When Ministry Hurts : Meryl Herr

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to another insightful episode of FrontStage BackStage. I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each and every week, I have the honor and privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader, and we tackle a topic in an effort to help you and ministry leaders just like you have the opportunity to thrive in both your life and leadership. I’m excited about today’s conversation. I’m joined by Meryl Herr. Meryl serves as a Director of Research and Resources at the Fuller Seminary Center for Leadership, and her most recent book is entitled When Work Hurts. I’m excited to welcome Meryl to the show. Meryl, welcome.

Meryl Herr
Thanks so much for having me, Jason.

Jason Daye
Yes, it’s such a joy to have you with us. Thanks for making time to hang out with us. We are going to look at a topic that, as pastors and ministry leaders, we all have probably experienced at some point in our ministry, and for those of you who have not yet experienced it, sorry, but you probably will be experiencing at some point. That is the idea around hurt that we experience in the work that we do, right? It’s interesting, Meryl, as I was reading through your book, When Work Hurts, I was reflecting on my own journey, obviously, as we often do, processing through and thinking through. It actually brought to mind at different times across my ministry when I did experience some hurt. Meryl, it’s interesting because sometimes it’s hard for us to admit that we are experiencing hurt, I think maybe even more so in the world of ministry. So to begin there, Meryl, talk to us just a little bit about, I guess, the reality of, hey, sometimes hurt happens in our work, right?

Meryl Herr
Yeah. So, as pastors and ministry leaders, we know this, right? Theologically, the Bible is really clear about the fact that work is going to be filled with thorns and thistles. It wasn’t designed to be that way, right? Genesis 1 and 2. Work is supposed to be a delight, but most of us don’t experience it to be 100% delightful all of the time. In fact, we can find it to be downright terrible on some days or even for long seasons. So, that comes from the consequences of the fall that we read about in Genesis 3, when God’s first humans, Adam and Eve, sinned and rebelled against God, that God laid out a series of consequences for them, and one of those big consequences hit the domain of work, right? There were going to be thorns and thistles. There would be sweat of our brow. Then we also read about this idea of painful labor in Genesis 3, and in my study, I realized that actually has to do with emotional pain, right? There is going to be a physical pain and emotional pain in our work. I also think we can experience other types of pain, relational, financial, and even spiritual pain, feeling spiritually distanced from God, as we go through our work hurt. But the fact is that most of us, at some point, are going to experience something at work that is disappointing. We’re going to be talking about like little disappointments, little frustrations, to major disappointments, like not getting a promotion that you had hoped for, to disillusionment, realizing that work is not what I thought it would be, but maybe this person isn’t acting like I thought they would be, or, oh goodness, I thought it was going to be so much more fulfilled, making such a big impact, and seeing all the fruit of my labors. That doesn’t always happen, right? So, we get a little bit disillusioned from our work. But then some of us actually experience devastation where work just levels us, because something we experience is so grievous to our spirits, to our sense of identity, that we really have a hard time rebounding from those types of situations.

Jason Daye
Yeah, no, that’s incredibly helpful. Again, as you’re walking through that, reflecting on life and ministry, probably, we’ve experienced at least a portion of those, right? I would like to begin leaning in a little bit around, kind of the surprise of hurt to a degree, because oftentimes, especially in ministry, we feel called to it, right? We feel called to it, and that’s what drives us there. So, then we kind of feel okay, we’re in this thing, and maybe we need to have thick skin because, yes, there will be some challenges, there will be some problems that arise. But this is our calling. This is what, you know, God’s placed us here, and so sometimes we maybe don’t allow ourselves to really process the hurt. Can you talk to us a bit, Meryl, about this idea of not just experiencing the hurt but actually processing the hurt?

