vocation

On 17 Years of Ordained Ministry

11.02.2025 by Heather Prince Doss //

Me, with my parents and sister, after my ordination service in 2008.

On 2 November 2008, I was ordained by the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee in the church that raised me as a young child and helped me find my way as a teenager. My call to ministry was born out of a love for the church. Even as a teen, I treasured the sense of something sacred in church spaces, the invitation to ponder a mystery far greater than myself, and the opportunities for friendship and belonging. My call to ministry was logical. As I visited colleges, preparing for a pre-med track, I realized I did not really love studying science. What did I love? Going to church. This must be what God was calling me to do with my life.

In April 2024, after serving in two incredible congregations, I left congregational ministry to serve full time in the social-enterprise ministry I founded called Progressive Pilgrimage. There is so much I am grateful for in those calls: the people I got to love and serve; the leaders who were shining examples of grace and authority; the precious moments like births and baptisms that I witnessed – I even got to name a child! Even the hard stuff is precious to me: the deathbeds where I sat and funerals I officiated; the church conflicts that brought growth; the unhoused neighbors whom I loved but whose challenges I could not solve. I would not trade any of it, but after fifteen and a half years, the fire had gone out of me. I could not remember what it felt like to love going to church. Is this why my mother – an expert seamstress and quilter – has never wanted to make sewing her occupation?

One of the great gifts of these past 18 months has been finding my way back to that young love. For several months I did not go to church at all. Then, with a strange sense of anxiety, I occasionally slipped into the pews a local UCC church where my dear friend is the pastor. For a year of Sundays, something in worship sent a tear running down my cheek; I never went to church without a tissue in my pocket. (This also happened to be the year after my father died, so everything was tender.) Hymn after hymn, sermon after sermon, feast after feast, it felt good to let the holy mysteries do their work on my soul. I didn’t have to construct or plan any of it. All of it was gift. After seventeen years of church leadership, finding a place in the pew feels a lot like coming home to myself.

On this, my 17th “ordiversary,” I will not be going to church. That’s because I’ll be driving to the airport, instead. I may try to catch the first part of the service online before I head out the door. I may watch it later, or maybe not at all. However, this, too feels like a gift – the opportunity to pursue God’s call in new ways that are less prescriptive and more liberated. Maybe this week my worship will be a quick moment of solitary prayer, but I will remember that seventeen years ago, a community of saints invited me to take the vows of ministry, laid their hands upon me, and prayed for God’s Spirit to fill me and use me. Wherever and however I worship today, I will remember that I am connected to a great communion of saints who make up the church. And I will be deeply grateful to know that I still have a place in this family of faith and, that I am, in my own way, still called to serve.

The Work of Religion and the Religion of Worksim

02.27.2019 by Heather Prince Doss //

Don’t read this post until you’ve read “The Religion of Workism” from The Atlantic. Go read that, even if you don’t have time to come back and read this post.

Clergy might be particularly susceptible to the religion of work. It’s easy to confuse your work with your religion when you work is religion. In my case, it doesn’t help that I am one of the millenials who “passed through a childhood of extracurricular overachievement and checked every box of the success sequence.” I’m fortunate to have been early enough in my generation that the economic crash of 2008 did not blow up my dreams. I got a good job in my field. Thirteen years after finishing graduate school, I am doing my dream job. Two of them, actually. And, in general, I have expected to find fulfillment in this rich and varied work that both pays my bills, gives back to my community, and lets me travel.

Has it worked? Has having two “dream jobs” (at once) brought me fulfillment? Sometimes. Sometimes not. (Today I’m feeling particularly stressed and anxious, wondering whether I even have time to write the post!) As with the author of this article, those unfulfilled times “can send me into an existential funk that can spill over into every part of my life.” Workism, it turns out, does not work – not even for clergy.

I have been catching glimpses of this truth for years, but the picture has become clearer since serving a multi-cultural congregation. I noticed almost immediately that the Cambodian and West African members of my congregation almost never talk about their jobs. After 3 1/2 years of ministry here, I still do not know what many of my people do for a living or who they work for. Their jobs are what they do so that can support their families both here and back home. And while there is certainly some commitment to the American Dream, for my non-Western members, identity comes much more from their ethnic and cultural roots, their commitment to their families, and their faith in Jesus Christ than from their jobs.

A couple summers ago, I led an eight-week worship series on vocation using many of the excellent resources from the folks at the Theology of Work Project. We explored the idea that were were created in the image of God who labored for 6 days to create the world. We were made to work. But we were also created in the image of God who rested, really rested, and charged the creation to do the same. The idea in that series was not to convince people that they needed to find a fulfilling job or even find fulfillment in their jobs, but that they could live out their faith no matter what kind of job they do or don’t do.

Reflecting on that summer series, I wonder if my Workist side was inviting people to find fulfillment in jobs that the culture says cannot be fulfilling. I’d like to think my Christian side was telling people that what they do and how they do it can be an expression of their Christian faith and identity, even if the world doesn’t value one kind of work or another.

