The Support That Ministry Leaders Need with Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman

by on April 25, 2025

Pastors today are navigating a complex, demanding, and often overwhelming landscape. Beyond the pulpit, they’re expected to show up as counselors, administrators, fundraisers, teachers, building caretakers—and more. Some research even suggests pastors are carrying the weight of 13 different roles. It’s no wonder so many feel stretched thin, exhausted, and alone.

Today, Rachael and Dan sit down with Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman, Associate Director of the Center for Transforming Engagement, to name the often-unseen burdens pastors and ministry leaders carry—and to explore what it means to create space for care, support, and more sustainable leadership.

Whether you’re a pastor, a ministry leader, or someone who walks alongside and loves one, this episode offers a deeply human invitation: to reflect on how we care for ourselves, our leaders, and our communities.

You’ll find honest stories, thoughtful wisdom, and tangible practices for cultivating resilience—not by striving harder, but by rooting more deeply in connection: with God, with others, and with the truth that we were never meant to carry it all alone.

Related Resources:

About Our Guest:

Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman is the Associate Director of the Center for Transforming Engagement at The Seattle School. She brings a lifetime of ministry experience, having co-founded the Practicing Church in Shoreline, WA and served as the Regional Leader of the Northwest Vineyard USA. She also founded Canopy Scholars, a nonprofit that partners with local agencies to provide tutoring and STEM programs to a diverse population of elementary school students. She continues to teach and preach and is passionate about raising women leaders in church ministry.

Rose has a specific passion for resilience work based on her own story of how ministry impacted her health. In her role as Associate Director, she oversees all of the resilience programs.

Rose obtained her Doctorate of Ministry from Bakke Graduate University, focusing on transformational leadership for the global city.

She and her husband Rich have a blended family of 8 children and over 25 grandchildren.

Episode Transcript:

Rachael: Dan, we have gotten numerous messages and requests to speak more specifically to some of the challenges, heartaches, obstacles, and just in many ways some of the insanity and absurdity that ministry leaders are facing at such a time as this. And I am thrilled today that our conversation partner is Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman. Welcome Rose.

Rose: Lovely to be here with the two of you.

Dan: Oh, what a thrill this is. Rose, you are a presence that can only be described as epic. You have been a pastor, you have been a theologian, you have been involved in training, developing. Again, you are just wildly remarkable. But before we jump in, I think it’s important to disclose what’s the relationship between these two brilliant irascibly, genius, gifted women.

Rachael: In 2007/2008, which is wild that it was that long ago. When I was an MDiv student at the Seattle School, I had to do an internship and I was coming out of the Southern Baptist denomination and it was really important for me to work with a female pastor because up to that point in my life, 27 years old, I had never encountered a female pastor in the flesh. I had never heard a woman preach an actual sermon in personal proximity. I’d maybe seen some things online and I talked to one of my professors and he said, Hey, here’s two incredible women who actually both now work for the Center for Transforming Engagement. One was Melissa Skelton, who was at the time a part of an Episcopal, I think actually it was an Episcopal Catholic Church in Seattle and Rose Madrid Swetman, who was a part of a Vineyard Church in Seattle. And both seemed like incredible opportunities, but coming out of more low church meaning not a kind of mainline tradition, I really wanted to kind of stay in that same vein. And also very recently, Rose had participated in an open letter and a call to repentance to a very famous pastor in the Seattle area named Mark Driscoll, who now is in Arizona and apparently still has a platform, which I will never understand, but I also do understand because I see the times we find ourselves in. And there was something really beautiful that she had not only brought a kind of truth to power, but in a way that was inviting a different opportunity, a different possibility. And I was just really struck by that leadership, by that audacity, playful defiance. And so I did get to do an internship with Rose that led to staying on staff for multiple years and being a part of the community, which we went through our own heartbreak and own challenges that many leaders are facing today. But it was a true privilege of my life, honor of my life to get to learn from Rose, be mentored by her, not only as a pastor, but someone running a nonprofit, mothering, grandparenting, and taking on leadership roles within our denomination at the time, which wouldn’t call itself a denomination, an association of churches, but functions like a denomination.

Rose: That’s right. Yeah. And I’ll say what an honor it was for me to have someone like Rachael want to learn from me. And I mean, I can just think of so many moments, Rachael, sitting in my office discussing the problems of the world, dealing with at the time you were single, and so just

Rachael: So much ache in agony.

