No warning. No announcement. No “I’m taking some time, I’ll be back when I’m back.” I just stopped writing. Stopped posting. Stopped showing up in your inbox.

A few of you noticed. A few of you asked when I was coming back. And I want to address that, because the story of why I stepped away is the same story I’m about to tell you about leadership, growth, and what happens when a grant maker gifts you something you didn’t know you needed.

THE DISAPPEARING ACT

Here’s the context: One of the organizations that funds the non-profit I lead granted me something unexpected. Not money. Time. Specifically, a week at the Growth Skills Ultimate Leader workshop. An in-person, intensive program with a team of psychologists, small group processing, and work that goes deeper than any leadership conference I’ve attended.

I was apprehensive. I knew very little about the program. I didn’t know what to expect. And honestly, I wasn’t sure I had time for it with everything on my plate.

But I went anyway.

And then I just... didn’t come back to my regular work for a while. Not because the workshop was that long, but because I realized I needed to protect the time after it ended to actually integrate what I learned instead of rushing back to emails and tasks and the thousand things that normally fill my days.

So I stepped back from writing. From posting. From some of the non-essential work that feels essential when you’re in the thick of it but isn’t really. And I didn’t tell you I was doing that, which I’m acknowledging now because if you’re a paid subscriber or someone who reads regularly, you probably noticed.

I’m sorry for that. You deserved a note. You deserved context.

THE HYPOCRISY I FINALLY FACED

Here’s what made this even harder to own: I have told my team, repeatedly, that they need to take their PTO. That they need to step away. That time with family matters. That they shouldn’t let work consume them.

I meant it. I still mean it. But I wasn’t living it.

I was the one checking email at 10pm. The one saying yes to every ask. The one who genuinely believed, despite evidence to the contrary, that the organization couldn’t function without me being constantly available and constantly working.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I was preaching rest and investment while operating on a model of scarcity and control. I was modeling exactly what I was telling my team not to do.

And then I took a week away and discovered something almost embarrassing: the organization was fine without me.

More than fine. It was better.

I had built the infrastructure. I had trained the team. I had done everything right. But I didn't trust it enough to actually step away. So I kept showing up like I was indispensable, even though the structures were solid. I had done the work. I just hadn't trusted the work.

WHAT A WEEK IN THE DEEP END LOOKS LIKE

The Growth Skills Ultimate Leader program is not a typical leadership conference. There’s no keynote speaker. No breakout sessions on “5 Ways to Increase Giving.” No vendor booths.

It’s in-person, intensive, and it involves working with psychologists in processing groups where you’re actually doing the work while getting real-time feedback and support.

And a lot of that work is personal.

I went into it thinking I’d learn some leadership frameworks. I left it having worked through some past wounds that were affecting how I show up as a leader and how I process difficult situations. Specifically, past trauma that had shaped my responses to conflict, my confidence in certain situations, and the walls I put up in relationships even when I’m being transparent.

It’s one thing to be transparent about facts. “Here’s what happened. Here’s what we’re doing.” It’s another thing entirely to be relational. To let people in. To have relationships that go deeper than the professional surface.

I learned that I was doing the former while calling it the latter.

I also learned about boundaries. Not in the abstract “self-care boundaries” way. In the specific, practical, relationship-by-relationship way. How to set boundaries at work that are different from boundaries at home. How to communicate them without guilt. How to say no without apologizing.

And delegation. Real delegation. Not assigning tasks to people who already have full plates, but actually stepping back from things that aren’t mine to do and trusting other people to own their work.

One thing I kept hearing over and over: You don’t have to be all things to all people.

I know that intellectually. I teach it. I write about it.

But knowing it and believing it are two different things.

THE THING THAT ACTUALLY CHANGED

If I’m honest, I’m still working through a lot of what I learned. The week was the catalyst, but the real work is happening now, in the accountability group I joined with other participants from the program.

We text. We meet. We hold each other accountable. We challenge each other on the things we said we’d work on.

And here’s what’s different in my actual leadership, not just in theory:

I say no now. Not to everything. But to things that aren’t mine to do or that don’t align with where I’m supposed to be focusing my energy. And I don’t feel guilty about it.

When someone asks me to be on a committee or lead an initiative or take on a project, my first response isn’t “How can I make this work?” It’s “Is this something I should be doing, or is this something someone else should own?”

Sometimes it’s the former. Often it’s the latter. And I’ve learned that when it’s the latter, saying no isn’t selfish. It’s wise.

I’m also more aware of who I’m doing work with and how. I notice when a relationship is all business. I notice when I’m keeping people at arm’s length even though I’m being transparent. And I’m experimenting with letting people actually know me, not just know my leadership.

This sounds small. It’s not. This is everything.

THE CHRISTIAN LEADER TRAP

I want to say something specific to the ministry and faith-based nonprofit leaders reading this:

We have a particular gift for weaponizing the concept of service.

We quote about laying down our lives. About serving others. About putting our needs last. About being a servant leader. And then we use those concepts to justify running ourselves into the ground, never resting, never investing in ourselves, never saying no because saying no feels like choosing ourselves over the mission.

It feels selfish.

Except it’s not. It’s actually the opposite.

When I was running on empty, my team felt it. My board felt it. My family felt it. I was less creative, less patient, less present. I was showing up, but I wasn’t showing up fully because I was operating from a place of depletion instead of a place of strength.

One of the most convicting things someone said to me during that week was this: “If leaders are supposed to model for their teams, what are you modeling right now?”

I was modeling burnout. I was modeling the belief that your worth as a leader is determined by how much you sacrifice. I was modeling that boundaries are optional and rest is a luxury you get after you’ve earned it.

And then I was asking my team not to do the same thing.

The hypocrisy was staggering.

Investing in yourself as a leader isn’t selfish. It’s stewardship. It’s saying your calling matters enough to actually show up for it with your whole self, not just the exhausted version that’s still technically functioning.

