Finding Pastoral Care and Support at NewCity with Sara Nixon

In this episode, Nate asks Sara Nixon, the Director of Care at New City, to give an update on how the care process works at NewCity. The conversation sheds light on the recent shifts our pastoral care structure has undergone. With a newly adopted model, our pastoral team is equipped to guide members through the trials of suffering, sin, and sorrow.  Moreover, the upcoming rollout of Collectives will ensure that no one is forgotten, with elders overseeing care for members within their zip code.

You can connect with Sara by e-mail (snixon@newcityorlando.com) or by visiting the Care page on Church Center.

The series of episodes from earlier this year that Nate and Sara discuss can be found here:

• Following Jesus in Soul Care Week 1
• Following Jesus in Soul Care Week 2
• Following Jesus in Soul Care Week 3
• Following Jesus in Soul Care Week 4

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:13

So, Sarah, when was the last time you were on this podcast?

Speaker 2 0:18

Yeah, the last time was when I was walking through the SoulCure community.

Speaker 1 0:24

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I think I was involved with that. It feels like forever ago, but that was this calendar year right, it was this calendar year, february.

Speaker 2 0:36

Yeah, it's been a minute yeah.

Speaker 1 0:39

So you were, yeah, me, you and Ben talked about the SoulCure learning community, walked people through that Over these last. Was that nine months? No, not nine months ago, eight months ago. Give or take.

Speaker 2 0:50

Yeah, but I want to say it's almost a year, which is wild.

Speaker 1 0:54

Almost a year you and Jason have been working together. Jason's the executive director of congregational care. You're the director of care you guys work really closely together and we've kind of you've streamlined the process right.

Speaker 2 1:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:08

Of how we do pastoral care.

Speaker 2 1:10

Yeah, essentially we are trying to get really clear on the process of care within New City, partially because even I a couple of weeks ago, as I was sitting in the back of the church and just looking out and it's so full, which is a beautiful thing. But there are so many humans in that space and it was just a moment for me of realizing like, yeah, we, we have to be really clear on how we're providing both pastoral care as well as soul care to our people, because we're only getting larger.

Speaker 1 1:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:49

And there's no way that if we were to ask Ben and Damien and Jason or Ryan and Kenny to hold, that, it would be both do. It would be doing a disservice to the members of New City as well as to the pastors.

Speaker 1 2:07

Yeah, you know what I mean. Well, it's almost a sense in which maybe they could, but then that would be all they do. Totally, and it's like well somebody's got to get up and preach and someone's got to cast vision and some other things that have to happen from the pastoral staff. So sitting with people, caring for people, is part of their role and responsibility, but they can't do it for 40 hours a week.

Speaker 2 2:27

Right, so we have to find an answer to that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:33

So that's what you and Jason have been working on and kind of clarifying and are ready to. We're presenting it on this podcast as if it's a roll out of a new thing, but it's really just being public about. This is what the process is, this is how you could enter into it if you feel like you're in a season of need or yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 2:52

So essentially, yeah, it does. Congregational care is, on one hand, all-encompassing and, on another hand, kind of a not the under, a little bit like the underbelly of New City, in that it's not an upfront ministry. People don't often know that I'm the director of care.

Speaker 1 3:13

No, this is about as close as it comes to like a Katie Anderson on stage asking for volunteers for city kids. It's like this is not.

Speaker 2 3:21

Yeah, but way more boring, Way more boring Les.

Speaker 1 3:24

I don't think we're doing any funny voices. There's no skits happening in the next five minutes.

Speaker 2 3:28

Yeah, no. Hello everyone. I'm Sarah Nixon and I'm the director of care, and this is not as fun. I am looking for hurting people.

Speaker 1 3:34

If you're in pain please send me an email, yes.

Speaker 2 3:37

It's not quite that yes.

Speaker 1 3:40

It is directing people. Well, who do Iif I really am having a problem, or there's something I want to talk to my pastor about, or there's something I'm struggling with, where do I go first?

Speaker 2 3:50

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So the bet, really the best place is to reach out to me directly.

Speaker 1 3:59

Okay.

Speaker 2 4:00

If you are in a significant season of suffering or sorrow or sin that you want to move out of or know what to do with, the best place to reach out is me S Nixon at NewCityOrlandercom. Okay. You're just you putting it out there I am Sorry, I don't have an Insta tag, you know.

Speaker 1 4:23

Yeah, it's fine.

Speaker 2 4:26

Yeah, reach out to me and really can I share a little bit of like overarching system.

Speaker 1 4:35

Give us the way of the system. We're popping the trunk on this.

Speaker 2 4:38

Is it popping the trunk or popping the hood? Popping the hood?

