Crucial Conversations and Interim Ministry- Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers, best practices and quick help. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project, featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others, with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Wisdom from the Field.
Jim Latimer
I’m your host, Reverend Jim Latimer, and today I have the joy of welcoming back to this podcast Reverend Doug Bixby. Doug is one of the most talented practitioners of pastoral ministry I know. He is deeply insightful and has written a lot about effective ministry – about conflict, governance, how church organizations function, what makes them effective, and what makes for effective and joyful ministry. He’s also the settled Senior Minister at First Church of Christ UCC in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and that also happens to be where I had the honor of serving as Interim Minister just before he arrived.
Jim Latimer
That said, I invited Doug to share his insights about the process and results of that interim time – what helped, what didn’t, and perhaps what could have been done that wasn’t done, and the like. To be clear, this is not about me, but about the ministry of the congregation during that interim time and its legacy. So, Doug, you’re a busy guy, and I so much appreciate your willingness to share here. Welcome and thank you.
Doug Bixby
Glad to be with you. I I’ll never forget when I was looking for a church and I was looking down the list of open UCC churches, and I wanted to be in an Open and Affirming church. And I noticed this church in Longmeadow, Massachusetts that was open for Call, and started watching a few videos of their worship services. And then I realized, Oh, wait, that’s Jim Latimer, the minister. So, the irony in that was that just a couple years prior, you had interviewed me for this podcast and asked questions you wanted me to talk about following Interim Ministers.
Doug Bixby
I had never done an Interim, but I told Jim that I had followed two Interim Ministers. I had served two previous churches for 15 years each, and followed Interim Ministers in those situations, and I remember distinguishing between the two of them. One I said, was a healer and the other was a helper. Oh, wow. But then in our podcast, I ended up saying that, in a way, all interims are combining efforts, both toward healing and helping, and I’d have to say that’s what I’ve experienced in following you in this place as well. But I loved the irony that you had interviewed me about following Interim Ministers, and here I was following you,
Jim Latimer
And we didn’t really know each other very well at that time we did that podcast.
Doug Bixby
We didn’t., It was the podcast and a few brief encounters, so we didn’t know each other very well. But with gratitude, I’ve appreciated getting to know you better as a result. I remember also in that podcast, I talked about one of the Interims that I followed, actually, in my previous church, wondered out loud why some of the settled pastors that followed him didn’t want to meet with him before they started their settled ministry. Hm, and I said, I think that’s pretty odd also. And, actually I learned a number of different things from him heading into my last church that I found tremendously helpful.
Doug Bixby
While I was there, he had a rather strong personality, and I thought maybe people just were intimidated by him, or something along those lines. But I look back on that lunch or breakfast that I had with him in preparation for my new Call over 15 years ago, and I was truly grateful for every insight he shared with me that helped to prepare the way for me to start. And that wasn’t him telling me how I should handle situations, as much as revealing the situations that I should be aware of and that I might want to address in my own way.
Doug Bixby
And that was very true. I think, with you, Jim, we met not only before I started, but also several times since then, and I have found it very fruitful to continue to reflect with you on some of the more substantive aspects of the way your interim related to my settled pastorate here. I often say that I’m a marathon runner. I I’ve done two long-term churches 15 years each. And so, when I started here, I pointed that out as well. And I remember sitting at lunch with you Jim, and you joked with me at one point, Well, I’m a sprinter, not a marathon runner! And I think when you’re in interim ministry you have to be a Sprinter, whereas if you’re in settled ministry, and you plan on staying for a while, it’s more of a marathon.
Doug Bixby
But the wisdom that I gleaned from you and insights into the different aspects of the life of this church were immensely valuable. And I think it helped also that people enjoyed having you here. They enjoyed your leadership. And again, I think it was a time for healing in the life of this church, and you certainly fed into that.
Jim Latimer
I appreciate how you talk about healing and helping – two important things during an interim time. Healing, there always needs to be some, a little bit of healing, right? Sometimes there’s a lot of healing that needs to happen. And then helping, helping them get more clarity, never perfect, but more clarity about who they are, who’s their neighbor, how is God calling them to serve neighbor and with what, to prepare for the next settled pastor. As you think back on the more than two and a half years, since April of 2023, that you started, can you speak to a bit more about processes perhaps, during that interim time that have blessed you, or things that happened, things or nuggets that came out of that time that you found helpful?
