Clergy Wellbeing Down Under
Welcome to the official first podcast of the Centre for Effective Serving, a research and consulting organisation focused on vocational wellbeing, burnout prevention, and training. In Season 1 we are focussing on Clergy Wellbeing Down Under. In Season 2 we looked at how ministry kids locally and on the mission field are doing.
In today's fast-paced and demanding world, support for those who serve by leadership is more crucial than ever. However, the pressures and challenges that come with leadership roles can often lead to burnout and exhaustion, both mentally and physically. At the Centre for Effective Serving, we understand the significance of addressing these issues head-on to create a healthier and more productive leadership landscape.
In each episode we delve into the latest research and resources developed by our team of experts, who are dedicated to enhancing leadership wellbeing and fostering a supportive environment for leaders to thrive. Our podcast provides valuable insights, evidence-based strategies, and practical tips to help leaders and their families maintain their well-being, improve their resilience, and prevent burnout.
Join us as we bring on renowned experts in the fields of psychology, mental health, leadership, and well-being to share their knowledge and experiences. Through candid interviews and engaging discussions, we explore various topics, including stress management techniques, emotional intelligence, work-life integration, team building, and much more.
Stay up-to-date with the latest trends in leadership well-being and burnout prevention by subscribing today.
Clergy Wellbeing Down Under
From Corporate to Parish HR - "I Thought It Would Be Different": A Discussion with Vikki Napier
In this episode, Vikki Napier, Head of Human Resources at the Anglican Church Diocese Of Sydney, reflects on her corporate HR experience and the church context. What surprises her, what she thinks we are doing well, where we have a way to go, and where we can add value to our churches from a human and humane resourcing perspective.
Download my research report and reflections
Watch the video version of this podcast
Complete a Clergy Wellbeing Quiz here
Podcast Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the opinions and viewpoints shared on this podcast are personal to me and my guests, and do not represent the stance of any institution. This podcast aims to present findings for open discussion and dialogue, inviting listeners to engage critically and draw their own conclusions. While the content serves informational purposes, it is not a substitute for professional advice. Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration and conversation!
Hey, it's Valerie Ling. I'm a clinical psychologist and I'm your host for the clergy well-being Down Under podcast. I'm looking forward to interviewing an expert today to take you through my findings from my research where I asked 200 pastors down under how they were doing. Don't forget to subscribe, like and share. Buckle up and here we go. Greetings friends. It's another episode I have with me here today Vicki Napier. Hi, vicki.
Vikki Napier:Hi Valerie, how are you going?
Valerie Ling:I'm pretty well. Thank you. We've only had a couple of interactions. Could you introduce yourself and your role?
Vikki Napier:Sure. So I am Vikki Napier. I'm the Parish HR Partner for the Sydney Anglican Diocese. It's a new role. Well, when I say it's a new role, it started just before COVID. So BC it was highlighted to me the other day that we have a new meaning for BC now. It's not before Christ, it's before COVID. So, yeah, and so still trying to establish that role and help Parishers, I guess, recognise that they have a HR resource to tap into at any time they need. So trying to really encourage them to reach out to me and so that I can help them with HR staff.
Valerie Ling:Basically, and Vikki, where have you come from in terms of your professional life? What sorts of work and industries have you been in so I've worked in corporate HR roles for large organisations.
Vikki Napier:The most prominent one was in the telecommunications industry and within that area we are looking after course centres at one stage. So a very interesting and tricky environment in and of itself. And also field staff, so technicians who will go out to homes and businesses and help people with their telecommunications solutions. So that's the major kind of forming of my career. But later on I became a case manager where I was engaged to work across all aspects of that industry in helping people to manage performance or behavioural issues and the odd whistleblower complaint. So very interesting.
Valerie Ling:Fascinating and I'm curious, similarities and differences now that you are working in this context.
Vikki Napier:Yes, Well there are some real differences. Firstly, there are employees and then there are office holders, and so navigating the best approach to honour the law of the land but also acknowledge that people are working side by side with different, I guess, legal obligations. So that's interesting. Sadly, I have seen similar behaviours inside churches as those I witnessed outside, but I didn't come down in the last shower, so I know we're all sinful and we're just working our way, doing the best we can to glorify God. So that didn't come as a huge surprise, but sometimes it's a little disappointing but, let me add, it's not often. The majority of people within our parishes are amazing, working hard for the gospel, and I give God thanks for them each and every day. So, yeah, I'm wondering.
