Restructuring the Part-Time pastorate for more strategic impact – Transcript

Jim Latimer

Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. I am your host, Reverend Jim Latimer, and I have the pleasure and joy of having with us today, Reverend Jeff McDonald. Jeff is a longtime and accomplished freelance journalist, and also a committed part-time interim minister and church consultant. His wonderful new book, Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy, is how I met him and invited him to have this time with us. He’s going to speak in this next conversation about restructuring the part-time pastorate for more strategic impact. And so, Jeff, I’d love to hear you speak about that as well as who might get the most value or benefit from these words.

Jeff MacDonald

Sure, Jim. Yes. This is really both for those congregations that have a full-time pastorate, but are looking at going to a part-time arrangement and wondering how to do that, how would they approach it. It’s also useful for those that already have a part-time pastorate, but have not necessarily been very intentional about designing it – that it has sort of evolved. What I’ve learned in my research is that a lot of churches kind of fall into a part-time arrangement. And maybe that happened a couple decades ago. Maybe they’ve always been part-time. Or maybe it’s very new for them. But sometimes financial realities creep up on the congregation, and all of a sudden, they find that their pastor is part-time. And so, they’re kind of putting job description, roles on a piece of paper, but it’s reactionary. And I’m encouraging them to be more intentional and strategic. And so, it can work no matter where they are along this journey. It’s a healthy exercise to look at this.

Jim Latimer

Beautiful. We’re all ears. What bits of wisdom would you have here? Because there’s a lot of people in this situation I know.

Jeff MacDonald

Yes, sure, Jim. Well, one starting point is for a congregation to look at the pastorate and kind of do an X-ray of how it is structured now. What exactly is the pastor being asked to do? How much time does she or he have? And what are they being asked to do with that time? What are the broad categories? Maybe it’s preparing for worship, and doing pastoral care. I’ve been told in many congregations, that’s all there’s time for. And so that’s what they’ve ended up doing. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the only way to design this pastorate. There are ways that one can approach it otherwise. But it’s good to get our arms around where we are in our pastorate, and so putting out those things that are part of the official job description. And then also to talk to the pastor about what’s the reality? If it’s already a part-time pastorate, what are you doing with your time? Is it fitting in the time that’s allocated? And what are the assumptions or the expectations that the congregation has? Those are all very important parts of this that affect the way the role is structured. So, the first thing I would say is get it all on paper: who is doing what and who’s expecting what in terms of the pastor’s role. Does that make sense?

Jim Latimer

It makes total sense. Get it on paper! Who’s doing what? Who’s expecting what? Literally write it down! That in and of itself is so important, because now we can see it. It’s moved from being tacit to being explicit. Now we can see it. And once you can see it, you can begin to move things around or restructure and find new ways to formulate. Yes. You got to see it first though.

Jeff MacDonald

Yes. Because there’s the formal expectation, and then there’s the unspoken expectations. And I think it’s important to identify those especially in ministry. It’s an ancient calling, and it comes with a lot of history and expectations that are not always spoken, until they go unmet. And then they get spoken. And they may be spoken not directly to the pastor, but to others in the parking lot, and it’s just a healthier and more effective way to go. If we have legitimate expectations, there’s nothing wrong with naming them for the sake of managing them in a part-time rubric that still gives the pastor time for the other things that he or she needs to do, including, in many cases, earning a living outside the church. That has to be an area that you protect. And so, a lot of this is going toward that.  So that’s a part of this as a starting point.

Then to also be clear about, in terms of designing the pastorate, that the next step in this is to say, Okay, so what does the congregation do in terms of ministry? What do the lay people do? What’s their role in the ministry? What is this church’s mission? How are the lay people embracing it and fulfilling it on their own, and in partnership with the pastor? – to kind of get clear about that part of it.

And then think about: So how do we need the pastor to use his or her time to advance the mission of the church – to best advance that mission? Because then you now can begin to think beyond, Well, it’s always been the pastor’s job to do A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Now we are in a territory where we allow the lay people to do what they’ve always been authorized to do. Sometimes lay people preach. That’s fully permissible in in our UCC tradition, and in many other traditions, and yet they’re not always encouraged to share that ministry. That’s one example of something that’s kind of assumed to be the pastor’s role, but there are ways to share it. I’ve seen congregations where a lay person preaches once a month, and they do an excellent job with it. And that buys the pastor time, so to speak. It buys them 10 to 13 hours a week that they don’t have to spend preparing for worship. And then you can use that time strategically.

