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What is A Transitional Pastor? · The Church Renewal Podcast

• 0:04
  Jeremy: After a four-year break, the Church Renewal Podcast is back for its third season, where we're going to unpack all of the questions you've ever had about transitional pastors.
• 0:13
  Jeremy: In this first episode of Season 3, we're starting with the biggest questions what is a transitional pastor, what do they do, why do they exist and why should your church consider using a transitional pastor, matt?
• 0:28
  Jeremy: This is the basic question.
• 0:29
  Jeremy: This is really where we wanted to start.
• 0:31
  Jeremy: What is a transitional pastor?
• 0:33
  Jeremy: I have been calling them temporary pastors, which you have rightly told me is not the correct terminology.
• 0:39
  Jeremy: So tell me what is a transitional pastor?
• 0:43
  Matt: Transitional pastor is a pastor that serves a church in a time period when they are between long-term pastors.
• 0:49
  Matt: The reason we use the label transitional pastor other labels you might hear Jeremy sometimes will erroneously say the word temporary pastor
• 0:57
  Jeremy: I'm just human.
• 0:58
  Matt: Yeah, true, true.
• 0:59
  Matt: The traditional word that's been used has been interim.
• 1:02
  Matt: The reason that we use the term and it is intentional transitional instead of interim or temporary is that we are not trying to basically mark a time period.
• 1:11
  Matt: It happens in a time period, but we're not marking a time period.
• 1:17
  Matt: We're attempting to work through a process.
• 1:20
  Matt: Okay, and so a transitional pastor works a church through a transition process.
• 1:26
  Jeremy: Okay, I'm glad that you delineated that way.
• 1:28
  Jeremy: We will definitely get into what that process entails.
• 1:31
  Jeremy: Here's my secondary question Do all churches need a transitional pastor?
• 1:39
  Matt: Ones that are between long-term pastors.
• 1:40
  Matt: All of them should consider it, but not all of them need it, okay.
• 1:46
  Jeremy: Help us understand.
• 1:47
  Jeremy: Unpack that a little for me.
• 1:49
  Matt: So the healthiest churches that we work with don't end up using transitional pastors.
• 1:54
  Matt: They make it through a time period between long-term pastors and they usually have some staff, or they're able to have, and particularly if they have other pastors that are on staff that can fill the pulpit, they can make it through without having a transitional pastor at all.
• 2:09
  Matt: Other churches that are fairly healthy can just make it through on pulpit supply.
• 2:13
  Matt: They can get pulpit supply from other people in their region or their area or if they've got a campus minister or something like that, they can get through on pulpit supply.
• 2:20
  Matt: Healthy churches are able to do that because their dynamics are good enough that they don't need to do a lot of work between long-term pastors.
• 2:32
  Matt: So there's two churches that we've worked with in the last several years.
• 2:35
  Matt: They approached us and they said, hey, our founding pastor is turning over and would you help us find a new pastor?
• 2:42
  Matt: And so we kind of evaluated the church, got to know them a little bit and we're like, yeah, you're ostensibly a pretty healthy church.
• 2:48
  Matt: One church we'd worked with extensively, one was brand new to us.
• 2:50
  Matt: They're both fairly healthy churches and we were able to just work with them for helping them find a pastor, which is the last phase of the transition process.
• 3:00
  Jeremy: It sounds like ideally that would be the norm, but it sounds like it's not.
• 3:04
  Matt: Yeah, ideally it's the norm and we're going to go through a whole bunch of reasons why in this season, why they should consider having a transitional pastor Because most churches are not actually healthy and so they ought to try and get healthy before they call a new long-term pastor.
• 3:17
  Jeremy: Does the fact that you're saying churches ought to consider a transitional pastor indicate that there is a lack of health in the church?
• 3:26
  Jeremy: Yeah, um and that lack of health?
• 3:28
  Jeremy: Could you say that in a way that doesn't crush toes?
• 3:32
  Matt: yeah, maybe, maybe, but it's kind of like you go to the doctor.
• 3:36
  Matt: I was just in my brother's house this past weekend and he and I are on the same statin drug and we're on different high blood pressure drugs and we both our dad went on high blood pressure medicine in his thirties.
• 3:49
  Matt: My brother and I both went into on high blood pressure medicine before.
• 3:52
  Matt: It would have been ideal, but our genetics are very much against us.
