A Good Day, But A Hard Day

My time at Pecan Grove ended well.  It was a long interim, lasting almost 20 months, but quite gratifying.  The church called a new pastor and we left back in January.  The hardest part in the entire interim was saying good bye.  I shared with them at our last service together, that I would not return to fill the pulpit or speak with individual church members for about a year.  I wanted them to have a good chance to bond with their new pastor.  I also shared with them that I wouldn’t be coming back to perform any funerals or weddings.  Mrs. Clark, an octogenarian that had served well on the Transition Team said “You mean if I die in the next year you wouldn’t do my funeral?”  I had to tell her no, I would not.  On our final Sunday, they thanked me and had a farewell reception.   It was a good day, but a hard day. 

A few weeks before we left, I was at a retreat with several other Intentional Interim ministers and got to know one gentleman who has served eight churches as an intentional interim pastor.  I mentioned to him that our time of service at Pecan Grove Baptist was nearing an end and decided to call upon his experience leaving these churches.  I asked him about strategies for leaving a church cleanly while minimizing the pain of saying good-bye (both to me and to them).  He paused just a second and smiled.  “O, you can’t minimize the pain.  It ALWAYS hurts when you leave” he gently said.

And he was right.  I shared with the church in my final message that my time of service with them had been THE most rewarding service of ministry in my entire life.  And I meant it.  They had called a wonderful pastor and have a very bright future.  And after the thank you notes and gift cards, they presented me with their favorite gift of a lasting memory:

A Pecan tree.

Church Minutes

Statistics, as they say, are a lot like bikinis. What they show is important, and what they hide is even more important.

The same could be said for church minutes.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last few weeks working through the minutes from the past nine years of business meetings at Pecan Grove. They show the barest outline of the conflicts and confrontations which have shaped the community of faith during this decade.

Reading church minutes is up there with reading food labels and graduate papers as pastimes that induce narcolepsy. But going through the minutes with the Transition Team has added a lot of background and color and texture to the minutes. (As well as filling in the gaps!).

The record of the minutes don’t lie. They allow us to pinpoint different times when various conflicts began. Reading through the minutes, we’ve seen the missteps emerge in black and white. What also tend to emerge are patterns for dealing with conflict and disagreements. At times these patterns play out and repeat over decades.

So reading minutes are a dull, dreary process…but a process that can be quite revealing.

Transition Team Agenda

Working with Pecan Grove, we’ve identified disunity as one of the key points we need to address. While there are always several issues pertaining to disunity in the church, we are going to focus initially on one. In several of the listening groups, I heard about a fairly unhealthy process that has developed in various church committees at Pecan Grove. In some instances, before committees would meet, several members would get together and caucus about what the group should decide. Then when the entire committee met, the group would push through its agenda.

When the committee would present this to the church as a recommendation, some members would disavow this proposal and it became an issue of contention. I had several people express concern that certain members of the Transition Team would coordinate their activities to place the process in jeopardy.

Frankly, I possess neither the necessary skill, nor the time, to investigate each of these claims. But I can encourage the Transition Team (and the church) to try a few different things to address the underlying problem of disunity.

First, as a Transition Team we will talk about this concern. My hope is that by putting the issue on the table, it will lead the group to police itself and hold itself accountable. I shared that we can certainly adopt that method of decision making if everyone is comfortable with the process of caucusing as small groups before we meet. Needless to say, the committee rejected that conclusion.

Second, we’re going to focus on Transparency. The group will share freely with one another of course, but also with the church as a whole. We will keep the entire church informed as to our deliberations. We’ve opted to use a variety of settings (deacons meetings, Sunday school classes, business meetings, Sunday morning services) and a variety of individuals on the committee to make frequent reports to the church.

Third, we will attempt to model trust. With each person on the committee reporting to the groups that they represent ,my hope is that this will give members in the church confidence in the process.

Transparency --> Trust --> Unity

Selcting the Transition Team (II)

And he was not alone. I had feedback from other members concerned that some folks who sought to undermine the previous pastor were now on the Transition Team. This meant that some of the “troublemakers” were now in a position to be involved in leading the church through the interim process. In addition, they feared that some in these different Transition Team members would get together before our meetings and then lead the process according to their own whims. The end result is that there would be no changes in the church.

I responded to these concerns in a couple of ways:

First, in the process of organizing the Transition Team and making sure that all groups were represented, I could’ve made some mistakes. Perhaps there were some people on the Team who should not be. With prayers and numerous requests for divine wisdom, I’ve tried to make sure that every member of the Transition Team was appropriate.

