Laura Howe 00:01
From Hope Made Strong, this is The Care Ministry Podcast, a show about equipping ministry leaders and transforming communities through care. supporting those in your local church and community not only changes individuals lives, but it grows and strengthens the church, if we want to do that without burning out, so listen, as we learned about tools, strategies and resources that will equip your team, and strengthen hope.
I'm Laura Howe and on the show today we're going to be talking with a friend of mine, Sonya Miller and I met Sonia online as she's part of the church care and mental health Facebook group. She posted a question that I was super intrigued with and her post said, my pastor told me to dream about what care ministry could be at our church, nothing was off the table.
So let's do that. What would you love to be able to do in your care ministries? And I thought that was such an amazing post and I love the conversation around it. So I followed up with Sonia, because it's sounded too good to be true. Nothing off the table who says that? I love it. It sounded like every care coordinator and care pastor's dream and Sonia was gracious enough to allow me to record our conversation as a fun twist on a podcast.
So this week's episode is Sonia and I dreaming together having just a casual conversation of what we would do in care ministry, if nothing was off the table.
I want to thank you so much, Sonia, for joining me for the podcast this week. This is a new adventure that we're trying out you. You posted on Facebook on our on our group or community Facebook page and you said, hey, my pastor just asked me, what would you want. No limits. Dream big. What would you want for a care ministry? And I love the conversation that was happening in the chat and so I reached out and invited you say, Hey, would you be open to having this conversation and recording it for podcasts? And I am so grateful that you said yes. So thank you so much for, for coming on.
Sonia Miller 02:08
Thank you for having me. It is exciting to be able to dream and think big about care ministry, because we can't over care for people. And so the more brains and the more input, the better, the better the ministry will be in the end. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
Laura Howe 02:24
That's awesome. So this is just going to be a casual conversation for those who are listening about us or dreaming and having ideas about care ministry, asking conversations or asking questions and having conversation about that. So you are kind of getting a behind the scenes sneak peek, what it would be.
So I want to start off Sonya with just questions about your church and your community. Not wanting to know like in depth stuff or anything like that, but what what kind of prompted this question or this, you know, this this, this leading or prompting from your pastor saying, hey, we want to we see that care ministry is important. We want to invest it Why Why was why did that come up
Sonia Miller 03:08
It for a couple of reasons. Because we're looking to to grow and expand on our care ministry, as well as community outreach has been kind of what we're focused on as we make our five year plan. But we've also been very blessed with a large bequest from a member of the congregation and so we're at a point where literally money is no object because of this gift. And so it's literally nothing is off the table and so it's exciting to think about and to dream about and so that's kind of how we got to where we are now.
Laura Howe 03:46
Oh my gosh, that literally is every person's dream. Every person just perked up the ear saying money is no option. What would you dream about? So tell me a little bit about your church.
Sonia Miller 03:56
We are basically an inner city church. We're in the downtown core, which presents some unique challenges, of course, because we are literally dealing with homeless individuals camped on our front lawn and so we have that to contend with as well as you know, just our congregants who come on a Sunday morning, we as a congregation are celebrating our 195 anniversary in just a few weeks and so it's yeah, it's an incredible milestone. So with that as well, we've had this presence within this community and so we're trying to really I guess, re envision how we connect closer with our community and maintain the the 195 year heritage that we have in the downtown core and it yeah, it's an it's a unique, a unique church and so we're just trying to piece it all together and to truly be able to move forward as the Lord is leading and guiding and directing and all of those things.
Laura Howe 05:15
It's almost like legacy building, right? You've been around you been a cornerstone in your community. Would you say that? What are some of the what's what are some of the care ministries or care programs that have already been happening?
Sonia Miller 05:31
So the whole care ministry position is new within the last year and a half or so. So a lot of it is just really getting up and getting going. But one of the things we've have done is grief, grief care, I guess we've we've done grief share in the past. But we're trying to be more specific about connecting individually with those who are walking through grief, those who are anticipating being in that situation has been a key point. And one of the new things we are just working on is a more specific care ministry in that we had a training session on the weekend, talking about visitation, both hospital care homes, and just in homes. But even more than that, just recognizing that we are 2023. And so legitimate care can simply be sending a text saying I'm thinking about you and praying for you today. So combining visitation, text, email, phone calls, handwritten notes, those types of things. So we've we've done some of that, but we're looking to expand that. And that's basically what we've been doing. And so now we're ready to Okay, but what more can we do, apart from those things?
