Archive - January, 2009

Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Anne Jackson Interview, Part 2

January 29, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 11 Comments

jacksona22This is Part 2 of my interview with author and blogger Anne Jackson.

Check out Part 1 here.

From your own perspective, what is at the root behind the stigma of counseling and therapy in the Church? What would you say to Christians who think that we should not take medications for depression and anxiety?

It has always been difficult for me to say I needed to be in counseling to the extent I was, or to say that I have been on a myriad of anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medicine because I’ve heard countless times people question my salvation or my authority to work out God’s calling in my life. Most people think that something is wrong with my spiritual walk if I have to use these “crutches.” I think that the people who are judgmental about these things live in a bubble that desperately needs to be popped. That means they have stayed safe and comfortable their whole life…and there is nothing about Christianity or redemption that is safe or comfortable.

What goes through your head when you hear Christians or church leaders tell people that they just need to pray more, or have more faith, or read their Bible more to overcome their depression and anxiety?

Honestly, I want to punch them. It makes me so angry (Yes, I have anger issues too!) ☺ There is a spiritual element to our emotional and mental health and we absolutely should practice those disciplines of our faith. But there is no magic pill to cure all. We are all uniquely designed and will each walk a different road for a different reason.

Continue Reading…

Innovation3 Gathering: Missional Community

January 28, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 0 Comments

Stay tuned for the second part of my interview with Anne Jackson tomorrow.

Innovation3 Gathering: Day 1 Recap & Tomorrow’s Online Connect

January 27, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 2 Comments

img00350Today was a great day. As always, the highlight for me was meeting a lot of people–those that I know only online, and some that are new faces. By the end of the day I was super energized as well as exhausted. It was connecting on steroids.

There is lots of great content out there from the event online, so I’m not going to recap the entire event today, but just a few things that stood out for me.  Some of these are quirky, but they are things I have been thinking about today.

  1. I thought DJ Chuang and the Leadership Network team did an amazing job putting on this event.
  2. This was the first conference that I have ever been to that hands you a flash drive to keep that has all the speaker’s notes on it.
  3. Camron Ware’s lighting design was amazing.
  4. The opening session on failure had a wonderful diversity of personalities speaking.  Loved it.
  5. I learned a lot from Anne Jackson’s session on burnout.  Anne in “real life” is who she is on her blog. Awesome!
  6. The Catalyst Team is awesome.  Had great time chatting and hanging out with them.
  7. People desire conversation and collaboration more than ever. Want to work together not just be talked at.
  8. For the world to be transformed, the Church must rely on the totality of it’s “body” not just individual members.
  9. People want to know what you are passionate about.  Do you have an answer to that question?
  10. Jesus has gifted each of us uniquely, therefore, are we being good stewards of those gifts.  Are you?

Those are a mixture of some random thoughts, things I have been wrestling with, and some observations–all from today.

Connecting Tomorrow

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  I loved the Cover It Live blogging tool I used for today’s events, but I thought for tomorrow I would steer you in a couple of different directions.  I will post a couple of more formal blogs, but I want to provide to you some great online live resources as well.

  1. Tony Morgan has been doing a great job of live blogging. Check out his site tomorrow.
  2. Check out Tweet Chat.  Log in and join the i3 room and follow all of the Tweets at the event.  Awesome tool.
  3. Watching live streaming video and sessions at the Innovation3 Gathering live site. Watch-Chat-Tweet.

Those are just a few great ways to stay in touch all day long and get a large perspective with what is going on.  With over 100 speakers in a day and a half, it’s like drinking water through a fire hose–which is impossible.  So I would think.

And then check back into my blog at intervals (I will tweet about it) to see some posts on some specific thoughts, experiences from the event.

Innovation3 Gathering–Live Blog by Rhett Smith (Tuesday & Wednesday)

January 26, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

I’m very excited to be a part of the live blogging team for the Innovation3 Gathering, put on by Leadership Network, and hosted by Bent Tree Bible Fellowship.

I hope that you can join me on my blog Tuesday and Wednesday as I will live blog 4 specific sessions, and as much of the rest of the event that I can. I hope to see your input and comments throughout the day (via this blog and Twitter–please use the #i3 hashtag), and if you have any questions you would like me to pose the speakers in or out of their sessions, please let me know. You can reach me via the live blog or on Twitter @rhetter.

