One week. My bulging diaper bag snags on the crash bar of the first set of double doors. I adjust my clinging baby on my hip, catch my slip ping purse, and lunge to maneuver my family through the second set of double doors. The bag jerks free and, like a flying tetherball, slams against the back of my 3-year-old, propelling him into the silent church foyer with a heartbreaking wail.
It is a magnificent entry for the new pastor's family. I know it as soon as my eyes become accustomed to the shadowy foyer. The greeter freezes her gaze on us. A huddle of whispering women monitor our progress with curious glances.
I lower my head and shove my whimpering child a little faster past my audience. But I would rather have dropped my gear, interrupted their whispers, and explained myself: "You don't seem to understand. I know you know who I am, and I'm not a spectacle to watch. I'm a mother trying to get my kids to Sabbath school. I'm someone's daughter with no grandma nearby. I'm like anyone else. I need your kindness more than I need your stares."
One month. So why should I fault the church members when they try to be kind? A prominent elder and his wife stop by today with a pint of fresh peach jam. We have been aching for someone to share the burden of this hurting church. I thought they might carry the weight with us. But they just talk about boating and banking and old college friends. They assure us they are available anytime we need them. But I am not sure what for—a boat ride, a donation?
Six months. We are beginning to piece together what this church family think of themselves. Their conversation often begins or ends with one-liners: "Don't get discouraged." "We are a tough bunch." "Hope you can take it here!" Sometimes they apologize for their conduct, but they seem unable to do anything about it. I don't think they have a good self-image, and I wonder if God provides psychological services. We have so much to figure out—and so much church "baggage" to work around.
One year. The honeymoon's over. We return from vacation to face 17 grievances against our ministry and the prospect of a petition to have us moved. The elder with the peach jam isn't pleased. People use words like "manipulative," "political," "power-hungry," "insensitive," "immature," and "underhanded" to describe their new pastor. Why are they so insensitive? Why so distrustful? Are they turning on us the negative feelings they have about themselves?
Eighteen months. At last we move into permanent housing. A miracle home, by God's grace. But not all of them understand. They say, How can the pastor be so rich? I say, How can God be so good? I guess they don't know yet that the beautiful setting God has given us is not for interior decorating or luxury living. It is for potlucks and committees and lots of fellowship and noisy families. It is for quiet time and privacy.
Two years. Pressures keep building. We are getting tired of tension. But these people need someone to stay by them to weather the storms of all their feelings. They need someone committed enough to be misunderstood—and still able to love. They need someone patient enough to be misread—and still to care. I am tired of being that someone. I want to be liked and appreciated. I want to feel that we are serving with friends, and serving our Lord together. But maybe our ministry here won't include that luxury.
Three years. It's good to be liked. It's better to be loved. The strongest bonds grow out of tough experiences that severely test love. Perhaps that's what has happened to us and our church. Trust is slowly taking hold; understanding is be ginning to take shape; love is starting to shine. Sometimes we even detect respect. To my surprise, occasionally I even feel joy that God has brought us to this church family.
Four years. Our hearts—theirs as well as ours—are wrapped around each other now. When love takes charge, there is joy and fulfillment.
God has brought it all about. It just has taken time: time to become known, to understand, to share, to work together, and to grow.
Time to become known
Regardless of the age of the pastor or the makeup of the pastor's family, on that first crucial day the only thing the congregation usually know about their new leader is surname and some faces to put with it. It's scant information on which to begin a relationship; it makes for a slow beginning. What's more, in the pressure of figuring out how to relate to a new leader, most members proceed from stereotypical pictures formed out of expectations and memories: expectations, highly exaggerated sometimes, of what a pastor should be, and memories of experiences with previous pastors. Consequently, personal hurts, negative attitudes about church life, skepticism toward leadership, and a pessimistic view on future relationships enter into the atmosphere in which a new pastor may have to begin ministering.
Though I didn't realize it then, our members needed my permission to hold mistaken assumptions about us, to jump to wrong conclusions, even to misread our honorable motives. They wanted me to have faith that, given our commitment to this new church and my acceptance of myself and my family as God would choose to use us, someday their assumptions would vanish in friendships.
In the meantime, though, they needed time; we needed time. Only time would give us the experience of growing together, of understanding each other, and of moving beyond the past to see our togetherness in God's future.
Giving members time to know the pas tor's family assumes that we are willing to give them time to see us as ordinary as we are. Sabbath clothes and Sabbath roles are expressions of a profession, a loving ministry. So is striking out in a baseball game, sharing cold sandwiches, sweating over a broken-down car, sneezing in the dust of a church work bee, and living alongside those we've chosen to lead to ward eternity.
Time to understand
If it takes a while for a church to get to know a new pastoral family, it takes longer for a pastor's family to get to know a church that has suddenly become a major part of their lives.
