Contracting as an Interim – 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. My name is Jim Latimer and I have the pleasure of speaking with Reverend Erica Avena this morning. Erica is a seasoned interim. Erica, in this first segment, I believe you wanted to say something about contracting. We would love to hear that.

Erica Avena
Thank you, Jim. I really appreciate this work that you are doing among the interim ministry community. And I know that as interims we have the opportunity to contract over and over and over again. And one thing to bear in mind, of course, is that the interim contract is very much like the settled minister’s contract only on a much shorter time scale. So that gives us the opportunity to build some things into the interim contract that will lay the ground for successful ministry outcomes and goals. It also means that we can let go of some other areas. There are some things that are different about the interim season. One is that if your church has a personnel handbook, you are not on the track where you’re trying to earn a number of vacation weeks or a sabbatical. Those things need to be baked in initially into your contract. If you want four weeks of vacation, and their handbook says that you don’t earn that until three years of employment, you need to back up and ask them for those four weeks in the initial contract so that everybody’s clear about that.

I got some very good wisdom at the beginning of my interim work, which was to do a self inventory. What do you need? What do you need – now? Not what did you need when you should have asked for it. If that’s something you can learn from great, but let some of that go. And just think about what is your number right now? What’s the number you need? What is the insurance arrangement that you need given the household that you are part of? And what are your time needs? And the time is both before you get there – think compassionately about your start date. And I mean compassion for yourself. I will admit, Jim, that I finished one intern ministry on one day, and I had my whole office packed in my car, and I drove it home. Parked it in the garage. And then the next day, I backed the car out of the garage and started the second intern ministry with everything just there. So I’m just here to say that’s not something I’m going to do again. I have found since that time that giving myself some space in between interims, either with intentional plans for that time, or just time off to let the other church get out of my head – both of those things are really helpful and help to support us as interims for the long haul. I’ve been doing interim ministry since 2007, and I’m clear, at least for me – just owning this – doing it back to back like driving it into the garage one night and out again the next morning, that’s not a sustainable model. So if you want to learn from my mistakes, please do.

Another thing I’d like to flag for interim clergy, because there is no denomination that I’m aware of that amplifies this news, is the IRS guidelines. IRS rules allow for commuting costs to be reimbursed if you are working for a congregation less than one year. And the IRS thinks about years in terms of the calendar year. Okay? So if I start an interim in March of one year, and if I conclude it in October of the following year, the IRS allows the church to reimburse my commuting costs. Churches don’t have any record of this, because they never do it with their settled pastors. And the denominations don’t promote it, because they mostly work with settled pastors. And, if by some reason your interim gets unexpectedly extended beyond a whole calendar year, in any one year, you can’t take that money. So it’s something to be mindful of. I just think interims don’t talk about this. And if that money can be the difference between a viable ministry and a non-viable ministry, I just want to flag that.

Jim Latimer
I wish we’d had this conversation about two months ago before I sent my taxes in because I worked for 10 months for the church I’m serving now as an interim. But I didn’t know that I could claim those miles. And because of COVID I wasn’t driving as much as usual, but I’ve got a long commute that I could have claimed. We’ll see how 2021 goes. I’m taking notes here, Erica, thank you.

Erica Avena
And a lot of us don’t look at the IRS guidelines, Jim, at least in the denominations that I’m part of. Rather, we tend to look at the denominational guidelines. And what I’ve learned is that the IRS guidelines are in fact written in English. And they are easier to understand than your church’s bylaws. If you can read the bylaws and understand them, the IRS guidelines are things you can understand as well. I also wanted to just flag for our listeners, Jim, the interim training and how to build that into a contract. Because that is, in fact, the way to get the most value out of those interim trainings. The Intern Ministry Network offers a series of interim trainings, as does the Center for Congregational Health in North Carolina. Both of them have wonderful trainings. And the way to get the best value for those trainings, is to have that in your contract. So as you’re planning to go, you say to your congregation, “I really would like to be about building my skills in interim ministry. And I’d like to do it by attending this training,” and you might have the dates, or you might not, but just say the name of the training that you’re ready to take. And then talk about with them why you’re excited about it. Then when you know when it is, be very clear that you’re going to be gone, you’re going to go do this thing. And then afterwards, talk about what you learned – those surprises.

I have had delightful conversations with my congregations about those trainings. And I did it by accident. And I would like to encourage people to do that on purpose! Because I was surprised by things that I learned in the training. And I enjoyed just having a chance to have freewheeling conversation about that. The first training I did with IMN – the Interim Ministry Network, Jim – was led by somebody who had done interim ministry for 40 years (!) in the United Church of Canada. And he blew my mind. And because I had a transition team at the church I was serving, I went back to them with my notes. I was like, “This is what I learned! It’s so interesting!” and it really allowed for some wonderful conversation. And in the next kind of two levels of training, you have the opportunity to do field work. And those are things that are best done while you are in a congregational setting, so actual humans get to benefit from that field work experience. So those are things to just build right in and ask them to pay for. They can pay for that training with continuing education money, so that you as the interim do not need to pay for that.

Jim Latimer
I love that. I tend to think of IMN interim training as having part one and part two. But let’s say you’ve done both of those already as you’re coming into a new interim. You’re saying that there’s still more training that you can bring to them in the contracting period, to invite them to be in with you and to pay for, and then to debrief and learn from, right?

Erica Avena
Yes, there is always something. I went on to do the training with the Center for Congregational Health, in congregational consulting, which also offers a six month fieldwork component, which was very useful. It really helped hone my interim skills in working with congregations. And of course, there are more things to do as well after that. But you know, those kinds of things – if you really hold the congregation into your own learning process – they can really benefit from it. So don’t put the light under a table.

Jim Latimer
Wonderful. Well, Erica, thank you so much for speaking to us about contracting. I definitely took some notes here. I love what you said about the IRS. That will actually save me money, hopefully this year. And the idea of building your interim training into the contracting period and talking with them about it specifically, and being enthusiastic, and then coming back afterward with them to share learning. That’s a brilliant way to build ownership for that and build it into the congregation system and all. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Erica.

Erica Avena
You’re most welcome. Nice to be here.

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