Valerie Ling:you know, the survey that I did suggested that something like 35% were thinking of resigning seriously in the next 12 months, but then there are 65% who aren't. I don't know if you can answer this, but from your observations, what makes the difference?
Vikki Napier:Yeah, you know, parishioners or congregation members can be a tough group to, I guess, under ship it. So myself as a parishioner, I know I want to support and encourage my minister and honour his leadership over me. I don't know that we as parishioners for the most part recognise that. So sometimes there are rectors who are church workers who are just facing really difficult situations that we as lay people you know we hinder their ministry rather than help it. So I think that that's part of it. Sometimes people.
Vikki Napier:So you may have a rector who's in a wonderful church with very supportive parishioners who and they're all working in partnership for the sake of the gospel. I think that can be really edifying and encouraging for the minister and is a blueprint for how all our churches should operate. But then you may have others that they're just facing conflict all the time. There are people in our churches who may think that the staff workers and our clergy are there to, you know, to order around or to do what we say, instead of us honouring their leadership. So for that that can be something that can wear a rector out and cause them to just get disheartened and want to at least remove themselves from that environment, whether it burns them to the extent where they want to step out of ministry or not would depend on that person in the situation. But I think that there are those components that would depend on the church.
Vikki Napier:I think it also depends on suitability. I think if we've got, if we're self aware, there may be some church workers or clergy out there who thought who may be thinking you know what. I thought this was for me, but I don't think this is where God wants me at the moment. That's okay, because my goal is to serve God for the rest of my life, whether that's in vocational ministry or whether that's somewhere else. Then let me be guided by God, but this doesn't feel like it's where he wants me to be at the moment. So there may be that sort of thought process going on as well.
Valerie Ling:So yeah, and you mentioned self aware Interestingly. I don't know how the direction goes because I you know we didn't have enough power to do the stats, but burnout was related to lower levels of you know, emotional, I guess, processing and therefore insight. You know, what do you see?
Vikki Napier:Yeah, look, I see, I see humility in those who are self aware, and that takes a lot of courage, because when you're self aware, you recognize your shortcomings and you recognize that you can't do all of this on your own, and there's a real humility and grace in that. I think. When you, when you have your back up against the wall, though, and you feel that it's all, all conflict and all hard work, then maybe you're in that. I mean, you wouldn't know. That's very, very, very scary. But that fight you know that fight or flight kind of mentality you really need to put up the facade and and appear to have everything you know in control, and you know you are the leader, you've got everything in control, so they ought to listen to you, and that can be. You know that that's the lack of awareness and the lack of confidence in the people that you have around you as well.
Vikki Napier:I think it's really interesting, isn't it? I feel that we all just need to remember how Jesus calls us to behave with one another, you know, because if, if ministers humble and gracious as they lead Jesus's flock, and the flock people like myself humble and gracious and supportive of the leadership that God has placed over us, then that's harmony and that's the safe place for people to make mistakes. We're all gonna make mistakes, so if a rector or a church worker makes a mistake, they should be able to do that, knowing that everyone's supporting them and you know that's okay. We're all human. So I feel like, just as you think about it, I feel a little bit sad that church isn't really like that, that there's so much pressure on our church workers to fit an image and to appear to have it all together, because those in our churches, such as myself, haven't reinforced our thankfulness to God for placing that leadership over us and helping us to do life as Christians.
Valerie Ling:We can either have an element of you know, for me, humility speaks to character, To me, vulnerability speaks to a posture and attitude, and in the case of what we're seeing with these levels of conflict, that it's not always safe to be vulnerable and say I don't know, I'm not sure. Or you know, I feel like I don't belong. You know.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and that's, I guess that's to the point that I was saying. That really saddens me. I want my minister, or my assistant minister, to you know, be able to get things wrong and not feel that they have to get everything right all the time because if they don't get things right they'll be jumped on and you know that sort of stuff. I think, yeah, I think that vulnerability comes with, or being able to be vulnerable comes with, developing that culture of trust and partnership with the congregation, and I don't know that we do that well, I mean as parishioners as well. So how do you build a culture within a church where you do have this collaboration and everyone recognizes there's role clarity and everyone recognizes what their role is? Mine is to support the church workers that God has placed over me to do the ministry, to recognize their authority in that and to serve humbly and graciously to God's glory. Maybe we need to do some cultural interventions in our 297 churches.
