Hello, friends! Remember that time when I wrote Part 1 in the OTM series and promised you Part 2 “next week”? Sorry about the 103-week delay. I don’t know what happened wait yes I remember now I had a baby.

As you can see from his hospital ID bracelet, we elected to name him “Boy Catherine.”

Just kidding. I’ll say only that we named him in hopes that he would do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with his God. (If you know, you know.)

But where were we? Ah yes, the narrative section of the OTM portfolio! In a way, I think it’s for the best that we waited two years to tackle this topic, since a new challenge has arisen in the meantime: How to make it clear that your narrative essays were written by a human person and not by ChatGPT. If you stick with me here, I think you will be able to do just that.

As previously mentioned, I have no experience whatsoever with online dating, but feel qualified to say with confidence that the OTM is pretty much an online dating profile for clergy. In that spirit, consider these two example summary statements from dating profiles. Here’s one:

I love music, friends, laughter, and just hanging out and having a good time! In my free time, I’m usually reading or working out. I’m looking to meet someone honest, funny and kind. HMU if that’s you 🙂

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s totally anodyne, and you might swipe right if the accompanying pictures are cute. (I had to look up which direction you swipe if you like the person, as Tinder was only launched after I had already been married for a year.)

And yet … it’s totally anodyne. It could have been written by anybody, right? Show me someone who doesn’t enjoy “friends” and “laughter,” or a young urban professional who doesn’t claim to be into reading and working out. If the author’s photos don’t catch your eye, you’ll have forgotten about it by the time you put down your phone.

Here’s another:

I bet you’ve seen me at an Indigo Girls concert. I work in outdoor education and I can start a fire with one match. Want to go hiking or climbing sometime? Let’s get some coffee, trade camping disaster stories, and see what happens next.

With this, you have my attention. Maybe I own all the Indigo Girls’ early bootlegs and I carry my climbing gear in my trunk. Maybe I hate folk-rock concerts and the smug liberals who attend them, and the only thing I hate more is sitting on the wet ground watching some asshole try to start a fire with one match. You are either definitely my type, or definitely not.

“But wait,” you’re thinking. “What does this have to do with writing essays for a job search? Sure, when I’m dating I want to be picky, but when I need a job I want to appeal to as broad a range of churches as possible.”

If I may respectfully disagree … you are not going to be right for every church, and not every church is going to be right for you. You might be the perfect match for a bustling downtown parish with an active ministry to unhoused people, or a mid-sized suburban congregation trying to grow its children’s ministry, or the one affirming church in a sleepy coastal fishing town, or a small community where the primary language of worship is Hmong. But are you perfect for all of them? Even within just one of those categories — say, mid-sized suburban congregations — there is enormous variation from church to church in who the people are, what they care about, and what they will want out of you. They may be conservative, progressive, or “purple” (ugh); they may be full of young families or have none at all; it may be very important to them that you are a classically trained musician, that you graduated from a particular seminary, or that your sermons draw on original-language Biblical texts.

Look, I understand that you need a job. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be suffering through this post. But the best way to get one — and one that you’ll thrive in and want to keep for a while — is to share memorable details that will differentiate you from all the other candidates. “Preaching, formation, and pastoral care” are the “music, friends, and laughter” of the OTM. If that’s all you have going for you, you better be REALLY cute.

So how shall we draft an OTM narrative section that relies on your talents and not just your charms? Let us begin.

Disclaimer: There are obviously many different approaches to writing these kinds of things; for example, Stephen Ayres offers a list of appreciative inquiry questions for each OTM narrative essay if that framework makes more sense to you. I would never presume to argue that the process outlined below is the best one out there. But I do love a good character sketch, and the best OTM portfolios I’ve read give me a clear picture of what the writer is like and whether I could imagine them as my priest. I care about your character and vocation way more than I care about whatever percentage you increased something by in your last call, especially if that something is your ASA, since I just assume everyone lies about that.

Here we go! Do you have a pen?

Step 1: Think of three to five of your contemporaries in ministry — people who got ordained around the same time as you.

