You walk up to the platform on your first Sunday morning like an immigrant fresh off the plane and just through customs. Your heart still aches from the farewells, the emptied home, and the lost familiarity of your previous church. Yet this is the moment you’ve dreamed of. What do you do first? Of course, there are all kinds of obvious things: setting up your office, synching up with boards, finding a good coffee shop, and figuring out duties they didn’t write in your job description. (I recall realizing near the end of my first week in our current church that no one else would pick up the trash if I didn’t.)
Here are a few more biggies that come to my mind.
1. Work on names like crazy.
I have a new associate pastor, Jamie. About 10 days after he started, I asked him how he was doing getting to know folks. I figured he’d be a little overwhelmed with all the people he’d met. But he reeled off one name after another, complete with identifiers. That afternoon he told me he figured he’d learned nearly 100 names so far. He was memorizing the church directory and calling people by name the first time he met them.
I visited a former intern of mine who became the pastor of my home church in rural South Dakota. I was amazed how Mike had not only learned all the names, but also all the extended relationships. He told me he catalogued all he could learn on a stack of index cards in his desk drawer.
People will love you for learning their names.
People will love you for learning their names. In fact, they’ll love you just for trying. Once you have a name, you can start stringing together stories and strengths and needs like beads on a necklace. But you have to get their names first.
2. Prioritize your pastoral touch.
The week before I began at our church in Lincolnshire, Illinois, I heard their interim preacher on a national radio broadcast. I have to follow him? I thought. He’s famous and he’s a great preacher! If that wasn’t intimidating enough, the church had several seminary professors. Then the Lord whispered to me, “Those men aren’t their pastor. You go be their pastor.”
I was surprised to discover after a couple of months that what endeared me to the church was not my leadership or preaching (hard to believe, I know!) but my presence in the foyer—remembering names, giving hugs, talking to everyone I could, including the kids. In the early days of your ministry, your strategic plan is not a front-burner issue for people. What they’ll notice is your pastoral touch. Meet with as many people as you can. Have people to your home. Listen to stories and make a few notes. Ask other staff or elders for insight. Pray with people, even for only a moment, whenever you can.
3. Find a quick win.
The serious work ahead of you will likely take years, but at the beginning, look for something encouraging and simple that your church can do quickly. In our first congregation, I pulled together a choir for one special concert. People told me it would have to be a women’s glee club because there weren’t any male singers. But men did come out, and a couple months later, our concert surprised and delighted the whole church.
Who prays for the church? Nothing matters more.
When we arrived at our current church, the woods in front of the church were so overgrown that no one could tell there was a church on the property. A bunch of guys decided we needed to clean up the place. Then, despite being very nearly broke, we had a one-Sunday fund drive to get a beautiful new sign. After that the congregation felt like they had a new suit of clothes. It wasn’t very spiritual, I’ll grant you, but it gave us all a lift.
Pray that God would show you a good project—probably not something that costs much money, but some undertaking that gets people working together and creates a new memory with you in the picture.
4. Look for the subtle indicators of spiritual health.
You’ll spend a lot of time in the first weeks getting up to speed on relationships, programs, history, the community culture, and more. You’ll hear the stories of the church’s past successes and failures. Some evidences of the church’s spiritual condition will be obvious. In fact, you’ve probably been hired with these in view. But there are important things you may not have heard or seen, spiritual indicators that don’t meet the eye at first.
To begin with, who prays for the church? Nothing matters more, and I doubt there are any more important people in the church than those who are willing to sit down with others and pray about God’s work in that congregation.
Begin to note the spiritual gifts and passions of your key people, but also keep your eyes open for folks who others may have overlooked—like a person whose love for Jesus is infectious, someone who reads serious books, or someone who is especially sensitive to the care of souls. You may also encounter some people who give you a bit of a spiritual chill, and you’ll know to be cautious.
Watch for wounds that haven’t healed, for spiritual atrophy, and for lurking predators. You may pick up on some secondary theological point that has become a source of contention. Keep a look out for festering animosity.
These observations will give shape to your pastoral strategy and preaching. Celebrate and build upon the spiritual strengths. Begin praying over how to shepherd your people out of their sins and weaknesses.
I often think about the glorious Christ walking among the lampstands in Revelation 1–3. His assessments of those seven churches were so specific. I wonder what he sees when he looks at our lampstands. That is what you ask him as you begin your work in your new congregation.
