55: Flexible Leadership with Jeffrey Mello

Host: Brandon Nappi 

Guest: Bishop Jeffrey Mello

 Production: Goodchild Media 

Music: Wayfaring Stranger, Theodicy Jazz Collective 

Art: E. Landino 

Instagram: @theleadersway.podcast 

berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast

Hannah:               Hey, Brandon. 

Brandon:              Hey, Hannah. 

H:           What’s crack-a-lackin’? What’s new? 

B:           Well, there’s a lot crack-a-lackin’ because … 

H:           Excellent.

B:           I just attended a Taylor Swift worship service. 

H:           I’m sorry. No. Also, what? Yes.

B:           There’s a lot to say no about. There’s plenty to say yes about. So this is Coral Gables Congregational UCC. They…

H:           Located where?

B:           In Coral Gables, Florida. 

H:           Okay. Okay. You were in Florida road tripping? 

B:           I was not road tripping. I was fully online. 

H:           Oh. Oh, oh, okay. The plot thickens. 

B:           Yep.

H:           There are layers. 

B:           Layers. In Coral Gables, Florida, so I was watching, one Sunday morning. And every Sunday after Easter, they do a gospel according to -blank-, and they choose a person, a celebrity, an artist, musical artist, and then they use all their music throughout the worship service. 

H:           Brandon, I want to be open minded about this. It’s not happening. 

B:           So here’s a couple of insights. And I wanna respect this community because it’s … they’re trying to do it as well as it could be done. Yeah.

H:           Okay.

B:           The music ministry was off the off the hook crazy good. I mean, they were doing this music about as well as it could be done by a group of church musicians really beautifully. The sermon was exquisite. Drawing from various themes in Taylor Swift lyrics and drawing from the life of Taylor Swift. And sort of it’s trying to find the chunky middle between the canon of Taylor Swift and the canon of scripture. 

H:           Uh-huh.

B:           And so, like, kudos.  Let me give one more kudo; I’m on their mailing list now. Like, I showed up online because, obviously, I’m a huge Swiftie, and I was curious. 

And now for the rest of the year, they’re kind of I’m gonna be getting their stuff, and they’re inviting me to Sunday worship a couple times a week. And so that’s really interesting. Obviously, all your sort of head shaking I would agree with. It’s a little strange, you know, to be singing, “We’re Never (ever) Getting Back Together.”

H:           My mom’s Roman Catholic church she grew up in did this. They would sing like “Here Comes the Sun” around the fire with the priest. 

B:           Yeah. This was a thing in the seventies and eighties, certainly, as part of a …

H:           And the church I grew up in would have, like, a pop culture opening song in the high school ministry, which was, like, hundreds of us. Which was sort of, like, to, it was like a transition moment for people who hadn’t been to church before. It was kinda cool. The band was really, really good. 

B:           Really good …. I know.

H;           I’m hesitating. 

B:           So here’s the thing. Like, they …

H:           And I wish Coral Gables well. I I think they’re exercising their creative muscle. I respect it. But from a purely philosophical, theological standpoint, no. 

B:           Yes. So kudos to Coral Gables Congregational at UCC. You did it about as well as it could be done. I think my observation is when you put when you put Taylor next to the gospel, Taylor’s gonna win in terms of attention.  Right? And so that’s the odd juxtaposition because you want the gospel to be driving the train. \ But somehow Taylor was driving this train, and that’s what felt strange.

H:           It’s also just so strange because she’s a living artist whose, you know, religious affiliations could be known, you know … what? Just what? Are you doing violence to the text at a certain point? 

B:           So I’d be interested in hearing, from listeners, like, what they think. And go check them out at Coral Coral Gables. They’re really thoughtful people. Music ministry, incredible, great preaching, YDS alum, pastor there, and spoken, as I think most listeners know, as a true devotee of Taylor. 

H:           If they haven’t caught that, they haven’t been paying attention.

B:           They haven’t been listening. So there’s your invitation to go listen more and get all the Easter eggs. 

H:           There it is. 

B:           Of which there are a few. 

H:           Easter eggs. You are a Swiftie. I love it. 

B:           Said during the Easter season. There’s a chunky middle.

H:           Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. Well, what do we have on the docket today? 

B:           Oh, we we have a great conversation with bishop Jeff, our bishop here in Connecticut, board member at Berkeley, reflecting on his leadership experience as a social worker, reflecting on his call to ministry, what it’s like to be bishop, what, what gets him really hopeful.  It was a sweet, sweet, honest conversation. We missed you. 

H:           I was so sad to miss it. I love Bishop Jeff. One of my friends who’s a recent alum of Berkeley has texted me specifically to let me know … “Not that I have favorites; Bishop Jeff is my favorite bishop of all the bishops.” That’s what she said. 

B:           I get it.

H:           And, yeah, it’s not hard to understand why. So …

B:           You really feel his social work heart coming through his, his Episcopal ministry. 

H:           Yeah. Oh, exciting. Okay, let me tell you about Bishop Jeff so the people understand that we have a great among us. The Right Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello is the sixteenth Bishop Diocesan in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. He was elected in May 2022 and was ordained and consecrated on October 15 of that year. The vision and message of his ministry is to meet people where they are, invoking Jesus’ ministry of invitation, and to empower them to do the work God needs them to do as followers of Jesus Christ in the Episcopal tradition. Without further ado, Bishop Jeff.