Doug Bixby
One of the things that got introduced to First Church while you were here, and it was through another consultant, was this concept of Crucial Conversations. And it’s interesting how the work I do with UCC churches, I consult a lot of UCC churches on church structure and decision making, and also in relationship to conflict, that I sometimes joke that I was a prophet of Congregationalism to the Congregationalists. In other words, a lot of UCC churches had sort of backed off their congregational polity immensely, in that they had had bad experiences with decision making. They started to distrust making bigger decisions together. And I tend to want to reintroduce that concept in a healthier way and help people to talk about things and make decisions together instead of in isolation or in small committees.
Doug Bixby
And so, getting First Church to start doing things more congregationally was important, and I feel like that work you did with this church in the interim period was really helpful, that Crucial Conversations were one way for the congregation to do discernment together. So, I wanted to take them the next step further and do decision making together. But clearly, the whole concept of a Crucial Conversation with the whole congregation, or anybody who wanted to be a part of it, was a really helpful tool for when we came.
Doug Bixby
I remember one specific example, and this was not a heated thing, but my predecessor, had introduced a change that nobody liked. It was moving the fiscal year from January to December to June to July fiscal year. And it was confusing to people on a level of giving, as well as retired folks giving out of their income from their IRAs and that kind of thing, that it was really kind of a hassle and kind of confusing in terms of our reporting and a number of other things. And all I heard when I got to the church were complaints about this one aspect of the life of our church. And I thought, well, we could change it back, but I want to make sure everybody’s in agreement on it, so we called a Crucial Conversation about that topic. The folks who showed up were all in agreement that we should move and make the change and go back to the calendar year. And I met with our leadership team, and we made that switch relatively easily.
Doug Bixby
But doing it in the context of a Crucial Conversation meant that it didn’t seem like I was making this decision on my own. It also didn’t mean that the leadership team was making the decision, but rather, the whole congregation, or anyone interested, was invited into the process. And you had utilized that with regard to some other maybe even more painful things, but it allowed the church to process openly about a particular issue. And I think that concept of Crucial Conversations was something you helped introduce, and I certainly was glad it was there as a resource as we continue to move forward.
Jim Latimer
And I credit you Doug, with seeing the value of that process and how to use it well. I remember speaking with leadership toward the end of my time there and emphasizing the value of imbedding this process into the congregation’s culture. But I was a short timer. I remember thinking, There’s no way that I’m going to be there long enough, so I just trusted, Okay, we’ve done X amount of work. It’s time for me to go. Doug arrives. And that happened to fit well within your conception of good decision making in congregations, right? And your articulating it as one way of congregational decision making. You don’t have to invite everybody into the sanctuary, as long as it’s open to everybody, right?
Jim Latimer
And this term, Crucial Conversation, just to say this, there’s a book by that name, and I forget the name of the author, but credit goes to this person. A conversation is crucial when number one, there’s disagreement. number two, there’s some emotional charge about it, and number three, there are reasonably high stakes. She says, when you have those three things present, then you are ripe for a Crucial Conversation.
Doug Bixby
Well, I go back to my initial point, which was that you and I sitting down together helped me to understand how significant that was for the church. And it’s not that I didn’t hear about it from our church members and leadership after that, but talking with you in the transition helped me to understand something that was emerging that was helpful to the church, and a resource that I could continue to use. And so, I was truly grateful for it, but also grateful for the communication you and I had that enabled me to have that ability to utilize this resource that you had helped to generate while I was here.
Doug Bixby
The other thing I think about with regard to First Church is that it had been through a lot of change. There were several short-term past pastorates, and then interim. There was a long interim, a short-term pastorate, two one-year interims after I was here and you were the second, but I felt like First Church was coming out of a rather complicated past, and I actually think the two interims helped to work through some of that and help the church as we were shifting from having two full time pastors to one full time pastor,
Jim Latimer
yeah,
Doug Bixby
And under, you know, all that was a lot of information just to get all the names clear on who were the players in the midst of all that change and transition. You know, it took me a while to really get a handle on all that. But again, having you there to talk through who the people were, how the changes happened, who was serving when, and all that was, was a very helpful part of the equation as well. And I think some of that complicated recent history was in part, why this church needed some healing and help just to manage everything that was going on and to work through this season in the life of their church.