WHAT I’M LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP

I’m learning that understanding yourself as a leader is foundational. Not just understanding your leadership style or your strengths. Understanding where you come from. What shaped you. What wounds you carry. How those wounds show up in how you lead.

I’m learning that leaders need other leaders. Not just mentors, though we need those too. We need peers. We need people who are in it with us. People who understand the particular weight of leadership. People who can call us out when we’re slipping back into old patterns and celebrate us when we’re showing up differently.

I’m learning that the organizations that thrive are led by people who’ve done their own work. Not perfectly. Not completely. But genuinely. People who know themselves well enough to lead others well.

SEEKING HELP FROM EXPERTS

There’s a biblical concept I come back to often: Iron sharpens iron.

It’s in Proverbs. It’s about accountability. About wisdom. About the reality that we need other people to help us become who we’re meant to be.

For years, I interpreted that as needing mentors and elders. Older women to guide me. More experienced leaders to show me the way.

That’s still true. But I’m learning it also means seeking out experts in areas where I’m weak or stuck or unaware.

It means not pretending I can figure everything out alone. It means being willing to invest in getting help, whether that’s a coach, a therapist, a specialized program, a peer accountability group.

It means saying “I don’t know” and being okay with that. And then actually seeking out the people who do know.

The Growth Skills program wasn’t about learning new frameworks. It was about healing old wounds and learning new ways to relate to myself and others. That required experts. It required people trained to see what I couldn’t see about myself. It required a container where it was safe enough to actually do the work.

WHAT I’M INVITING YOU TO CONSIDER

I want to ask you something: When was the last time you invested in yourself as a leader?

Not a self-care day. Not a spa treatment or a weekend away, though those matter too. I’m talking about dedicated, focused time reflecting on who you are, how you got here, what’s holding you back, and what you’re actually capable of.

When was the last time you sought help from someone who specializes in areas where you’re stuck?

When was the last time you said no to something because it wasn’t yours to do?

Here’s what I know now: The world does not end when you step back. Your team doesn’t fall apart. Your donors don’t abandon you. Your board doesn’t lose faith.

What actually happens is that you learn you built something that can function without you being perpetually present. And that’s not a failure. That’s a success.

The time away, the investment in yourself, the work with a psychologist or coach or mentor or peer group—that’s not taking time away from your mission. That’s preparing yourself to lead your mission better.

AN INVITATION

I’m sitting with something that might become an offering through The Called Leader. I’m wondering what it would look like to build accountability and peer mentorship groups for nonprofit and ministry leaders who want to do this work together.

Not to be led by me. But to be held by each other. To challenge each other. To celebrate each other. To do the ongoing work of becoming better leaders by becoming more fully ourselves.

I don’t know yet what that looks like or if it’s something people actually want. But I’m curious. And I’m going to keep exploring it with my growth skills accountability group and see where it leads.

If that resonates with you, if you’ve been thinking about investing in yourself as a leader and you’d want to do it alongside other leaders who get the weight of this work, let me know. Reply to this email. Comment on the Substack. Tell me what you’re looking for.

IN THE MEANTIME

Go back to work. Lead your organization. Show up for your mission. But also, be honest about where you’re running on empty. Be honest about where you need help. Be honest about what wounds might be affecting how you show up.

And consider what it would mean to invest in yourself. Really invest. The kind of investment that requires time and vulnerability and expertise and support.

It might be the Growth Skills Ultimate Leader program. It might be a different program. It might be finding a therapist or a coach or a peer group.

But do something. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait until you’re completely burned out. Don’t wait until the organization forces you to take time.

Take the time. Do the work. Invest in becoming the leader your team deserves and your mission needs.

Your organization will be fine without you for a week. I promise.

And you’ll come back better.

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Let me back up.

For years, we had built our funding strategy on one relationship. A family foundation. They were reliable, generous, and for a long time, they carried us. They were about seventy to eighty percent of our entire budget. When you’re running on that kind of dependency, you don’t think much about what happens if it shifts. You should. But you don’t.

The business closed. The money feeding into the foundation stopped. The family made the decision to stop giving. And suddenly, we were staring at a seventy to eighty percent funding gap with no backup plan.

Our board went face down in prayer. Not the kind where you’re asking for a blessing on the work. The kind where you’re asking if you’re even going to be able to keep your doors open.

We had to regroup. Fast.

So we went to our existing donor base. We went to the community. We started working hard to build what we didn’t have: a broad base of individual donors giving at smaller amounts. Within a year of that foundation’s last gift, something shifted. We were in better financial standing than before. Not because we got lucky. Because we changed how we thought about donors entirely.

That’s when I learned what I actually wish I’d known from the start: you can’t build relational giving without systems. And systems aren’t the enemy of relationships. They’re what make relationships possible at scale.

The Problem Isn’t Money. It’s Architecture.

For a long time, I thought the way to build donor loyalty was through perfect asks. The right message at the right time. The compelling case for support. If I just got the words right, people would give.

That’s not how it works.

What actually works is getting to know people. Really knowing them. Knowing their story. Knowing what draws them to your work. Knowing what in your mission connects to their own life. And then having systems that make sure you don’t forget any of that when life gets busy and your inbox is overflowing.

Because relational fundraising looks simple from the outside. Meet people. Listen to their stories. Stay in touch. Build trust. Ask when the time is right. But doing that consistently, across dozens or hundreds of donors, without forgetting who you talked to or what they care about? That requires infrastructure.

When I was a one-person operation, my system was this: I entered gifts by hand. I ran donation receipts. I printed them out. I spent one day a week on that alone. And I wrote little handwritten notes on each receipt. Something personal. Something that said I saw this person and I knew what they cared about.

That was time consuming. It felt inefficient. But I watched it work. Donors felt seen. They stayed engaged. They gave again.

As we grew, I couldn’t do that anymore. I had to build systems that would scale relational giving without losing the relational part.

