Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. I'm Jeremy. I'm Matt. We've already heard a horror story about when the transition process fails and, as I said in the last episode, we're intentionally doing a little bit of recovery and restoring right now. In that vein, we're talking about a hallowed story. Today, matt and I will discuss one standout win that a church experienced as they worked through their process of transitioning to a new lead pastor. Enjoy.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome back to the Church Renewal Podcast. I am Jeremy Seferati. Good morning. Good morning, jerry. How are you? I'm wonderful. It's good to see you. This is Matt, by the way. This is Matt. We are for full disclosure. We've just gotten up. We're recording. This is first thing. I mean it's 9 o'clock in the morning, but this is the first thing that we've really done. That's been at least for Matt. It's the first thing. That's actual work. I'm typically like 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm a slave to all things work and technology. If you hear that creaking sound, that's my arm trying to reach behind myself and pat myself. It had its huff on the back, that's right. That's my arm trying to reach behind myself and pat myself.

Speaker 2: 1:03

It had a tough one back there, that's right, but this also means that we are highly caffeinated, so watch out.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Today we're talking about hallowed stories. A couple episodes back, we brought you a horror story. This time we are taking a look at it from the other side, Matt. We've talked about times when the florist model has fallen short. This time, I would love to hear a story about a church or churches that you've worked with that came in dubious, suspicious, uncertain and, in the end, ended up with a result that was significantly better than they had even hoped to find. Do you have a story like that? At least one?

Speaker 2: 1:42

Yeah, so I'd love to hear it, maybe a couple, a couple. So tell two stories. So we just helped the church this year pastor search and I think, um, eventually we're gonna have enough question about this. You know this first work outside of the pca we do actually A question about this.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Does Flourish work outside of the PCA? We do, actually. So this is a church that's outside of the PCA. Another evangelical process and they came to us. They were in transition between long-term pastors. Another evangelical and process and they came to us. They were in transition between long-term pastors, large church, 600 people. They came to us because they wanted help with pastor search. They felt like they could take care of those two buckets there's three buckets in transition preaching care and they felt like they could take care of those first two buckets themselves of preaching and care.

Speaker 2: 2:46

And they came to us for a process particularly related to pastor search. And so I engaged with them, helped them figure out you know what are their needs in the next pastor. Quite a nice packet for them. We have a designer on staff that lays these out. We have a writer on staff that writes these and they're both very experienced, they do incredible work, and so we wrote their packet, helped them figure out their profile, got their church committee trained and they found a pastor in six months. And the guy is crazy good and completely unexpected. He had been in pastoral ministry, done several different pastorates and gotten out of pastoral ministry and it was ministry.

Speaker 1: 3:25

That is awesome.

Speaker 2: 3:25

It was incredible, it was absolutely thrilling and, yeah, I guess I was going to use the word unexpected only because there are churches that are taking much longer to find that to find a new pastor but in this case, that wasn't. What God wanted to do was to work quickly and he did, and it was incredible, Really, really incredible.

Speaker 1: 3:52

So there's a a neat. What was their expectation when you came in and they said hey, we've got one and twosies down, we need help with threesies yeah, so what were they looking for, at least?

