“During these first six to twelve months, the concrete is still wet,” an elder advised his pastor following the second church board meeting. “This is your chance to make your impression. Soon it will set and be too hard.” It sounds like good advice. The new pastor may have an opportunity in the early months to make major changes never again possible.
Yet other wise counselors say, “Don’t change anything the first year. Build credibility.” Which advice does the newly arrived pastor follow?
As the new pastor at First Presbyterian in Fresno, I wondered. In my search for answers, I decided to contact other pastors who had experienced the awkwardness and opportunities of that inaugural year.
The Hare and the Tortoise
The first thing I learned is that no one pattern fits every pastor and congregation. Consider these two examples.
Roger Thompson went to Trinity Baptist in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a two-hundred-member church in decline. Within the first year, they rewrote the church constitution, simplified the administrative structure from fifteen standing committees to four, doubled the attendance, and hired staff. “How could you do all that?” I asked him.
“You have to understand the background,” Roger explained. Roger already had been in Denver on the staff of Bear Valley Baptist Church for ten years. The Wheat Ridge church across town knew much about Bear Valley, its staff, and their philosophy of ministry. Their five-month courtship of Roger culminated in a nine-day candidating process. During those nine days, Roger met with every group in the church, discussed the issues, assessed their needs, and explained the style of his ministry.
At the end of the process, Roger sent a letter to the congregation. “I told them my observations: everyone recognized this was no longer the powerful, wealthy church it once had been, but great hope remained. If they wanted me to come, I asked them to be ready to let the leadership lead in the specific areas of constitutional change, structural revision, and the establishment of outside ministries.” Then, with candor, Roger concluded, “If this scares you, don’t vote for me.”
“I in no way wanted to manipulate them,” he told me, “but I felt it essential to give them an immediate indication of our direction.” The results speak for themselves.
On the other hand (you knew that was coming), many pastors and congregations better identify with Gary Fenton, pastor of First Baptist Church of Tyler, Texas, who describes himself as an “evolutionist.”
“I’m not talking about Genesis,” he clarifies, “but about my sense that churches, especially larger ones, are used to handling change slowly. They desire an energetic, proactive pastor, but not a revolutionary.”
Again, Fenton’s context is important. He followed two thirty-year pastorates in which both pastors retired happy. “When I first met with the pastoral search committee,” he said, “they told me they were eager for new direction, but they weren’t motivated by anger and discontent. That’s a real blessing.”
As an evolutionist, the pastor knows things will change and works to channel the results of that process. “But,” Fenton says, “the pastor leads more than pushes. Any major changes take behind-the-scenes preparation. You don’t just make pronouncements.”
Pastor Fenton’s style is to introduce an idea and notice people’s reactions. This helps him determine not only if an idea will be accepted, but more importantly, the schedule for its consideration, refinement, communication, and adoption.
Fenton applied this principle in suggesting a reorganization of the deacon board. “My initial suggestion to focus on individual ministries and not bring each decision to the entire board was met with a loud silence,” he reports. So he stopped the process to provide an opportunity for dialogue with his board members. He told them he’d like them to visit the sick and call on the inactives, and they said they felt it was important for them as a board to oversee all the ministries. He gave a little, they gave a little, and instead of the all-too-familiar pastor-versus-board scenario, they adopted Fenton’s primary proposals and preserved the board’s priorities.
The board assented to viewing their responsibility as a ministering group, and Fenton didn’t insist on streamlining their accountability procedures. “I’ve learned the value of a short list of essentials in doctrine and administration,” notes Fenton. “This gives us the freedom to change without violating ourselves.”
So there are times to move with haste and times to feel one’s way cautiously. Yet no matter what the pace, what specific activities lend themselves to the first year? What can one do immediately?
Mirror Yourself and Your Observations
Both Thompson’s and Fenton’s experiences highlight the necessity of intensive communication. A healthy relationship has a minimum of unexpressed expectations and hidden agendas. The courage of candor in the opening months removes many of the molehills that can grow into mountains.