The Infrastructure That Changed Everything

Here’s what our donor management actually looks like now:

The Database

We use Bloomerang. It’s pricey, but it does what we need: it processes gifts, tracks donor communication, lets us email donors directly, and generates receipts all in one place. For a small organization just starting out, that could be a spreadsheet. A Google Sheet tracking donor name, gift amount, date, and most importantly, their story. The tool doesn’t matter as much as having one central place where the information lives and is accessible.

The Notes System

In Bloomerang, there’s a notes field for every donor. That’s where their story lives. Not in my head. Not in an email I’ll never find again. In the database. Where I can access it from my phone when I’m standing at a community event and I see them walk in. That moment matters. When someone shows up at your event and you remember their daughter’s name or what they shared about their own journey, they feel it. That moment doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you documented it and you had a system to access it.

The Weekly Report

I get an email from Bloomerang every week. It tells me who gave this week and how much. I integrate that with my calendar and I review it. And from that report, I make decisions. Sometimes I send a handwritten note. Sometimes I record a quick personalized video message from my phone and send it. Sometimes I send a text. It depends on how well I know them and what feels right for the relationship. But the system ensures I don’t let gifts slip by without acknowledgment. Without letting them know I see them.

The Decision Tree

This is the part that actually saves time and keeps you relational:

If it’s a first-time gift, the response is different than a long-time donor’s gift. If it’s someone you just met, you might send a formal thank you. If it’s someone you know, you might send a personalized video message on your iPhone saying their name and thanking them specifically. If it’s someone whose story you know—someone who experienced an unplanned pregnancy or needed parenting support or was in crisis—you might invite them to coffee because you want to deepen what you’ve started.

The point is: you have a decision-making framework. You’re not trying to figure out what to do. You already know what relational looks like with each person.

The Tools

A personalized video message takes two minutes to record from your phone. It feels incredibly personal in a way a text never does. We also use handwritten thank-you cards for major gifts and recurring donors. There’s something about a card with your actual handwriting that says in a world of digital everything, you’re worth my time.

We also use AI to flag donors who might need outreach. My system reads our weekly report and surfaces patterns. Who hasn’t been contacted in a while? Who gave a large gift and might be ready for a deeper conversation? Who gave for the first time and might be considering a second gift? The AI doesn’t make the decision. It just surfaces who we should pay attention to.

And we have a team now. An admin assistant who enters all the gifts and handles the logistics. An operations and finance manager. An events manager. We’ve built team structure around donor engagement because relationships take time and you can’t scale relational work alone.

What Changed When We Got Relational

There was a couple in our community who had given a little here and there over the years. You know the kind of donor I mean. They showed up. They supported. But they weren’t particularly invested. They didn’t feel like part of the story yet.

Then I invited them to breakfast. Just the three of us. And they shared their story. They’d had an unplanned pregnancy when they were young. Really young. They got married. They worked their tails off building a business from the ground up. That business is now extremely profitable and lucrative. But it started with them learning this business and working harder than they’d ever worked.

That’s their connection to Raffa. That’s what drew them. And once I understood that, the way I communicated with them changed. It wasn’t about what Raffa needed. It was about inviting them to close the circle. Your story matters. What you went through matters. And now you’re in a position to help someone else avoid that same struggle. That’s the work we do.

Within months of that conversation, they were giving ten thousand dollar gifts. Consistently. Annually. Not because I asked better. Because they felt seen.

I’ve watched this happen again and again.

We had another donor giving a couple hundred dollars a month through our monthly giving program, with a larger gift at our annual fundraising event. That was their pattern. Consistent. Faithful. But not growing. Then we started a capital campaign a few years ago. And through being intentional about staying in touch, updating them on what we were building, keeping them connected to the work, they reached out and gave an eighty thousand dollar gift to kick off that campaign.

I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t prepare a special ask. They gave it because they were already connected. Because they understood the work. Because we had built something real.

And then there’s the donor I saw give a couple hundred dollars maybe once a year. Not faithfully. Not with any regularity. Just occasionally. But through cultivating the relationship, through intentional conversations, through getting to know the family, I found out they had experienced an unplanned pregnancy. It was a really difficult season. Looking back, they wish they would have had access to resources like what we offer.

Once I understood that, everything shifted. Not for me. For them. They felt like they had a reason to give. A personal stake in the work. Now they give generously every month.

The Real Work

This is relational fundraising. It’s not manipulative. It’s not about extracting money from people. It’s about understanding why your work matters to the people in your community and creating a structure that lets you remember that and respond to it.

It requires a database. It requires taking notes. It requires a weekly review process. It requires tools that let you send a personalized video message in two minutes instead of a generic thank you email. It requires time. It requires showing up at their business events. It requires buying them coffee. It requires being interested in their lives, not just their giving capacity.

It also requires letting go of what you think you know about someone’s capacity. Some of my biggest supporters are people who on paper or from the outside don’t look like they have financial capacity to give. Especially in a rural small town area, you can’t assume anything. The only way to know is to build relationship and let people tell you what they’re capable of.

And here’s the thing: when you do this work, you’re not just building donor diversity. You’re building something that lasts. Monthly donors stay. Relational donors give again. People who feel seen show up for the hard seasons when the work needs them most.

I spent a year rebuilding after that foundation pulled out. I built a system. I built a team. I went relational. And now I have something more valuable than any single funder could ever be: a community of people who give because they feel connected to the mission. Because they feel seen. Because they know their story matters.

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• Everything grounded in actual nonprofit experience, not theory

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This guide is built from rebuilding my organization’s donor relationships from zero. Every template, every framework, every decision tree is something we actually use.

Start this week. Pick one donor. Ask their story. Write it down. Follow up in one week.

That’s it. That’s how you begin.

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She’s the kind of person every leader prays for. Good at what she does. Believes in the mission like it’s her own calling. The type who sees something that needs doing and just does it, without being asked. When another team member is drowning, she steps in. Deadline is tight? She’ll stay late. You never hear her complain. She just works.

For a while I thought that was exactly the culture we were building at Raffa. Everyone pitching in. Everyone flexible. Everyone willing to sacrifice because they believe in what we’re doing.

