September 27, 2023 • 58 mins
**EPISODE TRIGGER WARNING**
This episode contains some discussion about suicide, violence, and other potentially traumatic material. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek professional help or, in Australia contact Lifeline 13 11 14.
Jo Muirhead is a Rehabilitation Counsellor and is the founder of Purple Co. Purple Co facilitates workplace recovery by emphasizing the holistic integration of health, recovery, purpose and choice.
In this episode, Jo relates how there are vocational hazards in the helping and serving professions that are not always evident. She relays her experience in assessing and re-designing work roles in high stress, high pressure roles, to manage burnout and psychosocial risk. Jo shares her work riding in ambulances observing and detailing what pressures are unseen, and how revealing one statement by an ambo "Don't take us out of the truck!" relates to wellbeing in ministry.
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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!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Valerie Ling (00:05):
Hey, it's Valerie Ling.
I'm a clinical psychologist andI'm your host for the clergy
well-being Down Under podcast.
I'm looking forward tointerviewing an expert today to
take you through my findingsfrom my research where I asked
200 pastors down under how theywere doing.
Don't forget to subscribe, likeand share.
(00:26):
Buckle up, and here we go.
Welcome back to another episodeof the clergy well-being Down
Under podcast.
I have a very dear friend withme, jo Nealhead, and I could
introduce her in so manydifferent ways, but the first
(00:48):
thing I'm going to say is thatJo is a dear friend and we have
some common interest in theburnout space.
Jo also has experience in thechurch space and has interesting
things that we talk about, butwe also genuinely like to tinker
(01:11):
around with some of the mutualpuzzles that we see we can help
people to work in a way that'ssustainable.
Jo Muirhead (01:18):
Yeah, absolutely, that's a great introduction, I'm
glad.
Valerie Ling (01:23):
So, jo, like I said, there are so many
different reasons why I want totalk to you, but I'm going to
talk to you as your professional, with your professional hat on,
and your ministry and churchinformed itself.
So would you care to justintroduce yourself and your
business and what you do?
Jo Muirhead (01:42):
Sure.
So thank you, valerie.
The first thing I'm going tosay is I'm a career loving mum
and it's taken me the full 23years that my son has been alive
to own that.
So I know that a lot of womenin the church and ministry space
really struggle with the juggleand I really own.
I'm a career loving mum andhe's happy with that.
(02:03):
I'm happy with that and I feellike it's a good given thing.
So there we go.
I'm a rehabilitation counsellorby qualification, so I went to
university.
I have a undergraduate degreein health sciences, so I went to
the same schools asphysiotherapists, occupational
therapists, speech and languagepathologists, some psychologists
(02:24):
and my area of special interestbecause we don't say expert
anymore, do we, valerie?
My area of special interest ishelping people navigate their
who they are, how they work andthe intersection of making work
a part of their whole life.
So I have a consulting practiceof rehabilitation counsellors
(02:48):
and OTs and mental health socialworkers where we help people
reclaim their life through theirwork.
So I used to say we help peoplereturn to work after injury,
illness and trauma.
But what we're noticing now,since the pandemic and since the
epidemic of burnout, is thatpeople don't just need to return
(03:09):
to work.
We actually need to have aconversation about making our
work good for us and healthy forus.
So I've got nearly 30 yearsexperience in doing this and I
have been in church for a reallylong time.
I've been in and out of churchfor a really long time.
I've had some periods where Iwas in, some periods where I'm
(03:29):
out.
I've had some experience acrosslots of different faith
denominations.
We've had quite a differentexposure to different people in
leadership and different faithscome through our business.
So we've been able to help themnavigate this experience of my
work's no longer healthy for me,my work's no longer working for
(03:51):
me, and the crisis that thatcan bring up, especially for
people in leadership positionsin faith.
Now, it was a really good lucktyping that out people.
Valerie Ling (04:03):
Amazing.
I love that.
And of course, you also have acoaching business, so you're no
stranger to working with leadersand owners of businesses just
also trying to make their bestwork for themselves.
Jo Muirhead (04:17):
Absolutely and I feel that's a part of my gifting
to the world is how do wecreate ways of working, how do
we create, create businessesthat support our lifestyles, not
consumers.
And I think and I think that'ssuch an important topic or
important framework to have,especially for people who are in
ministry, because I havewatched so many people myself
(04:40):
was included become totallyconsumed by their church life,
by their faith life, by theirministry life.
And you might think, well,that's not a bad thing, that's
what Jesus did, that's what theapostles did, that's what we're
called to do.
Yeah, but Jesus also had a lotof rest.
He also took himself away.
(05:01):
He also made them go eat andleave me alone.
So there are some lessons thatI spent a lot of time thinking
about this, because I'm very,very conflicted about it for a
long time, val.
Valerie Ling (05:14):
And Joe, I've been thinking about you a lot and
the image that keeps coming backto me.
And I'll tell you why I've beenthinking about you because I'm
a psychologist and myobservation is that in the
church spaces we've relied a loton psychology as a profession
to help people who are inministry, who are burning out
through the individualresilience piece.
(05:34):
But I'm really starting tothink that there's a lot that we
need to look in terms of theministry design and the role
design and the organizationaldesign piece.
And the image that keeps comingback to me is you riding with
the Ambo's?
Jo Muirhead (05:49):
Yes, oh yeah, the two weeks that I did riding with
the Ambo's.
Valerie Ling (05:54):
Yes, yeah, you were called in, I suspect, to go
and investigate and see whattheir role, what the work design
was and how that was impactingthem.
I would love to know why werethe Ambo's Keene?
If you're able to tell us, whydon't they want to get you
riding with their people?
Jo Muirhead (06:12):
Yeah, so that was an amazing project and it is
really helped informed a lot ofmy work, particularly for
frontline professionals, whichpastors, leaders, ministry
people need to understand theyare in the frontline.
Okay, so at that time theambulance service of New South
Wales so this was quite someyears ago was doing a big piece
(06:33):
of work, trying to understandthe physical and psychological
risks inherent to their work andwhat they were noticing was
that ambulance officers were notreporting stress symptoms or
pathological symptoms.
I'm trying not to use psychologyspeak, so they weren't
reporting distress or PTSDaround things like multi vehicle
(06:57):
accidents or being threatenedwith a knife or having to turn
up to a domestic violencedispute where a kid had been
hurt.
Yeah, those images are horrible, but it was turning up in a way
that they were saying I hate itwhen I'm stuck at Westmead
(07:17):
Hospital in Sydney and my entire10 hour shift is waiting for a
bed to be available in emergencybecause they weren't out on the
road doing the job they weretrying to do.
In their mind they were going.
People are dying because I'mstuck here in this emergency
back because you may not know ifyou're in an ambulance and
(07:39):
you're taken to a hospital,there's no bed for you.
The ambulance officer can'tleave you, okay.
So that was one thing that.
The second thing that we learnedalong the way was that the
ambulance officers at that pointin time were like can you stop
taking me off the road?
Basically, anything that wastaking them off the road
(07:59):
meetings, unnecessary meetings,change management, emails that
make no sense, submitting for acertification that they'd
already got, the certificationof the certification of anything
that was taking them off theirduties and off their job.
That is actually what wediscovered was the primary
problem.
But what they were then lookingfor as a part of the work I was
(08:23):
doing was how to help usunderstand what the
psychological and thepsychosocial which like the
relational demands of this jobare, so that we can be better
informed to help people comeback to work in a way that's
safe.
So there were two things thatwere going on in that project.
Now it was like a baptism offire for me, because I spent two
weeks doing it, so I wasnightshifting King's Cross in an
(08:45):
ambulance total new learningfor me.
I spent a 10 hour shift at theemergency room of Westmead.
Valerie Ling (08:53):
Hospital.
Jo Muirhead (08:55):
I turned up and I got to watch an emergency
paramedic on a motorcycleresuscitate somebody back to
life.
So in that two week period Igot to experience their
adrenaline, their serotonin,their dopamine and I had to
watch them turn up to work dayafter day.
It was exhilarating, it wasdraining, but wow, was it
(09:19):
informative.
And then from that lens I'vebeen able to take some of that
knowledge and apply it to policeofficers, rural fire service
officers who we often don'tthink of because of volunteers
and, of course, the ministryspace, because after what I've
seen happen in some of churchleadership, it almost feels like
(09:42):
the work health and safety lawsthat we have in this country to
protect our employees don'tapply.
And I say that quite openly andpeople might hate on you for
that, but it really does feellike you can't get away in
corporate Australia or smallbusiness Australia with some of
the things that go on, unhealthythings, that go on in church
(10:03):
life.
Valerie Ling (10:05):
So let's reflect together a little bit in terms
of your experience with thefirst responders.
You know like it's so big.
What did you, what did yourecognize as being okay?
Here is some some work, health,safety or work design issues
that just weren't apparent, butthen it's so common sense.
You just need to think aboutthis.
(10:26):
People, I mean, were there,were there things like that?
Or when the police officer.
Jo Muirhead (10:31):
I remember this guy can still see his face.
He turned around to because Isaid to him what do you think
the most psychologicallydemanding part of this job is?
He was driving an ambulancethrough Sydney traffic.
He turned around to look at me.
So I'm freaking out right nowand he goes taking me out of the
truck, like taking me out ofthe truck and I went oh, of
course.
(10:51):
So these are people who you turnup to be a police officer and
ambulance officer or a fire, thefire what do we call those guys
?
The fiery, or in the rural fireservice, or in the minors.
Not everyone chooses to do that.
The people who choose to dothat are doing that on a set of
values and a part of who theyare.
They want to serve, they wantto wear a uniform, they want to
(11:13):
feel good about what they'redoing.
That you know.
They want to be energized by bytheir work.
So if you give people a skillset because you have to do, like
to get into the ambulance, thepolice, the fire, is not easy to
get through.
The training is not easy to getthrough.
Your first lot of supervisedsessions is not easy, and then
you're going to start tellingpeople.
(11:34):
Well, I'm going to be a forceshifts on this week.
I'm actually going to take youout of the truck and stop you
from saving lives because I needyou to go over here and
complete this work.
Health and safety program or andso for me, the design of that.
I get it from a compliancepoint of view, but the design of
it totally ignored the valuesthat make these people awesome
(11:57):
at the work that they wereemployed to do.
So we see that with policeofficers, when they're taken
away from you know you take themout of their communities.
The police officer design.
I've done a lot of work withpolice officers.
A lot of police officers willwork in the communities in which
they live.
So they're constantlyapprehending people, bar fights,
(12:20):
domestic violence but whenthey're in uniform, they feel
protected by the uniform and bythe weapons they have at their
disposal.
Now I'm not suggesting they'reall firearms because they're not
right.
So we have this magic way ofhelping them return to work by
taking all that off them.
(12:40):
But they still live in thesecommunities.
So I remember a gentleman, apolice officer, turning up.
He was distressed and he'd comeout of some horrible back back
before that.
We'd sorted out how to dealmore effectively with gangs.
We had a lot of gang violencecoming on.
So he turned up to meet with mebecause we were going to talk
(13:02):
about his vocational future andhis career future.
And he was.
He couldn't sit still.
And I worked out.
I said hey, how do we need toset this room up so that you can
concentrate?
Yes, I need to see the door.
Well, okay, cool.
So we just changed how we weresitting.
And then I just looked at himand went you're still really
nervous, what's going on here?
And he goes I'm uncomfortablebecause you don't know that I'm
(13:24):
carrying a weapon.
Now I felt very uncomfortableknowing there's a weapon in the
room.
So I went well, why don't weput it on the table so we can
both see it?