Rose: A single woman in ministry, A lot of times single women in ministry don’t have all of the ways of support that people that are married have, especially in the church. Right? So anyway, those were lovely days that yeah, were honestly wonderful.

Dan: Well, and if we could honestly, wisely, spend the entire conversation and we should at some point as to what the mentoring and the process of growing one another because Rose, you’re the kind of person who though you offer gold to human beings and the way you live and the way you write and the way you speak, you also are profoundly open to being moved and shaped by the people that you engage. So there’s a mutuality to the relationship. But I’ll just say, it is a fascinating gift to have both of you here because so much of my dear friend Rachael and her great wisdom has come to a refinement in and through your engagement with her, Rose. And I know from interactions with you Rose, how deeply Rachael’s love of you and yet engagement with you has helped you mature. So what’s so often missing, I believe in the context of the church, is a kind of care-full, careful mentoring and engagement. But as much as that is, I think incredibly important and fascinating, we also want to hear from you as some of your work, some of what you’re seeing in the context of the church and how a relationship like yours with Rachael, Rachael’s with you, is meant to be part of the redemptive process of where we are today. So is there a better way to put it, Rachael?

Rachael: Well, no, it’s good. I just would love to hear, especially in your work with the Center for Transforming Engagement, which is a part of The Seattle School, but also just your long history of support. You also do coaching for ministry leaders and so you have a lot of touch points with some of the challenges and obstacles and heartaches and honestly some impossibilities that ministry leaders are facing, especially in the church in the United States today. So yeah, just really value your insight and your wisdom and I think it’s so meaningful when we’re in the midst of something and it’s daily and it’s ongoing when someone can help us find language for what it is we’re embodying and taking in, but also what supports and possibilities are available too.

Rose: Right? I think with what we’re learning from the different researchers that are constantly researching the effects of our current cultural norms that are turning into norms that are not norm, all the things going on, what effect is that having on clergy and leaders in the church? And one of the things that we’re learning, and I don’t have the name but I’ll get it for you to put in the show notes, I think his name is Steven, but I shouldn’t even say it because I dunno. I just listened to him at a conference I was at, talk about his years of research. He’s at Boston University with groups of clergy and found out that pre-COVID and now he got the same results. A third of clergy really have PTSD and they don’t know it. It’s incredible, but they don’t know it. They just are so in the grind trying to survive that they don’t even understand the kind of stress that they’re under and what it’s doing to them. He actually made the statement that we train our military people how to deal with when you’re under intensive stress, like how to get to your thinking brain and not just react. He said, this is what we should be teaching our pastors. They need to know because they’re under constant chronic stress and we all know what that does. I think the first thing that is very important is naming what is true. I think about the framework that Walter Brigham brings to the Psalms. He talks about the framework of being Psalms of orientation, disorientation and reorientation. I think it’s so important that we name, we are in a time of disorientation. It’s the air we’re breathing right now. So how do you cope, survive, move through? I’m going to say something that’s probably not great to say, but I don’t know that you can thrive through times of disorientation and you know how we always talk about we just want to flourish, we want to thrive. Well, in times of reorientation and orientation, I think that is the goal. But in times of disorientation, we have to be honest. You’re just trying to cope. You’re just trying to survive. And so number one, I think it’s really important that we name truly where we are and what is happening. Does that make sense?

Dan: Totally so. It almost puts a demand on people to think that in the middle of being bombarded, where literally your ground is shifting in every regard. I mean, I have a lot of deep close pastoral friends who one put it even though he’s quite in the retirement age, he said, if I had the financial wherewithal, I would’ve retired because everything I do is wrong. Everything I do is questioned and everything I do, I have to prove to the nth degree has at least some degree of wisdom. He’s not a man who demands authority, demands respect, demands that everything work according to the way that he would wish, but the level of un-levelness, the level of you are in a storm-tossed boat and there is no way to get your so-called footing to think that’s a context to “thrive” is ridiculous.