Then I started seeing things shift.

She got quieter in meetings. Not the quiet of someone who’s listening and thinking. The quiet of someone running on nothing and just trying to make it through the day. Her conversations changed too. She used to talk about the moments that reminded her why she loved this work. The goodness of the calling. Then one day I realized she was only talking about the endless to-do lists that weren’t getting done. About what wasn’t working. About the weight.

Her work quality started to slip. Not in a dramatic way. Just noticeable. And I could tell it bothered her more than anything. She could feel herself not being at her best. Which made her try harder. Which meant she burned herself out more.

I saw all of it. And I still didn’t do enough.

Here’s what I’m learning about myself as a leader: I was looking at outcomes. Deadlines were hitting. Projects were getting done. Clients were being served. From where I sit, the output looked fine. So I didn’t look closer at the cost of it.

I didn’t sit down and ask her the real question. I didn’t create space for her to tell me it was too much. And I work remotely, which means I wasn’t close enough to see the quiet white flag being waved. I didn’t have that day-to-day visibility that people who work down the hall from her have.

I think I believed that if she was struggling, she would tell me. But that’s not how it works with mission-driven people. High-capacity people don’t say it’s too much. They think struggling means they’re not believing hard enough. They think asking for help means they’re not committed enough. Saying no feels like letting everyone down.

So they just keep going. Until something breaks.

But here’s what really got to me: she wasn’t just hurting herself. She was actually hurting the mission.

The things only she could do were the things that weren’t getting done. Her actual work. The work that required her specific skills. The work her clients needed from her. That was sitting there incomplete while she was helping everyone else with everything else. She was so busy being a team player that she was failing at the one thing the team actually needed from her.

Our standard at the organization I lead is to glorify the Lord in all you do. She thought that meant pouring herself out. And she was. But she was pouring herself out in all the wrong places. Neglecting her actual job description to help with everything else. And the people who needed her most were the ones paying the price.

I had set clear expectations for that role. I had written a job description. But I hadn’t protected the time and space for her to actually do that job. I built a culture that valued helping and flexibility so much that there was no permission to have boundaries. And I wasn’t watching closely enough to see that one person was carrying the full weight of that whole beautiful culture.

This is where I have to tell you what I learned, because it changed how I lead now.

High standards are not the problem. The absence of systems to support people in meeting those standards is the problem.

Here's the system I built to fix it.

Read more

In this episode, Threesa shares the moment that made her stop and name it, a drive home at the end of an ordinary Tuesday, and what she has learned about finding the person who asks the real question and actually waits for the real answer.

Not a dramatic moment. No crisis. Just a quiet Tuesday evening in the car, somewhere between the ministry and my front door, and I realized I could not name the last time someone had asked me how I was really doing.

Not “how’s Raffa going” or “how’s the team” or “how’s the gala planning coming together.” How am I doing. Me. The person underneath the title.

I couldn’t name it.

That season had been building for a while. I just hadn’t let myself look at it directly until that drive. I had been pouring into staff who were walking through hard things. Pouring into the women and families our ministry serves. Pouring into my family at the end of days that had already taken most of what I had. And somewhere in all of that pouring, I had quietly stopped checking whether anything was coming back in.

I got home. I pushed through. Because that is what you do.

If you are leading a faith-based nonprofit or ministry, I suspect you know exactly what I am talking about. Not because you are broken or doing something wrong. Because the nature of this work is that you are the one who holds space. You are the one who stays calm when the room is hard. You are the one who absorbs what other people cannot carry and figures out what to do with it. That is not a flaw in your leadership. It is the job.

But nobody really talks about what that costs.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with called leadership. It is not the loneliness of having no one around you. It is the loneliness of being surrounded by people who need you while quietly wondering if anyone actually sees you.

You can be in a full room and feel it. You can have a great team, a supportive board, a wonderful family, and still drive home on a Tuesday night and realize you cannot remember the last time someone asked the real question.

This is not a complaint. It is just true. And I think a lot of us are carrying it without naming it because naming it feels uncomfortably close to self-pity, and called leaders are not supposed to do self-pity. We are supposed to be strong. Steady. Available.

So we push through. For years, sometimes. Juggling all the things, holding it all together, trusting the wrong people occasionally and getting burned, and learning to hold even more tightly to what we share and with whom.

I did that for a long time.

What changed for me was finding one person.

Another ministry leader. Someone who understands the weight of this work without needing me to explain it. Someone who asks the real question and actually waits for the real answer. Someone who will reflect honestly back to me what she sees and challenge me when I need it, not just encourage me.

She is a genuine blessing. And I want to be clear about something: it took a long time to find her, and I almost stopped looking. When you have been burned by misplaced trust, the instinct is to close that door and just keep going alone. It feels safer. It feels cleaner. The problem is it is also slowly emptying you in ways you cannot always see until you are sitting in a car on a Tuesday night and cannot remember the last time someone asked how you were really doing.

You need that person. I am convinced of it.

I know what you are thinking. Where exactly do you find someone like that?

It is a fair question. The pool is smaller than it sounds. This cannot be a staff member — the power dynamic makes real vulnerability impossible. It probably cannot be someone on your board for the same reason. It needs to be someone who understands the weight of this kind of work without needing you to explain it from scratch every time.

Here is where I would start looking. Another executive director or ministry leader at a similar stage — someone running the same kind of race who gets it without a twenty-minute briefing. A woman from a previous season of your life who knew you before the title and still asks about the person, not the role. Someone in your faith community who is not in your direct ministry context, who can hold what you share without it affecting your work.

You are not looking for a therapist or a mentor in the traditional sense. You are looking for a peer who will ask the real question and actually wait for the real answer.

Here is the harder part. Even if you find that person, you have to actually let them in. And if you are anything like me, that is where it gets complicated.

