Pivot Podcast6 Nov 2025

When Mental Health Ministry Becomes Everyone's Work

Our congregations are filled with people wrestling with anxiety, depression, and struggles they don't always name out loud. Many church leaders feel the weight of wanting to help people through their mental health challenges, but what does a shared approach to pastoral care look like in a church setting? And how can leaders companion people through these struggles without burning out? In this episode, Dr. Cody Sanders—Associate Professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership at Luther Seminary and author of Spiritual Care First Aid—shares how churches can become communities of healing and hope. He offers practical examples of collaborative approaches to care, from worship planning to equipping lay caregivers, that honor both the humanity of those who are struggling and the limitations of those who care.

You'll discover why companioning beats fixing every time, how to create trauma-informed care practices without clinical training, and practical ways to combat loneliness in your congregation. Cody shares stories of churches doing this well—from pastors passing out donuts at the high school to congregations equipping lay care teams that become self-sustaining. Whether you're a pastor feeling overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities or a lay leader wanting to support your community better, this conversation offers a sustainable path forward that invites your entire church to share in the ministry of care.

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Episoder(191)

A Solo Reflection on Prayer, Longing, and an Australian Movie from the 90s

This week's episode breaks from the usual format. Pivot producer Joey Goodall steps in for a solo reflection on what prayer practices are actually for, and what happens when we lose sight of that. He ...

3 Sep 7min

Leadership for a Diverse Church

Eastminster Church has been in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood since 1856, and for most of that history it worshiped and looked like a fairly typical Presbyterian congregation. Aaron Teter, the...

27 Aug 43min

What Sunday Morning Teaches People About Monday

Katie Roelofs has spent years thinking about the space between Sunday morning and the rest of the week. A pastor in the Reformed Church in America and managing director of the Worship for Workers Proj...

20 Aug 28min

Ministry That Doesn't Rush Toward Results

For twenty years, Johnny Sertin has practiced a kind of place-based ministry built on staying put. He and four other families started the Earlsfield Friary in southwest London, committing to live with...

13 Aug 39min

Augustine Was a Pastor First

For most of his afterlife in the Christian imagination, Augustine has been a theologian first, a philosopher second, and everything else a distant third. What tends to get lost is that he spent nearly...

6 Aug 33min

A Different Kind of Strength

Second Corinthians is one of the strangest letters in the New Testament: a leader defending himself, a community in open doubt, and in the middle of it, some of Paul's clearest writing on power in wea...

29 Jul 43min

The People in Your Church Don't Belong to You

"The church as we know it is calibrated for a world that no longer exists." That's how Dr. Scott Cormode opens his book, and it's the starting point for this conversation about Christian leadership wi...

23 Jul 37min

The Church With No Budget, No Staff, and No Sunday Service

Ten years ago, JR and Amy Rozko planted a two-hundred-year-old congregation in Canton, Ohio, only to discover that what their city needed wasn't another program but a rule of life: a shared rhythm of ...

16 Jul 36min