Off to a good start

Conferences can ease the stress that moving exerts upon both pastors and their families.

Dan W. Goddard directs the Ministerial Association of the Potomac Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

One of the more crucial responsibilities of the local conference is that of ensuring that a good "marriage" takes place between pastors and the churches in which they are placed. Like most conferences, the Potomac Conference has long felt this responsibility and has worked hard to match pastor and church. This effort does increase the probability of a long pastoral tenure, yet recently Potomac has realized that the process is not complete. Getting this marriage off to a good start involves other factors that must also be dealt with: (1) the mixed emotions the pastor and family experience upon being uprooted from their home and torn away from their friends, and (2) the feelings produced in the congregation by the severing of their relationship with the former pastor.

Roy Oswald of the Alban Institute writes: "We suspect that many ministries have been seriously hindered by the fact that the pastor and the parish did not get off to a good start. The Alban Institute began its research with the very simple hypothesis that the first 18 months of a new ministry will by and large determine the entire ministry of a pastor in a given parish. Our research to date has given us no indication that we should abandon this hypothesis."1

Oswald goes on to say that the church leadership in every denomination has been remiss in its ministry to clergy by assuming that making transitions from one church and community to another is no big deal. Administrators are saying, "Pastors and their families have been making these transitions for years; why do they need any assistance?"

Yet there are numerous pastoral families in which spouses are bitter because they have been forced to move again. Many preachers' children cry themselves to sleep every night for weeks and some times months because they've been torn away from friends and familiar surroundings. Many pastors are too busy to notice the emotions of their families. But many others agonize over these emotions, not knowing how to deal with them. And most pastors also experience personal termination emotions that they often repress or ignore.

As to the churches in which these newly moved pastoral families are beginning their ministry, most are grieving over the loss of a pastor and family they have come to love. Other congregations are struggling with feelings of guilt over a disliked pastor who left under pressure. These experiences may have built strong feelings of antagonism toward the conference. If the pastor was loved, the move will have upset the church leaders. If, on the other hand, the minister was disliked, the church may be angry with the conference because he or she wasn't moved sooner.

Seminar for the newly moved pastor

To deal with these concerns, the Potomac Conference instituted a seminar for the newly moved pastor. This New Beginnings Seminar is particularly designed to help the pastor, the pastoral family, and the church experience as smooth and successful a transition as possible. The two-day seminar follows a lecture/small group format. Its curriculum is based on research done by Alban Institute and covers the following:

Exposing the myth of the honeymoon. What really exists in the early months of a pastorate is a period of suspended judgment, a time when the members have formed opinions but keep them to themselves.

Dealing with the emotions that termination produces. Seminar leaders encourage the ministerial couple to share with the group where they are on the termination emotions continuum (see figure).

Handling stress in transition. Both pastor and spouse fill out a stress inventory. This determines each person's stress level. When they have identified symptoms of too much stress, the seminar leaders share strategies for coping with stress.

Establishing one's leadership style with the new congregation. Each congregation is unique and has different expectations of how a pastor should lead. This portion of the seminar teaches pastors how to analyze their leadership style and adapt it to the new congregation.

Negotiating expectations with the congregation. Seminar leaders share a tool that aids the pastor in negotiating a church program with which both clergy and congregation are happy.

Developing a four-point entrance plan. This plan covers the first 12 months in the new church. The four points are:

1. Historicizing. Every pastor must respect where people are in their experience and what they value. Churches live with an eye on the rearview mirror. The seminar teaches how pastors can gather a history of the new congregation. They should become aware of its glory days and identify the heroes and villains of the past. They are encouraged to plan a heritage night during which the congregation can corporately relate its history. On this occasion the pastor can draw from the people special historic events and the circumstances and people responsible for them.

2. Analyzing. Every church has a power structure. Where there are people, there is politics. Seminar discussions cover four categories of power: reputational, coalitional, communicational, and structural. The pastor is taught how to recognize who has what kind of power, and how to work with them.

3. Changing. A commandment for pastors, which they violate at their own peril, warns "Thou shalt initiate no changes in the first 12 months." Many ministers seem to feel a strong urge to change things in order to declare that they are different. Unfortunately, in the early months members interpret pastorinitiated changes as rejection. They read such changes as the pastor's way of saying "You're doing things all wrong. Let me show you the right way to do them."

4. Finding support. In his book Bonding, Donald Joy writes of the importance of support. He says, "Humans sicken and tend to die if they are out of significant contact with other people." 2 Then he picks up the idea of the Eskimos' hand held trampoline, the blanket toss. The people holding on to each of the four sides of the blanket support and actually throw the individual in the middle up into the air.

Joy suggests that for the pastor, the five to eight people on each side of the blanket represent four groups: immediate family, other relatives, friends, and associates. When a pastoral family moves, they pull the blanket out of the hands of those who have been supporting them on at least two of its sides they uproot the relationships with friends and associates that they have developed over the years. While they can still communicate by letters, phone calls, and visits with those in the old environment, they need to find new friends and associates to help hold their blanket.

The Potomac Conference now holds two seminars per year. Conference leadership encourages every pastoral couple entering a new church to attend. The feedback has been extremely positive, reinforcing the leadership's perception of the need for this program. Potomac believes that these seminars will result in longer pastoral tenures, more contented churches, and, most important, happier pastoral families.

1. Roy Oswald, New Beginnings: Pastorate Start up Workbook (Washington, D. C.: Alban Institute, Inc., 1986), p. 1.

2. Donald M. Joy, Bonding (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1985), pp. 3,4.


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Dan W. Goddard directs the Ministerial Association of the Potomac Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

September 1990

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