Laura Howe 06:56
So up until about a year ago, everything was done, mostly on a volunteer basis, whether it was meals, visitation, prayer, kind of the volunteers or the the core will say lay leaders of the church have been kind of doing that primary care function. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I love how you're looking at it both from a technology perspective, like options as well as in person. Because I think leaning too heavily on tech, we lose the connection of a relationship with people. And then if we only do visitation, we lose opportunity to connect with many, many people at once. And so I love that they're looking at both ankles. Yeah. What would you say, are your church's biggest strengths right now?
Sonia Miller 07:50
Our biggest strengths are a legitimate desire to connect with people, for sure, because that's happening in in little pockets. But I think we're at a point where people are saying, hey, we need to expand this. And so let's work together to get to where we want to be, and to do and build an ethos of care into the congregation. And so it's, it's foundational and builds from there. But I think for sure, one of our biggest strengths is is our people love people. You know, I mentioned being essentially a downtown church and having a number of homeless individuals on our lawn. People will just as easily sit and talk with them and and invite them in for a cup of coffee or what have you, as they will, on a Sunday morning, go up and sit next to a brand new person in the pew and start a conversation. So it's, there's definitely a strength in in just loving others for who they really are.
Laura Howe 08:50
There's already that culture of care in your church, people are already driven by empathy and compassion, and just being you know, justice and humanity. I love that. That's really cool. What would you say is maybe a biggest need or biggest gap?
Sonia Miller 09:11
I think one of our biggest gaps is where we do extremely well, is crisis care. So and I think most churches do, because when there's a need people rally around and support, whether it's bringing a meal, sitting with someone, those types of things, which is fantastic. But I think one of our biggest gaps is just ensuring that as I like to say that everybody who walks through our doors, whether it's their first time they block through our doors or whether it's the you know, 1,000,000th time they walk through the doors that they they feel truly seen and loved and cared for. Because we we can't do those things enough and people heal when when they're loved well, and so that's the piece that I'm envisioning gapping more so is just making sure that it whether you're in crisis or not, you know that you're loved here and that you're cared for here and that you're, you're truly heard and seen
Laura Howe 10:21
That is probably the most powerful statement that you just said, and I had to write it down. So people heal when they feel when they are loved. Well, that is so, so powerful. And in your right at times of crisis, we can muster up the volunteers, we can get jump into action, but feeling loved well happens that can happen on a day to day basis on a week to week basis when people feel seen and heard, that usually you feel most loved, accepted and belong, when, you know, in those small moments. So that's good. Okay. Well, I asked those questions, the strengths, the needs, and the kind of the history of your church, because I like to look at that as almost like a venn diagram, where those three circles overlap, what is your, what is your greatest strengths, what is your greatest needs, and what is kind of the legacy or your church vision, and where are those overlaps is what I call the sweet spot.
And that's where things will, or grow quite quickly, or quite organically, and you want to invest in those areas, first, to build some momentum into developing your care ministry. So where there's already needs, where there's already strengths, and where your church is, is looking towards, or has a vision or a passion for, that's where you start. That's, that's kind of Ground Zero, if you have a strength and a vision, but really, the church isn't that great at it. Those are outreach opportunity. So your church is strong, but there's no needs within your church, but, but your church is strong in that and you're passionate about it. So those are ways that you can build into the community.
