Pastors NEED Intentional Support

Most pastors carry a heavier burden than many realize. After a near-breaking point during a Sunday service—overwhelmed by grief, exhaustion, and loneliness—Reverend Dr. Todd Adams openly shares how he hit rock bottom and found renewal. This episode reveals the often invisible emotional toll of ministry and the vital importance of self-care, community, and tailored support systems for faith leaders.Todd’s raw story uncovers the high-stakes silent struggles that pastors face—the grief of congregants, financial stress, burnout, and the deep desire to serve without losing themselves. In candid detail, he walks us through the pivotal moment that made him realize he couldn’t continue on the destructive pace he was set on. As the President and CEO of a major pension fund, Todd now champions programs addressing clergy wellness, including the innovative Cornerstones project.

You'll discover: how pastors’ emotional wounds go unnoticed and untreated, the critical role of peer support groups in overcoming isolation, and the groundbreaking strategies behind Cornerstones—a spiritual and practical wellness initiative. We break down the power of feeling safe and seen in groups that honor diversity, affinity, and vulnerability, emphasizing that authentic engagement leads to transformation.This episode emphasizes why neglecting pastors’ mental, emotional, and social health risks losing the very leaders who nurture communities of faith. Todd reveals how comprehensive support can restore resilience, elevate well-being, and ensure pastors not only survive but thrive—mentally, physically, and spiritually. For church leaders, ministry workers, or anyone committed to supporting faith communities, this is a blueprint for meaningful change.

Join us for insights rooted in firsthand experience, inspiring hope, and practical wisdom to combat the silent epidemic of ministry burnout. If you believe pastors deserve more support and genuine well-being, you’ll want to hear Todd’s powerful story and the impactful solutions reshaping ministry care.

Main Topics:

• The toll of pastoral ministry and recognizing burnout (00:02 - 07:25)

• Personal journey of breakdown and recovery (01:42 - 17:37)

• The role and mission of Pension Fund of the Christian Church (17:45 - 20:20)

• Financial struggles faced by ministers, including debt and retirement concerns (20:39 - 26:51)

• Introduction to the Cornerstones program: design and impact (27:04 - 31:47)

• The importance of cohort flexibility, peer support, and diversity (30:34 - 39:20)

• Measuring outcomes and future directions for pastor support (39:50 - 44:53)

• Personal reflections on leadership, honesty, and hope for the future (44:53 - 50:04)

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!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Greetings, friends. We are recording this morning with Reverend Dr. Todd Adams. It is an early start here in Sydney. It's a 6 a.m. recording. And I'm just so pleased that we were able to make the technology and time zones work. So I heard Todd in the Common Table conference, and honestly, it was a gripping start. When Todd read out his story of being in ministry, I was gripped. I was fixated with what he was saying. And I just knew that I had to invite him to the podcast. Todd is calls himself a self-proclaimed recovering local church pastor. I think you even said that at one point being addicted to pastoral ministry, you left congregational ministry and you're currently president and CEO of Pension Fund of the Christian Church, where you're actually at a more strategic level now facilitating care and support for ministry workers. And I'm hoping today we can find out more about the Cornerstones Project and just in general your story and your heart for ministry and um pastors. Welcome, Todd.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, thank you. It's great to be here with you. I get the advantage. It's at the end of my day here in Indianapolis. So 4 p.m. my time. So it's uh dinner's up next.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Fantastic. So, Todd, you shared um a story with us at the gathering. It's your story. And I was wondering if we might start with that. Could you tell us a bit about your pastoral ministry story?