Valerie Ling:I've been reflecting a lot on how typically at least in the last decade, since I've been in practice and doing this work that we've taken a view of the individual and interpersonal dynamics. So, you know, there'd be like the resilience and burnout factor for our ministry workers, and how do we mediate and navigate conflict between people in a church. But more and more I've started to think about organizational design and the functions that are possibly missing. So for me and I could be wrong, tell me what you think Different courses can play a compliance role and sometimes I think that, particularly in the clients that we're seeing, they've really got trapped in quite a lot of compliance issues. So there are conduct issues and also things like needing to tick a lot of boxes and the admin goes up, and there's also the organizational behavior, the dynamics of trust, the dynamics of, you know, like what you were saying, how do we create a culture of value and a culture of respect, and I'm almost wondering whether that in and of itself is something that we wanna look at.
Vikki Napier:Mm-mm. Yes, yeah, I think so. I think we've got this. We've clearly got this problem at the moment and it's probably existed for a very long time because of the nature of the role I mean. Now our church workers are at the coalface for all those significant events of everyone's lives and it's a lot of emotional kind of baggage to carry on behalf of the people that you're caring for. So looking at those preventative measures is a really would be a really helpful thing.
Vikki Napier:I'm just trying to think how you would do that with the congregation, because it needs to be a collaborative process where everyone's working together, where church workers are hearing what the expectations are of the congregation members and congregation members are hearing the expectations that are based on church workers. And is that transparency of expectations? I actually wonder if part of it like if there is some sort of contract sounds too formal, but when a rector comes to a new church, maybe there's some sort of induction for the congregation as well. These are the expectations. These are the things that you can expect from me as your rector. These are the things that you have said that you would like me to do. This is how I see us working together. I mean that sounds very autocratic, but I wonder if there's some sort of engagement piece that when a new minister begins at a new church, regardless of what has gone on in the past, whether the previous rector allowed, say, the wardens and the parish councils to just run the church, or whether there was a great deal of collaboration or whatever the situation was Maybe there's an option of drawing a line in the sand and just reminding everyone that this is actually the role of the rector.
Vikki Napier:It's not to be at your beck and core 24 seven, although he will be because of his pastoral tendencies. He loves you, your Christ's treasured possession, and he wants to serve you. But don't take advantage of that and remember he's a person as well. So he's also Christ's treasured possession. And what are you going to do to support him, recognising that he also is someone dearly and feefully loved by Jesus? So yeah, I wonder how you would do that. Have you got any ideas?
Valerie Ling:I know you and I want to get into a room with white boards.
Vikki Napier:There's always, definitely, I can't tell you what boards?
Valerie Ling:but I can already see at least six. Yeah, yeah, I guess you were saying that I personally am reflecting on how much of the last decade, when it comes to selection and the fit of ministry candidates, it really has been looked at from a selection and development matrix, which I think is helpful when someone is first starting out in ministry and they're being absorbed into a relatively healthy, stable church. But the more you're just talking, I was thinking the framework of rectors going into new churches is almost more in the realm of mergers and acquisitions. It's conflictual, it's messy, there are all kinds of dynamics, the change and the communication management that comes from that, and I actually wonder whether some of the things that happens when we have these sorts of disasters has got to do with just we just haven't merged or blended. I mean, it's a lot like blended families, yeah, yeah, and in both practices as well, that whole phase in a blended family can take years.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, yeah, that's true, and I think rectors very wisely or the majority that I know and have spoken to, and very wisely go to a new position and try not to upset the apple cart too quickly, like they may give it 12 months to see a whole cycle of how things are done and then they'll start to introduce changes. So I think there's a lot of wisdom and prayer that new rectors like rectors coming into a new church can sit on.
Valerie Ling:So one of the observations I have is that sometimes the ministers don't have the information that has come from the church and we see all kinds of denominations right. So denominations, code of conduct, compliance and confidentiality practices can be quite different, and sometimes they, you know. I've just gone back to mergers and acquisitions. You know, before someone actually, you know, decides to merge and acquire something or an entity, you get a lot of reports and there has to be a high degree of transparency.
