One Pastor's Side Hustle: Subscription Boxes for Women in Ministry

Photo by Dmitry Mashkin on Unsplash

Our Church Anew blog editor, Pastor Mary Brown, recently sat down with The Rev. Dr. Ruth Hetland to talk about a unique side hustle she engages in called ConseCrate Subscription Box. 

Church Anew: How long have you been a parish pastor? 

Ruth Hetland: I was ordained in 1999 and I served 4 full-time calls in churches. Now I am doing part-time interim work in addition to my calling as business owner of ConseCrate Subscription Box, LLC. 

CA: What led you to consider pursuing a second vocation?

RH: I love being a pastor but always felt very restless and liked doing new things. I had many different side projects over the years and so I was a big fan of a podcast called Side Hustle School. The ideas were so creative! One in particular was someone who started a subscription box and they talked about how important it is to find a group of people that are underserved. In thinking about a good market for a subscription box, it occurred to me that women in ministry didn’t always have many resources just for them. I thought it could be a really fun idea to start a subscription box for women in ministry. I posed the idea with some clergy friends and there was a great response. I found some other podcasts that focused on subscription boxes and related topics, such as how to find boxes, source items and set up an LLC. I followed all of the steps and gave it a try. My first ConseCrate box was for Advent in 2020. I started with 170 subscribers and had fast growth right from the start.

CA: What is your subscription base now and how have you grown it?

RH: Today I have 500 subscribers a month from all around the country and throughout the world. Most have found me through social media and other ministers sharing about ConseCrate on social media. We originally packed the boxes at our home, but now we use a fulfillment center. 

CA: What types of items do you include in a ConseCrate box?

RH: We have a monthly subscription box and also special one-time boxes for ordinations and installations, etc.. Typically there are five to six items each month, including something useful, something humorous, something inspiring and always a surprise.   

I also do custom boxes for special events, such as synod assemblies, conferences, and retreats. 

CA: How do you continue to source such a wide variety of creative items? 

RH: I love to include items that are created by ministers who have their own side businesses. We’ve had roasted coffee from Oregon and honey from a beekeeper pastor in Kansas. We have included books from several ministers who are authors. After three years of doing this, the list is very long of items we have included from ministers who make things: earrings, mug rugs, lip balm, soap, cards, stickers, cookies, finger labyrinths, and prayer strands. Ministers are very creative people and it is fun to share all the cool things they are making! 

CA: How have you grown the concept beyond the boxes?

RH: We recently started a book group that meets virtually for the discussion. Authors of the books join us, too. We are also offering a travel experience - it is called ConseCrate: Out of the Box - for women in ministry. In January of 2024 we are going to Belize for our first journey. We still have a couple of spots open! We are doing this along with another pastor-owned business, Sunlight Tours led by Pastor Sarah Raymond at sunlighttours.org. There will be good food, adventure, rest, warm weather, yoga, and renewal along with women from many different denominations and from all around North America!

CA: What is your hope for the future?

RH: Most of ConseCrate’s subscribers are ministers who buy ConseCrate for themselves. One of my goals that I’d love to see is more congregations buying boxes for their ministers as a fun monthly surprise or clergy appreciation gift. It is a simple way to share a bit of joy with a minister and to support the creative work of so many other people who make the fun and useful items that go in each box. Find out more or subscribe for your minister at consecrate.cratejoy.com.

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Rev. Dr. Ruth Hetland

The Reverend Dr. Ruth E. Hetland is an interim pastor and founder of ConseCrate Subscription Box, LLC. She is a happy cat lady and mother of sons. She lives in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota where she drinks a lot of coffee, practices yoga, and writes morning pages every day.

 Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

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Policing and the Church: an Interview with Pastor Brian Herron

In part three of Church Anew’s series on policing and the church, we interview Pastor Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church on policing in Minneapolis, MN. Read part one and part two of our series.

What church and neighborhood do you serve in Minneapolis? How long have you served there?

I am pastor of Zion Baptist Church on the North Side of Minneapolis, what we call the Near North, but Zion serves the city as a whole along with the surrounding suburbs. God also has called me to a broader ministry beyond our city, sometimes to other states, our nation and God’s world. I became a pastor at Zion 14 years ago this year. My father pastored this church for 37 years before me. Honestly I was the most unlikely successor to him when I became pastor. God gave me something very different than the traditional Baptist church we had previously been. Over time there have been shifts and moves as God shapes and brings new purpose to each day. Our church has moved from what I would call a traditional religiosity to a real spiritual place of relationship with God and the transformation that follows.

