Latest / The Church Renewal Podcast / Flourish Transitional Pastor: Vetted, trained, Coached - Part 2

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Flourish Transitional Pastor: Vetted, trained, Coached - Part 2 · The Church Renewal Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I'm Jeremy, I'm Matt.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: In today's episode we're bringing you the second half of the Vetted, trained and Coached miniseries.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to pick up a conversation about the work that Flourish does as a ministry to train and prepare its coaches to be effective in guiding your church to a healthy landing point.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to part one, you'll find it linked in the episode description.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Go give it a listen now, and if you're interested in becoming a coach with Flourish, we want to hear from you, matt.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Today's episode is entitled Vetted, trained, coached.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Talking again about the TPs, about the transitional pastors, would you tell us some more about the training that a transitional pastor receives prior to being Launched into the world, flown, as it were, to spread goodness and cheer?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the, the initial training is the way that I would put it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: We actually flourish as an official partnership with the evangelical Presbyterian Church and their transitional pastor training module, and so this is actually I'm a trainer for them.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: We discovered, maybe a year ago, that we met and realized that we were highly compatible, and those brothers have been doing this for a long time.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: They're well experienced, and so they run a training a couple, three, four times a year around the country, and so I invite even as a part of the vetting process, I invite people to come and attend the training because I want them to know what it is that they're getting into and what it would be like in order to be a transitional pastor with Flourish, and so that's the first training that we send people to is what the EPC does, because I have not found a better 101-level training that helps you see the overview of what a ministry during a transitional period looks like for a transitional pastor in a church, and so that's why we use that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So how long does the training, that portion of the training, how long does the training take?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So, that training runs a day and like two thirds, so it runs a full day and then the second day it runs until like two in the afternoon.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Okay and um, it's, and those are all.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's, except for the evening meal the first night.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Um, that's all classroom hours.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So it's a good number of classroom hours and it's design is to give you the overview.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It's not everything that you need, but it's to point you towards the beginning of learning what this looks like.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: The reason that we use the EPC's training is one is that it's good.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Two, it's highly compatible with the processes that we have already developed.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: And so the second step of training for our transitional pastors is, as they move towards a new phase of our transitional process.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: We are there alongside of them their first time out of the gate, training them how to do that process.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: So we run it from home office, but I'm there teaching them how to do it from home office.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: But I'm there teaching them how to do it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: And so we're there training them as they go, as well as providing coaching for them as they go about the work of that particular phase.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: And so we're training and coaching and getting feedback from them saying, well, this isn't quite what I was thinking.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I was kind of thinking it was this or it's going like that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: You know, can we do something here or there?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we're trying to provide them that ongoing training that they need in order to do the job well.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: So I get that the training that is provided through the EPC, the Evangelical Presbyterian.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Church.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Presbyterian most days.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: That's most days, all right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: After two o'clock on the East Coast it becomes Presbyterian.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's most days, all right After 2 o'clock on the.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: East Coast.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It becomes Presian.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's not a Flourish thing.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: That's something that you have evaluated, you look at, you use.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Do you know how the training is calibrated and how it is evaluated for effectiveness, either by the EPC or by Flourish?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the training that they use right now is actually the third edition of it, so they developed it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: They've done two more iterations since the initial one, and so this is experienced people that understand the macro-level model.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: This is something that's worth saying.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Flourish's model is not what's the way to put this.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It's not a novelty.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: It's not a novelty.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It is unique to flourish, but the macro structure of what makes for a good transitional period in a church is a well-studied phenomenon for the last 50 years.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: So we all stand on the shoulders.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Everybody that's practicing this now stands on the shoulders of people who began studying this in the 70s, and so when I went to the EPC's training for the first time, having read the literature on the topic and having developed our processes, I was like, oh wow, here's somebody that knows the literature.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: They know the best practices, they've captured it into a training that I can bring people to and, frankly, it was a relief to me that.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to come up with my own training because someone else already had it.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: And again, the compatibility there is so high that they've asked me to be a trainer for them.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And that's lots of fun, because it's fun for me to form people.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So on what criteria would you, as the director of Flourish Coaching, stop training with a TP candidate?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Would I stop training them?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It would be after they went to this initial training.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So that's a requirement, either before they, if they've had experience before they could start a transitional pastor if they've gone through someone else's training and obviously they're working our system.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So we have some built in guardrails for guys because they're using our stuff.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: They can't go at it their own way.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: They're required because it's what I've sold.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Long before I ever talked to a transitional pastor candidate and placed him in front of a church to say, hey, is this guy a good fit for you?
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I've had extensive conversation with the church and I've told them what they'll get from us.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So our transitional pastor candidates all of them are required to use our processes.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: They can't pick their own way of going about it, which means that some people aren't suitable, and that's fine.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I'm willing to bear that that some people won't be able to recruit successfully because they don't want to use someone else's process.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Aside from buying into the process, are there reasons that you would stop training?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I think that if somebody doesn't think that they need to be trained and they don't want to go to the EPC's training, I wouldn't take them on.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: If they go through the EPC's training and they can't grasp or buy into, or they don't believe that that macro structure is the one that's appropriate for churches in transition, yeah, I'd stop.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I'd stop, I would not place them somewhere.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So to me, we're always up to the point of when you place somebody, will this person get placed or not?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And eventually, if you find out, oh, this person actually doesn't fit us very well, just kindly say hey, I don't think this is a good match.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So it's not just at the point of training that you might sever a relationship.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: It's also after the fact, as you've been able to evaluate effectiveness, goodness of fit with the model, with the organization, with the outcomes that you're looking for.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: When we work with an EPC church, they actually require that there's an evaluation at the end of a transitional pastor's ministry, and I think that's actually really good, because I think there's no way to figure out how does this particular transitional pastor need to grow and change to be more effective going forward?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: How does Flourish need to grow and change in order to be more effective going forward?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: You just can't do it without evaluation.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Have you had to stop training with a candidate or have you had to sever Having the experiences.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know if these will drop in the same sequence, but we just recorded an episode where we talked about Flourish doors, things that didn't go well when Fl Forrest was involved with the church, and I think that I have attempted to lean into growing with not only pre-firing clients but also pre-firing staff, so I've tried to push pretty hard as people come through to make sure that they fit us and they're qualified, and so I haven't had to fire anybody yet after they worked for us.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Right, that's good, but I have certainly stopped pursuing some people.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Let's put it that way.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: High turnover.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: In a market where you're trying to stop high turnover is probably not a great selling point, right?