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Absolutely. So uh when I say uh in recovery, 19 years since I've served as a local church pastor and the congregation that I was serving in Houston, it was a great congregation. Um, it had kind of that typical cycle that it had been a large church that had declined pretty significantly. Um, I doubled the number of kids on my first Sunday because I brought two with me, one who was born on the way in the middle of the move from West Virginia to uh to Houston. And we were growing so fast that we needed to build a new building. We had expanded the staff, we had expanded our ministries, we had 60, 70 children on a Sunday morning now. We had a robust youth program, fully funded multi-million dollar budget, and things were really headed in the right direction. But it was an addiction for me. It was a work addiction. It was the I I think I shared in Houston at the conference that getting called at three o'clock in the morning was kind of like getting hearts and likes on social media. Um, you know, needing to still be the church being big enough that we had multiple ministers on staff, but yet small enough that I was still the pastor to everybody. And with I really was meeting myself coming and going. Like most uh ministers who hit that stage of being on the brink of burnout, I decided to start a doctor of ministry program in the middle of building a $3 million uh sanctuary and renovation of our existing facilities. Why not add on commuting to Washington, D.C. uh for four intensive weeks a year and back and forth between the two? And again, because I was supposedly, I guess, superhuman, at least in my own self-assessment, if somebody died during the week, I flew home on Friday night instead of taking that weekend break in Washington, D.C., officiated a funeral. Well, if I'm home, I might as well preach on Sunday morning, right? And then fly back to D.C. on Sunday afternoon and start back in class all week. And I traded in my sabbatical to do that. But I think the part of the story you're probably most interested in is what I would say is my Sunday that I broke. And that week we had four funerals. Four charter members of the church had passed away. So four really large funerals. I had a late 30s, early 40-year-old member of the congregation diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. And we had a 12-year-old who is still with us today, who's the longest-living survivor of a hypothalamic brain tumor in an infant. And her family had received the news that her brain tumor had started to grow again. They also happened to be our best friends and our kids' best friends, and so very personal in being present with them, trying to navigate the space, and trying to figure out how you tell a 12-year-old that you're going to start a treatment cycle again when things had been pretty stable to that point. And on that Sunday, so four funerals, the way the congregation set, I had my group over here to my right that they cried at everything. Um, I had my older group in the middle, and it was their lifelong friends that we had just uh celebrated their lives that week. And then I had my young adult section over here, and that's where Maddie's parents were sitting, and that's where the Courtney, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, was sitting, and they all knew what was going on. So they're crying, they're crying, they're crying. As Madison, who has the brain tumor, is singing, um, I am a promise. And it and I'm trying to find my safe space in the sanctuary. And um, I realize I'm seated right now, but I'm I'm 6'5, 240 pounds. So I'm not a small person. I do not hide well. And I am sitting on the chancel um by myself. And I'm doing the you know, the tears running down the side, and then I'm doing the shoulder shrug, trying to fight it off. And the last line of the song is you is God knows my name and everything's gonna be okay. And so Maddie, who was up there belting it out, her make-a-wish trip was to sing on stage with Shania Twain, regular soloist at the church, just singing out with all of her heart, knows none of this is going on, stomps her foot on the chancel and says, and God knows my name, and everything's gonna be okay. And I I broke. I could not stop like that convulsing, sobbing, shaking, crying, and I was supposed to preach next. And was also sitting there by myself and nobody knew what to do. So I stood up, I tried to start the sermon, I tried to read the scripture, I consider myself a very composed person in these moments, and I could not gain my composure. Um, I was exhausted, I was burning out, and I was overwhelmed by the grief that I was carrying for 500 people. And I think that's part of what we don't often talk about is the grief that pastors are carrying and that there's no nowhere for that to go. And so I stood up, I opened my Bible, I tried to start reading the scripture, and I just turned around and I looked at the organist and I said, just play the communion hymn. And I sat back down and nobody moved. Finally, one of the chaplains who was a member of the church came up and said, How can I help? And I said, just take over the service and close it out. And so Bill took over. But that for me was the moment in which I knew I could not continue at the pace that I was going. It was the moment I knew in which I had a problem being addicted to being all things to all people in all places and all times and spaces. I am a person of endless energy, but I broke. And where was I supposed to go? Who was I supposed to talk to about this? The person who was going to write a reference for me eventually somewhere to move somewhere else, the leadership of the church. I didn't know how to have the conversation. I didn't know what I needed, and I knew that I didn't have anywhere to go um to speak. And so that's why I'm passionate about the work that we're able to do at Pension Fund around clergy, health, and wellness, in addition to being the denomination's uh retirement provider.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah. That's quite a picture of helplessness and loneliness in a very public setting. It's a Sunday morning, and it's probably the last and worst place you want to have it all collide on you and collapse on you. I'm surprised and not surprised that you were by yourself and it took a while before someone came up to you. In that, at that point in time in your ministry, is that also what was happening at an everyday level, just on your own, soldiering on?