For us, getting acquainted meant studying address lists and old pictorial directories, reviewing the names of church officers, reading maps of the town where our members lived, and even casually perusing the giving records. If we felt snoopy at times, we also felt the reserve we had met in our new church family. We had never envisioned ourselves in an anonymous ministry, and the prospect of spending years living alongside strangers unwittingly moved us beyond the basic information.
We needed to understand this church family more than any we had ever served before. But we soon realized that under standing meant searching beyond membership lists, occupations, and family connections. It meant looking for information that is rarely found in board minutes and almost never in church histories. It meant observing people. It meant listening.
It meant reflection. How did members actually relate to one another? On what level did they function most frequently together? Who made up the social circles in the church? The thought groups? The working groups ? How did they deal with their educational and social differences? How did they relate to strangers or new comers? How did members function on committees? What topics created the most discussion? How did they arrive at decisions? How did they respond to conflict? What kind of spiritual exchange took place between members? How responsive were they to our spiritual leadership ?
Listening and observing may seem to be elements of a passive ministry, but they are what provides the critical back ground for accepting people where they are and ministering to them knowledgeably. Such understanding builds the foundation for a ministry that considers the underlying needs of the church and puts into perspective the challenges that might come in the way of meeting those needs.
Which all takes time. One church board, one conversation with the head elder, or one visit with old Mrs. Buford doesn't reveal the pulse of a church family. The full history is a composite of all the individual histories. The real pattern of relating is made up of all the relation ships. Only as stories accumulated and meshed with our firsthand experiences, as people's comments became defined by their behavior, as time and hard experiences unfolded to show the deeper layers of our church's life, did our new church family become "someone" we knew. Slowly we began to understand where they were coming from; prayerfully we tried to meet them where they were.
Time to share
I didn't like the way dear Mrs. Ludraff said it, but she must have understood the connection between time and ministry. My husband, just out of college, had committed two years of service to the little Appalachian church where we were interning. But two years to a 73-year-old widow meant very little. "Look here, you young'uns. I seen many o' them pastors come an' go in my day, and ya'll be gone from these parts soon too. So don't be a-thinkin' y'ar gonna do much fer me."
Her point? Don't make a big thing of what you are going to do. Life consists of events—births and deaths, marriages and funerals, baptisms and graduations, homecomings and separations, farms and chores, crises and celebrations. You weren't there for all that went before, and you won't be there for all that is still to come. "So don't be a-thinkin' y'ar gonna do much fer me."
Many of these events are often considered formal duties of the clergy. But beyond formality, they provide occasions for human warmth: to rejoice, to meet a need, to share what is most meaningful to people. To be a part of such events means to pass landmarks together with them, to create memories with each other, and to be bound forever with their lives.
Facing a congregation that was skeptical of "pastors passing through," we sensed that our new church family needed someone to stay beside them long enough to do more than cross paths with them at isolated church intersections. They needed someone that they knew would accompany them down the road, someone familiar and trusted to be involved in the part of their lives that would never come in contact with church politics, religious activity, or spiritual programming. That was the only way we could come close enough to them to influence their personal lives and to address their spiritual needs.
Time to work together
But the relationship we wanted to build with our church family couldn't be based simply on the fact that we were assigned to their church. Or that we shared Sabbath morning with them—however high the quality of that sharing was. It couldn't even be based on a con genial understanding we might arrive at as we became better acquainted.
The real foundation of our relation ship needed to be in our calling to do the Lord's work together. To say this is to acknowledge that there's Someone above us who brings us together. We're not serving in order to become popular. We're not trying to build a track record for bigger things. We're not seeking to create a model ministry or a pastoral showcase. We're not even attempting to set the church straight. We're here for God's glory. And only He knows how that's defined—day by day, task by task.
Given time, the Spirit will create be tween us and His people the understanding and unity that will give the world a profound witness. As we work with God's family, we claim the promise that we will grow close to them. Not because they finally come to like us or recognize us as good leaders. Not because they grow out of their idiosyncrasies. But because God's Spirit helps us see each other through His eyes. He directs our focus to His work instead of toward each other. He offers us the generosity to accept and understand each other for the sake of His glory. Which, because of the nature we all share, takes time.
No time left
Working with people demands patience and endurance; it cannot be accomplished in 30-minute segments. Attitudes aren't modeled, lessons can't be taught, friendships aren't formed, people don't change, hurts don't heal, and growth rarely comes in compressed time capsules.
For some of us, the wait can become a test of faith or a catalyst for endurance. We may question our usefulness and God's involvement. We may become impatient, self-righteous, and judgmental. That's when God reminds us of the divine factor in time: His power to change. Time itself heals nothing. Time itself solves few problems. Time alone doesn't build relationships or accomplish God's work. Only the Spirit can convict, reshape people's thinking, soften hearts toward one another, lead people to Him self, and accomplish His work in harmony.
Meanwhile He expects us to invest our time in His ministry. Be it a day, a week, a month, or several years, ministering to God's people is an occasion to cooperate with the divine process of reconciliation and restoration in time, in order to work for the end of time that eternity will bring, and with it its perfect understanding and fellowship.