Speaker 1 4:40

Popping the hood looking under to see what's going on here.

Speaker 2 4:43

Yeah, yeah, really. Our hope for congregational care is that we know we need relationships to do life. We know life is hard and we can't do it alone. So what is great is that New City has really created a system or model where care can happen. So much of it is if we have a time and a place on the schedule. Care is possible If I know that I'm showing up to my circle on Thursday at 7,. Care is possible if I just create that space for it. So within Sunday morning, worship within communities, within circles. That's where we hope that you're really being known and knowing others.

Speaker 1 5:30

Which I think that's really important to underscore. It's to some extent the first line of I don't want to say defense, because it's not that, but if you're in a circle, if you're in a community, there's already people who do know what you're carrying, presumably. But it may even be something where, because of shame or other reasons, you don't want to bring it into that space yet, but you are still struggling with it, and we're also in a season where there's people, I think, who would like to be in circles, who aren't yet.

Speaker 1 5:57

And so we're just sort of yeah, there's a stand. Maybe ideal way this would happen you talk to your circle, you get your community involved, then they reach out to you and the process starts from there. But life is often less than ideal.

Speaker 2 6:13

Less than ideal way, messier than we want it to be. But yeah, that's right. So, when you know, we've all had the moment when we're sitting across from someone and, as a therapist, I often make the joke if I'm sitting across from someone there are times that I think, wow, that sounds really hard. You should talk to someone about that.

Speaker 2 6:34

And ironically the person is.

Speaker 2 6:36

Me, I don't think that as often as I used to, but so we've all had that experience, and so the great thing is that when it feels like your community or your circle is not enough to hold where you are and we've all been there when the season of life is so excruciating or so out of control that we need more, that's when we have systems in place to both bring in pastoral care.

Speaker 2 7:14

So that could look like several sessions with a pastor. That could look like receiving like mercy and financial care through our internal mercy fund Our diaconate is over that process. That could look like receiving counseling resources and referrals. Could also look like us bringing a care team around you, which is a group of people that ideally you already know and have a previous trusting relationship with, and they intentionally walk with you through a season with the purpose of moving out of where you are and into greater healing, which we would define through a care plan. So the care team model is kind of our higher level of care, but all of that is available and when someone reaches out to me, that would be kind of an initial intake process to really assess what's the severity of what they're walking through? What support and resources do they already have and how ready are they to engage the process?

Speaker 1 8:27

So it's almost like you're kind of identifying the gaps that are there. So then we can kind of see like okay, what's missing here, what's good here, what's what could be strengthened? And, in my understanding with the care team, it's people they already like you said, it's people they already know, but it's people that are then opting in to be really involved.

Speaker 2 8:44

Yes.

Speaker 1 8:44

In the situation, so it relieves some of the burden of the person who's experiencing things to be like yeah, you can reach out to these people because they've agreed to be accessible.

Speaker 2 8:53

Totally.

Speaker 1 8:54

For this specific thing, not just in a general like yeah, call me if you have any problems. Right, kind of thing yeah.

Speaker 2 9:00

Yeah, it's a very clearly defined process where expectations are known, both for the care team participant the one receiving care, as well as the care team, and we've also made it a six month commitment. So there's a clearly defined yeah, you're in it with them for this amount of time, with an option to to re-up or end, and also a very clearly defined like here's the problem and here's where you are hoping to go. Here's kind of the picture of what you're moving towards.

Speaker 1 9:33

Yeah, yeah. So I think it's that's really helpful to kind of sketch the picture for people that it's there, we're bringing other people in. It's not, they're not sending you an email and then it's like you're just going to take it from there and fix their problems for them.

Speaker 2 9:46

It's your kind of there's.

Speaker 1 9:48

Probably is it triage that they're in medical terms, with their you know you're kind of assessing what's going on, but you're bringing other people into the process. And then eventually a diagnosis is made and then you're sending, sending the person to get the care from the appropriate people at that point.

Speaker 2 10:03

Totally, yeah, yeah, and there may be times that you know Jason and I really enjoy meeting with people. Sometimes we'll meet with members together, sometimes separately, and, yeah, we really enjoy the process of sitting with someone and determining what is best for them at this point. But something really cool about the care team process is that part of healing requires time, and so I think the care team model recognizes like, yeah, you're not going to get out of this tomorrow. You need time, you need support, you need people, you need resources. So let's try and make that happen to the best of our ability.

Speaker 1 10:47

Yeah, well, I think that's. It could be, too, that your circle is your care team, but it would be like a question to your circle that they would need to kind of level up their commitment to you in a season. It wouldn't have to be like, oh, we got to find three more people. Even though you already have a circle or, you know, outside your community group You're getting people that are already sort of in the loop to buy in a little bit more to the process be a little more informed.

