My Rookie Season

It doesn't take long to get an education in ministry. In fact, here are six things I learned in my first year as a solo pastor.

1. Don't ignore people's expectations. In the leadership classes I've taken, the emphasis was on vision and values, clarifying them and creating a plan to realize them. My focus, starting out, was much more on what needed to happen than on the needs and expectations of the people in the church. After all, the church isn't a place where people are concerned with what they're getting; we're about what they're giving, right?

Well, in my first year as a solo pastor in a small church, I learned that people had things they believed they needed and expectations of what the pastor was supposed to provide. In my first year I responded to this in three ways.

In some cases I decided to do the things they were expecting. Many of these things were not biblical mandates, but they also weren't a big deal, and they made people feel loved. For instance, the church had a long-standing tradition of the pastor standing at the exit of the sanctuary to shake hands after the service. I prefer to hang out someplace where I can talk to someone for more than three seconds, but it wasn't a big deal. If I had refused this request, I would have put my preference ahead of their perceived need for no good reason.

In other cases I responded to expectations by helping them see they weren't really needs. For instance, the church expected the pastor to do children's sermons on Sunday morning. My problem was this: I was doing announcements, transitions, leading the prayer time, some of the singing, the preaching, and guiding the Communion time. In other words, we said we wanted to be a church where the whole body functioned using their gifts, and if I did everything there was no chance for that! So I did a few children's sermons early on, but slowly talked to people in different settings about the reasons why it was good to have others do them.

The final way I responded to expectations was just not to meet them. And I learned this was almost always a mistake. At first, when people needed things that didn't fit with the vision I believed God had for our church, I just didn't come through. Bad idea. When you aren't able to meet their expectations, you need to communicate why, and what you are doing. If you simply don't come through, it will be perceived as a failure, not a step in the right direction.

2. Carefully choose your battles. As my wife and I flew to Colorado to interview with our church, I said, "I hope they don't have a flag in the sanctuary." On our tour of the church, we walked up the stairs, into the sanctuary, and of course, there was the flag prominently displayed. I know this isn't a big deal for everyone (for some it might be a big deal not to have a flag), but the point is that you will run into some things that you feel are misdirected in the church to which you are called.

Over the first year, I had a couple conversations with people about the flag. I learned that folks from the World War II generation in our church saw the flag in a different way than I did. It communicated a different message to them than it did to me. I also knew it would cause a huge stir if I tried to remove it. Among the issues the church needed to address, the flag, I realized, wasn't the most important.

As a new solo pastor, you will likely run into dozens of issues you'd like to confront. You cannot take them all on, especially in the first year. Identify the one, two, or three things that will make the most impact in leading the church where God wants it to go.

To help me, I created a matrix (I called it that because it sounds so much cooler than "a chart") with one axis representing a continuum from least impact to most impact and the other representing least difficult to most difficult for the people to accept. That highlighted a couple things that could have major impact without stirring up too much resistance, and I went for those things first.

3. Your job involves lots of "other duties, as needed." This might be true in any job, but it is really true for a solo pastor. You will do things you'd really rather not do. In the first year, in addition to the normal pastor duties, I've mowed the lawn, decorated the sanctuary, taught children's Sunday school, picked up trash in the yard, changed the church sign, made brochures, called a plumber when we had a leak, and spent three hours taking a woman to her storage unit to pick up a few belongings.

There are things that need to get done that you will have to do. Know that going in and be prepared for it. The flipside is you need to be relentless in not assuming every responsibility, which will cause you to get burned out and the people to feel like they are not needed.

There's a difference between doing things you don't want to do and doing everything because you don't trust others to get them done.

4. Ministry is about relationships. If you're like me, you'll go into being a solo pastor focused on the vision God has given you for what the church should be. That is very important, but if you focus on that and neglect relationships, you will be like a lifeguard who is busy installing lifeguard chairs while people are drowning in the pool. The chairs are important for the long-term functioning of the pool, but you need to make sure the people are okay.

You will make mistakes here; everyone does. And when you do, what matters most will be the relationships you have built with the people in the church. You will need to change things to move the church forward. And when you do that, it is your relationships with people that will largely determine their cooperation or resistance.

Not to keep bringing up flags, but I need to in order to illustrate this point. My predecessor shared my dislike for flags in the sanctuary, not because he lacked appreciation for the nation, but because a sanctuary is where we worship God alone, and it can be confusing to uphold other allegiances on par with God.

On patriotic holidays, the congregation would hang large flags all around the sanctuary, including up front, flanking the baptistery. My predecessor tried to talk them out of it, and they did take a few of them down but left many of them up.

When I arrived, I could tell it was really a sore spot. My first year July 4 fell on a Sunday (of all the luck!) and I knew I needed to address the issue. I was really nervous because of the response they'd given the previous pastor.

So I began going to many of the people who felt strongly about the issue and talking about it. I asked if there was a way to honor our country and those who serve in the military without flags dominating the sanctuary. As I had these conversations, I was amazed! They were very open to other ways of observing the occasion.

Fostering relationships with these people made it possible to change things. They trusted that I loved God and I loved them. If I had ignored them, or railroaded a decision, I'm sure the outcome would have been much different.

5. Preaching matters. Preaching does much more than just help people learn more about the Bible. Preaching helps decide if they can trust me. Some Sundays I could tell that people somehow felt closer to me after the service. I'm not sure all that is at work there, but besides building relationships one-on-one, my preaching is what made the biggest impact in being accepted by the congregation.

It's not that I'm a great preacher. I'm not. But I have done my best and asked the Holy Spirit to use it in the lives of the people.

In a sense, preaching is an act of pastoral care. I try hard to hear the Holy Spirit in my preparation, perceive where the people are in their lives, and preach truth in a way they can grasp. Preaching does more than transmit information; it creates a climate.

6. People want to love and respect you. One of the beautiful things about being a solo pastor in a small church is that church people want to embrace you as a part of their family. Depending on their past experiences, they may be hesitant to show it, but they want to love and respect you. They want you to love and respect them too.

I have had far more encouraging cards, emails, comments, phone calls, and gifts in our little church as a solo pastor than I ever did at the large church where I was one among many on the staff. We don't do ministry for praise from people, but it feels great to be loved.

Not a bad lesson for a rookie.

Trevor Lee is pastor of Mountair Christian Church in Lakewood, Colorado.