Doug Bixby
So, we had a three-year settled pastor who left during Covid, and there was an interim that followed her leadership. And then you came for a year, and I’ve said this to you, I felt like you kind of filled an interim after the associate pastor who had been there for eight years left. And so, you could see how there were multiple layers of experience and healing that needed to take place. But I was truly grateful for all that good work that happened during the interim period, because I feel like it’s set me up to get off to a good start in Longmeadow with, it seems, a deep desire of the church and myself to have a long-term pastor here.
Jim Latimer
Yeah. Well, they’re lucky to have you, and it seems like you’re thriving, and as you’re speaking here, I’m reminded of how rich the relationship has become between you and me as interim and settled minister. Of course, we’re also friends. I wish for every interim and every pastor or settled pastor that follows the interim to be able to have conversations like this. And I realized that’s not always possible for all kinds of reasons. But I suspect it may be more possible than some folks realize,
Doug Bixby
Right.
Jim Latimer
And as interim, I’m always eager for this – to talk to the person, like you, that followed me as a settled minister. It’s kind of like the rest of the story, because I’m now off somewhere else, and now I’m quickly immersed, right? And the previous experience fades fast, but there’s all kinds of learning there that our conversations have captured for me. You’ve helped me immensely become a better interim minister, which, of course, I’m always eager to do.
Doug Bixby
The unique thing about our friendship is it led us to meet together three, maybe four times over the first two years, right? And during those times, it’s been helpful to have your perspective and also what you experienced as a backdrop of our conversations. But again, I think you’re curious about what’s happening, and how did what I do impact what’s happening now, and that kind of thing that that’s been rich. And it’s helpful to talk to people who have a different perspective or have a unique insight into the life of the church, which you clearly did.
Doug Bixby
And I think another thing you encouraged me to do is to get in touch with previous clergy, you know, who, whether interims or settled or whatever, that you were pretty good at calling people up and just being in touch with them while you were in the interim role. But my pace might have been different than yours, in that I’m the marathon runner, not the sprinter, but yeah, the fact that you did that work while you were here too, kind of encouraged me to do some of it also. And I slowly but surely, was able to do some of that good work.
Jim Latimer
Well, it warms my heart to hear that and just to know that, and seeing you at General Synod and some of the other Longmeadow folks that were there also, and go know you all are thriving. That just warms my heart. That’s great.
Doug Bixby
The other piece, Jim, I was thinking as we were talking, you did some good work helping to lay the land for restarting our confirmation program. And this may be more in the helping realm, right? There was a group of students who were ready to do confirmation. There was some reluctance on their part. Parents were too. There just seemed to be a lot of questions and confusion around there. But you had had a parents meeting to talk about confirmation, or an open meeting for students and parents, I’m not sure. But it seems like you began a conversation then that I was able to continue and to successfully invite all those students who are eligible into confirmation. And they did it! And it was a two-year program. It’s a one-year program that we did two years in a row, that sort of took care of a whole group of students in the life of our church in a very positive way. So, I was really grateful for your help in creating some of the momentum that I was able to utilize and carry forth.
Doug Bixby
And again, it was having the conversations with you that helped make that happen. So, I would encourage interims to at least invite the opportunity of the new settled pastor to meet with you and to possibly frame it that it’d be nice to do this again in a few months and have at least two, maybe three conversations after you start. And do a lot of listening as well as sharing insights.
Jim Latimer
It’s good all around. And I’ll mention again, that you have written a number of books around governance and conflict and all in the church that I have devoured, and to great effect. They’re short and to the point, and they’re wise. And you put out one just recently, right? Is it around confirmation, right? Pilgrim Press? Is it coming out?
Doug Bixby
Yes, actually I’m going to be publishing a confirmation curriculum through Pilgrim Press called Confirming Mystery, Not Certainty, and it’s based on the Seven Pillars of progressive Christianity. And that emerged out of this reigniting of confirmation in First Church. And again, that groundwork you laid helped me to start it, but it also led to me writing this curriculum, which is now going to be published.
Jim Latimer
Wow! Yay! I’m gonna get a few copies for sure. So what else might there be at the moment for this conversation now? Anything you wish had happened during the interim time that didn’t? Again, it’s about the process, the legacy, not me, per se.
Doug Bixby
No. I really think open communication is key. I really think you were open with me all the way along, and I’m grateful for the way we work together and the transition, as well as beyond.
Jim Latimer
Me too, Doug. So, thank you very much. Let’s, wrap it up here. And I so much appreciate your time, your wisdom, and say hello to my First Church, peeps, those people whom I love so much.
Doug Bixby
And they love you, Jim.
Jim Latimer
Thanks. Okay, take care. Bye.