Category: Church Decline

Posted in Boundaries, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Finishing and Exiting, Leadership Development, Self-Care, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

15 min 06 s

Rev. Heidi Johnston

As an Interim Minister, have you ever wondered about the rest of the story? You know – feedback about the impact of your ministry on the congregation after you left? In this episode, settled ELCA pastor, Rev. Heidi Johnston, expresses her gratitude to the Intentional Interim Minister who preceded her, including specifics of how the IM set her up for success.

Particular things IM did to set me up for success –

The IM expressed clear boundaries about the number of hours/week she would work & equipped laity to negotiate the use of pastoral time and energy – focusing and prioritizing;

IM didn’t work beyond her stated limit of working hours when temped to do so – and helped the congregation understand why and adapt;

Two, she led leadership through honest sometimes hard conversations about their current reality – and its implications for calling next pastor;

IM presented new limitations as opportunities, not losses, which led to a new joy in opportunities for more hands-on ministry for lay people.

Three – The transition conversations nudged people beyond all the ways the past was more abundant – celebrate the wonderful things of the past, and also name past hurts and conflicts – helped me not to get blindsided by issues the congregation may be sweeping under the rug.

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Posted in Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care, Staff, Worship Tagged with

15 min 50s

It’s not about “saving” the congregation, per se, but about buying the time for serious thinking about what the cong. wants for its future.

Discerning what form of ministry is faithful to the basic values & resources that you have now?

Guidance for how lay leaders can work productively with a very part-time pastor;

A targeted approach that equips and empowers the laity can do themselves:

Specific recommendations for how the laity can create and lead worship, for congregational care, etc.

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

12 min 19s

The four paths are: revitalization, transformation, legacy building and ministry completion (that’s one option), and road closed ahead.

Description of each path and what is involved;

Why 1 path is much harder (a mirage really) than it may seem and why;

Why another path is the one congregations in denial often fall into (and I wish didn’t exist!);

The process of shaping and narrowing down options and focusing on transformation, and legacy building and ministry completion, and discerning which is right for that congregation.

Metaphor of the church as a ship coming into harbor and completing it voyage.

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

13 min 42s

The power of metaphors for helping church navigate their lifecycle;

Imagining the wider church as a forest, and individual congregations as trees helps churches see how they fit into something larger than themselves;

Reframing this last phase of ministry not simply as decline, which is often interpreted as failure, but as a natural part of a process that’s tied to a larger system of the wider church;

Questions to aid the struggle of balancing autonomy at the congregational level with covenant at the wider church level;

How resurrection language can help; A resurrected church, like the resurrected Jesus, has some features of what it was before, but it’s not the same thing – some new “benefits” too;

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

15 min 25s

How a physician or a statistician might look at someone and assess what their health was and their life expectancy – parallels with a congregation;

Examples for churches: Acute, life-threatening illnesses,

Chronic illnesses;

Toxic behavior by members;

Parallels for churches of what we’d look for in people such as diet, exercise, social connection, sleep or rest, family history, mental health;

Like people, some of the things that influence life expectancy can be changed, some cannot & which is which;

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Posted in Boundaries, Change Management, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Interviewing for an Interim Position, Leadership Development, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 07s

Book came out of my experiments, failures & successes of a more laid-back approach to ministry;

Laidback means pastoring from the sidelines rather than from center court.

My Aha! moment after season of being burned out came when I wasn’t insisting on being in the center of everything & the church was still doing just fine;

I know I’ve done well equipping them when they own the ideas, not saying “Pastor Liz said we should…” As a transition pastor, key to be able to very quickly say: This is who I am. This is what you will experience working with me.

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Posted in Boundaries, Change Management, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Interviewing for an Interim Position, Leadership Development, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 28s

I’ve come to realize that transitional ministry in a church in transition feels very similar to a settled position, but it’s a lot more honest about the transitions that are happening there at the forefront, rather than in the background;

Avoid giving in to the sense of urgency by doing too much myself; rather, staying on the sidelines for equipping and empowering people;

A lot of helping the congregation reframe ownership for existing things or new ideas so it’s really coming from them, not just what a pastor said they should do;

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Posted in Assessments and Evaluations, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, Coaching and Counseling, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Leadership Development, Search Committees Tagged with

12 min 09s

Increasingly, congregations find themselves in a transition period – often when a pastor has left – and struggling to find someone with the change leadership skills and knowledge who can help them move forward. This is particularly true for congregations with diminishing resources. Trained Interim Ministers are in short supply and are often already working elsewhere. To this need, a new role is emerging, that of the Interim Consultant. An Interim Consultant has the necessary change leadership skills and can often serve several congregations at once on a part-time basis, therefore making this resource more available and affordable.

In this episode, titled, “What Is an Interim Consultant and How Might One Help Us?,” experienced Interim Consultant, Rev. Dr. Ruth Shaver, shares valuable insight from her direct experience.

Interim Consultant (IC) is a way of working with churches in transition without their being the Interim Minister of the church.

The work of congregational leadership has several components:

  • the transitional work itself,
  • the pastoral leadership, and
  • the administrative leadership.

Lay leadership must be involved with the transitional work for there to be ownership of outcomes.

3 basic models for a congregation to work with an Interim Consultant –

  1. Cong. can’t afford a full-time trained (Intentional) Interim Minister;
  2. Supplement the work of the existing IM who doesn’t have the needed transitional leadership skills;
  3. Current pastor is retiring and cong. wants to get started with the transitional work before current pastor leaves;
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Posted in Assessments and Evaluations, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, Coaching and Counseling, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Leadership Development, Search Committees Tagged with

12 min 28s

As fewer congregations are able to afford a full-time trained Interim Minister, working with an Interim Consultant on a part-time basis is proving to be an effective way that congregations in transition can have access to the change leadership skills and knowledge so valuable during such times. In this second of two podcasts about the emerging role of the Interim Consultant, Rev. Dr. Ruth Shaver shares from her direct experience serving in this role in this episode titled, “What Does An Interim Consultant Do, and How Do They Go About It?”

How an Interim Consultant (IC) does their work;

How might an IC work with the leadership of the congregation?

When & how does an IC typically begin working with a congregation? With its Transition Team and/or Pastor Search Team?

Some of the tools the IC may use to guide their work with the congregation: Church Profile, History exercises, Appreciative Inquiry, etc.

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