by Valerie Showalter
On the last days of a vacation in the idyllic Irish countryside, I crumpled in an emotional heap. My partner and I had six months left in our three-year term, serving with a church in England, but six months felt infinite and insurmountable. The worshipping community, which we loved dearly, struggled to (as I saw it) come to terms with reality. Located in a massive, historically-listed building, the tiny church of primarily lower-class members barely scraped by financially month to month. Volunteer positions for leadership roles and worship often remained vacant, members exhausted by daily life. In an effort to serve the church, my partner and I filled many gaps, while also trying to–at first, gently, then more bluntly–name that the expectations for what we “did” as a church needed to change. It took a toll on us in different ways; I hit an emotional wall and I (probably literally) dragged my feet at the end of that vacation in Ireland, not wanting to return to England.
Counseling helped. But more so was the realization that I/we had been enabling the congregation to ignore the proverbial writing on the wall. In being called to this congregation to sustain them for a time, we created an unsustainable environment. This felt like a small epiphany, an emotional breakthrough that allowed me to step back from the burden of “success.” I began to see that part of our work, the last six months with the church, was to allow things to fail. We could not hold the church together on our own, as we had largely been doing, but we could walk with them, accompany them, weep with them as things fell apart.
And of course, a lot did not fall apart. (A few things did.) New habits and patterns had been established during our tenure. We had trained new leaders who were finally ready to work independently. Energy and passion we brought for particular areas weren’t always carried on, but a larger, community-centered vision that had supported our work was there for others to lean into.
It took me quite a while to recover from those three short years. Even with the small epiphany in our last year, I left tired and uncertain about my future in congregational ministry. But I left—and have pastored since—with an awareness that leadership may mean allowing things to fail. Not with the intent to harm or to shame, but to remain emotionally and spiritually centered in one’s limited capacity. Failing, at its best, invites us to open ourselves anew to the Spirit’s persistent presence and power, with and in spite of us.
Valerie Showalter currently pastors at Madison Mennonite Church. She considers herself an Anabaptist ecofeminist, caring deeply for the Spirit’s shalom-inspired liberation of the earth and all its inhabitants.
Views and opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Shepherd Heart.