April 16, 2025 • 22 mins
Read the full show notes at malphursgroup.com/286
Join hosts Scott Ball and A.J. Mathieu as they dive into a miniseries focused on successfully onboarding a new pastor. In this episode, the discussion revolves around how churches can prepare to welcome a fresh leader effectively. Scott and A.J. share valuable insights on practicing intentional hospitality, embracing clear and gracious communication, and being open to change. Whether you're in the midst of a pastoral transition or simply thinking ahead, this episode is packed with practical advice to set your church up for success. Don't miss out on these essential tips for ensuring a smooth transition and a thriving church community!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We're talking about a church preparing for a new pastor today on the
Church Revitalization Podcast. Hello, and
welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast, brought to you by
the Malphurs Group team, where each week we tackle important,
actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now,
here's your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu.
(00:25):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by
my friend and cohost, AJ Mathieu. Right here.
Alright. So we're doing something, we don't do this often,
but we're doing a bit of a series. Just two weeks. Can you call can
you call two weeks a series? I suppose Miniseries. That would definitely that's the bare
minimum miniseries. Yes. Miniseries. And
(00:47):
so, we're talking about new pastor onboarding,
and we're gonna talk about it from both perspectives. So,
today, we're talking about, you know, if you're a church
preparing for your new pastor to come on board. Next week,
we're gonna talk about if you're the new pastor, what should
you be doing to get ready to serve that new church? So if you're listening
(01:09):
to this and you're going, irrelevant, turn off, I got some news for
you. Odds are at some point in the future,
if if this isn't your situation right now, at some point, you're gonna have a
new pastor. If the Lord tarries, you know, we're not eternal. Statistically,
if you just hired a new pastor, you could be talking about this
(01:30):
in two point four years. Oh, yeah. That's depressing. Yeah.
Or if you just hired a new pastor, listen to this so that it will
be more than two point four years.
Yeah. Yeah. Because pastor tenure has been getting,
lower and lower. So, yeah, that's true.
(01:50):
Yeah. I hope for you. I hope for your sake, you don't need these topics
for a long time. Yes. But they're good to
have, and so yeah. So be book if you think this is not relevant to
me right now, listen to it, file this away, and then and kind of
bookmark it so that when you do need it, you have it. And vice for,
you know, for next week if you're the pastor and go, well, I'm not starting
(02:11):
at a new church. Fine. You know, you for one, you can extrapolate
these ideas for other staff that you might be hiring. But two, you know,
you might you might be starting working at another church at some point in the
future. So Or maybe it could be three to three to six months
ago this transition has happened, and maybe one or both parties are
thinking, did we make the right choice? May might not be too
(02:34):
late for a course correction in relationship.
Yeah. Totally. Okay. So let's, let's dive in then.
Again, today, we're talking about perspective of the church. How can the
church set the new pastor up for success?
Yeah. So first of all, we just we're just talking three points. We're not gonna
beat this all to death, but the first one is just practicing
(02:56):
some intentional hospitality. And everybody might think that
shouldn't even need to be said, but, you know, I'm we have definitely
seen some even from the start. Not necessarily an entire
church being sort of standoffish, but there's pockets
sometimes. And it you know, there this probably has
baggage with it even if if the reason that you have a new
(03:18):
pastor now maybe wasn't a pleasant experience or reason,
then there could be some hurt going on, some people that that feel they were
wronged. Just who knows? There's a ton of reasons that not
everybody might be super excited about the new person that's coming on
board. But, you know, I mean, as Christ followers,
there is a certain way that we are called to behave in a certain
(03:41):
amount of you know, I guess we'll talk a little bit more about grace in
our second point, but we should be welcoming and, try to
make this work as best as we can as early as we
can. So, you know, there's a certain level of maturity
and humility that needs to take place. It should be the attitude, the
general attitude of the church. And even you can follow your
(04:03):
your grandma's old old, rules there about, you don't have
anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Don't say anything at all until
you're ready to be nice. But, yeah, first of all, let's be hospitable. Let's welcome
our new pastor and his wife or family, whatever the case may be, so that
they feel like, okay, we're ready to ready for a good start.
Yeah. I would say too, on the same point here,
(04:25):
two two factors to consider, and this is you know, your
mileage may vary depending on the size of your church, the culture of your church,
and so on. But there are people
in your church that your new pastor needs
to know and needs to know what kind of role they play.
Not, you know, he's gonna know, you know, if they're an
(04:48):
elder, this is someone I need to know. If it's a staff person, this is
someone I need to know. Those are obvious. But who are the
people in the congregation who have
outsized influence that the pastor
needs to know and have start working on a relationship with.