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, I mean, it's I think ministry is one of the most isolating roles that anybody can fill. And there's this concept of switching too that that adds to it that in one moment you're at somebody's bedside, helping them, you know, being present with them in a family while they're transitioning from this life to the next. And then you walk into a and an endowment meeting, and then you walk into a building committee meeting, and then the preschool director walks in while you're preparing your sermon and says, Hey, the toilet's overflowing, come help. And you're constantly switching through all of these roles. But there's so many confidential conversations you have as a local church pastor, and you carry that trauma and those grief for those members, and you carry it with a commitment that it is confidential. So you don't talk to your spouse about it. And I didn't have a spiritual director. Um, and so you just become, it becomes more and more isolating. And so I think the visualization of me sitting there by myself on the chancel is really emblematic of the challenge that all pastors face because most of the people who are there to support us have also something else to do with our future placement, our future call, our future place of ministry. Um, and so how vulnerable can you really be? And there's kind of this expectation that I was supposed to have it all together. So, what happens when I when I don't?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah. Yeah. That was something that came up as we were uh conducting a well-being program for a team, a ministry team, um psychological safety as it is understood in a corporate setting, but in a church setting, it's really messy. Just the setup is not necessarily conducive to be psychologically safe. All the things that you just said, it's not just your job or your livelihood that's attached to it, it's your home, your friendship, your sense of faithfulness to Christ Himself, it's all attached there. And so if you put up your hand and you say, Yeah, I'm not really feeling all that great, it's a really costly space to be in and not easily resolved either, I think, in ministry.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Right, right, right, right. And it's it's tough to be vulnerable where people are looking to you to have the answers to life's challenges.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Now, when you told that story, I think there were so many points in there. And interesting, even for me, in the last maybe three months, I've spoken to ministry workers more and more about grief and an emotion that they probably hadn't noticed or labeled for themselves before. But even for you, talking about ministry from years ago on the other side of the world, I mean you're talking about very similar things. In the one instant, you're holding the grief of a young person rather than a child who wants desperately and and in probably in that season of life believes that it's all going to be well. Another segment of your your group, and I think as a pastor yourself, grieving, a long-standing, well-loved member of your church, that grief is expansive, isn't it? And and you may be the only person that knows and is holding everybody's grief at that one point in time.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I mean, you hold as a pastor, you hold the grief of the family whose child attempted suicide. You hold the grief of a family of a couple whose marriage is struggling after 40 years because infidelity has been discovered. You hold the grief of people's illnesses that they don't want it to be public. You hold your own grief as a just a human being, right? As we go through the daily events of life. I had been at the church nine months on 9-11. So being in Houston, where the city was evacuated, where the preschool director's coming in and saying, we've got to shut down and get our kids out of here, you hold that grief. You hold the grief of the wider church, you hold the grief of what's going on geopolitically in the world, you hold the grief of basic life and death. Of, you know, I had a couple come in and talk to me because they had they had a high-risk pregnancy. And they wanted to know that their church would support them if they had to terminate the pregnancy because of uh they were going to have a bunch of testing done. Um, and they they were asking, would I be able to support them in making that decision? And cried for so long to have children again. And so you were holding the the grief of that are trying to start a life, of couples that are trying to figure out if they want trying to figure out if they want to stay married to each other, let alone all of the normal things that go on every single day. And that's not unique to my situation as a pastor. That is every pastor is carrying that trauma and that grief for their community, both those who are part of the faith community and those that are in the community around the church.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. This does not sound like something you want to be addicted to. So I'm wondering, you said that you're addicted. What were you necessarily being needed?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Being needed. I'm an Enneogram too, so I'm the perfect person to need to be needed, right? But I was I was addicted to being needed. I was addicted to being omnipresent. I was addicted to having the schedule where people would say, How are you physically able to do all of this? How are you here, but you were just there? I was addicted to people joining the church every week. I was addicted to this children's and youth ministry program that was just rapidly growing and expanding. I was addicted to the church needing to build a new sanctuary. I was addicted to adding staff. I was, you know, I was addicted to being the poster child of a healthy growing congregation. But it really comes down to I was addicted to that need to be needed. The kids' uh friends called me the Todd Father because there was no separation between Todd, the pastor of the church, and Todd the parent, Todd the spouse, Todd, somebody's child, Todd the human being. I was all one and the same. And it becomes this, it's kind of like the challenges with social media today, where, oh, I got 500 likes on that post. Well, now next time I've got to do something to get 600 likes. It's it's that human mead. And the church was flourishing as a result of it while I was slowly chipping away at myself inside.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