Speaker 2: 3:58

um, we tell them it's nine months to, however long it takes, okay, okay, and in their particular case it just wasn't.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Which, if you're not in the church world as Matt and I are and have been for many, many decades between the two of us a normal pastoral search. This is not like a trade where you go out and, hey, I lost my job three weeks from now because I can swing a hammer or something that is extremely useful, or repair an air conditioner or an engine, I can be reemployed within three weeks, right. The reality here is, if you're looking for a new pastor, you're looking at a, a well, you just said a minimum of six months. I want to go ahead and say it's not a minimum of six months, it's definitely like a very, very hopeful minimum of nine. You're probably looking at closer to an average of over 12 months before you get someone in. Now, these are the numbers off the top of my head, matt, you probably have better numbers than me.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Well, yeah, I mean in the PCA we're looking at 18 or 24 months from the day you lose your pastor. I tell candidates, if you start putting out your resume today, you should expect to not be moving for at least a year. It just takes a long time because it's committees and they're volunteer and it's not like a normal workplace. So this was just marvelous, and they credited the speed at which they were able to evaluate candidates to the process that we taught them, and so that is thrilling for us because we think it's a neat process. That's fantastic. So that's one story.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Let me tell you another story, please do. It's a church that we worked with. It actually was the church where I did transitional pastoral work, and one of the most challenging things about this church was they had a lot of fractures due to the events of 2020, both the election and George Floyd and people's reactions to that and the stances they took and masks and all the kinds of things that tore apart churches, tore apart this church and so they came to us and we were working with them and eventually, as I got there on site, one of the things that became obvious was that the elder board was fractured. That's a huge hurdle, oh it fractured.

Speaker 2: 6:07

That's a huge hurdle. Oh, it's enormous. That's a huge hurdle Exactly because you can heal all of their things in the church. But if the elder board's fractured, then the next guy that comes in is just Cursed. Is probably too strong, but it's in the neighborhood.

Speaker 1: 6:19

There's a hot mess that's dropping on his lap.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Exactly, and so one of the things that was a high priority for me and it was and here's the thing that's interesting about the work of a transitional pastor is some of the work is hidden and congregants experience the benefits of it, but they never directly know about it.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Right, and that's the case with us. I think that the there were many wonderful things that were said to me as I was finishing that particular transitional work, but the most thrilling and wonderful thing was for the elder board at my last meeting, for them to say thank you for healing us, and I think that that's the possibility that's held out by employing a transitional pastor who comes in, who has the skills skills doesn't need the job long term and is there for the health and vitality of that elder board and of that congregation that they can provide that guidance and stability and wisdom To help a fracture group come together and work together so that the next guy who comes in joins a group that knows how to work together and is committed to it. And that I'm smiling right now. You can't beat that.

Speaker 1: 7:37

How long did that process take?

Speaker 2: 7:39

Well, we were engaged with that church for almost two years.

Speaker 1: 7:42

How long did the process of actually fixing those, addressing those issues going through the hard you know, interpersonal, relational, spiritual work? How long did that process take and what hurdles did you?

Speaker 2: 7:56

encounter. I want to say that it was. I want to say that it probably took us the better part of a year. Okay, took us better part of a year, okay, because I think that you, you can lay out, and so this is one of the things that that I do. We've said that.

Speaker 2: 8:13

I said this in a different one of the podcasts this season, but I do this, um, like three-quarter day seminar that I call biblical teamwork. That's a biblically rooted version of five dysfunctions of a team. Okay, and I teach it to elder boards and to staff teams, and every single time that I have done it, people are just like yeah, that's very different than anything I've ever heard or seen before. I'm like good, now, at least, if everybody agrees that this is the way you want to work, these are your new ground rules that you agree on together. And when you've got new ground rules that you agree on together, then what happens is that people begin to call out each other when they don't keep the ground rules that they've all agreed on together. And when everybody is enforcing the new ground rules, then you have a new dynamic. Remember, this is a place, for example, this is the place where the one person who is disagreeing right now. They might be the one that the holy spirit wants to speak through then you have a new.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Really need to stop.

Speaker 2: 9:20

You can have somebody there who gently sort of say hey you know what, and ask more questions because it may be that this is the way the Holy Spirit's trying to work among us and we need to hold this decision really loosely because we don't know what God wants to do.

Speaker 1: 9:41

When did you know I'm assuming that you were the one doing the work in this case when did you know that you were moving to better and was there a lag time between when you realized we're moving to better and when they were like, hey, we're moving to better.