B:           Bishop Jeff. 

B:           Hi. I’m Brandon Nappi. 

H:           Hi. I’m Hannah Black, and we’re your hosts on the Leader’s Way podcast.

B:           A Yale podcast empowering leaders, cultivating spirituality, and exploring theology. 

H:           This podcast is brought to you by Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal Seminary at Yale. 

B:           Bishop Jeff Mello, welcome to the Leaders Way podcast. We’re so thankful that you’re here. 

Jeff:       Oh, I’m glad to be here. Thanks. 

B:           You are the bishop here in Connecticut. You’re also a board member, so you’re part of our family. And we have been conspiring to get you to Yale Broadcast Studios for a couple of years now, so thank you. I know it’s a full time, and happy Easter.

J:            Thank you. Same to you. 

B:           We’ve had a few bishops on the show, and I always love asking the question around the road to becoming bishop. I presume that the stork didn’t fly you in. You weren’t hatched as a bishop. Can you share with us the path, maybe first to priesthood And then to the, episcopacy? 

J:            Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. This could take up the entire podcast, but I first wanted to be a priest, which I think is different, when … my earliest memory is when I was seven. And I was playing with my best friends, Tricia Kennelly and Patrick Maguire. If you’re listening, you’re part of my story. And, we would, you know, hang out and play after school.

               And when it was … we would take turns deciding what we would play. And sometimes it was school, and sometimes it was office. And when it was my turn to decide what we were gonna play, it was always church. And we would make a little church, and I would press Wonder Bread under the rim of a glass to make little wafers. And we would have church together because church was my safe place. Church was my happy place. I couldn’t wait to be at church. I would go after school. I’d say to people, church was my varsity sport.

               When I was a young person, I would I would do anything in the church that they would let me. It’s where I learned leadership. Right? You look at a kid and you say, Hold this cross and lead us in procession. So, the church was really my world.

               I grew up at church camp, at the Episcopal Conference Center in Rhode Island, which is where I grew up. So church was always a part of my life, and it was somewhat of an assumed path. It’s what my parents thought I would end up doing. My priest thought I would end up being a priest. I first met with the bishop to talk about ordination when I was 17. And then I went to college. And there’s a whole wide world out there. And I wasn’t sure that ordained ministry is what I wanted. And I had some things to figure out about my life and who I was and what I wanted. 

               And, so my path then took me on this tour of teaching. I taught kids with emotional and behavioral challenges, which I loved, which led me to nonprofit management. And I ran an organization for at-risk youth in Boston, which led me to social work school. I got my master’s in social work at Simmons University. And then I fell in love with adult psychiatry. And I worked in the psychiatry department at Mass General Hospital for many years. 

               And I realized that what I was doing that whole time was trying to piece together a ministry without having to go into ordained ministry. So a little bit of teaching, a little bit of leading, a little bit of organizational development, right, healing, all of that work sort of around it. And it wasn’t until I returned to the church; I had stepped away from the church for a good season and started going back to church when most people go back to church, which is when my husband and I had a child and wanted to raise them in the church. And we went to a celebration of our rector’s tenth anniversary. And … 

B:           Is this still in Rhode Island? 

J:            This –no. Thank you. This is now in Boston.  In Saint John’s in Jamaica Plain, Boston. And, we went to the celebration, and everybody’s getting up and giving testimonials about the rector and who she had been and all the ways that she had touched people’s lives. And I was sitting there hearing this, and I’m thinking to myself, Oh, this is what I wanna be doing. This is what I’m meant to do with my life. But I can’t say anything because I just got my master’s in social work. I’m in a, you know, boatload of educational debt. And, my husband, Paul, was sitting next to me, and we walked outside afterwards. And it was very cinematic. It was raining, and we’re sort of standing out in the portico outside the church. And he looked at me and said, you know, when I hear people talk about priests like that, I think that’s you. That’s what you should be doing. 

               So we had this long conversation and …

B:           What was it like to hear that? 

J:            Ummm … Terrifying. Yeah. And I don’t say that in the sort of, like, Oh … I mean, because it was it was my heart’s desire. And I had figured out how to put enough obstacles in the way that wasn’t my responsibility, you know. And for him to say that was like … all of that just melted away. All the defenses went away. And then he said, the next thing he said, which was so wise, he said, “You’re not ever gonna be happy in anything you do unless you ask the question. And if the answer is no, let the no be the church’s to say. Or let the no be God, but don’t let the no be yours.” So that’s something that I’ve held as I’ve been talking with other people over the years in discernment.

               So I wrote my rector a one sentence email that said, I don’t know what this means, but I think I might be curious about ordination. And she wrote back and said, I’ve been expecting this email. So I went to seminary. I went to the Episcopal Divinity School when it was in Cambridge, and that was a great experience for me, and did parish ministry in Harvard Square, and then went into parish ministry. I was rector of Saint Paul’s in Brookline, which is a great, fabulous community. Spent almost twelve years there. 

               The road to the episcopate is … was more of a surprise to me. You know, I think anybody who says, “Oh, I never thought about it.” I don’t know a lot of people who have never thought about it who have been in ordained ministry because there is sort of a wondering about whether this is this is a possible path in the future. But it’s not anything I ever aspired to. I didn’t wanna be bishop when I grew up. I didn’t wanna be bishop when I was ordained. 

