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.

...Summer Daze...

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball lately, due no doubt to the impressive pitching performance of the Rangers this season. Skeeter has been watching a lot with me and learning a bit about the game. And it can be a confusing game. Recently, after a Ranger scored from third, she asked “Was that a Death Run?” I was stunned for a few seconds before remembering a previous conversation. “No, it’s called a suicide squeeze.”

We took a five day vacation to San Antonio and traveled with two other couples. We had much fun, but I was outvoted on two significant issues. We didn’t have a single Mexican meal there and we didn’t go see the Alamo. It reminded me again why we normally vacation alone.

I signed up for extra classes this summer. The result was that I taught classes all summer and thus reduced my days off to about two weeks over the summer break. Part of the reason I got into teaching was to get summers off. Of course that was before kids’ college funds.

Scooter has had a time consuming job this summer and it’s wearing on her. She baby sat one of Squealer’s friends for eight hours every day all summer long and is worn out from chasing them all around. I’m secretly (and not so secretly) amused every time the Girl or Squealer says to her “I’m bored.”

Pecan Grove continues with Transition Team meetings on a weekly basis. It’s going well, I think, but slowly. Many conversations, many different points of view. We continue to pray for breakthroughs in some of these unresolved issues.

FPU is going well at Pecan Grove. Recently one guy (who’s in financial difficulty) roared out of the church parking lot in his 08 fire engine red Mustang. One of the coordinators for the class said in his slow southern drawl. “Dave’ll tell him to sell the car.” Indeed.

A triple wammy next week as Scooter starts High School, Skeeter Middle School, and Squealer begins the first grade. I took Scooter to her high school orientation (at my own alma mater) this week and found the rising nostalgia a bit overwhelming. I can’t believe my daughter is entering her freshman year of high school.

Facebook has taken over more of my life and crowding out a bit of blog time. Perhaps that will change as we start school on the 24th. We’ll see.

FPU Explosion

We’ve had a bit of an explosion at Pecan Grove, and I couldn’t be happier.

In one of our listening groups from a couple of months ago, A church member mentioned a quote often associated with Dave Ramsey. (As you may recall, our family has benefitted from following his financial program). This church member indicated that Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) had greatly blessed their family and he had been interested in getting it started at the church. In fact, he had received a bonus recently and would be happy to purchase the Leader’s Kit and donate it to the church.

I asked him if he would like to teach it and he replied that he’d never taught anything in the church before. But after a few weeks of thought and prayer, he consented. In the overall scheme of things, I thought that this would be another Bible study that might reach a dozen people or so. I brought it up with the church council and suggested that the church pay a scholarship of $50 to help defray the $100 charge for those who wished to participate in the study. They quickly agreed and we set a day for Financial Peace University to start.

And then it exploded.

We moved the study to Sunday evening because not many could participate on Wednesday nights. First 10 couples signed up, then 20, then 30. And now we’re ordering more kits to get us up to 40. Each kit represents a family unit; that is, either a couple or a single. So we have about 70 people in the church going through it. In addition, we’ve had a half dozen families from the community choose to participate. Almost three fourths of our Sunday School attendance will be taking the class. We were going to run it concurrent to our evening worship service, but only 2 people who normally attend were NOT going to be taking FPU. So were are running it during the evening service and the two agreed to help with child care.

The credit crisis and general anxiety about the economy are no doubt factors in its popularity. We’ve had a couple of business plants in our community shut down and several church members are jobless. The chance to pay off debt and to establish an emergency fund looks pretty attractive right now. All in all, the church is excited about this opportunity to be engaged in a common task, and to offer something for the community.

Our transition team discussed the FPU class this past Sunday and think that it could be an important opportunity for the church to work together on a focused financial goal without conflict. That would be an important accomplishment and something that the church has struggled with achieving before.

(photo above was taken last night during FPU)

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.

Fridays are for Family

The Sunday I went to Pecan Grove in view of a call, the church requested that I bring the family to meet them and to give us a lunch fellowship. After the morning service, the church hosted a reception for the family, but asked me to stay in the sanctuary and answer questions. The kids went on to eat lunch while Kadie stayed with me until the Q and A ended. They asked us a lot of questions.

By the time Kadie and I arrived in the Fellowship Hall, the Scooter, Skeeter, and Squealer and were finished eating. Squealer was completely wired, so I asked Skeeter to take him into another room so that we could finish our meal and fellowshipping with people. She took him into the toddler Sunday school room down the hall from the Fellowship area and left him there to play.

After several minutes, I completed my meal and went to the dessert table to get some pecan pie (natch!) when I saw movement coming down the hall. It was Squealer. He was heading back down from the kids' classroom, coming back into the Fellowship hall. But he was walking very strangely, quite gingerly, as though he were walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope with his arms out from his side. He was also looking down at the ground the whole time, but I couldn’t see what he was looking at. So I stepped over to the side so I could see down the hall at what held his attention in such a powerful grip. I immediately set down my pie as my eyes went down to his feet and what he was wearing on them.

A pair of pumps.

Purple Pumps.

Plastic Purple Pumps.

Princess Purple Plastic Pumps.

Apparently, the toddler room contained several princess outfits and Squealer had helped himself to a pair of princess shoes.Perhaps he heard my gasp, or sensed my inspection, because he looked up and our eyes locked in place. We both froze, uncertain how to proceed. Then, a devilish grin crossed his lips.

And he began “running” for the Fellowship Hall.


I didn’t want to yell at him from across the room (attention was the last thing I wanted) so I tried to walk/run to the doorway before he reached it.

And I almost made it.


He beat me to the doorway by a half step and shot into the fellowship hall. All eyes in the room turned toward him (plastic pumps are LOUD on a tile floor) as he dashed/slid into the middle of the fellowship hall in front of God (presumably) and everyone. There was a half second of shock as every brain in the room slowly processed this unexpected sight. Then the entire room erupted in laughter. And Squealer loved every second of it. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Squealer ended up right next to an aged deacon who looked him carefully up and down. The deacon then slowly turned to me and said:"Brother Taran, I've just thought of a few more questions I need to ask you before we vote."