Most were new to the ministry and stayed between two and three years, and then it took us another couple of years to find the next.”
“We’re just too small to pay a salary to keep a pastor for long,” another elder said.
“Look,” said Roger, “we know we can only pay minimum salary and we have about 80-100 in worship on any Sunday. That can get discouraging for a young pastor. If we can’t afford more money, what if we set our minds to making this the most interesting, challenging, supportive, and uplifting pastorate around?”
They began brainstorming what they could do to make the call so interesting it would be hard to leave. “How about creating a support committee that made it their goal to catch him or her in doing things right?”
“And, if there is an area he or she is weak in, maybe we could find pastors in our community who do it well, and ask them to provide a little coaching?”
So the adventure began at Four Point Church to nurture the pastor who will nurture them. Not everything they tried worked but it became so much fun trying new things that a few missteps didn’t seem to matter.
Here are some things that they (or your Session) might try to make ministry at your church so interesting that the pastor would want to stay engaged.
Pastor support team
The session recruits three to five representatives of the congregation who are growing in faith, committed to the church’s mission, good listeners, able to keep confidences and appropriate boundaries, and give constructive feedback. A local pastoral counselor or a retired pastor in the presbytery might be included. The team’s purpose is to help the pastor to thrive and grow in ministry.
This is a member-led initiative. The teams plan together for regularly scheduled small group discussions that are topic driven, perhaps around quarterly meals together. They might begin their conversation with, “What do you need in order to best develop your gifts for ministry?” They give positive feedback to the pastor, share faith stories, introduce their own history, experiences within the congregation, and their hopes for future church development. A key focus is clarifying of the expectations of pastor and congregation.
If done with sensitivity, the pastor learns more about the history and culture of the congregation, and has a safe place to be vulnerable and receive support while developing relations of trust with a core of advocates, on other than a strictly social basis.
Using the resources of the presbytery and community, the team offers information about particular opportunities that the pastor might find helpful in the areas of his/her growing edges, such as professional coaching, spiritual direction, pastoral counseling, a clergy support group, continuing education, financial planning, family concerns, and denominational programs, etc.
One of these meetings could review the pastor’s past year’s ministry goals (personal and professional) and the setting of goals for the new year. In this way, the pastor is able to keep track of his/her calling and how it is embodied in practice, making adjustments as needed.
If signs of conflict do arise, the team is able to offer advice in a timely and sensitive manner to help the occasion be an opportunity for continued growth.
A three-part plan to both honor and nurture preaching skills
First, the session publishes each quarter a two-sentence description of each sermon the pastor preached in that quarter and asks the congregation to vote on the best sermon preached on the basis of delivery and content. The voting results are revealed at a congregational dinner. If the winning sermon gets more than thirty-five percent of the votes cast, the pastor gets a gift card to be used to improve his personal library.
Second, the session works with the pastor to identify eight to ten colleagues who are willing to pool $200 of their study leave allowance to invite a homiletics professor to visit the community for a series of lectures at least every 18 months.
Third, the pastor is freed from responsibilities on two Sundays a year in order to attend another worship service and report to the session about the quality and features of the sermon preached.
Attending to a pastor’s physical and emotional health
The Board of Pensions has some creative seminars on managing stress, responding to the problem of smoking, weight loss, and other life stage events. Working with presbytery, the church could invite the board to bring some of their seminars to the area.
Family Health
Provide the pastor the following game as a way of measuring family health under the demands of the ministry.
Get a pack of 3 x 5 cards and develop some probing questions to place on each of the cards. Shuffle the cards and put them as a deck on the table. When it comes to a person’s turn, s/he rolls a die and the number that shows up determines how far down the deck s/he counts to pull the question that s/he will answer. Each time a question is answered, bury the card back in the deck before the game continues.
Add to these sample questions to form a deck of at least 30 questions.
1. Describe a time this past year when you were glad you were part of this family.
2. Talk about a pressure you felt because the minister of the church is you or a member of your family.
3. Share something that happened at the church this past year that made you proud to be part of the church.
4. Describe something that either did or would make you angry if it happened at the church.
5. Identify either a person or a situation at the church for which you think the family should pray.
6. Was there a time this past year when the congregation needed the pastor and it meant that some family experience needed to be changed? How did you feel?
7. Whether you are the pastor or a family member, name four things that are good about being a pastor.
8. Name four things that make being a pastor difficult.
9. If you were to pray for one thing to change in your family, what would it be?
10. What are some fun things you like to do with the family?
Questions for discussion:
What is the best thing your congregation does in support of its pastor?
What new way of showing appreciation for your pastor could you offer?
In what way could you make the ministry of your congregation more exciting and satisfying for your pastor?
How might caring for the pastor expand to include the Session and congregation with the aim of developing a holistic culture of care?
Carol J. Allen recently retired from Fourth Church in Chicago, having served the church in a variety of settings, including McCormick Theological Seminary. She is on the board of the Presbytery Pastoral Care Network and is currently a volunteer in pastoral care for the Chicago Presbytery. Stephen McCutchan is retired after having served churches in Bethesda, Md., Wellsboro, Pa., and Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the editor of the newsletter for the Presbytery Pastoral Care Network and blogs regularly on issues caring for pastors. www.smccutchan.com.