Valerie Ling:And then you give the choice to say OK, do I want to take this on? And this is no criticism on our churches and our systems. I just think it's something that maybe is going to need to evolve. Is you don't always have that at hand.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, yeah, really, and maybe we need to. So maybe there needs to be some sort of like you're normally without a minister. If a minister leaves the church, it's normally a 12 month process before somebody new comes in. 12, you know, 12 to 18 months you have a locum coming or an acting rector, but they're really there to just keep the wheels turning and I don't know that that they would be equipped to run the congregation through a change management process. But maybe we do need to identify a change management process to prepare the congregation for the new minister, because we don't want a new minister coming in filling the shoes of the old, much loved minister who's now left us. And you know our previous minister didn't do it that way. We want it done the way it used to be done. So running them through a change management piece may be a healthy thing for the congregation to prepare them for the new rector to come in and leave them. I don't know, that might be something that I could actually work on.
Valerie Ling:I think it's fascinating. I mean, I was so excited to hear that your role was being brought in. I really was. I was like, oh yes, you know, this is this is this is going to be so important, and I know you're new, so there is some things that still you know you can talk about and think about and before you even get to implement, but you know the scenarios.
Valerie Ling:I think trust is such an important commodity for any organization and when someone new is coming in, and particularly if a church has had a lot of traumatic history or a lot of conflict and brokenness, trust when a new person comes in is all time low. Yeah, and I think one of the things I've been contemplating is we expect our churches to grow, but everything that we know about growth means you make mistakes, you take risks, you need to be able to trust and be vulnerable. So you know, if you've got a climate where there isn't trust, growth is going to be superficial. Hmm, vicky, what do you think? Are we just over professionalizing church? This sounds so complicated. It's like you've got to go and have a whole degree now in learning and development and organizing HR, psychology, mergers and acquisitions, is it? Yeah?
Vikki Napier:It feels that it feels very complicated. I think our systems, our justice systems, are quite complicated as well. You know where we've got the from a HR perspective that is, we've got, you know, office holders and an employee, so falling under different governing elements, if you like. We've got you know we've got ministers who might move on every 10 years, or we've got some who have been there for 20 years. You know, I feel like our structures are quite complex. So it is a complex, complicated environment anyway, and the only way you would clear that up is to get an eraser wipe it all away.
Valerie Ling:About again.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, and honestly, to start again, because it's very, it's very complex and clunky and whilst there's a lot of, I guess, security for church positions, because of that clunkiness there's no, there's very little room to be vibrant and agile in how church is a right place and you know how churches are running. So it feels, it does feel clunky to me, but I don't know what the answer is, apart from just putting it all up and making it simpler. So we don't have the authority to do that.
Valerie Ling:This is the midpoint break for the podcast. If you want to put a pause and walk away and come back with it, make sure you do check out the description for all the various downloads that we have for you, including my full report, research and reflections. You might also want to remember to like, share and subscribe. So stop now or keep going there. In contrast with some of the other industries you've worked in, you were saying that, sadly, very similar dynamics you've seen. Am I right to assume that it's the kind of dynamics with the conflict and the forceful leadership, those sorts of things?
Vikki Napier:Yeah. So the environments that I've worked in in the corporate world were quite complex as well. You've had people on on workplace agreements, you had people on common law contracts, you had people on enterprise agreements, you had casuals, you had part-timers. It was all in a in a core centre, very different to a field workforce or a professional service workforce. So they were all. The beauty of working in such a large organisation is to get exposure to all those various types of occupations, if you like. So there's the complexity of the landscape. I find is is similar but different, if that makes sense. So we're not talking about enterprise agreements and things like that, but we're talking about, you know, assistant ministers, senior assistant ministers, rectors, tenure. You know lay ministers like it's just all, and you've got lay ministers working next to office holders doing the same job but different conditions, like it is a complex HR environment In terms of the behaviours.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, I would have. I wanted to. Well, I was hopeful that I would see more grace and more willingness to forgive within our environment, but I haven't seen that as often as I had hoped. So I feel that when I'm running coaching and training with staff teams or coaching directors one-on-one with you, know how do we manage this? I always encourage them to only give feedback to somebody that you care about and your motivation for providing that feedback is because you want to see them be a better person, not because they did a silly mistake and you had to pick up the pieces or you got frustrated with them or everyone keeps whinging to you about it and so you've got to fix it. So there's a little bit of anger there. You've got to provide feedback to people because you want them to be better and to be better equipped to glorify God in that. So your motivation needs to be other person-centred. That's different to the corporate environment where you would just give feedback because you've got a deadline to meet or a bottom line to hit. You know that sort of stuff. I thought and I would hope and I hope that we will get there that there is that desire to provide feedback to people, as hard as those conversations are because of the love you have for that person, and then that person hearing that feedback to have the humility and the grace to repent if it's a behavior, and then the person providing that feedback forgiving them for it and then maybe praying together and handing it over to God because they're brothers and sisters or brothers and brothers and we're called to do that. I don't see that happening a lot. I may not see it happening a lot because those people who are doing that don't need to call me. So the ones who do call me, yeah.