They could be your classmates, but they don’t have to be. Have you thought of them? Good.

Step 2: Think of three to five neutral or positive words or phrases that describe you, but don’t describe any of them — qualities that, within this small group, are unique to you.

Examples:

• me: married queer white woman, has lived on both coasts, very interested in studying languages (Biblical and otherwise), particular love for Christian education/curriculum development and working with people in training for ministry
• third-generation Episcopal priest, lifelong New Englander, married to college sweetheart, went straight from undergrad to seminary
• youth minister, previously high-school English teacher, interested in rural/small-church ministry
• missionary kid, exvangelical, PhD student, grew up abroad
• church musician, Anglo-Catholic, leads retreats on contemplative prayer
• immigrant, bilingual (Spanish/English), former Catholic priest, married with two children, extensive church-planting experience, has chaired Commission on Ministry

Step 3: Look at your phrases and think about some of the positive things someone on a search committee might assume if this was all they knew about you.

• me: LGBTQ+ (a positive in some settings). Familiar with the church in a variety of regional contexts. Could cultivate a robust formation program.
• The Right Sort of Person! More ordained experience than other priests their age. A beautiful family. Lifelong commitment to the Episcopal Church.
• Great with young people. Probably willing to serve in small rural churches that no one else will consider.
• Very smart. Solid grounding in the Bible. Probably values the progressiveness of our denomination. Interesting life history.
• Outstanding liturgist and musician. Deep grounding in prayer. Could cultivate meaningful worship and deepen a congregation’s spiritual life.
• Experienced priest with wisdom on congregational development and raising people up for ministry. Could serve a bilingual/bicultural congregation with ease. Probably has the skills to navigate an unhealthy church or grow a healthy one.

Step 4: Look at your phrases and think about some of the negative things someone on a search committee might assume if this was all they knew about you.

• me: LGBTQ+ (a negative in some settings). Can’t seem to settle down anywhere for more than five years. Overly academic teaching style (who really cares about Biblical languages?). More interested in the “program” than “administrative” work of ministry.
• Nepo baby. Provincial. No real life experience outside the church. Has confidence vastly outpacing their skills.
• Couldn’t hack it as a teacher. Thinks ministry will be “easier” (ha!). Similarly, probably interested in small, low-paying churches because they know they couldn’t hack it in a big one.
• Weird fundamentalist baggage. Overly academic sermons. Missing some important pieces of the local culture.
• Liturgy snob. Gin and lace all day long. Too much contemplation, not enough action. Deep prayer life, but can they read a budget?
• Thinks he’s seen it all. Did this guy just leave the Catholic Church so he could get married? Also, how fluent is his English really? (Unfortunately, I know several native English speakers who have been asked probing questions in church job interviews about how well they speak English. It seems like there must be a common thread between them but IT’S RACISM I can’t figure out what it is.)

Step 5: Set your notes aside for a minute and make a list of ministry memories, beginning with “The time when …”

You have eleven of these things to write, so best to come up with 20 memories or so. These do not all have to be positive memories; in fact, you will need to draw on some negative ones for a couple of the essays. They just need to be, well, memorable.

Off the top of my head, here are some of mine:

• The time when I taught a 12-week “Learn to Read Biblical Greek” class for my congregation on Zoom.
• The time when I invited my newly ordained colleague to baptize my son.
• The time when I made a pastoral visit to a teen in the hospital and brought two guitars so that we could play together.
• The time when I converted a closet in my apartment into my contemplative prayer space, never guessing that COVID would turn it into a recording studio.
• The time when I officiated a funeral for a person whose two sides of the family came from very different cultures, one of which insisted on an open casket during the service, the other of which wouldn’t hear of an open casket during the service.
• The time when I served on an advisory board to my diocesan Commission on Ministry and successfully advocated to change some racially- and gender-biased policies in the ordination process.¹
• The time when I helped someone struggling with religious scrupulosity reclaim her relationship to prayer.
• The time when I recruited 47 church members of various ages and backgrounds to contribute to a daily devotional for Lent and Holy Week.
• The time when, while helping a couple of seminarians practice celebrating the Mass, I pretended to keel over and have a heart attack mid-service and made them figure out what to do. (In fact I always do this when training seminarians #notsorry)
• The time when I helped someone who had been baptized in a non-Trinitarian tradition decide whether he wanted to be re-baptized in the Episcopal Church.
• The time when I led a children’s All Hallows’ Eve service where the kids got to wear their Halloween costumes and “scare away” their fears by yelling “GOD IS STRONGER!”