• 3:57
  Matt: We both could have gone to the doctor and the doctor could have said well, you got high blood pressure and you should really go on something, cause then, nah, you know, we think we're just fine, but that would have been hazardous to our bodily health and I think a church that is unhealthy but doesn't want to own it it's hazardous to its bodily health.
• 4:15
  Matt: Actually, it's hazardous to its next pastor, which is why we try and encourage churches to really wrestle with their health and getting healthier before the next pastor comes.
• 4:25
  Jeremy: Okay, I know what you're saying there, because we've talked about or you've talked about and I've listened to you talk about unintentional temporary pastors.
• 4:34
  Matt: Yes, exactly yeah.
• 4:35
  Matt: So the quip is yeah.
• 4:37
  Matt: So there see, jeremy just slipped again.
• 4:39
  Matt: He's human.
• 4:40
  Matt: The quip used to be when the language was interim pastor.
• 4:42
  Matt: There was a good quip that came along is that if you don't use an intentional interim pastor between long-term pastors, your next pastor will be an unintentional interim pastor, which is that if you don't deal with the issues that your church has and you assume, oh, the next pastor will deal with those, he'll come in and he'll try to, and you guys will show him the door.
• 5:04
  Matt: He'll come in and he'll try to and you guys will show him the door.
• 5:08
  Matt: And that can be because you know the pastor's been there.
• 5:12
  Matt: For we're working with the church right now.
• 5:13
  Matt: The pastor was there for 30 years.
• 5:13
  Matt: There's nobody that can directly follow a 30 year pastor.
• 5:18
  Matt: It just doesn't exist.
• 5:19
  Matt: That person doesn't exist.
• 5:21
  Matt: There's too much affinity for the previous pastor.
• 5:24
  Matt: The church can't even see how much they're molded around who that pastor was and what that pastor did.
• 5:30
  Matt: It's like asking a fish about water.
• 5:32
  Matt: You're like we don't have a culture, right, we don't have a why.
• 5:37
  Matt: We could just go get another pastor.
• 5:39
  Matt: But they don't realize all the things that are implicit in their culture because they've been shaped by this one person for so long.
• 5:48
  Jeremy: Or, conversely, they may recognize they do in fact have a culture and they may think that they can simply put that culture onto the next guy.
• 5:56
  Jeremy: Right, that you can step in and carry that forward and everything's going to be hunky dory, right, right, so.
• 6:00
  Jeremy: So I kudori right, right so.
• 6:02
  Jeremy: So I know you're a stats kind of guy.
• 6:04
  Jeremy: What are the stats on, uh, on, churches that, without investing into a transitional pastor, how successful are they?
• 6:14
  Jeremy: How many go through that process and don't in fact end up with a new pastor in the next 12 months?
• 6:22
  Matt: most churches find another pastor, that doesn't end up actually being the issue.
• 6:25
  Matt: But in my setting in the Presbyterian Church of America, where I'm ordained and where we do a lot of our work, our working statistic is that 50% of pastoral matches don't last five years.
• 6:38
  Jeremy: So what is the time frame that a PCA pastor would be in the pulpit would go from the beginning of his tenure with a church to retirement or moving to his next position?
• 6:51
  Matt: So there's two statistics here that are helpful.
• 6:53
  Matt: One is Tom Rainer, for years, has studied pastoral tenure and effectiveness, and maybe we can link some of these in the show notes for this episode us.
• 7:03
  Matt: And maybe we can link some of these in the show notes for this episode.
• 7:04
  Matt: What Rainer has figured out is that the years 7 to 15 are the most productive of a pastor's ministry.
• 7:07
  Matt: Some pastors can minister longer than 15 years it does happen, but they end up having to reinvent themselves in the church at the same time, and that can be really, really challenging.
• 7:20
  Matt: So that's the most productive years of a pastor's ministry.
• 7:24
  Matt: So if average pastoral tenure in America is at five years which means that's the number that we use for saying if that's the average, we want to beat the average.
• 7:35
  Matt: When we work with the church, what we say to them is we want to work with you so that you understand yourselves well enough that the next pastor that you call can be with you for a decade.
• 7:44
  Matt: That's our, that's our inside goal of.
• 7:46
  Matt: What we're shooting for is to double the, double the average, right?