And I know we all like to be like, well, that shouldn't be that way.
(05:10):
No. I mean, this this is an organization that
has people. It has and and
politics is just people multiplied. So you need to know he
needs to know. Don't he shouldn't have to make it a
scavenger hunt to figure out who are the people who have outsized
influence in this church. Do him a solid. Let him know.
(05:31):
Okay. Here are the people you really need to be mindful of, and let him
get a head start on building a relationship with those people and invest
intentionally in them over the course of the first six months. Hopefully, over
time, he has good relationships with all the people. Of course, that would be the
goal, but there are certain people he probably needs to spend more time with
early on. The second thing related to that, I would say, is give
(05:53):
him a heads up about who's related to whom.
Mhmm. Yeah. You know, if they share a last name, that's a good hint, but
they don't always share a last name. You know? And this
person's kin to that person's, an uncle's, a
cousin, you know, this person's kid,
son, married, this family's daughter, they've been in the church
(06:14):
for twenty years, and you can really help a pastor
not step in it accidentally by being like, I had
a meeting with that guy, and they're like, that guy is my uncle. And you're
like, okay. So, you know, do him a solid. If
there's a family tree that needs to be he needs to be aware of,
help him out. Yeah. Think through details.
(06:37):
You know? There's so much that just natural
rhythms of the church or even of of the city
culture that he may not be aware of. You know? I
mean, He's he's he's trying to figure out, why is this
person all of a sudden seem, you know, kind of cold to me? And you
find out, oh, well, they were part of this prayer group that meets
(06:59):
twenty minutes before a service, and the past our old pastor would
always pop in there and, you know, greet them in the morning,
and you didn't do that. Now they're mat like, what? Who would who would have
known that? Who would know? There's a million of those little details,
and so just, you know, help help them understand
the things that the unwritten things that people might be expecting
(07:21):
and because he's not a mind reader. And and you don't know how detailed even
the hiring process was, how, you know, how much might have been he
might have been informed about. But also, I mean, I know there's a lot of
you listening just from all over the world, and we do a lot of work
with international churches that have these kinds of transitions.
That brings a whole new element to this. Culture
(07:44):
changes, even in The US. I was gonna say that's true in The US
too. You know, yeah. Somebody from the Northeast going to, you
know, South Texas is is going to have a a a
very interesting experience, just like somebody new from The U.
S. Going to, you know, lead a church in Singapore or somebody
in Germany leading a church in Thailand. So just help them
(08:07):
to get integrated in to understand timing and rhythms
and relationships and cultural idiosyncrasies.
Yeah. I mean I mean, like, I live here in in East
Tennessee. I live in Bristol. The the the race
the Bristol Race, the spring race is this weekend. It's also
Palm Sunday, at the time that we're recording this. So,
(08:31):
you know, if you were new to the area, a new pastor, you just didn't
know what is race weekend going to be like at
my church. And you might go, well, it's Palm Sunday. It should be a high
attendance Sunday, but it's race weekend. So, you
know, there are a lot of people who work the race. You know, they they
they make a little extra cash on the race weekend,
(08:52):
or they get out of town because they don't wanna be around all the race
people who come in. If you didn't know that, you might go, what happened? Where
where was everybody? Those are all kinds of things that you if you're not from
an area, you just don't know them. And and you might have things like that.
So do them a solid. Help them know what's the the relationships
inside the church they need to know, the cultural things inside the church
(09:13):
they need to know, but also maybe those eccentricities about
the city or the community or the, you know, the region that you're in that
they maybe don't know, particularly if they're not from from there
originally. That pastor might be thinking, why does this church talk
about race so much? It'd be pretty hard. It'd be pretty hard to miss,
like, the Boy, race is an awful business deal here. Speedway
(09:36):
that seats a 20,000 people or something to do because it's
pretty obvious. Although, I will say this. I lived I've lived here twenty
years, and race weekend sneaks up on me because I'm I was I
promise you earlier this week, I was like, it's race weekend this weekend.
And then I just start dreading it. I'm like, oh god. It's gonna be there's
gonna be a lot of jean shorts, and, you know,
(09:59):
I'll just leave it at that. It's an it's an interesting crowd. Cut off
some caps. Cut off some caps. Cut off some caps. They pass me a cold
one. Thursday through Monday morning,
it's an interesting place. We'll just we'll
just say that. Alright. Collective IQ
drops a couple of points. Okay. And if I've
(10:21):
offended any race fans listening, I'm not sorry. You get it.