And he brought out this bigknife and he put it on the table
and I went cool.
And then I had to have adiscussion with him about when
do you think you would need touse it?
Why did you feel it necessaryto bring it here?
(13:44):
And that's when he told me allof the protective measures that
I have been given got taken offme as soon as I made a claim
saying that I'm not well enoughto work.
Yet I'm still expected to walkaround my street, go to the
shopping center, go to myphysiotherapist, go to my
psychologist.
I just don't feel safe.
I went oh, that's huge.
(14:07):
So again, from a designperspective, we get so caught up
in compliance, compliance, riskmanagement, compliance, risk
management, compliance that weoften forget that the human has
to exist in a social space.
(14:28):
And they don't exist as a setof checklists.
Valerie Ling (14:34):
And it is a checklist.
I think that creates the tasks.
We just keep piling them on.
We can't do the ministry space.
But I think what you've said hasa lot of parallel.
I just chunk it down now andI'm really interested in your
rehab consultant hat going.
You know, practically this isprobably what it means and this
(14:55):
is probably what the directionthat we need to take to fix it
right.
So, number one, just like yousaid, for the last decade we
have known that people inministry feel disconnected to
the real core task.
But why are they trained?
Why they wanted to do full timeministry?
So you know the preaching andteaching of the gospel,
(15:16):
discipling others.
You know caring for a brokenwall by sharing.
You know Jesus with them.
That meaning work isdisconnected to what they do.
70, 80% of the time, yep, right.
So from I've observed that thesolution, therefore, has been to
(15:36):
try to give people more timeoff, make sure they're taking
vacations, looking at you knowthey work hours and you know
trying to maybe reduce some ofthe maybe meeting.
But is that all?
It is no.
Jo Muirhead (15:54):
No, it's not, and this is where we run into some
complications.
So for most of the overworkedministry leaders that I have
worked with and experienced inmy life, the common thing that
there are two things that comeup for me, and one is they're
completely under resourced, andtwo is they are dealing with
(16:16):
traumatic experiences that theyhave got no hope on earth have
been under process by themselves.
So let me speak into that onefirst.
So I live with an ex seniorpastor.
He's my husband and he he I washorrified when he started to
tell me some of the things hedid early on when he was
building a church.
He was.
He turns up to suit thefamilies would call him instead
(16:40):
of the police when a familymember suicide it.
So he would turn up to a garagewhere somebody a member of his
congregation had hung themselvesand then he had to get that
person down and then he chose tocall the police.
Then he tells stories aboutpeople doing this on train lines
and then he tells stories aboutdomestic violence.
(17:01):
Now, that's his stories.
I know I've heard other storieswhere you value your
psychologist.
If you had a psychologist onyour team who was witness to
those things, you would put awhole heap of protocols in place
to help that person be safe.
None of that goes on.
None of it.
There's just supposed to get onwith that and pass to their
flock.
I can health professionals knowthat if we turned up to an
(17:27):
event like that, there aremechanisms that we would need to
put into place to help us besafe around that, so that we
have we have somebody that weneed to go and talk to.
We might engage in EMDR oranother type of modality that
helps us process that trauma,because they don't just go away
because you don't think aboutthem all the time.
They turn up in other ways.
(17:47):
So that's a resourcing issue.
And I know you've got a wholething about supervision and I'm
grateful that we now havesupervision.
It's a little bit horrified athow small it is, but anyway.
Then we've got the whole underresourcing problem.
So you've got people who arethe visionaries of their church
and they're in this apostolicposition where they are expected
(18:08):
to grow a church, grow thefinances of the church, feed the
flock, teach, preach, teach,teach, make people aware, report
to a board or a synod orwhatever terminology you have
there.
So essentially, you've got your.
If you parallel this to thecorporate world.
You've got your businessdevelopment, you know.
(18:30):
You've got your CEO, yourbusiness development manager or
your, you know.
Then you've got your techperson, because all churches
need to be up to date with alltech and audio visual.
Then you've got your whole.
You've got to be the leader ofyour ministry around worship and
kids, and so what we find ispeople they don't have.
They have great heart to lead,to teach and to share the gospel
(18:52):
.
What they're not skilled at isbuilding team.
What they're not skilled at isdelegation.
What they're not skilled at isbuilding a high performing team.
And then there's this incredibletension between how do I have
enough money left over at theend of the week to keep my
family fed?
What do I need to do to makesure that people keep giving us
(19:14):
money while I'm trying to do allof these other things?
And I think it's just acomplete lack of resourcing.
Most businesses would havesomebody in charge of looking
after the money, looking afterthe sales and marketing, making
sure there's enough money comingin, looking after the team and
all the resources.
But it's not until you'regetting to hundreds of people in
(19:37):
a church that you can start toresource the church properly.
So what do we do?
We rely on volunteers, andvolunteers aren't going to have
as much skin in the game.
So then what do we resort to?
Manipulative, super spiritualtactics that help shame and
blame our volunteers becausethey're not committed, because
they're out there trying to earnenough money to keep the church
(19:59):
afloat, because you, as theleader in the church, don't have
enough resources.
That the whole design isthought, which is why we need
Christ, which is why we need theHoly Spirit, and so.
But I'm just saying, yeah, thatthe design of it, if you, if
you took that model out into theworld, it would fall flat.
(20:21):
Yeah, we wonder why we have somany people in ministry burning
out, which often turns up with amoral fall or a moral failing,
because we only tend to takenotice of the burnout when it
gets that extreme end game whenit's end game, yeah, and then we
can shame and blame all ofthese ministry leaders and
(20:43):
saying you weren't faithfulenough, you weren't disciplined
enough, you didn't read yourword enough.
You know it's easy to say, youknow you didn't keep it in your
pants or you know you were lyingwhen you were saying all these
people were being healed and youknow you were just
orchestrating it.
You were trying to do the workof the Holy Spirit without going
.
What on earth was so brokenthat this that led this person
(21:06):
to this place?
Valerie Ling (21:09):
You know, Joe, I've also been really digging
into looking at psychologicalsafety and one of the models
that I've come across talksabout how you know when there's
social and reputational threat,like social threats, the stakes
are so much higher because it'sright into the individual.
(21:29):
And one of the things I've beenreflecting on is how much
current church ministrycertainly can only speak with.
What I see in Sydney, yeah, ismoving on that influence apart.
You know the pastor who's got,you know a huge church and
there's a reputation and there'san influence, but it's really
(21:52):
costly.
From a work design or a roledesign.
That is a costly space to be in, is it not?
Absolutely.
Jo Muirhead (22:00):
And the church influences the church and the
church influences space.
That's intriguing me as well,because I can actually see it.
So my social media research isshowing me that people are
dissatisfied with the really bigmega churches.
And you know what?
I think we've reached a periodof time in history where they've
done their job for a while OK,they'll come back and people are
(22:22):
looking for a more intimatereal life connection.
Yet we've got these people inchurch leadership who are really
paddling very, very hard ontothe surface just to keep people
in seats.
They haven't processed theimpact of COVID on their
congregation.
They haven't processed theimpact of COVID on themselves.
(22:44):
How do I know this?
Most health professionalshaven't.
Valerie Ling (22:47):
Yeah.
Jo Muirhead (22:48):
Right.
So we just ran, we just went oh, can't do it in person, now
we're going to do it online.
Now we're doing hybrid.
How do we do hybrid?
We better get small groupsconnected.
Oh my God.
Offerings up, offerings down.
Should we put a new conferenceon?
Should we not put a newconference on?
And nobody's got time to take abreath.
So in terms of psychologicalsafety, it's a huge problem.
(23:11):
So an influencer putsthemselves out for all sorts of
hate.
If you are going to putyourself out there and say
things about the gospel in avery, very open space like
social media, you can expect tobe persecuted.
It is going to happen.
And if you don't have theresilience, the personal
(23:33):
resilience, if you are notactivating your resilience, if
you are not working closely witha mentor and supervisor,
consistently and frequently,that is going to eat you up,
because it eats everybody up.
Valerie Ling (23:48):
This is the midpoint break for the podcast.
If you want to put a pause andwalk away and come back with it,
make sure you do check out thedescription for all the various
downloads that we have for you,including my full report,
research and reflections.
You might also want to rememberto like, share and subscribe.
So stop now or keep going.
(24:11):
Do you know what's theinteresting thing I've noticed
in myself, Joe?
So you and I, we know that acostly space for us to be in
business is that marketing.
These days, a lot of it is insocial media.
We have so many things thathelp us with that.
But here's an interesting thingI've noticed.
We talked about how one of thedifferences in churches is that
(24:32):
we have volunteers.
So, myself as a parishioner inmy church system I'm super
stressed whether I'm on music atthe service that I go to,
because it's the recordedstreamed.
Now, one part of my identity isI almost became a musician, so
(24:54):
you can imagine all of thethinking that goes in my head
when I'm knowing that I'm beingrecorded.
And the one time, joe, Ire-listened to the recording, I
was so horrified I didn't wantto play ever again.
It took so much work on myselfto say I'll just get back.
(25:16):
But do you know what?
I refuse to service leave Ifthat service just will not do it
.
Now for me as a volunteer, interms of me retracting my sense
of meaning in serving the Lordin my own way, it's more thing
too, because I'm calculating myown vulnerability in this new
environment.
It's like a whole system hasshifted since the pandemic has
(25:40):
hit us.
Jo Muirhead (25:41):
Yeah, I have a similar story.
So yours is about music.
So I put my hand up to host ouronline community.
So I because I am very presentonline because of that's how I
help my business grow I've nowgot my church community and my
work community.
I don't segregate the two.
(26:01):
So I feel like if I'm notpromoting my church work as much
as I'm promoting my businesswork, then the people in church
are going to judge me and tellme I'm not doing it really well.
But then my people in mybusiness will be going.
We don't necessarily need tohear about that all of the time,
so they're going to judge meharshly as well.
And then I found myself overthis last weekend reflecting
that I know I have got a really,really big eight weeks ahead of
(26:25):
me and I had.
I did the really uncomfortablething where I have to cut off
everything.
That is a nice to have.
So I've actually blocked out onplanning centre which is the
planning centre, whatever thatthing is and told my church I'm
actually not available until themiddle of October.
Now they've just seen mecelebrate my birthday all over
(26:46):
social media, going out andbeing celebrated and eating
great food and eating a lot ofclava cheesecake, which is
awesome.
So for me then to go whoops, Ineed to let you know I'm not
available now, that it's like Idon't even want to turn up to
church this week because I'mscared.
People are going to ask why,when I know that to look after
(27:08):
myself and make sure I'm doing,the thing that I know is that.
I know that.
I know that.
I know that this is the thing Ineed to do get the attention
Like I have to strip offeverything else.
But yeah, it's a perception ofothers and our need to people
please and our need to getaffirmation in our church,
because we are very good atweaponising spirituality to
(27:32):
guilt and shame people intodoing work.
Valerie Ling (27:37):
And I'm wondering, because I just went through an
exercise in our own business andI call it the pandemic stand
down that a lot of the thingsthat we brought in to prop us up
just created extra work.
But the three main reasons I'dlove to come back to this
because I think your resourcingthing is really interesting the
three reasons ministers aresaying that they would leave and
(28:00):
, mind you, these are the onesthat have hung on right.
So we've been talking.
you know we're months and yearsnow past what it was all before
Loneliness.
Jo Muirhead (28:14):
Yeah, and we know it's none of the one of the most
debilitating factors.
There's a ministry forloneliness in Great Britain.
Their government has a ministerfor loneliness.
It's that big of a deal.