So what happens after this? What happens after that morning? Where does the story and the journey go?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

So about two months later, a colleague reached out and they were um, I was starting the writing phase of my dissertation for my doctorate. Um, the building was built. Um, I was starting to question whether I had another kind of seven-year run with this congregation in my mind, thinking in terms of the cycles of ministry. And a colleague reached out and uh they were posting a position that uh basically was to be the denomination's chief financial and chief administrative officer, long title, Associate General Minister and Vice President for the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in the United States and Canada. Put that on your business card. And they said, I really think you ought to think about this. And so what became next was actually exiting pastoral ministry because I could not see the way forward, not out of embarrassment or not out, but I just couldn't see how I could continue the pace, but I couldn't see how I could do it any other way. And so I went into the administrative side of serving the church. And then I've been doing that now for 19 years, including uh in my 11th year now, my current role as the president of our pension fund.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah. Could you introduce us to the pension fund and then we'll talk about the cornerstone program? That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

So we we are a 131-year-old organization. Uh, we manage $4 billion in retirement assets for 14,000 pastors and church workers in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada. Um, but we have a legacy of a program called Ministerial Relief and Assistance. So we started in 1895 by responding to a pastoral family in crisis. Era Chase was the pastor of Wabash Christian Church in Wabash, Indiana. He died unexpectedly, leaving a blind widow and four orphaned children. Brother A. M. Atkinson, who was a leader in the Christian church in Indiana, raised an offering of $3,700 and purchased a home for uh Rhoda Jane Castle Chase that was measured as three squares from the church in Wabash. And she accepted that home on the condition that $1,000 would go back to the Chase fund at her death from the sale of the home. And that began the Board of Ministerial Relief and Assistance. That fall, we raised another $5,000. So from very humble beginnings to $4 billion today. But we also steward about $85 million through our relief funds. So we help our low-income retirees with supplemental gifts and Medicare supplements. We help our pastors when there are life emergencies, medical disasters, somebody's home gets hit by a tornado. We step in to make sure that the pastor has resources and a support network around them. We pay dues for pastors called to military chaplaincy during times in which they have been called up to active service. So there are 19 programs that are under the umbrella of ministerial relief and assistance that is the core of our DNA. And one of those programs that I inherited was called Excellence of Ministry, funded by the Lilly Endowment. And it was a financial literacy program. We got to the end of three grants from the Lilly Endowment and said, all right, what's next? How do we, how do we make this part of who we are today? How do we evolve the program and what's next? And out of that grew the Cornerstones project that we were there to speak about and that we'll be applying now for some additional funding from the Lily Endowment as well. But it was a $2 million investment in the financial, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being of pastors in the Christian Church, disciples of Christ here in the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I just want to ask you about financial literacy to begin with. So that story of how the pension fund or the origins of the story fast forward now. What are some of the issues that we see in the financial life or the financial reality of our ministry?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So the biggest piece that we uncovered in all of this is shame and guilt around perceived self-uh, uh around self-perceived financial illiteracy and the amount of debt that our pastors are carrying, life-crushing debt. Because a lot of our pastors go to our church-related schools, which are private colleges. Some of them are as high as $75,000, $80,000 a year. And the last 20 years, the scholarship support for people pursuing ministry has diminished greatly relative to the cost of attendance at those undergrads. So they have a tremendous amount of undergrad debt. And then they were going to seminary. And while most of our seminaries pay a good portion of the tuition, some as much as 100%, it still costs you money to live while you're in seminary. So they're borrowing money, going into credit card debt, coming out six figures in debt from earning their master's degree, and then going to serve congregations, paying them $50,000 a year, thinking that that's a great salary, and they can't afford to make their student loan payments, let alone put food on the table. So the financial literacy program was really centered on helping pastors have healthy conversations with their families, their spouse, but also with their community of faith around the financial, the economic reality of pastoral ministry today, helping them learn skills for negotiating compensation, helping to establish household budgeting. They had a financial companion helping them negotiate appropriate compensation and look for resources in their local community that could be comparable. Like my salary in Houston was set based off the superintendent of our local school district because that was a 12-month employee with a public salary schedule. And so we looked to that as a basis to say, here's somebody with similar years of experience, similar academic credentials that are required, similar levels of responsibility, and let's use that then as uh compensation uh criteria. So it's but shame and guilt around the financial position of many of our clergy was really one of the biggest learnings that we didn't plan for in developing that curriculum. But it it certainly rose to the top. And we would actually bring in a counselor, a social worker and therapist to work with and do a whole session on shame and guilt. And when we look back at the evaluation, people talk about that session as the most life-giving in terms of helping them to connect with how they're really feeling and what they're really thinking about.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Um I mean, shame and guilt are two very strong emotions. They push you further to hide and and and feel like you can't reach out for help. So already that image of you on the on the stage that morning is full of loneliness and isolation. And I think what you've just said, it there's this other layer. So my husband and I, we met when I was very, very young. I thought I was gonna be single on the mission field, but then he came along. I would have been around 17 or 18 years old. Individually, we'd known we wanted to be in ministry. Individually. And at that point in time, we were we had some older Christians in ministry who told us that if we were gonna do this thing of coupling up and going into ministry, we needed to be on the front foot of thinking about retirement. We were, I was only 18 years old thinking this is blowing my mind. And but the council of those ministry, older ministry people, as we factored as a couple, our budget and the financial decisions we made from the point of being in our early 20s, have been so important in being able not only to sustain current ministry, but to relieve us from a sense of worry about our children, you know, a worry about what happens after ministry, um, where do we live? I'm wondering, in your experience, even at that retirement point of view, there's a I wonder if there's a different kind of debt. There is a financial concern. You can get to that point in ministry where there's a point where you go, Oh, do I actually know what's going to happen after? Do you see that happening as well?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