Describe the relationship between the people of Minneapolis and the police prior to the death of Mr. George Floyd. 

There has always been tension particularly in the African American community. These tensions between police and community run deep and they go far back. When I came up here as a teenager, I experienced the Minneapolis police department as one of the most brutal in the state toward African Americans. Things have somewhat improved over time, however immediately prior to the killing of Mr. George Floyd, there were still great tensions. At the same time, there also was great hope because of the new police chief. We had hope we were going to see some real change in policing and would not experience police officers just as an occupational force in the community. Instead they would be there to truly protect and serve the community and work with its residents. We believed that over time, we would dispel the “us against them” mentality the police culture seemed to have. We were looking for a cultural shift. A cultural transformation.

What is the impact of the killing of George Floyd on the city of Minneapolis? Your church community? How has it changed or shaped your ministry?

The impact has been great and it is still being felt. People are in deep trauma and grief. Others have taken to activism. We have begun to see reactive political responses rather than thoughtful policy making that would really help to bring about the kind of transformation we are looking for. On the positive side, some have mobilized and created alliances and conversations that have not taken place before. On the negative side, we have elected officials that are reactionary rather than thoughtful and, in some ways, they have exasperated the problem. The killing of Mr. George Floyd has brought the chief of police out to the community in a very meaningful and real way where he has been sitting with the community members in their pain and in his own pain. While this has been helpful, I believe there is a very deep chasm and wound that needs to be healed.

The interesting thing is we in the African American community are used to being on the outside. We also are used to being engaged, involved, and active. This situation has created conversations within our community to strengthen our faith and shore up our relationship with God to not succumb to the feelings of anger and despair but to channel this anger and allow God to use the anger and do something very positive and meaningful that can be life giving for our community. The killing of George Floyd calls upon us to ask, “Do we really believe what we believe and if we do how do we stand on the Word of God in the midst of all that is going on?” 

Finally it has made me seek God more. This tragedy actually has caused me, in some respects, to withdraw from a lot of activity and really seek God to make sure I am where God wants me to be and doing what God wants me to do in the way God wants me to do it. It has impacted me personally because I have lived through much of this many times before in my life. Sometimes when I think things seem to be getting better we seem to take steps backwards. It is more important for me now to spend time with God and reading the Scriptures but mostly just praying and being still. I have learned the importance of being still and being present so I can not only hear instructions and know what to do, but I am strengthened and fortified for the battle I have been called to be engaged in.

Why do you think people are calling for the defunding of the police? Is defunding the most effective way to reform the police? If not, what other options would you suggest?

The defunding movement is not a new movement. It started some years ago. New Jersey was one of the states that tried it. In my opinion, what happened was they never ended up getting rid of their police department. Defunding the police may sound good as a political rallying cry but when you ask people exactly what it means, you don’t get much of an answer because most folks don’t know what that looks like. If you can’t describe it and if you can’t tell people what defunding looks like, it should not be something you expose or say until you understand what it means. Some may say, “Let’s take money away from the police department, put the resources into the community and help it to be better so eventually we won’t need a police department.” In my view, this is a very unrealistic approach because I believe there is a great need for a police department.

At the same time, we do need to transform policing by reevaluating and rethinking how we do policing. Granted there are calls police respond to that they shouldn’t have to address. Someone else could respond. In Minneapolis there has been a mechanism in the past called Community Crime Prevention. These are civilians who work with a police officer to organize block clubs and work on issues on each neighborhood. I myself have been trained as a crime prevention specialist. The Community Crime Prevention program dealt with a lot of the issues patrol officers didn’t need to spend their time on. 

Another reason I don’t agree with defunding the police in Minneapolis is I believe we have a police chief who wants the same police reform we are asking for in the African American community. The question now is how we work with him and how we transform and change the culture so all police are an extension of our community for everyone’s safety.

What is at stake for you and your community in discussions of police reform, dismantling, or defunding the police? Our public discourse sometime positions these terms against one another. How might you offer some nuance to the difference between them? 