If you are having trouble viewing this live blog, try watching it in a pop-up window: Click Here

Not only can YOU participate, but the tweets of 11 other Twitterers will post automatically to the live blog. So stay tuned for their behind the scenes insight and thoughts: gregatkinson, cynthiaware, djchuang, scottmcclellan, decart, lancebauslaugh, camron_ware, flowerdust, innovation3, tonymorganlive and mbstockdale.

Connect In Other Ways

Innovation3 Twitter Announcements @innovation3

Innovation3 Twitter Hashtag #i3

Innovation3 Website

Innovation3 Blog

Innovation3 Flickr Photostream

Innovation3 Bloggers Meetup/Tweetup

See you there in person or online….

Leadership Network: Innovation3 Gathering

January 25, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 4 Comments

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I will be one of several live bloggers for the Innovation3 Gathering in Dallas, TX.  What is Innovation3?

Innovation3 is a two day gathering of church leaders and innovators for the purpose of connecting, networking, and collaboration. Sure, there will be speakers and sessions and breakouts… but the real power behind the Innovation3 concept is that you will get to rub shoulders and bounce ideas off hundreds of innovative church leaders about what’s working in today’s church (and what’s not). We’ll level the playing field, allowing you to meet and interact with many of today’s thought leaders. You’ll learn from others, and have an opportunity to share your ideas as well.

Those who attend will have the opportunity to “hear from and interact with nearly 100 innovative church leaders that will be a part of our organized program.”

I’m super excited to be a part of this gathering and I’m looking forward to not only connecting with these leaders and those who attend the conference, but all of you online as well.

You can find a schedule of the events here, but let me tell you about four specific events I will personally be covering on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday, January 27

3:00 – 4:30 pm Anne Jackson (MadChurchDisease.com)
Join Anne Jackson for a lively, informative, and potentially life-saving discussion
for anyone in ministry—vocational or volunteer—who would like to understand,
prevent, or treat the epidemic of burnout in our churches. Ann will provide
research and insight she has learned from leaders from across the United States,
providing statistics, stories, and hope for healing.

6:00 – 7:30 pm — Dinner On-Site
Internet Campus Pastors

Wednesday, January 28

10:00 – 11:30 am “Author Side Conversation” – Kingdom Impact: Church, Culture and
Community: Join Mel Lawrenz, author Whole Church,  Rex Miller, author of Millennium Matrix and Hugh Halter
and Matt Smay, authors of The Tangible Kingdom in a conversation about the kingdom impact of
Church, culture and community.

11:30 – 1:00 pm — Lunch
Choose a table discussion group – Architects and Designers

Hopefully you can “tune in” to this blog on Tuesday and Wednesday and get a sense of not only what is happening at the conference as a whole, but four very specific conversations that I will be a part of.

I will be using Cover It Live (embedded on this blog) for those two days. So hopefully you will have an opportunity to get online and chat, or ask some questions during the conversation.

Twitter Information

@innovation3 is the Twitter ID for the event and #i3 is the hashtag

@rhetter is my Twitter ID if you want to message me.

See you Tuesday and Wednesday…

Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Anne Jackson Interview, Part 1

January 23, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 13 Comments

Today I begin the first part of a two part interview I did with Anne Jackson.  I first heard about Anne around two years ago when one of my church jacksona22co-workers Matt Singley kept referring to some blogger named Flowerdust.  I was told that she was one of the most popular and influential bloggers on the internet.  Immediately intrigued I hopped onto her site and almost immediately felt a breath of fresh air as wrote with an authenticity, vulnerability and purpose that is sometimes hard to find–not only in blogging circles, but the “Christian” world.  Since that day Anne is one of my favorite daily reads and I  really appreciate her insight and passion that is obviously very contagious among her readership.

As you will see from the two-part interview, my main desire behind interviewing her was because of her often “lone voice” in the Christian blogging circles to openly talk about issues of depression, anxiety, mental health and medication.  I think her willingness to talk so openly about these things has resonated with many, many people as is witness by the tons of comments she receives on a daily basis.

51exizsjwkl_sl500_aa240_Oh, and lest I forget, she’s the author of the new book Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic.

Anne, in a sentence or two, what was the impetus behind writing Mad Church Disease?

It was twenty seven years in the making…from watching my own parents burn out in ministry, to my own stress-induced hospital stay, I realized that left and right church leaders are being taken out – yet nobody is talking about it.  I hope this book will catalyze conversations about not only our brokenness, but our health.

As you address the issues of burnout and self-care I was wondering if you have seen a correlation between burnout or lack of self-care and depression?  Do you have any personal examples you could share?