Most of us who lead this way — capable, steady in the room, the one everyone else leans on — have built a very effective system for not being vulnerable. We got good at it because we had to. Vulnerability in the wrong room at the wrong time with the wrong person is genuinely costly in leadership. So we learned to hold it. And then we kept holding it even in the rooms where it would have been safe to put it down.

True vulnerability with a trusted person is not the same as falling apart. It does not mean you unload everything every time you talk. It means you answer the real question honestly when someone asks it. It means you say “I am running low and I do not know why” instead of “I am fine, just busy.” It means you let someone sit with you in the uncertainty instead of waiting until you have resolved it to talk about it.

That is hard for leaders who are wired to have answers. I know it is hard for me. But I am convinced it is part of what it means to lead well for the long haul. You cannot keep pouring from empty indefinitely. And you cannot fill yourself back up entirely alone.

I have a standing appointment with the Lord that I protect the way I protect my most important donor meetings. That has been the one constant through every season. But I also believe God designed us to need each other, not just Him. And I think a lot of us in called leadership have quietly let that need go unmet for so long that we have forgotten it is even there.

If you have that person in your life, call her this week. Not to talk about work. To actually answer the real question when she asks it.

And if you do not have that person yet, I want to encourage you to start praying specifically for God to show you who she is. Keep your eyes open in your peer network, in your faith community, in the relationships that already exist but have not gone deep enough yet. She may be closer than you think.

The work you are doing is real. The weight you are carrying is real. And the fact that you keep showing up anyway — for your team, the people you serve, your family — that is faithfulness.

But faithfulness does not require you to disappear in the process.

Someone needs to tend to you too.

Do you have someone who asks you the real question? I mean really. Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

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Not tired. Done.

If you lead a ministry or a faith-based nonprofit, you know exactly what I mean.

This week’s episode is an honest conversation about the weight of this work — what it looks like when I’m running on empty, what I actually do about it, and the one question I keep coming back to when the burden feels too heavy to carry.

This one is personal. I think you’ll recognize yourself in it.

Listen here: calledleader.substack.com

Threesa

The ones where someone you were called to help wasn’t ready. Not ready to walk away from the drugs. Not ready to choose life for their baby. Not ready to fight for their marriage. You say what you can say. You pray. You watch them walk out the door. And then hours later - sometimes days later - the Lord brings them back to your mind and you just stop wherever you are and pray for them again.

Those are the heavy days.

The days when you’re asking for wisdom about what to say, when to be quiet, and for the courage to do both. The days when all you can do is put the entire ministry at the feet of Jesus and ask the Holy Spirit to move because you have nothing left to offer on your own.

It feels like the burden is too heavy to bear.

And then I remember what Jesus actually said. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~Matthew 11:28-30.

Some days that feels impossible to believe. And then the Lord shows me a life saved from abortion. A marriage restored. A soul saved for eternity.

And I remember why I show up every day.

The warning sign I learned to pay attention to

I have had seasons where the work quietly moved above my time with the Lord.

The prayers happened - in staff meetings, with team members, before hard conversations. But my personal time? That was spent doing. Moving. Solving. Producing.

During those seasons the Lord felt distant. And I became someone I didn’t like very much.

Irritable. Overwhelmed. Easily frustrated with the people around me - at work and at home. Things got to me that shouldn’t have. The to-do list felt paralyzing instead of manageable. Joy was hard to find.

Here’s what I’ve learned about why that happens: when I’m running on empty spiritually, I’m trying to solve everything in my own wisdom and my own power. And I was not designed to carry this weight alone. Neither were you.

The drift doesn’t announce itself. It’s subtle. One morning of skipped Bible reading turns into a week. The quiet time gets pushed by the urgent thing. And before long you’re leading a ministry in your own strength and wondering why everything feels so hard.

What I actually do to protect it

When I make time daily to read the Bible, to pray throughout my day, to sit in quiet and just listen - that’s when clarity comes. That’s when I can lead from a full place instead of a depleted one.

Right now I’m reading through books of the New Testament and highlighting every place where Jesus is giving direct instruction. It’s changed how I read and what I’m hearing.

But here’s the piece that made the biggest difference practically: I put it on my calendar and I don’t move it.

Every Friday morning from 7am to 10am my calendar is blocked. It’s called “Time with the Father.” I have a setting on my iPhone with the same name - no interruptions, no notifications, nothing. It is my weekly sabbatical with the Lord.

It took intentionality to build that. It takes discipline to protect it. But it is non-negotiable because everything else in my week depends on it. And guess what - the world didn’t fall apart because I took a few hours away.

The line between holy burden and unhealthy weight

A pastor once told me something I have never forgotten.

He said if I come home at the end of the day completely emotionally and spiritually spent - I am trying to minister out of my own ability. But if I am serving through the Spirit and allowing the Lord to use me, it is Him who is working. And I can draw strength from Him.

That hit differently because I am a Type A, first-class control freak with everything in a five-year plan. In triplicate if possible.

My gift of administration means I can look at a situation and immediately see multiple paths forward. I can troubleshoot the small details and the long-term strategy at the same time. That has served me well. And because it has served me well for so long, trust is hard. I think I can handle it. Others have watched me handle it. And so the yeses pile up and the next thing I know I am carrying burdens that were never mine to carry.

The Lord has called me to a heavy ministry. It is a holy burden and I am privileged to carry it. The rewards are great.

But the line between a burden He has called me to and an unhealthy weight is my posture.

Am I trusting Him for the next step or am I trying to solve it all myself? Am I willing to be obedient to the next thing He’s calling me to - even when I don’t know what it is? Especially when I don’t know how it’s going to turn out?

That’s the question I come back to. What is my posture before the Lord?

What I want to say to you right now

If you’re reading this and you’re running on empty - irritable, overwhelmed, telling yourself you just need to make it to the next season - I want to say this clearly:

Seek good counsel. Find someone who can look honestly at your life and speak truth to you. And then don’t be offended by what they say.

Some of the best advice I ever received was this: before you say yes to something, you have to know what you are saying no to.