Vikki Napier:I often find that church workers are quite hard on their rectors as well and have an expectation that they be perfect, and there's very little forgiveness or grace by church workers towards their rectors in that as well. I mean, rectors aren't people, managers. They may be in one or two, may have come from the corporate environment, but they've gone into theological college to train up to be rectors and pastors to preach and teach the gospel to us so that we can be ready for that wonderful day, and so they're going to get HR stuff wrong, and so we just need to give them a break and say you know what? That's okay. I know you snapped at me, I know that's not you and it's out of frustration. You've said sorry, I forgive you, it's me gone and it's all authentic and genuine. So that's what I would like to see one day.
Valerie Ling:And I'm curious what you think about. Why, in a commercial environment, that how should I put it that you can give this sort of feedback, and sometimes the feedback doesn't come with a great tone and it doesn't have the same result, or maybe it does. Are we really that different in our environments, or what's that about?
Vikki Napier:Well, I expected it to be different, because we are Christians and we work in a Christian environment and God's told us how we ought to be engaging with each other In a corporate environment. We're all there to do a job, to pay our bills. Really, you may enjoy it. I enjoyed my job in the corporate world, but that was but it was a job. It wasn't who I was because I'm a Christian, whereas when you combine your identity as a Christian with the role that you're in, I would expect this to be different.
Vikki Napier:So, managing conduct or performance issues within a corporate environment, I did find that there was pushback and resistance. I would encourage respect, reminding people that if somebody's a poor performer, they're not a bad person. They're just not skilled up in those areas. It's a skill issue, not a will issue. Let's look at whether that person can be skilled up in that role or whether there's a better role for them or whether this just isn't the role for them. No one wants to be unsuccessful in their role. So if they're not a good performer, then there may be something else that they ought to be doing. But you can manage that with respect for conduct.
Vikki Napier:We all make mistakes. We do the wrong thing. My response to people who behaved in a way that resulted in them losing their job was always to say to them this is a consequence to what you did. This is not who you are. This doesn't have to be who you are. Learn from this and just be a better person. Now, that was in the corporate environment. I think that's the same in our church environment as well. We just need to be gracious with one another. Life seems busier and harder and more stressful anyway. We ought to be distinct and different in how we interact with each other as brothers and sisters.
Valerie Ling:I think part of the challenge is in a commercial environment. Sometimes it's hard, but you can convince yourself that there's a difference between your performance and your person, whereas I think in church very often we evaluate one another in our person. So if I haven't been doing the, the roster as well, it's like have you been diligent and faithful? It comes down to character In our environment. So as a psychology practice, I call it I don't think I should say it on the podcast, but it rhymes with itchy and it starts with W and B. I call it that dynamics.
Valerie Ling:I'm confused for a long time going. These are well trained individuals. This is a highly professional and regulated business and industry. Why does it devolve? And I actually realized it's because even in my profession as a psychologist, your person and your profession is fused. It doesn't mean that I'm an identity of success, but just, you are the type of psychologist that I am. I'm loud and kind of energetic. I don't take a lot of offence if clients cancel and things like that, but it's very fused and I've always got to remind myself and remind our team that there's the person and there's the professional and always need to treat the person with respect and care and integrity and consideration. Sometimes the profession requires us to say things that will make us uncomfortable, but then things aren't necessarily fused.
Vikki Napier:Yes, yeah, yeah, I can see that I guess we do find our identity in our work and so when people are made redundant or lose their jobs, they feel that they've lost their identity.