Speaker 2: 10:00

Well, here's what I would say. I actually did this biblical teamwork seminar before I agreed to do transitional work for them to be on site. And when I did that three-quarter day seminar, it was very clear because they knew that they were very broken. It was very clear that they understood that this was a pathway forward out of their brokenness. And if they didn't, I don't think I would have gone there, I don't think that I would have been willing to engage them more personally rather than just different podcasts in the season, but it was clear that the spirit had gone before me, and that, to me, is the essential thing is that you can have a transitional pastor that's, you know, uh, recruited, vetted, trained, coached, supported and everything, but the spirit's not there working. Um so and again I mentioned this in the different pointless, you can still love god's people when the spirit's not there working, but that's the most essential thing. You can love God's people when the Spirit's not there working for them.

Speaker 1: 10:56

That's the most essential thing you can love God's people, but you can't have growth. Right, exactly, you can have a very good social group, right, you can do good things Right, but you fundamentally cannot be about either the gospel work or the work of transformation, or the work of discipleship in a meaningful way, because the Holy Spirit's the one who does that, yeah, or the work of discipleship in a meaningful way, because the Holy Spirit's the one who does that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so where are those churches today?

Speaker 2: 11:19

Yeah, so the church that just got the new pastor is rock and roll and I'll be there in the fall. I'm actually going to do this biblical teamwork for them with him in the chair in the fall, which will be really fun, so he's in the hot seat this time.

Speaker 2: 11:29

What's that? He's in the hot seat I mean I got to. Part of the interview process was they said hey, you should call the guy we've been working with with Flourish and talk to him, which I thought was marvelous confidence on the part of the church that they wanted the candidate to talk to the coach, and I think that that spoke very well of them. The church where I get to work with the Elder Ward staff and things, to the best of my knowledge, they are doing exceedingly well. I've tried to stay out of the way since they got a new pastor because I only finished working there about six months ago, but from what I've heard, things are quite good and so that is very satisfying as the head of an organization to have those kinds of opportunities with churches.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Sometimes, when people say satisfying, I can't help but hear the word sad in that. Does it ever? Is there ever for you as a coach and this wasn't a prepared question no, go ahead. Is there ever a time for you, as a coach, walking through these experiences, what are genuinely life-changing, transformational experiences with individuals and congregations? Is there a part of you that, while as coach you're like, hey, I did my job, good, done, move on to the next, keep it moving. Is there a part of you looks back and says you know, I, there's a part of me that was left behind. There's a, there's a part of, there's some loss. I'm experiencing that this is awesome, but I'm still sad. Now this is done because of how good it was.

Speaker 2: 13:06

A hundred percent Every single time. I think that if it doesn't, if it didn't cost you it didn't, if it didn't cost you part of your heart, then you didn't do it right, which has the possibility that if your heart doesn't keep growing, that your heart eventually shrivels away. But the great possibility that's held out for us is, as Pete Scazzaro has taught me right, that your heart, your soul, can grow through pain and loss, and so your heart can continue to get bigger, even as you leave pieces of it in places and I've left my heart in a lot of places, but it keeps growing, vic.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Well, having a shriveled heart is a great problem to have.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Oh, that's terrible.

Speaker 1: 13:49

I can't believe you're going to edit that out. Thank you, matt, for sharing. You're very welcome. I appreciate your openness and I really enjoyed hearing the stories. You're very welcome. I hope this has helped you listener, as you're listening, to hear some of the possibilities, to envision for yourself what good can look like, what better can look like, and to grow and foster and fan into flame that flame of hope. There's a lot that can be done to a people and in a church that's looking to Christ to come and glorify himself, and that's what the church renewal process is all about. So if you have questions, please reach out and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned, jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us at flourishcoachingorg. When you can reach us by email at info at flourishcoachingorg.

Speaker 1: 15:05

You can also connect with us on Facebook, twitter and YouTube, and we would love it if you would like subscribe, rate or review the podcast wherever you're listening. Please share this podcast with anyone you think it'll help and if we get a client because of a recommendation you make, we'll send you a small gift just to say thanks, and a special thanks to Bay Ridge Christian Church in Annapolis, maryland, for the use of their building to record today's episode. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was produced by me, Jeremy Seferati, in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.