When vocation intersects with calling—like church ministry—it can be difficult to step away and unplug. We often feel guilty for not being always available, for not pouring every waking moment into the work of ministry. Here, Andrea Sielaff, Program Evaluation Manager at the Center for Transforming Engagement, argues that if we hope for long-term sustainability
I burned my hand while cooking. It was a stupid, split-second mistake with painful consequences. I needed to move a pan that was sitting on the stove – a pan I cook with regularly. However, in my rush, I forgot that tonight, I had put that whole pan into the oven to finish cooking and,
My journey with purpose has been fraught with fits and starts and loads of apparently meaningless lulls in between. I was born and raised in Texas and my worldview was highly influenced by the predominantly white southern Baptist church that taught me about Jesus and who He expected me to be. It became my understanding
My all-time favorite movie line comes from the Western Five Card Stud. Dean Martin is out demonstrating his six-gun prowess to Inga Stevens, shooting bottles off the corral rails, when up rides Bob Mitchum as “The Preacher.” Mitchum asks to give it a try, so Dean hands him the pistol and Big Bob proceeds to
“A Rule of Life is descriptive in that it articulates our intentions and defines the ways in which we want to live. When we fall short of these intentions, the Rule of Life becomes prescriptive, showing us how we can return to the path that we have set for ourselves and recapture our original vision.”
On June 25, Andrea Sielaff, MAC, Researcher for Resilient Leaders Project, hosted a conversation on the need for practices that can help cultivate practical resilience for ministry leaders. This was the final installment of the “Resilience in Crisis” webinar series, created to support, resource, and encourage leaders and practitioners through the pandemic crisis. Andrea interviewed
On May 7, Kate Rae Davis, Director of Resilient Leaders Project and Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President and Provost of The Seattle School, talked about the ways crisis can accelerate transformation and their hopes for positive change in our lives, city, and world. This was the second installment of the “Resilience in Crisis” webinar series,
I live near Seattle, one of the first places in the US that COVID-19 hit hard. The first time I went to the grocery store after we all started to get a sense of the magnitude of this crisis, I took pictures of empty shelves where rice, flour, and chicken had been, as if I
When I was in college, a speaker at a conference showed a clip from the movie Instinct as an illustration for her talk. The visceral impact of that scene has stayed with me across the years and keeps coming to mind whenever I feel a lack of control in the midst of pandemic. In the
We are early in the new year, both in the calendar and liturgically. With Epiphany, we conclude the Christmas season in which we celebrated the birth of Jesus, the arrival of Emmanuel, the Incarnation of God. The divine force that creates, includes, and transcends all of creation, all of the universe, became human, with all