Second, I noted that the people about whom they were most concerned had each received overwhelming support from the congregation through their vote totals. They might be manipulative so and so’s, but they still represented a significant portion of the church.

Third, I would ask the concerned member if they felt that they had representation on the committee. In every case, the answer was affirmative. I’ve then reiterated that my number one goal in assembling the committee was to ensure fair representation.

Fourth, I’ve tried to encourage them that if there is anyone seeking to undermine the process, I’d rather have them close by. I want to stay in dialogue with those who have been a source of trouble in the past.

Lastly, whenever a small group is intensely focused on accomplishing a task, and is open to the Lord’s direction, I think that there is a possibility that God will transform them through his work. It is my hope that the experience of participating on the Transition Team will change each of us in this process.

I finished each of the conversations by summarizing my underlying optimism about the process by saying: “If the entrenched powers in the church didn’t see the need for change, then I wouldn’t be standing here today.” That’s exactly why I’m optimistic about the church’s desire for change.

Selecting the Transition Team (I)

Little activity here at Coffeespoons lately and I wanted to write a few posts about the constitution of the Transition Team. For the composition of the team, my basic goal is to have representatives from every major group within the congregation. One of my primary jobs during my first two months at Pecan Grove was to find out what the groups in the church were.
I shared with them ahead of time the process for the composition of the Transition Team.

The process would be as follows:

First, I asked the congregation to nominate five people for the Transition Team. I asked them to request permission from the person before they nominated them. I shared with them that this person needed to be someone with whom they would trust the future of the church. The criterion should be “If you were going into the hospital, this person is one whom you would call and ask them for their prayers.”

Second, after these nominations were made, I sat down with the personnel committee and we tabulated the results. We then selected ten members for the Transition Team based on two factors: number of votes received and diversity of representation. We did NOT pick the top ten vote recipients. To do so would’ve left certain groups in the church unrepresented on the committee. The Personnel Committee assisted me in the composition of the committee.


We spent about two weeks on this process.


The following Sunday morning after the vote was taken, I presented the transition team to the church. As I announced their names, I had them come up before the congregation. I then invited the church to come up and pray over these women and men whom they had entrusted with the future of their church.

The service was meaningful and moving. I saw some people pray for members of the team that I knew they disagreed with. It was in this service that I genuinely felt the church was united in their desire to take their first major step through this interim process.


So as I began to move to the back of the church to shake people’s hands as they departed, it came as some surprise to me when an angry church member blocked my path. He could barely contain his rage as he said through whispered clenched teeth:


“How could you put some of THOSE PEOPLE on this committee?!”

More Listening Groups

Listening groups continue on at Pecan Grove Baptist. As I’ve shared previously, I’m attempting to get a feel for the where the church is by dialoguing with the major groups in the church. I’ve met with several of the Sunday school classes and had four open sessions where anyone could attend. Last night (for three hours!) I met with the staff for the first time and got their take on the current state of the church. I had several questions to ask them, but I quickly discerned that my job was simply to listen. I had the impression that no one had asked them for their thoughts on the direction of the church for awhile and they were full of thoughts and impressions. They had also not had a staff meeting in several months, so they were also sharing with one another the recent frustrations that they had seen in the church.

I’m having a few more meetings to finish out the listening phase of the IIM. I’ve got one meeting with a key member who has left the church. My purpose is not to convince him to come back, but rather to talk to him about the circumstances surrounding the recent conflict the church’s life.

I also think it’s important to have the view of a few outsiders. With that in mind, I’m also going to sit down with the other main Baptist pastor in town and get his thoughts on Pecan Grove. For another outsider’s perspective, I will be meeting with the Director of Missions for the association to discuss the church. Finally, I have contacted the former pastor and he has agreed to spend some time with me to help me gain additional insight into his eight years of ministry at Pecan Grove.

Several positive things have come out of these conversations and the stories I’m hearing are remarkable consistent. One reason I think that the church is essentially in good shape is that every group has agreed on what the primary problems are. The interesting part will come next as we start to turn our attention to solutions.