One pastor told me he’d listed the mistakes he’d made in his previous church. “At the top of the list was the lack of honest communication,” he said. “It wasn’t that I deceived or lied, but so often I was too timid to express my real feelings.”
Within my first six months at Fresno, I observed some seeds of misunderstanding and hurt feelings that could have developed into conflict on our Session. My phone was ringing: “Doug, I just don’t feel right about some of the proposals coming before the Session. We’re moving too fast.” And another phone call: “You know, we’ve got to resolve some of the issues and move forward, or we’re going to stall.”
So I called a meeting of the elders. We began with singing and prayer. Then I shared from my heart the dynamics I’d observed. “By our failure to process things in a more effective way, we’re generating a great deal of anxiety for ourselves and for the congregation,” I said. “We’ve got to begin to respect ourselves as elders and prize the calling to serve on this Session in faithfulness and openness.”
I followed the model an able school administrator gave me. “When you’re aware of problems between people,” said Charles Fowler, “one of the best things a leader can do is to hold up a mirror. Try to reflect what you see, so they can become aware of their interactions. This often will be a catalyst for change.”
It worked for us. We voiced those unexpressed concerns generating anxiety. “I had no idea you were feeling these pressures, Doug,” one elder said. And another said, “If you’re being distracted, Doug, then we’ve got to make some changes.” As the meeting continued, we took time to be more honest, to listen more carefully, and to apologize.
In reflecting on this approach, the greatest benefit for me is that having once “held up the mirror,” it’s not as difficult to do again. (I’d never say it’s easy.) Many of the elders have alluded to that meeting as a turning point that brought us together.
In the early months, a pastor brings a unique objectivity that eventually will evaporate. The alert pastor who carefully observes and lovingly communicates will develop healthy, stimulating relationships and provide a valuable service to the whole church.
Establish Your Patterns
Early on, people are sizing up what they can expect from us. Every member has personal expectations of a pastor, but the list can change when people understand our style and rationale. So we need to reach agreement with the board about days off, study time, office hours, visitation, and so forth, and then inform the congregation through newsletter articles, bulletins, and comments at various gatherings.
While we set the precedent for our preferred pastoral style, we can’t escape our most glaring need: to build relationships. And that will consume much of the first year, regardless how many other priorities we have.
Sometimes interpersonal opportunities catch us by surprise. I call these “kairos moments.” Kairos is the Greek word for qualitatively special time, moments when time takes on greater-than-ordinary meaning. Such times of crisis or celebration cannot be anticipated, but I want to recognize and respond to them. Several pastors said tragic funerals had the unexpected blessing of bonding them in a special way with the grieving families and congregation.
But most often, relationship building takes time and work. The pace of change, especially in the first year, is linked to how the people feel about their pastor, to the level of trust between pastor and people. Therefore, we must wrestle with the question of availability. In that precarious scheduling act, time-lots of it-must be allocated just to be with the new flock. I liken it to a frontloaded investment: a premium is paid at first, up front, because of the anticipated higher dividends.
Vic Pentz, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Yakima, Washington, said, “I decided to put the people before programs, especially in the first year. This established a relational base for ministry.”
One concrete way Vic did this was to invite the entire congregation into his home by parishes, their congregation’s subgroupings for pastoral care. The church leaders provided refreshments and hosted in rotation, while Vic introduced his family and shared his personal history and hopes and dreams for the church.
“This was no small task for a congregation of fifteen hundred, but I was pleased with the results. We had 60 to 70 percent of the members attend.”
Rich Hansen, pastor of First Presbyterian, Visalia, California, also emphasized the importance of availability, especially to the church officers. “We had two elders’ retreats my first year. Before we went on the first retreat, I took every elder to lunch.”
Does this generate false expectations of pastoral availability? Conventional wisdom says: Whatever you do the first year will be expected of you from then on. This intimidates many pastors, since time demands normally rise progressively each year.
