A church with young adults experiences this a lot. A church that embraces change as one of its descriptors experiences it even more. A church that is open to change attracts people who like change, not only in their church, but also in their lives. Off they go. Some to a first job, others to another job, some to be ordained as priests, others to be closer to extended family.
Others drift. They drift away from church altogether. Our church is their last stop, their last attempt at Christian Church. They arrive, excited that there is a church that would accept them on their journey of life and faith and doubt. But the talk about Jesus is uncomfortable. The Creed as declaration of faith feels like a roadblock. They love the community, they say, but the Christian faith just doesn’t ring true. They find their way to Buddhist practices or yoga, to coffee shops or bike trails.
Others drift away because they find the community lacking. They find what seem to be more meaningful communities in their neighborhoods or their children’s schools. Or they don’t feel comfortable around the prisoners in the congregation, or that we pray for the guy in our congregation who was arrested and is now in jail. Not enough lesbians, too many gays, not enough people their age, not enough children. This latter complaint is truly frustrating: How will we ever have enough children to satisfy them if the people with children keep leaving because we don’t have enough children?
Others drift away because we they think we aren’t religious enough. They want more spiritual discipline. They want more spiritual expression. They want more Bible study. They want a Sunday school for their children. In a small church, of course, kids can grow up knowing that they are loved by the elders, and known by name. But parents feel ill equipped to teach their children the faith. They want someone else to do it. Or they want support for what they are trying to do and they think Sunday school will provide that support. Or they want to be able to drop their kids off and have some adult time, maybe go out for a cup of coffee and uninterrupted conversation.
Some or all of this may just be excuses, of course. What they really are disappointed in, or angry at, or dissatisfied with, is life in general, themselves, their job, their spouse, or… the priest.
I know that some people have left our church because of me, the priest. And it is painful. I know I have disappointed, offended, and even hurt people through the years. Sometimes I have held fast to doing things a certain way when I could have held those ways a little looser. Sometimes I have been impatient or frustrated with a parishioner who doesn’t “get” my vision, or with the way they seem only to see why and how my own ideas won’t work. Sometimes I have been too autocratic, have not shared leadership and decision-making enough. Sometimes I have been too accommodating, have not been decisive enough.
Sometimes it is hard for others, and even for me, to know when or where I am going to draw the line, or claim the authority given me by the tradition or the Constitution and Canons, or the culture of church.
People have left because they didn’t feel heard, or they didn’t feel tended to, or they thought I was leading the church down an unsustainable path. Some left when they could not tolerate the change, or the financial risk, or my own persistence in leading the church in a particular direction, following a particular vision. It is hard to know when to compromise and when to hold steady and keep going.
I know that I am human, with flaws and sins of my own. And I know that my broken past sometimes runs right up against a parishioner’s broken past, and they feel they have no other recourse but to leave. What is really hard is when people leave without talking to me. Then I never know the true story. I am left wondering, or feeling that I have not been listened to either. I am left with a congregation that feels hurt and confused by their departure as well.
I have come to believe that being a priest requires Christian faith. This may seem obvious. But it is only my faith that sustains me through the judgment, anger and hurt of others. It is faith that allows me to forgive them. It is faith that allows me to forgive myself. It is faith that allows me to trust God and to know that neither my frailty nor the frailty of others is the end of the story. I get discouraged, yes, discouraged and depressed and disheartened. But because of my faith, I do not despair. I come mighty close sometimes, but I do not despair.
And I pray. I pray for discernment: When, how, or whether to persevere in seeking a conversation with someone who has left the church. When, how, or whether to work to change how I respond to people and situations and circumstances. When, how, or whether to compromise the vision I believe I have been given, in order to keep people in the fold. I pray that I will know what things I am to heed and what I should let “roll off my back”. Above all, I pray that I will be faithful to God and to God’s Way.
Still, I know I will fall short. And I suspect I will continue to be a bit sad when summer comes around each year, the season of departure.
Sunday by Sunday, we say that the liturgy will be what it will be because of those who are gathered for any given time of worship. We say that the liturgy would be different if any one person who is there were not there. It is true.