You know. Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're smart.
So you know if you're a race fan, you know what I'm talking about.
Number of laps under caution similar to I q. Hey. We are
we're we're we're we're home to the world's fastest half
mile. So And it is a good place to live. I'll just leave it at
(10:44):
that. Let's move on to point two, communicate
communicate with grace and clarity. So we've we've bled into
this a little bit in in our first point, But knowing
this is this is a new relationship. I mean, let's let's give grace.
Kind of our response, I suppose, to perhaps some of the faux pas that might
have been executed in point one in how we
(11:07):
handle this new relationship in in this For
example Yeah. I've lived here twenty years. I
have the right to make a race stroke like that.
About the race. About the race. God has the
right to make race jokes. I about
the Bristol race. I can make jokes about that. How about racing?
(11:29):
Those are we're talking about auto racing. Yeah. If
it's your first race weekend in Bristol,
you shouldn't make a joke about the race. Oh, okay. You know what I
mean? But if they do, give them some grace and pull them aside and be
like, probably wouldn't make a joke about that because it does
support the economy pretty significantly. So Yeah. You
(11:52):
know? Okay. Alright. Get some street
cred before you start making cutoff and cap jokes. Other
things to keep in mind, no we you know, we call them when we're
working with the church, and we have our planning session with a strategic leadership team,
we always say no parking lot meetings. Like, we're here in a
space intended to have conversations and ideas
(12:14):
and decisions. Don't don't leave after the meeting and go have your
little parking lot conversations and and talk about what he wished was different. Don't do
that with your new pastor. Yeah. Parking lot conversations about what's
going on as he's trying to get up to speed and serve you to the
best of his ability. When we have things, let's take it to him.
Let's just have a mature Christian conversation about
(12:36):
concerns or ideas or faux pas, things that,
you know, probably would be easy to get beyond early in
the relationship when handled with grace and clarity,
specificity. So, we need to keep our gossip out
of the church, which we should be doing anyway, and make sure that this
is just the most welcoming and gracious
(13:00):
environment possible. Yeah. I mean, I I,
I grew up at a church that the longtime pastor
retired or semi retired. And,
that that when the next guy came in, you know, there
were some older ladies. The pastor's wife was teaching a Bible
study, and everyone raved about how good of a
(13:22):
teacher she was, but they just didn't like her. And and so they
would say the meanest, nastiest things to this woman.
And so she she would hide
in her car until a minute or
two before the class was going to start, and then she would go in
and she would teach the class and then leave as soon as it
(13:45):
was over. That's terrible. Yeah. It it was really bad,
and he the pastor did not make it a year. They ended up getting divorced.
Like, the the it was such a nasty, hard situation. It
strained their marriage. And so these when you are
a ministry couple, you are in the pressure
cooker, and you have some control as the church
(14:06):
under how much pressure you're putting that couple under. Yeah. It's
hard anyway. But when you do that triangulation
and the gossip and all of those things, you're increasing the pressure.
And so be be the outlet valve where you're going, hey. We're
gonna we're gonna release the steam. We're gonna make sure that there's not too much
pressure and too much expectation on this couple in
(14:28):
this season. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a
great point, you know, not not thinking only about, you
know, the pastor, but but his wife and their
kids, you know, if that's if that happens to be the case. Because, yeah, this
is a big thing. Don't assume that,
you know, the smile that you might be getting on Sunday is always
(14:50):
there, and there could be some, you know, some tough things that they're dealing
with trying to to develop new relationships, you know, maybe even
mourning what what they've given up, whether they, you know, they might have left a
wonderful ministry environment and felt called to go to wherever you
are, but that doesn't make it just easy, though, you know, to give up relationships
and house and environment, weather, whatever the
(15:12):
change might be. So just keep all that in mind. Just try to try to
get outside of yourself. Look at it from their perspective. Try to make that as
easy as possible for them. Yep. Alright.
Last one. Number three. Last one. I guess the way we've written it
is embrace a season of listening and
learning. And this is the clincher, I
(15:34):
think, here, an openness to change. And we're going
to we'll be counseling the pastor next week in the
second part of this about how rapidly change
should be considered or, begin
to happen. But from the church's side, you should
expect things to be a little bit different anyway. I mean, that should just be
(15:57):
like a general assumption. Different person, different
leadership style, different way of working through
vision. Things will be different. You cannot change people out and expect
everything to be the same. But you should have an openness to change anyway,
even just throughout your pastor's tenure, so that the church
doesn't become stale or insider focused or
(16:19):
plateaued and then into a declining position. Listen to the
pastor as well. You know, we're asking you to provide good information in our previous
points. Provide by him good information. But listen to him as well.