Now, if they, if there are real needs within your church within your congregation, but this is not an area that you're good at serving. That's an area where there's needs partnership. So I would say start first where the ground is soft dig first where the ground stuff with all of those areas overlap, where there's genuinely need, where your there is a strength and where your church division, that's where you start. And then the rest is either develop partners, or use as outreach opportunities on either side of those. So that's, I think, a great place to start. And I'm curious, in the you commented on the Facebook group before about, okay, what are some ideas of if money was no object? Have you? Have you kind of processed or developed some thoughts and ideas of the direction? You're gonna go? Yeah,
Sonia Miller 13:05
I think so. We've been, we've been talking a little bit about that, my, my pastor myself, I have a few ideas and obviously hoping to grow and expand those. So. Yeah, no, I'm gonna just shoot them. Ah, yeah, absolutely.
Laura Howe 13:21
Let's hear about them.
Sonia Miller 13:24
One of the things I would love to do would be to hire a counselor that would essentially be an employee of the church to offer free counseling services.
Laura Howe 13:35
Yeah. So who would receive those counseling services?
Sonia Miller 13:40
I would think we would open it to essentially anybody Now, having said that, there would have to be some sort of protocol and almost an application process, because the needs in society today are so great. That literally be you know,
Laura Howe 13:56
You’d fill them up in a day!
Sonia Miller 13:59
Right, exactly. So. So I would envision it, opening it to the community as well, of course, our congregation and take it from there and just see because again, we have a number of individuals who would benefit well everybody benefits from counseling over their lives, I'm convinced. But not everybody has a benefits package through work or, unfortunately, even a job. So if it's a service that we can provide free of charge, we can help those who need it, but just don't have the resources.
Laura Howe 14:35
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Let's hear another idea. I want to go back over each idea, but I want to hear them all first.
Sonia Miller 14:41
Okay. This seems like a small thing. But one of the things that I I'm realizing is that no act of care is too small. And so with that, I'm thinking kind of providing little treats or small gifts to our community workers, teachers, emergency personnel those types of people? Yeah, just a way to say thank you.
Laura Howe 15:08
That's amazing. Love it, great opportunity to
Sonia Miller 15:12
We that's what you have, right? It ties it all in together, for sure. We have a childcare facility within the church. And so there, there are ways we can also do better to connect with the educators there as well as the families. And so we can offer little gifts to our staff, to the staff there and do something for the families, whatever that might look like, as well. As I mentioned, I would love to do some sort of mental health event where we could bring you in, and do whatever that looks like as well as symposium or something along those lines. Fun. And the last that I have at this point is put together, for lack of better term, a grief package. And that may sound odd to say, but just some sort of care package that we can give to grieving families. Thinking more specifically at Christmas as they walked through the first Christmas without a loved one. Just if, if there's a special memento of that individual we could put in there or whatever it looks like something that just says you know what we haven't. We haven't forgotten you as you walk through this holiday.
Laura Howe 16:32
Yeah, yeah. I love those ideas. Those are really great ideas. I get to jump back to the first one and just give some thoughts on each of them to kind of maybe he gives some ideas of what I've heard other people do not saying one thing is right, or one thing is wrong.
But the question that I get most is what are other churches doing? And I think it's a great question, because we want to learn from tried and true methods. But I also want to recognize that every community is different and so what works on one community might not work in another culturally, it's different, the vibe is different, just the services that are available are different. So I don't think any care ministry can be offered as a prescription, or prescriptive of what will work or what should happen.
It needs to be flexible and adaptable to mold to your community needs and your and your cultural needs of your area and so around hiring a counselor, there's been a couple of different models, where people partner with a counseling agency and provide scholarships for the agency. So they don't necessarily hire counselors, but they provide scholarships or sponsorships. so other people can be receive counseling from outsiders and so it changes shifts it so that the church doesn't have another employee, but you're still making it available for other people.
Another idea is where churches offer meeting space, or rent free counseling space for counselors who are starting up or looking for space to to have their sessions with people. And so you are creating space for people to meet in and then can subsidize on a sliding scale or full scholarship for people to be able to support or seek support.
There's pros and cons to having a counselor under staff being a staff person. The confidentiality issues or small community issues or dual relationship issues sometimes come into play. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I think it's a great idea. I just just being fully informed that when someone's worship stops besides within the same congregation, as their counselor, it can cause some challenges. But you're not saying that you're hiring a counselor from within your congregation, it could be someone else coming in. And so there's benefits because then you have a trusted community where they know okay, this person aligns with the faith of my church and my community. And so it can create great, really great benefits of having a counselor as long as the counselor has supervision or has access to debrief with someone that is maybe not a staff person. And there's clear understanding around what is confidential to the counselor and confidential to ministry staff, as long as those lines are clearer.