What is true for the liturgy is all the more true for the community. People arrive with talents and passions, with needs and quirks, and we embrace them. They become a part of who we are and they help to shape what we become. So that when they leave, a part of us leaves with them. But a part of them stays behind.
That is what I’ve experienced over and again. Whatever the reason for their departure, a part of them stays behind in the fabric of who we are as a community of faith.
The Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck is the vicar of The Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.
The Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck is the vicar of The Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.
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Monday, 11 May 2015
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"On Leaving and Leaving Well: Planning and Open Communication are Keys to a Successful Exit" by Alan Schaffmeyer No one is an expert on leaving, but I believe we clergy might learn together how to leave well. My first performance in the role of a pastor leaving came as I finished my internship. In my farewell remarks, I declared that since the seminary was only 50 miles away, it was not as if I were really leaving. Being so close, I could come back often to visit.
As I drove away, I realized what I had done. I had avoided the fact of my leaving. Although the seminary was close, my education had its own drives and deadlines. When I returned to school, my classes, activities, research, and just plain life would keep me on campus. Struck by the insight, I vowed to say good-bye to the congregations I would leave thereafter—out of respect for the people and for my own integrity.
Since I work as an intentional interim pastor, leaving is a continual part of my ministry. A typical interim stint lasts between 8 and 15 months. By necessity, leaving is on my mind and heart from the first time I hear about a congregation. This does not mean that I leave well—just that I do it frequently.
The Well-Done Exit
Leaving is no trick. You just get up and go. Yet in his book Generation to Generation, therapist Rabbi Edwin H. Friedman declares how great a gift it is for clergy to leave a congregation well. He further implies that by not leaving well, we may cloud the parishioners’ future pastoral relationships more than we imagine.(1) Few of us intentionally make a congregation’s life more difficult, but that outcome can result from our words or actions. An exit done well enhances the value of a congregation’s and a clergy leader’s ministry as much as or more than the attention originally given to the relationships. Leaving well graces a congregation, since it allows the organization and its members the best opportunity to grieve and regroup. It allows the pastor time to mourn while saying good-bye. He will move on to the next chapter in his life with some measure of closure and a healthier focus on the future.
The intellectual clarity we have about leaving well is difficult to put into practice. Since clergy do not spend much of ministry leaving congregations, we are inexperienced at making graceful exits. The process of leaving can be bewildering and stressful for both congregation and clergy. Under stress, we are likely to rely on old, familiar patterns of behavior.(2) As clergy, we are trained to connect with others. Little attention is given in our work to disconnection. In the face of stress, personal effectiveness ebbs. We may feel distracted, unbalanced, off center, our focus skewed.
Moreover, what passes for care nowadays is often superficial. Instead of caring, we learn to be nice. If the congregational system has practiced niceness, then the hard, gritty, graceful, effective work of leaving can be lost in a flurry of well-meaning activity or avid avoidance. Such behaviors have more to do with covering all the bases than with productive ministry.
Wherever you and the people you serve are in ministry, the issue is not leaving, but leaving well. Some suggested strategies follow.
Quiet Time
Above all, provide yourself periods of quiet with God in the midst of leaving. Yes, there is much to be done. But you do not have to do everything before you leave. Nor must everything that needs to be done be done by you. Presumably, even a pastor is saved by grace, not by works. Therefore, doing good in the closing weeks will not improve your chances with our ultimate boss!
Plan for quiet time alone. Arrange quiet times with family and friends. Throughout your ministry, it is wise to reserve blocks of unscheduled time in your weekly calendar. Perhaps you have already discovered the value of making time for prayer, devotion, retreat, or reflection.(3) If not, now is a good time to start. Especially while leaving, allow extra time for the unexpected. The fact that you are leaving is no guarantee that unforeseen events will not happen. Indeed, your imminent departure might occasion “unexpected” events generated by people who always meant to say or do something. These incidents may yield last-minute confrontations, reunions, and reconciliations.