Valerie Ling (28:27):
Anyway, keep going , I know amazing right Impact on
family and you know we didn'tdrill down what sort, but it
could be work stress, but Isuspect there's also a lot of
psychological safety for family,because that's the uniqueness
of the ministry role.
I want to say that you know,whenever we take a minister down
, you know there's a wholefamily and kids and a whole
(28:49):
generation.
Yes, that's 20 years there.
Actually, absolutely Stuff, yes, okay, and then work stress
workload.
So I want to start with thework stress workload first.
Yeah, A lot of what we'rehearing from our clients is in
the pandemic.
They peddled hard, but theywere also at home, so there were
(29:11):
a lot of their work that wassimplified, but now a lot of the
structures have remained and wekeep putting more things on
because we're afraid that thefinances are down.
People aren't coming to churchand so we've got to put more
activity.
You know, when you look at thatas a rehab consultant, you see.
Jo Muirhead (29:31):
I see the perpetuation of all the fuss and
flurry that we went throughwith COVID.
It's almost like it's a hypervigilant response.
So, instead of people, so Iactually think the smart thing
to do and this is if you cameinto my room and you sat with me
right now and you were talkingto me like this my job, I would
see my job as going.
(29:51):
We need to help this person getto a point where they feel safe
enough to ask the question,because you can't just do it
straight away.
So I ask the question what doesmy congregation, what do my
people now need, not need of menow need?
So does my church, does mycongregation need, in person and
(30:17):
online?
Just because we can do it,should we be doing it?
Do we need an activityhappening, doing these three
conferences a year, and do thoseconferences need to be hybrid?
In person and online?
Like, what are the?
We've got to get right back tostripping away.
(30:40):
Like you said, we just put moreand more and more and stuff.
What is your core business?
What is your core role?
And you know, when I workedwith ministry people, they never
tell me preach the gospel,that's their value.
They say my main function ismaking sure the finances there's
(31:00):
enough money coming in.
So they've attached theirperformance how well I perform
on a Sunday or Monday or Tuesdayor Wednesday or Thursday or
Wednesday or Wednesday orWednesday or Wednesday or
Wednesday or Wednesday orWednesday or Wednesday.
How I perform is how they'veattached that to how much money
is coming through the church andthey feel that very, very
keenly, very keenly.
Valerie Ling (31:22):
Don't you think, joe, that that's a real world
problem?
Absolutely.
Jo Muirhead (31:25):
It's not.
It's not.
It doesn't have.
It's not ministry and isolation, but it's not something like he
talked about.
It's not something the peoplethat come and speak to me are
very uncomfortable about talkingabout money.
So I've got to provide.
Got to provide.
Hang on a minute.
God gave your brain.
He also calls us to be goodstewards.
He also gave us examples ofpeople who used to be able to
(31:48):
make money, and make a lot of it.
You can't just sit around andjust think that it's going to
fall from the sky.
If you are doing the thingsthat God called you to do, which
is love him, have relationshipwith him, you're just.
You're just empowering throughall of this in a strength that
sounds sustainable, becauseyou've taken on a mission that
(32:09):
you actually can't fulfill onyour own.
Valerie Ling (32:11):
Let's work with that a little bit.
So what you're saying is thatokay, we need to ask you know
what, what?
What does what does thatcongregation mean?
Not for me, but you know whatdo they need?
Make the main thing, the mainthing in terms of what is the?
The core business, if you like,of church and ministry.
But then you've got thesepractical things.
They are running out of money,people aren't coming back to
(32:34):
church, and there's almost likethis you know what's the
equation then?
Because it feels like you justneed to do more, and so it
becomes a productivity in howmuch more you can do so that the
finances come back, so thatpeople come back.
Jo Muirhead (32:48):
Yeah.
So, val, we've learned in thebusiness that that doesn't work.
So give yourself permission toscale back.
So I, I've got a big traincoming past me right now.
So I, I've had a business whereI had a team of 20 where we
were making a lot more moneyduring the month, but that
(33:09):
infrastructure costs and thecost to me is somebody who
hadn't quite nailed her ownleadership style meant that I
couldn't sustain that.
So, and then you know, so I'vegone from what I consider to be
a big team in my space to quitesmall teams.
I've also just been solo joke,just Joe on the road.
(33:30):
The infrastructure costs thereare nil, but the psychological
stress to me is considerable.
So I think we need to go back.
If you if we're going to usetangible numbers if you had
pre-damp pandemic, had acongregation of 500 of active
members or congregation of 200of active people turning out,
putting money in the plate thatyou could rely on, and now
(33:54):
you've got a congregation of 100.
Stop, stop pretending.
That's 200.
What does that?
Your responsibility as theleader of that congregation is
to look after those 100 peoplebeautifully, like you did way
back when it was your first 100,and help that 100 of core
people become 200.
(34:14):
That is your job as the leaderof that church, so it might mean
that we are so much.
My church went back.
We changed from three serviceson a Sunday down to two.
Oh, super impressed when theydid that.
We don't need three in personservices anymore because we just
don't have the people.
People weren't coming.
Nobody likes preaching to anempty room.
Valerie Ling (34:38):
So I'd really like to go to that resourcing, you
know you were talking about howyou know people.
when we're in ministry, we areessentially under resourced and
we are exposed to a great dealof traumatic material and
conflict material.
So I'm going to come kind oftie this in now into the
(35:02):
psychosocial aspect.
When you look at the types ofconflict that my survey
discovered and you know reallyis, if the research assignment
had allowed me I would have madethe survey much bigger.
It is still PhD.
Yeah, it's a deal of that sortof data.
And that's just ministry, isn'tit?
(35:23):
That's type of conflict, isn'tthat just ministry, that suck it
up people.
Jo Muirhead (35:33):
I love this conflict.
I mean, we've got the lettersthat Paul wrote in the Bible and
I don't know my Bible as superwell, but you know he talks
about a lot of conflict.
He talks about conflict.
I mean, we've got the, even gotthe letter to, I think, titus,
where it's like you know, dude,you need to discipline this guy,
you know.
I think that the conflict pieceis we leaders.
(35:54):
Leaders aren't equippedthemselves.
Personally, it's not aboutreducing conflict.
That's never going to happen.
If you work with humans, livewith humans, deal with humans,
have anything to do with humans,they will be conflict.
No one's going to agree withyou.
It's just not going to happen.
But you, until you as a leader,can own how you're going to turn
(36:18):
up in conflict and how yourpersonality style, your
behavioral style, how you turnup under pressure, who have you
got speaking into your worldthat can help you navigate that?
So I know, for me conflictturns up.
The more stressed I get, themore conflict comes.
I am also one of those verytraditional burnout people.
(36:38):
Whereas I don't cry, and youknow, in a corner and falling in
a heap, I overwork, I getangrier, I become harsher and I
can see it's a very maledominated trait, even though I'm
not a man.
But it's not uncommon in thechurch where you see pastors
(36:58):
turning up to everything, goingto every conference, they
micromanage and then they'retaking that level of conflict
because the conflict is inthemselves.
The conflict is not out therewith the people, the conflict is
in themselves.
I'm not doing the job that Godassigned me to do and I don't
know how to get out of this mess.
So they take that conflict home.
(37:19):
Their wife feels it all.
Their spouse feels that, theirkids feel it.
They're not as engaged and weknow that that family, that the
biggest piece of resilience,that biggest piece that's going
to keep you healthy, is ahealthy family.
One of the most rewarding piecesof advice I ever got from a
(37:40):
gentleman in leadership, when Iwas coming up through a church.
He said, joe, if my familystarted to disintegrate, I would
walk away from the pulpit in aminute and I trusted that he
would do it.
And it helped me so muchbecause I was a single mum at
the time and what he was lettingme know was you've got to get
your house in order, honey.
You've got to get your house inorder and you've got to keep
(38:01):
that strong, because that is thefoundation of allowing you to
do everything else.
So conflict, you can't avoid it.
People pleasing is not thesolution to conflict.
Having a strong sense ofintegrity around it's not
personal.
This is the way we do thingsaround here.
So then that breeds into theculture of your church, the
(38:23):
culture of your leadership, whatyou will tolerate, what you
won't tolerate.
Because people don't just hearand do what you say.
They watch how you treat themand others.
So if you tolerate being spokendown to, if you tolerate
spending four hours counselingsomebody after a service on the
Sunday when you've promised yourfamily to go and do something
(38:45):
fun together, then that'scommunicating a message to
people.
One is his family doesn'tmatter.
I can step all over him or stepall over her.
He will do anything I want himto do, whenever I want him to do
it.
What your family is learning isoh, this parent is unreliable
and the church is more importantthan us.
And I'm pretty sure that whenyou're counseling kids of
(39:09):
families in ministry that thechurch always came first thing
is probably coming up a lot.
Valerie Ling (39:16):
Look, I'd have to say that this is my drive, right
?
Joe?
I think when I was on yourpodcast, you were surprised that
my primary motivator is not theresourcing of leaders.
It's the rescuing of our kids,kids in ministry.
We're doing a lot of wrong bythem, kids in ministry, kids in
mission coming through.
(39:37):
We've got a lot of rebuildingto do in that space so I would
really like to ask you so yes,we're talking now about the
buildup of chronic stress.
Yes, that pushes unhelpfulresponses and behaviors.
What are your thoughts, if youcan think of a parallel, because
(40:00):
I think the police are afascinating, similar other to
think about.
I haven't thought about that abit because of the power dynamic
, but there's kind ofdestructive leadership patterns
that happen even as seniors andassociates, and it's happening
both ways.
We see it in both ways.
There are associates who arehaving a lot of difficulty with
(40:22):
their seniors and their seniorswho are having a lot of
difficulty.
This destructive leadershipthat happens from a design or
from your professional view ofministry.
What's that?
Jo Muirhead (40:38):
That's humans, because I get called in to work
with CEOs with conflict withtheir board, or CEOs in conflict
with the rest of the C-suite,ceos with the next level down.
So it's again that didn't helpme just going.
(40:59):
What is that?
That's humans, that's egogetting in the way.
That, again, is a lack of selfunderstanding, self respect,
self leadership.
So my big thing at the momentis helping.
If you don't know yourself, ifyou don't know how you turn up
when you're stressed, if youdon't know how you turn up when
bad news happens, if you don'thave a suite of things that you
(41:23):
need to do on a daily basis tokeep you healthy, you're
actually not doing the work thatkeeps you healthy enough to
keep turning up in front ofpeople all the time.
So, if you, if the thing thatconcerns me, that the isolation
piece, is because ministers,particularly men because I
(41:43):
haven't had as much experiencewith women except for my own
experience I'm not allowed totalk about the stuff that's
causing a stress because we'resupposed to have enough faith to
just get over it.
Valerie Ling (41:56):
Or in our circle it's enough ministry grit.
Oh Lordy, you've got thatgospel grit.
Jo Muirhead (42:02):
Gospel grit.
Valerie Ling (42:03):
Gospel grit.
Jo Muirhead (42:04):
Okay, don't like it , I don't like it.
So can you see, for peoplelistening, that is weaponizing.
That is actually saying to me,joe, if you were gritty enough
you'd just get over it.
If you, if you just had enoughgrit inside of you, if you just
prayed more like I haven'tenough time.
I'm in meetings from eightuntil six every day.
(42:24):
I've got my spouse wanting myattention, my three kids wanting
my attention.
We're behind in our mortgage.
I've now got to do this annualreport.
I've had somebody say thatthey've been harassed by them.
I've actually got a massivedomestic violence problem
happening in my church and nowI've just learned that a kid
tried to.
A kid in our youth ministry istried to, you know, harass
(42:44):
somebody sexuallyinappropriately on the church
grounds.
