Are You Wired for Interim Ministry? My WHY for Interim Ministry & Thoughts for Those Thinking of Entering Interim Ministry – 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 it’s my honor and joy to have with me today Reverend Dr. Jill Small. Jill is an interim pro who has been in this niche ministry for a long time. She’s seen a lot, and is articulate about it. I’m delighted that she’s here to speak with us. Jill, given that you’ve served six churches now as an interim minister, could you share a little about your WHY for serving as an interim minister, and with an eye toward guidance or wisdom for listeners who might be considering becoming an interim minister, or those are just starting in it now.

Jill: Thanks Jim. I had a very practical reason for entering interim ministry. I had done settled Ministry for about 25 years, and I was really ready to leave the congregation I was serving in my last settled call. And I looked around for other opportunities and honestly, there were no churches that I wanted to have my profile sent to. And someone called me. It was a conference minister who called, and said, “I’m looking for an interim Minister. Is this something you might consider?” And I thought, “Well okay, maybe this is the Spirit opening a new avenue.” I really thought I might do that one interim and then maybe the perfect settled position would come up.

I did the interim training – all the interim training – and what I found as I started to do interim ministry – and I’ve done six, as we’re speaking, I found that I really liked it. And for a couple of reasons. One is that my principal area of academic interest has always been exegesis so I’m a pretty analytical person. I think that serves me very well as an interim. You enter a system. You analyze the system. And you basically exegete the congregation. And so that’s been a really natural fit for me.

The second thing, which is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but is true, is that I like the idea that at the end of an interim, if I don’t want to go to the next interim immediately, I can take some time for myself. If I want to go to Italy for three months, I could, if I could afford it, I could do that. But are rarely going to get an opportunity for a break, a significant break other than a sabbatical, in a settled pastorate.

And then, the last bit is that you are performing such an important function for a congregation in transition. If you think it’s going to be less work, this is not the job for you. It is more work than settled ministry, because you do all settled Minister stuff and you do all the interim ministry stuff.
But you also know that it is time limited, that you can sort of stand that extra pace. For a year and a half or two years I can do almost anything, but if I thought I was going to be at that pace for 20 years there’s no way I could do it. So there’s that.

That’s the WHY of of getting it for me – why I got into interim ministry. And in terms of getting started, is that the next piece?

Jim Latimer: Yes. What guidance or advice would you have for someone considering becoming an interim.

Jill: I would say, assess your skill set to see if you have what you think are the tools that will be useful in interim ministry, because I’m not sure that it’s an ideal time for you to learn a new skill set if you don’t have some organic connection to doing interim work. The interim ministry training can be helpful in drawing that out, and in providing some tools for you in terms of the process questions. The process questions are important: Who are we? Who is God calling us to be? Who are our neighbors? But there also has to be something in you that connects with helping people in a transitional process. Are you wired for transition?

Jim Latimer: Okay, so there’s the wired piece, there’s the temperament piece, right? And did you also highly recommend that you also have some other skill set that you bring specifically to this transitional ministry game – did you say that?

Jill: I said for me, from an exegetical point of view, I think that my predisposition toward analysis serves me well in interim ministry, because it involves a lot of analyzing. We don’t ever talk about it that way, but it has a lot of analyzing. The How, the When, the Why – that’s a lot of analysis. I think if you hated doing exegesis in seminary, maybe you want to think about how much analyzing there is in interim ministry.

Jim Latimer: Okay, Jill, that’s perfect. Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your WHY, and some of your guidance for those considering becoming interim ministers.

Jill: Thank you.

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