That’s what designing the pastorate strategically is about: What else could the pastor do if he or she had an extra day and a half every month to go toward starting an outreach ministry being present at community meetings like the Chamber of Commerce, offering some kind of alternative worship service on Friday or Saturday evenings that are going to attract folks who are busy at sports on Sunday morning? There are a lot of possibilities. But this is where the intentional design of the pastorate comes in. Does that make sense?

Jim Latimer

It makes total sense. And I was ready to pause you. So, it’s a shift. And this is a significant shift. I’m hearing you say that for a part-time pastorate – a part-time ministry model to thrive, this is basic. I mean, this is really important to get. And it’s hard to get. It’s the shift from seeing the pastor as he or she has X duties, and they do their duties – they design worship, they preach, they visit the sick, which is a duty-driven way to think of the pastor, to using the pastor as a strategic resource to advance the mission of the congregation. Right? You don’t lead with duties. Rather, the duties follow from seeing the pastor as kind of a resource, if you will, to advance the mission. This means that there needs to be a commonly and pretty compelling and clearly understood sense of the mission that’s beyond gathering to worship and feel good about ourselves? If that’s all it is, then it’s hard to think too strategically about that. But if it’s more broad than that, and affects, Oh, how can we impact our neighborhood? etc….I think that’s what you said. Right?

Jeff MacDonald

Yes. Being clear about mission really helps this because it helps everybody do some rethinking. And it gives a framework for the rethinking, so it’s not willy nilly, and it’s not just driven by the finances and what can we afford based on what we used to do. That’s letting the tail wag the dog, because you can do better when you see the mission and then see the abundance of resources available – resources in the sense of gifts that are lavished upon the lay people manifest in the wider community, as well as in the pastor. And then, yeah, taking this to a place of being clear that the old role isn’t set in stone – what the pastor used to do, or what used to be the pastor’s job. There’s very little that is only doable by the pastor. One of the few things in our tradition, consecrating the elements for Communion and for baptism is for the ordained or the licensed clergy. But there’s still room for laypeople to be involved in distributing the sacraments to shut-ins. And there’s many other areas where it’s only customary that the pastor has held the role. And this is true in higher church traditions like Lutheranism and the Episcopal Church as well, where very little is absolutely reserved to the clergy person.

And so that’s a very helpful starting point for laypeople to claim more of what used to be the pastor’s role. And to do it in a way that still sees a role for the pastor, but it’s a strategic role. It’s a complimentary role. And to design this with the goals in mind.

And the last thing I’d say on this is in the contract, or the covenant agreement with the pastor, there’s a place for this to say, This is what we envision the pastor doing in terms of the categories or the areas where he or she will work; and these are the areas where we envision the lay people taking on responsibilities. It’s a genuine covenant that’s not just, This is what we are employing you to do. It’s saying, This is what we will do together. And it will spell that out. And I’ve seen that in one church that went part-time and it didn’t work out. It was because they didn’t get specific on this. About 10 years later, they went part-time again, because they had to go back to full-time and it cost them on over $150,000 that they didn’t have to go that way. Then when they went part-time again, they spelled out what the lay people are going to do, as well as what – in this case the Episcopal priest – was going to do. And it has worked out beautifully.

Jim Latimer 

Jeff, that’s a perfect way to conclude the segment. I love it. I love how you say that they create a covenant together, and they lay out everybody’s duties, the pastor’s duties, the laity’s duties. It’s a “we” contract, not a “you, the pastor” contract. And how also you said there’s very little that’s doable only by the pastor, certainly in the United Church of Christ. And that most of what we think is only doable by the pastor is really just because that’s been our custom or tradition. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s just customary. That’s really sweet. So, Jeff, thank you so much. This has been really rich. And how mission gives a framework for the strategic rethinking of that. Good stuff. Jeff, thank you so much for sharing these thoughts with us.

Jeff MacDonald

You’re welcome, Jim. Thanks for the opportunity.

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