Speaker 2 11:14

Yeah, ben and I have talked about that and that feels like an ideal situation. If we want to talk about, yeah, ideal that your circle would turn into a care team. The reality is that there's like a mutuality that we hope for within a circle space that's a bit lost when we move into a care team, but, depending on the people in your circle, that might be good, that might be OK. Yeah, it really depends on their needs, because, the care team meeting.

Speaker 1 11:42

It's really checking in with the person singular rather than anyone else sharing. Like well, that sounds really bad, but here's what I'm going through.

Speaker 2 11:51

Yeah Something like that.

Speaker 1 11:54

It's three people kind of aimed at one person, helping to build them up pour into them which is not necessarily the way it is with a circle every week. Maybe some weeks a circle can be like that but, week in and week out. It's not supposed to be.

Speaker 2 12:07

Yeah, the ideal or hope for a care team is that they're really like harnessing all of the active listening skills, and the Chirol Circle is another thing that. Ben has implemented in the circle space.

Speaker 1 12:21

When you said active listening and just a pin to put in right here for people to go back and listen to the series that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, because that was a big focus of that Learning community was teaching. How do you actually do these active listening skills with other people?

Speaker 2 12:37

Yes, totally Good plug. Also, when someone is engaging in a care team as a participant, one of my roles and One thing that I really enjoy is meeting with those people on a regular basis for ongoing training or support or care for the people that are doing the heavy lifting, because we all know that that costs us something to walk intentionally with another human. So I enjoy providing some of that training and skill set along the way.

Changes in Pastoral Care Structure

Speaker 1 13:10

Yeah, well, that's great. Well, I feel like this is we'll talk a little bit more, but I just want to anecdotally say we really have entered into a new season at New City where, as you said, standing in the back looking at everyone out there, there's a lot more people here than there was two or three years ago, and I know we we came to New City back in 2017.

Speaker 1 13:31

And at that point in time, it was not unreasonable to walk up to Ben after church start a conversation and be able to get coffee later in the week, or, you know, connect with Damien, get drinks sometime, and it's like, yeah, we were small enough to where the pastors could have more one on ones with people.

Speaker 1 13:50

They had that capacity and it almost felt like that was kind of the way things got started. You had a problem. You reached out to Ben and Damien, or Ben or Damien, whichever one, maybe you had already had a closer connection to. You get together with them, you have conversations. They assess and think like this, this feel. They called them shepherding situations. Are we still?

Speaker 2 14:10

using that language we refer to shepherding more like care cases, care cases.

Speaker 1 14:16

Shepherding situation. It almost made it sounds not not sinister, but it sounds like there's a shepherding situation out in the pasture. Yeah, like it's not a good thing, right, but this could just be, like you said, the categories of suffering, sin, sorrow, it's like sometimes it's just something you're going through. Sometimes it's something that you're lamenting, grieving, or sometimes it's your own sinfulness catching up to you in some ways. And so it's like, yeah, you need care cases sounds more neutral.

Speaker 2 14:47

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:48

Yeah, I would say like it was you went to the pastor first and then maybe they were the ones that put together the care team or had to triage and figure out, refer you to a counselor, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 15:00

Right.

Speaker 1 15:00

Part of what we're doing. I was just taking a step back. Part of what we're doing here is naming. That's not really the way it works anymore. And if you've been here for a long time, you may assume. Oh, that's the way it still works.

Speaker 2 15:10

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good clarification and it feels important to say to like that's not the way it works currently, but that doesn't change really the level of care over souls that our pastoral leadership feels. I think there could be a perception of like, oh, they're not accessible anymore and so there's like a loss of pastoral shepherding or leadership. And yeah, it feels important to just know, like, actually our hope is that our members will receive a higher level of care, with people that can actually walk with them on a weekly basis, and that is because our leadership loves us and they recognize their limitation.

Speaker 1 16:00

Yeah, Well, I just want to name like you came on staff full time last August. Jason came on full time last November.

Speaker 2 16:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:08

So there are. There's now two people whose full time job is overseeing care at New City which is not what it was when it was benedaining. Like they did. They did participate in care cases, but that was one of several things that they did and also maybe could name two. Like this is not to say moving forward Don't reach out to Damien and Ben if you are struggling and need help. It's like, yeah, they're your pastors, reach out to your pastor.

