“So what is on your agenda for tomorrow?”

 

That is a common question in our home as we check in with each other. Depending on the day, I either dread the question or look forward to it. If the day has some “must do” but unpleasant task, I’d rather not answer. If it is a project or call, weekend at home or a day with something I am looking forward to, I’m happy to talk about it. You know the feeling.

 

A similar event took place at our last Region Board meeting. As a part of our discussions, Charles and I regularly try to go beyond what we have been working on and lift our eyes a bit and discuss what the future holds. As I looked at the horizon this spring, I became aware again that time is an “ever-flowing stream that bears us all away” (“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”). What will things be like in 5 or 10 years? To be sure, the makeup of pastoral leadership within the Region will be different.  

 

My recent visits with several pastors about their plans for the future highlighted an important leadership issue we are facing. Taking into account the situations for 34 of the pastors I know fairly well in the Region, there are some sobering realities. Of these 34 pastors, I estimate that 21 of these pastors are within 5 years of retirement eligibility; 4 are within 10 years of retirement eligibility, and 8 have already spoken to me in one way or another about retirement in the very near future. If those numbers hold for the entire pastoral leadership in our churches, 60-70% of our churches will need new pastors by the year 2020.

 

A different look at the above 34 pastors reveals another significant dynamic:

 

• 10 have been in their current churches 10 or more years, 

• 7 have been in their current churches 15 or more years, 

• 7 have been in their current churches about 20 years or a bit more, and

• 1 has been serving more than 30 years.

 

In our Region, the average tenure of pastors seems to be higher than the national average, and in many cases significantly so. (The national average is reported as 7.7 years1, but about 4 years for mainline churches2. The average noted generally in the reporting is about 5 years.) Add to this fact that in many of our churches, the current pastor is the only pastor most in the church have ever known.

 

Because of the large number of people who are eligible to retire and the fact that a large number of them have been with their congregations for much longer than “the average” tenure, we are facing the need to do some significant transition work and education among our churches. We also must step up our prayers and work to secure the next pastor-leaders for our churches. 

 

What should the congregation and leadership do in order to secure a new pastor when the present pastor retires or resigns? Here are the general steps:

 

• Secure a Interim Pastor – the Region staff works to find a person with the right skills and gifts for the interim time, most often working with Interim Ministries-ABC and using their pool of qualified and screened interims to find the best person available.

• Put a search committee in place according to the church’s governance rules.

• Receive the assistance of a trained search consultant provided through the Region. With the search consultant’s help the Search committee works on two things:

• The congregation prays together and votes to call the candidate after a weekend of meeting with the pastoral candidate in all kinds of settings and hearing the candidate preach and lead the Sunday morning worship. This is called the “candidating weekend.” Because the candidate has been prayerfully considering this pending call, the candidate usually accepts the call soon after it is extended.   

• Set the date for the now called pastor to begin work. This is usually 4 to 6 weeks from the date which the call is extended and accepted. The interim continues ministry with the congregation until a week or two before the new pastor arrives.

 

More details and explanations are available at (http://abcnw.org/we-need-a-pastor/) 

 

The above process has been followed in one form or another for generations in congregations with Baptist theology and polity.  In earlier years, the time between pastors was often filled by the Deacons.  However, this proved to be a drain on the energies of the congregation and lay leaders who already had full-time work. As a result the overall ministry of the church suffered. Having learned from this, we now strongly advise churches to bring someone to serve as an “interim” pastor to keep the church’s ministry strong, to help the congregation work on things that need to be addressed, and to emphasize the church’s purpose so the next pastor can start with as much positive momentum as possible.  Depending on the congregation and its needs, there are several approaches that can be taken to “interim ministry.”

 

That is the general process. We know that prayerfully followed and appropriately modified to meet a particular congregation’s situation, it works well. We also know that when shortcuts are taken or wisdom and advice from the churches of the region is not heeded, significant problems develop.

 

What does this process have to do with the coming leadership need? As the transitions come to us, we each have an important part. In part 2, we’ll look at what part we each have to play. As each of us does our part, the mission of Jesus through his church will be accomplished in sharing Jesus with our broken, lost world. 

 

1 “Why Do Ministers Change Jobs?”  September 2005. http://greymatterresearch.com/index_files/Job_Changes.htm      Accessed 20 September 2011.

2 “Report Examines the State of Mainline Protestant Churches.”  September 2009.  http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/17-leadership/323-report-examines-the-state-of-mainline-protestant-churches  Accessed 20 September 2011.