A Grove, Not an Oak: Mentoring and Sustainable Ministry

I am no prophet. In fact, the two most life-altering “prophecies” I ever voiced were spectacularly wrong. The first occurred just six months into my teaching career. After overhearing one too many tense parent-principal interactions, I vowed with dramatic flourish that I would never become a school administrator. Thirty-plus years into that exact role, I admit I was mistaken. Even before that failed prediction, I had sworn I would never date Matt Ristuccia. Not only did we begin dating within a week of my categorical pronouncement, but we were married less than three years later. If I were to predict the future of Christian women in leadership, you would do well to ignore me.

And yet, while I cannot predict my own future, five decades of ministry have allowed me to observe a pattern of survival that transcends my personal story. By partnering with and learning from women leaders globally, I have discovered several keys to resilience—how leaders can “bounce back” and remain buoyant when circumstances threaten to sink them. Taken together, these stories are no longer merely anecdotes, but rather data, a veritable handbook for the nitty-gritty of faithful service: a handbook that highlights daily practices that protect a leader’s well-being, explores historical examples of sisters in the faith who endured similar strains, and defines a practical theology for ministry that lasts a lifetime.

A story from my early ministry years illustrates why this handbook is necessary.

Tears of anger and discouragement threatened to cloud my vision during the drive to my afternoon teaching job. Why, I wondered, had I bothered to switch my hours today just to serve and clean up after 120 university seniors and their families? I began to vent to God: “It’s your fault. You kept them from acknowledging the hours I spent teaching and counseling—times I felt like Solomon dividing orange juice between roommates.”

To put this “I-295 rant” in context, my husband and I were in our second year of ministry. We were juggling heavy teaching loads, organizing outreach events, and navigating friction with co-workers. Most draining, however, was the gnawing issue of student ingratitude. While our college-aged disciples happily exhausted our tiny food budget and called us in the middle of the night, they were preternaturally silent when it came to saying, “thank you.” That morning, the seniors had not even called us out for the traditional gift-giving ceremony that accompanied every graduation breakfast. While these graduates showered the other two ministry couples with luggage and bicycles, our family’s efforts weren’t even mentioned.

In that moment of bitterness, I suddenly grasped the only possible reason for this year-long “gratitude moratorium”: God had a lesson to teach me about whom I served. He was willing to go to great lengths to show me that human appreciation cannot be the fuel for ministry sustainability. If we run on the “thank-yous” of those we serve, we will inevitably burn out when they fall silent.

Today, I serve with Linden Grove Mentoring, where the metaphor of a grove guides our work. Groves survive because of their shared, interconnected ecosystems; the older, deeply rooted trees shield the younger saplings from the wind. That day on the highway, driving and crying, I was a lone sapling about to snap. I didn’t yet understand—and this is a truth our current ministry culture often overlooks—that leaders are not meant to be solitary oaks. We are created to be part of an orchard of trees, sharing both nutrients and stability.

Over the years, I have found that rootedness by learning from women of earlier generations. Long before my I-295 rant, the missionary Isobel Kuhn (1901–1957) experienced her own season of crushing disappointment and anger. After completing her missionary training, Kuhn received this devastating feedback: “The Council has… a very serious matter. Among your referees, there was one who did not recommend you… the reason given was that you are proud, disobedient, and likely to be a troublemaker.”[1] The Council accepted her candidacy only conditionally, watching to see if those “characteristics” would surface.

Kuhn did not give up. In the same way my revelation began on a New Jersey highway, hers began by “looking up.” After she lamented the unfair assessment, a friend offered a jarring but truthful perspective: no negative human assessment covers even half of who we truly are apart from Christ. Adopting this perspective, Kuhn used her extra year to conform her life more completely to her Lord’s. Her joy in serving where she was not only won over the Council in the short-term but also led to decades of truthful, humorous writing about missionary life—instances of her “scum coming to the top.” No wonder her practical and self-deprecating storytelling continues to encourage leaders seventy years after her death.

