Molting Season

by Eddie Pipkin

My wife and I are avid bird observers.  I hesitate to say bird watchers, because true avian hobbyists would not consider us nearly dedicated enough, but we love birds and try to provide some essential habitat to those who pass through our backyard.  We love watching them through the seasons, so we noticed in the last few weeks when they looked unusually ruffled, a tad unkempt, a little bald in spots.  Turns out, it’s molting season!  It’s a natural process of feather replacement that gets them ready for hard work ahead.  We all need a molting season now and again, especially ministry folk.

The whole biological purpose of molting season for birds is that it gives them a chance to refresh and reboot.  Late summer brings a time of feather replenishment that leaves our flying friends renewed and prepared for the hard work of migration that lies ahead.  They have completed their months of nest building and fledgling rearing, but that purposeful work has left them a little battered and worn, so they have a natural cycle of regrowth, so they can be prepared for the next challenge.

It’s a beautiful natural cycle.  And it makes sense, for birds and for people.  We can’t keep pushing at the same pace ad infinitum, and we can’t keep moving forward without refreshing the resources (inner and outer) that make our meaningful work possible.

The familiar scripture Isaiah 40:31hints at this process of renewal:

But those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint (NIV).

Unfortunately, we as Christians – particularly career ministry people and hardcore volunteers – tend to over-interpret this passage.  We get caught up in envisioning a regenerative process in which, no matter how hard we push, if our hope in the Lord is intense enough, we can just keep going and going and going, like the Energizer Bunny or a Marvel superhero.  It’s the optimization gospel!

That’s not how it’s supposed to work though.

This righteous strength and endurance is meant to be balanced with the biblical concepts of Sabbath, ongoing spiritual maturity, and periodic reinvention.  We don’t stay in place like a continual, robotic run on a treadmill.  We are on a journey with twists, turns, uphills, downhills, and the right pace for the right moment, different quests for different seasons.

Churches rarely build cultures that emphasize the need for rest breaks and molting seasons.  They find themselves under constant pressure, always needing more people than appear to be available. There always seems to be more work to be done than is doable, so we push people to their limits and leverage their enthusiasm until they burn out.  Once a person is slotted in a ministry role, doing a job well, we want to keep them there forever.

We are all familiar with the feeling of frustration that comes from staying in one slot for too long.  The blahs set in.  The ennui is inevitable.  We need a periodic molting season.  Off with the old feathers and on with a new set.  We are grateful for the good work we have done, and we celebrate the lessons we have learned along the way, but we long for a new flight plan.  Our fresh feathers, encouraged by our faithfulness, have us ready for new destinations!  How sad it is when a person is ready to fly, to explore undiscovered horizons,  but then find that they are tethered to the old nest by tepid or fearful leadership.

Here are some elements of a molting friendly ministry culture:

• Build sabbaticals into ministry leadership.  Provide space for breaks when people can recharge, and make those breaks a priority, even when people don’t think they need them.  Such respites should be regular and purposeful.  (They also serve the dual role of giving people who are waiting in the wings the opportunity to explore and shine as they fill in.)
• Encourage growth and change.  Let people know that you don’t expect them to serve in the same role forever.  You expect them to grow and try new things and embrace new challenges.  Sometimes people really do want to do their one thing for a lifetime, and we can honor that; sometimes, we also face the challenge of helping them see that their single-minded devotion is stunting their own spiritual growth and the growth of the institution they serve.
• Make experimentation your watchword.  Ministry should always be a dynamic lab where we are trying things out, taking chances, and empowering creativity.
• Give people resources to recharge and to grow.  We should provide a robust framework of tools, mentors, and organized training and retreats to help people process the demands of their work and develop best practices for doing it with excellence.

How have you experienced your own seasons of molting?  How do you encourage these seasons in others?  Do we experience fear when the old feathers are falling out, or do we have the sense to anticipate the beauty and freedom of the new feathers to come?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below.  Fly high!