So, yes and no, because not every ministry setting is the same. For many of our pastors who serve full-time, we have a true pension system where the congregation is paying in 14% of their base salary. And that's money that they cannot cash out. They can't borrow against it along the way. We increase it. So all of our retirees are receiving an 8.5% increase in their retirement payments on July 1 because of our funded status, because of how we manage the plan. So for our pastors that are given access to the pension, to the pension plan, their retirement is pretty secure. Now it is a how many credits did you buy along the way? Where did you serve? So we have just started a new program because we recognize that many of our pastors of color who serve in historically economically disadvantaged communities are not saving as much early on, and they're losing out on the compounding effect of those credits building up and the increases we offer. So we've started a program to help match their contributions early on in their career, provided they meet certain economic criteria, and the church is located in a historically economic disadvantaged community. I will say that is a completely different experience for many of our Hispanic pastors and our Asian Pacific Islander pastors who are not paid a living wage by their congregations. Many of them receive a few thousand dollars a year in compensation. Their primary source of income is coming from outside the church. And so they are more economically vulnerable in retirement than pastors that look and present more like me.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah. I think again, I think it goes into the empathy into the experience of uh clergy and pastors. There is a wide variety of experiences, a wide variety of setups for ministry. And I think it's really helpful that we keep talking about those differences and to understand how ministries and initiatives such as the one that you lead has such a vision to see that the care for our pastors is understood well across all those differences. Which brings me to the cornerstone program. So this also fascinated me and interested me. So as a psychologist, I understand the benefit of support groups. And then I understand the benefits of peer support groups. But what I really enjoyed listening to your program was how it's been how it was set up, how it's been piloted, and some of the things that you're learning. So I wonder if you could introduce us to uh the Cornerstone program and just tell us about uh what it what it was set up to do and and what does where is it at at this point in time?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Sure. So Cornerstones was really the brainchild of Julie Richardson, uh, who is with me in Houston. Julie is our vice president of programs and development. She spent her life doing church camp and youth ministry. And so we've kind of called it church camp for big people. But the intent was to provide resources to allow pastors to self-select into uh either physical, financial, mental, emotional, or spiritual track. And then depending on which track you were in, you had certain requirements, but you received a grant. So it might be a debt relief grant because you're in the financial literacy track. In the physical wellness track, we've paid for gym memberships. Uh, we bought treadmills and exercise bikes for pastors that are in rural communities that don't have access to a place to work out. We've paid for nutrition counseling. Uh, people have used their stipends to pay for a year of uh therapy in advance, or to hire a spiritual director um to be able to meet with that person throughout the year. And so the program is really the criteria and expectations are somewhat self-taught, self-led. So we you start down a path and you tell us what you want to do, and then we provide you the financial resources to do that. And then your accountability, which has a lot of grace built into it, um, is being part of a cohort group that meets monthly for 18 months. So we had 450 pastors come to the kickoff event, 241 of them signed up for the program, and 241 of them the end of June of this year will be completing their 18-month cohort group. We just had our planning team come together in January, and we're now in the process of preparing to bring together 550 pastors in September of 2027, and then they'll have the opportunity to sign up for the next round of cornerstones. Really good feedback, and we're gonna create even more options, trying to make sure that everybody has a place that they fit. But I think the the brilliance of Julie and then Fonda Latham, who's on our staff, uh, who oversees the Cornerstones program, I think their brilliance was how the cohort groups were shaped. Originally, our thought was you needed to, if you're in financial literacy, you need to be in a financial literacy cohort. But we also allowed people to state if there was an affinity that they wanted to be in. When I went through my divorce, one of the hardest things to do was to do my first wedding and really question can I even say these things as somebody whose marriage didn't make it? Um and so we allowed people to cross-pollinate across the tracks, but focus on their affinity, and we've gotten even more feedback that people really like that, and we want to enhance the selections in order to hopefully attract more people to the program. I work bivocationally. I need to be in an evening group and I'm on the West Coast. So putting me in a group of people on the East Coast who are three hours time difference, and they want to meet at six o'clock, I can't do three o'clock because I'm a multi-vocation pastor. So we're we're learning more and more about the flexibility of assembling those groups, but they have been powerful tools for people to hold one another accountable on their journey to wellness. And we've learned some great things. I mean, there are some powerful stories. We had a couple who did financial literacy. As a result of going through the financial literacy, they've collectively lost over 100 pounds. Now, why would financial literacy help you lose over 100 pounds as a couple? Well, they got their financial stress under control. So they were no longer stress eating because they didn't know how they were going to pay the bills every month. They got their food budget under control because they were working with their financial companion, which caused them to make different choices at the grocery store. They were sitting down weekly as a couple and having a first-time budget conversation, which was then leading to the conversation around meal planning and menu planning and what's ahead for the week. So they were there. The pastor was admitted for the financial literacy track to get their financial household in order. It strengthened their marriage, it strengthened their physical health, it strengthened their family life and all of these unintended positive benefits that came out of it. And they're able to share that story with other people in their cohort then, which was then empowering and encouraging other people to think about what might I do next, or what might I, what other benefits am I receiving because I'm going to yoga every week now. And look, my blood pressure's down, or I'm more focused on my eating, or um I took the money that I was paying to go to yoga and I used it to help pay down debt on a credit card. So I actually got out of debt as a result of this. And, you know, so lots of ripple positive positive.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