Pieces of the Puzzle

I’m unsure of what metaphor to use for the Intentional Interim Minister’s job. In training I was told that our job was like a private investigator’s (except no crimes been committed). We would come in, ask a lot of questions, formulate a theory as to why certain events occurred and then execute a plan to solve the church’s problem. I’ve also conceived of the metaphor of CSI (except no one’s dead). What each metaphor shares is an attempt to recreate a series of events that brought the church to its present point. After this is achieved, the IIM will then help the church to deal with any lingering issues and then move on.

But each of these metaphors presents a problem: the focus is on the IIM and what he can figure out. With these metaphors, what is the role of the church in this situation? Is it to sit around and wait for the IIM to answer all of the questions? Clearly a fresher approach is needed.
I’ve been mulling over (and using with Pecan Grove) the metaphor of a puzzle. The current church is like a puzzle with various pieces scattered around. There are lots of pieces to this puzzle, and I don’t know what (or where) they all are. So I’m depending upon the members of the church to share them with me and then to help me put them together to form a coherent narrative about how the church has arrived where it is.

But this puzzle isn’t the kind you put together by yourself. It’s more like putting a puzzle together over a vacation with the rest of your family. The more eyes you have on the puzzle, the more likely you are to have a solution. And the faster it goes.

In order to help identify the pieces, I’m setting up a series of listening groups with different members of Pecan Grove. This last Sunday, I put out sign-up sheets for several periods of time that last about an hour each. I asked the church to sign up at one of the times on Sunday afternoon in groups of nine or ten. Two of the senior adult classes told me that it would be difficult for them to come back up on Sunday afternoon, and they asked if I could meet with their classes during the Sunday School hour. These groups will start meeting on this coming Sunday.

For each group, I’m going to ask two questions: First, on a scale of one to ten, with one being utterly demonic and ten being heaven-on-earth, how would you characterize the current state of Pecan Grove? Second, what do we need to do to move higher up the scale? Essentially, I see this as performing a SWOT analysis and getting the church members to participate in identifying what is working well, and what is not working well in the life of the church.

An Open Door and Changes at Coffeespoons

After much reflection, and at the encouragement of no one, I've decided to stretch out the thin gruel that is Coffeespoons, into a blog post each weekday. By arranging the days topically, I hope to build some accountability for the blog.

So, from now on, today will be known as Ministry Monday.

Recently I've had several ministry opportunities that I want to talk through in blog format, drawing upon the wisdom of the readers. The most significant of these is that last night I was called to be the Intentional Interim pastor at Pecan Grove Baptist Church, a church an hour away from our home.


With these opportunities in mind I anticipate that I can genereate at least one interesting meager blog post per week.


Or not.

A Closed Door...

A few months ago, I received a call about the Intentional Interim Ministry (IIM) from a church in a town around 2 hours from my home. They had been given my name by the state director (from another state) who trained me in IIM. They church had recently terminated their pastor and they thought that the IIM might be appropriate for them. So they asked me to come out on a Wednesday night and share with the church the Intentional Interim Process.

I visited with the deacons and they described a fairly bleak picture. Their pastor had been there for twelve years and church attendance had decreased over that time period. The average church member is in their sixties and the pastor (according to the deacons) did little to address the serious issues facing the church. I asked the chairman of the deacons why he thought that they needed an Intentional Interim Minister. He replied “I can look out from the choir and see the congregation seated in the pews. Everyone is sitting where they’ve always sat. But people are beginning to die off. Now I see the holes in the congregation where people used to sit. There’s no one to replace them and the holes in the congregation are growing.”

They thanked me and asked me to come back a few weeks later to preach to the church on a Sunday morning and to attend a fellowship afterwards. The deacons expressed one bit of concern. They were unsure whether they needed someone full time or part time. In a follow up phone call, the deacon chairman quizzed me in some detail about the necessity of the minister being either full time or part time.

When I returned a few weeks later, I led in worship and then went to the lunch fellowship. Following the fellowship the church called a business meeting. I was asked to address the congregation and give another brief summary of the IIM. At the business meeting, the deacons recommended to the church that the church undertake the IIM. After a brief time of discussion, the church unanimously agreed that the IIM would be the best option. They expressed an excitement and a joy at what God might do.

They then turned to the question of full or part time. After much discussion, the church voted to call an intentional interim minister to lead the church full time through the process. They would try to find someone willing to relocate to their community (of around 8,000). As I prepared to leave, the deacon chairman patted me on the back and thanked me for visiting with them. I told him I’d keep the church in prayer and I asked him to stay in touch.

I haven’t heard from them in months.

