Overcoming Resistance to Thriving in The Part-Time Pastorate- 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 of having with us today Reverend Jeff MacDonald. Jeff is a longtime accomplished freelance journalist, writer, as well as a part-time interim minister and church consultant. He has studied and written a lot about what makes a part-time pastorate thrive. And one of those things has to do with overcoming resistance. And so, when he said that, I said, Jeff, I’d love to hear you say a few words of wisdom around the role of resistance in making a part-time pastorate really thrive.
Jeff MacDonald
Sure, Jim, yes. This is something that I have come across in my own work as a pastor, and in research for my book, Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy. The area of resistance is certainly familiar to many in ministry, and who have been in churches for a long time. Change is scary. People are more comfortable with what’s familiar. But sometimes change is needed. And folks may know it on some level, but they may resist, either overtly or covertly or passive aggressively, or there are all kinds of ways it can manifest.
And so, one area of resistance that we should name, although not delve into today, is just among pastors, and rethinking the pastor’s role. Sharing the ministry with the lay people in a new, robust way, can be something that pastors resist in their own ways, because it gets at identity or a feeling of not being needed in the same way as before. Pastors are still very much needed, though in some new and different ways than in prior times, or in times when there’s a full-time pastorate. So that’s an important thing to be aware of and to discuss, although we won’t delve in that direction today. We’ll come back to that another time.
For today, I want to share a few thoughts on the level of the congregation and the resistance that can sometimes come up, and how a pastor can work with that. How do you overcome resistance when change is needed? And here, we might be talking about change that allows for greater engagement with the community; change that allows for less insular culture and more outward focused ministry; change that aims and encompasses more generations than just a narrow slice of the generational pie. There’s just a lot of areas where it can be helpful to think about doing things differently while remaining faithful, and yet being stuck on customary ways of doing things. Familiar rubrics can be comforting. And so, you get resistance.
And so, what I want to speak to for a few minutes today, Jim, is how a pastor can help a congregation move beyond the resistance that just comes up when change is in the air. The first thing that I would identify, that I’ve seen to work in my research, is being a mirror for the congregation. That’s a helpful way to begin, because people do get nervous and they can get defensive. And they don’t want someone hitting them over the head with a lecture about why they need to do things differently. That’s not going to work too well, right? That’s going to engender more resistance, right? Who’s this interloper who’s coming in and telling us what we need to do differently? We’ll show him or her how we do things around here! Digging in the heels is a dynamic we don’t want to encourage.
Jim Latimer
What do you mean by mirror? In what sense?
Jeff MacDonald
I mean, reflecting back to the congregation, This is what I hear you saying. So, when a congregation is talking about something, when something comes up at a board meeting, or where ideas are floated, sometimes ideas about “what if,” people start to imagine doing things differently. And others in the group will begin to say why it can’t be done. Well, it’s because we did that 20 years ago. Or we did that in another time, and therefore, we can’t try anything in that category again. The pastor can be an observer who says, Let me reflect back to you what I just heard you say. You have said that because something was tried years ago, that another iteration of it – anything in that category – can’t be done again. Let’s test that a little. Has the world changed a bit in the last 20 years? Maybe it’s not the same environment? Maybe the tools, maybe the people involved, maybe there’s a lot of variables that have changed in the meantime. So, let me just reflect back to you that you’re taking something off the table on the grounds that it’s not been done before, even though a bunch of variables have changed in the meantime that you’re not acknowledging. Can we all agree that that’s what’s happening here?