Vikki Napier:In the secular environment and I can see in the church environment it's weightier, because if you lose your job or you're being caught out for poor performance or something, then you may feel that you've let God down and that's a weightier kind of guilt trip I guess that you could face. But yeah, maybe we need to work on our identity and recognize that it's found in Christ, because we have that advantage as Christians and we know that God has a plan for us and if that plan is this job for this moment and then he opens another door or has other plans for us, then we should embrace that because he's he planned that for us before the formation of the world, you know. So I wonder if we need all of us need to do some work on our identity and recognize that it's found in Christ and not in what we do or what our title is and things like that.
Valerie Ling:I don't know. Yes, of late, I would say. Certainly, when I first started practicing with ministry folk early on, so maybe about seven or eight years ago, we had to do a lot of work in that space. Fast forward now it's a little bit more varied. I think what we're observing is that sense of threat that comes is because the threat that has been thrown out is personal. On social media your reputation can be shredded. The emails are attached to you. Attack not you, just you, but your wife and your kids.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, yeah.
Valerie Ling:Versions towards that. So what does tend to come? Even if you do all of that self work to separate yourself from your ministry, you can get feedback and you can get these sorts of things. And I guess I'm curious what you think. We had the ministry folk of my survey saying that one of the reasons they would consider resigning was the impact on family. Now you can kind of interpret that as in workload and the work life interference.
Valerie Ling:But I also wonder if there's an element of, unlike other jobs, your whole family is exposed to all of that mess as well. Maybe to one extent you can see if you're married, your spouse is being an adult, but if you also have children, it's a very hard dynamic to put them through. Yes, and I would add that if we had to sort of formulate the types of conflict that we're seeing in the ministry life, these are not just disagreements. I don't like the way that you preach, or a kid hearing your dad. Sometimes he's just not funny at all. This is the sort of things of being exposed to gossip, slander, assassination. If you don't want you, you're not one of us, those sorts of dynamics.
Vikki Napier:I mean that should not be coming out of the mouths of Christians and that's what really gets me riled up. When I hear things about that like that, where our hardworking church workers and I know it doesn't only happen to directors, but assistant ministers and other staff team are exposed to that as well I really get angry. Like it's as though we don't think that Jesus is with us all the time and can see how we're behaving and treating one another Like have people forgotten that? Because I am aware that not only directors get targeted but their family gets targeted and the children are impacted and it is made to be personal. It can occasionally be personal in the secular world if a disgruntled employee can come after you, but when that happens every now and then but in the parishes like shame on us really it's about protections, I think in the workplace.
Valerie Ling:You know, because we get so many updates to our employee handbooks, it's not funny, like literally it is not funny. But there are also protections. You know, there are certain things that, by virtue of your conduct, if you are not fit for the environment or you're posing significant threat to the workers, you know that's actually it can be grounds for dismissal, like you can actually say no to that. But I also wonder whether some of the protections in the ministry and I have to say it goes both ways there are leaders and staff on church who do the same to congregants same thing. I was actually just at the shops the other day, a very popular cafe in our suburb. I had put a sign on the Eftpos machine to say we are a very busy cafe. Please remember that our staff are human and be kind to them. Oh yeah, whoa. And I was looking at the staff. You know they were relatively young people. How good. Why do we need this?
Vikki Napier:Yes, exactly, Exactly. Look, I think we are. We do need to provide a safe working environment to our clergy. They so particularly employees, so lay ministers, particularly because they fall under the employment law. But I would be consistent across the board we need to provide a safe working environment.
Vikki Napier:If there are congregation members in our churches who are attacking, or, you know, attacking our clergy in that way, then we need to talk to them and rebuke them. You know, the Bible is pretty clear. You know, go to them on your own and chat to them. Take a brother or sister with you. If they still don't listen, Take, you know, the parish council with you and then, if they still don't listen, then maybe talk to them about finding another church, because their behaviour is harming, you know, the people that are remaining here. So, I mean, I know that's divisive and in practical terms it might be difficult to do, but I feel like we need to start reminding everyone, including ourselves, that we're Christian. Jesus is with us. We are called to show grace and kindness and mercy, to one another in the first instance, and then to everybody else. Why aren't we doing that? Why do we think it's okay to, you know, to attack each other and treat each other in that way.
Valerie Ling:It's an escalating dynamic yeah.
Vikki Napier:It is a dynamic.