With the support groups, I think when I was in the conference, one of the things that I understood was that ability to choose is really important, really significant. People make choices on the group that they want to go to, not just on similarity. Do you think it is a similarity thing or is it kind of a feeling of it's safe? Or maybe it's both.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

So I think part of so it's multiple things, right? So if I am with somebody who is like me and they have a similar life experience, I don't have to explain. So this is what one of our board members said. She said, when I walk into my cohort group that is all women of color, I don't have to explain what it's like to be a 50-year-old African-American woman in the United States today. I don't have to explain myself and my circumstances. I don't have to explain my upbringing because my story in general is similar to everybody else's story in the room. And I also don't have to code switch and feel like I am being inauthentic to fit into a white dominant culture. So our lessons that we learn from our training with diversity, equity, belonging, and accessibility that we do with our staff also apply to this and have created positive outcomes. Now, for other people, they said I want to be in a mixed group. And that's okay because that kind of human agency, I think if I have choice, I've chosen my track, I've chosen the style of group I want to be in. I am more invested now because I'm more empowered to actually do the work that I need to do, as opposed to being told, here's the group you're, you know, you're gonna be in. Well, I don't like these people or I don't know these people, or you know, we did unknowingly put um former spouses in a same group together and help them move, which we were happy to do because we didn't know that they had been previously married. So you're not gonna get it right all the time. But that empowerment, I think, and that that choice in human agency has been really critical to people following through, which to me has been the most impressive part. I mean, we're gonna measure the outcomes and we we're using um a human flourishing assessment to measure the outcomes. We did the assessment on the way in and on we'll do it on the way out. But the commitment that these individuals have made and followed through, to me, has been the most impressive part of this in terms of the work that they have been doing personally and individually and how they are strengthened to continue on in ministry.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah, that's so powerful. In a in a vocation that has not so much empowerment and agency, so much of your life is dictated by your circumstances. That's actually a really powerful motivation, but also um fuel to commit and and to show up for one another as well. Um I like what you said about code switching. Um we were in a missions conference um a couple of years ago, and um there was a lady who was a doctor on the field in Africa from Korea, and um she was trying to explain why she doesn't actually turn up for all the support stuff that they have for field workers. And she said it's actually more exhausting. You know, she says, first of all, I have to speak in a different language. It's not even the the African language that I'm trained, I'm trained to speak in. You all speak English. So now I'm gonna have to speak in that language. I'm gonna have to code switch in terms of what is considered restful for me as a Korean female, um, to be in your environment. So I I appreciate that when you're in a group where you feel like you can reduce quite a lot of that, you feel not only more comfortable, but you're you're able really to get into the conversations at a more sort of restful space as well. What do you think is the secret source for these groups? We we have different denominations in Australia have set up groups and the chatter that I hear is sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes we want to go, sometimes we don't want to go. Is there a secret sauce how this is working?