And you're aware that dual relationships of having a counselor within the same congregation and people are fine with that and are able to make that informed decision. I think it's a funnel Model idea and I think it's a wish list for many my church as well, many churches, including my own is to be able to offer counseling.
So a couple different models is offering scholarships to external people offer being a place to host and and meeting space to independent counselors, and then having counselors as staff. So so many different options there but providing and funding counseling is a beautiful, and I think would be very high on many people's checklist of what things they would love to do if money was no option.
Yeah, I don't know I hopefully I don't hopefully that didn't muddy the waters just giving some different options. No, not at all. The gifts to community workers. I know that is my local churches like that's what we strive to do on like Teacher Appreciation Day, or administration administrators day I think was just happened. You know, all first responders, Nurses Week, Social Worker Week, there's all of these recognitions, or awareness weeks or support weeks for all of these people. And, and I think it's a beautiful way to say we're partnering with you, we're connecting with you we are we're standing with you and we support you. I also would recommend connecting with a chaplain or having a chaplain relationship with a chaplain because there's often chaplains with the fire department, the police, the hospital, and so they would know the people and might be really helpful in in getting your foot in the door to be able to provide that support.
I have said a couple different times that if I can, if I had a wish list of a hire in my in my church, it would be for a chaplain, because a chaplain could provide spiritual direction and support internally, as well as often welcomed within the community. And Sonia, you and I are both Canadian and so in our Canadian context, faith is not always celebrated in our public sector. And so but chaplaincy is often welcomed, and the doors open for chaplains versus maybe a pastor and so it's a great way for an internal support for within your church congregants, but also you as it doors will open for a chaplain to be part of first responders, hospitals and schools even. And so you're able to have that spiritual care as an internal support as well as outreach. So that's another option of supporting some of those first responders and educators and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Love it.
Yeah, mental health event. Oh, I'm a big fan. So love that. So there's two resources of mental health Sunday. mentalhealthsunday.com is where you can host a mental health Sunday like it's a Sunday morning service, you can do a whole event and people have used that as a an outreach opportunity, come learn and see how our church supports those who are struggling with mental health. And then I'm hoping oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this. I am hoping, oh, I'm like biting my tongue. I'm hoping to develop something where local churches I'm holding back, what can I share? What can I share? Where local churches can host their own mental health event in their region drawing in ministry leaders and championing mental health in their region and so I'm hoping to put together a toolkit or, you know, a conference in a box or an event in a box kind of thing to support churches so that they can champion mental health in their community. And so be Stay tuned, stay tuned, because it's coming hopefully, by the end of 2023 will have that. So that's coming up soon.
And then the grief package. This is I think, where people are so are there's so much vulnerability in grief. And everyone experiences grief, whether it's a loss of a loved one or a loss of a job or, or you know, it doesn't loss and grief I so it's human, we all experience this and so I think being having an intentional strategy to support people in this moment, because you know, every person is going to experience a moment of grief at some point in time, I think is really absolutely brilliant.
In the cohort, we go through more in detail of here's different steps but one of the tools that I use in my church is it's, have you ever heard of Stephens ministry? Yes, So Stephens ministry has really, really great grief booklets and, and you get four and a package and so you do at the time of the law. last three months, and I think it's six months and then one here, and you send out these booklets that walk someone, it's not pushy. It's just a little, you know, almost like a leaflet or a little booklet that can walk with someone in those times. It's just one year, it's just for the first year. And so for my church, we sent out a card and that booklet, on those kind of three months, six month anniversary of the loss, but I've heard of many churches, just having that reminder of a loss and sending a card or a note, or like you said, a text of supporting someone through that.
Sonia Miller 25:40
Look into those booklets. Yeah, they're phenomenal.
