Seven months of learning what it means to trade the hospital corridor for the sanctuary—and what I’m discovering in between.
I’ve spent more than twenty years walking hospital corridors at 2 a.m., sitting with people as they died, helping families make decisions no one should have to make, and being with students as they navigate the reality of caring for others. Healthcare chaplaincy has been my formation ground. It’s where I learned to be present to suffering, to listen for what people aren’t saying, to create space where grace can show up.
Now, after seven months of intentional discernment, I’m moving toward congregational ministry.
What I Keep Thinking About
I keep thinking about a woman I’ll call Margaret. She was on hospice care, dealing with a terminal diagnosis. I met with her regularly over several months. We spoke about her faith community, the losses and joys in her life, her approaching death, and her thoughts and feelings about it. What she wished she could still be part of, and no longer could.
What I remember most is an early visit. She stopped mid-sentence and said, “You actually listen, don’t you?” Like she was surprised. And then she started talking differently—not only about wishing for a pain-free death, but about what she believed about God. The trust built slowly. Week by week. Silence became as important as words.
That’s what congregational ministry asks for, too. Yes, crises will come – and I know how to be present in those moments. But I’m also curious about what happens in between. The patient work of walking alongside people through ordinary life, through the rhythms and seasons they mostly live in. Not just showing up for the dramatic moments. Listening for patterns beneath the surface. Creating space for transformation to happen slowly, in God’s time.
I’ve been in psychoanalytic training since 2021, and it’s been teaching me something I’m still sitting with: healing doesn’t happen through quick fixes or neat resolutions. It happens in the room—in the relationship, in the willingness to stay present with ambiguity, in the slow work of paying attention. That’s what I’ve learned, not just intellectually but in my body, in how I listen now. And I’m starting to recognize it in pastoral care too. The best moments aren’t when I have answers. They’re when I can help someone notice where God is already at work, often in places they haven’t been looking.
What’s Drawing Me (And giving me pause)
Here’s what draws me to congregational ministry: the rhythm. Liturgical seasons. Ongoing relationships. The chance to see what happens after the crisis – how grief becomes hope, how suffering deepens faith, how people integrate their experiences into the larger story of their lives.
In healthcare, I met people at their most vulnerable, but those moments were brief. I rarely got to see what came next. In a congregation, I’d see people week after week, year after year. I’d watch children grow, marriages deepen, and faith mature. That’s the privilege of sustained accompaniment—not just in the valley of the shadow of death, but on the ordinary roads where most of us spend most of our time.
These seven months have become my laboratory. I’ve been writing sermons for congregational settings, involved in commission work, interacting frequently with clergy and congregations, offering presentations, and testing what it actually feels like to work in a parish rhythm. I’m deepening my understanding of how church communities function, learning the language and structures of congregational life. I’m discovering where my skills translate and where I need to grow.
There’s still plenty I don’t know—that’s clear to me. But I’m not approaching this as a theory. I’m learning by doing, which means I’m ready to be a student again. Ready to ask questions, to receive mentorship.
What I’m Learning About Accompaniment
At the center of what I’m discovering is this: accompaniment is spiritual formation. We don’t grow in faith alone. We grow in relationship – with God, with each other, with the communion of saints.
The pastor’s work, as I’m coming to understand it, isn’t to fix people. It’s to walk alongside them. To help them notice where God is already moving. To create space for the Spirit to work.
That’s what I’ve been learning in healthcare. That’s what I’m curious about in congregational ministry. How do you help people attend to their inner lives, to the movements of grace and resistance within them? How do you equip congregants to provide this kind of depth-oriented care? How do you build systems that ensure no one falls through the cracks – that every person knows they’re seen, known, and accompanied?
I’m still figuring that out.
What’s Next
I’m not totally sure what comes next. But I’m learning to trust the process. Twenty years of pastoral experience have taught me something about presence, about listening, about creating space for God to work. I’m discovering how that might translate into congregational life. I’m learning what I don’t yet know. I’m beginning to imagine what it means to walk alongside people in all the seasons of their lives, not just the hardest ones.
I don’t have it all figured out. But I know how to be present. I know how to listen. I know how to create space for God to work.
I believe that’s enough to start.
Attunement. Compassion. Depth.