3 Minute Ministry Mentor

We are talking about the mental wellbeing of our children and teens. These years of forming identity, re-modeling the brain, and flying further from the nest are already a big challenge. Add three calendar years of isolation, disrupted schedules and rites of passage, missed friendships and opportunities. Then stir in what Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer calls the “triple pandemic of Covid-19, racial reckonin...

Leading in loss is one of the great challenges of this moment. Why? The losses are monumental. The leaders are overwhelmed. And grief is rarely easy. Our guest Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer shares wisdom for attending to loss and grief for pastors, priests, chaplains and ministers. No matter your role, if you are leading any faith based or religious organization at the moment, attending to grief is a top n...

Self compassion. Who needs it? Well, all the humans. It is hard, however, to love others when we struggle to love ourselves. This can be reality for many people. Sometimes it is just a season. For others it is an enduring struggle. Have a listen to this conversation with Eileen Campbell-Reed and Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity school talking about self compassion practices. Dr. Mercer offers...

We continue our conversation with Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School about loss and grief. How do we integrate our losses into life? What helps you to live well with your losses and griefs?   Learn more about integrating loss and grief, here.    Download a copy of the #PandemicPastoring Report:  https://pandemicpastoring.org   Thank you! You are invited to subscribe to weekly episodes of...

How is grief, “another way of loving?”  Eileen Campbell-Reed welcomes Rev. Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer to talk about  about ambiguous grief.  Rituals and habits in every area of life, from parenting and teaching to being in community and leading the people of faith, have been disrupted and undermined. Now is the time to reframe and reimagine how to live creatively with these losses. How do we start? Find...

How can we shape our discernment practices? Consider how to discern renewal of purpose and vocation in your life with these questions. Have a listen to this conversation from our recent “Tending the Fires” virtual event with Rev. Dr. Kadia Edwards and Rev. Dr. Duane Bidwell. More on these ministers, here.     Download a copy of the #PandemicPastoring Report:  https://pandemicpastoring.org  Thank y...

Our lives, our churches, and ministry itself have changed . And more changes keep coming from the ripple effects of the pandemic. These realities open up questions about vocation and purpose of work and life. We recently offered a live zoom event for ministers, chaplains, professors, and lay leaders called “Tending the Fires.” Vocation is one of the fires in our lives that needs regular tending. I...

How will we honor what we have done before we look forward? Honoring the ways we spend our energy and love is a counter to false dreams of consumer culture. During the recent “Tending the Fires” virtual event, Eileen Campbell-Reed talked with fellow pastoral theologian, Rev. Dr. Duane Bidwell. He works in medical education with the Veterans Administration. Duane has a “Ten Things I Did that Matter...

What are you reading this week, and have you considered how to read with your fully embodied and relational self ? Whatever is happening in the world, we still read. We read for news and information. Reading inspires and moves us to action. We read so that we can prepare to preach and teach and organize our communities of faith. We still have a long way to go, when reading scripture, to make room...

Join the conversation as 3MMM's host Eileen Campbell-Reed interviews author, minister, and mother Traci Smith . What started out as a way to teach and nurture her own children’s faith in honest, messy and every day ways, turned into the Faithful Families book series.    If you have children, minister with children, or are part of a community of faith that includes children, you need to know about...

Now is a good time to remind everyone that you have permission to read a book . Any book, in fact!   We are reminding you to give yourself permission to read. It might seem like a small thing in the moment, yet it prepares us with both spiritual support and also important information to do the big things we are called to do in ministry, like parenting, teaching, writing and life. So, what will you...

How do we fear bravely? How do love and courage and fear dwell together? Author, Catherine McNiel joins us to share about her new book Fearing Bravely: Risking Love for Our Neighbors, Strangers, and Enemies.   Join her conversation with 3MMM host, Eilieen Campbell-Reed as they share about what it means to not be paralyzed by fear but use it as a tool to grow and live out of courage and love.    #p...

There is so much to grieve these days. The list seems nearly endless. Yet grieving remains hard work, and it is easy to ignore or leave aside. We invite you to join 3MMM host Eileen Campbell-Reed as she offers you a way to give yourself permission. A pathway to practice spiritual attention to the grief in your life. How will you give yourself permission to grieve this week?   #pastoralimagination...