Listen to to ideas, and and neither party
should be trying to make, you know, big changes very quickly.
But but if you're open to hearing new things and new
(16:41):
perspectives, then it's really going to make this work a lot better
for both both sides. Yeah. I would I would
say, you know, and depending on when you're listening to this and where you're
at in a process, like a hiring process or transition,
it may may or may not be relevant to you. But this is why we
encourage churches to go through a strategic planning process encourage churches to
go through a strategic planning process
(17:04):
prior to hiring a new person, because we we believe
strongly that the strategic direction, or the vision at
least, of the church ought to be owned by
the church itself, you know, that the church has a has a direction that it
wants to go. And when you're hiring a a new senior pastor or
lead pastor, it's not his job to figure out
(17:27):
where is this church going, it's his job to help steer the church in
that direction. And of course, the church is gonna be colored
by that leader's personality
and skills and strengths and weaknesses, but
the overall destination is is something that the church
should own and agree with and ideally
(17:50):
before the the pastor comes or if that didn't
happen, then in collaboration with him. That being said, I
think what happens often is churches this is why the tenure is so
short. Churches go from pastor to pastor till they
try to find one who hits on where they wanna go.
(18:10):
And and so, you know, pastor comes in even if he's
not pushing the change too quickly,
it can be that when the change does come, they go, well, I didn't like
that. I don't like that at all. And so they wanna just shut it down
and they they drive them out and they kick them out. Mhmm. And
so I guess this would maybe be a pre step or a
(18:32):
sub point of point three, but if you've not yet if you if you've not
hired a new pastor yet, but you need to soon, go
through a strategic envisioning process before you start the hiring process so
that when you hire someone, it's not a surprise to them
what the direction of the church is, and, also, it's not a surprise to you
when he starts trying to take you there. Yeah.
(18:55):
We're not at all advocating for this hired
hand perspective on a pastor. We're advocating
for having a good awareness of the heart of the church in a
sense for where God is leading it to find your next
pastor being a wonderful partner and collaborator in
that, hearing also then from a shared
(19:17):
vision from his experience and perspective and what God
is putting on his heart for your church to lead it
well into the future. So it should very much feel
like we've really found the Holy Spirit has really connected us
with the right person so that we can just really do great things
on mission together going into the future. Not like we've got a
(19:38):
checklist and we had to go through three passengers before we finally found
the one. Yeah. That's that's not a not a healthy environment.
Yeah. And I I think I feel like I share this this metaphor every week
on the podcast now, but it really is that when you
get on the airplane, you know where it's going, but you ought to trust the
pilot on on making decisions. I was on a plane, like, a month ago or
(20:01):
a month or two ago. We were supposed to be landing, and then there was
a plane on the runway. So we had to go around. We
didn't find out until we were on safely on the ground and nearly at the
gate. Then then he came on and said, hey. Here's why
we did this. We we needed to go around because there was, you know,
there was a runway incursion, they call it. I trust the pilot. I
(20:23):
don't need I don't need to chime in on
everything, but we agreed on a destination
to begin with. I knew I was going to, in this case, Charlotte. And there
are limitations to the metaphor, but when you hire a pastor,
you should have certain things that you agree on, and
then there are gonna be other things where you're gonna need to, as a church,
(20:46):
not totally surrender, like you can I mean, like you don't have to totally just
be like, well, whatever he says goes, but you should have some trust
by virtue of the relationship between the pastor and the congregation where you
go, okay? If he's seeing a need for us to do a go around,
we we should be inclined to trust his judgment. And
sometimes churches, I feel like, when they hire someone,
(21:08):
it's adversarial from the beginning. Like, he has to prove it. Give it
time. Trust the guy. Know that you probably
have some blind spots because history kinda creates that. You
know? Longevity can create that. Rhythms create that. And so,
when he questions something or wants more information or
suggests something, it's just additional areas to be open to.
(21:31):
Hear what he has to say with grace and have
conversations. So, there you go. Embrace this season as
one of relationship building and being open to new
ideas and to change. I think that'll help make things work a
little bit smoother, Scott. Absolutely.
Okay. Today's article is linked in the description below. If
(21:53):
you're watching on YouTube, it's down there. And
if you are listening on whatever podcast platform, it's in the
description there. So click the link to read today's article.
I wanna encourage you to sign up for the Healthy Churches Toolkit seven days for
free. Go to healthychurchestoolkit.com.
