Darlings, its’ time to play “Let’s Pick Each Other’s Brains!”
I’m interested in hearing what you do around your church office this time of year in terms of gift exchanges. We’ve talked a bit about this in the past but it’s been awhile, so let’s hear from you!
Senior ministers/lead pastors: do you buy gifts for your staff? If so, do you get everyone the same thing, limit the dollar amount, do secret Santas, take everyone out for a meal, what?
Did you ever explicitly talk about gift exchanging with your folks or do you just go ahead and do it?
Do you share conviviality with parishioners in their homes at the holidays? Does this ever open you to accusations of having “favorites” if you return year after year to the same home or homes? I’ve seen that happen to ministers and I’ve always thought it was a tricky issue. For my own life, I either don’t accept any invitations or I accept the first one that comes. I don’t get a lot of invitations to the homes of parishioners in the first place because I think they see me as a busy single gal with tons of friends, and that’s very true. I am. That said, it’s lovely to get invites to share meals or holiday spirit with my Dearly Beloveds and I like to do that whenever possible. I was able to attend the women’s Christmas gathering last week for the first time in a million years and it was loads of fun.
One glass of wine is my limit, by the way. I’m silly and irreverent enough stone cold sober. I don’t need to add booziness to that mix. The worst side effect from drinking alcohol for me, though, is that it makes me feel like I can — or perhaps should — eat everything in sight.
A word to the wise: one drink for all of us at any social gathering. And if that’s difficult to stick to, no drinks. Those who are in recovery, have your sponsor on speed dial and do what you need to do to avoid getting into HALT situations (for non-recovery people, that means “don’t get too hungry, too angry,too lonely or too tired”). Wise advice for all of us. For me and food, I replace “angry” with “anxious.” BOY, did I get anxious last night and eat way too much. Ugh.
A frequent reader of this blog thought it was weird that I occasionally go to see movies with my parishioners. Does anyone else ever do this? I am hoping that a huge gaggle of us will go see “Les Miserables” together on Christmas Day (together with some of my non-church friends). Many of my folks love the arts and I love sharing that common source of spiritual sustenance with them. I have seen Live at the Met simulcasts with parishioners, attended the symphony, the theatre, museum exhibits, trashy and serious movies (including important documentaries as a group), and coffeehouse folk concerts with them. These outings open up great conversations and create happy memories. When I appear in a show, dozens of parishioners can be counted on to buy tickets and support my onstage endeavors. When I appeared in “Ragtime” in 2003 and was brand new to the parish, over eighty members of the church attended the production, and often in large groups. I believe that the arts are a soul food that many of us ignore or consider frivolous or elitist. They’re really not. You can informally announce that you’re going to the free museum exhibit on a Saturday afternoon and invite anyone who wants to join you to come along, and you may find a whole new group of parishioners to get to know under very spiritually stimulating circumstances.
Do any of you go Christmas caroling with your church folk? That’s another great one. Easy, bonding, and it creates beauty and joy in the world.
That’s all for now, darlings. Not terribly coherent or profound, just a check-in and a reminder that while you’re collecting canned goods and gifts for foster children and crafting liturgies and picking up candy canes and more Advent candles, let the Muses inspire you to spend some time with them this season.
I used to do serendipitous pastoral visits in the grocery store all the time. I think sharing art and movies is great.
I know the question was aimed at fellow ministers, but I’ll weigh in as a lay person – and this is probably a very idiosyncratic perspective. For me, doing service in the church is an end in itself. The intrinsic rewards are tremendous; if they weren’t, no gift would make it worthwhile to sacrifice my one day off or cut short time with family or choose the service work over an activity that might make my job a bit more secure. What I do for my church, I’m doing as a way to help bring about the Kingdom and shovel back against the huge tide of injustice we all see around us. For years I had a drawerful of little plaques and special framed editions of devotional poems that made my heart sink because they just weren’t my taste – until I let go of my guilt and sent them along to their next stop in this temporal world. I love the idea of enjoying a meal or movie with other congregants and my pastor, as it’s a great chance to exchange ideas about this funny culture we live in and see what kind of perspective you, our minister, bring. It means a lot to me that an ordained minister enjoys a conversation and exchange of ideas with me – that’s beyond value.
I turn down invitations to holiday social gatherings as a matter of self-care and boundary setting. As an introvert, I use up every ounce of extrovert energy I can must being “on” for church-sponsored events during Advent, including worship. Also, my predecessor was known for playing favorites, and I didn’t want to get in that game.
I use a similar rule for the kids’ fundraisers, though: if the group meets in the church, first one to get to me gets the sale. If the group doesn’t meet in the church, I offer my regrets.
No gift-giving or card-sending from me, for budget and boundary reasons. I accept token gifts from members of the congregation out of the love with which they were given (homemade soaps, small denomination gift cards to local coffee shop, etc.)