Meryl Herr
Yeah. It’s so interesting that you bring that up. The concept of calling is both really beautiful and really challenging for us. As you said, I think there’s an extra layer of difficulty for pastors and ministry leaders who are working and thinking about their work through a lens of calling or vocation. So, let’s parse that out a little bit first. First, when we feel called to something, there’s this sense that God is inviting me into something to use my gift and the training experiences he’s given me in service of his kingdom and his people in some way. I think sometimes we romanticize that a little bit and think that, Oh, I’m called. Everything’s going to be easy peasy. But that is not the case. I mean, let’s just look at the life of Jesus, for example, right? Jesus had a very detailed, very specific calling in his life and ministry, and it ended up resulting in his death, right? There are many instances in his life where he was treated very poorly. His disciples, same thing. Out of a sense of call, suffering was right alongside it. So, having a call does not make us exempt from suffering, and it doesn’t exempt us from work hurt. It’s just a part of life until Jesus comes back. Now, when we add on a sense of feeling called to ministry, I think it gets a little bit more complicated, because in some circles, we’ve elevated that call of ministry to be more important or more special than other types of calling. I don’t think, as I read scriptures, that that is healthy. I think God calls people to use their gifts and skills in a variety of different ways to serve the body, to serve his people, and to care for His creation. When we start to elevate someone’s calling over and above, I think that really hurts the whole priesthood of all believers concept that we read about in Scripture. We can also, when that happens, for everybody, our calling can get tied up into our identity, right? It’s if I’m not a pastor anymore, if I’m not a ministry leader anymore, who am I? Well, those types of questions arise when we’ve conflated our occupation with our calling. As Steve Garber talks about, occupation and vocation, occupation and calling are two different things. Your calling actually transcends your occupation. You can be called to some kind of pastoral ministry in your life. That’s like the way that God has wired you. It’s the way that you function in the world. It doesn’t have to happen in the context of a local church. I know a friend who was in a church setting for several years and then left that because of work hurt, but now runs a ministry as an entrepreneurial ministry through a business, and still does spiritual care, and very much functions in a pastoral capacity, but not in the context of a church. So that’s another piece. I’m going to add one more layer, and that is that many pastors and ministry leaders are operating in context where the process of getting hired to work at a church is also using the language of calling, right? So, you are called to a particular church. So there is this, oh, God has called me to be a pastor. I have been called to a church. I think that just continues to confound things. So when work hurts, when somebody at that church that has called us and put their trust in us to come and to serve and to proclaim God’s word and to exercise pastoral care, when that person has something difficult to say or criticizes our ministry or is contentious in some way, then we might think, but you called me here. I have a calling here. We use that calling, in some ways, I think, to close our ears and our hearts to what might actually be going on and to maybe also prickle up and have a shield around ourselves when it comes to work hurt. But the reality is that pastors, ministry leaders, and people outside of professional ministry roles can get into trouble when they use their calling as a means of just muscling through really difficult situations at work. Well, I’m called here, and so I’m just going to keep on going. I’m just going to shrug it off and keep working. Some calling researchers actually labeled this the double-edged sword of calling. That we can actually do damage to ourselves when we keep muscling through in the name of this is my calling. I’m called here. This church has called me. God has called me. I’m called to be a pastor. And we muscle through to our own detriment and to the detriment of those we are serving, right? Because when we are experiencing hurt and we’re not processing and dealing with it, it’s going to seep out into our decision making, into our relationships, and affect the congregation or ministry that we’re serving.

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, just a quick reminder that we provide a free toolkit that complements today’s conversation. You can find that for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. In the toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including our Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide includes insights pulled from today’s conversation as well as reflection questions, so you and the ministry team at your local church can dig more deeply into this topic and see how it relates to your specific ministry context. Again, you can find it at PastorServe.org/network.

Jason Daye
Yeah, Meryl, that’s helpful, and I appreciate you kind of looking at the two sides of that coin, because in ministry, one side can be, oh, called to ministry, so I shouldn’t experience hurt at all, and then the other side is I’m called to ministry. Yeah, I’m going to experience hurt, but I’m going to ignore it, right? It’s interesting because there are seasons where, obviously, you’re not saying, if you’re in ministry and you get hurt, then you should probably think about doing something else, right? Because the reality is, as you said, Christ went through hurt and pain himself, right? Not just physical, but also relational hurt, being misunderstood, and those types of things. That’s part of something that we all experience in ministry. In terms of the hurt that we experience then, because I feel throughout your book, as we read it, you’re really encouraging people to find a place of health in the midst of it all. Recognize work hurt, but don’t let it derail you, but don’t ignore it, right? All those pieces. So in ministry, as we say, okay, there is some pain here. It might be relational pain, as you said, from people that you’re serving, people that you’re leading on staff, could be volunteers, or whoever it might be, there might be that relational hurt. How do we kind of receive that hurt and neither ignore it, nor just dwell on it to such a degree that we make it bigger than what it is? What’s the healthy place, and how do we approach that hurt?