Rose: I was saying to my husband about a week ago, Rich, I feel like I did in March, April, May of 2020, because I realized subconsciously every single night I was cooking comfort food, my husband’s gaining so much weight, this is what happened during the shutdown because I’m cooking comfort food every night, pasta, roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots and gravy, whatever. I mean, I’m just like, and then when I’m done with work, like I’m shutting everything down. We eat comfort food and binge watch tv. So I caught myself going, oh, I’m in survival mode. This is telling me I’m in survival mode. And so now I have to figure out having so much grace. And that’s what I would say for clergy to self-compassion is so important right now because when everything is what you just described, Dan, everything I do is wrong. That’s going to get in your head and you are going to start listening to yourself talk. Where are your thoughts taking you? What are you saying? We talk in the Center for Transforming Engagement, our research has shown us that there are three streams of resilience. People. Who are your people? Who are the people that will tell you the truth? Who are the people that aren’t going to argue with you about what’s going on? There is a place for civil discourse and debate, but I’m not going to surround myself right now with people that want to argue with me about what’s going on. I don’t have the bandwidth for that type of debate right now. So it’s knowing what you need. If you’re probably an eight on the Enneagram and you want to fight every day with someone, great if that’s how you can get through it. I mean, I right now am trying not to be super judgmental about for myself or others, how they’re making it through this time. People have to do what they need to do. And if you need to binge watch TV a couple nights a week in order to survive, then I say that’s okay. We always talk about the coping mechanisms that turn into just destruction for our souls, for our bodies. Like only you can gauge how far your coping mechanisms are self-soothing or turning into destructive habits and behavior. There’s a line.

Rachael: You said people, are there other, you said there are three.

Rose: Well people right now, I would say who are your close friends that you can be honest with, family members that you can be honest with and don’t have to fight with about the constitution, who are, maybe you need a therapist right now, maybe really if you have the resources to find a therapist or a spiritual director or a pastor or someone that you can be honest with about your struggles and they’re not going to judge you, they’re going to give you what you need, self-compassion, have compassion towards you so that you can and also practice with you. Maybe community is so important right now, whether it’s your faith community or other community. Who are the people that you’re in community with that you can pray with, that you can lament with. Cause right now, when I start out by saying we have to name where we are and then we have to name what’s in me that has to come out. I have to lament the loss of so much right now while every day we’re watching our democracy be dismantled, people losing…, I mean horrendous things beginning to happen that calls for lament, which again, back to the Psalms, in times of disorientation when we read those Psalms, David is praying in purgatory prayers like kill the enemy, all the stuff. We don’t kind of want to go there, but what we do want to do is lament what is evil and call out to God, God, where are you? We need rescue, we need deliverance. And then of course, in times of disorientation we lament and hopefully lament helps us with our anger that then turns into tears because really under all this anger, we’re sad. I mean, we’re grieving the loss of so much. So then the lament gives into tears and then gives into gratitude because God is God. We’re not blaming God for this. Some people, their theology thinks that God’s judging, whatever your theology is, I cannot go there. And honestly, for any clergy listening, I would highly recommend doing some research on Abraham Kuyper and what it means to be a public theologian and not give into Christian nationalism, white Christian nationalism, but rather what does it mean to be a public theologian during times like this where we care for the common good, not just huddle in and do what’s best for what we think Christians need.

Rachael: Which we also see a strong witness in the Black church as well in the us, in the Indigenous church and other, again, not only, but just in communities that have never had the luxury of being apolitical because their very existence in this country is political and they’re bearing the nature of the systems. And I think that that’s one of the really hard challenges facing ministry leaders and pastors today, especially if you are, we talked with David Rice earlier about Christian Nationalism and some of his experience being a pastor in a church that had a really diverse political spectrum. And again, that’s not figuring out how to be Jesus followers in the midst of ideological diversity is not a bad thing. But in a time where you also need to be taking a stand against the ways Christian symbols, Christian ideas are being utilized and weaponized to harm people from the highest offices of power. Most pastors have not been trained to do that in seminary or have not been exposed to the public theologians and that say, Hey, how do we do this? And Dan, I really appreciate a lot of what you’ve brought here to the podcast without turning to contempt, without turning to violence, without turning to mockery, without giving in to despair and division, but also not avoiding or placating or just kind of hoping if we just don’t say anything or do anything, this will pass over and go away.