One amusing occurrence. After finishing my lunch I went back to get some pecan pie. Right after I stood up, a lady approached me and said “We don’t have any church by-laws. Isn’t that strange?” I confessed that it seemed unusual for a Baptist church not to have any by-laws. When I reached the dessert table I was about to select the largest slice of pie I could find and another lady gently caught my arm in her hand. “Preacher, don’t you think it's important that a church should have by-laws?” I replied “Since you are the second person to ask me that question between the dinner table and the dessert table, yes I think it’s important that you have some by-laws.”

How to Sabotage Your Church

Bob Perry is the President of the Organizational Health Associates with extensive experience troubleshooting congregational conflict. Perry, in the vein of the Screwtape Letters (except without all the demons), wrote a recent article called “How to Sabotage Your Church” In this article, he offers advice in how to disrupt the unity and cause division in your local church. He then offers some guidance for church leaders confronting these issues.

He writes that if you really want to sabotage your church, then do the following (I added the last two thoughts):

1. Threaten to leave the church. (the spoiled brat syndrome).

2. Threaten to withhold your offerings. (Using stewardship to manipulate others)

3. Create unhealthy triangles. Involve third parties in your conflicts with others. When you have a conflict with another, instead of continuing to work on the problem, recruit allies and marshal your forces to destroy the other.

4. Sow negativism – fostering a “here we go again” whenever problems or issues arise. Instead of keeping unhealthy criticism to oneself, you should make an effort to call others and share with them your negative attitude as well.

5. Become the “clearinghouse” for complaints. That is, become the one to whom people go to express their negativity, realizing that you will cultivate and encourage their negative spirit through listening to and affirming their views.

(I add two more)
6. Avoiding confrontation at all costs. Any problems will recede and finally go away if we simply ignore them and pretend that they don’t exist.

7. Centralize power in the hands of one. A sincere church leader will never misuse sole authority.

Other suggestions?

A Book Idea

Part of the greatest fun of the annual SBL meeting has nothing to do with friends or papers. It’s all about the books. Imagine a couple of football fields covered with religious publishing companies from all over the world and you get some idea of the SBL Book exhibit. It is a bibliophile’s dream. Frankly, when every year when I see this set-up I think to myself. “Surely I can write a book on something…” (I mean a book that people will actually read).

Because of its focus on ministry instead of on academics, I was surprised to see the Alban Institute with a booth set up. The Alban Institute has published some of the best works on the Intentional Interim Ministry. (Temporary Shepherds and Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach are two of my favorites). While there, I spoke to their publishing director and gave him my “elevator pitch” for a book idea I’d been running though my head for awhile.

One possible thought I’ve had is in the Fall of 2008, I’ll apply for a sabbatical for the following year (2009-2010). During that year I will find a church in need of intentional interim work and move with our family to that location. I would like it to be located far away from the Bible Belt so that I will be more of an outsider going in. I’ll then lead the church through the Intentional Interim process for a year and write up the results as both an introduction to Intentional Interim work and as a case study of how it might work. Interestingly, it was the process of blogging the various narratives about Susan Song which lead to this idea.

The publishing director seemed open to the concept. (Of course, every publisher nods their heads and agrees with you at the meeting, they keep their options open that way). He did say “Well you know Taran, not every church needs the Intentional Interim process. For us to be interested in this work, you will need an unusual church situation and a clear instance where the process was definitely needed.”

Reading between the lines, I said “You mean, if my family and I endure a year of pain and misery assisting a highly dysfunctional church, then that would make a better book for you?”

“Exactly!!” was his response.

This is a difficult situation to plan out. For example, how do you tell what church will be without a pastor in fall of 2009? The director of the Center for Congregational Health has offered his assistance with placement. There are also some hurdles to overcome at my own institution where my supervisors might not consider this proposal academic enough. But the largest hurdles to jump would be family concerns as fall of 2009 would be the first year of high school for Scooter and the first year of Middle school for Skeeter. Something to think about.

Three Universal Laws

• For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

• A body at rest tends to remain at rest.

• Churches think they will save money during their interim time without a pastor.

Meeting With the Deacons

Yesterday evening I shared with our deacons the essential elements of the intentional interim ministry. We had a, as diplomats often say, “frank and cordial” exchange. As I explained the five elements of an intentional interim, I suggested areas that (in my opinion) we need to deal with as a church before we call another pastor.