Draft a Plan
Draft a plan for your final weeks. The Alban Institute offers a variety of helpful resources. I recommend the books Running Through the Thistles and New Beginnings, as well as “Ending Well, Starting Strong” (a six-cassette audio series), all by church expert Roy Oswald; Saying Goodbye by consultant Edward A. White; and Critical Moment of Ministry by consultant Loren B. Mead.(4) Ask your colleagues for other recommendations.
At its core, leaving well involves for me two elements: grief (mine, the congregation’s, and ours together) and the reality of the impending change. To the best of my abilities, I mean to express my grief over the severing of long-standing, close relationships. I also want to attend to the varied expressions of grief from individuals and from the congregation as a whole. The ways I grieve may not coincide with how others around me feel the loss.5 At the same time, I intend to declare steadfastly that the upcoming separation is upon us. For me, this admission is difficult. I like making attachments. I like being admired for who and what I am. It would be far easier and more gratifying to maintain my personal contacts, but what would my continued relationship with parishioners do to enhance the ministry of the one who comes after me? While I do not like the impending loss, I have to assert that loss to be real, and to be coming soon for all concerned. Craft your plan for leaving around these elements.
Involve other people in that plan, perhaps those you consulted during your decision to leave. Maybe those who helped you decide to come here in the first place will offer their support. Include your family members in formal and informal farewells, giving them opportunities and space to grieve and say good-bye. Discuss with them your hopes, fears, and dreams about leaving. Listen to their emotions, thoughts, and sensations. What was best about your joint venture here? What patterns would you want to repeat? Which would you hope to avoid or minimize elsewhere?
Paperwork
Since much of the work we have done is ongoing, it is essential to leave a paper trail. Ensure that pastoral records are current. Make certain that information which only you might know either goes with you (if it is confidential), or is readily at hand (if the congregation or the next pastor may need it). Leave an envelope (sealed, if need be) with a trusted leader or a denominational official, indicating your perception of your 10 or so greatest triumphs and your 10 or so deepest regrets. Include items you wish you had known when you first came, as well as insights and epiphanies regarding your years with the congregation. List projects and plans that are in process. Indicate your perception of where members are with the plans.
List also potential contacts in congregation and community. Include a listing of significant community-wide groups, clergy Bible studies, ministerial groups, useful denominational meetings, formal or informal support groups, gifted counselors, community leaders, and the like. Establish a format and timetable for your exit interview.
The Exit Interview
Surprisingly few congregations that I have served had had previous experience with exit interviews. An interview is an excellent way to summarize your learning together. Your judicatory office may have a document or recommended format. One good method: Write a list of questions for the congregation’s council or governing board to use at its last meeting before your departure. I ask council members to submit additional questions. Sample questions are mailed three weeks before our meeting, giving sufficient time to ponder the questions. At our last meeting, I answer the questions face-to-face and hand a written copy of my report to the secretary. The format includes my initial expectations of the parish, my unfulfilled aspirations, my major accomplishments, my perspective on the congregation’s greatest strengths and weaknesses, my hopes for the congregation’s future, and other pertinent insights. I ask the members to provide written and spoken comments on my chief strengths and weaknesses, and to assess the effectiveness of my ministry among them.
Before our final meeting, council members agree whether we will discuss these matters as a group, or if a smaller group will meet beforehand for this conversation. The congregation may need to hear again how its strengths are perceived, so that it can use these resources as it prepares to welcome a new pastor.
The Temptation of Silence
As with any other crisis, the end of a mutual ministry focuses the minds of individuals and groups on a common topic more sharply than usual. Their rapt attention gives you as their spiritual leader enormous leverage to interpret their past and to suggest possible futures. Use this gift wisely. As pastors, we sometimes shrink from power. When we recognize an opportunity for wielding authority, at a time when people are most attentive, we may choose silence with the best of intentions. We want to be fair-minded and evenhanded. We do not want to influence unduly the place or its people.(6) We may decide to say nothing. But that choice may rob us of the opportunity to bestow a great gift on the congregation.