Dan: Yeah. Well, and again, thank you. But what I would say is it’s easy in my garage, and again, I’m not preaching weekly, I’m not having to bear the harm. I’ve said this publicly, and it’ll not be the first time even on the podcast, but the idea of what a pastor, what your pastor suffers each and every day on behalf of the congregation, there is no job on this earth, from my standpoint, from a neurosurgeon to the President of the United States, there is no job harder and more difficult than to be a pastor. And in that there is such honor and such goodness and such necessity. I don’t know if there’s a human being I depend upon on a weekly basis and yet occasional coffees, then I do, my pastor Dave. And I love him and he loves me and he loves many in our congregation. And watching him live well has been one of those reminders of I don’t have as difficult a job and I’m called to live well. So I deeply love the church and I deeply love my pastor and I watch as he engages in a small congregation in the Pacific Northwest, engaging these realities. And you can feel when he’s naming something of Manifest Destiny as a structure, system, that set up the cruelty and a form of a holocaust. So when you begin to go, when you start challenging the stories we have utilized to defend and justify, we know this primarily in the context of familial and interpersonal, but when you start stepping into living that in the context of the larger culture, it’s fraught. Fraught. So when I go back, Rose to this question of what are you finding helpful through the center as to things you all are doing on behalf of pastors and therefore the readers and the listeners of this podcast, what can they do on behalf? So I’ve got two questions. What are doing? What can they do?

Rose: Okay, I just want to come, I’m answer that, but I want to come back because Rachael named something super important when we talked about the people stream, so we can also go to people who are no longer living, like when we named people during the Civil Rights, reading histories of how did they resist in their time? So who are the theologians, who are the civil rights leaders? Who are the people that got the women’s right to vote? So when we talk about people, we can also pull from history from people that have lived through times before of disorientation. So I wanted to say that. So that’s what we’re finding. And I’ll mention the people, practices and purpose – we have on our website, and that will be in the show notes. We offer three mini retreats from our work that we’ve done around people, practices and purpose. You can do them solo, you could do them with a small group. And there are things that in the people retreat, there’s a little worksheet that helps you think through who are your people in all the different realms, even people that maybe are mentors that have passed on, that sort of thing. One of the things that you guys will appreciate is we work with people about trying to figure out what was your role in your original family. Whether you were raised, whoever your caregiver is, that’s where you first learn to be in community. So what was that role? And for especially clergy, it’s really helpful for them to identify, because we all know when we’re in church, we’re all out our roles trying to reenact when didn’t get resolved in our first family.

Rachael: It’s a great time.

Rose: So right now when there’s so much stress in the air, probably clergy are facing, people are acting out, trying to reenact what they needed in their first family or trying to get it now. So everybody’s playing out scripts right now, so it’s kind of important to know what role did you play and how do we manage this? So I’ll just say that much. Practices, I mean practices could be anything from the spiritual disciplines, prayer, meditation, and I would say in this time to not forget celebration. Because if we only look at what is horrible day in and day out we are going to fall into despair. And so people are saying joy as resistance. Absolutely. One of our spiritual disciplines that Richard Foster wrote about, I think maybe almost 50 years ago now or whatever it was, was celebration. And so I come from a big family. On Easter we’re not going to have ham and scallop potatoes, we’re going to have pasta and meatballs and have a big celebration because somebody got a new job. So taking the moments to practice different practices that will bring life to us, whether maybe it’s a practice of you need to drink more water right now and breathe, learn how to do different types of breathing to help regulate our nervous systems. So practices of being present to the present moment, like catching yourself doing some mindfulness things. We’re finding in purpose right now, my purpose really right now, it would be enough for me to care for my 84-year-old neighbor that lives across the hall. She’s a widow, she needs… so we’re not talking about purpose. What has God called you to be in the big scope of things, that’s fine. But for right now, finding just purpose in everyday life, like being kind to the grocery checkout place, if somebody drives up on you rather than flipping them off, you just maybe put your hand on your heart and say, oh Lord, they are stressed. I mean, I’m meeting people right now for the first time that they just seem so angry and they have a chip on their shoulder and my normal response, my automatic response would be, Ooh, stay away fear. I’m trying to lean in and think in my head to that person as I engage them, I wonder what their story is. I wonder what hurt them so badly. So just learning practices that help us take a pause and try to get from that ancient brain back to our thinking brain. However we can do that in a few seconds because we go offline so quickly. What are practices to help get us back online so that we’re thinking rather than responding, rather than reacting?

Dan: I know this is inappropriate, but lemme just parenthetically ask, have you ever driven with Rachael?

Rose: Yes. It was a long time ago though, Dan, so I don’t remember it being scary.