HealthyChurchesToolkit.com. Get 7 days for
(22:15):
free. And, if you're going through a transition or about two, there's some
great resources in there to help guide you along.
Thanks for being with us, everybody. We'll see you again next week with part two
of this new relationship between pastor and church. Take
care.
We're talking about a church preparing for a new pastor today on the
Church Revitalization Podcast. Hello, and
welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast, brought to you by
the Malphurs Group team, where each week we tackle important,
actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now,
here's your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu.
(00:25):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by
my friend and cohost, AJ Mathieu. Right here.
Alright. So we're doing something, we don't do this often,
but we're doing a bit of a series. Just two weeks. Can you call can
you call two weeks a series? I suppose Miniseries. That would definitely that's the bare
minimum miniseries. Yes. Miniseries. And
(00:47):
so, we're talking about new pastor onboarding,
and we're gonna talk about it from both perspectives. So,
today, we're talking about, you know, if you're a church
preparing for your new pastor to come on board. Next week,
we're gonna talk about if you're the new pastor, what should
you be doing to get ready to serve that new church? So if you're listening
(01:09):
to this and you're going, irrelevant, turn off, I got some news for
you. Odds are at some point in the future,
if if this isn't your situation right now, at some point, you're gonna have a
new pastor. If the Lord tarries, you know, we're not eternal. Statistically,
if you just hired a new pastor, you could be talking about this
(01:30):
in two point four years. Oh, yeah. That's depressing. Yeah.
Or if you just hired a new pastor, listen to this so that it will
be more than two point four years.
Yeah. Yeah. Because pastor tenure has been getting,
lower and lower. So, yeah, that's true.
(01:50):
Yeah. I hope for you. I hope for your sake, you don't need these topics
for a long time. Yes. But they're good to
have, and so yeah. So be book if you think this is not relevant to
me right now, listen to it, file this away, and then and kind of
bookmark it so that when you do need it, you have it. And vice for,
you know, for next week if you're the pastor and go, well, I'm not starting
(02:11):
at a new church. Fine. You know, you for one, you can extrapolate
these ideas for other staff that you might be hiring. But two, you know,
you might you might be starting working at another church at some point in the
future. So Or maybe it could be three to three to six months
ago this transition has happened, and maybe one or both parties are
thinking, did we make the right choice? May might not be too
(02:34):
late for a course correction in relationship.
Yeah. Totally. Okay. So let's, let's dive in then.
Again, today, we're talking about perspective of the church. How can the
church set the new pastor up for success?
Yeah. So first of all, we just we're just talking three points. We're not gonna
beat this all to death, but the first one is just practicing
(02:56):
some intentional hospitality. And everybody might think that
shouldn't even need to be said, but, you know, I'm we have definitely
seen some even from the start. Not necessarily an entire
church being sort of standoffish, but there's pockets
sometimes. And it you know, there this probably has
baggage with it even if if the reason that you have a new
(03:18):
pastor now maybe wasn't a pleasant experience or reason,
then there could be some hurt going on, some people that that feel they were
wronged. Just who knows? There's a ton of reasons that not
everybody might be super excited about the new person that's coming on
board. But, you know, I mean, as Christ followers,
there is a certain way that we are called to behave in a certain
(03:41):
amount of you know, I guess we'll talk a little bit more about grace in
our second point, but we should be welcoming and, try to
make this work as best as we can as early as we
can. So, you know, there's a certain level of maturity
and humility that needs to take place. It should be the attitude, the
general attitude of the church. And even you can follow your
(04:03):
your grandma's old old, rules there about, you don't have
anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Don't say anything at all until
you're ready to be nice. But, yeah, first of all, let's be hospitable. Let's welcome
our new pastor and his wife or family, whatever the case may be, so that
they feel like, okay, we're ready to ready for a good start.
Yeah. I would say too, on the same point here,
(04:25):
two two factors to consider, and this is you know, your
mileage may vary depending on the size of your church, the culture of your church,
and so on. But there are people
in your church that your new pastor needs
to know and needs to know what kind of role they play.
Not, you know, he's gonna know, you know, if they're an
(04:48):
elder, this is someone I need to know. If it's a staff person, this is
someone I need to know. Those are obvious. But who are the
people in the congregation who have
outsized influence that the pastor
needs to know and have start working on a relationship with.
And I know we all like to be like, well, that shouldn't be that way.
(05:10):
No. I mean, this this is an organization that
has people. It has and and
politics is just people multiplied. So you need to know he
needs to know. Don't he shouldn't have to make it a
scavenger hunt to figure out who are the people who have outsized
influence in this church. Do him a solid. Let him know.