Every yes might be a good yes. But is it the best yes? Is it what the Lord is requiring of you right now? Are you saying no to time with Him - or time with your family - to say yes to something else?

As for who gets to speak into your life - I have a simple rule.

They have to love Jesus. They have to love me. And they have to love Jesus more than they love me.

That’s it. If they meet those three criteria, they get to speak into my life.

If you don’t have that person right now - message me. I would love to help.

I have an operations manager and an admin assistant, and they are both genuinely excellent at what they do. I am not leading this organization alone and I want to be clear about that.

And even with that support, I still found myself drowning in the details. I lead a faith-based nonprofit with two medical clinics and a parenting and life skills center, working remotely across multiple locations, multiple boards, and more priorities than any one calendar should hold. The complexity does not stop at the org chart.

What I added to the mix is a system. And that system runs on AI.

This post is not theoretical. Everything I am about to show you is running live in my organization right now. These are the actual workflows, the actual folder setup, the actual prompts I use every single day. I am going to walk you through all of it — including what did not work before I figured out what did — so you can build your own version without the trial and error.

And I want to say this upfront: I did not build all of this at once. The core system came first. Then I kept adding to it as I realized what was missing. That is exactly how I would encourage you to build it too.

Let’s get into it.

The Problem This Solves

Here is what a typical morning looked like before I had this system in place.

I would open my email and immediately start reacting. Something urgent would pull me in a direction I had not planned for. I would forget that a grant report was due in five days. I would miss that a board contact had emailed and needed a response. I would show up to a meeting not quite prepared because I had not had time to see what was coming.

I was leading from behind my inbox. That is not leadership. That is triage.

What I needed was something that could look across all of it — email, calendar, deadlines, tasks, active projects, donor relationships, staff development, publishing schedule — and give me a clear picture before I started reacting. Something that functioned like a chief of staff who knew my organization, my priorities, and my working style.

That is what I built. And it took less than a day to get the core of it running.

Read more

I sat down with a mic and talked through the heart of the post that started The Called Leader - why I built this, who it’s really for, and three assumptions I had to completely unlearn when I stepped fully into leading a faith-based nonprofit that is also a ministry.

It’s the same heart as the original post, just in my actual voice. A little more honest.

Hit play and let me know what lands.

In this episode I introduce myself, share why I started this podcast, and tell you exactly who it is for.

If you lead a faith-based nonprofit, a ministry, or both — and you know the Lord called you to this work — pull up a chair. This one is for you.

Hit play above and let us get started.

The Called Leader

Practical tools for leading with purpose across ministry and mission.

By Threesa Sadler

Not that long ago I thought AI was probably overhyped. I watched other people talk about it and figured it was mostly for tech people or big organizations with IT departments and staff who had time to figure that kind of thing out. That was not me.

I am running two medical clinics and a parenting and life skills center. I am on multiple boards. I am trying to lead with faith at the center of everything I do. I did not have time to learn something new. Some days I barely had time to eat lunch.

But I was also tired. Tired of email that never ended. Tired of spending my evenings doing meeting prep. Tired of donor communications that took way longer than they should. Tired of feeling like I was always one step behind no matter how early I got up or how late I stayed.

So I tried it. Honestly kind of reluctantly. And it worked.

Not in some big flashy way. Just quietly, practically, genuinely worked. And now I cannot imagine leading without it.

I want to tell you exactly what I use and how, because vague AI advice drives me crazy. You do not need someone to tell you AI exists. You need to know what to actually open on Monday morning.

Claude Cowork - My Most Life Changing Tool

I use Claude regularly for writing, content creation, and strategic thinking. It helps me draft donor letters, prep for hard conversations, and think through decisions when I need to talk something out. That alone has been worth it.

But the tool that has genuinely changed how I function as a leader is Claude Cowork. It is a desktop application and it works less like a chatbot and more like having a really good assistant who starts work before you do.

Every morning before I sit down at my desk it has already run automatically. It reviewed my Gmail. It pulled from a Google Drive folder where I keep all my ongoing tasks, projects, and deadlines. It checked my calendar. And it put together a full briefing that is sitting there waiting for me when I open my laptop.

And I mean a real briefing. Not just a list of emails. It tells me which emails actually need my attention and why. It lays out my full day with context on each meeting. It ranks my priorities. It flags any grant deadlines coming up so nothing sneaks up on me. It gives me a three day look ahead so I am never walking into a week blind.

Then at four o’clock in the afternoon it runs again. It tells me what I did not get to today, what absolutely has to happen before five, what I need to prep for tomorrow, and what is coming in the next few days.

I did not write any code to make this happen. I just described what I needed in plain language. That was it.

Now I want to be upfront about one real limitation because I am not going to pretend everything is perfect. Claude Cowork only runs on a laptop or desktop. It does not work on your phone or iPad. And honestly when I first found that out I thought well that is a problem because I am not always at my desk.

So here is what I did. I set it up to automatically save my briefing and end of day summary to a specific folder in Google Drive. Now I can be sitting in a car pickup line or waiting at a doctor’s office or in between meetings and pull it up on my phone. My briefing travels with me even when the tool itself cannot. Not perfect but it is a solid workaround and it works for me.

ChatGPT — For Practice and Specific Tasks

I still use ChatGPT too, especially for specific GPTs which are basically customized versions built for particular purposes.

My favorite one is a negotiation GPT. It lets me practice and roleplay difficult conversations before I actually have them. As someone navigating board dynamics, donor conversations, staff situations, and sometimes conflict with other organizations, being able to rehearse a hard conversation with AI before walking into the room has been really valuable. It is like having a practice partner available anytime.

I also used ChatGPT a lot before I found Claude for grant writing prep, basically helping me get my thoughts organized before I started drafting. It is great for that.

Here Is What Nobody Told Me

The thing that surprised me most about AI is this. The AI will teach you how to use it if you just ask.

You do not need a course. You do not need a certification. You do not need a tech background. You just need to be willing to ask questions and try things.