Don't tell me I need to praymore Like so.
When you talk about the chronicstress that that what I just
blurted out then that's not anexaggeration of what these
frontline ministry workers aredealing with.
So the, the New South WalesPolice Service have had to over
(43:05):
gazillion years.
We had one stage where we hadmore than 50% of our serving
police officers out of work dueto stress related injuries or
illnesses.
Valerie Ling (43:20):
Oh, I remember I was a clinician during that time
Exactly.
Jo Muirhead (43:23):
So can you.
So we've got 50, our workforcewas decreased by 50%.
Yeah, did we take the load off?
Did everybody decide, oh,that's it, no more crime for the
next three months.
So the police, you go talk tothem.
It just see, it didn't happen.
But so you've got these pastorsand these senior leaders and
(43:49):
these associates running aroundto haven't had enough that they
don't get adequate to briefing,they don't get adequate
supervision, they don't getadequate assistance to learn how
to manage conflict.
You know, you think I, for me,church ministry people need to
do a degree akin to social work.
(44:09):
You, because you need tounderstand family systems.
You need to understand how tocase manage a process and a
place.
You need to know how to ask aquestion in such a way that
allows you to go ooh, I need tofind another person to help me
do this Right.
So social workers are great atbringing in other resources.
(44:31):
That's, that's what they do.
Some of them move intopsychotherapy, which they're
very cool at, but I'm talkingabout the ones that know I need
to put you over here, then Ineed to put you over there, then
I need to resource you this way.
I need to read so I see therole of the senior ministry team
.
They want to preach great, buttheir job is to kind of make
sure the engine keeps working.
But they can't do that if theyare the engine, the brakes, the
(44:56):
brake fluid, the acceleratorpedal, the brake pedal, the
indicators, like just trying tobuild a picture here.
It's an impossible task.
Valerie Ling (45:08):
Can I ask you, from what you're seeing, then,
in terms of your professionalwork, what are organizations
doing in this?
I'll give you an example.
I know that my team, we need togo back to stripping back, but
we're a very small team.
We're a large team but you knowwe're not like big corporate.
So we really been coming backto making the main thing, the
(45:31):
main thing.
You know where are our clientsat, where are we at, what do we
need and what can we drop off,so that you know we, you know
we'll just have a good enoughversion of what needs to happen.
What is some?
Because I think the church hasbecome quite professional now.
Jo Muirhead (45:49):
You know we've got all these professional
structures, and so I think theyhave the facade of professional.
I think they would like tothink they're professional.
Valerie Ling (45:58):
Well, I haven't got the substance of
professional.
Okay, I think we're usingprofessional frameworks.
Jo Muirhead (46:05):
Yes, good, we can measure appropriately.
Valerie Ling (46:12):
So, given that we're not going to change the
structures overnight, we stillwill have it.
We still will have to, you know, figure out all the governance
and compliance issues.
What can you see?
Practically, the steps.
What are the steps, joe?
What are?
Jo Muirhead (46:30):
the steps.
Okay.
So in my grand scheme ofwishful thinking, the way,
because it's people usually cometo us when a person is a
problem.
Right, a person is a problemand they're causing a problem
from themselves and others.
So, whether that's harassment,or they're not performing, or
they've had a breakdown or amoral failure, or they can't
(46:51):
preach without crying, or youknow, they've got some other
thing going on.
So what we end up having, whatwe find, is that the work with
the person, the individualperson, is about 35% of the work
.
So where that person needs tobe reinserted to that's the
(47:14):
majority of the work.
Okay, so that 35% of that workis awesome, because I've got
people like you in my world thatcan go, I can go.
Could you please help thisperson rebuild themselves?
I need to know what this personcan and wants to be able to do,
so that I can then take themand that desire and get them to
a point where we can meet withtheir leadership team whatever
(47:37):
that looks like and go right.
These are some of the thingsthat we now need to change.
So, if I am reinserting and I'musing that language today to
try and help paint the picture aleader back into a leadership
team, you can't just do thatwithout having done some work
with the rest of that team.
So that's things like socialand emotional intelligence.
(47:59):
That's things like verypractical strategies on what is
the culture of this place, whatbehaviours do we accept, what
behaviours do we reject.
That whole culture piece cantake.
It can actually take the heavyweight off this, because it
shouldn't be the senior pastorfacilitating it.
(48:21):
The senior pastor or the seniorleader needs to be a part of
the process, not superimposingthe process.
If you get an experienced andcredentialed facilitator to come
in and help you navigate thisprocess, they will help pull it
out of your team, because whatthe senior leader thinks is
going on and what is reallygoing on can quite often be
(48:43):
almost opposite.
We are a culture of inclusion,but everybody has to climb 20
stairs to get into the building.
We don't have any.
We don't tolerate people comingon and off rosters, yet that's
happening all the time.
So the way a senior leadermight perceive things are going
(49:04):
on and the way that the realityis going on is very, very
different, and that's not afault.
You need somebody to help yousee that.
So I think, when we come backto the resourcing.
I think senior people in thecommunity, senior people in
positions of senior leadership,they need a one-on-one
(49:26):
supervisor mentor that they'reseeing weekly.
And there needs to be astructure to those sessions and
there needs to be agreementabout how it gets reported back
if it ever gets reported back atall, okay, and it might tailor
off where it stops being weekly.
But I'm saying weekly becauseit's not happening at all at the
(49:46):
moment.
You've got a mandatory forsessions a year.
I nearly fell over when I heardit was for Right.
If you know you've got so muchstuff you've got to get out,
then you've got to get that outso you can actually start coming
to work from a place of health,because you're actually coming
to your work from a place ofincredible depletion at the
moment.
And I know it is because I'mwatching health professionals do
(50:09):
the same thing and I'm watchinga lot of first responders do
the same thing.
And if we I love that.
Valerie Ling (50:20):
So 35.
And you know, this is probablythe reason why I took this the
sabbatical, because I wasfinding that I was getting so
many requests to speak on theself care piece and leaders
coming to me that it's like I'ma psychologist ideal of the
individual stuff, right?
So you're saying that 35% of it, 65% of it, you're saying, is
(50:41):
looking at the reality of howthings are structured.
What are your thoughts then inthat 65% space for the
destructive conflict that wehave in our church?
To me, you know, if I had asmaller luck in my business I
have a small team I can use alot of informal things to manage
(51:02):
that sort of the thing.
Right, I can spend a lot oftime.
But you know, when you've got alarge church and you're getting
I call it Monday PTSD, rightafter Sunday you're going to get
all the emails about yourgrandma and about whether you
actually did the reading toprepare.
And then you've got, you know,things like people accusing you
(51:22):
or being mean to their kid.
You know there's not astructure thing, I mean, I know
it's a human thing.
But how.
Jo Muirhead (51:32):
my first response is why are you even receiving
that information?
There needs to be a gatekeeperbetween you and that information
.
Okay, so my first, my firstthought there is you need a PA
or an EA or an associate whotakes on the protection of you.
So, and it's not to avoid so,and when I say protect you,
don't you on a Monday?
(51:52):
You don't need to see that.
So on Friday you have aspecific meeting with the person
that says what was the feedbackfrom last week?
So there's some space, and thatperson, who's in charge of
collating that feedback, goes oh, guess what?
Nobody likes your use of thisword in this context.
Oh, apparently you said John416 when you meant John 516.
(52:16):
So you can when you've got somespace between that.
As a speaker, I've doneprofessional speaking the worst
thing I can do after I've beenon the speaking, like I've just
come off the stage with theamount of emotion, the amount of
hype, the amount of intensityin my body that is coming.
If I got a heap of criticismimmediately after that, I would
(52:39):
be that.
That would make me a mess.
So if you've spent monthsworking on a like we don't, what
do we call them?
sermon series and you know thatit's a God anointed and you felt
the Holy Spirit and you knewthat this was coming from a
place other than yourself.
And you start delivering thatand you're doing it from a place
(53:02):
.
If I can't wait to share thiswith my congregation, I can't
wait for people to grab a holdof this and start applying it.
If you did that the first weekand then the very next day
you're getting ridiculed foryour use of the wrong tense in a
sentence or your playgroundconflict that your child you're
seeing your use pastor shouldhave been looking after.
But put some protections inplace, put some space there.
(53:24):
You don't need that level ofimmediacy.
And I think the other thingthat I've seen is senior leaders
and associates don't build atrusted network.
It doesn't have to be big,three people.
Are we enough a trusted networkof people that you can just
call up and go?
Today sucked Because you, wegot to get over the fact that
(53:48):
there could be shame around that.
So I think building some I callit building behavioral
boundaries, because we all hearboundaries and we go build
boundaries, you don't.
But so for me, at the end of mywork day, because I will just
keep working, I will work andwork and work and work and work
and work and work.
I actually have to make anappointment with someone.
Off of my dog we have to go fora walk, because that makes me
(54:10):
shut down my computer, turn offmy lights, lock my office door
and leave.
I need that level of behavioralprompt to act because I don't
want to come back down into myoffice and turn on all my lights
and turn on my computer againwhen I finish for the day so I
can put space like I've learnedto put space there.
(54:30):
I can.
Bookends to your day, bookendsto your sermon.
There's I don't think it'swritten in anybody's position
description that says after Ipreach a sermon on Sunday, I
must hang around and serve thecongregation for the next three
hours.
Maybe you should leave.
Valerie Ling (54:48):
Yeah, I think what I'm hearing is the reverse
engineer.
Every situation like this iswhere we're at.
You know, how did we get here?
From a behavioral point of view, from a timing point of view,
from a trigger, we call it chainof events, right?
So I just, we go like,particularly in parenting.
You know you sort of and thisis where it's different again
like you love your children, soyou know something is changed,
(55:11):
you can't leave them.
You know the parent whoexplodes and calls their child
all kinds of excuses and manycomes in for help.
We reverse, engineer with achain of events and very often
that that explosion, you know,really was not the key event
Death by a thousand paper cuts,right, it goes all the way.
Okay, joe, I'm going to bringthis now to four quest wealth.
(55:36):
I don't have a question, butI'm going to do it a little bit
differently with you.
I'm going to ask you the magicwand question.
Okay, oh, awesome, if you had amagic wand.
Money was an issue, resourcingwas an issue.
What is, what is the one thingthat you would sprinkle on
organized church in relation toall the things we've talked
(55:57):
about burnout, destructivepatterns?
You know what's the one thing,or a few things.
What would you magic wand Inhow we do church?
Jo Muirhead (56:13):
I would create a external consulting role where
an external consultant, orseveral consultants, advised
this organized church onleadership development and
increasing leadership capability, on the current legislation
(56:38):
that exists in this entirenation on managing psychosocial
risk at work because churchesyou're not exempt from that.
This consulting company wouldalso be coming into.
Help people manage conflict,learn how to deal with conflict,
build the capabilities of yourteam.
(57:01):
They would not be employed bythe church needs to be about the
church becoming increasinglyindependent in these things, but
as that church grows anddevelops, that consulting
company will then need to helpthem grow and develop.
So I employ a coach, I employ aPA, I employ a VA, I employ a
(57:24):
psychologist, I these are allthat.
I have a physical therapist, Ihave a coach, I have a
psychologist, I have anexecutive assistant, I have a
business manager and I have a VA.
Those five roles work to keepme one person healthy in my work
.
If I was doing clinical work atthis point in time, I would add
(57:46):
clinical supervision.
Valerie Ling (57:49):
Yeah, nice, you know, if I could, if money
wasn't an issue and I couldbuild a resource, I'd build for
my church a whole house of theseauxiliary services so my
pastors could just do what theywould feel called to do.