Laura Howe 25:42
They're really, really great. And I'll make sure I kind of forgot that we're recording on a podcast. So make sure that we put that link to those booklets in the show notes. So if anyone else is interested in them, definitely can find them there. Because they are really quite lovely. They're really, really quite good. I was wondering, Sonia, if you had a moment, a few more moments where I can talk a little bit about kind of more of a strategic approach to building your care ministry.
Have you ever seen the triangle diagram of care ministry that I've created, it's kind of like a model of care? Yes, if not, I'm going to share my screen. And for those who are listening, I will describe it the best, very best that I can. As I click through my files here, trying to find it, oh, my goodness doing this two things at once. I'm having a hard time doing that. But I will find it and I will have it on the show notes. This is a triangle upside down triangle with the point on the bottom, where people are able to where it's divided into five sections horizontally, I am not great at multitasking. This is hilarious. parody, I found it. This will be this will be on the show notes. And it's a triangle upside down. Okay, so this triangle is called the model of care. And I don't want to like I've adapted this from other models of care. And it's split into five different categories horizontally. So the top of the largest section is self care. This next one is community. The third is peer. The fourth is pastoral. And the fifth one is professional care. And I think in every area of our life, this is how individuals humankind access care. They take care of their self, they have coping strategies, we read a book, we go for a walk, we have a bath, we sleep, we meditate, listen to music, there's all kinds of things we do to care for ourselves.
And I think and then there's community where we're in groups were in clubs were in baseball teams were in run clubs and book clubs, they're just being together and belonging to a community is really important. We have our peers, those people that we look to, to for support, we have lots of friends, but we don't always go for coffee with every single one of them and share our heart and struggles, right. So there's intentional people that we find peer support with. And then the fifth one I have identified as pastoral or sorry, fourth one identified as pastoral but really, these are like professional services. So like nutrition, or exercise or financial coaching, like these are just areas that there are people who are very highly skilled or certified in specific areas, and then professional, so more clinical services.
And, and everyone receives care in all of these areas and I think the church has the capacity or ideally the church can serve people in every single one of these areas. So Sonia if you're looking at developing care ministry from the ground up with no limitations on finances, I would start off, not start off but consider each of these areas and say, Okay, how can I or church support self care? What can we do? Well, how can we equip people, what tools what resources, what tips and these can be anything from like, talking from the stage on forgiveness, and who you are in Christ, or, you know, talking about Sabbath and how rest is important and and just considering how we are supporting people and equipping them with the tools for them to develop self care, positive, healthy self care habits so this is one area.
The next area is community well, da, the churches amazing at building community and I think this is what you were talking about this area is when someone walks in the door, they feel like they belong and that they're accepted. And we can do that in a in a number of different ways. We can have greeters that look people in the eye and call people by name.
We can have intentional people who sit and look for people who are alone or want to sit and just check in obviously respect people's boundaries and what they ask for, we can have prayer teams available so that there's always someone live that they can connect with that they, if they have a need that they can go to in prayer, these communities, small groups is a great way to build community and you can have small groups on, gosh, any number of topics, whether it's, you know, hobbies, to, to recovery, there's so many different ways that we can provide community around volunteering, and outreach opportunities, and you know, all kinds of things. So community is a really great one I think the church is already doing well in. And it sounds like your church is really doing well in that area.
And then peer support is more of those intentional mentors, or coaches in your church, that are walk alongside people, they're not therapists, they're not counselors, but they walk alongside people as they journey through life's challenges. And I think training is a key part here is developing a team of mentors, coaches, care, you know, care providers, that are that through their lived experience, are able to support others. And that could be an addictions, recovery, it could be in divorce, it could be, you know, adoption, it could be overcoming a cancer, or it could be walking through grief.
You know, there's so many different areas of life and so many people in your church probably that are highly skilled who, who've gone through hardship and now are, you know, have the skills to be able to support others. And so I really, this is when anyone talks about training, I really recommend this peer really engage in this peer support and developing teams and people for for that.
