Click a Title to Hear a Bit Of Wisdom

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, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Leadership Development, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

For a pastor who admits having been burned out early in ministry, embracing the bonfire metaphor for her ministry now seems dicey. Yet, Rev. Liz Miller offers this bonfire metaphor to describe a vibrant new stance and perspective for her ministry where she’s close to the heat of things, but no longer consumed by it; paying full attention, yet not holding tightly to particular outcomes. Listen to her lessons learned and new wisdom in this episode titled, “Moving from Burnout to Bonfire.”

For a transcript of this episode, please visit the Coachingforinterims.com website. In addition, subscribe to this podcast series if you want to be notified when additional podcasts are available.

I moved from burnout in ministry 5 years in, to bonfire now – bonfires require constant tending, yet don’t want to over tend; find a rhythm that works;

And for me that’s what ministry feels like in the local church, keeping a close enough eye on things that you are connected and can respond when something needs you, but not being so close to it that you’re totally consumed and absorbed by what’s happening that you can’t respond when there’s a change.

Yet, it’s not about balance, per se; it’s more about having an awareness, a willingness to be off kilter a little bit and to just accept that you have to come and go and move in and move out as needed.

Laidback is very different from not paying attention. You are paying attention very much in the moment, yet laidback in the sense of not holding on tightly to a particular outcome;

The laidback approach is about being more attuned to the people and their gifts and their possibilities, rather than being attuned to expectations of a certain outcomes.

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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 Boundaries, Change Management, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Leadership Development, Mission and Vision Tagged with

13 min 05s

If the congregation has a vision, how do you know if it’s actually your vision that they’ve kind of adopted somehow, or it’s really their vision?

Are they saying that because I’m in the room? Or because they know I’m excited about it?

If it’s something that I feel that I could do this myself, or like, Oh, this is perfect! then I get a little wary, and have to be careful;

If I feel like it’s perfect, then it’s probably a reflection of my beliefs and my hopes, rather than these people who are totally different than me, or have their own hopes and their own beliefs;

It’s about self-awareness: in addition to listening outward, I need to listen inward to make sure that I’m not placing myself in it too much;

And if I determine that there is too much of me in this vision, here’s what I 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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