Betsey Stockton (1787?–1865), America’s first single woman foreign worker, is a great example of resilience, although her challenges as a African American woman in nineteenth century America exceeded what either Kuhn or I have faced. Stockton began life as a slave in the household of Ashbel Green, then president of Princeton University. Freed as a young adult, she learned about foreign workers and, sensing a missionary calling, immediately began saving the money that she earned in domestic service. She was more than ready when she received a commission to minister in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). For two years, she partnered with experienced workers in teaching the Bible to members of the Hawai’ian royal family. She also overcame the royalty’s resistance and founded the first school in the islands for common people (including women and children).

When, because of illness, her partners were forced to return to the US, Stockton’s missionary dream ended. While some people might judge Stockton a missionary failure, her life story is really one of incredible success. For example, at a time when preschool children were often deemed too young for formal education, Stockton began three “infant” schools—one in Philadelphia with over 100 two- to five-year-olds (and only one aide!), one in Ottawa for indigenous children and then, a third back in Philadelphia—this time the USA’s first preschool for African-American children.

Eventually returning home to Princeton, NJ, Stockton founded both an African American church and the town’s first African American public school. For the final thirty years of her life, she worked as a school principal and an advocate for civil rights. Dying before the Civil War ended, Stockton defied stereotypes by acquiring funds for her buildings, training workers, creating community. Both her church in Princeton and her school in what is now Maui, Hawaii still operate today. Betsey Stockton’s faithfulness to God’s calling changed her world.

Born with both opportunity and privilege, Mary F. Scranton (1832-1909) entered missions in an entirely different way than either Isobel Kuhn or Betsey Stockton. Like them, however, she confronted stereotypes and challenges. No wonder Scranton’s choices inspire my boldness today. In the late nineteenth century, a successful New York City widow in her fifties did not pull up stakes and move to Korea, even if she were accompanying her doctor son and his wife. But Mary Scranton was no predictable society matron. Not only did she move to Korea, but there she ushered in a series of changes for the women she served. Confronting prejudice and tradition, Scranton saw Korean women’s need for access to education and God’s truth. Eventually, she founded the country’s first college and first professional school for women. As with Betsey Stockton’s institutions, Mary Scranton’s labors have proved lasting. Even now, in the twenty-first century, South Korea’s Ewha University is a leading college and graduate school. I am better because Kuhn, Stockton, and Scranton are part of my ministry grove.

The image of a grove illustrates what is essential for ongoing and enduring ministry. A grove of trees is truly remarkable, functioning as both individual trees and a collective group, the grove supporting, but not erasing, the individuality of its trees. In some groves, such as those with aspens, the trees are genetic clones, sharing a single root system. If one tree is damaged, the root network redirects nutrients to restore it. Other groves with more distinction between trees still share root systems. In either case, the network supports long term growth by exchanging water and nutrients, strengthening its members.

Trees in a grove also support each other when under stress. If pests attack, the grove sends chemical warnings through its root network, allowing other trees to prepare. When wind and storm come, the root system helps all the trees hold firmly in the ground.  Stress can even strengthen a grove, creating “stress wood” that endures future storms more successfully.

Maybe most important for purposes of the analogy to ministry, “parent trees” in a grove send nutrients to saplings, helping ensure growth to maturity, providing for the grove’s long-term sustainability. And the grove, in turn, holds in place the topsoil, preventing erosion and allowing the entire ecosystem to flourish.

Ministry works this same way. While saplings occasionally grow up into towering trees on their own, isolation is not God’s norm. When we examine most Christian women’s faithful ministry for Christ, we find that standing behind them, praying and modeling service for them, “mother trees”. This community both builds up the blessed younger generation leaders and enables achievement far beyond what they could do on their own.

A grove of Christian women leaders, with their hard-won lives of faithful endurance, is still the deeply needed encouragement for contemporary women (including me) in ministry. Of course, neither reading this article nor Wisdom and Resilience, upon which it is based, will erase future “I-295 rants” or silence sniping critics. But these stories do remind us that we are not alone, and they encourage us to learn from failure, adopt life-giving liturgies, and build true collegiality so that we continue serving God well over the long haul.

[1] Isobel S. Kuhn, In the Arena, Literary Licensing, LLC, 2012.

Karen’s new book Wisdom and Resilience: Equipping Women to Minister with Hope and Perseverance (Stone Tower Press, 2026), now available, weaves together years of ministry experience, Scriptural insights, and the stories of Christian women throughout history.