Meryl Herr
Yeah, I think that’s a really good question. I think it’s really important for people who are in helping professions to be seeing a licensed mental health professional on a regular basis and/or a coach, because we need help right-sizing our hurt and our problems often. We need to be processing it in community. For pastors and ministry leaders, we know it’s really important for them also to be in community with other pastors and ministry leaders, because often, within the context of your church or ministry, it’s difficult to have trusting, transparent relationships where you can be truly vulnerable and process what’s happening in the life of your work. So to be able to name what’s going on, to say this happened, here’s how I’m thinking about it, and then to have other people be able to speak into it with wisdom and care, I think, is really important. I realize it’s sometimes very difficult in the context of ministry to have the health benefits or the funds to pay for mental health, a mental health professional, or a coach, but I think it’s vital, because of the type of hurt. The type of hurt that we engage in helping professions is a little bit unique because we’re also carrying other people’s burdens with us sometimes, right? So, a pastoral care situation, I think about when my husband was a pastor, and there was a really long season where he was walking along someone who was very ill, would regularly go to the hospital for visits, and developed a really close relationship with the person and their family. Then, when the person passed away, that just caused a tremendous amount of grief for my husband, and he still had to care for the family, doing the funeral arrangements, and extending that. So there’s already this layer of challenge of interpersonal care and carrying one another’s burden that I think pastors and ministry leaders, and helping professionals do as a nature of their job. So sometimes when we layer on the different aspects of work hurt on top of that, it can be really difficult to process all of that emotion, because you have this grief, this trying to lead out of a place of care, and then something else happens, right? Like, somebody makes a really snide remark after your sermon on Sunday, or you get a visit from the local law enforcement because your youth group band on Saturday night was violating the noise codes in the district. Whatever it is we can think of, whatever it is, all those stresses that compound, and then you add in something that’s really difficult, like having to lay off a staff member, or having a really difficult point of contention with somebody in the congregation or in the community that is causing hurt, and it just becomes really difficult. So that’s a long answer to say, but I’m going to recap, if you’re in professional ministry or a helping profession, I think it’s really important for you to be seeing a professional mental health provider to support you in processing this type of hurt.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. It’s important to be able to talk through these things with, as you said, a coach or a professional in some way that allows you to verbalize what you internalize, right? That’s so huge, and sometimes you don’t necessarily feel there’s a safe space to do that whenever you’re carrying your own, as you said, grief, but you’re also trying to minister to others who are going through grief as well. Like, how do you talk through that? I think that’s huge, Meryl. One of the things in your book, When Work Hurts, that you write about, and you spend some time working through, and I think, as I was reading through this, I was like, this really resonates with those who are in ministry, and that is the disillusionment factor. Because I think, oftentimes, in ministry, where we are, obviously, we’re in this. We feel, again, called, we’ve talked about that, but we’re in it, and we’re looking for great things to happen. Oftentimes, all of us enter into ministry. I know this in the beginning, like you almost think, I mean, you wouldn’t say it’s out loud, but you’re like, Hey, I’m going to help change the world, right? I mean, you’ve got this, you’re excited, and then you get into the slog of ministry. Oftentimes, we say we’ll never know the change, the ripple effects of the change, until we’re hanging out with Jesus for eternity. But sometimes it feels like we don’t see a whole lot going on, or we feel like we’re working really hard, we’re doing the things, we’re being obedient, and we’re trying to honor God. But things aren’t necessarily happening the way that we had hoped, thought, or dreamed that they would happen. Then that gets compounded because you jump on Instagram and you see other pastors or other ministry leaders who would seem to be going gangbusters, and in your mind, you’re trying to sort through this. So, help us with this idea of disillusionment, because that’s a different type of hurt. But it’s a very real hurt, right, Meryl?