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yep, that's good.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So I want to shift gears here a little bit and talk about the support that you're giving to a TP who's actually been an assignment.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: How much time is there a minimum amount of time that a transitional pastor would have off between assignments, and whether or not the answer to that question is yes.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I'm interested to know the answer to that question.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Sure, but the secondary question would be during the off-season, if you will, does he go to spring training?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Is there retooling, retraining that's going on during that time?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: The minimum amount that I would recommend to anybody that's doing this my guess is somebody else is at least a month off between assignments.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Now the cycle between when you first start talking with a potential client when you actually place somebody there, is actually fairly long.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: In business speak, it's a long sales cycle, and so you may have already agreed to begin with somebody at a certain point, but that's and that may be even before you finished your previous assignment.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: But we've built in that at least a month off, because I think you just it's taxing and you kind of have to let all of this that you've had kind of wash out of your brain and your heart so that you have the energy to, yeah, to jump into the next one.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So, as for the ongoing training, afterwards, certainly the evaluation tells you what sort of weaknesses or shortcomings that this particular pastor has, so that you know, going in the next time, maybe in terms of fit.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: You know, hey, there was a conflict that needed to happen.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: This pastor struggled to actually pull it off.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It was a little bit messy, and so he could use some remedial help in crucial conversations.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, great, let's read through that together and let's make sure that your next assignment is not a highly conflicted one, because that's probably not going to be good for you as you're trying to develop in this, and so that's the way I think.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Some of this is kind of ongoing individual development, which is the way that I tend to think of it, because at this point I'm the coach of all these transitional pastors.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: What is in your mind?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: How do you delineate between training and coaching for Flourish transitional pastors?
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So I think training is trying to give you macro structures.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: It's trying to give you chunks of new content, like the 201 training that I for guys that haven't been through it yet.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Another organization in the same space is named Vital Church and they have a training that you can take online and it's quite good and it's quite wonderful.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It is also a great 201.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It's good extra dig into particular topics that the EPC training touches on but is not necessarily focused in on, and so it's good.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good 201.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And so that's what I anticipate having guys who've not been through that training before.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Some of them already have, I have, but I think that for guys that haven't, it's a great 201 to give them more tools.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: So I think that training is trying to give guys structure and tools.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Coaching is much more about where are things at right now, what are you facing, what do you want to bounce around, what do you need help in and where this guy might need to read Crucial Conversations.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: This other guy over here in a small church that needs change but say the older members are having a hard time changing, that guy may need to read, so his compassion grows for it, for them, he may need to read who Stole my Church, which is a frequent recommendation of mine for pastors that are leading in revitalization or transition, because that's what it feels like to members who've been there for a long time.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: It feels like, either through a revitalization pastor, a long-term revitalization pastor, or a transitional pastor, it feels like, pastor, you're stealing the church that I've always loved.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Everything else around me has changed, my family's changed, culture's changed, my church has stayed the same and for some revitalization pastors and transitional pastors, they're there.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: They know they're there because to help see this thing change or it's going to die.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: And so having both that ongoing training and equipping and sort of push from me as a coach and from the organization and the expectation that's been set out actually by a transitional contract, the thing needs to change, but having compassion to come alongside and go hey, I know this, how hard this is for you and some pastors need that.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: They need to just get sharpened in that because it is really hard, even if it really needs to change I know you like processes, yeah, and following patterns in a different life.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe you would have made a great Methodist, who knows?
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, question is this Different life?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Do you have a pattern, a schedule, a model that you follow for how often you're having coaching conversations to make sure that they're scheduled taking place?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Does that follow a calendar schedule?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Is that on an as-needed basis?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the way that I do it now is as-needed.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I think that as we continue to grow and have more people, it will probably become too much for me fairly soon, and so I won't be able to pull it off that way, which means that we'll probably end up breaking into cohorts where they're coaching each other and I am there.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I'm available, but I'm more of a fly on the wall in the cohort and also for so right now it's a draw as needed, and so I'm available to you and the guys that we have deployed right now.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Do make them, do ask questions that commonly they set up appointments, they know how to get my calendar, and so they do.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: They do draw from me, but I'm.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I've told them.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Um, I will work with you on an as needed basis.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Tell me when you need it and I'll be there for you.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Excellent, yeah, anything else you want to know about the coaching, the vetting or the training?
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's it All right, then.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I thank you for your time.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I thank you, listener, for your time.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: We will catch up with you next time no-transcript.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You can find us at flourishcoachingorg and you can reach us by email at info at flourishcoachingorg.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: You can also connect with us on Facebook, twitter and YouTube, and we would love it if you would like subscribe, rate or review the podcast wherever you're listening.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Please share this podcast with anyone you think it'll help and if we get a client because of a recommendation you make, we'll send you a small gift just to say thanks, and a special thanks to Bay Ridge Christian Church in Annapolis, maryland, for the use of their building to record today's episode.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: The Church Renewal Podcast was produced by me, jeremy Seferati, in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.