(05:31):
Okay. Here are the people you really need to be mindful of, and let him
get a head start on building a relationship with those people and invest
intentionally in them over the course of the first six months. Hopefully, over
time, he has good relationships with all the people. Of course, that would be the
goal, but there are certain people he probably needs to spend more time with
early on. The second thing related to that, I would say, is give
(05:53):
him a heads up about who's related to whom.
Mhmm. Yeah. You know, if they share a last name, that's a good hint, but
they don't always share a last name. You know? And this
person's kin to that person's, an uncle's, a
cousin, you know, this person's kid,
son, married, this family's daughter, they've been in the church
(06:14):
for twenty years, and you can really help a pastor
not step in it accidentally by being like, I had
a meeting with that guy, and they're like, that guy is my uncle. And you're
like, okay. So, you know, do him a solid. If
there's a family tree that needs to be he needs to be aware of,
help him out. Yeah. Think through details.
(06:37):
You know? There's so much that just natural
rhythms of the church or even of of the city
culture that he may not be aware of. You know? I
mean, He's he's he's trying to figure out, why is this
person all of a sudden seem, you know, kind of cold to me? And you
find out, oh, well, they were part of this prayer group that meets
(06:59):
twenty minutes before a service, and the past our old pastor would
always pop in there and, you know, greet them in the morning,
and you didn't do that. Now they're mat like, what? Who would who would have
known that? Who would know? There's a million of those little details,
and so just, you know, help help them understand
the things that the unwritten things that people might be expecting
(07:21):
and because he's not a mind reader. And and you don't know how detailed even
the hiring process was, how, you know, how much might have been he
might have been informed about. But also, I mean, I know there's a lot of
you listening just from all over the world, and we do a lot of work
with international churches that have these kinds of transitions.
That brings a whole new element to this. Culture
(07:44):
changes, even in The US. I was gonna say that's true in The US
too. You know, yeah. Somebody from the Northeast going to, you
know, South Texas is is going to have a a a
very interesting experience, just like somebody new from The U.
S. Going to, you know, lead a church in Singapore or somebody
in Germany leading a church in Thailand. So just help them
(08:07):
to get integrated in to understand timing and rhythms
and relationships and cultural idiosyncrasies.
Yeah. I mean I mean, like, I live here in in East
Tennessee. I live in Bristol. The the the race
the Bristol Race, the spring race is this weekend. It's also
Palm Sunday, at the time that we're recording this. So,
(08:31):
you know, if you were new to the area, a new pastor, you just didn't
know what is race weekend going to be like at
my church. And you might go, well, it's Palm Sunday. It should be a high
attendance Sunday, but it's race weekend. So, you
know, there are a lot of people who work the race. You know, they they
they make a little extra cash on the race weekend,
(08:52):
or they get out of town because they don't wanna be around all the race
people who come in. If you didn't know that, you might go, what happened? Where
where was everybody? Those are all kinds of things that you if you're not from
an area, you just don't know them. And and you might have things like that.
So do them a solid. Help them know what's the the relationships
inside the church they need to know, the cultural things inside the church
(09:13):
they need to know, but also maybe those eccentricities about
the city or the community or the, you know, the region that you're in that
they maybe don't know, particularly if they're not from from there
originally. That pastor might be thinking, why does this church talk
about race so much? It'd be pretty hard. It'd be pretty hard to miss,
like, the Boy, race is an awful business deal here. Speedway
(09:36):
that seats a 20,000 people or something to do because it's
pretty obvious. Although, I will say this. I lived I've lived here twenty
years, and race weekend sneaks up on me because I'm I was I
promise you earlier this week, I was like, it's race weekend this weekend.
And then I just start dreading it. I'm like, oh god. It's gonna be there's
gonna be a lot of jean shorts, and, you know,
(09:59):
I'll just leave it at that. It's an it's an interesting crowd. Cut off
some caps. Cut off some caps. Cut off some caps. They pass me a cold
one. Thursday through Monday morning,
it's an interesting place. We'll just we'll
just say that. Alright. Collective IQ
drops a couple of points. Okay. And if I've
(10:21):
offended any race fans listening, I'm not sorry. You get it.
You know. Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're smart.
So you know if you're a race fan, you know what I'm talking about.
