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Joy In The Journey

(Unexpected fringe benefits for the interim pastor or “Guys, have your wife read this!”)

 

“Ohhhhh yukkkkk!  That sounds awful!  That’s the last thing I’d want to do!  Oh man, you can have that ministry!”  Those words were the actual reaction of a fellow pastor upon hearing the basics of my strategic interim pastor ministry description: “I move around the country and go to troubled churches that don’t have pastors, helping them change during difficult times.”

 

I’m always kind of shocked to get this kind of response, even though I’ve experienced it many times.  I love my work. It’s a joy.  God has used us far more powerfully than we had imagined He would when we began this adventure six years ago.  I suppose most pastors don’t really have any need to have their misconception corrected; the more pastors who think interim pastoring is awful, the easier it will remain for those of us who do it to stay busy.  But for those of you who are genuinely considering this way of being a pastor or who are sensing a call of God to “hit the interim trail,” I want to offer some perspective. 

Yes, there are some difficult things about being a strategic interim pastor: saying goodbye again and again, learning dozens (or hundreds) of new names, the physical task of moving most or all of your earthly possessions, the harder task (I think) of transferring your “infrastructure” (my term for changing addresses, utilities, banks, internet connections, doctors, dentists, automobile licenses, etc.), trying to lead troubled, grieving, or divided churches through a process of change, seeking to overcome the disrespect with which some greet the interim pastor, etc.  Of course these challenges await the interim pastor, over and over again.  They are the warp and woof of the job description. They require everything we have along with total dependence upon God, again and again.  When your current congregation has been revived and refreshed and the saints have learned how to work out their difficulties with grace, it’s time to move on to the next mess!

You probably know all that already.  What you may not be aware of are the fringe benefits.  These were mostly surprises for me.  I’ve learned that God loves to surprise us with such delights and I’ve also learned to enjoy the surprises more than the benefits I’d counted on.  So here are some of the unexpected blessings we’ve received along the way:

 

* Incredible people.  Each interim pastorate has given us the privilege of meeting some of God’s “choice” servants: saintly saints, colorful characters (inside and outside of the church), people who, for some reason, “adopt us” and love us far beyond what we deserve.  We have experienced lavish hospitality, heard amazing salvation testimonies and powerful stories of God’s grace in the tough lives of now-tender people.  For some reason, some of God’s most delightful children think of us as “missionaries who’ve sacrificed a lot” – though we don’t see it that way at all.  In every town we get to know a few people who become friends for life.  We are blessed and changed by every one of them.

* A post-graduate education.  I don’t mean any disrespect for long-term pastoring; I learned a lot in that role as well.  But there’s something about the ever-changing landscape of interim pastoring that intensifies the transformational experience of being a pastor.  You can’t get stale doing this.  You are challenged constantly by diverse individuals, doctrines, sub-cultures and problems.  Every town is different and every church is different.  In each town I meet pastor colleagues, church board members and some of those characters I mentioned above, who introduce me to new authors, new music and new methods that enrich my life. Each church is an intense new post-graduate course.

* Sights worth seeing. Each stop along our winding trail has enabled us to enjoy a cornucopia of attractions and wonders we would never have seen had we “stayed home.” We believe in taking full advantage of our days off: we leave the house for the whole day and try to go see something we haven’t seen before.  Our time in Benson, Arizona enabled us to see: free rodeos, the sights, sounds and tastes of Tucson, multiple mountain ranges, Tombstone and Bisbee, the Chiricahua National Monument.  Living in Kingman, Arizona allowed us to get to the Grand Canyon twice, the Hoover Dam (many times), mining ghost towns and more.  Hastings, Minnesota put us in proximity to “The Great River Road” up and down both sides of the Mississippi and the museums, parks and restaurants of the Twin Cities.  Here in Waushara County, Wisconsin, we’re situated on a beautiful little lake in a pine woods full of deer.  We’re in the “Christmas Tree Capital of the World” and our rented house has four boats.  I could go on and on but I bet you get the picture.

* Fresh starts.  Before I resigned from my long, long-term pastorate and began interim pastoring, I was encouraged with an observation I heard regarding the military: “A benefit of being in the army is that when you get re-assigned it gives you the chance to cut your losses, learn from your mistakes and get a fresh start.”  Most of us know that most churches need long pastorates from godly, committed, long-term pastors.  But there’s also a place for those of us whose mission is short-term (in the metaphor of I Corinthians 3:10-15 we would be remodelers) and we have the blessing of getting multiple fresh starts.  This allows “finishers” like me – those who like to finish a task as opposed to “processors” who don’t care whether they complete a task or not – to finish the interim process, and in doing it again and again, get better and better at it.