The hardest part honestly is learning how to prompt well. How you ask matters a lot. Vague questions get vague answers. But here is the thing, when I did not know how to ask something I just told the AI that. I said I am not sure how to ask this but here is what I am trying to accomplish and it helped me figure out the question. That is still one of my favorite ways to use it.

What My Team Uses It For

Right now my team is mostly using AI for content creation, writing, and editing. For a small nonprofit producing a lot of communication, that has made a real difference in what we can get done without adding staff hours. If you have a small team doing the work of a big one, that is honestly where I would start with them.

The One Thing I Really Want You to Hear

Do not be afraid of it.

I know that sounds simple. But I see too many good leaders dismissing AI because it feels impersonal or complicated or somehow not compatible with the relational, faith centered work we do. I get it. I was there.

But here is what I have learned. AI does not replace what makes you a called leader. It does not replace your discernment or your relationships or your pastoral care or your calling. What it does is take the administrative weight off your plate so you can show up more fully for everything that actually requires you.

The email sorting. The meeting prep. The grant tracking. The first drafts. Let AI handle that so you can handle what only you can handle.

One thing I do want to say clearly, especially for those of us working with vulnerable populations. Be smart about what you share. Do not input client information, donor personal data, or anything confidential into AI tools. Treat it like any third party. Use it for your thinking, your writing, your systems, and your planning. Not for private information about the people you serve.

Here Is What Is Coming Next Week

I have been using these tools long enough now that I have a real system. And next Tuesday I am sharing the whole thing with paid subscribers. The exact setup. The exact prompts. A step by step guide for building your own morning briefing system. The workflows I use for donor communications and content. All of it.

This is also the week I am turning on paid subscriptions for The Called Leader. Founding members get in at the introductory rate before I adjust pricing.

If you want that level of detail, subscribe below before Tuesday.

See you next week,

Threesa

Executive Director, Raffa | The Called Leader

The Called Leader

Practical tools for leading with purpose across ministry and mission.

By Threesa Sadler

What do you do when the leaders around you - people who love the Lord, serve the same population, and share the same mission - can’t seem to get along?

This isn’t theoretical for me right now. This week I’ve been sitting in the middle of exactly this kind of tension. I’m not going to share the specifics because that’s not the point. The point is that if you lead in this space long enough, you will face this. You will sit across from - or hear about - other called leaders who approach things so differently that you wonder how you’re all serving the same God.

And in those moments, what do you do?

I’ve been working through Francis Chan’s book Until Unity recently, and it has been both convicting and clarifying. Chan makes a point early in the book that stopped me cold. He argues that the root problem of division among believers is not doctrine. It’s not strategy. It’s not even personality. It’s the shallowness of our love for each other — rooted in a shallowness in our understanding of the gospel.

That landed hard.

Because if I’m honest, when I’m frustrated with another leader’s approach, I’m not leading with love first. I’m leading with my perspective first. And Chan would say that’s exactly where division takes root.

So how do we do this better? Here is the framework I’m working through.

Step One — Start with Humility, Not Your Opinion

The temptation when we disagree with another leader is to start making our case. We gather our evidence. We rehearse our reasoning. We build our argument.

Chan challenges this directly. He writes that unity demands a level of humility that is only possible by the Spirit. Not by our own discipline or restraint. By the Spirit.

That means before I open my mouth, before I send that email, before I get on that call - I need to ask the Spirit to do something in me that I genuinely cannot do on my own. Lower my defenses. Soften my certainty. Make me genuinely curious about what the other person is carrying and why they see things the way they do.

Humility is not weakness. In called leadership it is actually the prerequisite for everything else on this list.

Step Two — Go to Scripture, Not to Your Instincts

When there is conflict or disagreement among leaders, our instincts will tell us we are right. Our instincts are not a reliable narrator.

Scripture is.

Ephesians 4:3 calls us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Not passive about it. Eager. Active. Pursuing it.

Ephesians 4:13 reminds us that God gives leaders to the church specifically to equip people toward unity of the faith. That means leadership and unity are not separate callings. They are the same calling expressed differently.

When I am in conflict with another leader, my first question should not be — who is right? It should be - what does the Word say about how I am supposed to move in this moment? That reframes everything.

Step Three — Seek Counsel from Multiple Directions

One of the most practical things I have learned in dual-role leadership is that the people closest to your situation are not always the best counsel for your situation.

When I am navigating tension with other leaders in my space, I intentionally seek two kinds of counsel.

First, I go to people inside my world - other faith-based nonprofit leaders, pastors, ministry peers - people who understand the landscape and the stakes.

Then I go to people outside my world - leaders in secular organizations, board members from different sectors, advisors who don’t share my assumptions. These voices challenge me to articulate what I actually believe and why, without assuming shared understanding. That process almost always sharpens my thinking and softens my posture.

Proverbs 15:22 says plans fail for lack of counsel but with many advisers they succeed. This applies to conflict as much as it applies to strategy.

Step Four — Pray for Discernment Before You Act

There is a meaningful difference between receiving counsel and acting on counsel.

After I have listened to scripture, sought wise voices, and sat in the tension long enough to hear clearly - I still need discernment before I move. Because not all counsel is equal. Not all good advice applies to my specific situation. And sometimes the right answer is to wait longer than feels comfortable.

James 1:5 says that if any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

That is a promise for exactly this kind of moment. Ask. Wait. Listen. Then move.

Step Five — Remember Your Primary Responsibility

Here is the part that is hardest to say out loud but most important to internalize.

You cannot control other leaders. You cannot fix every relationship. You cannot manufacture unity where someone else is not willing to pursue it. And you are not called to sacrifice the mission of your organization on the altar of keeping the peace with everyone around you.

Chan makes a bold point in Until Unity that I think applies directly here. He says that God gives leaders to the church to equip people toward unity of the faith - but never at the expense of truth or holiness. Unity is not the same as agreement. Unity is not the same as compliance. And pursuing peace does not mean abandoning your convictions or compromising the mission God gave you.