Recognize that your silence will influence a congregation as much as speech. Silence may be misinterpreted as indifference or disapproval. As people, we project emotions, fantasies, and motives onto others’ silence. I think of students from my adolescent years who I first assumed were haughty. Only much later did I discover that many were painfully unsure of themselves. I misread their silence as arrogance, when in fact their quiet manner reflected their own fears. Consider making an extra effort while leaving to express your feelings to church members.
Make a Clean Break
Disengage from community affairs and obligations. Schedule no events for the new pastor, and make no promises to third parties about what he will or will not do in your stead. If groups are truly interested in securing the gifts and talents of the next pastor, suggest that they wait to make the contact until she arrives. Inventory your current commitments to civic groups, community organizations, boards and commissions, retirement-home worship services or visits, chaplain relief work or on-call duties. Resign from them if you are leaving the area. Do not promise that the new pastor will take over your areas of interest. Create space for that person’s ministry to develop as yours did.
In regard to planned events like weddings, begin meeting with engaged couples as you regularly would. At the same time, remind couples that you will not be officiating at their wedding. You can make conditional plans with the bride and her fiancé, but final plans need to be cleared with the incoming pastor, who will officiate. The fact that you prefer, require, or prohibit certain practices does not mean that your successor will hold those same views.
As you prepare to leave, make a list of essential contacts and farewells. Note those to whom you want to say a special good-bye—in the membership at large, the leadership, staff, and wider community. Then determine how to visit them. Keep a core group such as the executive committee, church elders, or senior officers apprised of your plans and your timetable. Remain open to their guidance, insights, and questions.
Church consultant Lyle Schaller once said that if an organization or a group of people is told something six times, in six different ways, most of the folk are likely to hear it once!(7) As you depart, seek to include several means of communication. Routine means include the sermon, verbal announcements, leaflets, the church newsletter and worship bulletin, and local newspapers. One way to let everyone know that you are leaving is a special letter. You might use a mass mailing to the entire mailing list, as well as some individual correspondence. For some contacts, you will want to send a personal card. You will preferably want to tell key officers, staff members, and influential though unelected leaders face-to-face, or if that is impossible, in a telephone call. For personal visits, plan where to meet—at the member’s workplace, at a home, in a restaurant, at some favorite spot, or at the church.
While planning visits, be aware of the meeting times of significant groups. Ask to be placed on the agenda. Give yourself a time limit with each group. Prepare to be flexible. Practice being a gracious giver and receiver. A pastor’s list of contacts often includes significant friends; key lay leaders, formal and informal; favorite supporters; “sparring partners”; and even long-term adversaries. Plan what you intend to say and then listen to your conversation partner. Remember, you are the one who is leaving. Your longed-for outcomes may not come to pass. Your expectations for the visit may not be shared by the one with whom you meet, but it is a faithful act to make the effort.
Work the Plan
Within limits of personal wisdom and stamina, give attention to working out your farewell plan. This plan is your “agenda” for the time remaining. Everything else is secondary. This is especially true of those “emergencies” that crop up, those that only you can solve. Really? Only you? Have the members no other savior? Are people fundamentally helpless without you? How have you contributed to making them helpless? These last weeks are a good time to begin letting others handle matters that you have “taken over” during your tenure. The members will need to learn to do without you when you go. Why not help them, by standing on the sidelines, cheering them on? Let them emote with you and survive that confrontation. As you go about your work, be generous and gracious with yourself and others. Remember to be yourself. For example, if you hate saying good-byes, admit it. Take the time to say what needs to be said—and to listen.
The fact that we live and work in redemptive communities is of enormous value in times of farewell. Where better to note our failures and accomplishments than at the foot of Christ’s cross? During this time, farewell scriptures will come to mind. Many Old Testament pilgrimage stories are appropriate. Philippians 4:8 reminds us of God’s blessings in everything. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul declares that we are all common laborers in God’s extraordinary enterprise: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the increase.” In 1 Thess. 4:13, we are called to grieve with hope. In the biblical narrative we are continually reminded where to ground our hope. Our hope is in Christ Jesus. How have you effected hope in Christ Jesus here? At the Last Day, if never before, we shall be united with one another. The gift of that news can carry you and the people you serve through any separation.