 

* Finally, I have to say a word about flexibility.  By temperament I know I could easily get set it my ways.  I’m reaching the age where this is a greater and greater temptation.  The type of ministry I’m doing simply won’t allow for inflexibility.  I (“we,” actually) have to flex – or break and I appreciate the challenge.

 

Is this a hard ministry?  In some respects, yes, of course.  But any kind of pastoring (I concluded a few years ago) is hard.  And as with any kind of pastoral ministry, there is joy in the journey; there are fringe benefits and delightful surprises from our delightful God.

Issues and Emotions During The Interim Time - Download

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Characteristics Of The Interim Congregation - Download

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Metaphorically Speaking...

The new paradigms in interim pastoring can be hard for people to understand. The “new wave” interim pastor isn’t an intern, a fill in, a substitute or something less than a “real” pastor; I’m thinking of the visitor who heard me a couple of Sundays and then told me that I was good enough to be a “real pastor”! It doesn’t help that those of us who practice it can’t figure out which term to use - transitional, transformational, strategic, redevelopment, restoration, interventionist – I’ve used them all right here in this blog. 

A lot of people are helped in understanding this confusing new type of ministry by the use of the following metaphors.  I hope you’re blessed – and “unconfused” – as you read.

The Strategic Interim Pastor Is Like:

A “This Old House” crew member - If you’ve seen the long-running Public TV show you know the routine: A couple of homeowners sit down with the “This Old House” leaders and share their dreams for the remodeling of their home.  After listening attentively, the crew members inspect the house carefully from bottom to top.  After some figuring, they sit down with the homeowners again and tell them about things that need to be done to their house that they may not have known about.  It’s often kind of a shock to the homeowner who wasn’t dreaming about a new furnace or roof, but after some “reality therapy” and discussion, a plan is agreed upon.  Then everybody gets up from the table and the “This Old House” staff gets to work and transforms the old house.

In much the same way, the strategic interim pastor listens to the dreams of church members, studies the church carefully and then presents an action plan for what needs to be “remodeled” (not usually the building itself but sometimes the building reflects the condition of the church).  The willingness of the church members to let God change their church and to work hard with God in the process is the equivalent of the cash the “This Old House” homeowners are willing to spend. Ideally, everybody gets to work (with God) and a year or two later “This Old Church” often ends up significantly transformed. 

This metaphor is solidly grounded in Scripture, as Jesus said He would build His church (Matthew 16:18), Paul described himself as an expert builder who laid a foundation when he planted the Corinthian church (I Corinthians 3:10) and spoke of other Christian leaders building on this foundation (I Corinthians 3:12).  The strategic interim pastor, in Paul’s metaphor, would be an expert remodeler.

A Dog or Horse Whisperer - Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer (on the National Geographic Channel) doesn’t believe there are any bad dogs.  He believes that many good dogs have been poorly trained and managed by their owners.  Thus, he says, his job is to “train humans and rehabilitate dogs.” 

My viewpoint is that there aren’t any bad Christians because Christians have been regenerated by God and God doesn’t make any junk.  There are Christians who behave badly and many churches are dysfunctional (in need of rehabilitation) because Christians who behaved badly or foolishly have made them dysfunctional.  My passion is like that of the Apostle Paul who wrote in I Timothy 3:14, 15 “…I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” When Christians get trained in how to “do church” God’s way, their churches get rehabilitated. At the end of one of our interim pastorates a wonderful and spunky little lady exclaimed to me “You really straightened us out!” – and it was a meant as a warm compliment.

A Special Forces Unit – This one comes from our son Jesse, who was joining the Army at the same time we were going into strategic interim ministry.  His observation was that what we were doing was like a special forces unit which parachutes into a dangerous situation, gets a difficult job done and then moves on to do it again elsewhere.

A Surgeon – A surgeon is not your normal, long-term physician.  Instead, at a time of special need, your family doctor “hands you over” to the surgeon who makes significant changes in your body and then hands you back to your long-term physician when he/she is through.

An Emergency Room Physician – Some interim pastorates require decisive, drastic action taken right away to save the church.  The ER physician doesn’t have to have much for bedside manner; he/she needs to be knowledgeable, confident and decisive. Fortunately, most of us interim pastors don’t have to act like ER physicians in most churches – but we do in some.

The Harbor Pilot – The harbor pilot is not a ship’s captain, though he could be.  Instead, with all the skills of a captain, he becomes an expert on a particular, dangerous, harbor (often a river mouth).  When a ship reaches the harbor entrance, the pilot climbs on board, exchanges pleasantries with the captain and then temporarily takes command of the ship, guiding her through a perilous channel.  He does the same when the ship leaves the port a few days or hours later, joyfully handing the vessel back to the captain.

