Your Boundaries Checkups
by Cindy Halvorson, MDiv, DMin
Looking ahead in my calendar, I realized I had a dental appointment coming up. I released a heavy sigh. I’m not a fan of going to the dentist. I want clean teeth and healthy gums. I want to avoid decay and deterioration … but I’d rather not go. I listen every time for the description of my plaque levels – “light to moderate.” I wish I could get it to “light,” but I never seem to accomplish that. I often have a nagging sense of failure as I lean back in the chair looking at the ceiling with dental instruments in my mouth. I like the hygienist and the dentist as people, but I’d rather not go.
I wonder if what I described above might be how ministry professionals respond when they are reminded they need to attend Boundaries Training. They want to have good boundaries. They certainly want to avoid the pain and devastation that boundary violations can cause … but taking the training? Well, they’d rather not go.
As a trainer for the LeaderWise Boundaries Programs, I’d like to share my heart on the matter.
Please know, I care about you, as does my co-facilitator. We might not know you, yet we see you as a co-laborer who longs to bring peace and goodness into our world. Having personally been involved in ministry settings, we can imagine the challenges you face.
We live with boundaries in our own work and personal lives every day. Some days we hold to healthy boundaries better than other days. We’re constantly working on our own stuff.
We desire, during our trainings and beyond, for you to walk with self-compassion. There’s enough judgment and sense of inadequacy or failure in our world. We have no desire to heap any more judgment or shame onto any of us.
Because of our work with churches where boundary violations have occurred, we have front row seats to the damage to congregations and ministry professionals when boundaries are violated. We long to limit the destruction to the congregations. We yearn to spare ministry leaders the pain they experience from boundary violations.
LeaderWise Boundaries Trainings are designed with you in mind. We know that one-size-fits-all isn’t true … whether for a piece of clothing or for the various boundaries that need tending in our lives.
Even if the only reason you come to boundaries training is to “check the box” and complete the task, our hope is that you will be impacted in a beneficial way by participating in the training.
When I find myself at the dentist, I’m going to ask her why she became a dentist. I imagine she will respond with a phrase such as, “I want people to have good dental health.” Or “I want to spare people from having a painful experience every time they chew.” Or “I want to help people have what they need in order to be nourished and healthy.”
When I think about my passion for boundaries trainings, I have similar thoughts for pastors and congregations that I imagine my dentist has for her patients. I want people to have good boundaries so they can experience holistic health … physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. I want to spare people from the painful experience of boundary violations. I want ministries to offer nourishment and health to those to whom we are called to minister.
When it comes to your next boundaries training, please walk in self-compassion, approaching the materials with an open-heart and a mind willing to learn. I look forward to meeting you there.
May all our wonderings and wanderings lead us home.