I recognize I am privileged to have a job that I mostly enjoy, that pays the bills, and that gives me opportunities to make my community a better place. But if I don’t remind myself often, then the stress, anxiety, and burnout will do it for me: my religion should not be work, even if my work is religion. There is much I can learn from my Cambodian and West African members. And so, as their pastor, I will do my work faithfully even as I try to put my deepest faith not in my job but in Jesus who should shape all that I do, on the the job and off.

Spiritual Storytelling: Examen for Organizations

09.07.2016 by Heather Prince Doss //

Susan Beaumont writes: “We all preserve memories through story. In organizations, newcomers are told stories of the past as a way of promoting the culture, the values, and the vision of the congregation. But the telling of stories is not just about scripting the past, it’s also about creating our future. The way we understand our past positions us to create futures that are imaginative and hope-filled, or discouraging and binding.”

As a new pastor in a multicultural congregation, there are some often-told stories that are familiar to me already. But there are other stories, particularly from our immigrant communities, that are not heard as often but are just as important. I needed a tool to help all of our leaders examine their stories about our ministry, not just repeat them. With Susan Beaumont’s theory as a foundation, I developed this reflection process and used it with my congregational leaders to begin unpacking and exploring these stories. I hope it will be useful to you.

Examen for Organizations

The Examen is a traditional method of prayerful awareness that is a bedrock in Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit education. It’s a short, easy way to reflect on your day and become more mindful about where you are experiencing grace or goodness and where there is room in your actions and life for growth. In this exercise, we will use the Examen to explore stories related to our organization and listen for how the Holy Spirit is speaking to us through those stories. You may do this exercise personally or guide a group of organizational leaders through the exercise.

Meditation

Take a moment to settle. Take a deep breath. Get comfortable in your seat. Close your eyes. Like a rock settling on the bottom of a lake after it’s thrown in, let yourself settle.

Ask for light and insight as you prepare to reflect on your ministry or organization. For some that light may come in the form of a sense of the Divine. For others it’s from a deep sense of your true self. Take a moment and ask for light as you begin to examine the ministry or organization.
As you begin thinking about the ministry, it may be helpful first to think of a specific story that stands out to you from the past, either recent or distant.
Let that story take shape in your mind. Take a moment to be grateful for it. How do you identify with this story? How do you feel distant or removed from it? What perspectives do you share in common with how this story is told? Where do your perspectives differ?
Note the emotions you feel when you think of this story, but do not judge or over-analyze. Simply acknowledge the story and pay attention to your emotions.
1. How do you feel the organization served Jesus or served others in this story? How did it fail to do so?
2. Where in this story did you feel peace, joy, and a sense of integrity?
3. Where did you feel frustrated, dissonant, and fragmented?
4. Do you feel that you connected to the organization in this story or do you feel disconnected and not valued?
5. Are there things you wish would have been different in this story? Are there things that you are proud of
6. In your imagination, allow Jesus to speak with you about this story—perhaps with affirmation, perhaps with challenge, perhaps with a revealing silence. How do you feel about what he may be saying to you?
As feelings and memories of this story surface, pick one that seems important, significant, or is manifesting itself the strongest. Pause and reflect on where you, as a leader, are being invited to grow from that moment or where the organization might be invited to grow from that moment. Take a moment to pray with it.
Call again to mind the one story that stands out to you, the words that Jesus is saying to you, and the invitation to growth. What is one thing that you would like to resolve to do in this next year so that you can better lead this organization? What do you need to help make this resolution a reality? Is there something particular you hear Jesus calling the organization to do or be in the year ahead?

Take a deep breath, and when you are ready, open your eyes and return to this space.

Reflecting on the Examen

If you are leading the Examen with a group, allow each person five minutes to share their reflections from the practice of Examen. The leader should ring a chime to mark the end of each five minute segment. Each person should share only his or her own reflections without responding to others’ reflections with comments like “I like what you said about . . .” or “I remember Bill’s story a little differently.” The leader should record what is shared for group reflection after everyone has had time to share. If someone does not use the full five minutes, observe silence until the time is up and the chime is rung. If someone is still talking at the end of five minutes when the chime is rung, he should conclude his thought so the next person may begin.

Invite each person to share:

The particular story that you were reflecting on
How you felt about that story
What you heard Jesus saying to you about that story
What invitations for growth you perceived, either individually or corporately?

Framing and Reframing Our Stories

Depending on how much time is available to your group, you may in this meeting or a future meeting talk more about these stories: how do they describe your past and what kind of future do they move you toward. Discuss whether the stories you tell have a positive or negative impact on the organization. Explore what your stories teach you about the soul and character of the organization. This will help you better understand your identity, a core piece of discerning your vocation. (The other pieces of vocational discernment are our context [who are we called to serve] and our purpose [what are we called to do or become]).

Much of this material on storytelling, soulful organizations, discernment, and identity is developed from Susan Beuamont’s lectures at the 2016 Young Clergy Women Project conference. Visit Susan’s website to learn more.