Step 6: Review your list.

You are going to need at least one story apiece that deals with:

• Worship
• Teamwork
• Your own prayer life
• The diocese/regional judicatory/wider Church
• Pastoral care
• A new project that you started
• Stewardship/fundraising
• Conflict
• Change

So let’s see how I did here:

😐 Worship: There’s nothing wrong with this story, but unless I’m applying for a job as a children’s minister, I probably want to share something that appeals to a broader audience.

• The time when I led a children’s All Hallows’ Eve service where the kids got to wear their Halloween costumes and “scare away” their fears by yelling “GOD IS STRONGER!”

✅ Teamwork: I think I could use one of these stories as the foundation of an essay that talks about how I incorporate others into ministry and help them find joy in discovering their gifts.

• The time when I invited my newly ordained colleague to baptize my son.
• The time when, while helping a couple of seminarians practice celebrating the Mass, I pretended to keel over and have a heart attack mid-service and made them figure out what to do.

✅ Prayer life: Having a dedicated, private space for prayer in my home actually taught me a lot about what matters to me in my prayer life and how I best connect to God. I could definitely write a short essay about my prayer closet.

• The time when I converted a closet in my apartment into my contemplative prayer space, never guessing that COVID would turn it into a recording studio.

✅ The diocese/regional judicatory/wider Church: This is a good chance to talk about my background in anti-racism work. If a congregation doesn’t share that commitment, I’m probably not a good fit for them.

• The time when I served on an advisory board to my diocesan Commission on Ministry and successfully advocated to change some racially- and gender-biased policies in the ordination process.

✅ Pastoral care: I have had the privilege (?) of providing pastoral care to people in some truly unexpected circumstances. It has taught me a lot of humility, to say the least.

• The time when I made a pastoral visit to a teen in the hospital and brought two guitars so that we could play together.
• The time when I officiated a funeral for a person whose two sides of the family came from very different cultures, one of which insisted on an open casket during the service, the other of which wouldn’t hear of an open casket during the service.
• The time when I helped someone struggling with religious scrupulosity reclaim her relationship to prayer.
• The time when I helped someone who had been baptized in a non-Trinitarian tradition decide whether he wanted to be re-baptized in the Episcopal Church.

✅ A new project that you started: That Greek class was awfully fun, but because learning to read Biblical Greek is not everyone’s jam, I will probably talk about the Lenten devotional instead.

• The time in fall 2020 when I taught a 12-week “Learn to Read Biblical Greek” class on Zoom.
• The time when I recruited 47 church members of various ages and backgrounds to contribute to a daily devotional for Lent and Holy Week.

❌ Stewardship/fundraising

❌ Conflict

❌ Change

Step 7: Add in a few more stories, as needed.

✅ Worship:

• The time when I developed a Holy Week meditative service focused on the women of the Passion story.
• The time when I convinced my very Protestant congregation to try out a “prayer station” (what some might call a “shrine”), and it was a smash hit.

✅ Stewardship/fundraising:

• The time when I pushed very hard for 100% member participation in our fall pledge campaign, and got pretty close to achieving that goal.

✅ Conflict:

• The time when I helped a high-conflict church committee become more healthy and productive by making simple structural changes (sticking to a timed agenda, starting and ending meetings on time, putting disputed items to a vote) and helping the group set norms for everyone’s conduct (so that bad behavior could be corrected with a redirection to the norms, rather than a personal callout: “Thank you, Gwendolyn, I want to make sure we observe our group norm of giving everyone time to speak” instead of “Shut up, Gwendolyn, you can’t filibuster our altar candle purchase decision by running out the clock”).
• The time when I facilitated an anti-racism discussion that unexpectedly turned very hostile. I followed up with each participant individually and gathered the group again with an outside facilitator so that we could move toward reconciliation and repair.