You know, that's what I love it.
Jo Muirhead (58:07):
I think that's the way like when we talk about that
.
I think funding the church needfundamentally needs to change,
but that's a whole week Ihaven't got.
Valerie Ling (58:15):
I can't do that.
Well, I might let you go,because I think that's a
brilliant landing point.
Thank you so much, jennifer,for spending time with me.
Thanks, Val.
Hey, it's Valerie Ling.
I'm a clinical psychologist andI'm your host for the clergy
well-being Down Under podcast.
I'm looking forward tointerviewing an expert today to
take you through my findingsfrom my research where I asked
200 pastors down under how theywere doing.
Don't forget to subscribe, likeand share.
(00:26):
Buckle up, and here we go.
Welcome back to another episodeof the clergy well-being Down
Under podcast.
I have a very dear friend withme, jo Nealhead, and I could
introduce her in so manydifferent ways, but the first
(00:48):
thing I'm going to say is thatJo is a dear friend and we have
some common interest in theburnout space.
Jo also has experience in thechurch space and has interesting
things that we talk about, butwe also genuinely like to tinker
(01:11):
around with some of the mutualpuzzles that we see we can help
people to work in a way that'ssustainable.
Jo Muirhead (01:18):
Yeah, absolutely, that's a great introduction, I'm
glad.
Valerie Ling (01:23):
So, jo, like I said, there are so many
different reasons why I want totalk to you, but I'm going to
talk to you as your professional, with your professional hat on,
and your ministry and churchinformed itself.
So would you care to justintroduce yourself and your
business and what you do?
Jo Muirhead (01:42):
Sure.
So thank you, valerie.
The first thing I'm going tosay is I'm a career loving mum
and it's taken me the full 23years that my son has been alive
to own that.
So I know that a lot of womenin the church and ministry space
really struggle with the juggleand I really own.
I'm a career loving mum andhe's happy with that.
(02:03):
I'm happy with that and I feellike it's a good given thing.
So there we go.
I'm a rehabilitation counsellorby qualification, so I went to
university.
I have a undergraduate degreein health sciences, so I went to
the same schools asphysiotherapists, occupational
therapists, speech and languagepathologists, some psychologists
(02:24):
and my area of special interestbecause we don't say expert
anymore, do we, valerie?
My area of special interest ishelping people navigate their
who they are, how they work andthe intersection of making work
a part of their whole life.
So I have a consulting practiceof rehabilitation counsellors
(02:48):
and OTs and mental health socialworkers where we help people
reclaim their life through theirwork.
So I used to say we help peoplereturn to work after injury,
illness and trauma.
But what we're noticing now,since the pandemic and since the
epidemic of burnout, is thatpeople don't just need to return
(03:09):
to work.
We actually need to have aconversation about making our
work good for us and healthy forus.
So I've got nearly 30 yearsexperience in doing this and I
have been in church for a reallylong time.
I've been in and out of churchfor a really long time.
I've had some periods where Iwas in, some periods where I'm
(03:29):
out.
I've had some experience acrosslots of different faith
denominations.
We've had quite a differentexposure to different people in
leadership and different faithscome through our business.
So we've been able to help themnavigate this experience of my
work's no longer healthy for me,my work's no longer working for
(03:51):
me, and the crisis that thatcan bring up, especially for
people in leadership positionsin faith.
Now, it was a really good lucktyping that out people.
Valerie Ling (04:03):
Amazing.
I love that.
And of course, you also have acoaching business, so you're no
stranger to working with leadersand owners of businesses just
also trying to make their bestwork for themselves.
Jo Muirhead (04:17):
Absolutely and I feel that's a part of my gifting
to the world is how do wecreate ways of working, how do
we create, create businessesthat support our lifestyles, not
consumers.
And I think and I think that'ssuch an important topic or
important framework to have,especially for people who are in
ministry, because I havewatched so many people myself
(04:40):
was included become totallyconsumed by their church life,
by their faith life, by theirministry life.
And you might think, well,that's not a bad thing, that's
what Jesus did, that's what theapostles did, that's what we're
called to do.
Yeah, but Jesus also had a lotof rest.
He also took himself away.
(05:01):
He also made them go eat andleave me alone.
So there are some lessons thatI spent a lot of time thinking
about this, because I'm very,very conflicted about it for a
long time, val.
Valerie Ling (05:14):
And Joe, I've been thinking about you a lot and
the image that keeps coming backto me.
And I'll tell you why I've beenthinking about you because I'm
a psychologist and myobservation is that in the
church spaces we've relied a loton psychology as a profession
to help people who are inministry, who are burning out
through the individualresilience piece.
(05:34):
But I'm really starting tothink that there's a lot that we
need to look in terms of theministry design and the role
design and the organizationaldesign piece.
And the image that keeps comingback to me is you riding with
the Ambo's?
Jo Muirhead (05:49):
Yes, oh yeah, the two weeks that I did riding with
the Ambo's.
Valerie Ling (05:54):
Yes, yeah, you were called in, I suspect, to go
and investigate and see whattheir role, what the work design
was and how that was impactingthem.
I would love to know why werethe Ambo's Keene?
If you're able to tell us, whydon't they want to get you
riding with their people?
Jo Muirhead (06:12):
Yeah, so that was an amazing project and it is
really helped informed a lot ofmy work, particularly for
frontline professionals, whichpastors, leaders, ministry
people need to understand theyare in the frontline.
Okay, so at that time theambulance service of New South
Wales so this was quite someyears ago was doing a big piece
(06:33):
of work, trying to understandthe physical and psychological
risks inherent to their work andwhat they were noticing was
that ambulance officers were notreporting stress symptoms or
pathological symptoms.
I'm trying not to use psychologyspeak, so they weren't
reporting distress or PTSDaround things like multi vehicle
(06:57):
accidents or being threatenedwith a knife or having to turn
up to a domestic violencedispute where a kid had been
hurt.
Yeah, those images are horrible, but it was turning up in a way
that they were saying I hate itwhen I'm stuck at Westmead
(07:17):
Hospital in Sydney and my entire10 hour shift is waiting for a
bed to be available in emergencybecause they weren't out on the
road doing the job they weretrying to do.
In their mind they were going.
People are dying because I'mstuck here in this emergency
back because you may not know ifyou're in an ambulance and
(07:39):
you're taken to a hospital,there's no bed for you.
The ambulance officer can'tleave you, okay.
So that was one thing that.
The second thing that we learnedalong the way was that the
ambulance officers at that pointin time were like can you stop
taking me off the road?
Basically, anything that wastaking them off the road
(07:59):
meetings, unnecessary meetings,change management, emails that
make no sense, submitting for acertification that they'd
already got, the certificationof the certification of anything
that was taking them off theirduties and off their job.
That is actually what wediscovered was the primary
problem.
But what they were then lookingfor as a part of the work I was
(08:23):
doing was how to help usunderstand what the
psychological and thepsychosocial which like the
relational demands of this jobare, so that we can be better
informed to help people comeback to work in a way that's
safe.
So there were two things thatwere going on in that project.
Now it was like a baptism offire for me, because I spent two
weeks doing it, so I wasnightshifting King's Cross in an
(08:45):
ambulance total new learningfor me.
I spent a 10 hour shift at theemergency room of Westmead.
Valerie Ling (08:53):
Hospital.
Jo Muirhead (08:55):
I turned up and I got to watch an emergency
paramedic on a motorcycleresuscitate somebody back to
life.
So in that two week period Igot to experience their
adrenaline, their serotonin,their dopamine and I had to
watch them turn up to work dayafter day.
It was exhilarating, it wasdraining, but wow, was it
(09:19):
informative.
And then from that lens I'vebeen able to take some of that
knowledge and apply it to policeofficers, rural fire service
officers who we often don'tthink of because of volunteers
and, of course, the ministryspace, because after what I've
seen happen in some of churchleadership, it almost feels like
(09:42):
the work health and safety lawsthat we have in this country to
protect our employees don'tapply.
And I say that quite openly andpeople might hate on you for
that, but it really does feellike you can't get away in
corporate Australia or smallbusiness Australia with some of
the things that go on, unhealthythings, that go on in church
(10:03):
life.
Valerie Ling (10:05):
So let's reflect together a little bit in terms
of your experience with thefirst responders.
You know like it's so big.
What did you, what did yourecognize as being okay?
Here is some some work, health,safety or work design issues
that just weren't apparent, butthen it's so common sense.
You just need to think aboutthis.
(10:26):
People, I mean, were there,were there things like that?
Or when the police officer.
Jo Muirhead (10:31):
I remember this guy can still see his face.
He turned around to because Isaid to him what do you think
the most psychologicallydemanding part of this job is?
He was driving an ambulancethrough Sydney traffic.
He turned around to look at me.
So I'm freaking out right nowand he goes taking me out of the
truck, like taking me out ofthe truck and I went oh, of
course.
(10:51):
So these are people who you turnup to be a police officer and
ambulance officer or a fire, thefire what do we call those guys
?
The fiery, or in the rural fireservice, or in the minors.
Not everyone chooses to do that.
The people who choose to dothat are doing that on a set of
values and a part of who theyare.
They want to serve, they wantto wear a uniform, they want to
(11:13):
feel good about what they'redoing.
That you know.
They want to be energized by bytheir work.
So if you give people a skillset because you have to do, like
to get into the ambulance, thepolice, the fire, is not easy to
get through.
The training is not easy to getthrough.
Your first lot of supervisedsessions is not easy, and then
you're going to start tellingpeople.
(11:34):
Well, I'm going to be a forceshifts on this week.
I'm actually going to take youout of the truck and stop you
from saving lives because I needyou to go over here and
complete this work.
Health and safety program or andso for me, the design of that.
I get it from a compliancepoint of view, but the design of
it totally ignored the valuesthat make these people awesome
(11:57):
at the work that they wereemployed to do.
So we see that with policeofficers, when they're taken
away from you know you take themout of their communities.
The police officer design.
I've done a lot of work withpolice officers.
A lot of police officers willwork in the communities in which
they live.
So they're constantlyapprehending people, bar fights,
(12:20):
domestic violence but whenthey're in uniform, they feel
protected by the uniform and bythe weapons they have at their
disposal.
Now I'm not suggesting they'reall firearms because they're not
right.
So we have this magic way ofhelping them return to work by
taking all that off them.
(12:40):
But they still live in thesecommunities.
So I remember a gentleman, apolice officer, turning up.
He was distressed and he'd comeout of some horrible back back
before that.
We'd sorted out how to dealmore effectively with gangs.
We had a lot of gang violencecoming on.
So he turned up to meet with mebecause we were going to talk
(13:02):
about his vocational future andhis career future.
And he was.
He couldn't sit still.
And I worked out.
I said hey, how do we need toset this room up so that you can
concentrate?
Yes, I need to see the door.
Well, okay, cool.
So we just changed how we weresitting.
And then I just looked at himand went you're still really
nervous, what's going on here?
And he goes I'm uncomfortablebecause you don't know that I'm
(13:24):
carrying a weapon.
Now I felt very uncomfortableknowing there's a weapon in the
room.
So I went well, why don't weput it on the table so we can
both see it?
And he brought out this bigknife and he put it on the table
and I went cool.
And then I had to have adiscussion with him about when
do you think you would need touse it?
Why did you feel it necessaryto bring it here?
(13:44):
And that's when he told me allof the protective measures that
I have been given got taken offme as soon as I made a claim
saying that I'm not well enoughto work.
Yet I'm still expected to walkaround my street, go to the
shopping center, go to myphysiotherapist, go to my
psychologist.