Number of laps under caution similar to I q. Hey. We are
we're we're we're we're home to the world's fastest half
mile. So And it is a good place to live. I'll just leave it at
(10:44):
that. Let's move on to point two, communicate
communicate with grace and clarity. So we've we've bled into
this a little bit in in our first point, But knowing
this is this is a new relationship. I mean, let's let's give grace.
Kind of our response, I suppose, to perhaps some of the faux pas that might
have been executed in point one in how we
(11:07):
handle this new relationship in in this For
example Yeah. I've lived here twenty years. I
have the right to make a race stroke like that.
About the race. About the race. God has the
right to make race jokes. I about
the Bristol race. I can make jokes about that. How about racing?
(11:29):
Those are we're talking about auto racing. Yeah. If
it's your first race weekend in Bristol,
you shouldn't make a joke about the race. Oh, okay. You know what I
mean? But if they do, give them some grace and pull them aside and be
like, probably wouldn't make a joke about that because it does
support the economy pretty significantly. So Yeah. You
(11:52):
know? Okay. Alright. Get some street
cred before you start making cutoff and cap jokes. Other
things to keep in mind, no we you know, we call them when we're
working with the church, and we have our planning session with a strategic leadership team,
we always say no parking lot meetings. Like, we're here in a
space intended to have conversations and ideas
(12:14):
and decisions. Don't don't leave after the meeting and go have your
little parking lot conversations and and talk about what he wished was different. Don't do
that with your new pastor. Yeah. Parking lot conversations about what's
going on as he's trying to get up to speed and serve you to the
best of his ability. When we have things, let's take it to him.
Let's just have a mature Christian conversation about
(12:36):
concerns or ideas or faux pas, things that,
you know, probably would be easy to get beyond early in
the relationship when handled with grace and clarity,
specificity. So, we need to keep our gossip out
of the church, which we should be doing anyway, and make sure that this
is just the most welcoming and gracious
(13:00):
environment possible. Yeah. I mean, I I,
I grew up at a church that the longtime pastor
retired or semi retired. And,
that that when the next guy came in, you know, there
were some older ladies. The pastor's wife was teaching a Bible
study, and everyone raved about how good of a
(13:22):
teacher she was, but they just didn't like her. And and so they
would say the meanest, nastiest things to this woman.
And so she she would hide
in her car until a minute or
two before the class was going to start, and then she would go in
and she would teach the class and then leave as soon as it
(13:45):
was over. That's terrible. Yeah. It it was really bad,
and he the pastor did not make it a year. They ended up getting divorced.
Like, the the it was such a nasty, hard situation. It
strained their marriage. And so these when you are
a ministry couple, you are in the pressure
cooker, and you have some control as the church
(14:06):
under how much pressure you're putting that couple under. Yeah. It's
hard anyway. But when you do that triangulation
and the gossip and all of those things, you're increasing the pressure.
And so be be the outlet valve where you're going, hey. We're
gonna we're gonna release the steam. We're gonna make sure that there's not too much
pressure and too much expectation on this couple in
(14:28):
this season. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a
great point, you know, not not thinking only about, you
know, the pastor, but but his wife and their
kids, you know, if that's if that happens to be the case. Because, yeah, this
is a big thing. Don't assume that,
you know, the smile that you might be getting on Sunday is always
(14:50):
there, and there could be some, you know, some tough things that they're dealing
with trying to to develop new relationships, you know, maybe even
mourning what what they've given up, whether they, you know, they might have left a
wonderful ministry environment and felt called to go to wherever you
are, but that doesn't make it just easy, though, you know, to give up relationships
and house and environment, weather, whatever the
(15:12):
change might be. So just keep all that in mind. Just try to try to
get outside of yourself. Look at it from their perspective. Try to make that as
easy as possible for them. Yep. Alright.
Last one. Number three. Last one. I guess the way we've written it
is embrace a season of listening and
learning. And this is the clincher, I
(15:34):
think, here, an openness to change. And we're going
to we'll be counseling the pastor next week in the
second part of this about how rapidly change
should be considered or, begin
to happen. But from the church's side, you should
expect things to be a little bit different anyway. I mean, that should just be
(15:57):
like a general assumption. Different person, different
leadership style, different way of working through
vision. Things will be different. You cannot change people out and expect
everything to be the same. But you should have an openness to change anyway,
even just throughout your pastor's tenure, so that the church
doesn't become stale or insider focused or
(16:19):
plateaued and then into a declining position. Listen to the
pastor as well. You know, we're asking you to provide good information in our previous
points. Provide by him good information. But listen to him as well.
Listen to to ideas, and and neither party
should be trying to make, you know, big changes very quickly.