As the called leader of your organization, your primary accountability is to the Lord and to the mission He placed you over. You can pursue unity. You can extend grace. You can seek counsel and pray for discernment. But at the end of the day, you lead your organization. Not theirs.

That is not arrogance. That is stewardship.

What I am Still Learning

I want to be honest with you. I have not mastered any of this. This week has been genuinely hard. I have had to stop myself from reacting, slow down enough to pray, reach out to people I trust, and sit with discomfort longer than I wanted to. And, in reflection, I probably should have been more thoughtful and less reactive than I was.

But I keep coming back to something Chan wrote that I think is the anchor for all of us in this space. He says that God grieves the division among His people - and that our indifference to that division is itself a problem.

We are not called to be indifferent. We are called to pursue unity eagerly, humbly, scripturally, and wisely - while leading our own organizations with faithfulness and integrity.

That is the tension of called leadership. And I would not trade it for anything.

If you are in a season of conflict with other leaders right now, I would love to hear from you. Hit reply and tell me what you are navigating. You are not alone in this.

And if you have not read Francis Chan’s Until Unity - I recommend it. Especially for those of us leading faith-based organizations where unity is both a command and a constant challenge.

Threesa Executive Director, Raffa | The Called Leader

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There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with leading when the mission never really turns off.

I’m the Executive Director of Raffa — a faith-based nonprofit pregnancy center with two medical clinics and a parenting and life skills center. Raffa is not just a nonprofit. It’s a ministry. Those two things are not separate for us — they are completely woven together, and leading it requires holding both with equal intentionality every single day.

On top of that, I serve on multiple boards for other nonprofits — some faith-based, some secular, all service-oriented. And at my church, my husband and I shepherd a small group together, walking closely with people through the real stuff of life.

Nobody sits across from me and says “that’s too much.” Because from the outside, it looks like a calling. And it is. But a calling still has weight. And that weight is real.

The gap nobody talks about

There are thousands of leadership books, podcasts, and courses out there. I’ve consumed a lot of them. And while many are genuinely good, almost none of them account for the specific reality of leading a faith-based organization where the mission is both a business imperative and a spiritual one.

When you lead a ministry that is also a nonprofit, you carry a double standard — one that the business world doesn’t fully understand and that the church world doesn’t always resource well. You need to hit metrics AND make disciples. You need to manage budgets AND shepherd your team. You need to satisfy your board AND stay faithful to your ministry vision.

Most leadership content picks one lane. You don’t get to.

And when you add board service on top of that — showing up as a leader for other organizations while running your own — the complexity compounds fast.

I kept waiting for someone to write for that person. For the faith-based nonprofit leader who is running an organization that is also a ministry. For the woman serving in multiple leadership capacities simultaneously. For the leader who needs practical tools and faith at the center — not one or the other.

I finally decided to stop waiting and start writing.

What The Called Leader is

This is a weekly publication built around one conviction: that leaders who were called deserve resources that account for that calling.

Every week I’ll share one post. Sometimes it’s a practical framework you can implement immediately. Sometimes it’s an AI workflow that gave my small team capacity we didn’t have before. Sometimes it’s a hard-won insight from the frontlines of leading a faith-based nonprofit that is also a ministry. Always it’s honest, always it’s faith-forward, and always it’s useful.

Here is what I will cover regularly:

Leadership frameworks for faith-based nonprofits and ministry organizations. AI tools that actually save time without losing the human touch. Donor development and fundraising insights for organizations building from scratch. The real dynamics of serving in multiple leadership roles simultaneously. Board leadership — navigating both faith-based and secular nonprofit boards. Faith at the center — not as a footnote, but as the foundation.

This is not a motivational newsletter. I am not here to inspire you and send you on your way. I am here to equip you with something you can actually use by the time you finish reading.

Three things I had to unlearn when I started leading a ministry that is also a nonprofit

Let me give you something useful right now — because that is what this publication is about.

When I stepped fully into this kind of leadership, I carried a lot of assumptions that did not hold up. Here are three I had to let go of.

One. That I could lead the ministry side and the business side with the same tools.

Running two medical clinics requires compliance, systems, metrics, and operational excellence. Running a ministry requires presence, discernment, pastoral sensitivity, and spiritual authority. Both live inside Raffa. Both are my responsibility. I used to think a good leader could just apply the same framework to both. What I learned is that leading a faith-based nonprofit well means knowing which mode you are in — and shifting intentionally, not reactively.

The shift: I stopped looking for one leadership framework that fits everything and started building a rhythm that honors both dimensions of the work.

Two. That board service would drain me — instead of sharpen me.

When I started serving on multiple nonprofit boards, I worried it would stretch me too thin. What I discovered is that sitting at other tables — including secular ones — made me a better leader at Raffa. I saw how other organizations solve problems. I brought perspective back that I could not have gotten from inside my own walls. The secular boards especially challenged me to articulate our mission in ways that did not assume shared faith — which made our case stronger, not weaker.

The shift: I started treating board service as a leadership development investment, not just an obligation.

Three. That sustainable leadership would come naturally because the calling was real.

This one ran deep. If God called me to this, should I not be equipped for it? The answer is yes — and part of that equipping is knowing when to build systems, use tools, and create margin. Including AI. Including better processes. Including a newsletter that gives other leaders what I wish I had sooner.

The shift: I started treating capacity-building as stewardship, not weakness. Sustainable leadership is built, not assumed.

This is for you

If you lead a faith-based nonprofit, a ministry organization, or both — this publication is for you. If you are serving on boards, shepherding teams, and trying to stay grounded in your faith while hitting real organizational goals — you are in the right place. If you are tired of leadership content that does not account for the weight of a calling — welcome.

Subscribe if you have not already. Share this with one person you know who is carrying a calling like this. And hit reply and tell me — what is the hardest part of leading a faith-based organization right now? I read every response.

I am glad you are here. Let us build something together.

Threesa

Executive Director, Raffa | The Called Leader