I am SO glad you asked these questions, I hope lots of people respond!
This is my first year of parish ministry. I am part-time, the staff are all part-time. They are “all in” in terms of revitalizing our congregation. I am giving them gifts this year – which means I am likely committing to that to all future years, too. The church has been through some hard times. We (all of us – staff and lay people) are in the midst of creating a renewed sense of joy, love and purpose in the church.
You asked about Holiday cards – We are creating a staff holiday photo tomorrow, and we will put this on the website, facebook page, and send it as an email.
This year some of us are joining up with a neighboring congregation to go see the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA Holiday Spectacular! I am intentionally setting up cross-congregational events this year so my people can meet and greet and learn from and enjoy our siblings in faith who are nearby. This has benefits on many different levels.
We are a small congregation – so not too many holiday party invitations but I am attending for a bit. It is a great way to connect, and to meet other people in the community and invite them to church. 🙂
I do gifts for my support staff – limited amount, all the same (moderate) amounts. Sometimes it’s homemade cookies in a special dish. Sometimes it’s a gift card to a restaurant I know they like. I avoid plaques, bookmarks, “inspirational” books, etc. like the plague. I was just thinking today that we’ve not gone out to lunch as a staff and we might do that – until this year our organist had a “real” job, and so was unavailable for lunch. One staffer reciprocates with a small gift. Others do not. They don’t give anything to each other.
I have only been invited by one family for holidays in this congregation. I’m an introvert, too, but they know how to treat me like a person rather than The Pastor. In the past I went to whoever offered the first invitation unless I had prior plans with my own family. There were whispers in one church about having “favorites”, but the people who whispered never invited me to their homes. I do go to movies or other events with congregants when invited. I always offer to pay my own way. Sometimes they take me up on it, sometimes they don’t. I have paid for a congregant I knew was out of work, or who simply needed to be “treated” because life was tough at that point.
Well, I am the only staff at my church, so I have no one to exchange gifts with. We have a volunteer organist who does a fabulous job. The church gives her a yearly honourarium (which she promptly donates back). I give her a gift every year, just from me, because she volunteers her time to help us all “make a joyful noise to the Lord!”. Often this gift is edible… this year I’m giving her a holiday package of loose teas that I love (I never give a gift I wouldn’t want to receive). My husband is clergy as well (at a neighbouring congregation) and there is one other staff person. He is giving her a CD that we know she’ll love (we double checked with family that she doesn’t already have it).
As for invitations, we do not receive any. I figure it’s likely because we’re vegetarian and in our meat-loving, hunting focused community we are seen as odd 🙂
We do; however, host an Open House at our home, which we open up to both our congregations. We live in a manse and I love to decorate for Christmas, so it works out well. I bake up a storm the week before (which I love to do), we put some apple cider in the slow cooker, put together a festive punch, put on the Christmas tunes in the background, and enjoy the gathering. We usually have between 40 – 50 people drop by over the course of 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon. It’s lovely and people really make an effort to attend.
We receive a few gifts from congregations members. Often these are edible (yum!) and some are ornaments for our tree. A few give us money which is always a surprise. To all who do, we write a thank you and promptly deliver these the first Sunday we’re back from our post-Christmas holidays.
I’m one of two ministers at a 675 member UU congregation. We go out to lunch as a staff (although a couple part time folk with other jobs are not able to join us) and the ministers’ discretionary fund foots the bill.
No gifts are exchanged this time of year, although we each kick in about $30 at the start of the program year and then each person gets a gft card for their birthday. We have a lot of fun emailing behind the birthday person’s back about what cafe or store they’d like the most.
I tend to accept invitations for parties and open houses as my schedule and mood dictate. I do occasionally feel insecure because I’m not quite as scrupulous about bringing something (cookies to a cookie frosting party, flowers, etc.) as I am in my non-professional life. I wish I had time to make cookies more often but it seems like not having it would be a dumb reason to forego the invite.
When I was a poor assistant I gave homemade chex mix to my boss and the support staff as a way to show my appreciation. As the rector I give gift cards to the local coffee shop to every employee. The two office staff I will often give some other edible gift as well. I’ve also made fingerless gloves for the office staff which everyone appreciates in our drafty building. This year I have such s great office staff that I’m taking them to lunch next week and really looking forward to it.
My kids are invited to more parishioner parties than my husband and I are! We accept every invitation we can and return the favor. We haven’t done this on every congregation but at this church socializing with parishioners seems yo be ok. We just keep in mind they are parishioners and we are the priests. They seem to do the same!