Meryl Herr
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So I’ll use my story to illustrate this, if that’s okay. So, coming out of seminary, I did an MDiv. I did multiple what they were called field educations, which were like internships in different church settings during my seminary time. Then I went straight into a two-year pastoral residency after graduating. I mean, I was just like, Oh, yeah. This is what pastoral ministry is all about. This is what I read about in seminary, and this is how it is going to work. We’re going to make this huge impact, and we’re going to come and love people well, lead change, and really set this community on fire for Jesus. Yeah, none of that. I mean, some of that, but, like, it was just. I mean, I remember at one point, I think this was during one of my field education times, that the senior pastor sat me down, and he was like, You are too idealistic. I was like, I wasn’t old enough, I mean, mature enough at that point to just go like, I’m an Enneagram one. Of course, I’m idealistic. It’s my way of operating in the world. But he was really true. He was like, I mean, he’s been in ministry for years, and he knows that I was being too idealistic. That, actually, the type of change that I was hoping for takes a tremendous amount of time. It takes a tremendous amount of political capital within the congregation, relational capital, and trying to encourage people to take steps and change. I just was too immature to know that in my late 20s, out of seminary. So there’s that piece of it, like when we were first in ministry. I mean, you’re like, Oh, the world is amazing, and ministry is going to be so awesome and so fulfilling, and I’m going to make so much change, all these people are going to come to Christ, and be deepening in their walk with the Lord. That may happen, and praise God if it does. But for most of us, I think ministry is a work of sowing seeds in faithfulness without ever having the promise of seeing the harvest. I think of Hebrews 11 and 12, where the writer of Hebrews is talking about all these people who were working in faith and looking forward to what God was gonna do. But so many of them did not see in their lifetimes what God had promised. I think, in my book, I write about everyday faithfulness. That is the way forward. That God has given you work to do and so go do it. You may have a strategic plan for five years of what you want to see. I think that’s great, and I think strategic planning can be really helpful in terms of getting us going in a certain direction, motivating us, and helping us take good steps. But we don’t want to just be totally disillusioned by what we see 5-10 years down the road, if what we had hoped for, the strategic plan, was really big, and what we see evidence of is really small, because we know that in the work of the Kingdom, so much of the fruit is internal. It is quiet. It is happening in ways that we cannot always measure or see. So here’s a story to illustrate. I was in my pastoral residency for two years, and I was in a congregation that has very much been at the center of helping people understand how to connect their faith with their work. That was a big emphasis of the church then, and it still is. There are people that have left that church and gone on to create organizations that are helping others to do that work. But after two years there, I was really frustrated because I wasn’t seeing a lot of change in people’s lives. They were doing these discipleship programs, and they were hearing this from the pulpit, and we did a sermon series, and all this stuff. I was like, Well, why aren’t people living this out? And I was so frustrated. I was so frustrated. I actually ended up writing my dissertation around how we disciple people for faith and work. Then just a few months ago, in February, I went to a gathering that had a lot of people from that church at that gathering. There was a member of that church who I knew from, when was that? 2007. So almost 20 years ago. He got up and shared the story of what God had done in his life and how he was now thinking about the intersection of his faith and his work. He’s a very, very talented surgeon. I wept because I was so mad that I hadn’t seen change in two years. But I was blown away by what God did in 20. I mean, absolutely blown away. I went up and I told him that, and he was like, yes, but he was like, all those years ago, you were planting seeds. He was like, your ministry, 20 years ago, paved the way for this. You’re just like, oh, like, Oh my gosh. I mean, you just feel like, Lord, first, you just totally reshaped my thoughts about the long arc of ministry and the importance of faithfulness. I couldn’t see it. Then in those two years that my faithfulness to showing up and teaching scriptures in the way that I had been trained to do, that’s what he said was really impactful for him. My knowledge of the scriptures, which I don’t remember much of that at all. I mean, I’m like, What did I do? I don’t remember. But for whatever reason, he remembered that, and that stuck with him. That he realizes that, in some way, by God’s grace, was a seed. There are lots of other people that came along and planted lots of other seeds and look what has happened. He is doing this tremendous work that is shaping the way that people around the world, and especially in some of the most under-resourced places in our world, are receiving medical care, and that’s because of what God did through the faithfulness of his people. So I went from like disillusionment then, to disillusionment again, like, Oh, I was so wrong. I was so wrong. So I would say that when we get to those points, and you’re comparing yourself with your mega church buddy down the road that had 20,000 people on Easter Sunday, and you’re like, we had 500. So you’re wanting the big and flashy. You’re wanting the headlines about ministry, that God works through the everyday faithfulness of his people. So when you show up, plow, hope, and preach the scriptures faithfully, and come alongside people with care, compassion, and humility, and just sow in faithfulness, and help people walk with the Lord, attend to them, and help them keep in step with the Spirit, God honors that. It may not be on a time horizon that we could see or with evidence that we can see with our naked eye. That work is quiet and deep and beautiful. Do we have the faith to trust that God is going to work there?