               What happened was I got to a place in my ministry where I started wondering how God was calling me to share what I had learned that far on my path in a new way. I didn’t wanna leave the parish where I was, but I felt a yearning and a calling to go somewhere new. I was also fairly aware that the parish I was serving was gonna need somebody new in the next five years. Like, I had we had walked a beautiful journey together, but I think it’s good for a congregation to have somebody else come in and take the next step. 

               So I do what a lot of people in discernment do. I was on the job board, on Episcopal News Service, and I would look at positions coming up. And I would think, no, that’s not right or no, that’s not right. And then a bishop profile came. And I thought, well, that’s probably not right yet, but it would be a good exercise for me. And when I read the profile for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, I thought, Oh, this might be it. This might be the way that God is calling me to figure out both what gifts I have to bring to the church in this new way, but I’m also a firm believer that God brings us to where we are in our lives of faith or in our vocation for our own transformation, right, as much as for anybody else’s.

               So it wasn’t just what can I bring to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, but how would being the bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut help me become more of who it is God is calling me to be in my life? And it seemed like there was a really great overlap there. There was one line in the profile that said, “We’re looking for a bishop who will help us unleash our passion for Jesus Christ.” And that’s what sold me. Because I thought, if there’s an Episcopal diocese, particularly in New England, right, in 2022, that’s being explicit about their desire, to unleash their passion for Jesus Christ, I thought that’s something I wanna pay attention to.

B:           So for listeners maybe around the country or even more from around the world who might not know what Bishop Jeff is pointing to, the kind of “frozen chosen” experience of the Northeast. So I’m a native nutmegger here from Connecticut. And it’s hard for us to be passionate about even the things that we’re passionate about, right, to demonstrate that outwardly. So, I could appreciate why that would catch your eye. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

J:            So–Oh, just one comment on what you said. I think that’s very true. I think … I think what I have found is that people are incredibly passionate. Talking about it is a whole another matter. So it’s not that people aren’t passionate. It’s … folks are longing for ways to be open about that and to be able to talk about that and share that and get that fed.

B:           Oh, right. It’s as if we’re waiting for someone to grant us permission let it out.  That … that’s right. For long time listeners, they won’t be surprised by this question because I’m perennially curious about questions of discernment and calling. And I’m thinking especially for our maybe potential seminarians who are flirting with seminary or maybe running away from seminary and are finding themselves running away from this call over and over. You’ve had many inflection points. You talked about teaching and running nonprofit and going to school for social work and then working as a priest, as rector. All of those, I presume, came with a very specific calling. And in your own life, how do you discern where you’re being led? And I presume there’s no one formula. There’s no one silver bullet that gets this done. But how do you go about listening to God and knowing that, that, in fact, I am being led in this in this new direction, however terrifying? Can you can you help us? 

J:            I think for me, it … this is one of the things I love about discernment in church, is we do discernment in community. And it’s not just me listening to–because, you know, I could definitely get on board with whatever I’m thinking I should be doing.

Right? But I get to test that out. And I get to test that out in prayer and take it to God and listen for how God might be moving in this question. But I also get to test it out in community. And I get to talk with other people of all different walks of life and say, This is what I’m thinking. How does this land? And it’s the Venn diagram for me of that discernment where all of that overlaps. And ultimately, for me, I think it comes back to what I said earlier, which is –What … where is God calling you? Where is God calling me so that I can be more of the person that God created me to be? Because I think that’s the goal, right, so that I can better serve God in whatever way that is. Right? 

               And I’ve also noticed that when I’ve when I’ve done discernment, I think, well, all the other pieces of my life are better served by it. So I was a better priest because I lived into my vocation as dad and a husband. I was a better husband because I lived fully into my vocations as priest and dad. Right? So–and when one of them was suffering, when I wasn’t paying attention to one of them, the other two would suffer as well. But I think sometimes we get in our own heads and we’re convinced. We know this much of the of the puzzle. Right? And that’s how we base our decisions.

               I’ll never forget when I was in discernment in the parish back in Jamaica Plain. And, one of the members of the discernment committee in my parish was giving me a ride home. And we were talking, and we were talking a little bit about my story of having always wanted to be a priest. And I said, Yeah. You know, it’s just I just never thought much about it because, of course, doesn’t everybody wanna be a priest when they grow up? And he pulled the car over and looked at me and said, “No, Jeff. Not everybody wants to be a priest when they grow up.” And it was it sounds so obvious, but it was a learning. Like, oh, this is a this is a particular calling on me that that … this isn’t just something to be dismissed because everybody thinks it. 

B:           Yeah. It’s, it’s that old, notion of asking the fish about water. Right? It’s just there. It’s given. It’s taken for granted. Yeah. Yeah. And so you mentioned your journey through social work, and I wonder, gosh, how this impacts your ministry, how your leadership, your priesthood is inflected by this training. It must come in to play all the time. And I wonder if you could reflect a little bit on that. 

J:            Yeah. I am so grateful that my path took me through social work, both the training and the work, Because I do; I use it every day in my ministry. I used it every day in my parish ministry. I use it every day as bishop in the church. And I think for me, I think there are some obvious connections, sort of understanding human behavior, understanding systems, understanding family systems, all of that work when you’re working with a large organization and how that tends to come to play.