In my opinion, you don’t need to take money from the police department to address the disparities and things that are not moving our community forward. You just have to hold the governmental bodies who are responsible accountable. The county, city, state, and federal electives all need to come together to develop a strategy in addressing the disparities in a systematic and purposeful way.

In Minneapolis, this means sitting with the police chief and truly helping and supporting him in all of the changes he wants to make that would be transformative for policing and good for the officers, recognizing that not all police are bad. There are many officers doing their jobs right every day. Most officers have never fired their weapons. We need to speak the truth and the facts about police activity rather than what we think we know. We can speak about our experience but we also have to talk about what is true and what is not true. Many of the people who are calling for defunding really have no idea what the police do. Truth be told I personally believe everyone in our police department and the folks on the street know who the bad officers are. Now is the time to figure out how we build out and development meaningful relationships between the entire community and police so we are working together and not at odds with each other.

How would you define an honorable police officer? A dishonorable police officer? What path forward would lift up law enforcement’s honorable contributions to society while naming appropriately the dishonorable contributions? 

For too long we have not made public the good things honorable officers do every day. We don’t make public how they didn’t tow a car or issue a citation because of an expired registration but gave someone a ride to work and said, “Use your next paycheck to take care of your registration.” We don’t hear stories of police officers who bought groceries for someone they encountered who was hungry. Such stories are more prevalent than people know. How do we lift up these truths about police so there is a balanced view? When all truths are not lifted up about others, there is a skewed view of people. As African Americans, we also have been viewed through a singularly false lens. Some police officers view us a certain way. As the Reverend Traci Blackmon has said, “If the color of my skin is the weapon that you see, how will I ever be unarmed?” In the same way, we in our community cannot do that to another group of people, such as the police, and conclude they all are alike.

How do we hold up the stories of police officers who do their jobs well every day? And then how do we call out and work through the actions of those officers who are misusing and abusing their power and who show a great prejudice toward certain people?

While there is not an easy answer, I believe there is a way we can start talking about the police in a positive way and demand discipline and restraint. Often police are doing what they have been trained to do. If you want them to do something differently, the training has to be different. If they are going to de- escalate a situation rather than respond to escalation with escalation, they need to be trained and the importance of such training must be emphasized.

What is the role of your church and others in North Minneapolis to help build just, equitable, and trusting neighborhoods? 

It has been the role of every church and ministry of the Gospel from the beginning of time to create just, equitable and trusting communities. The social implications of the church should be to transform social systems as well as individuals and all people. Evangelism and discipleship go hand and hand. We, in the church, cannot do one without the other. You should begin to see some type of social transformation as people’s lives change. The community ought to be changing. For this change to happen, the church must open its doors and allow the community to come in. The congregation and its members need to go outside of the building and participate in the community, looking for the gaps. When God is leading you to do something that will be beneficial, it almost always will fill a void. The church holds a responsibility to trust God and move forward believing that when God ordains this work. God also will provide the provisions, people and resources to make it happen.

All of this means more than just being a good neighbor. The church needs to be a contributor to the welfare and the good of the community. One of the impacts of Jesus’ ministry was his ability to meet the needs of the people. He led with love, he cared about people and he met needs. Then it was up to each person who met Jesus what they did with the gifts he gave to them. Our job is to introduce people to this Jesus, not just through our words but our actions that demonstrate his love and care for them to inspire them to care for others.

What is the role of the churches and pastors across the entire city of Minneapolis and its many suburbs? What would you have other congregations and church leaders do? 

At this time, I see congregations and church leaders attempting to come together and working with one another in a new way. I believe God is starting a new thing that could really turn into something purposeful if we stay faithful to God and to the mission. Honestly right now for me, prayer is where the shared work begins. Recently I started praying with a white pastor on a weekly basis – just the two of us. Soon after, people from our congregations came along side of us and every Monday at noon we just pray. Then a third church has joined us. Our African American church and two white churches all praying together and seeking God. Now the pastors have decided we need to come together and get to know each other. One of the most powerful ways the church can come together and have impact is by churches developing relationships with God and one another. 

This is a different approach than some of my past experiences with some suburban white congregations that come in offering their resources without relationships. Their missionarial attitude becomes a power dynamic. Don’t last because of a power dynamic. It is not mutual relationship where both churches offer to one another the gifts we have. I prefer to have a relationship first and see what God is asking us to do together. If we are really serious about congregations coming together and white churches helping black churches, the first thing is building a relationship where we trust each other, where we seek God together and then we wait for God to tell us what God wants us to co-create together.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

We all must be prayerful in this time and really listen for God’s direction. Then we need to ask God for the boldness to be obedient in what God is asking us to do. God always has a way if we listen first and then act together.