Three areas of concern have remained unaddressed by our church. First, we were borne (in 1979) out of a prejudiced womb. Our church (like many throughout the south) decided to leave a neighborhood that was changing from white to African-American. In the early eighties we apparently developed a reputation as a church that was unwelcoming toward minorities.

But our most recent pastor, for thirteen years, has preached strongly from the pulpit a gospel message that was open to all races. We now have several African-American families in our church. In fact, on Sunday night we licensed an African-American friend for the first time in the history of our church. (A fact uncommented upon and even unrealized until I looked into it this week). This transformation in racial attitudes is an important and positive element in our church’s history that has been ignored.

A second area that remains unaddressed is a decision made about eight years ago to build a recreation center. This decision was made when we ran about 150 more people than we currently have in attendance. Its $1.2 million mortgage represents a heavy financial burden upon the church. We’ve established no long term strategic approach for dealing with the debt. Our most common response has been to complain about the lousy so-and-so's who signed up for the debt and then left the church. We need to lay out a long term plan for addressing this issue.

A final area of concern has been our staff turnover. Although we’ve had a pastor for thirteen years, during the last six years (since we’ve joined) we’ve had three youth ministers, four music ministers (really five because we’ve had one twice) and six children’s ministers. From my perspective, we need to examine our policies and procedures for dealing with staff. But from the perspective of our lay leadership, God has simply called some people to our church for a “season of healing,” and then called them on elsewhere.

I mentioned these three areas to the deacons and there were differences of opinion on each of them. Some simply told me I was wrong and that these issues didn’t exist while others agreed with the diagnosis, but not the treatment. As our time together closed, they told me that they would pray about our church’s options for the interim time.

I left the meeting in much better spirits than I did a few Sunday nights ago. Not because there was a greater agreement with my position, but rather because I felt prompted by God to share this information with them and I was obedient to that prompting. Now it is in God’s hands.

Where it has been all along.

A Check in His Spirit

Our church is still attempting to determine the best course of action in response to our pastor’s recent resignation at our home church. On Sunday evening I met with the Chairmen of deacons, finance committee and personal committee. For a couple of hours I shared the Intentional Interim Ministry (IIM) process with them and explained how it would be a beneficial process for Lakeview Baptist.

Following the presentation I took questions. My biggest concern going into the discussion was with our stewardship chairman. He’s a godly man and one who has earned the respect of the congregation and of myself. He has been very close to our pastor and served as chairman of the search committee that brought him here thirteen years ago. He is, in short, someone whose buy-in is integral to the IIM process being accepted at Lakeview.

But he is old school. And the IIM process is new in these parts. So when I finished he sat quietly for a minute and then said "Taran, I have a check in my spirit." By which he meant (I determined from context clues) that he had a bad feeling about the IIM and that this bad feeling was of divine origin.

As our discussion continued, the gist of his concern was that he feels the process to be too mechanical, and not spiritual enough. He felt that I did not emphasize the signifiance of the Holy Spirit in the prcess. It is true that I didn’t spend a great deal of time in the presentation talking about how prayer/fasting/discernment, etc. accompanies the process…I simply assumed that part.

The other two leaders were more open to the process and all three agreed that I should share it with the deacons and then, if they agree, with the church. I should meet with the deacons next week.

But for someone as passionate about the IIM as I am, it was a bit disheartening.

Susan Song Reception

Last night we had a wonderful reception at Susan Song. Since they were concerned about several folks being out over the Memorial Day Weekend, they wanted to have it after their Wednesday night service. Kadie and the kids went with me. When I told the kids that we were all going out to the church because they were having a celebration, Scooter said “Are they throwing a celebration because you are leaving??”

I started to choke up a little as we pulled into the parking lot. On the sign in front of the church they wrote “Good-bye Bro. Taran, We’ll Miss You”. I shared a brief devotional with them and then we feasted on great fried chicken (natch), home grown black eyed peas, squash, and mashed potatoes.

After we finished eating they presented a beautiful framed picture with a poem about the “Pastor”. Mrs. Jones read a poem that was hilarious and had a separate verse about each of the regular attenders. I’ll post it in the next day or two. They also were very proud of the fact that they were the first Intentional Interim I have performed and presented me with the framed Church Covenant which they had each signed.

A great evening.

A Last Note

Well the final verses of Susan Song are coming to an end.

I have given them May 27th as my final Sunday. Three weeks ago I gave them six weeks notice. I gave them that date mostly to jump-start the pastoral search process. They had settled into a level of comfort with me as interim that I believe prevented them from seriously looking for a pastor.