The interim pastor seeks to be an expert on the dangerous waters of pastoral transitions.  This metaphor breaks down where the pilot hands the ship back to the captain, as the church has secured a new captain when it leaves the port. 

The Middle Relief Pitcher – When I was a kid (Twins fan) I only knew about two kinds of pitchers: starting pitchers and relief pitchers.  As in so many fields, there are more specialists than there used to be.  The interim pastor isn’t a starter (church planter) or a closer (nobody wants to do this!) but something like a middle reliever who “gives it all he’s got” for a couple of crucial innings in the middle of the game.

“The Miracle Worker” – I’m not saying that the interim pastor is a miracle worker, I’m talking about the extraordinary Anne Sullivan who moved in with the dysfunctional Keller family and took over the care of the very troubled and troublesome blind and deaf family member, Helen.  After transforming both Helen and the functioning of the family, Anne packed up and went her way. 

Some of our churches have members who are as out-of-control and unpleasant as Helen.  No one has taught them how to behave.  They are allowed to disrupt the entire church and scare away its guests and all of this is done in the name of “grace” or “unconditional love.” Interventionist interim pastors are used by God to restore such churches to peace and harmony for the glory of God.

“Nanny McPhee” – Nanny McPhee is the unusual nanny with supernatural powers in the movie of the same name.  She’s sort of like Mary Poppins on steroids.  She is hired by a desperate widower with a houseful of nasty children.  Initially, she looks extremely ugly to them, but as their attitude toward her changes, her appearance changes as well.  By the end of the movie the kids don’t want her to leave.  The key line of the movie (at least I thought it was) was Nanny McPhee’s statement: “When you need me but don’t want me I must stay; When you want me but no longer need me I must go.” This is exactly how some of our interim pastorates work out so I call what I do “Nanny McPhee pastoring.”

I hope these metaphors have helped you to understand what interim pastors do.  Does your church need one of these specialists to help it through a troubled time? If so, it will be some interim pastor’s great joy to help you.

Putting Two Dollar Plants In Ten Dollar Holes

Or, “How an intentional interim pastor can help your pastor-less church prepare for its future.”

Like Moses before him, Episcopal Bishop, Loren Mead received some of the best advice he ever heard from his father-in-law, a skilled and experienced gardener: “It’s better to put a two dollar plant in a ten dollar hole than a ten dollar plant in a two dollar hole.” The father-in-law’s counsel would go on to become foundational to the son-in-law’s extensive thinking and writing on the subject of intentional interim pastoring. Mead would later write that:

“Anything you do requires a lot of hard preparation if it’s going to grow. It’s got to have lots of room for the roots to spread out and get sustenance. That doesn’t happen if you just stick it in the ground. An awful lot of people in churches keep buying ten dollar plants and shoving them into two dollar holes, wondering why they don’t flourish and blossom…” 1

Before we venture further into our “plants and holes” allegory, let me ask you this: When you’ve recovered from the initial shock of hearing that your pastor is moving on, what do you most want for your church’s future? If your desire is that it “flourish and blossom,” not just survive, then read on.

Types of Interim Pastoring

At one time there were only two types of interim pastoring – or, at least only two types had been identified and labeled. There was intentional interim pastoring, wherein the pastor lets it be known that he is not a candidate for the long-term pastorate of the church, and trial interim pastoring, wherein the pastor is not so sure about the church, the church is not so sure about the pastor, or both; kind of like a trial marriage. (I’ve never actually heard a term used for this so “trial” will have to do for now.)

Intentional interim pastors were usually retired or semi-retired men who did churches a great service by bringing stability, continuity in the pulpit and the gentle touch of a seasoned care-giver to congregations in transition between long-term pastors, often on a part-time basis. I call this traditional or maintenance model interim pastoring.

During the 1970’s and 80’s however, Loren Mead and other mainline denominational pastors began refining traditional or maintenance model interim pastoring into something more vigorous: transitional interim pastoring. Transitional interim pastors do all the good things described above and a whole lot more. In truth, I strongly suspect that many interim pastors were instinctively seeking to engage churches in some of the tasks described below, but had never put a name on it. In any case, Loren Mead did “put a name on it” when he identified five developmental tasks the interim pastor seeks to take the interim congregation through. (The tasks are not to be confused with the stages that the congregation will invariably pass through on its journey from one long-term pastorate to the next.) In this model, “success” is when a healthy percentage of the congregation embraces the challenge set before them and participates in working through the tasks, in such a way as to result in a congregation which is ready to experience vibrant health under the leadership of its new, long-term pastor. Here are the tasks and a very brief description of each:

• Coming to terms with our history – The church uses a “journey wall” or other means to face its own history. Does it have a pattern of short pastorates? Are multiple pastors fired or asked to leave? Did several pastors leave in disgust or despair?