               So that true. But more than anything, what I appreciate about the social work discipline is the holistic approach to the person and the 360-degree lens that I was formed in using when I was sitting across from someone who was experiencing something in their lives. So they could come in with issue x, but it was never just issue x. It was, What are your supports? You know, What what’s your health like? What’s your living situation like? How does your past inform your present and how you think about your future? So I’ve really appreciated that much, that sort of richer approach to looking at something, because that’s what we’re called to do in ordained leadership all the time in leadership in the church is something pops up, and it’s easy to sort of look at the thing and say this is the issue. But if we can take a step back and say, let’s look at all of the things that might be informing this. Right? When people ask me about the future of the church or church decline, that’s a much harder answer for me, to come up with because I need so much more information. Right? Tell me, where is the church? Right? What is the surrounding community like? Right. What has the history been like? Tell me about trauma in the parish. Tell me about past leadership. Tell me about health and and vitality. Tell me how they understand themselves to be church. Tell me about their relationship with and how they’re called to be followers of Jesus in the world.

               It’s a much more complicated question, that I think sometimes we oversimplify. And it’s easy to look at a graph and talk about trends, and I think that has a place. But the other thing I will always say to a parish when I’m with them on a visitation is, you know, if you are Saint Swithin’s, don’t try to be Saint Gertrude’s. That job’s already been taken. Right? That’s what we say to individuals. But with parishes and with faith communities, I think sometimes we can say, well, there’s a there’s a cookie cutter approach to this. There’s a right way of being church. And there’s no right way except the right way for Saint Swithin’s or the right way for Saint Gertrude’s. And so walking alongside them, with that social worker lens of, well, let’s talk about all the things that are going on here. I’m really, I’m really grateful.

               The other thing, of course, in in my social work experience is centering and working with folks who have been pushed to the margins. And that was another sort of journey that got observed. My dad actually noticed it before he died. He said, you know, you’re always you’re always seeking jobs … Well, the way he put it is, you’re on a journey to always make less money than the position before. And what that was really about was getting called to places that were serving the folks that our society didn’t value. And so there is not money in serving. Right? So that’s our teachers. That’s our, our aids, our … all the folks who are right there with the person the people that we, who Jesus might call, you know, the least of these. I found myself more increasingly drawn in into those spaces. The … even in the clinic where I worked, when a new client would come in, if there was somebody that none of the other clinicians sort of were wanting to take on to their caseload, I would … that would tend to be a person that I would wanna work with. And I think that that informs how I move through my even my episcopacy.

B:           Yeah. This is such a gift, this systems thinking. You know, at some point, I’m gonna get a t-shirt for my wife who works in public health and, in some ways, an allied field to social work, thinking systemically about various problems. “It’s the system.” Right. So all these individual problems, all these specific, hardships really are multifactorial. Right? And so I presume that new leaders fall into this trap of thinking narrowly because in some ways, it’s overwhelming to think systemically. And I wonder as you look about, as you look at leaders–because you’re a leader of leaders–What are some of the other skills, capacities, in addition to systems thinking, that you see as necessary to lead at this at this really challenging moment to be a leader? I mean, I have such respect and compassion for leaders who feel this call right now because it’s not easy to lead. So as you look at your new leaders, your more seasoned leaders, what are the capacities and skills that you’re helping them to develop at this moment? 

J:            Yeah. What I’m seeing folks really needing to lean into right now in leadership and leadership in the church is flexibility. A nimbleness. Curiosity is huge. A posture, I call it, a posture of curiosity, is … and that’s a skill that I think a lot of leaders need to develop. And I’ve talked a little bit about this before, a willingness to fail and not always feel like you need to be right, or that–or give up the fact that you always will be, but– and longing. So I think for me, it’s curiosity, flexibility, and longing. And if that can be your posture, that will lead you in the places where you need to be going, and it will prepare you for how to respond to what your leadership challenges will be. If there’s rigidness or, an inability to be flexible or pivot, that’s where folks run into trouble because they don’t know how to move in that space.

               And it’s also what we’re … our leading is also teaching. Those of us in ministry, lay and ordained, we teach by the way that we lead. So how we want the folks in the pews or people who are curious about the church to understand who we are as church is taught by how we lead in the church. So by modeling flexibility, by modeling curiosity, by modeling a willingness to fail, and it–which is another way of saying willingness to experiment. People don’t like it when I say willingness to fail. It makes them, can make them nervous. But it’s a willingness to experiment. 

               And that’s also it takes us back to discernment. Right? Try it. See how it goes. And if it is of God, if it is what God is calling you or your community to do, you’ll see it. You’ll know it. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy. It could be the hardest thing you ever do. And you will know it in your in your spirit, in your soul, because it will feed you in a way that things that are not of God, I think, don’t feed us. 

B:           Mhmm. I think this is one of the beautiful aspects of the Episcopal church is it’s a space of curiosity. It’s a space of openness. It’s a space that’s trying to be radically inclusive and create the conditions where something new can continue to happen. Because I think maybe some of our listeners who are not rooted in in this tradition might be scratching their heads thinking the church hasn’t historically been a place of experimentation; hasn’t been a place that’s encouraged failure. In fact, has encouraged uniformity. And a kind of faithfulness rooted in certainty.  And, I wonder if you could maybe shed some light, especially for either folks standing outside the tradition or people standing right at the center of the tradition. They’re being ordained. And they’re in a seminary, right, where they’re trying to get good grades, and they’re trying to do it right and follow all the rules. And it comes from a really earnest place. Right? And we love our rules. Right? 