I thought about delaying my departure, because they are probably another four weeks away from calling a pastor. But I decided to remain firm in my deadline for two reasons.

First, I think it is important to maintain my word to them. I told them a termination date, and I need to stick to that date for the sake of consistency.

Second, I have heard through the ministerial grapevine that our home pastor is going in view of a call on the May 20th to another church. To my knowledge, he has not shared this information with anyone at our church.

Due to the fact that our church governance has been pretty centralized in our pastor, I have some concern about how the church will react. I really want to be there to lend my thoughts/experiences.

When finals end this week and grades are turned in I will post my final report on Susan Song.

The Question

The comments are offered more and more frequently. They usually ran something like this: “Brother Taran, people here sure will be sad when you leave.” or “We are enjoying this interim time, we could do this forever!” Another comment, by a church leader to a group before the Church service “Well, we may have found our new preacher already!”

In various forms, the question boils down to this:

“Why don’t you just stay and be our pastor?”

I had been warned about this possibility ever since I’ve started looking into interim ministry (intentional or otherwise). You don’t have to talk to an older interim pastor very long to hear about search committees who drag their feet in order to hang onto an interim they like.

My trainer in the intentional interim class put it memorably. He said:

“At some point, a sweet little old blue-haired lady is going to come to you and say ‘You are so nice and have been so helpful to us…you should just stay here and be our pastor.’”

Then he advised:

“Don’t take it personally!”

It seems that this request is par for the interim course. For the church, the familiar is safer than the unknown. As long as the interim exhibits no visible signs of being an axe-murderer, they are deemed acceptable.

Plus, in the church as well as in normal life, endings are often emotionally challenging. In most every interim situation, the church has recently gone through a difficult departing, so why go through that again? This is especially true when Susan Song is dealing with some particular feelings of abandonment regarding how their previous pastor left. I think it is not so much the particular interim pastor that churches want to hold onto, but it is more the feeling of normalcy and stability that a familiar face provides.

So how to help that situation? I’m sure that it can ever be completely avoided. But here are some things that I’ve done:

***The covenant helps a lot. It explicitly states (in section IV) that I will not be considered for the position of pastor. (Perhaps next time I will move it up to the first section instead of the fourth). This clause provides me with a helpful reply and gives me some cover simply to tell them that I cannot ethically accept the pastorate.

***I have consistently used language that looks to the future when I am not here. E.g. “Now if this happens after your new pastor gets here, here is what I would suggest…”

***I state clearly (and repeatedly) that I am not called to be a traditional pastor. This response has the additional advantage of also being true.

***When in doubt, I talk about it. We go through the goals of the intentional interim and I try to get the congregation back on the particular task at hand. Focusing on the task can help them avoid distractions.


From my side, the 45 minute drives to the church and the time away from my own family (who continue to go to our home church) serves to keep my mind focused as well.

Susan Song's Identity

An update from Susan Song

{Note: In the previous entry I referred to Mr. Ginger’s verbosity. He knows me well enough to realize that I meant that in an affectionate way. In fact, I only read his and Bowden’s comments which confirmed my decision to talk to my pastor. I actually suspect that one reason the comments grew smaller over time is because the main points had already been made. Besides, I have been chided on this very blog for my own verbosity.}

We have recently completed the identity portion of the intentional interim process. We divided identity into two parts, church and individual. For church identity we discussed how the church looks to visitors and how we can make the building more attractive and welcoming (a process that will involve power sprayers at some point). For individual identity I gave them a spiritual gift inventory from Lifeway (HT: Bowden) and we went though the various spiritual gifts in the church.

Then we listed and evaluated every ministry and activity that the church is engaged in. This exercise was helpful in determining which ministries/activities were alive and well and which ones we needed to euthanize.

The biggest discussion we had was over the Church’s motto (festooned over the Church sign) which reads “The Little Church with a Big Heart.” I suggested that defines them in a way that might not best. They responded that they like it and it expresses much of what they are proud of in their church. I told them to think about how it would look to a visitor, and encouraged them to revisit the issue later. It is not a battle I’m going to win.

(Although in fairness, it is probably not one I should win. I’m in a great position to tell them how things look to a new visitor, and I expressed to them my reservations, but I suspect the sign will remain long after I’m gone.)