• 7:49
  Matt: So if half the churches, though, are not even making it to five years, that tells you that the transition process that they used was woefully insufficient.
• 8:00
  Matt: They didn't even get the pastor to his most productive years, and so that's what we're trying to remedy.
• 8:07
  Jeremy: So just to recap what you've said pastors reach their most productive years after seven years, yes, but the average tenure for a pastor is five years, right, regardless of how well they do or don't do, this is simply what the numbers are telling us.
• 8:23
  Jeremy: The average guy is going to stay in one place for five years, two years short of actually hitting his prime, correct?
• 8:30
  Matt: And we're trying to reverse that because guys that can stay in church is longer I ministered.
• 8:33
  Matt: The second church that I ministered in was for a decade and it was amazing when you got into those latter years how productive the ministry was.
• 8:40
  Matt: When you got into those latter years, how productive the ministry was.
• 8:41
  Matt: And I think a lot of that is you knowing the people well, you knowing the community well, the people trusting you, the people being willing to follow you, because it just takes a long time Getting a new pastor.
• 8:52
  Matt: The way that I like to put it for churches, for thinking about the emotional system of the church, it's like getting a new dad for your family and that is.
• 9:02
  Matt: It just takes a while to get used to a new dad in your family.
• 9:04
  Matt: It just does.
• 9:05
  Matt: That's why it takes that much time for a pastor to actually get traction and be able to lead forward.
• 9:11
  Jeremy: Well, this is something that you and I haven't directly talked on together privately, but it strikes me that there is a very strong connection between not just the reality of bringing in a new dad, but the trauma of losing a dad, whether or not dad died in a car accident or is gone because of infidelity or something much less benign or much more benign.
• 9:35
  Jeremy: The loss of someone from a family system like that is huge.
• 9:37
  Jeremy: The loss of someone from a family system like that is huge, absolutely.
• 9:42
  Jeremy: The impact on the family, how things work, on the assumptions, the operating norms, the expectations, who's doing what roles all of that gets thrown into a blender.
• 9:54
  Jeremy: And then you dump grief on top of that, and most of us which we may talk about here, we may not don't grieve.
• 10:02
  Jeremy: Well, correct, or long enough?
• 10:03
  Jeremy: Yep, we.
• 10:05
  Jeremy: It's a totally different podcast, we'll get to that.
• 10:08
  Jeremy: Uh, it's a good one, though, but you, you put all that together and then you have this expectation that someone else can step in and just keep on moving but uh, then you guys, it's all going to be great.
• 10:23
  Matt: This is not true.
• 10:24
  Jeremy: He has that expectation, the search committee has that expectation, the elders have that expectation.
• 10:29
  Jeremy: I'm sure the person gets built up to the church so that the church has this expectation.
• 10:33
  Jeremy: And you know the honeymoon lasts for what?
• 10:36
  Jeremy: Six months.
• 10:38
  Matt: Six months.
• 10:38
  Matt: So maybe you've met someone whose spouse passed away or they got divorced and they're in a serious relationship in like three months and everybody from the outside looking in can go.
• 10:52
  Matt: That is bad news.
• 10:56
  Matt: That's a rebound relationship and that person is not.
• 11:01
  Matt: They don't know themselves as distinct from the spouse they used to have and so they're not thoughtful enough to pursue a new serious relationship, and the analogy is picture perfect for that, for the church.
• 11:18
  Jeremy: My wife will often say that any marriage, there are three people there's the husband, there's the wife and there's the marriage.
• 11:23
  Jeremy: That's what I hear you saying.
• 11:25
  Matt: Yeah, absolutely, that's interesting.
• 11:27
  Matt: I hadn't heard that before.
• 11:28
  Jeremy: Yeah, that's a copyright Hannah Seferati, circa 2010.
• 11:34
  Jeremy: But that's what you're talking about differentiation.
• 11:38
  Matt: It has its own existence.
• 11:39
  Matt: The relationship has its own existence.
• 11:41
  Matt: That's distinct, yes, and that's distinct yes.
• 11:42
  Jeremy: It's on existence, its own dynamic, its own patterns of life, and we're going to talk here in coming episodes about the church life cycle.
• 11:52
  Jeremy: But a part of what we're talking about here is that there's also a pastoral life cycle, and I'm coming from this point of view and I could hear you and I talking about this and it could strike me as being I have been told I can be flippant.