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Pastor Brian Herron

Brian Herron is Senior Pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN.

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

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Policing and the Church: an Interview with an Officer

In part two of Church Anew’s series on policing and the church, we interview a police officer serving a community near Minneapolis on the intersections of his job, faith, and current events. Read part one of our series here. 

Why did you become a police officer? 

Growing up in the late ‘60s and ‘70s in a mid-size community, I was a part of a family that had a strong sense of service. My father was a college professor and a veteran of the Korean War. My grandfathers both served in WWI. They all were committed to making their country better and helping others through involvement in the community. This had a tremendous impact on my life and choices. Also when I was a young person, I loved watching TV shows on policing, such as Adam 12 and Columbo. I liked the activity and action of policing, helping others and holding people accountable. Even as a child, I had a strong sense of right and wrong.

How does your faith influence your work as a police officer?

My grandfather was a minister as was his father and his father before him. I grew up in the church and have been an active member my entire life. In policing, I try to apply what I have learned from my faith over the years, for example how I interact with people, the decisions I have to make, how I carry myself, how I want others to see me and how hard I work. My faith is an important part of my life.

Christians often talk about vocations as callings from God. Do you see your work as a calling from God? How so?

Yes, as I think about it, I do see my work as a calling. I have been blessed with a strong family that had a moral compass and was involved in community service. Many of the gifts God has given me that led to policing came through what I learned in my family: my heart for and desire to help others, my courage, the healthy body I have which is important in law enforcement. Everything that is a part of “my wheelhouse,” all these things that work together and fit for me in serving as a police officer are gifts from God. Over the years, I have fine-tuned these gifts and built upon them. I appreciate what I have been given and want to use these gifts for better. I do not want to squander them.

One of the things police sometimes say is they see people on their worst or hardest days. How do you live out your calling in serving the community and helping others during these difficult moments?

I came into law enforcement at age 22. Looking back, I think I had some strengths and a desire to help others and do the best I could. But honestly at 22, I didn’t have a lot of life experience. I have learned a lot over time with the experiences I’ve had in policing. This has caused me to do some honest introspection about what I am good at and not good at. I’ve become better at listening, understanding, being patient, bringing wisdom to difficult situations, and showing self-control.

Many police departments across the country have condemned the killing of Mr. George Floyd, both in public statements and personal conversations. How has the death of George Floyd impacted your daily work and life as a police officer since May?

Initially, our immediate focus as police officers was supporting our community in a time of unrest. We adjusted our schedules and put more officers on the street to be proactive in serving and protecting those who depend upon us. After the first few days when things calmed down, there were more peaceful protests and gatherings addressing what happened to George Floyd. 

The initial turn of events made it hard for officers, both seeing the death of George Floyd and the grief of his family but also what happened to long-time businesses being burned down in Minneapolis, for instance, and the struggles these businesses’ owners were facing.

Since May, there has been a lot of discussions between officers and the citizens of our city. We have engaged in conversations about what happened to George Floyd. There has been pushback from some in our community about police brutality. There also has been support from our citizens. Some brought in food for us and said, “We are with you.” 

As a police department, we’ve spent time discussing the future. The death of George Floyd has been very significant. We ask ourselves, “What does this mean for us?” There already have been some changes in laws regarding police training and our licensing. We are licensed based on many factors, one being how many hours of training we receive. The number of training hours have increased, such as in crisis intervention and autism training. The use of a chokehold has been limited, but our department did not use this tactic before. We have never done that.

After what happened in Minneapolis this spring, some people look at all of us differently and skeptically. While we are human and make mistakes, it is not possible for us to be accountable for the actions of every police officer, just like in any other profession.

There is an ongoing concern in the general public about what some view as a pattern of unfair treatment by police, often based on race. The latest example is a police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, this week. You have been trained in crisis intervention, de-escalation, use of force, and implicit bias. Would you share a bit about the training you've received around implicit bias and race relations?  

