and festivity.

But Sunday is still coming.

And then the ski retreat.

And then Sunday again.

And then, and then, and then.

It is obvious to me that the more mature, more fulfilling mental model is one that looks forward to Sunday, to all ministry work, as Christmas and not merely Christmas Eve.

A great deal of ministry work is administration. There was a class for it in seminary, but it was an elective and I skipped it. That decision, like my decision to skip all the youth ministry courses and to devote hours each week to practicing intramural flag football, is all the evidence you need of my shortsightedness as a seminarian.

The instincts you need to cultivate and the habits you need to nurture to be an effective church administrator seem to me as artistic as they are technical. Good administration is an art. It resists rigid schemes of automation in favor of systems and processes that accentuate the human, both in the administrator and the things he is administering.

For instance, I have employed the checklist as a tool for administering the kinds of major events I have to lead like mission trips and retreats. Heck, in my context most Sundays are major events, so I have a checklist for that too. There are categories in these checklists: leadership (have I recruited the volunteer leaders I need? Have we background checked them?); communication (Have I publicized the details of the event, with a clear deadline and easy-to-follow instructions for signing up?); travel (have I booked the van(s) or the bus or the plane that will get us there?).

What’s dawning on me is that mechanically implementing these checklists doesn’t make for vibrant ministry or flourishing leaders. They’re best viewed as tools to be creatively employed by leaders who bring their full humanity and vision to ministry.

Church administration is an art. I need to level up my art.

I should know by now that I’m not going to have the focus or the energy by the middle of December to work on substantive projects. Advent and Christmas Eve don’t put the kind of strain on me as they do my colleagues who are heads of staff and solo pastors, so it’s not that I’m swamped by liturgical responsibilities. Rather, my attention is short.

September thru November is something of a sprint. So is January thru April. December is this weird space between them when I feel uniquely incapable of doing anything well.

I’m leaning toward the conclusion that this mid-winter malaise can’t be conquered, but that it can be managed. I can plan better, so that the things breathing down my neck in the new year are either pushed back a bit or taken care of earlier.

Maybe time management is seasonal as well as daily.

I learned early on in my ministry to warn congregants that if they told me something on Sunday morning I would likely forget it. There is too much happening and too many personal interactions for most pastors to retain much more than half of it. The church I did my first seminary internship at had a good system for this: an elder would stand next to the pastor at the back of the sanctuary following the service and note down anything a worshiper shared that needed follow up.

I think I need to start telling congregants that if they give me something on Sunday morning I might forget it too. Given the season, some very thoughtful youth and parents give gifts to pastors and youth leaders. Yesterday a student came up to me at the beginning of Confirmation and handed me a small pumpkin loaf. “My mom said to give this to you,” was all he said. I thanked him and set it aside to begin our session.

By the time I got it home I had completely forgotten which student gave it to me. I don’t like not saying thank you, so I think I’m going to have to review Sunday’s attendance and make an educated guess.

Whoever gave it, thank you. It’s delicious.

Tension is uncomfortable. Our tolerance for it has a real effect on possibility. If we are unable to stomach tension, we will probably not be able to do anything more than protect the status quo.

Where is there tension in the work we’re doing? How is it distributed? God help us if we run around extinguishing it at first sight, but God help us too if we don’t see it. Tension deserves to be noticed and accounted for, so that we can exercise some measure of intention over where and how it is operating– applying it here, giving it space there, taking this bit on ourselves–and so that our leadership with the people who are experiencing its effects is empathetic and informed. And also self-informed: the worst place to ignore tension is in ourselves.

Maybe tension needs to live in our work as a controlled burn in a forest, preventing the excessive and dangerous buildup of debris that is no longer promoting growth. Not all fires need put out, at least not right away.

A word to my tribe, those workers and leaders who minimize our own contribution and employ self-denigration as constant cover: we gotta stop.

Putting ourselves and our work down is not doing for us what it feels like it’s doing. It feels like it’s presenting humility to our friends and colleagues, but it’s really doing something much worse. It’s beaming a constant signal that we don’t really want to be held responsible for our impact, good or ill.

It’s cover. Even if its real, it’s cover. It doesn’t help anyone.

Say it with me: “Yes. I made that. Thank you.”

Once, before a weeknight presbytery meeting, the Moderator, the Executive Presbyter, and I (the Vice Moderator) met to finalize our strategy for a contentious agenda item. The Moderator was a retired navy chaplain, a man who had given his entire career–and, now, his retirement!–to serving in ministry. I was, like, 38. Attendance at the meeting was expected to be low, and the Moderator was irked. He delivered to me and the Executive a version of a Back-In-My-Day speech about the comparative lack of commitment to the presbytery among his colleagues in ministry.

I, a parent of a four year-old and spouse to a full-time worker, asked a couple of clarifying questions: back in his day, how many of his colleagues’ spouses worked full time? How many of them brought their kids to presbytery meetings? A look of recognition came over his face.

The cautionary tale I heard a lot during my preparation for ministry was about pastors, many of them men, sacrificing quality time with their families for their work. Once in ministry I quickly learned that the expectation of peers who had made that sacrifice could easily entice a new pastor who was eager to make a good impression to do likewise.

I have tried hard not to. Kiddo has come with me to meetings, retreats, worship services, weddings, and even protests, from before she could walk. That is the norm among most of my peers in ministry, especially the women, and it is a norm I have seen reflected among the elders and deacons I have worked with in congregations and presbyteries.

It comes with its own cautionary tale, though. Work will suffer. You simply will not have the singular focus on sermons, meeting agendas, Sunday School classes, or any other work you feel called to do, because the work of equally running a household demands more of that focus than you ever knew (a corrective: I suspect your female colleagues always knew). 

A simple claim to end, then. It’s better this way.

Tension is building in the meeting because something is happening that doesn’t usually happen. It’s awkward. Somebody is speaking really directly. Nobody is speaking. The sacred cows are being assailed or they’re being vigorously defended, but whatever is happening people are starting to fidget and cast little sideways looks, first to their neighbor and then to you, the leader. You know why they’re looking; you feel it too.

It feels urgent to tamp down the tension, doesn’t it? To restore some equilibrium and dispel the discomfort in the room by cracking a joke or by gently correcting the new person, by redirecting? It feels in moments like these like your job as leader is to pilot the vessel back to the safety of the status quo.

We should probably stay in the choppy water for a bit, though, because people can handle more than we think they can, more than we can, and because nothing really important ever happened without some tension and discomfort.

Sometimes leadership feels like allowing ourselves and our people to be awkward.

What is the next meaningful step? No project will get anywhere without this question. No change will be effected, no experiment attempted. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. What’s the next meaningful step?

If nobody is asking the question, it has to come from you. The answer doesn’t, though. It might; you might feel strongly about the next meaningful step. Or, just as likely, you might not. If nobody does, then maybe the thing you’re talking about isn’t really a thing.

A second question is equally important: who’s going to do it? If you don’t assign responsibility for the next meaningful step, the chances of it being completed are very small. Actually, “assign” is the wrong word. It’s about ownership. Somebody has to own the outcome of the next meaningful step because they care about it. Here again, that might be you. If it is, you should take the permission and own it; I’ve been in lots of exciting conversations that went nowhere because none of us felt authorized to own the next meaningful step.

We’re all authorized, as long as we care.

If nobody owns the next meaningful step, then the thing you’re talking about isn’t a thing, at least not yet.

One more thought on this. Collecting information often feels like a more meaningful step than it actually is.