Valerie Ling:Well, any person or creature for that matter if you push them into a corner, you're going to get some kind of reaction. That's not great. There are many things that I know goes well in ministry. I think, much like we see a pointy end of things. It's like oh my goodness, things aren't going well.
Vikki Napier:I see a lot of good things as well. I get to coach and train people proactively, and I love that.
Valerie Ling:It's a great thing to finish on and I will ask you the same questions. I ask everybody what are some of the wonderful things that you see in our ministers, in our ministries, in our churches?
Vikki Napier:The wonderful oh, there's so many Like. I can speak personally as a parishioner who has sat under wonderful godly leadership ever since I became a Christian in Anglican churches and that's true today as it was 25, 30 years ago. So I thank God for each of those ministers. I think there are ministers out there who are really burdened and love their staff and God's people to the point of laying awake at night and worrying about them, not in a just being burdened by and not in a bad way and looking at it in a real like pushing, lamenting and bearing with one another's burdens.
Vikki Napier:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, I see that all the time. So that's a good thing. I see I get calls from ministers sometimes who have this situation and want to do the right thing by the person they need to manage whether it's performance, whether it's behavioral. They're looking for an intervention that will work and restore the relationship. And can I just say on your podcast please don't ignore those little alerts as you go about your business, because you need to address them early, before they become massive. So have the courage to address things as you see them and give me a call if you want a brainstorm.
Vikki Napier:I'm a great listener and a sounding board. So if you want somebody outside of your bubble, ring me and let me know and we can talk through some strategies to address things informally and, god willing, effectively. I see some ministers doing that quite regularly and exercising really godly wisdom. They've committed the issue to prayer, they've spoken to me from a HR perspective and they've worked out what is best for the situation, best for the broader community and best for this person. And sometimes they are hard conversations that people need to have, but one of the wonderful things is that there are leaders in our churches who are willing to exercise that courage and take those steps for the sake of everyone involved.
Valerie Ling:I'd love to know, if there was a minister listening to our conversation today, what's one thing you'd really like them to walk away with, something that they could think about or do?
Vikki Napier:I would like them to take away from this is to remember that they're in a privileged position and it is a powerful position, that they are servant leaders, but they are loved and valued by us and we're so grateful to God for them. If they don't feel that love and gratitude from their parishioners, then that may not be their fault. It may be the simpleness of their parishioners, and maybe there's a sermon series they could preach on the fruit of the spirits or something I don't know. But I just want them to know that it's not an easy job that they're doing, but we are so thankful for them in doing that and to just persevere. But to recognize too that if it's just not for you, then that's OK as well. It doesn't make you a bad person. So you are able to have other decisions.
Vikki Napier:And one thing I am working on, valerie, is identifying options in the secular world. If you don't like your job, you go and get another job, maybe in another industry, maybe a whole other vocation. When you're a rector of the church, I think you may feel stuck and that must be a horrible feeling and it's not good for you and it's not good for the congregation. But you have no other options. What are you going to do? You could be a chaplain, and the chaplaincy is wonderful, but there are only so many chaplaincy roles, so I'm looking at trying to create options as well for those who may feel that this is not for them. So I just don't want to rush on any of that, because I think the majority of rectors that we have in our churches is just wonderful and we're very blessed by God for them. So that was a long-winded answer that probably didn't really answer your question.
Valerie Ling:Oh, I think it did. I think it did. Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today, Vicki.
Vikki Napier:You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me, Valerie.
Valerie Ling:So after the interview, vicki and I continued to chat and I think we realized that we really want to say that there is a lot of great churches and a lot of great clergy and a lot of great relationships out there, and maybe that's what we need to do is to have some people who can come on and talk about what does make for that healthy partnerships.
Valerie Ling:And I also personally want to say I know that there are situations where church leadership has not done the right thing by congregations and the people whom they're meant to take care of, and that there are definitely situations where seniors and associates have also not done the right thing by their assistants and their associates. I'm becoming more and more aware that, as we do this podcast, that it is driven by my research, which was heavily influenced by senior ministers and heavily influenced by the data that showed that there was a significant proportion who have been going through a hard time. So I just want to put it out there that if I get a chance to redo some research, I will dig a lot deeper to figure out, in the 65% of the time when churches are doing well and ministry staff are well, what's going on there. All right, that's all for today. Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you liked what you heard and you think others should hear it too, don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Catch you later.