               But then when when they step into priesthood, and they are the symbol of the rules, and you’re encouraging them to be creative. And … shine some light on what you’re suggesting because this is really fascinating. I think it’s the signature blessing and gift of the Episcopal Church to walk this middle path and hold all these beautiful tensions. 

J:            The time in which we are in is a time for which the Episcopal Church exists because we bring … we do, our tradition brings so many skills and gifts to bring to this moment. What we hear people craving in the world right now are things that we center as who we are as people of, in the Episcopal church, you know, the middle way, of course, but also the things that lots of faith communities offer that feed us and that are at the center of who we are. Community, you know; praying shapes believing. So the prayers that we say over and over again help, we believe, shape our hearts and shape the way that we move in in the world. I’m an Episcopalian because of the rules. I like to be told “This is how it goes.” Right? And, you know, this is a conversation about law, right, and what the law was meant for. The law was a gift. To say, you know, here are the guardrails. Here’s the container. Play within the container. You don’t have to worry about the container anymore. The container is set. And our job is to play and to push in the porous nature of the container in which we live. 

               So, you know, as a bishop, you know, one of my central vows that I took at my ordination was the unity of the church. And that is … I take that vow seriously. Part of that unity is staying true to who we have always been. And I think sometimes, you know, we say this is a hard time to be a leader in the church, and I think that’s true. I’m not sure that over the course of two thousand years, there’s been more time that it’s been easy than hard. Right? Particularly if the church is going where it needs to be. It’s … it almost by default, by its very nature, is a hard time to be a leader, because God is constantly calling us into the hard places of the world, in the broken places of the world. If it’s an easy time to be the church, we’re probably not paying attention to all of the things that we might need to be paying attention to. But all of these gifts have been there since the beginning. Right?

               And I think depending on what’s happening in the world, we lean more or less into these gifts. And let’s be frank, a lot of this is harder. It’s harder to be flexible. It’s harder to be creative. It’s harder to live … We love talking about how we love the questions more than the answers. But you know what? There are some days when I wake up, and I’m like, Just give me the answer, God. Just –I want just the, you know, the top five rules for the day. And so and that’s not always been something that we’ve embraced. But I think, culturally, we’re seeing that play out right now. Right? Is that what folks are are are leaning into is certainty and rigidness. And our … you know, Jesus led a ministry of “come and see.” Right? Be transformed. Jesus didn’t always give the answer. Jesus made it possible for folks to find the answer in him and through him, but it was a lived answer. It wasn’t a, you know, a checklist. 

               So I think all of these things that we talk about as gifts of the Episcopal church, I think one of the things we forget, I forget, because it’s the water in which I swim, is that the best parts of who we are and who we have always been have come out of these gifts. These are not new. We do not cross our fingers behind our back. Right? This is gospel. This is scriptural. This is based in years of tradition and critical thinking and theological discourse. This isn’t just the new latest greatest, you know, thought bubble. And that’s what keeps us tethered. And that’s what keeps us in community. So it’s that balance of, “How can I be creative within the container that I’ve chosen?” That’s the other thing we–I would like us to claim more. Like, I’ve chosen this. Right? I’ve chosen to be an Episcopalian. I’ve chosen ordination. I’ve–now all of it, I believe, is undergirded by a sense of call. But that chosenness, that agency and I think that’s one thing I’d like to come back to around the systems thinking. Because that’s not either/or either. It’s not all-only system, and it’s not allonly system. And it’s not all only individual. But how do we help individuals and commune and whether that individual is a person or let’s say a faith community, find agency within the structure of the system in which that they are either being helped or harmed by. Right? 

               So when we say, it’s the system, I agree. And looking at our systems and un and and unpacking that and critiquing them and restructuring them is critical and important work. And helping individuals find agency within that, I think, is huge. To say, you know, you have–there’s creativity for you here. Right? God is speaking to you, calling to you, loving you within the system that that we’re all existing in. 

B:           The Roman Catholic theologian Michael Himes used to say the most interesting word in theology and maybe even in all of life is the word and. Holding these paradoxes. Mhmm. And and this is the creative genius of the Episcopal and Anglican tradition, this holding of tensions, whether it be systems and individuals, as you said, or, with the groundedness and tradition and the creativity. We need both. I mean, in any artistic pursuit, we start by rooting ourselves in a tradition, in certain rules, in certain techniques, in certain skills. And we never completely throw them away. That would be chaos. Or even in sports. Right? There’s a boundary. We play soccer on this field. It’s not an infinite field. We don’t play outside the stadium. We play inside this and, you know, there’s certain rules, and then there’s a certain amount of open creativity. Same thing for cooking, any skill, right, holds these things in tension.

J:            We’re also not all things. And there’s some some humility in the boundary too.  Right? Which is to say, well, why can’t we do this? Well, that’s not who we are. That’s who this other group or this other tradition is. And that’s their call. So let them like, we don’t have to be all things to all people all the time. But we can get–and I think parishes do this. I think a lot of clergy try and figure out, how am I, super clergy where I get to be all things to all people all the time. And you can’t. Right? You can lean into your gifts and then figure out how do I supplement the parts of this ministry that I’m called to that I don’t feel as gifted in or that isn’t, doesn’t feed my soul in the same way.