We are now working on denominational connections. I have had a sermon series on Baptist identity (B is for Biblical Authority, A is for Autonomy of the local church, etc) and in the evenings we are going over the Baptist Faith and Message(s). We are looking at both the 2000 and the 1963 and discussing the differences between them. That should take us a few more weeks.

We will also spend a couple of Wednesday evenings looking at our state convention and the Cooperative Program.


This last week, I also had to deal with the question most every intentional interim is asked at some point in the process…

The Service (II)

“I am not absolutely certain that God called me to leave Susan Song” began Brother Jones. I was shocked to hear this, but no one else had much of a reaction. He continued “…but looking back on it, I am sure that it was the best for me and for the church.” The text of his sermon was Acts 21 when Paul is saying goodbye to his friends shortly before his arrest. His message was very conversational and Brother Jones mentioned several people by name. Many tears were shed.

He talked about the (much needed) new siding they had put on the church, and about the bright sign that the church placed in the front (a sign that generates much pride in the church and community). These events marked the physical evidences from his ministry. Brother Jones also spent time recounting the emotional and spiritual legacies he leaves behind. He talked a bit about walking through the valley of the shadow with several families who lost loved ones. In short, his message was perfect for the occasion.

He concluded by simply looking at me and saying “Brother Taran, what do I do now?”I had Brother Jones and his wife stand at the front of the sanctuary while the church gathered around them and prayed for them. I then offered a benediction and a blessing on the meal following the service. We then retired to the fellowship hall and feasted on a Susan Song potluck meal. During the meal we were surrounded by posters full of pictures of the weddings, baptisms and visits that he had performed while at Susan Song. In the corner there was a video of a musical the church had performed while he was pastor. So as we dined on potluck brisket and potatoes and mac and cheese, we were surrounded by eight years of ministry. At the end of the afternoon, Rev. Jones thanked me for convincing him to come back. Several church members remarked on how wonderful the day’s events had been.

It was a very, very gratifying day.

The Service (I)

The day of the service, there was an unusual edge of excitement. When I arrived, Brother Jones was already there. It is an odd feeling when there is a pastor and a former pastor present at the same service. We each have our own ritual of meeting folks and shaking hands at the beginning of the service. I remember once at Lone Oak Baptist that a former pastor came back to preach. It was an odd feeling right before the service as the two of us worked the room.

A lot of new faces came out for Brother Jones' return. Our normal congregation of a dozen swelled up to thirty or more as his large, extended family descended on the church. There were several members present whom I had never seen. Brother Jones' two sons were there with their wives and kids.

The service was designed to reflect on the work that God did through brother Jones during his time at Susan Song Baptist. I tried to design the service so that it would be a worship service and for us to keep our focus on what the Lord did over the last eight years, not on what Jones did. This was an important distinction that I think the church generally did a good job keeping.

I offered the welcome and thanked Jones and his family for coming. I also read from Ecclesiastes 3 “For every thing there is a season” to introduce the idea of seasons of life for congregations. I thanked Smith for his time of service and invoked the Lord to be present in the service. Then I got out of the way and sat on the back row.

We followed our traditional hymns, but interspersed two testimonies in the service. One was from Mrs. Carpenter whose husband passed away after a lengthy illness. She shared with the congregation how dedicated Bro. Jones was during this difficult time in her life. She talked about how much time he spent at the hospital and how he prayed often with her during this difficult time in her life.

We then sang a few more hymns and Mrs. Landry stood up and shared how encouraging Brother Jones’ family had been over the previous eight years. Plus Brother Jones had married her daughter and her son-in-law. (Which led to the typical SBC humor “Thank you brother Jones for marrying my daughter. Tee hee hee!”)

After Mrs. Carpenter, I prepared to sing the next hymn. But from my perch on the back row, I suddenly saw Mrs. Nelson stand up and say “I know that I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but I really need to share what is on my heart.” She then shared how Brother Jones stopped her after a church service and asked if he could pray with her. “If you would not have stopped me, I never would’ve come back to this church.”

Another seven or eight people stood and shared how much Brother Jones meant to them as the Spirit moved. Many wept as they shared with him how much he meant to them. The time of testimony was holy and cathartic at the same time. Following this tremendously encouraging time was the sermon. All of the love and emotion expressed during the testimonies led to a tremendous sense of expectation when brother Jones reached the pulpit.

So I almost fell out of my pew when the first words out of his mouth were “I am not completely sure that God called me to leave Susan Song as Pastor…”