I’ve had several conversations lately about how working in the church is a deeply uncomfortable setting right now. In part, at least for my segment of the church, it’s because we are continually experiencing decline and change. There’s precious stability to be found, and when you do find it, you discover it’s just a bunch of people huddled around an endowment.
But I digress.
Knowing that the work is uncomfortable is part of what keeps me balanced. I do not have to take complete responsibility for an ancient religious tradition. My job is to figure out what my job is—and do that. I cannot solve or fix everything.
In a system where guardrails can be hard to find, I do my best to stay directly in the center of my lane. My lane is pretty wide open because not many folks want to be a a part-time pastor in Ohio with a piano teaching gig and a bit of writing on the side. But I do try to stick to it. And although I do get requests from others to take on more, the person I primarily have to negotiate with is myself. Because occasionally I forget to keep my head down and instead look at the chaos around me and think, yes. I can fix that. Suddenly I can look back on a week and think, what have you been doing?
I can find myself being deeply compelled by the tasks that have been labelled, women’s dead-end work. I come by that phrase from this amazing article that outlines the prevalence of women taking on non-promotable tasks, or NPTs.
Now, I don’t exist in a system that includes much by way of promotion. I suppose I could set my sights on working in our national church office? But mostly my jobs have a fairly flattened hierarchy. Instead of seeking promotions, I do hope to use my time in a way that best fulfills my goals and best purposes. So even without a promotion on the table, this is where NPTs still can be dangerous. In the article linked above, it states:
We found that, independent of rank, the median female employee spent 200 more hours per year on non-promotable work than her male counterparts. To put that into perspective: Women spent an additional month on dead-end assignments.
Eek.
This additional labor is the opposite of being centered in an tumultuous time. It’s just stretching out and trying to take care of all those little things everyone expects you to without any of the credit. Sometimes, you just have to say no to those nice church people.
The same article includes this delightful advice about a tactic to be able to say no:
Rather than automatically saying “yes,” buy time to gather information, evaluate the task, and think about your career objectives and what you need to do to get there. Here’s a rule we use for ourselves: Wait at least 24 hours before saying yes. Instead of “sure,” tell the requester: “Thanks so much for thinking of me for this. I need some time to think about it and how it fits in with my other priorities. I’ll be sure to get back to you by the end of day tomorrow.” That will make it easier to say no later.
Essentially, slow down.
This is the word I often need to hear when the instability gets a little to close. Because where there is decline, there is panic, and there is urgency. In that space there can be little air. Here is your encouragement to elbow in some spaciousness.1
What I’m listening to
I’ve been enjoying Anne Helen Petersen’s new(ish) podcast Work Appropriate. The last episode talked all about ambition. In short, it didn’t take long for the episode to dig into questioning the end goal of our ambition—the kind of meaning and purpose question I love. You can find that episode and all others here.
You’re invited!
I’m hosting a book launch event for my friend and colleague, Sheryl Johnson for her excellent book “Serving Money Serving God.” I cannot recommend this book highly enough (you can pre-order it now!) For example, this is the type of wisdom the Rev. Dr. Johnson has:
“By trying to “save” our churches through neoliberal and conventional approaches to finance, we are already dead because we have ceased to be the church and to be Christ’s followers. But, if we cease to fear the “death” of the church and turn instead to living by our radical commitments to economic justice, we may well find that we have new life. That “life” may not be full pews and full offering plates, but instead it may be a greater relevance and service to our communities and to our world.”
If you’ve always had that sneaking suspicion that the problem isn’t that churches aren’t fundraising correctly, but actually that we’ve forgotten the radical economic justice that Jesus preached—this is your book. The launch event is a great way to meet Sheryl and even have a chance to win a copy of the book. I hope to see you there!
What life looks like
Sunny sanctuary.
Here’s a sermon I wrote about my favorite scripture—which includes some affirmation of what it’s like to say no: https://www.southhavenucc.org/sermons/2022/7/17/refusing-work