☃️ What can you let go today, ?

Published: Mon, 01/19/26

Updated: Mon, 01/19/26

Dear ,

We want to let you know this morning that Eileen will be out for the next week or more caring for her mother. Please join me in keeping Eileen and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

This week our 3MMM Team member, Elizabeth-Anne Lovell, Director of Digital Media, has written a fun blog about what she's learned from parenting a two-year-old that informs the way she thinks about ministry.

In the "Let Her Go" Approach she sees the value of letting all the feelings out rather than holding them in. She asks us: What would my time in ministry look like if I allowed myself to speak up? To cry when things didn’t feel right? To verbalize my anger? And to show my full range of emotions? To speak my mind?

“Let Her Go” Approach by Elizabeth-Anne Lovell

To complement Elizabeth-Anne's post, I want to share an episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor where Eileen discusses the importance of emotional intelligence. How we learn to cope with our own feelings and how we navigate the feelings of others are both key to cultivating emotional intelligence for ministry. Do you know the crucial features of emotional intelligence?

3MMM Episode 15: Emotional Intelligence

Grace and peace,

Laura Edgar

Minister of Support, 3MMM

Attending to What Matters

As we continue to navigate the new year, let's draw inspiration from what we did last year that mattered. Check out Eileen's post and consider your own practice for attending to what matters. Whether you share it publicly or reflect on it personally, making a list of what you did last year that mattered can help frame your life during the past year and shape your path in this new year.

Mini Writing Retreat

February 6

We have one more of our beloved mini writing retreats for all writers this winter! Join us on February 6, and maintain momentum on your writing goals for this year.

Members of the Writing Table receive a 50% discount.

Mini Writing Retreats | Register Here

Monday Morning Email

Monday morning emails are continuing to come your way. Every week we will offer inspiration and information aimed toward improving your spiritual practices of ministry, writing, teaching, and mentoring. We will also give sustained weekly attention to what is happening with the emerging State of Clergy Report. Many other writing projects are also underway, and I will be sharing those with you as they come to life.

Each week on Mondays, I look forward to supporting and nurturing your growth in your spiritual practice. And we will continue to offer live events, such as the upcoming Mini Retreat on February 6. Being together, even in digital and hybrid spaces, where we prioritize community and real time shared practice (across many time zones), is one of the more nurturing forms of support we have identified through these seven years. I hope we will continue finding ways to connect with each other. When pastors, professors, writers, and poets join each other to improve our practice, the results feel nearly miraculous.

We are grateful for you, , and wishing you all the very best in this New Year.

New State of Clergy Report

Hanging out with friends and colleagues at the American Academy of Religion in Boston in November reminded me how much I appreciate friends who prepare people for ministry by teaching in theological education, research and writing, and lots of mentoring. I'm incredibly grateful for scholars who stand at the intersection of ministry and higher education and who care deeply about people of faith and those called to lead them. I'm looking forward to updating the 2018 data with a newly revised and expanded State of Clergy Report.