When my husband I were working (BR, or Before Retirement), we co-pastored the same church (about 150 adult members). Every year we gave an Open House 2 Sundays before Christmas and really knocked ourselves out cooking for the week before: Swedish meatballs, ham sandwiches with all the fixin’s, many quiches, poached whole salmon, several salads, home made Stollen, many kinds of cookies, and a Buche de Noel which the kids always loved. We paid for all the ingredients out of our professional expense account, and invited the whole congregation. Depending on the weather, we had from 60 to 100 people attend. It was really a lot of work, but SO worth it! One woman told me how much she looked forward to it every year because it was the only Christmas party she was ever invited to.
People would often bring gifts to this party, which we carefully recorded and wrote thank-you notes for after Christmas, but we never felt any obligation to give gifts in return; the party was the gift!
Staff gifts at Christmas came from the Board, not from us. Sometimes (rarely) it was a bonus; more likely to be a gift card or grocery cards.
Thanks for this–I like reading what others do. It helps me get clear.
I’m head of staff and the senior minister, and as a matter of appreciation I give gifts to the rest of the staff (I’ve been spotty about it, I’m sorry to say). I think a movie gift certificate each is going to be the way to go this year.
Shortly before Christmas, all the full-time or almost-full-time staff, those of us who are around Monday-Friday, go out to lunch on work time and paid for by the ministers’ professional expenses budgets.
I love Judy’s Christmas party–so lovely. I can’t see myself doing it, though. I can’t hold it at my house, which is way too small and not close enough to the church, and my spouse (who is not clergy) and child have enough church obligations at other times of year.
As for socializing with congregants, in groups, yes. Every December a member of our elders group hosts a lovely lunch to which ten members and the ministers are invited, and I wouldn’t miss it. I’ve gone to the movies and mini-golf. The only time I socialize one on one is my acceptance of an annual opera evening with an elderly gentleman who is a passionate opera lover. That said, I get invitations to lunch with congregants that I rationalize as pastoral or business visits but that sometimes cross the fine, fuzzy line into socializing. The issue is not usually boundaries per se, but time: as the minister of a 250-member church, I don’t have enough lunches in the year to have just-to-chat lunches with each of them three-four times/year; of course most don’t ask for it, but it feels wrong to extend that time to just the ones who ask. I’d like to hear more about how others deal with this.
I’m in a extremely rural, small congregation (2 of them) context. I don’t have staff, but last year (my first year) I gave everyone on the councils, the organists, and the inside custodians a gift bag of home baked goodies. This year, I’m giving a devotional book (which we’ll be using a council decvotions for the next year). Between the 2 churches, there are 24 people on this list, so I have to really watch the costs.
I send cards to all our shut ins and our snowbirds. Otherwise, the only people who get a card sent me one first. These cards sometimes have gifts from the parishioners, which I accept in the spirit given and promptly write thankyous for.
We held an open house for the congregations last Sunday, which will become a annual event. And we’re hosting a dinner for the council members in a couple of weeks. We like to entertain – my spouse is a fab cook, but when we invite just a family or two, no one comes. We don’t get invited to family holiday parties, but I am invited to all the community ones.
I haven’t attended movies with parishioners, but have considered it. It’s either a 45 minute (local) or hour and a half (the city) drive to the closest theater, so I don’t get to movies often anyway. But I would dearly love to see some chick flicks instead of the action/adventure stuff my guys thrive on, so I’ve been considering asking a carful of ladies to go to a movie with me. Thanks PB for suggesting it again!
We give our staff and Board members a food gift every year (choc-peanut clusters made in the crock pot…always something easy that they can serve to others). And send a photo card to everyone in the congregation. Less than $50 to have made by Costco for the church and family/friend list of 225. We instituted a “mailbox file” last year for everyone in the congregation and put the cards in them. After a couple weeks I go through and send the ones that have not been picked up. It is amazing how much goodwill and sense of belonging this has generated even though we use preprinted labels and write nothing. AMAZING.
That said, when we served a small congregation in AK I brought a pound of coffee back from Costa RIca for every household. Again, a winsome, inexpensive, and surprisingly touching moment in the life of our relationship.
I think it important to break the clergy are “professionals” assumptions every once in awhile… in truth, this is my community of faith/worship and I/they forget that to our peril.
A parishioner speaking: when I first started going to a UU church, the holidays were about 4 months away. I wasn’t sure if you give the minister a gift or invite them to your holiday party or what to do…. two days before Christmas, thinking I was only being polite, I asked my minister (a single man, no family around) if he would like to join my family (us, the grandparents and my 3 year old) for Christmas day lunch (worship was on the 24th). He gleefully accepted…I thought it was odd, hadn’t some longer standing parishioners than us thought to invite him SOMEWHERE?? and the answer was NO! According to him, in a subsequent conversation, he thought everyone assumed another congregant had asked him first, or that he had other plans. According to him, he had the best holiday – out of his everyday element with family dynamics and a hyped up 3 year old on Christmas Day. So my theory is to ASK….you never know who you could make happy.
[And that’s why we love you, girl. – PB]