• 12:10
  Jeremy: I'm not being flippant here, but I recognize I can come across to people that way.
• 12:14
  Jeremy: Sure, I care very deeply about Jesus and his church I know you do as well about here is regardless of why one pastor is moving on and another's coming in.
• 12:28
  Jeremy: This is a very unique time in a church's life and it's one that calls for the respect and the care that looks to Jesus in the midst of this.
• 12:42
  Jeremy: That says Jesus, what are you doing?
• 12:43
  Jeremy: What are you doing in us?
• 12:45
  Jeremy: Where are you leading us?
• 12:46
  Jeremy: What are you calling us to and what are you doing?
• 12:48
  Jeremy: What are you doing in us?
• 12:49
  Jeremy: Where are you leading us?
• 12:49
  Jeremy: What are you calling us to do and what are you dealing with in us?
• 12:51
  Jeremy: As we're walking through this, how do we see you?
• 12:52
  Jeremy: How do we look more to you than to whomever is in the pulpit this coming Sunday.
• 12:58
  Jeremy: How do we learn to hear your voice as a congregation?
• 13:07
  Matt: Yeah, that's super important because as we work through this season, we'll talk about these five questions that we think are important to answer in transition.
• 13:10
  Matt: We have a document on this so we can put in the show notes for people to be able to look at.
• 13:13
  Matt: But a congregation that is between long-term pastors has to have a real sense of themselves before they should be in the business of trying to call a new long-term pastor, because if you don't know yourself, you are ill-equipped to get into a new relationship, and that's essentially what you're doing with a pastor.
• 13:33
  Matt: Is that, for us, pastor search is the answer to this question who can take us there?
• 13:44
  Matt: And so most churches are just like who, who, who Come on.
• 13:46
  Matt: We need someone, we need someone to come to us.
• 13:47
  Matt: Who can it be?
• 13:48
  Matt: Who can it be?
• 13:48
  Matt: Who will come to us?
• 13:48
  Matt: Who's going to be our next pastor?
• 13:50
  Matt: Without the real strong sense of reflectiveness that says this is who we are as a people, this is our us, this is our history, this is our present, this is our identity, and without a real strong sense of God, where are you taking us To?
• 14:04
  Matt: Whom have you sent us?
• 14:05
  Matt: And if you haven't spent the time to answer those questions, you're going to choose poorly in the next pastor because the next pastor comes in, they are for sure going to take you somewhere.
• 14:16
  Matt: They may just take you somewhere that you don't want to go, not because it's an ungodly direction, but it's just not something that suits you as a people.
• 14:23
  Matt: Better to wrestle with that and know it and advertise it when you go looking for a pastor, rather than waiting for a pastor to come and assume that they're going to be the savior of the congregation and help you find some direction.
• 14:36
  Matt: Better to own a direction first.
• 14:38
  Jeremy: So you're saying that second pastors should always come from seminary because those are the guys that know best that they can save a congregation?
• 14:45
  Jeremy: Oh, absolutely, that was my cynicism right there.
• 14:50
  Matt: Pure sarcasm by Matt Jarrett Pure sarcasm.
• 14:54
  Jeremy: Yeah, matt, I think this is where we leave it for now.
• 14:57
  Jeremy: Cool, this is why we're doing this.
• 14:59
  Jeremy: This podcast, the Church Renewal Podcast is here to share with you more as we go through this season about transitional pastors, the what, the where, the how, the why, the who.
• 15:09
  Jeremy: Flourish Coaching that's the main thrust of your ministry is providing this service, a coaching and guiding resource to churches.
• 15:18
  Jeremy: We want to highlight that because we think it is necessary.
• 15:22
  Jeremy: We want to be beneficial to you.
• 15:24
  Jeremy: So if this is something that has piqued your interest, if it's something that you're curious about, we invite you to come along with us as we continue through this season.
• 15:35
  Jeremy: Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.
• 15:38
  Jeremy: Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them.
• 15:43
  Jeremy: We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that, this day dawned, jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it.
• 15:50
  Jeremy: When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy.
• 15:58
  Jeremy: If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you.
• 16:01
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• 16:07
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• 16:14
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• 16:26
  Jeremy: All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists.
• 16:34
  Jeremy: The Church Renewal Podcast was produced by me, jeremy Zaffirati, in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.