               But I think that’s the other thing that folks coming into ministry often, we have to disavow them of. You know? And it’s about failure too. Because you’re either gonna acknowledge your limitations and live into them and embrace them, or you’re gonna try to ignore them and then fail spectacularly and be taught that. Right?

B:           And so, I mean, you mentioned failure a couple times. I wonder how you work with, in your own leadership, the kind of maybe twin sibling of failure, and that’s disappointment. Either in something you’re really excited about that doesn’t come to pass or you you’re working with, you know, some of your priests who were excited about something and that didn’t work out or you know, to be in the church is to be filled with lots of gratitude. I mean, so many blessings that we get a front row seat to, as people in ministry. And we equally have a front row seat to disappointment as well. And I wonder on your path, how you work with that. 

J:            Disappointment is hard when I let it get connected to my ego. And when I’m disappointed, often it’s because I am disappointed that some idea I had wasn’t the right idea. And that’s a teaching that I’m being offered. But I’m only disappointed when I think my ego is getting in the way. Sometimes I can get disappointed on behalf of others. I might be sidestepping my ego there a little bit. But the disappointment really comes from, Oh, gosh. I gave my heart to this. I gave my energy to this. I’m so frustrated that the church is so slow on x, y, or z. So the disappointment is really about my relationship with something I love.

               And the other side of failure or the twin side of failure might be disappointment, but I think there’s also … the gift in disappointment is the longing that’s behind it. Right? Why am I disappointed? Is this about me, or is this because I really love these people and really wanna see them thrive? And that wasn’t the … that clearly was not the way that that’s gonna happen. So I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in myself, but I’m also sort of disappointed in general. 

               I actually think part of the discipline of living with disappointment is something that you said, which is …. I don’t think we do as well, which is, steeping ourselves in gratitude. And that can … I don’t you know, that’s certainly a New England thing as well, right? Not … sort of “Let’s not sort of talk about that.” But I think if I am practicing a a a practice of regular gratitude, then that shifts my lens for disappointment. Yeah. Because then I’m looking and I’m saying, Oh my gosh, God. Look at all of these incredible things that happened over the course of this week, and this one thing didn’t go as I might have expected it. If I’m not practicing gratitude, the only thing I’m taking out of that week is my disappointment. That’s the only thing that happened, right, can be my lens. And so I think the balance of dis–and then letting it go and and wondering. You know, this is sort of, in systems and with Heifetz, you know, getting up on the balcony. 

B:           The balcony.

J:            And that’s where the curiosity comes from. I clearly misread that, how that was gonna go or what they needed. I wonder what that was about. I wonder why it didn’t work or I wonder …  rather than what did I do, or or not do. I think when we put anybody in any sort of vocation, it’s … it can be–it is a practice of constant disappointment. Right? I mean, parenthood. Right? Being a spouse, living in the world, there are constant opportunities for growth, in how we live with disappointment. Whether that disappointment is sort of the big, I didn’t get into this school or I didn’t get accepted into this program or that didn’t happen, but also, Gosh, I had these hopes and longings that may or may not be coming to fruition. 

               And for me, that’s all an opportunity to come back to God and say, God, let me let me check out my longings. Right? Let me check out my desires. Were those for me? Were those for someone else? Whose … is my ego caught up in here? And then ultimately, God, what do you want in all of this? And then it puts me in the posture of curiosity with God, right, which is really exciting for me, where I get to say, God, what is your vision here? What is … what is your hope here? And then help me understand it, and then give me the tools I need to follow it.

B:           You mentioned this aspect of disappointment, or maybe it’s a precursor to disappointment, and that is that you love your people. Right? We’re disappointed about the things that we that we love and for people for whom we care. And it’s just so clear that you love your people. You love your ministry. You love the church. I wonder if you can speak a little bit about it. It’s just so evidently clear. And it seems to me like the, more of the water you swim in. Has that always been the case?

J:            I think so. I mean, I think it was probably imprinted on me because the church loved me. Right? So I have an incredibly privileged experience of growing up in a church that it was just again, it was in the water. Right? Like, I never heard explicit, you know, “Jeff, the church loves you because …” or “God loves you because …” but it was communicated to me. Right? Like, so I think that imprint, that is sort of what I take with me in my journey. And it’s why I want folks to be in relationship with God, is to know that unconditional, abundant, overflowing love that is not love them and leave them. Right? God does not leave me alone, because God loves me. God calls me into transformation because God loves me. Right? But when we are loving somebody into transformation, that’s very different than when we shame people into transformation. So I think that’s the first floor of ministry, you know, as bishops and priests say to to new to new priests and to new bishops, “Say your prayers. Love your people.” At the end of the day, say your prayers. Love your people. Doesn’t mean you like them all the time, but you by gosh, you wanna be loving them because this work is too hard to do if you don’t love the people you’re serving and working with. Right? And that takes … that’s another discipline.

