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Friends and Colleagues,
What size congregation are you helping lead - either as a pastor or lay leader? If it's a pastoral sized church, I'm very aware that you have extra challenges. I share some of my observations in the main article.
Rather than one resource, I highlight several written by Stephen McCutchan, another semi-retired pastor. Steve is very concerned about the emotional and physical health of pastors and their families. His fairly short books will help pastors talk about the stresses they deal with.
Have you moved or are you moving to a new congregation in the next few months. If so, I encourage you to get my book Entering Wonderland: A Toolkit for Pastors New to a Church. It offers a wealth of resources to help the new pastor make a good entrance into the congregation.
You will see details of a retreat I'm leading in October. If you are not from the DC or Baltimore area, you can easily fly into BWI Airport. Interested? Please check with me.
If you know someone who might benefit from my thoughts here, please use the "Forward to a Friend" button in the newsletter (that way you'll avoid problems with spam filters)
Here's to clarity about how God is leading us!
Peace,
Bob
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The Pastoral Size Church Challenge
As I coach and consult, I have decided that the pastoral sized church is probably the most difficult congregation to lead these days. A pastoral size church has somewhere between 75-125 on a typical Sunday.
Larger churches often have a number of staff members. They also often have a number of very capable members who are skillful leaders. The family sized church is a single cell organism - like a family with a few key leaders and families who keep everything going.
However, too often I see pastoral sized churches that used to be program sized churches. They have over-worked pastors and older buildings they haven't been able to maintain. Funds are often scarce. The median age of the members is increasing. Those who have kept the church running are either dying or don't have the energy to do as much.
They often feel compelled to maintain programs and activities that they used to do when they had another 100 in worship: meals on wheels, outreach to the homeless, church school for all ages on Sunday morning, women's association, and often have two or three boards - a governing board, deacons (who serve the ill and homebound, set up worship, usher, host the coffee time after worship, and do anything else the board members don't want to do), and sometimes trustees who often think, that because they manage the funds, they are the real board. (that's not so in the Presbyterian system - The Session is the governing board.)
Bottom line is that active people often wear 4 or 5 or more hats! They juggle a multitude of responsibilities.
Often pastors aren't clear if they are to do. Are pastors in pastoral sized churches to:
- be like a corporate executive, telling people what to do, delegating jobs to whomever is willing (whether or not they have gifts to do the task).
- preach exceptional or pretty adequate sermons
- be resident scholar and teacher
- lead the youth group
- visit everyone who is in the hospital every day or so
- visit homebound members monthly
- be a pastoral counselor to those having family problems or in other emotional distress
- be the face of the church in the community, doing most of the actual social action
- be the resident social worker, giving aid to the needy
- focus on bringing new members into the church
- attend every committee and board meeting
- manage the building plus any major maintenance or upgrade projects
- on Sundays, open the building, check the temperature, make coffee and set up for fellowship time
- you can make your list of additional duties that are expected.
If you are pastor or leader in a pastoral sized congregation, how clear are expectations for the pastor? And are they mutually held by pastor and board and generally agreed to by members?
If expectations aren't clear, why? Often such clear expectations aren't easy to gain unless the congregation's leaders are clear on who God is calling them to be and what God wants them to focus on.
Even if there is such clarity, being pastor of a pastoral sized congregation is very difficult for pastors who need a lot of alone time or have low interpersonal skills.
Former Alban Consultant Roy Oswald notes, "Clergy with strong interpersonal skills fare well in the Pastoral Church. These clergy can feed continually on the richness of direct involvement in the highs and lows of people's lives. Clergy who enjoy being at the center of most activities also do well.... Outgoing, expressive people seem to be the best matches for the style of ministry in the Pastoral Church. (from The In-Between Church by Alice Mann)
Challenges come both if the congregation is increasing in size or if it decreasing. In both cases, members and leaders often have unspoken expectations of the pastor. If the church is growing, then the pastor will often face unreasonable expectations. If it is shrinking, then members sometimes blame the pastor (rightly or wrongly).
I address size of congregation issues and challenges in my book. If you'd like to talk with me about issues you are dealing with, please get in touch.
Suffice to say: I certainly understand that you have challenges if you are pastor of a pastoral size church.