Dan: Really?

Rose: No, I don’t.

Dan: Okay. Well, let’s just say the ability to articulate, which she’s brilliant, the ability to put words together with a level of intensity and clarity and to describe reality around, I would say it’s been absolutely the most enjoyable passenger riding I’ve ever had in my life. But just parenthetically, again, just to say the importance of, again, play of celebration, of laughter, and it is defiance because in that sense, death seems to be superlative, extreme, overarching, almost everything. And so to actually believe in the resurrection requires a kind of defiance you’re putting words to. And in that, the question of and how, for our listeners, again, which I would say the majority not being in pastoral ministry per se, what is it that the center, you, we need to be addressing on behalf of our pastors?

Rose: Well, I think people taking a step back to have compassion towards their pastor, learning how to be curious when your pastor says something that you don’t agree with. And so taking a few breaths and asking questions of your pastor rather than attacking and being defensive. What would it mean if my pastor said something on Sunday morning that, okay, I hope if you guys want to edit this out, it would be fine, but I’m just, because I think this is the reality is a congregant comes after you’ve preached and they literally give you talking points from what they watched on whatever that news channel was the night before. And so as a pastor, you’re like, wait, now I’m fighting the social commentary rather than what I just preached from the word of God. Do you see? That is such a conundrum for a pastor to be in because now you’re defensive trying to defend the word of God. So I would say for congregants listening, if your pastor says things that you don’t agree with, that’s okay. We can disagree, but it’s how we disagree and can we be instead of antagonistic… And here’s what I think though happens, you guys, we all know what happens when we feel a threat. We get activated. And so if your activation is fight, you’re going to fight your pastor. If your activation is flight, you’re going to dismiss them and they don’t know what they’re talking about. You’re just going to avoid it. So just learning the cues of your own nervous system and what’s happening seems important. 

Rachael: Well, and I think I would add, and this is a tough one, and I’m a congregant right now, so I’m in a role of, in some ways unlearning what is it that I expect in being pastored and what does it mean to be a participant in a community? And I know that can be challenging. Some church structures are more program driven and not in a, I think always intentional way, but just a part of our culture, a more consumer or consumptive driven, and what does it mean as such a time as this where we’re talking about disorientation to cultivate practices of community together and communal care and seeing ourselves as participants around a table, not in a kind of flat leadership where it’s like you’re taking on pastoral care that you’re not equipped or meant to take on, but to have a posture that says we’re more connected than we think. Everyone has more needs right now, than feels possible to really hold and engage. And how do we kind of lean in to community in a way that we really do need each other? And again, that doesn’t mean, don’t have needs that you expect pastoral care to tend to. Pastors want to bring pastoral care, and pastors are human beings who have their own places of vulnerability, their own places of exhaustion. And if we can resist the temptation to kind of lean into a more of a consumptive way of being and really start taking care of each other, have more imagination for what that might look like, things as simple, and I know a lot of churches do this well, but I’ve noticed some local churches having a buy nothing group just for the church. What does it look like to actually resource share amongst your community? What does it look like to check in like Rose, you’re saying check in on the people who might be more vulnerable in your community and see ways that you could meet mutual needs and offer mutual care. That’s something I’m trying to practice because I have such a critical mind as someone trained to be a pastor, and I can kind of come in like, Ooh, that sermon could have been this way, or We need to be doing this as a community and I’m actually trying to work on becoming a better participant in my faith community. And that’s a good, it’s not easy because I still have those parts of me that’s like, well, I’m not the pastor. You’re supposed to be taking care of me, and you’re supposed to be doing all these things perfectly. And so what does it mean to be co-laborers in a faith community, let alone in our larger neighborhoods and collective realities?

Rose: Yeah, I think that’s so important. And thinking through what do I bring rather than what am I getting on Sunday morning? Having that posture of I’m part of a congregation where I bring my gifts and skills and talents. What am I bringing and how am I being even a good listener to try to listen to underneath what people are saying rather than, again, trying to respond rather than react. I mean, that’s my work. Listen, that is my lifetime work. You guys is learning to respond rather than to react. Because I grew up with a lot of childhood trauma and I’m half Italian and half Mexican, so I’m freaking set up to react with passion and anger and all this stuff. So this is my work. So I’m not saying I even have this…

Rachael: Back to the driving piece. My two and a half year old, when she pretends to drive, she just holds the wheel goes, go people go people. And I actually feel like that’s victorious that she’s just saying, go people and not something else because mommy has had to work real hard in the car to be more honoring, blessing and not cursing.