               And it’s not, it’s not Pollyanna. It’s not simple. It’s not easy. It’s sometimes loving your people enough to say really hard things. It’s loving your people enough to not do the thing that seems … the brightest, shiniest object in the room, but isn’t in the best interests of your people or the church or whatever purpose you are trying to serve. So I think loving your people, if you can’t figure out how to do that, I would encourage you to think about something else. I’m actually not sure what I would encourage you to think about, because I want everybody loving their people. Whoever your people are, love them. And that, you know, that’s back to the tradition and the gifts of the tradition. I say that on my Sunday visitations. I said one of the gifts of the church is we get to love one another before we know whether or not we like each other very much. I find that a great gift because that means you know, on a Sunday morning when I’m with the parish, I walk in, I can love them. And then we can figure out, you know, how’s this conversation going?  Do we agree on certain things? But that’s not the first purpose. The first purpose is to love one another. Right?

B:           It’s funny. When people say “the tradition” in a cold or feisty or critical way, you know, it’s that part of the tradition that they don’t like. But love one another is the tradition.  That’s the tradition. 

J:            I think we have that on we might have that in, from a good source. Okay. So let’s lean in to love one another in the tradition. We have a new segment that our wonderful co-host, Dr. Hannah Black, is gonna bring to us. Listeners will notice that Hannah is traveling this week, so she’s not here. But she is going to appear to us through the miracle of prerecorded monologue. And she’s going to describe a bit of a leadership challenge for us. And you, with your wisdom and experience, and you may lean into your social work degree here, we’re gonna ask you to respond and help this anonymous listener, reflect a little on this particular leadership challenge. 

H:           Hey, Bishop Jeff. Hey, Brandon. I am here to introduce today’s golden retriever game where we like to keep things a little bit light after maybe our conversations haven’t always been so light. So today, I’m introducing you to a game I’m calling Leadership Fail, where we read a story that an anonymous listener has written in, and we ask you to be the judge. Who was in the wrong, what bad decisions were made, and maybe most importantly, what should happen next time? Or in an ideal world, what would have been better?

               Okay. So here is today’s leadership fail. Once I was a student resident at a campus ministry, and the priest demanded I and my roommates cancel all our out of town weekend plans in order to work an all-day fundraiser at the church with two days’ notice. As the priest was also our landlord and a generally scary dude, we obviously couldn’t say no. We found out that while we were told the proceeds of the fundraiser went to buy nice soap for the homeless, the nice soap in question was purchased with the funds raised from the rector’s adult child’s multilevel marketing scheme. The rector’s adult child also happened to be in charge of student ministry. So what do you think? We’ve got a priest asking student residents at a campus ministry to cancel their weekend plans with two-days’ notice to do a fundraiser, to buy nice soap for the homeless. And it turns out the fundraiser is really to buy nice soap from the priest’s child’s MLM to then give to the homeless. 

               I wanna know what you guys think. Who, if anybody, was in the wrong, should anybody have done anything differently? And in an ideal world, what would have gone down? Thanks. Can’t wait to hear your answers. 

J:            Wow.

B:           We’re not fooling around at the Leader’s Way podcast.

J:            Indeed. Indeed. I’m trying to figure out where to even begin in this conversation. I mean, again, the social worker in me has more questions than answers right now, because I’m very aware that the priest in question’s voice is not in the room and how she or he might have understood the sequence of events. And I think almost everything we talked about is present in the story, right, which is how are you loving your people? How are you building trust? I mean, I think, Dr. Teresa Morgan, who you had on recently talking about the concept of trust and how God trusts us, the therapeutic trust that God gives in us and how we are called to build that in community.

               It sounds like there’s a lack or a broken trust that preexists, I think, this interaction, or I would have a hard time understanding that this would have even happened. Right? So it’s how are we loving our people, how are we establishing trust, and how are clergy thinking carefully through our complicated existences in our ministries? Because that’s a constant discipline. Right? The fact that I have an adult child who sells soap and we want to raise money to buy soap, that could very easily look like a no-brainer, everybody wins kind of situation. But what happens in that and what we heard in this story was, again, a shattering of the trust. And it calls into question or could call into question the motivation for the whole enterprise. 

               And so I think that that is one of the things that, you know, working with clergy and working with leaders in the church, maintaining healthy boundaries is as much in a critical discipline as anything else we’ve talked about today. And understanding that sometimes our … what we what we call in Safe Church or safeguarding part you know, dual relationships can often lead us into pretty sticky situations where we’re trying to achieve more than one optimal goal. Right? Sounds like somebody was trying to be a good parent, and do some other things and probably suffered at and disappointed at multiple levels. 

               So I think that there much of … if anyone was in the wrong here, it probably happened long before this story ever took place around what is the relationship between this priest and this community who lives on the property? How do they understand their relationship? You know, there are certainly times in the church where folks are called– I mean, if you’re getting into ordained ministry, what, you know, a very real thing to wrap your mind around is that long-anticipated Saturday morning jaunt with the family that doesn’t happen because of the last-minute you need to be at the hospital or you know, the family vacation that gets interrupted. Or the, you know, all of these things where our ministry … when you when you are living, anordained life, when you have chosen to put yourself under orders, right, which again is a privilege and not a right. Ordination is a privilege and not everybody gets ordained. But when you do live that life, you do put yourself under some understanding that this part of who I am will impact other parts of who I am. 

               And it’s not the 1950’s understanding of how a family of an ordained person is expect–you know, like, my husband never poured tea, and was never expected to. That’s a gender role benefit that that that he was never asked. But it does impact the systems and you know, it’s a systems question too. So in this situation, that’s a question for me, is how was this priest able to understand both the boundaries and the limits and the impact of, you know, multiple roles and multiple vocations and trying to be good at all of them. And, again, as I said, maybe not living up to any of them as much as they would have liked. And I’m really curious to hear what the priest would have to say about this.