The Next Place
Sooner or later, the “new” place, if you are called to a new place, will get in touch, asking your opinion is on something. Unless it is a matter of long-range planning (or something like the color of carpeting for your office), avoid the temptation to instruct the members of that “new” congregation.
While they have no resident pastor, their system is open in ways that it will not be until another pastoral vacancy. If you jump in to tell the members what to do, you will never know whether they have the capacity to make wise decisions on their own. Let them be. Allow them to act. Let them see themselves making wise choices.
You might even instruct them that your deepest desire is for them to make good decisions on their own. This knowledge should have a freeing effect on a group’s capacity to want to think and act. This quality will serve you well when you arrive as the pastoral leader. The lay leaders will be strong and confident if their choices went well. If not, they will have learned valuable lessons about themselves and the congregation they serve. An added benefit is that you will be free to spend time at the place you are leaving, instead of dividing your attention unduly, worrying both about the members of the congregation you now serve and the one you are soon to lead.
Restrict your decisions with the next congregation to matters of taste and decor, such as the types of furnishings you desire or require. You may have to consider housing—certainly if you plan to buy or rent a place in the new area. If the congregation is planning renovations to the parsonage (manse, rectory), what is the nature and extent of the plans? A design-conscious member of your family will want a role in those decisions. When opinions differ over simply fixing up a parsonage or fixing it up for you and your family, how you, your family, and the congregation address the question may provide clues to how you will work together in the future.
If you or the new congregation’s leaders must deal with the future in a concerted way, suggest that you hold a short (two- to four-hour) retreat with the leadership to agree on the coming year’s top two or three items of focus. Then let the “new” leaders use that structure to keep their focus and channel the congregation’s direction until you arrive.
Saying Good-bye
One of the best ways to say farewell is to say good-bye. The English word good-bye is a contracted form of the phrase God be with ye. May God be with you and the congregation you serve as you go your separate ways. We are all sojourners on this earth. As temporary residents, we work and serve together for God’s glory to the best of our individual and collective talents. Go in peace. Serve the Lord.
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1. Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation (New York: Guilford, 1985), 251–253.
2. Peter Steinke, How Your Church Family Works (Bethesda: Alban Institute, 1993), 13–14.
3. Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 22–23.
4. Cf. The Alban Institute, 7315 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1250W, Bethesda, MD 20814. Phone (800) 486-1318. Web site: www.alban.org.
5. Wayne Oates, Grief, Transition and Loss (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 25.
6. Of course, if that were consistently true, then we would resist preaching the gospel, for it is God’s intention always to influence people and places unduly through the preaching of the Word and the hearing of it! We might similarly refrain from administering the sacraments.
7. Lyle Schaller, Hey, That’s Our Church! (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 113–115.
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"Separation Anxiety" by Mary LindbergPastors say good-bye to congregations. Sometimes our good-byes are timely and sweet; sometimes they are jarring and painful. But as we hear the click of the front door of God’s house and stand on the sidewalk, we face a unique journey of grief.
In our ministries, we brushed up against holiness; so do we now, in our good-byes. Now we must pull apart the strands of self and role, individual and community. Now we must confront regrets, confusion, and dislocation. Now we must figure out where and who God is at this juncture in our lives.
But before we step out, God invites us in—into Word and Sacrament, into relationships, into our offices, and into our emotions about leaving. Within all these areas we look for answers to the big question we suddenly face: What makes a good good-bye?
As we leave our congregations, we have to discern how to wrap up our era of ministry. We need to figure out how to get out the door without regrets about not having acknowledged the good-bye or not paving the way for the next pastors. Each pastor will define his or her own good good-bye. But as unique as each of our good good-byes may be, we share much in common as pastors at this moment. All of us, in our leave takings, will face spiritual themes of fulfillment, surrender, community, legacy, and separation. We can face them together.