If you'd like some coaching about how to creatively handle some of these and other challenges, get in touch.
If you would like some help to grow as a leader, I encourage you to consider coaching, either one on one or in a group. Most of my coaching is done by phone in order to minimize commuting but I make exceptions. Further, phone coaching makes it possible for me to have clients who live many miles away.
If you find this article helpful and think it might be helpful to a friend, please forward my newsletter to that friend using the "Forward to a Friend" button.
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Resources - books and other resources that have been helpful
Three Books that help Pastors Deal with Parish Pressures - by Stephen McCutchan
Passionate about the health of clergy and their families, Stephen McCutchan seeks to stimulate awareness of and compassion for the complex life of a busy parish pastor.
McCutchan, a retired Presbyterian pastor, addresses the tough issues of faith and doubt, of sin and temptation (related to finances, sexual behavior, jealousy, etc.), the isolation and loneliness of pastors, handling conflict, balancing work and family, and a host of other issues. In his books he notes dimensions of clergy health:
- Physical and Emotional Health
- Financial Health
- Family Health
- Spiritual Health
- Vocational Health
Each book is full of helpful tools and powerful questions designed to promote conversation and insight. They are available only on Amazon's Kindle platform.
An Interim Pastor's Gift: A Guide to Raising a Congregation's Awareness Regarding the Health of Clergy
This book will be most helpful to interim pastors and to congregations during the interim period. Led by the interim pastor, congregational leaders are led to consider the aspects of clergy health indicated above. McCutchan has a thought provoking list of "Ten Ways a Congregation Can Abuse Her Pastor." Included are such practices as "Praising the pastor for working 70 hour weeks" and "Refusing to call members to account for disruptive behavior." I have encouraged the interim pastors with whom I work to get this book.
God Laughs -- Why Don't You?: Making Use of Humor in the Practice of Ministry
I began reading this book with some trepidation, fearing that it was an attempt to teach pastors to be stand-up comedians. However, McCutchan presses the preacher to pay attention to the Bible's use of hyperbole and to God's own outrageous sense of humor. Think how God must have laughed at the idea of Sarai becoming pregnant! (she laughed!) He encourages pastors to find humor in their own frustrations. One example: "You are called by God but you are hired by a congregation. One wants to offer you eternal blessings and the other as low a salary as they can get away with. Both want you to boldly proclaim THEIR truth."
I occasionally tell a joke in a sermon but have found that the best humor comes from mining my own experience. McCutchan supports my previous belief; therefore he's a genius!
A Company of Pastors: Experiencing the Support of the Beloved Community and Overcoming the Isolation of the Pastorate - This book is intended to be used by a small group of pastors who want to explore the joys, temptations, tribulations and loneliness of being a pastor. It outlines a series of twenty small group gatherings in which participants use his book of short stories, Clergy Tales -- Tails: Volume 1,2, & 3 as grounds for discussion. This would be an excellent resource for colleague groups that have become group gripe sessions.
McCutchan, a leader with the Presbytery Pastoral Care Network, is passionate about helping pastors deal constructively with the pressures of their calling. These books and his novel, A Star and a Tear will help.
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What books or resources have you found
helpful? I'd be glad (with available space) to share your reviews and/or suggestions. |
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| Future Issues (bi-monthly)
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Retreat for Pastors New to a Church
1. Assess Congregational Culture and identify norms
2. Assess the Trust level in the church
3. Assess the Church's Leadership
4. Clarify Your Priorities
5. Identify Difficult Behaviors and learn how to handle them
6. Build Supportive Relationships
When? October 21-22
- beginning at 10:00 a.m. on October 21 and ending at 4:00 on the 22nd
Where? Bon Secours Retreat Center - 30 minutes west of BWI Airport
Cost? $225
(discounts available for pastors in National Capital, Baltimore, and New Castle Presbyteries)
Interested? Email me for more information and to register - or if you'd like to help organize a retreat in your area, let's explore the idea
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I hope you have found this newsletter informative and helpful. Please subscribe to continue receiving it (or unsubscribe to stop). If you'd like to explore coaching, please email or call me.
If you have found it helpful, please forward it to friends who you think would appreciate it. (And please use the forward button on the newsletter itself.)
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Bob
Robert Harris, Professional Certified Coach
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