Dear Friends,
As I frequently point out, I am the interim pastor of this church.
That word “interim” becomes a challenge for some people and churches. Quite a few choose to bypass any kind of interim or transitional process, going directly from one installed pastor to another with sometimes not a pause at all in between. When the new pastor doesn’t turn out to be an exact close of the previous pastor, tensions fray, conflicts erupt, and that pastor’s tenure ends very quickly, and with a great deal of pain. I’ve known too many pastors who have been burned in such situations.
Part of the role of an interim pastor is to be, well, a pastor; to preach and lead worship and visit and do the things a pastor of a non-interim variety does. At the same time, though, that interim pastor helps the congregation through a process of examination, both of the church itself and of the community in which it lives, to catch up with how things have changed that we might not have completely noticed or fully grasped.
I understand that the recently retired pastor here served a tenure of eighteen years, which suggests he was hired in or around 2004. One of the simplest ways to take up such a process of examination and reflection might be to consider how things are different now than they were in 2004.
How is your own life different than it was in 2004? What has changed in your life? New job, retirement, family come or gone, relocation, refurbishing? How much difference can you tell? How about the church? How has this church changed since 2004? Larger or smaller, new additions or remodeling's in the building, classes that no longer meet or new groups meeting or things happening?
How about Independence and Montgomery County? What used to be here in 2004 that isn’t anymore? What new things have come to town – businesses, restaurants, highways? Is the population bigger or smaller, more similar or more diverse? Has the weather changed?
These are just a few small examples of the process of examination that becomes the part of a healthy and thoughtful transition time in a church, one that allows a new installed pastor to take up the work with a church informed and prepared for the work to come, and perhaps with a new vision of what that work might be.
Soon we will begin the book group study on “Interim Ministry in Action; A Handbook for Churches in Transition,” by Norman B. Bendroth. If you haven’t ordered a copy, I hope you will, even if you can’t necessarily participate in the group discussions. Everybody is a part of the transition. It’s time to get started in earnest.
Charles