I just don't feel safe.
I went oh, that's huge.
(14:07):
So again, from a designperspective, we get so caught up
in compliance, compliance, riskmanagement, compliance, risk
management, compliance that weoften forget that the human has
to exist in a social space.
(14:28):
And they don't exist as a setof checklists.
Valerie Ling (14:34):
And it is a checklist.
I think that creates the tasks.
We just keep piling them on.
We can't do the ministry space.
But I think what you've said hasa lot of parallel.
I just chunk it down now andI'm really interested in your
rehab consultant hat going.
You know, practically this isprobably what it means and this
(14:55):
is probably what the directionthat we need to take to fix it
right.
So, number one, just like yousaid, for the last decade we
have known that people inministry feel disconnected to
the real core task.
But why are they trained?
Why they wanted to do full timeministry?
So you know the preaching andteaching of the gospel,
(15:16):
discipling others.
You know caring for a brokenwall by sharing.
You know Jesus with them.
That meaning work isdisconnected to what they do.
70, 80% of the time, yep, right.
So from I've observed that thesolution, therefore, has been to
(15:36):
try to give people more timeoff, make sure they're taking
vacations, looking at you knowthey work hours and you know
trying to maybe reduce some ofthe maybe meeting.
But is that all?
It is no.
Jo Muirhead (15:54):
No, it's not, and this is where we run into some
complications.
So for most of the overworkedministry leaders that I have
worked with and experienced inmy life, the common thing that
there are two things that comeup for me, and one is they're
completely under resourced, andtwo is they are dealing with
(16:16):
traumatic experiences that theyhave got no hope on earth have
been under process by themselves.
So let me speak into that onefirst.
So I live with an ex seniorpastor.
He's my husband and he he I washorrified when he started to
tell me some of the things hedid early on when he was
building a church.
He was.
He turns up to suit thefamilies would call him instead
(16:40):
of the police when a familymember suicide it.
So he would turn up to a garagewhere somebody a member of his
congregation had hung themselvesand then he had to get that
person down and then he chose tocall the police.
Then he tells stories aboutpeople doing this on train lines
and then he tells stories aboutdomestic violence.
(17:01):
Now, that's his stories.
I know I've heard other storieswhere you value your
psychologist.
If you had a psychologist onyour team who was witness to
those things, you would put awhole heap of protocols in place
to help that person be safe.
None of that goes on.
None of it.
There's just supposed to get onwith that and pass to their
flock.
I can health professionals knowthat if we turned up to an
(17:27):
event like that, there aremechanisms that we would need to
put into place to help us besafe around that, so that we
have we have somebody that weneed to go and talk to.
We might engage in EMDR oranother type of modality that
helps us process that trauma,because they don't just go away
because you don't think aboutthem all the time.
They turn up in other ways.
(17:47):
So that's a resourcing issue.
And I know you've got a wholething about supervision and I'm
grateful that we now havesupervision.
It's a little bit horrified athow small it is, but anyway.
Then we've got the whole underresourcing problem.
So you've got people who arethe visionaries of their church
and they're in this apostolicposition where they are expected
(18:08):
to grow a church, grow thefinances of the church, feed the
flock, teach, preach, teach,teach, make people aware, report
to a board or a synod orwhatever terminology you have
there.
So essentially, you've got your.
If you parallel this to thecorporate world.
You've got your businessdevelopment, you know.
(18:30):
You've got your CEO, yourbusiness development manager or
your, you know.
Then you've got your techperson, because all churches
need to be up to date with alltech and audio visual.
Then you've got your whole.
You've got to be the leader ofyour ministry around worship and
kids, and so what we find ispeople they don't have.
They have great heart to lead,to teach and to share the gospel
(18:52):
.
What they're not skilled at isbuilding team.
What they're not skilled at isdelegation.
What they're not skilled at isbuilding a high performing team.
And then there's this incredibletension between how do I have
enough money left over at theend of the week to keep my
family fed?
What do I need to do to makesure that people keep giving us
(19:14):
money while I'm trying to do allof these other things?
And I think it's just acomplete lack of resourcing.
Most businesses would havesomebody in charge of looking
after the money, looking afterthe sales and marketing, making
sure there's enough money comingin, looking after the team and
all the resources.
But it's not until you'regetting to hundreds of people in
(19:37):
a church that you can start toresource the church properly.
So what do we do?
We rely on volunteers, andvolunteers aren't going to have
as much skin in the game.
So then what do we resort to?
Manipulative, super spiritualtactics that help shame and
blame our volunteers becausethey're not committed, because
they're out there trying to earnenough money to keep the church
(19:59):
afloat, because you, as theleader in the church, don't have
enough resources.
That the whole design isthought, which is why we need
Christ, which is why we need theHoly Spirit, and so.
But I'm just saying, yeah, thatthe design of it, if you, if
you took that model out into theworld, it would fall flat.
(20:21):
Yeah, we wonder why we have somany people in ministry burning
out, which often turns up with amoral fall or a moral failing,
because we only tend to takenotice of the burnout when it
gets that extreme end game whenit's end game, yeah, and then we
can shame and blame all ofthese ministry leaders and
(20:43):
saying you weren't faithfulenough, you weren't disciplined
enough, you didn't read yourword enough.
You know it's easy to say, youknow you didn't keep it in your
pants or you know you were lyingwhen you were saying all these
people were being healed and youknow you were just
orchestrating it.
You were trying to do the workof the Holy Spirit without going
.
What on earth was so brokenthat this that led this person
(21:06):
to this place?
Valerie Ling (21:09):
You know, Joe, I've also been really digging
into looking at psychologicalsafety and one of the models
that I've come across talksabout how you know when there's
social and reputational threat,like social threats, the stakes
are so much higher because it'sright into the individual.
(21:29):
And one of the things I've beenreflecting on is how much
current church ministrycertainly can only speak with.
What I see in Sydney, yeah, ismoving on that influence apart.
You know the pastor who's got,you know a huge church and
there's a reputation and there'san influence, but it's really
(21:52):
costly.
From a work design or a roledesign.
That is a costly space to be in, is it not?
Absolutely.
Jo Muirhead (22:00):
And the church influences the church and the
church influences space.
That's intriguing me as well,because I can actually see it.
So my social media research isshowing me that people are
dissatisfied with the really bigmega churches.
And you know what?
I think we've reached a periodof time in history where they've
done their job for a while OK,they'll come back and people are
(22:22):
looking for a more intimatereal life connection.
Yet we've got these people inchurch leadership who are really
paddling very, very hard ontothe surface just to keep people
in seats.
They haven't processed theimpact of COVID on their
congregation.
They haven't processed theimpact of COVID on themselves.
(22:44):
How do I know this?
Most health professionalshaven't.
Valerie Ling (22:47):
Yeah.
Jo Muirhead (22:48):
Right.
So we just ran, we just went oh, can't do it in person, now
we're going to do it online.
Now we're doing hybrid.
How do we do hybrid?
We better get small groupsconnected.
Oh my God.
Offerings up, offerings down.
Should we put a new conferenceon?
Should we not put a newconference on?
And nobody's got time to take abreath.
So in terms of psychologicalsafety, it's a huge problem.
(23:11):
So an influencer putsthemselves out for all sorts of
hate.
If you are going to putyourself out there and say
things about the gospel in avery, very open space like
social media, you can expect tobe persecuted.
It is going to happen.
And if you don't have theresilience, the personal
(23:33):
resilience, if you are notactivating your resilience, if
you are not working closely witha mentor and supervisor,
consistently and frequently,that is going to eat you up,
because it eats everybody up.
Valerie Ling (23:48):
This is the midpoint break for the podcast.
If you want to put a pause andwalk away and come back with it,
make sure you do check out thedescription for all the various
downloads that we have for you,including my full report,
research and reflections.
You might also want to rememberto like, share and subscribe.
So stop now or keep going.
(24:11):
Do you know what's theinteresting thing I've noticed
in myself, Joe?
So you and I, we know that acostly space for us to be in
business is that marketing.
These days, a lot of it is insocial media.
We have so many things thathelp us with that.
But here's an interesting thingI've noticed.
We talked about how one of thedifferences in churches is that
(24:32):
we have volunteers.
So, myself as a parishioner inmy church system I'm super
stressed whether I'm on music atthe service that I go to,
because it's the recordedstreamed.
Now, one part of my identity isI almost became a musician, so
(24:54):
you can imagine all of thethinking that goes in my head
when I'm knowing that I'm beingrecorded.
And the one time, joe, Ire-listened to the recording, I
was so horrified I didn't wantto play ever again.
It took so much work on myselfto say I'll just get back.
(25:16):
But do you know what?
I refuse to service leave Ifthat service just will not do it
.
Now for me as a volunteer, interms of me retracting my sense
of meaning in serving the Lordin my own way, it's more thing
too, because I'm calculating myown vulnerability in this new
environment.
It's like a whole system hasshifted since the pandemic has
(25:40):
hit us.
Jo Muirhead (25:41):
Yeah, I have a similar story.
So yours is about music.
So I put my hand up to host ouronline community.
So I because I am very presentonline because of that's how I
help my business grow I've nowgot my church community and my
work community.
I don't segregate the two.
(26:01):
So I feel like if I'm notpromoting my church work as much
as I'm promoting my businesswork, then the people in church
are going to judge me and tellme I'm not doing it really well.
But then my people in mybusiness will be going.
We don't necessarily need tohear about that all of the time,
so they're going to judge meharshly as well.
And then I found myself overthis last weekend reflecting
that I know I have got a really,really big eight weeks ahead of
(26:25):
me and I had.
I did the really uncomfortablething where I have to cut off
everything.
That is a nice to have.
So I've actually blocked out onplanning centre which is the
planning centre, whatever thatthing is and told my church I'm
actually not available until themiddle of October.
Now they've just seen mecelebrate my birthday all over
(26:46):
social media, going out andbeing celebrated and eating
great food and eating a lot ofclava cheesecake, which is
awesome.
So for me then to go whoops, Ineed to let you know I'm not
available now, that it's like Idon't even want to turn up to
church this week because I'mscared.
People are going to ask why,when I know that to look after
(27:08):
myself and make sure I'm doing,the thing that I know is that.
I know that.
I know that.
I know that this is the thing Ineed to do get the attention
Like I have to strip offeverything else.
But yeah, it's a perception ofothers and our need to people
please and our need to getaffirmation in our church,
because we are very good atweaponising spirituality to
(27:32):
guilt and shame people intodoing work.
Valerie Ling (27:37):
And I'm wondering, because I just went through an
exercise in our own business andI call it the pandemic stand
down that a lot of the thingsthat we brought in to prop us up
just created extra work.
But the three main reasons I'dlove to come back to this
because I think your resourcingthing is really interesting the
three reasons ministers aresaying that they would leave and
(28:00):
, mind you, these are the onesthat have hung on right.
So we've been talking.
you know we're months and yearsnow past what it was all before
Loneliness.
Jo Muirhead (28:14):
Yeah, and we know it's none of the one of the most
debilitating factors.
There's a ministry forloneliness in Great Britain.
Their government has a ministerfor loneliness.
It's that big of a deal.
Valerie Ling (28:27):
Anyway, keep going , I know amazing right Impact on
family and you know we didn'tdrill down what sort, but it
could be work stress, but Isuspect there's also a lot of
psychological safety for family,because that's the uniqueness
of the ministry role.
I want to say that you know,whenever we take a minister down
, you know there's a wholefamily and kids and a whole
(28:49):
generation.
Yes, that's 20 years there.
Actually, absolutely Stuff, yes, okay, and then work stress
workload.