Jim Latimer
Great. So that’s mirroring and reflecting back to them what you’re hearing, and then rephrasing it in a way. That’s great. I know you’ve got a few more examples up your sleeve here in terms of resistance…
Jeff MacDonald
Yes. Another point is to project where this leads. So, if people say, We’re going to take a number of things off the table, in terms of change, that we’re going to insist on doing the same way that we’ve done them before. Without getting too specific in the examples, I want to offer the idea that something else the pastor can do is to say, Okay, let’s do a little projecting together. Where does that lead? Let’s look at what follows from this. Maybe there’s a resistance to evangelism. We just don’t like to do that. We don’t like the idea of that. We think that has to do with being pushy and knocking on doors and handing out tracts the way they did in the late 1900s. And we’re opposed to that. Or we’re opposed to making disciples or commending the Christian faith, commending the following of Jesus to anyone. We don’t want to do that at all. We just want people to come be part of the church, but we don’t want to actually be intentional about making disciples, to say, Okay, let’s look at where that leads. Where does that take you? Who makes disciples in this community if not you? Let’s just do some thinking: does that lead to a robust and vibrant faith community? Does it lead to transmission of the faith across generations? That’s an example. And the more you let them do it themselves, the better. Say, You put it into your words. You tell me how the faith gets transmitted to a new generation if no one passes it down, if no one is intentional about helping others discover the joy and the abundance of life that comes with following Jesus. You tell me, how does that happen? And when they listen to themselves being silent, or saying things that they don’t really want to hear themselves say, that’s where the heart can sometimes match.
Jim Latimer
So, look where this leads – the first one about mirroring, reflecting back; the second one, help them project where a particular idea or resistance is going to lead; and then I think you had one or two others here…
Jeff MacDonald
Yes. Another is to reassure people that not everything is going to change. Sometimes when there is change in the air, people just get nervous that there’s gonna be a slippery slope, and everything’s gonna fall apart if we allow one part of the rubric to move. And to really help people gain more confidence for a measure of change, by helping them see that there’s a lot that’s not going to change. The Gospel is the same today, tomorrow and forever. The Lord’s faithfulness is the same. Help them see the parts of church life that are not on the table, not going to be disrupted in this. Just unpack that and spell it out explicitly in a number of areas that you can see happening with them in that setting. That helps them see that, Maybe 80 or 90% of what we’re talking about isn’t going to change. So, we can allow some movement in those 10 or 20% that came to seem really big when that’s all we were talking about. But when we talk about the bigger picture, and how much remains stable, Okay, that makes the 10% change, more manageable.
And the last one I’d mention, Jim, is to scale momentum by using positive reinforcement. When people do allow for some change in a certain area, to encourage them along the way, if it’s indeed a faithful path that is needed and begins to bear fruit, then really attend to that and help folks tell the stories. Give them a place in worship, in testimony session times in worship, in committee meetings, in the newsletter, or on the website. Or, the column in the newsletter doesn’t always have to be written by the pastor about the pastor’s ideas. The pastor can use that space to interview someone, or can have a guest writer. But you can say, For my column this week, I’m going to share with you what Bill and Susan experienced when they took this step in a new direction. This is what they had to say. Or give them the space to say it in their own words. And now you’re documenting the positive results, and you’re reinforcing the fact that fruit is being born. And then just see what comes of that.
Jim Latimer
I love it. And when you say “scale momentum,” what I’m hearing you say is to build momentum, right? Take advantage of opportunities to give pushes to the good things that are already that are beginning to emerge. That’s a great idea. The pastor’s column in the newsletter doesn’t have to be written by the pastor about the pastor’s ideas. I love the idea of interviewing someone else and getting their ideas in there.
So, Jeff, this is great. Let me recap these four specific things that were really helpful from the pastor’s point of view, as he or she is working with the congregation, and there is resistance to this part-time model. The first thing you said is to be a mirror – for the pastor to be a mirror for congregants: This is what I hear you saying, kind of reflecting back to them. The second thing was to project where a particular idea may lead: Well, if we do X, this is where it might lead us. Help them to say it in their own words. And then the third thing: reassure them that not everything is going to change. In fact, most of what we’re doing and most of how we are won’t change. 80 or 90% will stay the same. And then the last thing: using positive reinforcement by scaling momentum. Jeff, those are beautiful. Thank you so much. A lot of people will benefit from your ideas. Thank you.
Jeff MacDonald
Sure. Thank you, Jim.
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