Rose: That’s right. That’s right. Rachael, I think, oh, sorry Dan, go ahead.

Dan: No, no, again, and unimportant remark, just simply saying that I did record surreptitiously Rachael driving in California and I have kept that as a form of blackmail.

Rose: That’s awesome. That is awesome. Step out of line, Rachael. And you’re going to have a public humiliation.

Dan: Oh, no, no, no. People will even adore her more. The only reason I don’t put it out there is that her support is already significant. This would even take it to, anyway, you were going to say, Rose.

Rose: Well, I think a couple things that Rachael said as well is for congregants learning to allow their pastors to be human, that doesn’t mean that they get to abuse or be abusive, do any of the No, but for me, there is a line, and Rachael, you probably talk so eloquently about this in your work around church abuse, spiritual abuse and all, where is that line? We’re stepping into abuse versus they’re just being human and they make mistakes. And so that’s what I would say is how do we allow pastors to be human? As to your point, you walk away and go, I would not have preached it that way. I would’ve mean like, okay, well they did it that way and I’m give them grace. Another I that we’re in our research for clergy is because the stress levels are so high right now, giving pastors a way to metabolize it rather than just live with it seems very important. So one of the things we do is we offer Resilience Circles. It’s an eight month cohort and mostly for leaders, pastors and leaders and helping professions where we go through the three Ps, the people, the practices, more in depth and they do their own work. They come back and share what’s going on. So they’re literally metabolizing it. They have a place to metabolize it rather than let it just sit in their bodies and turn into sludge. And then they have digestive problems, migraine headaches. Lemme just read as people are listening, here are the symptoms that you can be paying attention to. Physical symptoms during a time like this: Sleep disturbances, eating problems, whether you’re overeating, undereating, your stomach is upset, rapid heart rates, muscle tremors, fatigued, inability to rest, headaches, easily startled, mental, emotional, you’re experiencing mood swings, you’re all happy. And then that car cuts you off and now you’re like, you have swings, pretty wide swings, anger and irritability, depression or anxiety, or you’re just numb. You just go into numb. I find really recently in the last few weeks, I’m having difficulty concentrating. I more forgetful. I have been having nightmares and I hardly ever have nightmares. Rich woke me up one night as I was screaming in my sleep. Indecisions. So what our research has shown is when we’re experiencing high levels of stress, moving our bodies is so important. You guys know this, right? To get those stress hormones out of our system, we’ve got to move our bodies. So maybe you can’t join a gym or you just like me, you don’t really love exercise because I don’t, when I had my heart failure, when they came in and brought in the little implant that they were going to put in me, they said to in front of all the people, they’re like, this is what we’re going to do for you. And actually what you have to understand is you cannot put any stress on your heart. So you’re not going to be able to run anymore. You’re going to even have to watch how you exercise. And I was crying and my daughter looked at me, she goes, mom, I know this is sad, but what do you think your tears are? I said, I couldn’t run anywhere. And she said, well, let’s be honest when the last time you ran anywhere, this is actually good news for you. He just told you, you don’t have to exercise.

Dan: These are tears of joy.