“I think this anxiety is exaggerated,” says Vic Pentz. “People appreciate the initial effort. They understand the fact that we cannot maintain that pace.” This view was confirmed by most pastors I polled.
Honor the Past
No doubt the capacity for present change is rooted in past experience. “We need to be aware,” cautioned Pentz, “that people may interpret change as a value judgment on all that has preceded. We can’t come in and act as if this congregation’s ministry is just beginning. When we celebrate and honestly affirm the church’s history, people say, ‘He loves our past; let’s trust him with our future.’ “
To practice what he preaches, Vic became an expert on the history of his new church. He read the board minutes and the annual reports. He used what he learned to illustrate points in his sermons.
“I want to recall the great experiences of the church,” Pentz said, “the way Israel recalled the Exodus. That reminds us that God is faithful and he can lead us again.”
One pastor put a roll of newsprint on the walls around the fellowship hall. On it he drew a time line of the congregation’s existence and encouraged members to fill in significant events in the life of the church. They scribbled the smallest to the greatest events. It became a tangible expression of God’s goodness, which generated new enthusiasm to see God work again. It also communicated that the new pastor respected their history.
“Bless the past,” said Gary Fenton, “especially when you follow a beloved pastor. Describe the past in victory.” Freely celebrating the past helps free a new pastor from defensiveness about his or her predecessors. As one pastor noted, “When people tell me how things used to be, I try to listen for the value, not for a criticism of me.”
Identify What You Can Do Immediately
Some projects can be accomplished in the first year. David Peyton, pastor of Dixon (California) Neighborhood Church, came to a church that needed to be loved. “Churches have a sense of self-esteem, just like individuals,” he says. “If a church is down, it cannot grow and change.”
David’s goals in the first year were to affirm the people and to take a more light-hearted approach to everything. “The ministry is serious business, but it’s also joyful. We learned to have more fun together.”
The most obvious thermostat is the worship service. One pastor said, “The goal for my first year was to reorient Sunday morning from a duty the people endured to an event they enjoyed.”
Pastors take different approaches, though, to first-year preaching. Roger Thompson preached from Ezra and Nehemiah, with the theme of rebuilding the work of God. Vic Pentz preached through the Gospel of John: “I wanted the congregation to consider Jesus and see him through my eyes.”
Another pastor preached a series on the priorities of the church, touching on topics such as worship, study, fellowship, and service. This helped the church to understand his philosophy of ministry.
The Sunday order of service is one area where most pastors tread lightly. For many members, the conduct of the service is the most concrete expression of a congregation’s identity and tradition. Changes can be interpreted as judgments against tradition. Teaching and patience seem to be the tools for change.
Beyond the worship service, the physical facilities communicate the tone of a congregation. Roger Thompson’s church in Wheat Ridge decided to paint the front of the church building, transforming it from a rather dark, foreboding appearance to a clean, welcoming one.
David Peyton felt a church that wanted to grow needed a nursery that visiting parents would appreciate, yet the church’s nursery had received little attention for years. “I asked the board for free reign to decorate it right. I wanted to show our visitors we weren’t a church that just tries to get by, but one that goes first class.” While other factors contributed, it seems significant that the nursery with one to two children a year ago now handles over a dozen babies and toddlers.
No Guarantees
The more I sought advice, the more it became clear that there is no rigid formula for a successful first year. Good ideas-yes. Guarantees-no.
“There are dynamics you cannot know about before you start,” observes Jim Bankhead, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Opelika, Alabama. “I think of my yard. The soil looks beautiful on the surface. But when you start to till the ground, you don’t get far before you hit some big rocks. It’s often that way in a church. There’s no way to see the problems before you begin, but you can guarantee they’ll be there.”
Ministry is an art that emerges from a mysterious alchemy of history, personality, timing, and, above all, God’s providence-large portions of God’s providence. Every beginning involves risk, but so does not beginning. And God calls pastors and congregations to start, and start, and start again.
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