I still intend to get a post together about last weekend’s festivities, but in the meantime, I have some random thoughts kicking around:

1. I’ve had two experiences recently in which I was effusively praised for something that made me go “Really? Doesn’t everyone do that?” The first was with the search committee of Tiny Church, who told R last month that I was one of only two candidates who seemed to express a genuine interest in who they were and what they were about—finding out about them, doing research, etc. I thought that was weird. Isn’t that Job Interviewing 101?

The second was today, while talking to an administrator for The Church’s One Foundation. I am not the only one this year who’s having to turn down a sabbatical grant because of a new call, but I was “the only one who expressed any interest in making sure that others will be able to use the money.” Are you serious?

I’m not bringing these up to say “look how great I am.” The point is that I don’t find these things all that great; they seem like no-brainers.

Maybe common courtesy isn’t that common?

I am sure that my readers, all of whom are above average, would behave in the same way…

2. I had lunch with my predecessor at Tiny Church today. He’s really a wonderful person, and I feel great about the transition. He served Tiny for almost 30 years. Now, following a long-term pastor comes with a whole set of potential pitfalls. Sometimes people end up being an unintentional interim. In fact, a pastor who’s close to me studied the issue for her D.Min. project!

I do think that he and I have a number of things going for us:
a. We have a whole slew of mutual friends; that made things easy and casual from the very beginning.
b. He feels a sense of excitement about what I bring to the congregation (my reputation, such as it is, precedes me, thanks to aforementioned mutual friends).
c. This is a big one, I think: He understands that my success in ministry reflects well on his “legacy” at the church.
d. He really, really, really enjoys retirement and has no interest in getting into “all that” again.

He also passed the “what if you get asked to [do funerals or pastoral care, wade into church controversies, etc.]” test. I talked about a friend of a friend, whose predecessor would get asked to do something by a member and the pastor would say, “Well, you need to ask the new guy.” I had barely gotten the words out before he said, “Oh no no no… that puts the new person in a terrible position.”

All in all I am very pleased.

3. A clergy group I’m in has had some discussion about the pastoral advice not to change anything the first year. This post by Bruce Reyes-Chow sums up my thoughts. The relevant quote:

With transitions [into new calls] comes advice, both solicited and unsolicited. I am not sure that I actually heard this in seminary, but the conventional wisdom seems to be passed down from generation to generation is this:

Do not change anything during your first year.

While I appreciate the intent of the advice that is given, it is just too black and white for me. While this may have been good advice at some point, I just don’t buy it in today’s church climate. In fact, I think taken to an extreme this posture can harm the church in the long run because it assumes that any movement/change that a pastor may encourage during his/her first year is done without listening to the congregation. Yeah, change for change sake is foolish, but what if the church is screaming with word and actions, “Please lead us into transformation!” To ignore the possibilities could do long term damage to pastoral authority and could make it more difficult to foster change in the future.

A friend of mine gave some great words of wisdom about this:

Your presence is a huge change for the system. And your presence is the most important gift you can give them. Be you with them in as non-anxious a way as you can muster. Sometimes doing that brings change. If the change is borne of you being your authentic self, it will be healthy. If you change things out of anxiety, it will be a mess.

Nice.

Photo: Have I mentioned how happy I am that Tiny Church does not have a marquee?