So I want to start with thework stress workload first.
Yeah, A lot of what we'rehearing from our clients is in
the pandemic.
They peddled hard, but theywere also at home, so there were
(29:11):
a lot of their work that wassimplified, but now a lot of the
structures have remained and wekeep putting more things on
because we're afraid that thefinances are down.
People aren't coming to churchand so we've got to put more
activity.
You know, when you look at thatas a rehab consultant, you see.
Jo Muirhead (29:31):
I see the perpetuation of all the fuss and
flurry that we went throughwith COVID.
It's almost like it's a hypervigilant response.
So, instead of people, so Iactually think the smart thing
to do and this is if you cameinto my room and you sat with me
right now and you were talkingto me like this my job, I would
see my job as going.
(29:51):
We need to help this person getto a point where they feel safe
enough to ask the question,because you can't just do it
straight away.
So I ask the question what doesmy congregation, what do my
people now need, not need of menow need?
So does my church, does mycongregation need, in person and
(30:17):
online?
Just because we can do it,should we be doing it?
Do we need an activityhappening, doing these three
conferences a year, and do thoseconferences need to be hybrid?
In person and online?
Like, what are the?
We've got to get right back tostripping away.
(30:40):
Like you said, we just put moreand more and more and stuff.
What is your core business?
What is your core role?
And you know, when I workedwith ministry people, they never
tell me preach the gospel,that's their value.
They say my main function ismaking sure the finances there's
(31:00):
enough money coming in.
So they've attached theirperformance how well I perform
on a Sunday or Monday or Tuesdayor Wednesday or Thursday or
Wednesday or Wednesday orWednesday or Wednesday or
Wednesday or Wednesday orWednesday or Wednesday.
How I perform is how they'veattached that to how much money
is coming through the church andthey feel that very, very
keenly, very keenly.
Valerie Ling (31:22):
Don't you think, joe, that that's a real world
problem?
Absolutely.
Jo Muirhead (31:25):
It's not.
It's not.
It doesn't have.
It's not ministry and isolation, but it's not something like he
talked about.
It's not something the peoplethat come and speak to me are
very uncomfortable about talkingabout money.
So I've got to provide.
Got to provide.
Hang on a minute.
God gave your brain.
He also calls us to be goodstewards.
He also gave us examples ofpeople who used to be able to
(31:48):
make money, and make a lot of it.
You can't just sit around andjust think that it's going to
fall from the sky.
If you are doing the thingsthat God called you to do, which
is love him, have relationshipwith him, you're just.
You're just empowering throughall of this in a strength that
sounds sustainable, becauseyou've taken on a mission that
(32:09):
you actually can't fulfill onyour own.
Valerie Ling (32:11):
Let's work with that a little bit.
So what you're saying is thatokay, we need to ask you know
what, what?
What does what does thatcongregation mean?
Not for me, but you know whatdo they need?
Make the main thing, the mainthing in terms of what is the?
The core business, if you like,of church and ministry.
But then you've got thesepractical things.
They are running out of money,people aren't coming back to
(32:34):
church, and there's almost likethis you know what's the
equation then?
Because it feels like you justneed to do more, and so it
becomes a productivity in howmuch more you can do so that the
finances come back, so thatpeople come back.
Jo Muirhead (32:48):
Yeah.
So, val, we've learned in thebusiness that that doesn't work.
So give yourself permission toscale back.
So I, I've got a big traincoming past me right now.
So I, I've had a business whereI had a team of 20 where we
were making a lot more moneyduring the month, but that
(33:09):
infrastructure costs and thecost to me is somebody who
hadn't quite nailed her ownleadership style meant that I
couldn't sustain that.
So, and then you know, so I'vegone from what I consider to be
a big team in my space to quitesmall teams.
I've also just been solo joke,just Joe on the road.
(33:30):
The infrastructure costs thereare nil, but the psychological
stress to me is considerable.
So I think we need to go back.
If you if we're going to usetangible numbers if you had
pre-damp pandemic, had acongregation of 500 of active
members or congregation of 200of active people turning out,
putting money in the plate thatyou could rely on, and now
(33:54):
you've got a congregation of 100.
Stop, stop pretending.
That's 200.
What does that?
Your responsibility as theleader of that congregation is
to look after those 100 peoplebeautifully, like you did way
back when it was your first 100,and help that 100 of core
people become 200.
(34:14):
That is your job as the leaderof that church, so it might mean
that we are so much.
My church went back.
We changed from three serviceson a Sunday down to two.
Oh, super impressed when theydid that.
We don't need three in personservices anymore because we just
don't have the people.
People weren't coming.
Nobody likes preaching to anempty room.
Valerie Ling (34:38):
So I'd really like to go to that resourcing, you
know you were talking about howyou know people.
when we're in ministry, we areessentially under resourced and
we are exposed to a great dealof traumatic material and
conflict material.
So I'm going to come kind oftie this in now into the
(35:02):
psychosocial aspect.
When you look at the types ofconflict that my survey
discovered and you know reallyis, if the research assignment
had allowed me I would have madethe survey much bigger.
It is still PhD.
Yeah, it's a deal of that sortof data.
And that's just ministry, isn'tit?
(35:23):
That's type of conflict, isn'tthat just ministry, that suck it
up people.
Jo Muirhead (35:33):
I love this conflict.
I mean, we've got the lettersthat Paul wrote in the Bible and
I don't know my Bible as superwell, but you know he talks
about a lot of conflict.
He talks about conflict.
I mean, we've got the, even gotthe letter to, I think, titus,
where it's like you know, dude,you need to discipline this guy,
you know.
I think that the conflict pieceis we leaders.
(35:54):
Leaders aren't equippedthemselves.
Personally, it's not aboutreducing conflict.
That's never going to happen.
If you work with humans, livewith humans, deal with humans,
have anything to do with humans,they will be conflict.
No one's going to agree withyou.
It's just not going to happen.
But you, until you as a leader,can own how you're going to turn
(36:18):
up in conflict and how yourpersonality style, your
behavioral style, how you turnup under pressure, who have you
got speaking into your worldthat can help you navigate that?
So I know, for me conflictturns up.
The more stressed I get, themore conflict comes.
I am also one of those verytraditional burnout people.
(36:38):
Whereas I don't cry, and youknow, in a corner and falling in
a heap, I overwork, I getangrier, I become harsher and I
can see it's a very maledominated trait, even though I'm
not a man.
But it's not uncommon in thechurch where you see pastors
(36:58):
turning up to everything, goingto every conference, they
micromanage and then they'retaking that level of conflict
because the conflict is inthemselves.
The conflict is not out therewith the people, the conflict is
in themselves.
I'm not doing the job that Godassigned me to do and I don't
know how to get out of this mess.
So they take that conflict home.
(37:19):
Their wife feels it all.
Their spouse feels that, theirkids feel it.
They're not as engaged and weknow that that family, that the
biggest piece of resilience,that biggest piece that's going
to keep you healthy, is ahealthy family.
One of the most rewarding piecesof advice I ever got from a
(37:40):
gentleman in leadership, when Iwas coming up through a church.
He said, joe, if my familystarted to disintegrate, I would
walk away from the pulpit in aminute and I trusted that he
would do it.
And it helped me so muchbecause I was a single mum at
the time and what he was lettingme know was you've got to get
your house in order, honey.
You've got to get your house inorder and you've got to keep
(38:01):
that strong, because that is thefoundation of allowing you to
do everything else.
So conflict, you can't avoid it.
People pleasing is not thesolution to conflict.
Having a strong sense ofintegrity around it's not
personal.
This is the way we do thingsaround here.
So then that breeds into theculture of your church, the
(38:23):
culture of your leadership, whatyou will tolerate, what you
won't tolerate.
Because people don't just hearand do what you say.
They watch how you treat themand others.
So if you tolerate being spokendown to, if you tolerate
spending four hours counselingsomebody after a service on the
Sunday when you've promised yourfamily to go and do something
(38:45):
fun together, then that'scommunicating a message to
people.
One is his family doesn'tmatter.
I can step all over him or stepall over her.
He will do anything I want himto do, whenever I want him to do
it.
What your family is learning isoh, this parent is unreliable
and the church is more importantthan us.
And I'm pretty sure that whenyou're counseling kids of
(39:09):
families in ministry that thechurch always came first thing
is probably coming up a lot.
Valerie Ling (39:16):
Look, I'd have to say that this is my drive, right
?
Joe?
I think when I was on yourpodcast, you were surprised that
my primary motivator is not theresourcing of leaders.
It's the rescuing of our kids,kids in ministry.
We're doing a lot of wrong bythem, kids in ministry, kids in
mission coming through.
(39:37):
We've got a lot of rebuildingto do in that space so I would
really like to ask you so yes,we're talking now about the
buildup of chronic stress.
Yes, that pushes unhelpfulresponses and behaviors.
What are your thoughts, if youcan think of a parallel, because
(40:00):
I think the police are afascinating, similar other to
think about.
I haven't thought about that abit because of the power dynamic
, but there's kind ofdestructive leadership patterns
that happen even as seniors andassociates, and it's happening
both ways.
We see it in both ways.
There are associates who arehaving a lot of difficulty with
(40:22):
their seniors and their seniorswho are having a lot of
difficulty.
This destructive leadershipthat happens from a design or
from your professional view ofministry.
What's that?
Jo Muirhead (40:38):
That's humans, because I get called in to work
with CEOs with conflict withtheir board, or CEOs in conflict
with the rest of the C-suite,ceos with the next level down.
So it's again that didn't helpme just going.
(40:59):
What is that?
That's humans, that's egogetting in the way.
That, again, is a lack of selfunderstanding, self respect,
self leadership.
So my big thing at the momentis helping.
If you don't know yourself, ifyou don't know how you turn up
when you're stressed, if youdon't know how you turn up when
bad news happens, if you don'thave a suite of things that you
(41:23):
need to do on a daily basis tokeep you healthy, you're
actually not doing the work thatkeeps you healthy enough to
keep turning up in front ofpeople all the time.
So, if you, if the thing thatconcerns me, that the isolation
piece, is because ministers,particularly men because I
(41:43):
haven't had as much experiencewith women except for my own
experience I'm not allowed totalk about the stuff that's
causing a stress because we'resupposed to have enough faith to
just get over it.
Valerie Ling (41:56):
Or in our circle it's enough ministry grit.
Oh Lordy, you've got thatgospel grit.
Jo Muirhead (42:02):
Gospel grit.
Valerie Ling (42:03):
Gospel grit.
Jo Muirhead (42:04):
Okay, don't like it , I don't like it.
So can you see, for peoplelistening, that is weaponizing.
That is actually saying to me,joe, if you were gritty enough
you'd just get over it.
If you, if you just had enoughgrit inside of you, if you just
prayed more like I haven'tenough time.
I'm in meetings from eightuntil six every day.
(42:24):
I've got my spouse wanting myattention, my three kids wanting
my attention.
We're behind in our mortgage.
I've now got to do this annualreport.
I've had somebody say thatthey've been harassed by them.
I've actually got a massivedomestic violence problem
happening in my church and nowI've just learned that a kid
tried to.
A kid in our youth ministry istried to, you know, harass
(42:44):
somebody sexuallyinappropriately on the church
grounds.
Don't tell me I need to praymore Like so.
When you talk about the chronicstress that that what I just
blurted out then that's not anexaggeration of what these
frontline ministry workers aredealing with.
So the, the New South WalesPolice Service have had to over
(43:05):
gazillion years.
We had one stage where we hadmore than 50% of our serving
police officers out of work dueto stress related injuries or
illnesses.