Speaker 1 16:33

But what would likely happen now is you get space with Damien, talk about what's going on and Damien's gonna say, hey, I'm gonna connect you with Sarah and she's gonna take the baton from here and kind of help work out what a Care case might look like, what a care team might look like, instead of Damien being the one to Do all of that work, to figure everything out and set everything up right, yeah even though he stayed, he's staying. He still may be involved. Almost almost lost it there. He's still maybe involved in the process as it goes along.

Speaker 2 17:04

Yeah, yeah, as part of the, depending on what the specifics of your care plan looks like, there's always going to be I'm glad you said this. Actually, this is important there's always going to be an elder assigned to a care plan. So ideally, again we're using the ideal situation. The elder is in your collective, so they're kind of like geographically close to you and we should double click on that real quick. Yeah, double click.

Speaker 1 17:36

We haven't talked about collectives right publicly. Publicly but the.

Speaker 2 17:40

Here we are, collectives collectives.

Speaker 1 17:44

Yeah, we needed something. We had circles, we had communities, we had congregation. Now we need collectives. It's basically just a way of grouping people geographically, and so an elder would presumably be over a certain couple of zip codes or so right of people, just so that the elders have people under their care and they're not just like there's a group of elders, there's a bunch of people. How are they matched up?

Speaker 2 18:05

Yeah, it's a way of not losing any members, and every elder know who is theirs to care for and shepherd and pray for fairly, evenly divided, as much as we can. So yeah it's not.

Speaker 1 18:19

You know, just because there's more people in one area doesn't mean one elder has more right, right, yeah, so thank you for double clicking on that.

Speaker 2 18:28

That elder would Would be responsible to meet with pray for check-in with really provide the Like pastoral authority and leadership over the care team For those six months.

Speaker 1 18:47

Yeah well, that's, yeah, that's. That's a good clarification. So there is an elder involved. It may be Damien in your case, it may be somebody else. It just right depends on a lot of factors. So we've kind of we've laid out kind of a general Structure of what's going on, the way you and Jason are overseeing things now, what people can do. Is there anything else you want to add? Before we give real specifics about? I mean, people can email you, but there's also a we're gonna have a care page in the app With certain forms in it that people can access.

Speaker 2 19:16

But anything else we need to add before we explain that Hmm, yeah, I think I would just invite people to not hide. There's no need to um to not ask for help or care. Um, you might find that Jason and I are very eager sometimes overly eager um to move in and really get to know, get to know the human across from us and offer hope. So, yeah, I would just encourage anyone listening to not hesitate to reach out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:51

Well, that's good and I hope too for some of us, some of us introverts. I think it can help if the the bar gets lowered and it's like, oh, I can send an email, or like, oh, I could fill out a form.

Speaker 2 20:01

I don't have to wait around after church and you know the sanctuary trying to make it up to a pastor or you might get a call from me if you fill out a form. But it is a little, yes, an easier in. It is an easier yet?

Speaker 1 20:13

Yeah, and you're not. Sometimes the face to face thing is the barrier of like I've got to find someone I don't necessarily know very well. It's like sending an email can be a little bit easier to kind of move things forward if you're not sure, but I think part of our hope here, too, was in putting this podcast out is people can actually hear from you.

Speaker 1 20:30

Next week or in the next couple of weeks, you're going to do another podcast with your circle and so people can kind of hear you interacting a little bit more in that space and kind of get a feel for what that sounds like and what what that looks like, and so then it just people could know you a little bit better in that sense. So you're not a face in the crowd in the back of the room. Yeah, thinking about all the hurting people and you know, wanting to care for them but not knowing where to start.

Speaker 2 20:56

I have my Kleenex and my tea.

Speaker 1 20:58

There you go.

Speaker 2 20:59

I'm just kidding. Well, sometimes it's true.

App-Based Care Services and Support

Speaker 1 21:02

I don't know. Well, sarah, it's been great talking about this. We'll point people to the app. They can find what they need there. There's going to be a on the home page, there'll be a link to the care page and then also you already said your email, but we'll have it in the show notes. We'll have the links to the podcast series as well.

Speaker 2 21:20

Yeah, and on the app. Well, maybe we're getting here, but we will have links for the internal Mercy Fund request form, as well as just an overarching care request form, if you know that you need some further support, but not sure what that looks like, and then a counseling request form. We really value supporting members through the counseling process, so those will be accessible on the app.

Speaker 1 21:49

Yeah, we'll have those in there. So we're keeping them on the, keep them on the app. They're not there at the moment, or at least as I'm saying these words, but by the time by the time people are hearing this podcast, they can open up the app and on the home screen, you should see a link to everything we've been talking about that's great. So thanks for taking time to talk with me today. Thank you, Dave. Tell us about the care plan. Yeah, it was fun.