Home.

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What can Steady Hands do for you?

We want to meet pastors and ask them one thing:  “How can we help you personally OR professionally so that you have a better chance of staying healthy in ministry, staying committed to ministry and focused as much as you can on the things that God has called you to do in this season?”

Ways we can help AT HOME:

• drop-off meals or gift cards to local restaurants/activities to enjoy as a family
• tailored encouragement packages for your spouse/kids
• listening ears and safe space to process “life” with
• refer and pay for marriage, trauma or any other type of counseling
• provide respite locations to unplug, recharge and restore (short and long-term)
• coordinate and schedule handyman projects, landscaping, house cleaning, etc… 
• whatever is keeping you from optimal health — just ask!  

Ways we can help AT CHURCH:

• directional discernment/coaching for you, staff, elders or volunteers
• sabbatical coaching/coverage
• succession planning 
• pulpit supply
• interim staffing gap coverage
• staff encouragement
• project management and prioritization
• budget building and financial reviews
• policy creation
• small-medium building/construction projects
• consulting and training
• remediation
• provide access to leadership/development conferences
• anything in the way of you operating at an optimal level

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Our cost.

Absolutely nothing : ) We have an incredible support system of donors and churches that have partnered with us and believe in our mission and make it possible for us to provide hand-on support at no cost to you. Whether we help a pastor for a day or a year, we are committed to come alongside and “steady the hands” of leadership and not let any sort of financial hurdle get in the way.

Our why.

In late 2023, when Barna polled 523 Protestant senior pastors of varying ages and denominations, they found that one-third had considered quitting in the last year, 60 percent had significantly doubted their calling, and 25 percent said they’d seriously doubted their faith. Most soberingly, Barna says, “Nearly one in five Protestant senior pastors in the U.S. say they have contemplated self-harm or suicide within the past year.”

In 2015, 24 percent of pastors reported excellent physical well-being. But in 2023, that same number was just 11 percent. In the same time period, those reporting excellent mental and emotional well-being plummeted from 39 to 14 percent. Pastors feeling they had excellent overall quality of life dropped from 42 to 19 percent, and pastors who believe they have “true friends” decreased from 34 to 19 percent. Over the same period, pastors who ranked the respect they feel from their communities as excellent fell from 22 to just 7 percent.

While these statistics are sad and scary, we have seen some encouraging “bounce-back” from the Covid-19 season of ministry! Pastor Dever sums up a section of Hebrews 13 that has become a bit of our “mantra” that we believe everyone can join us in doing as we try to change some of the statistics above!

“You as a church member either need to trust your leaders or replace them. But don’t say that you acknowledge them and then not follow them. . . . Rather than distrusting church leaders, let me encourage you to talk behind your elders’ backs: meet in secret and plot to encourage your leaders. Strategize to make the church leaders’ work not burdensome, but a joy.”