Valerie Ling (43:20):
Oh, I remember I was a clinician during that time
Exactly.
Jo Muirhead (43:23):
So can you.
So we've got 50, our workforcewas decreased by 50%.
Yeah, did we take the load off?
Did everybody decide, oh,that's it, no more crime for the
next three months.
So the police, you go talk tothem.
It just see, it didn't happen.
But so you've got these pastorsand these senior leaders and
(43:49):
these associates running aroundto haven't had enough that they
don't get adequate to briefing,they don't get adequate
supervision, they don't getadequate assistance to learn how
to manage conflict.
You know, you think I, for me,church ministry people need to
do a degree akin to social work.
(44:09):
You, because you need tounderstand family systems.
You need to understand how tocase manage a process and a
place.
You need to know how to ask aquestion in such a way that
allows you to go ooh, I need tofind another person to help me
do this Right.
So social workers are great atbringing in other resources.
(44:31):
That's, that's what they do.
Some of them move intopsychotherapy, which they're
very cool at, but I'm talkingabout the ones that know I need
to put you over here, then Ineed to put you over there, then
I need to resource you this way.
I need to read so I see therole of the senior ministry team
.
They want to preach great, buttheir job is to kind of make
sure the engine keeps working.
But they can't do that if theyare the engine, the brakes, the
(44:56):
brake fluid, the acceleratorpedal, the brake pedal, the
indicators, like just trying tobuild a picture here.
It's an impossible task.
Valerie Ling (45:08):
Can I ask you, from what you're seeing, then,
in terms of your professionalwork, what are organizations
doing in this?
I'll give you an example.
I know that my team, we need togo back to stripping back, but
we're a very small team.
We're a large team but you knowwe're not like big corporate.
So we really been coming backto making the main thing, the
(45:31):
main thing.
You know where are our clientsat, where are we at, what do we
need and what can we drop off,so that you know we, you know
we'll just have a good enoughversion of what needs to happen.
What is some?
Because I think the church hasbecome quite professional now.
Jo Muirhead (45:49):
You know we've got all these professional
structures, and so I think theyhave the facade of professional.
I think they would like tothink they're professional.
Valerie Ling (45:58):
Well, I haven't got the substance of
professional.
Okay, I think we're usingprofessional frameworks.
Jo Muirhead (46:05):
Yes, good, we can measure appropriately.
Valerie Ling (46:12):
So, given that we're not going to change the
structures overnight, we stillwill have it.
We still will have to, you know, figure out all the governance
and compliance issues.
What can you see?
Practically, the steps.
What are the steps, joe?
What are?
Jo Muirhead (46:30):
the steps.
Okay.
So in my grand scheme ofwishful thinking, the way,
because it's people usually cometo us when a person is a
problem.
Right, a person is a problemand they're causing a problem
from themselves and others.
So, whether that's harassment,or they're not performing, or
they've had a breakdown or amoral failure, or they can't
(46:51):
preach without crying, or youknow, they've got some other
thing going on.
So what we end up having, whatwe find, is that the work with
the person, the individualperson, is about 35% of the work
.
So where that person needs tobe reinserted to that's the
(47:14):
majority of the work.
Okay, so that 35% of that workis awesome, because I've got
people like you in my world thatcan go, I can go.
Could you please help thisperson rebuild themselves?
I need to know what this personcan and wants to be able to do,
so that I can then take themand that desire and get them to
a point where we can meet withtheir leadership team whatever
(47:37):
that looks like and go right.
These are some of the thingsthat we now need to change.
So, if I am reinserting and I'musing that language today to
try and help paint the picture aleader back into a leadership
team, you can't just do thatwithout having done some work
with the rest of that team.
So that's things like socialand emotional intelligence.
(47:59):
That's things like verypractical strategies on what is
the culture of this place, whatbehaviours do we accept, what
behaviours do we reject.
That whole culture piece cantake.
It can actually take the heavyweight off this, because it
shouldn't be the senior pastorfacilitating it.
(48:21):
The senior pastor or the seniorleader needs to be a part of
the process, not superimposingthe process.
If you get an experienced andcredentialed facilitator to come
in and help you navigate thisprocess, they will help pull it
out of your team, because whatthe senior leader thinks is
going on and what is reallygoing on can quite often be
(48:43):
almost opposite.
We are a culture of inclusion,but everybody has to climb 20
stairs to get into the building.
We don't have any.
We don't tolerate people comingon and off rosters, yet that's
happening all the time.
So the way a senior leadermight perceive things are going
(49:04):
on and the way that the realityis going on is very, very
different, and that's not afault.
You need somebody to help yousee that.
So I think, when we come backto the resourcing.
I think senior people in thecommunity, senior people in
positions of senior leadership,they need a one-on-one
(49:26):
supervisor mentor that they'reseeing weekly.
And there needs to be astructure to those sessions and
there needs to be agreementabout how it gets reported back
if it ever gets reported back atall, okay, and it might tailor
off where it stops being weekly.
But I'm saying weekly becauseit's not happening at all at the
(49:46):
moment.
You've got a mandatory forsessions a year.
I nearly fell over when I heardit was for Right.
If you know you've got so muchstuff you've got to get out,
then you've got to get that outso you can actually start coming
to work from a place of health,because you're actually coming
to your work from a place ofincredible depletion at the
moment.
And I know it is because I'mwatching health professionals do
(50:09):
the same thing and I'm watchinga lot of first responders do
the same thing.
And if we I love that.
Valerie Ling (50:20):
So 35.
And you know, this is probablythe reason why I took this the
sabbatical, because I wasfinding that I was getting so
many requests to speak on theself care piece and leaders
coming to me that it's like I'ma psychologist ideal of the
individual stuff, right?
So you're saying that 35% of it, 65% of it, you're saying, is
(50:41):
looking at the reality of howthings are structured.
What are your thoughts then inthat 65% space for the
destructive conflict that wehave in our church?
To me, you know, if I had asmaller luck in my business I
have a small team I can use alot of informal things to manage
(51:02):
that sort of the thing.
Right, I can spend a lot oftime.
But you know, when you've got alarge church and you're getting
I call it Monday PTSD, rightafter Sunday you're going to get
all the emails about yourgrandma and about whether you
actually did the reading toprepare.
And then you've got, you know,things like people accusing you
(51:22):
or being mean to their kid.
You know there's not astructure thing, I mean, I know
it's a human thing.
But how.
Jo Muirhead (51:32):
my first response is why are you even receiving
that information?
There needs to be a gatekeeperbetween you and that information
.
Okay, so my first, my firstthought there is you need a PA
or an EA or an associate whotakes on the protection of you.
So, and it's not to avoid so,and when I say protect you,
don't you on a Monday?
(51:52):
You don't need to see that.
So on Friday you have aspecific meeting with the person
that says what was the feedbackfrom last week?
So there's some space, and thatperson, who's in charge of
collating that feedback, goes oh, guess what?
Nobody likes your use of thisword in this context.
Oh, apparently you said John416 when you meant John 516.
(52:16):
So you can when you've got somespace between that.
As a speaker, I've doneprofessional speaking the worst
thing I can do after I've beenon the speaking, like I've just
come off the stage with theamount of emotion, the amount of
hype, the amount of intensityin my body that is coming.
If I got a heap of criticismimmediately after that, I would
(52:39):
be that.
That would make me a mess.
So if you've spent monthsworking on a like we don't, what
do we call them?
sermon series and you know thatit's a God anointed and you felt
the Holy Spirit and you knewthat this was coming from a
place other than yourself.
And you start delivering thatand you're doing it from a place
(53:02):
.
If I can't wait to share thiswith my congregation, I can't
wait for people to grab a holdof this and start applying it.
If you did that the first weekand then the very next day
you're getting ridiculed foryour use of the wrong tense in a
sentence or your playgroundconflict that your child you're
seeing your use pastor shouldhave been looking after.
But put some protections inplace, put some space there.
(53:24):
You don't need that level ofimmediacy.
And I think the other thingthat I've seen is senior leaders
and associates don't build atrusted network.
It doesn't have to be big,three people.
Are we enough a trusted networkof people that you can just
call up and go?
Today sucked Because you, wegot to get over the fact that
(53:48):
there could be shame around that.
So I think building some I callit building behavioral
boundaries, because we all hearboundaries and we go build
boundaries, you don't.
But so for me, at the end of mywork day, because I will just
keep working, I will work andwork and work and work and work
and work and work.
I actually have to make anappointment with someone.
Off of my dog we have to go fora walk, because that makes me
(54:10):
shut down my computer, turn offmy lights, lock my office door
and leave.
I need that level of behavioralprompt to act because I don't
want to come back down into myoffice and turn on all my lights
and turn on my computer againwhen I finish for the day so I
can put space like I've learnedto put space there.
(54:30):
I can.
Bookends to your day, bookendsto your sermon.
There's I don't think it'swritten in anybody's position
description that says after Ipreach a sermon on Sunday, I
must hang around and serve thecongregation for the next three
hours.
Maybe you should leave.
Valerie Ling (54:48):
Yeah, I think what I'm hearing is the reverse
engineer.
Every situation like this iswhere we're at.
You know, how did we get here?
From a behavioral point of view, from a timing point of view,
from a trigger, we call it chainof events, right?
So I just, we go like,particularly in parenting.
You know you sort of and thisis where it's different again
like you love your children, soyou know something is changed,
(55:11):
you can't leave them.
You know the parent whoexplodes and calls their child
all kinds of excuses and manycomes in for help.
We reverse, engineer with achain of events and very often
that that explosion, you know,really was not the key event
Death by a thousand paper cuts,right, it goes all the way.
Okay, joe, I'm going to bringthis now to four quest wealth.
(55:36):
I don't have a question, butI'm going to do it a little bit
differently with you.
I'm going to ask you the magicwand question.
Okay, oh, awesome, if you had amagic wand.
Money was an issue, resourcingwas an issue.
What is, what is the one thingthat you would sprinkle on
organized church in relation toall the things we've talked
(55:57):
about burnout, destructivepatterns?
You know what's the one thing,or a few things.
What would you magic wand Inhow we do church?
Jo Muirhead (56:13):
I would create a external consulting role where
an external consultant, orseveral consultants, advised
this organized church onleadership development and
increasing leadership capability, on the current legislation
(56:38):
that exists in this entirenation on managing psychosocial
risk at work because churchesyou're not exempt from that.
This consulting company wouldalso be coming into.
Help people manage conflict,learn how to deal with conflict,
build the capabilities of yourteam.
(57:01):
They would not be employed bythe church needs to be about the
church becoming increasinglyindependent in these things, but
as that church grows anddevelops, that consulting
company will then need to helpthem grow and develop.
So I employ a coach, I employ aPA, I employ a VA, I employ a
(57:24):
psychologist, I these are allthat.
I have a physical therapist, Ihave a coach, I have a
psychologist, I have anexecutive assistant, I have a
business manager and I have a VA.
Those five roles work to keepme one person healthy in my work
.
If I was doing clinical work atthis point in time, I would add
(57:46):
clinical supervision.
Valerie Ling (57:49):
Yeah, nice, you know, if I could, if money
wasn't an issue and I couldbuild a resource, I'd build for
my church a whole house of theseauxiliary services so my
pastors could just do what theywould feel called to do.
You know, that's what I love it.
Jo Muirhead (58:07):
I think that's the way like when we talk about that
.
I think funding the church needfundamentally needs to change,
but that's a whole week Ihaven't got.
Valerie Ling (58:15):
I can't do that.
Well, I might let you go,because I think that's a
brilliant landing point.
Thank you so much, jennifer,for spending time with me.
Thanks, Val.
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