✅ Change:

• The time when I led my congregation in a decision to change the Sunday worship schedule and the total number of services: how I solicited member input, how I framed the pros and cons to our church board, how I communicated about each stage of the shift.
• The time when something something something COVID. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t write about the changes I made during COVID, because they were 100% reactive. I sure as shit didn’t initiate the pandemic and I did not remotely² enjoy (to quote the OTM) that particular “experience leading/addressing change in the church.” Besides, everyone else is going to be writing about COVID for this one. Make yourself stand out.

Step 8: Take a deep breath and survey the scene.

You now have about a million little pieces of information to work with; the next task is to assemble them into a coherent mosaic. For that, we will start by returning to Step 2. Here’s me again:

Married queer white woman, has lived on both coasts, very interested in studying languages (Biblical and otherwise), particular love for Christian education/curriculum development and working with people in training for ministry.

And then we are going to see what we can add from Steps 3, 6 & 7:

Married queer white woman, has lived on both coasts, very interested in studying languages (Biblical and otherwise), particular love for Christian education/curriculum development and working with people in training for ministry. Creative approach to worship. Believes that conflict resolution is best facilitated by concentrating on process, not personalities. Committed to anti-racism, anti-oppression work. Cares about giving church members a say in decision-making. Sensitive to cultural and mental health needs in pastoral care.

Finally, we’re going to preempt any mean stuff people might have been thinking about you in Step 4. Take the wind right out of those sails, yo.

Married queer white woman, has lived on both coasts, very interested in studying languages (Biblical and otherwise), particular love for Christian education/curriculum development and working with people in training for ministry. Creative approach to worship. Believes that conflict resolution is best facilitated by concentrating on process, not personalities. Committed to anti-racism, anti-oppression work. Cares about giving church members a say in decision-making. Sensitive to cultural and mental health needs in pastoral care. Interested in relocating to hometown near family and remaining there for the long term [this was true for me during my last search]. Invested in making Scripture and theology accessible to all. Has strong administrative skills, in addition to creative program ideas for ministry.

Step 9: Write the essays.

Unfortunately, I have run out of ways for you to stall. Now you just have to write the damn things. (Here are the questions again.)

Step 10: Review your essays and compare them to the summary you came up with in Step 8.

Is there anything you want to add, alter, or refine to make sure you share what people should know?

Step 11: Recruit your most uptight friend to copyedit your essays.

Ask them to be RUTHLESS. You can absolutely be a strong priest without a strong command of spelling and grammar, but you don’t want your OTM tossed into the circular file over something so small.

Step 12: Now that you’ve done all this, come back around to the “Personal Ministry Statement.”

People get REAL worked up about this innocent line on the front page of the OTM. Don’t panic! All you need to do is take your Step 8 self-summary and pull out a few of the ideas that matter most, to the tune of 250 characters, which is (give or take) 35 to 40 words:

I am passionate about sharing God’s love with the world through creative expressions of worship, engaging and accessible Christian formation, and anti-racism work. I am committed to building healthy parish systems and empowering lay leaders.

That’s it. Don’t overthink it. These 35 words would have to be pretty bad to get a search committee to stop reading.

Step 13: Take a hot bath.

Well done, good and faithful servant. You have earned the right to kick back with a good book³ and eat ice cream in the tub.

Oh, and before I forget: It may sound silly, but I do pray for the readers of this blog, and for the vocations of all those who are called to serve the church. May God bless you, Jesus accompany you, and the Holy Spirit guide you as you discern your next call.

1. To the church leader who required my Black seminarian to take some improv classes in order to make their preaching more “articulate,” I am here to say: ABCDEFU. ↩︎
2. Ha. ↩︎