SPEAKER_01 33:26

So each group has been different. Each group has, you know, had some different outcomes. And I think the secret sauce is letting the groups find their way, giving up some guardrails and some guidelines and some resources to get started, but recognizing that um everybody's needs are different. And really it's more about the, I think the secret sauce is the equipping we did for the cohort leaders so that they could lead. And that's one of the things they've asked for. They said, you know, I love being a cohort leader, but I also want to be in a cohort. So the quality of the leader and how much time they have to invest in it, I think has a direct effect then on the outcome for the group. But we'll be doing things in this next iteration because we we called this a pilot. We said, we're gonna test this. We don't know that we'll do it again. We're locked in, we're doing it again, we're doubling down, we're increasing the, we're gonna spend about two and a half million dollars in this next wave to support this. But we're gonna provide additional resources beyond facilitation training to the cohort leaders. Um, we used a book um by Victoria Atkinson-White called Holy Friendships as kind of our model. And Victoria did some training. We're gonna have her do additional training not only at the start, but also at a midpoint check-in. And then we have we're bringing a chaplain in uh in this next wave to be there to support the cohort leaders. In addition to uh Fonda Latham, who's on our staff, uh, who was with me in Houston, um, who is a political pastoral counselor and social worker, she's gonna be facilitating small groups for the cohort leaders as well to make sure that we're strengthening them. But really, the secret sauce is the way in which you train your leaders to do the facilitation. And everybody's gonna get out of it, what they put into it. We also we had some people say, I'm just here for the money. Great. If we're making a difference in your life and this helps out, and you're just you're showing up and checking a box, then you're gonna get out of it from showing up and checking into a box. And others have said, this is the most transformational experience I've ever had in my life. And they are super invested and can't wait to sign up for the next round.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

And so did the groups work through material. Uh so each of those streams has a has a structure to it?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Each of the streams have requirements that you needed to meet relative to, and some of them are more prescriptive, like the financial literacy, because we had an entire financial literacy curriculum and we have a partner, your money line, um, that does the financial companion piece. It was easy to say you must do these five following things, and here are 20 additional options, and here's a book that everybody has to read and discuss. For say the spiritual wellness and mental health individuals, less prescriptive. They would say on their grant application, I would like to find a therapist in my local community. Um, and I just need financial resources to help foot the bill. I want to find a spiritual director, or I want to hire an executive coach to work with me. Um, and I just need that person to foot the bill. So less prescriptive. Our side is to say, have you been showing up? And did you follow through and what did you learn from it? As opposed to here are the 10 self-help books that you must read and write a paper on. And so it depends. And then in the cohorts, they're celebrating wins with each other. And so this was another point of evaluation. We're going to be creating budgets for the cohort leaders to celebrate the victories along the way with the members of their cohort. So we had a senior pastor of one of our largest churches won the Dad Bod Challenge at the gym, physical wellness track. And so outside of the cohort group being like, you know, way to go, way to go, there was no other celebration. So in the next iteration, that person's cohort leader will have a bucket of money that they could send a gift card or send a fruit basket, or, you know, to celebrate the moment even more so uh with that individual and to encourage their ongoing work and commitment to the to the individual work that they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