Stress, when accumulated over time, can cause chemical changes in our bodies.  It increases bad hormones and decreases good ones.  As time goes on, these changes can lead to semi-permanent or permanent damage.

Over the two years I allowed the stress to run my life, I noticed how I went from feeling “stressed” to feeling hopeless and unmotivated.  At its worst, there were days when I didn’t even leave my bed.  Ashamed (and again, unmotivated), I withdrew from my relationships and my responsibilities.

Continue Reading…

Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Deciding to Get Honest About Our Journeys…

January 22, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 37 Comments

42-17222040I remember where I was at the exact moment I read the words below by Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. I was sitting on our couch in Pasadena, CA and as I read each word the resonance grew deeper and deeper within me until I finally felt like I was hit by a ton of breaks…but at least understood.  At least there was some pastor out there I thought, this one in Michigan, who put words to my feelings and thoughts in ways that I was not able to at the time. Bell says,

Once again I am going to give you some numbers, and I hesitate to do so, but it is part of the story and it helps to explain the rest. Two years into it, there were around 10,000 people coming to the three gatherings on Sundays.

In the middle of all this growth and chaos was me, superpastor. I was doing weddings and funerals and giving spiritual direction and going to meetings and teaching and dealing with crises and visiting people in prison and at the hospital–the pace and the workload were unreal.

I can’t begin to describe what it was like because it was happening so fast. One minute you have these ideas about how it could be and the next minute you are leading this exploding church/event/monster. All of a sudden there are all of these people who know who you are and want something from you and think you’re a big deal, and you are the same person you’ve always been. Everything has changed and yet it hasn’t. It’s hard to explain, but I found myself asking, “Where is the training manual?”

Continue Reading…

ChurchTechCamp-8 Things To Know If You Want To Help Organize One-Part 3: Collaborative Planning

January 21, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 5 Comments

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor[1] [2] that is creative in nature[3]—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require leadership and can sometimes bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism.[4] In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.

This is at the heart of ChurchTechCamp. A coming together of people, sharing of their gifts and resources, to bring a greater impact to the Church through the use of technology. This is not something that one person, or one organization can do, but rather is best brought about by a number of people with a variety of gifts.

When planning for a ChurchTechCamp in your area one of the early things to think about is the collaborative nature of the event and who are those people that can get the ball rolling, as well as usher in a presence and demeanor to everyone else on the fringes to participate and give fully of their gifts. Put another way, “Who can help make this a shared event, and not a one or two person show?”

To pull of ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas collaboration was key. It began as I have mentioned before in a Twitter conversation. Tony Steward knew that John Saddington was coming to Dallas and that I was interested in having it in Dallas. So it began as a collaborative effort among the three of us, but was really encouraged by others who commented on the Twitter conversation. We helped organize, but it was the attendees, in person and online, who before and after the event brought the true meaning of collaboration to the event. A few simply helped get the ball rolling, the rest was done by all of you. Thank you to all of them.

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5 Things I Want To Do In The New Year: A Little More Spelled Out

January 20, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media with 5 Comments

On January 1st I wrote the post 5 Things I Want To Do In The New Year-A 2009 Preview. I got a lot of encouragement for the goals that I set, as well as some questions to their vagueness and what it all meant. I agree, they were vague, especially to the outsider. But that’s because I have been in the process of needing/trying to define the steps that would get me to the values that I was aiming for.

You can see the list below that I wrote:

  1. Less is More. Or as Tony Steward put it, Doing Less Better. These last couple of years have been ones of juggling too many things…I feel as if I’m in a constant state of trying to keep the things that I’m juggling from hitting the ground. That is not a good feeling.
  2. Pruning. I love John 15, and I think that if I’m going to bear “more fruit” in my life, I need to start pruning…letting go of some things.
  3. Focus. It’s hard to focus on things when my attention is scattered in so many different directions. There are 1-2 things that I want to devote most of my attention to this year.
  4. Cut Out Distractions. What are those things in my life that distract me. I have given serious consideration to those and will be cutting aka “pruning” some of those things out of my life.
  5. Online Translates Into Offline. I’ve written about this already here, and will continue to do so.

So what does that practically look like in my life?  Though this is a work in progress, and things may continue to evolve for me, let me give you some insight into how I’m approaching things.  And hopefully in the process this will be of encouragement to you.

Continue Reading…

Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)–An Amazing Man!

January 19, 2009 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love!
What more in the name of love…
U2–Pride (In the Name of Love)
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