“Each goodbye is a rehearsal for death,” mourned Tristram Shandy in Laurence Sterne’s famous eighteenth-century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman. No wonder all of us pastors are nervous about our good-byes. Our robes and stoles can make our good-bye look like a dress rehearsal for death. We’d sooner not read from this script.
Professional actors learn that they must speak one at a time and take care not to step on one another’s lines. But at the rehearsal for death entitled “Good-bye to a Pastor,” we can easily become so anxious that we overlap the lines of others, rendering us unable to hear them or ourselves.
Someday, back at home after our congregational good-bye, we will be able to perform our own separation and grief soliloquy. But during the weeks and months of pulling apart at church, a whole cast of characters competes to express their sadness, fear, confusion, anger, and relief. Old assumptions raise the anxiety level. What’s going on?
Some parishioners assume that pastors are God’s representatives. When we say we’re leaving, these folks may feel disbelief and denial. God is not supposed to change!
Some parishioners fear that a church’s entire mission will depart with their pastor. When a congregation “loses” a pastor who helped to enact a vibrant ministry, the grief can be pointed. Who will they be without this leader who loved and led them?
Most congregation members hope that their pastors will be human enough to know how to talk to them about real-life issues, yet godly enough to somehow rise above this world. When pastors say good-bye, we pull back the curtain a little on our interior selves. We reveal that we’re very human people with feelings about particular places and ministries.
It’s always hard to keep the “I’m just like everyone else” and “I’m set apart for a specific task” aspects of ourselves sorted out. The separation process makes the issue even more pointed. We face a dual challenge as we say good-bye—being both a pastor to our congregation and a friend to ourselves.
Ordination language proclaimed us to be set apart as the spiritual leader of a congregation. A congregation called us to lead them through this experience of our departure, just as they called us to shepherd them through other stages in the life of the parish, such as a building project or redevelopment. Leading can be very tricky in this time of change. It’s not easy to avoid slogging around in the muck of everyone else’s separation anxiety!
As we get ready to go, we’re just as prone to be sad, anxious, and scared as our congregation is. So while we’re leading them, we’re also figuring out how to take care of ourselves and our own separation anxiety. We also need a pastor to take care of our needs. It’s tempting to make our parishioners our sounding board for all our emotions—especially because they are so available—but that is unfair and confusing to the people we lead. Our congregation is not our pastor.
We need someone to support us from outside the congregation. Leaving sparks many reactions for us, from joy to distress. We need to find someone with whom we can be open and honest so that our feelings about departure don’t bleed all over the people whom we are called to serve. We need someone who has the distance, the perspective on our leaving, to remind us that even a dress rehearsal for death is not death itself. We are not dying; we are leaving. We need someone who is close enough, safe enough, brave enough to walk with us in our intense grieving. We feel an extra-large wallop of despair about losing our job, our congregation, and our colleagues all in one fell swoop, as well as relief, closure, and gratitude for the mission we accomplished together. We need someone, because we can’t simultaneously be the chaplain for others’ grief and the healer of our own grief. Someone from outside the congregation can help keep us from inadvertently confusing our issues with parishioners’ issues. We ultimately want to be there for parishioners but be somewhere else for ourselves.
Yes, each good-bye is a rehearsal for death. We feel your good-bye pain, Tristam Shandy. Saying good-bye to a congregation may be excruciating work. But here’s some news for you, Tristam, news that God taught us. Death comes whether or not we rehearse for it, and every death is a rehearsal for life. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).
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This article is adapted and excerpted from The Graceful Exit: A Pastor’s Journey from Goodbye to Hello by Mary C. Lindberg, copyright © 2012 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.
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In our ministries, we brushed up against holiness; so do we now, in our good-byes. Now we must pull apart the strands of self and role, individual and community. Now we must confront regrets, confusion, and dislocation. Now we must figure out where and who God is at this juncture in our lives.
But before we step out, God invites us in—into Word and Sacrament, into relationships, into our offices, and into our emotions about leaving. Within all these areas we look for answers to the big question we suddenly face: What makes a good good-bye?