So looking at cornerstones now in so pilot phase, and now you roll out next phase, is that right? 500 now?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

That's our goal is to have 550 a kickoff event, which will be a clergy wellness event, in which we're gonna be talking about trauma and call and trauma and story. So how do you the title's gonna be or the theme is gonna be healing the storyteller? And then also talking about the trauma that I talked about that you carry for the community. What do you do with that? Where does it go? How do you reconnect to your own story of who you are? Because I think we lose ourselves. Again, that Todd Father knows separation between the, you know, who I am and really trying to help them understand practical tools in which they can they can continue to serve and deal with the trauma that comes with being in these roles.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

That is so powerful. I mean, that is a step up from what you shared in in the first run. I mean, this goes into some very important and internalized and intrinsic things. That's really interesting. So as you reflect on your own journey and you now have this wonderful opportunity to be part of resourcing pastors now. What have been some of the joys for you in watching this unfold?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

The joy for me are hearing the stories. The joy for me was being at our denominational assembly and the cohort groups setting a time to come by our booth, wanting to take a picture with our staff. The joy for me is seeing the results, running into a colleague and being like, oh my gosh, you look you've lost so much weight. You look fantastic. And they're like, and I'm in cornerstones and you paid for it. Because I I couldn't tell give you the whole list of who's in and who's, you know, and who didn't sign up, but seeing the impact and hearing the stories, but also just seeing relationships being built. So theological education today being primarily online, and I went to a multi-site campus, so and I that was non-residential. So I don't have the experience that my predecessors who were in their 70s had when they went to class together. They all served small churches around the city, and they all lived in the on-campus housing. And so they had meals together and their spouses knew each other. And I don't have those stories from seminary. Matter of fact, I was the only traditional student in my graduating class. So most of my colleagues were 10 to 30 years older than me going through seminary as second career individuals. And so I feel like one of the big successes is we're helping people break the isolation. So not only are you isolated in your local community, but and you've been isolated and don't have these broader relationships because of the isolation of theological education today, we're now helping you build relationships in a non-threatening way. And so to see the cohorts be in an event together and they're going to lunch because they wanted to spend in time together, to see the cohort saying, Do we have to stop? I know you're doing a closing session with us the end of June, but we want to keep meeting. Is it okay if we keep meeting on our own? To see them greeting each other at other events because they're getting to meet somebody in person for the first time that they have built a deep bond with. That's the fuel that keeps people going for ministry. And that's the joy that I find in the outcomes of the work that we're doing. In addition to the million dollars, millions of dollars in debt that has been paid off by pastors. Then as pension fund, our vested interest in this is you've got a great retirement in front of you. We want there to be something left of you to be able to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

My mom retired in January. My dad died nine months later at an early age. Don't be that story. Have something left of you so that you can enjoy this strong, smart, and secure retirement we've been saving for. Enjoy your grandkids if you have them, and have some life left beyond the local congregation.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Wow, I think that's a perfect finish, actually. You've given a great encouragement for those of us who will be listening. We may not have the structure of the finances here in Australia yet to roll something like this out. But if you could go back to your ministry person, who you who you were all those years ago, and you could say this to yourself then, because you didn't have cornerstones, you didn't have any of this wisdom and insight and resourcing. I mean, what what would you say to yourself at that point?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

I would say don't be afraid to ask the leadership of the congregation for what you know you need. I went in and said, Can I trade in my sabbatical for doing my doctorate, as opposed to saying, I'd like to do a doctorate and I'm also due for a sabbatical in another year, and I'd like to be able to do the sabbatical as well. So if I if I could go back and tell the 32-year-old Todd some advice, the 35-year-old Todd some advice, it would be be honest with your leadership about and don't be afraid to be honest. I think fear, oftentimes when we're afraid, we're not our best selves. Um, and so we make assumptions and I think they actually would have been receptive. Now, at the same time, my life has turned out great as a result of making this shift. And I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today and having the impact that I'm able to help facilitate today if I hadn't hit that moment. So good things can come from dark moments, but take care of yourself along the way, and it's all going to be okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Thank you so much for spending time with me and our audience, Todd. Um, those are wonderful words for us to finish with, I think. And I hope everybody who's listening will be encouraged to not be afraid to think about what the real needs are that you have. So thank you so much, Todd, for being with me.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Well, it was great to be with you today, and I appreciate the opportunity.