• Re-discovering our true identity – How old are we? What kind of church are we? What are our strengths and weaknesses?

• Allowing for leadership changes – The interim pastor can help the church to allow some leaders to step back and new ones to “step up” with as little trauma as possible.

• Re-thinking our denominational affiliation – Would we have been better off if we had gotten more help from our denomination as the former pastor’s ministry was drawing to a close? Are we taking advantage of the help that we could be receiving from our denominational leaders?

• Re-committing ourselves to future ministry – Towards the end of the interim pastorate the interim pastor challenges the church members to get wholeheartedly, “on the bus,” to commit themselves to being part of a “ministry dream team” that is ready to welcome the new long-term pastor and the good future that God has for the church.

On the far end of an intentional interim pastoring continuum (which would have traditional interim pastoring at one end and transitional interim pastoring in the middle) there exists a third development which I call transformational interim pastoring.

The difference between transitional and transformational interim pastoring is one of degree; it is a quantitative rather than a qualitative difference. The transformational interim pastor takes churches through the same five tasks mentioned above but the process is more thorough-going, more intense and results in a more fully renewed congregation. Transformational interim pastors boldly challenge Christians to present themselves and their churches to God, to put, as it were, their church on the operating room table and invite God to be the surgeon. Because the process is more thorough than in the transitional interim, those who specialize in transformational ministries sometimes lengthen the five tasks to seven (Titus Ministries) or even nine (yours truly). If a transitional interim redevelopment process takes about a year, a transformational version of the process takes about two years - unless the interim pastor and the congregation are prepared to work themselves nearly to death (which I've done but don't recommend).

While not every church in transition between long-term pastors needs a transformational interim pastorate, many, if not most, are candidates for and greatly helped by at least going through a transitional interim process. Obviously, the willingness of the congregation to experience a great deal of change in a short time is vital if there’s any hope for a true redevelopment process to succeed. I always wish that I could get more people in churches which need interim pastors to talk to more people in churches which have had interim pastors. While many folks in churches in need of interims are skeptical or confused about the concept, most Christians in churches which have been through it understand the process and are enthusiastic about how God used it to change their churches, and in many cases, themselves.

Let’s think about it:

Are you a pastor whom God might be leading into the adventure of interim pastoring? If so, what “level” of intentional interim pastoring do you think God has equipped you to do? (David Miles'wonderful three-ring binder resource – “ReTURN: Restoring Churches To The Heart Of God” - includes an inventory to help you answer this. See our Resource page.)

Are you a church member with a church that needs a transitional or transformational interim process? Are you willing to “put your church on God’s operating room table? Are you skeptical or confused but willing to talk to someone in a church who has been through a redevelopment process?

Are you a pastor who needs to move on so someone else can take your church through a renewal process? (Sometimes the strongest leadership move we can make in our congregation is to move on!)

Top Ten Reasons For Calling An Interim Pastor

10. He helps keep the giving up. His steady presence sends the message that things are “okay” and his full-time status keeps the need for giving up! “Saving money” during the interim time can often result in diminished giving by the time the new pastor is called.

9. He helps keep the attendance up. When a church is without a Pastor or Interim Pastor, attendance, especially that of folks “on the fringes” often drops off.

8. He gives assurance to church members that somebody is “guiding the ship.” As he has not been involved in whatever emotional upheaval has been going on, he provides a welcome, “steady hand.”

7. He gives church lay leaders and staff members the chance to continue with their own important ministries instead of having to give themselves to the duties of the Interim or Sr. Pastor.

6. He gives the church the time to “take their time and do it right” (the Mr. Rogers Method) in looking for a new pastor. Trying to “replace” a departed pastor as quickly as possible is often regretted.

5. Most unresolved issues get addressed before the new, long-term pastor arrives.

4. The Interim Pastor is a specialist who will do everything possible to help as many people as possible participate in the interim tasks.

3. The Interim Pastor gives continuity where it is perhaps most needed: in the pulpit. He gets to know the church, it’s situation and it’s needs in a way that a series of guest speakers cannot.

2. The Interim Pastor focuses on the tasks at hand (the interim tasks) so that the new, long-term Pastor, when he arrives, can focus on long-term growth strategies. New long-term Pastors often don’t understand why churches are not ready to “charge ahead” with new plans and proposals!

1. The Interim Pastor has great freedom as an outsider/insider to be totally frank (in love and humility, of course!).