As we leave our congregations, we have to discern how to wrap up our era of ministry. We need to figure out how to get out the door without regrets about not having acknowledged the good-bye or not paving the way for the next pastors. Each pastor will define his or her own good good-bye. But as unique as each of our good good-byes may be, we share much in common as pastors at this moment. All of us, in our leave takings, will face spiritual themes of fulfillment, surrender, community, legacy, and separation. We can face them together.
“Each goodbye is a rehearsal for death,” mourned Tristram Shandy in Laurence Sterne’s famous eighteenth-century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman. No wonder all of us pastors are nervous about our good-byes. Our robes and stoles can make our good-bye look like a dress rehearsal for death. We’d sooner not read from this script.
Professional actors learn that they must speak one at a time and take care not to step on one another’s lines. But at the rehearsal for death entitled “Good-bye to a Pastor,” we can easily become so anxious that we overlap the lines of others, rendering us unable to hear them or ourselves.
Someday, back at home after our congregational good-bye, we will be able to perform our own separation and grief soliloquy. But during the weeks and months of pulling apart at church, a whole cast of characters competes to express their sadness, fear, confusion, anger, and relief. Old assumptions raise the anxiety level. What’s going on?
Some parishioners assume that pastors are God’s representatives. When we say we’re leaving, these folks may feel disbelief and denial. God is not supposed to change!
Some parishioners fear that a church’s entire mission will depart with their pastor. When a congregation “loses” a pastor who helped to enact a vibrant ministry, the grief can be pointed. Who will they be without this leader who loved and led them?
Most congregation members hope that their pastors will be human enough to know how to talk to them about real-life issues, yet godly enough to somehow rise above this world. When pastors say good-bye, we pull back the curtain a little on our interior selves. We reveal that we’re very human people with feelings about particular places and ministries.
It’s always hard to keep the “I’m just like everyone else” and “I’m set apart for a specific task” aspects of ourselves sorted out. The separation process makes the issue even more pointed. We face a dual challenge as we say good-bye—being both a pastor to our congregation and a friend to ourselves.
Ordination language proclaimed us to be set apart as the spiritual leader of a congregation. A congregation called us to lead them through this experience of our departure, just as they called us to shepherd them through other stages in the life of the parish, such as a building project or redevelopment. Leading can be very tricky in this time of change. It’s not easy to avoid slogging around in the muck of everyone else’s separation anxiety!
As we get ready to go, we’re just as prone to be sad, anxious, and scared as our congregation is. So while we’re leading them, we’re also figuring out how to take care of ourselves and our own separation anxiety. We also need a pastor to take care of our needs. It’s tempting to make our parishioners our sounding board for all our emotions—especially because they are so available—but that is unfair and confusing to the people we lead. Our congregation is not our pastor.
We need someone to support us from outside the congregation. Leaving sparks many reactions for us, from joy to distress. We need to find someone with whom we can be open and honest so that our feelings about departure don’t bleed all over the people whom we are called to serve. We need someone who has the distance, the perspective on our leaving, to remind us that even a dress rehearsal for death is not death itself. We are not dying; we are leaving. We need someone who is close enough, safe enough, brave enough to walk with us in our intense grieving. We feel an extra-large wallop of despair about losing our job, our congregation, and our colleagues all in one fell swoop, as well as relief, closure, and gratitude for the mission we accomplished together. We need someone, because we can’t simultaneously be the chaplain for others’ grief and the healer of our own grief. Someone from outside the congregation can help keep us from inadvertently confusing our issues with parishioners’ issues. We ultimately want to be there for parishioners but be somewhere else for ourselves.
Yes, each good-bye is a rehearsal for death. We feel your good-bye pain, Tristam Shandy. Saying good-bye to a congregation may be excruciating work. But here’s some news for you, Tristam, news that God taught us. Death comes whether or not we rehearse for it, and every death is a rehearsal for life. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).
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This article is adapted and excerpted from The Graceful Exit: A Pastor’s Journey from Goodbye to Hello by Mary C. Lindberg, copyright © 2012 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.