Jason Daye
At Pastor Serve, we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders just like you. If you want to learn more about how you can qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. That’s PastorServe.org/freesession.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good, Meryl. In that area of disillusionment, it’s the idea of, as you’re saying, trusting that God is, even if we can’t see it, God’s at work. God’s at work behind the scenes. Another area of pain and hurt that we experience in ministry a lot is relational. We touched on this a little bit, but just this idea that the people that we’re serving, right? In our minds, we’re thinking, Man, I’m here. I’m doing all this work for these people. Then they turn around, and you might find out they’re talking with someone else, and they’re talking poorly about you, or they raise themselves up kind of against you on something you feel God’s leading the church to do, or whatever it might be. So there’s that relational hurt. You’ve built relationships with people. You’re trying to do the absolute best you can. You’re trying to honor God in the midst of everything. Yet, some ugliness arises, and there’s that relational hurt. Meryl, as pastors and ministry leaders, how do we best navigate some of that relational hurt?

Meryl Herr
It’s so tough being in a helping role, in a highly relational role. I think you’ve gotta name it. We’ve talked about this already. You gotta name it. You’ve gotta actually say this happened and this hurts and this is what I’m feeling. If you have trouble naming what you’re feeling, there’s some great emotion charts and emotion wheels online you can just get and try to get a word or two around what you’re feeling to help you process it and take some time to figure out, okay, why does this hurt so bad? Was it betrayal? Was it that I am feeling shamed? Like, really try to go deeper. Again, a therapist or coach can help you here if you struggle to do that on your own. But try to get a couple layers underneath and figure out what is really going on here. Because I think once you tackle what is going on, then you can figure out, okay, what’s my next step? Is it reconciliation? Do I need to do some inner work first? Do I need to work on myself? Was I the cause here? Am I taking this the wrong way? You’ve gotta really know what you’re dealing with first, right? So if you’re just feeling angry at something, several emotion researchers think anger is a secondary emotion, that it’s actually a signal that something else is going on. So, I was really angry about something a couple of weeks ago, and I was just like, I just don’t know, like, why am I so angry? Then I had to figure out, oh, it’s because I feel betrayed in this particular relational situation. Then I have to walk through, okay, where my expectations okay about this, right? So I have to do all of this work about the relational pain to figure it out. But I think one place that we can turn also is to turn to God in prayer. We have an entire book of laments in Scripture. We have several psalms of lament. Those, in many ways, are a template of how to bring the hard stuff to God. So to bring that to God and invite God to work in it is really important, right? We spend a lot of time in ministry roles interceding for other people and asking God to come and heal their pain. But we need to invite God into our pain as well. So, saying this happened, this is what I think is going on. Invite God’s Spirit in to help us discern, is it betrayal? Is it abandonment? Is it XYZ, or whatever we call it? To help us figure out what’s going on. To help us figure out if this is something where there’s a reconciliation. Is this something where there needs to be a conversation, or is this something that I just forgive and let go, right? Just to do that work. That type of work, especially around relational pain, takes a lot of time and emotional energy, and we need to give it that space, right? I think about how much time in like a 40 to 60 hour work week, however much a pastor or ministry leader is working, do we actually spend processing the hurt, the disillusionment, that relational pain that we experience in the context of our work lives? We might spend 10 to 20 hours preparing a sermon, some hours doing pastoral care visits, and hours working with administration and staff. But how often are we attending to our own selves? Because it’s out of ourselves that we serve and minister, and if we are overwhelmed with unresolved pain, it is going to affect the way that we lead and serve others.

Jason Daye
Absolutely, good stuff. Meryl, as we are kind of winding down this conversation, you did a lot of research, obviously, in this whole world of work hurt. One of the big ways that people experience hurt in work is, and this, I think, leads, maybe towards more the devastation, despair type piece, and that is where things just seem to not come together, and you’re terminated, right? Or you’re asked to leave, invited to leave, however you want to say it. As we wind down, and I know this could be a whole other show, a whole other episode, and I can appreciate that. But for those pastors, those ministry leaders, who’ve gone through an experience or maybe experiencing right now, they’ve they’ve been terminated, they’ve been let go, things didn’t work out the way they had hoped. That’s another level of hurt. A different level of hurt. What did you learn through your research that can help those who are experiencing that type of hurt?