This week Erin Robinson Hall shares from her experience, giving us all permission to laugh.   In these oh-so-challenging days we sometimes need to give ourselves and each other a permission slip . If we can do the small things — evening things like laughing — then we renew our energy for the big things we are called to be and do.   Join our conversation as we learn about the health benefits of lau...

Join our conversation with Elizabeth-Anne Nordgren Lovell , a recent seminary graduate, college professor, and lover of podcasts.  In this episode we talk all things podcasts, pandemic, and permission slips. In our conversation I ask Elizabeth-Anne how the pandemic has impacted her life and her ministry. Spoiler alert: she made use of podcasts!  Enjoy my conversation with Elizabeth-Anne as she sha...

In Part 2 of this Advent series , Eileen Campbell-Reed shares more Advent stories, prayers, and poetry. With each one, a wish for some of the hope, peace, joy, and love that marks our circle through the Advent season. May you find health, safety, and space for your grief. Because this year, and this last 21 months, has been heavy with loss. We all have lots to grieve, and there are so many residua...

This Advent, Eileen Campbell-Reed shares some Advent stories, prayers, and poetry. With each one, a wish for some of the hope, peace, joy, and love that marks our circle through the Advent season. May you find health, safety, and space for your grief. Because this year, and this last 21 months, has been heavy with loss. We all have lots to grieve, and there are so many residual and ripple effects....

Challenge. Question. Conflict. Change. How do you practice ministry in a no-win situation ? Eileen Campbell-Reed has noted some themes -  financial, staffing and volunteer challenges. Vocational uncertainty and the need for fresh discernment. Conflicts. Hope and resilience. Big transition. And there are no easy answers. There is, however, a deep well of wisdom and support to draw upon. Have a list...

Collaboration. Listening. Getting around life’s brick walls. Understanding identity. Adapting to new places and situations. Each of these moments are part of the everyday work of ministry. Recently, Eileen Campbell-Reed sat down with three new pastors to talk about pastoral imagination. It was a wonderful conversation about learnings and how the Pastoral Imagination book and journal can support an...

Join our conversation with Rev. Alisha Smith Haddock . She is helping us see how multiple factors are impacting the community of North Nashville. Back in March, Nashville was hit hard by tornados that ripped through Middle Tennessee and destroyed and damaged, houses, churches, businesses and schools. Just a week later, the pandemic was declared and the U.S., including Nashville, entered into a “sa...

Join us for a conversation about grief rituals. Author Lee Kravitz shares about his exploration, experience, and writing about death and grief. Lee is a journalist and a former editor-in-chief at Parade Magazine. And he is also author of the memoirs, Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things* and Pilgrim: Risking the Life I Have to Find the Faith I Seek. Le...

Rev. Dr. Beverly Wallace has spent her life caring for grief.  Many threads of personal experience, research, teaching, and pastoring are woven into her vocation of caring for grief. In this episode , she highlights those threads and how they have shaped her vocation.    Caring for Grief in a Pandemic During the present pandemic, Wallace sees the essential and ongoing needs for advocacy and libera...

“So much of Zen practice is about warm hand to warm hand transmission.” Ian Case, Director of the Brooklyn Zen Center, joins #3MMM Host Eileen Campbell-Reed in this episode of our series on pandemic grief.   With the “stripping away of ritual and form” members of the Zen Center now meet for Dharma talks (educational teaching), services of meditation, and practice groups in online platforms. Many m...

Listening matters. It matters for pastoral practice as well as personal relationships and every part of our lives. Listening is intimately connected to paying attention to life with all of our senses. Rev. Dr. Mary Clark Moschella, the Roger J. Squire Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Yale Divinity School joins #3MMM Host Eileen Campbell-Reed for a conversation about the power of listen...

"What’s really at stake here? How will this change people’s lives?" - Danielle Tumminio Hanson 3MMM Episode 53: Bonus content! Hear more about:  + how to make space for tender conversation in diverse learning spaces + what we can learn from remorse + how embodied, relational learning can look in #seminarylife + how we can redefine and have new understandings of family  Rev. Dr. Danielle Tumminio H...