               And to know that it you know, for the folks who were asked this, was– is there permission, is there safety, right, to ask the question? Because, again, right or wrong of this situation, it’s a larger system maybe question about what is the safety, what is the boundaries, what are the expectations. 

B:           As you look out into the world, Bishop Jeff, what makes you hopeful? 

J:            There is every reason to hope right now. And I think what happens sometimes is in the clinical world, in narrative work, we talk about thick stories and thin stories.

And the thin story is sort of, There’s no reason to hope, or, Nothing is right in the world, or, The world is on fire. Right? And for lots of folks, right now, it sure feels like that. But that’s not the whole story either because there are people feeding the hungry. There are people marching in the streets. There are people standing up for others who might not have agency or voice. It’s happening all over the place all the time. We couldn’t count the number of people who are working toward the dream of God in the world right now. That’s not what gets our attention.

               What gets our attention, what, you know, what we used to say sells papers or, I guess, now we would say, you know, clickbait …

B:           Clickbait. Yeah. 

J:            … is all the things that are wrong and broken. But what I see everywhere are people in small and really big ways finding their voice, putting their feet and hands in service of God and God’s love for the world. And I’m seeing things shift and change.

I’m seeing small parishes that have ten people on a Sunday who are doing incredibly faithful ministry and are connected to the community and are serving their neighbors and are worshiping God in beautiful, glorious ways. And I’m seeing packed churches on Sunday mornings with all sorts of new people who are coming in post-pandemic or they are of the generation where they were raised to figure it out on their own, and they’re coming and saying, I don’t–I don’t have a foundation. 

               So what gives me hope is endless. And, you know, I mean, this might sound what like what a bishop is supposed to say or what an ordained person is supposed to say, but, you know, when we’re recording this, it’s Easter week. What more reason do we have to hope than the empty tomb? And what I love is that it’s two parts. Right? It’s He is not here, He is risen. Both those things. And so that, you know, that victory even over death, triumph over even the cross, We know that. We live in that. You know? We are, as I said in my Easter sermon, we are not called to be a Good Friday people. We are a people of the resurrection. And, Bishop Jake Owensby wrote in a in a reflection that I really appreciated that we are called to live in the resurrection, to be partakers of a resurrected life, to be people of bringing resurrection where there is death and where there is fear and where there is brokenness. We get to do that work. Right? We get to partner with God and be the menders and be the repairers and be the bringers of good news. So why wouldn’t we have reason to hope right now? There’s lots of work in front of us to do.

               As I also like to say, our job description as this is the same as it ever was. Right? Our baptismal promises are there. Who we are called to be as a people of God, love one another, that doesn’t change. How we are called to live into that, that’s the … that’s the question for us in this moment. But God gives us everything we need to do it, so we have hope. 

B:           It’s clear that you’re saying that not because you’re a bishop, but because you believe it. 

J:            I mean, I don’t know how else we do this. Right? I don’t … there might be people out there who could do it without love and without hope, but I … beats, beats me. 

B:           Well, before we ask for your blessing, on the podcast and on our listeners, it’s a a favorite way of ours to close with a Leaders Way lightning round of questions where we get to know odd things about you that … that maybe you haven’t shared before. So, the invitation here, if you’re willing, is to not think too hard, and answer as quickly as you can. 

               Weirdest former job.

J:            I was Chuck E. Cheese. 

B:           You heard it here first. I imagine. 

J:            I was Chuck E. Cheese in high school. Wow. Yes. That’s amazing. I I will, suppress any follow-up questions to this one.

B:           Favorite go to snack? 

J:            Reese’s peanut butter cups. 

B:           Strangest thing in your refrigerator? 

J:            The crunchy chili paste from Trader Joe’s. 

B:           Oh, I love that. Bad habit that you’re willing to share. 

J:            Bad habit that I’m willing to share probably goes back to the Reese’s peanut butter cutters. I spend more time than I would like on my phone. 

B:           Who plays you in the movie version of your life? 

J:            I’ve been mistaken for Tom Hanks before, so I would love Tom Hanks to play me in the movie of my life. But I would really like to play Tom Hanks in the movie of his life. 

B:           You’ve blessed us in countless ways already. Thank you, Bishop Jeff, for being with us. Thank you for your leadership, the light you shine in our community. Would you bless us one more time with your own blessing?

J:            I would be happy to. I brought a prayer to share, and it’s one that’s probably well known to listeners. It’s the Merton Prayer. But I brought it because it highlights a couple of central themes for me about life in ministry and a life of faith, which I think … there’s such humility in here. But I love the posture of our desire to please God, pleasing God. Because at the end of some days in this work, all that’s–all I have is I get to the end of the day, and I think, well, God, I hope something that happened today pleases you. And that’s sometime what sometimes all I can take from a day. 

               My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself.

               And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

               Therefore, I will trust you always, though I may be seen to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen. 

B:           Amen.

H:           Thanks for listening to the Leaders Way podcast. You can learn more about this episode at berkleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast. Follow along with us on Instagram at theleadersway.podcast. 

B:           And you can rate and review us on your podcast app and be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode. And if you’d like this episode, please share it with a friend. 

H:           Until next time.

B:           Peace be with you.