But but if you're open to hearing new things and new
(16:41):
perspectives, then it's really going to make this work a lot better
for both both sides. Yeah. I would I would
say, you know, and depending on when you're listening to this and where you're
at in a process, like a hiring process or transition,
it may may or may not be relevant to you. But this is why we
encourage churches to go through a strategic planning process encourage churches to
go through a strategic planning process
(17:04):
prior to hiring a new person, because we we believe
strongly that the strategic direction, or the vision at
least, of the church ought to be owned by
the church itself, you know, that the church has a has a direction that it
wants to go. And when you're hiring a a new senior pastor or
lead pastor, it's not his job to figure out
(17:27):
where is this church going, it's his job to help steer the church in
that direction. And of course, the church is gonna be colored
by that leader's personality
and skills and strengths and weaknesses, but
the overall destination is is something that the church
should own and agree with and ideally
(17:50):
before the the pastor comes or if that didn't
happen, then in collaboration with him. That being said, I
think what happens often is churches this is why the tenure is so
short. Churches go from pastor to pastor till they
try to find one who hits on where they wanna go.
(18:10):
And and so, you know, pastor comes in even if he's
not pushing the change too quickly,
it can be that when the change does come, they go, well, I didn't like
that. I don't like that at all. And so they wanna just shut it down
and they they drive them out and they kick them out. Mhmm. And
so I guess this would maybe be a pre step or a
(18:32):
sub point of point three, but if you've not yet if you if you've not
hired a new pastor yet, but you need to soon, go
through a strategic envisioning process before you start the hiring process so
that when you hire someone, it's not a surprise to them
what the direction of the church is, and, also, it's not a surprise to you
when he starts trying to take you there. Yeah.
(18:55):
We're not at all advocating for this hired
hand perspective on a pastor. We're advocating
for having a good awareness of the heart of the church in a
sense for where God is leading it to find your next
pastor being a wonderful partner and collaborator in
that, hearing also then from a shared
(19:17):
vision from his experience and perspective and what God
is putting on his heart for your church to lead it
well into the future. So it should very much feel
like we've really found the Holy Spirit has really connected us
with the right person so that we can just really do great things
on mission together going into the future. Not like we've got a
(19:38):
checklist and we had to go through three passengers before we finally found
the one. Yeah. That's that's not a not a healthy environment.
Yeah. And I I think I feel like I share this this metaphor every week
on the podcast now, but it really is that when you
get on the airplane, you know where it's going, but you ought to trust the
pilot on on making decisions. I was on a plane, like, a month ago or
(20:01):
a month or two ago. We were supposed to be landing, and then there was
a plane on the runway. So we had to go around. We
didn't find out until we were on safely on the ground and nearly at the
gate. Then then he came on and said, hey. Here's why
we did this. We we needed to go around because there was, you know,
there was a runway incursion, they call it. I trust the pilot. I
(20:23):
don't need I don't need to chime in on
everything, but we agreed on a destination
to begin with. I knew I was going to, in this case, Charlotte. And there
are limitations to the metaphor, but when you hire a pastor,
you should have certain things that you agree on, and
then there are gonna be other things where you're gonna need to, as a church,
(20:46):
not totally surrender, like you can I mean, like you don't have to totally just
be like, well, whatever he says goes, but you should have some trust
by virtue of the relationship between the pastor and the congregation where you
go, okay? If he's seeing a need for us to do a go around,
we we should be inclined to trust his judgment. And
sometimes churches, I feel like, when they hire someone,
(21:08):
it's adversarial from the beginning. Like, he has to prove it. Give it
time. Trust the guy. Know that you probably
have some blind spots because history kinda creates that. You
know? Longevity can create that. Rhythms create that. And so,
when he questions something or wants more information or
suggests something, it's just additional areas to be open to.
(21:31):
Hear what he has to say with grace and have
conversations. So, there you go. Embrace this season as
one of relationship building and being open to new
ideas and to change. I think that'll help make things work a
little bit smoother, Scott. Absolutely.
Okay. Today's article is linked in the description below. If
(21:53):
you're watching on YouTube, it's down there. And
if you are listening on whatever podcast platform, it's in the
description there. So click the link to read today's article.
I wanna encourage you to sign up for the Healthy Churches Toolkit seven days for
free. Go to healthychurchestoolkit.com.
HealthyChurchesToolkit.com. Get 7 days for
(22:15):
free. And, if you're going through a transition or about two, there's some
great resources in there to help guide you along.
Thanks for being with us, everybody. We'll see you again next week with part two
of this new relationship between pastor and church. Take
care.
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