Our department requires implicit bias training and many hours have been devoted to it. Our most recent training was led by a facilitator who encouraged us to talk about the issues of bias and race relations in particular in small groups with one another. He gave us the space to bring forward issues of implicit bias in a way we could discuss openly. Those who walked away from that training left with a lot of food for thought and introspection on our own lives and how we bring equity and fairness to our daily work and interactions. Our city also offers training on implicit bias and provides great resources to us. The community we serve represents a rich variety of cultural backgrounds and many different races. Our police department is also very diverse so we learn a lot from each other.

As a police officer and person of faith, how do you live out your commitment to equity, fairness, justice, and inclusion for all people? 

I consciously practice what I have learned, been taught, and developed over the years as a police officer committed to equity, fairness, justice, and inclusion. It starts with the oath I took, what I’ve been taught through my faith walk, talking with others, reading a fair amount, listening to others’ views, and always trying to grow. There is a lot to learn. For example, 15 years ago there was a week-long crisis intervention training with an emphasis on working with individuals who are experiencing mental health challenges. I wish that training existed early on across our society, because it was an eye-opener for me. It made me understand the spectrum of mental health and that those who are experiencing difficulties are God’s children and need to be treated with the utmost respect. They are humans who should never be labeled in some way. This training was transformative for me and changed the way I dealt with all people.

What would you like your pastor and community of faith to know about your vocation and how we might work together, perhaps in a new and different way?

Officers in general are truly wanting to help and do what is best for the individual but also the city and society. Many police officers are very talented and caring people in a difficult job with our society asking more and more of us every day. We need prayers especially in these times. I believe prayers make a difference. If someone you are talking with has questions about police brutality, reach out to your local police department to discuss these concerns. As a pastor, when someone in your congregation is struggling with questions about police activity, connect them with a cop to sit down and discuss together. Many people do not know a police officer personally or do not have access to police. Faith communities are a great place to bring together police and citizens to talk over questions and concerns with one another.  

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Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

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The Body of Christ Made Known on Zoom: A Conversation with Diana Butler Bass, Deanna A. Thompson, Joshua Case, and Kelvin Holdsworth

Church Anew has closely followed the conversation around sharing communion through digital media. We are grateful for the generous contributions to this conversation on the Church Anew Blog by Diana Butler Bass and Deanna A. Thompson, and for the ongoing commitment of the St. Olaf Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community. The video conversation below also features Joshua Case, an Episcopal priest in North Carolina, and Kelvin Holdsworth, an Episcopal Provost and Rector from Glasgow, Scotland. This is posted with express permission from the authors.

Deanna A. Thompson

Dr. Deanna A. Thompson is Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community and Martin E. Marty Regents Chair in Religion and the Academy at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Before moving to St. Olaf, Thompson taught religion for over two decades at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. Thompson is a sought-after speaker on topics ranging from Martin Luther and feminism to the intersections of cancer, trauma, and faith, and what it means to be the church in the digital age. She is author of five books, including Crossing the Divide: Luther, Feminism, and the Cross; The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World; and most recently, Glimpsing Resurrection: Cancer, Trauma, and Ministry.

Nourished by Lutheran tradition, the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community engages people of all backgrounds and beliefs in deep exploration of core commitments and life choices in ways that foster inclusive community, both within and beyond St. Olaf College.

https://www.facebook.com/deanna.thompson.140
https://deannaathompson.com/

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

Rethink: A Conversation with Brian McLaren (part 1)

Tony Jones, writer, theologian, and outdoorsman interviews his friend Brian McLaren, keynote speaker at Church Anew’s Nov. 2019 conference and author of The Great Spiritual Migration. In part 1 of their interview, Brian reflects on his experience starting a church, shutting it down, and starting again. Sound familiar in these COVID-19 times of closed buildings and paused ministry programs? Listen to what Brian learned and how your church might apply that learning as we all look forward to reopening and gathering together again as communities of faith.

In part 2 of this interview, Brian continues reflecting on change. This pandemic is not only a problem, but also an opportunity. Look for that post the week of May 18, or sign up for Church Anew updates and we’ll send you the link!

Brian McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity”—just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with Vote Common Good, the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival, the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group, and Progressive Christianity. His most recent book is The Great Spiritual Migration. Upcoming writing projects include Faith After Doubt (Spring 2021), and Do I Stay Christian? (Spring 2022).

https://www.facebook.com/mclaren.brian/
https://twitter.com/brianmclaren
https://brianmclaren.net/

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.