And then pastoral care. This really is different for every church, do your church does your church selling? Yeah, have pastoral care where your church where your pastors meet one on one with people? Yes, they do. Yeah. Yeah, I know, a lot of churches that don't, not for anything other than the gifts on the leadership team right now are not specific to, to counseling or care. But that role of a chaplain or developing some intake process for pastoral care, so that they're not, they don't have to be all things to all people, you know, rounding that out with some, you know, just those admin processes of intake and, and follow up and documentation and things like that are can be really helpful. And then professional, we already talked about with the counseling services.
And so while I'm not saying what is the perfect care ministry, because I don't think there is one, I think one meets your community's needs and your church's needs. This is a way to organize or maybe be strategic in okay, what levels or what ways we our church can offer care in a in a strategic way or an error in a broader way. So hopefully, I don't know was that if that was helpful, I wanted to make sure I share that.
Sonia Miller 33:13
Yeah, that's very helpful. I wrote, I wrote notes.
Laura Howe 33:19
If you could hear back from if anyone if we start a chat on on the page again, what would you love to hear from other people who have found, you know, have started or been in care ministry for for a while? What? What kind of feedback or ideas are you looking for?
Sonia Miller 33:40
I would love to hear things that have worked really well. Of course, you want to know what what people's success stories are for all kinds of reasons. But yeah, if something's working, well, then let's hear it and perhaps it's something that can be implemented. And I guess two things that haven't worked well, you know, is something is had tried to knock on Well, then. That's nice to know, too, because then maybe you were thinking about that but you go into with a little bit more may not work and just, you know, a little bit more cautiously, I guess. So. Yeah, I think those would be the things Yeah, absolutely. What what has gone well, and has been that and by gone well, I mean, it has ministered to and encouraged you know, the greatest number of people because our, our perception of gone well might be planning a grief event and you're planning on 50 people coming in three came but those three people were deeply impacted by that time. That's still a pretty, pretty huge win as far as I'm concerned. You know, numbers don't tell the whole story.
Laura Howe 34:51
That's true. It's very true, especially in care and you can't quantify the support someone receives right. The so much It's we're trying to get data and numbers. And was this successful or not? I think the measurement of success and care is so different compared to maybe viewers have or likes on social or viewers on your YouTube or things like that. But it's hard to measure how an individual has been impacted. While at the same time you wanting to steward the resources that your your church has and what your care ministry has. So it's it's definitely a delicate balance.
Sonia Miller 35:30
Yes, very much. So.
Laura Howe 35:33
Yeah. Well, Sonia, thank you so much. I appreciate you jumping on. I hope I didn't talk too much. I hope we were able to kind of brainstorm some ideas. And and, and I am excited to walk alongside you and hear about how you're developing your care ministry there in Monkton. I'm very excited for you.
Sonia Miller 35:53
Well, thank you. Yeah, this has been very helpful. And I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation as well, because, you know, it's a brand new brand new ministry here. And so I certainly don't have all of the answers or any. So this is going to be enormous encouragement and blessing.
Laura Howe 36:13
Yeah. I think people don't realize that everyone is in the same boat where everyone is kind of trying to make it up as they go. And you're not alone in that most definitely not alone in that and in The Care Ministry Cohort there, you're on a call with, you know, 20 churches asking all the same questions. And one of the main things that people are often saying on the call is like, I thought I was the only one trying to flounder, I was floundering in this area, or I didn't know how to handle benevolence, or I don't know what to do about prayer requests.
How do we follow up on those? You're not the only one that is really trying to figure out how to do this and making it up as you go. I think I think many if not most of us are in that same boat. So I hopefully that that provides some encouragement, at least that you're not alone. Thank you.
Hey, thanks for listening. It is so refreshing to connect and talk with other passionate leaders about care, because ministry can be so isolating. There's not a lot of people who understand the nuances of this work. So bouncing ideas dreaming or strategizing can be really difficult when it's just you and Google. Throughout the year I host care gatherings, 90 minute calls where care leaders could gather online connect, brainstorm and bounce ideas off of each other's you don't have to do it alone. If you'd like to join the next call. To register just go to hopemade strong.org/community or scroll down and click the link in the show notes. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this fun episode, and the provides you with creative ideas, support and tools to serve your community. Thanks for connecting take care
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