Meryl Herr
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think, first, I want to say to those people, I’m really sorry. I think, unfortunately, there’s a really big chance that they weren’t let go well. Sadly, I’ve seen that. I’ve known so many ministry leaders who have been let go from their positions in recent years, either from some kind of conflict, personality dispute, budgetary issues, or whatever it is. Sadly, church leaders often don’t know how to fire people or lay people off well. A lot of people don’t know how to do that well, but we need to up our game there, because it matters how we treat people in those really difficult moments. So if that’s you and that’s happened to you, I’m really sorry. It is terrible. I mean, I’ve been let go. I think it’s one of the worst feelings of just being out of control and feeling hopeless. But you’re not without hope because God is with you and God had did not abandon you in that moment. It may have felt like God had abandoned you in that moment, but God was with you, and God still is with you in that moment. Just because you’re not working at that particular place does not mean your calling has disappeared. It does not mean that you are no longer useful and no longer fit for ministry. You may have to do some work around that, especially if you are terminated, if you are fired for cause, you may need to do some work around that and figure out why, and figure out what you need to learn from that before you go into another ministry role. It may be that a professional ministry role is not on the horizon for you again. That does not diminish in any way, the way that you can serve God and His people on this earth and make an impact for the kingdom of God. You can do that in still, small, quiet, beautiful ways that may be in an office or a cubicle and not in a pulpit. So, just remember that you’re not defined by that role that you once held. You are defined by your identity in Christ as his beloved son or daughter. For those of you who have been laid off because of financial cuts or just restructuring in your organization, personality conflict, or something like that. Again, I would say the same thing. You were not that role, right? I know it was a big part of your life. You are not that role. If God is still calling you into professional ministry in some capacity, trust that at some point, God is going to make a way for that. It may be hard. You may feel like you’re walking in the dark or walking through a season of wilderness for a while, but just as God was with the people in the wilderness, as God was with his people in exile, God is still with you in these moments, refining you, drawing you into deeper trust in Him, and doing something probably miraculous that you can’t see. So I just want to encourage you that if that is your story, it’s not the end of your story. It’s just the end of a chapter, and God has more to do. I think of this song that’s been really meaningful to me. It’s from elevation worship. You are more than able, and there’s this line at the end. It’s like, you’re not done with me yet. God’s not done with you, yet. How you are using your gifts to serve God may look differently than you had envisioned, but God done with you. He’s got some surprises around the corner. I love this saying from, he was an administrator when I was in seminary, Dr Coffey Washington, he said, Nothing is ever wasted in God’s economy. So God can also redeem that pain that in that terrible moment you experienced. You may not know how, you may not know where you are in the arc, but God can redeem it. Somebody asked me at one point, they were like, But where are you in that arc? I was like, this book. This book exists because God did something with my pain, right? So, we just have to be on the lookout for that. That God is going to redeem it. God loves us. God loves you, and he’s going to do something with that pain. It may not be a book, it may not be a new church ministry, but God loves you, and He loves your life, and he created you for a purpose. So he’s going to do something beautiful in and through you, if you have eyes to see.

Jason Daye
Yeah, absolutely love it. What a great word. What a great way to end our conversation. It’s pointing back to hope and that God is the one who heals the hurts in our lives, and that includes the work hurts, right? Meryl, thank you so much for taking time to join us. For those of you who are watching or listening along, we will have links to Meryl’s newest book, When Work Hurts, and additional resources in the toolkit for this episode, which you can find at PastorServe.org/network. Meryl, as I said, it’s been an absolute joy having you with us. Thank you for the work that you are doing there at the De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary, for putting this out, and letting God redeem your experiences in such a way that you can serve and help others as well. So we certainly appreciate you making time to hang out with us today.

Meryl Herr
Yeah, thanks so much, Jason. It’s been a joy to be here.

Jason Daye
Awesome. God bless you.

Meryl Herr
Yeah, you too. Thanks, Jason.

Jason Daye
Here at Pastor Serve, we hope you’re truly finding value through these episodes of FrontStage BackStage. If so, please consider leaving a review for us on your favorite podcast platform. These reviews help other ministry leaders and pastors just like you find the show, so they can benefit as well. Also, consider sharing this episode with a colleague or other ministry friend. Don’t forget our free toolkit, which is available at PastorServe.org/network. This is Jason Daye, encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well.