Rachael: It’s like when I had my foot surgery and my surgeon said, you’re not going to be able to be a professional athlete. And I was like 35. And I started crying and he was like, is there some sport I don’t know about? I was like, no, it’s just that you’re telling me if I did have a dream of being a professional athlete, it’s over. I mean, it was just so funny. Yes, yes. But what you’re saying Rose, and I just think it’s really important, and this is where I would say the Allender Center, part of why we’ve created many of the offerings we’ve created both trainings to be more trauma informed as you’re trying to care for people, but also healing offerings where trauma doesn’t discriminate. So when we’re in a season of high stress, that’s traumatizing because maybe we don’t have the space to metabolize or to receive the care to help us to make sense of what’s happening. It’s going to trigger and collide with other traumas that our body holds. And so I think for those pastors who maybe he have found like, oh, you could kind of keep things at bay, you could keep things at bay, but maybe you yourself in a season where it’s just coming, things are coming to the surface and the coping mechanisms are getting out of hand, maybe they’re turning to a kind of addictive process that’s going to take you out and going to take out many people to know that there is help and support for you. Places you can go to receive acute care around trauma that can bring about a different trajectory. And I think just something as we’re talking, I’m thinking about, I was working with someone and they use this language, it was just very wise language, it’s very faith-oriented language. But she said, I just feel like I’m trying to hold all things together and it’s impossible. And I’m realizing that that’s actually not my job. I can’t hold, that’s the job of Jesus. I am not the one who holds all things together. I might need to feel something of the impossibility or feel something of the agony, that the hope is that things could come together in a more integrated flourishing, all the possibilities that draw us into pastoral leadership or ministry leadership, that we have an imagination for the people of God, to be the people of God in a way that brings the kingdom of heaven to earth. And when we’re in seasons where that is just looking like a hot mess or our own personal heartache is colliding with the world’s heartache and we feel afraid or we feel unsure or we feel the fragmentation and disconnection that in so many of these systems set us up for that, there is that falling back and relinquishing to God that there’s a lot we’re not actually meant to hold and aren’t capable of holding. And that’s a kind of act of faith. When you feel responsible for things, that is not easy. So I’m not saying that just instantly feels like, oh, yay, I’m so glad God can hold all things because is God going to tend to this person who’s dying? Is God going to celebrate with people who are celebrating while someone else is suffering? Pastors and ministry leaders bear incredible tensions of community, and we’re not meant to bear them in isolation. We’re not meant to bear them alone. And we’re certainly not meant to take on the work of the one who does hold all things together, even when we can’t possibly comprehend how that’s possible.

Rose: Rachael, so important. And I think when you’re talking, I think of another practice that I have had to literally institute on an everyday basis that I used to do, and then I kind of let it go. I have to get up every single morning and before I do anything else, I have to ground myself in the love of God, a contemplative time of just embodying the spirit of God to wash over me, to examine my heart. Because here’s the other thing, in times, this is when our hearts can become so hard and cynical and despairing. And so if I want to be able to move about this time with a heart that is compassionate, even for the perpetrators, which is a horrible, I mean, this is a time when loving your enemy is like…

Rachael: Feels so hard.

Rose: I mean, I cannot do it without the grace of God. I cannot. And so my practice every morning, it’s like an Ignatian practice in the exercises. You don’t even look at your sin until you first are absolutely immersed in God’s love. You are the beloved of God. Now I can look at what I need that’s dark about me. And I feel like that’s a time right now that we’re in, especially for clergy leaders, congregants even, how are we being bathed in a love of God, allowing it to wash over our hearts, to soften us? It doesn’t mean we condone anything that’s wrong. It doesn’t mean we don’t speak truth to power, but we do it from a place being grounded in God.

Dan: Well, the invitation that you’re making is as simple but not simple is do we hold those who are called by God to care for our souls to shepherd? Do we care for them? And do we care for them maybe by simply praying for them? And do we hold them with the honor that they indeed need as much, if not more than what we need? And that sense of sense, I’m not on an elder board. I’m a friend to one of our pastors. In that sense, I get the right, because we’ve had many meals together to say, how’s your heart? How’s your marriage? How’s your friendships? How’s your body? And he knows that I’m pretty good at being able to discern manure. And so the playground of our interaction is he gets the right to ask me those very same questions. So there is mutuality. Now, you may not have access in the very large church that you go to a kind of mutual engagement. But what you do have is the ability to care for your pastor by even a word, even by a card, even by as you pass out from the church to your car, to be able just to say, I’m praying for you. And all that feels too small. But given the day in which we live with so much judgment and accusation, the mere fact that there are people thinking about him or her and opening the door to wanting to bring honor and goodness. And I think just as simple as, I don’t know if you actually even have the data that 30 some percent of the pastoral community doesn’t even know they’re in a form of post-traumatic stress. So just being able to go, look, I don’t know much about this group, but they seem like they might have a few things to say. Just passing on to them. Here’s a website. Check it out. That notion of what you and the Center is offering is a gift, not just to the pastoral community that indeed, but to everyone, to invite their pastor into a relationship where there can be community, where there can be practices, where there can be the presence of the goodness of God. So again, we’re grateful that Rose, you are where you are, that you are alive, that you are free now, never to run again, and yet you are again, not saying this lightly, and you’re running the race of following this wild God, well. So we thank you.

Rose: Thanks for having me.