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The Graceful Exit: One Pastor’s Journey from Good-bye to Hello
by Mary C. Lindberg
Pastors say goodbye to congregations. Sometimes their goodbyes are timely and sweet; sometimes they are jarring and painful. But as they leave, they face a unique journey of grief, one shaped by their role. They face both the outward grief of leaving people behind and the inward grief of leaving an identity behind. In The Graceful Exit , Lutheran pastor Mary Lindberg shares insights from her experience of ending her service to a congregation, as well as wisdom from other pastors who have changed their life work. .
by Mary C. Lindberg
Pastors say goodbye to congregations. Sometimes their goodbyes are timely and sweet; sometimes they are jarring and painful. But as they leave, they face a unique journey of grief, one shaped by their role. They face both the outward grief of leaving people behind and the inward grief of leaving an identity behind. In The Graceful Exit , Lutheran pastor Mary Lindberg shares insights from her experience of ending her service to a congregation, as well as wisdom from other pastors who have changed their life work. .
The Spirit’s Tether: Eight Lives in Ministry
by Malcolm L. Warford
The Spirit’s Tether: Eight Lives in Ministry tells the stories of eight men and women from their days as students at Union Theological Seminary in New York through their work today as pastors in local congregations over thirty years later. This book is a distinctive resource for ministers, congregational leaders, and those in theological education whose role it is to prepare women and men for their sojourns into ordained ministry. .
by Malcolm L. Warford
The Spirit’s Tether: Eight Lives in Ministry tells the stories of eight men and women from their days as students at Union Theological Seminary in New York through their work today as pastors in local congregations over thirty years later. This book is a distinctive resource for ministers, congregational leaders, and those in theological education whose role it is to prepare women and men for their sojourns into ordained ministry. .
A Time for a Change? Re-Visioning Your Call
by James E. Hightower Jr., W. Craig Gillia
Many professional ministers struggle at some point with the desire to pursue another career. Jim Hightower and Craig Gilliam have written this book for those at such a crossroads. Together they pose questions for clergy to consider in exploring their future, offer practical suggestions gathered from other ministers who have traveled this path, and share insights from their own experiences of career change.
by James E. Hightower Jr., W. Craig Gillia
Many professional ministers struggle at some point with the desire to pursue another career. Jim Hightower and Craig Gilliam have written this book for those at such a crossroads. Together they pose questions for clergy to consider in exploring their future, offer practical suggestions gathered from other ministers who have traveled this path, and share insights from their own experiences of career change.
Gifts of an Uncommon Life: The Power of Contemplative Activism
by Howard E. Friend, Jr.
This book of ten essays is a breath of fresh air, a source of inspiration, a wake-up call, and a bold challenge for pastors, congregational leaders, and church members—both active and lapsed—who long for a new perspective, even a touch of creative irreverence. Howard Friend offers forthright, at times disarming, candor as he shares his personal pilgrimage of activism rooted in contemplation.
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by Howard E. Friend, Jr.
This book of ten essays is a breath of fresh air, a source of inspiration, a wake-up call, and a bold challenge for pastors, congregational leaders, and church members—both active and lapsed—who long for a new perspective, even a touch of creative irreverence. Howard Friend offers forthright, at times disarming, candor as he shares his personal pilgrimage of activism rooted in contemplation.
____________________________________
Think Spring! Enroll now in one of these two Alban spring learning events.
Vision and Skills for a Long Pastorate
Skills and behaviors that lead to a long, effective relationship with a congregation.
April 9-11, 2013 | Simpsonwood Conference Center, Atlanta, GA
Leader: Ed White, Alban Consultant and author
Skills and processes for charting an effective and vital course in your congregation.
April 16-18, 2013 | Doubletree Airport hotel, Cincinnati, OH
Leader: Dan Hotchkiss, Alban senior consultant and author"What to Say When You Don't Know What's Next" by Lance Wallace
Skills and behaviors that lead to a long, effective relationship with a congregation.
April 9-11, 2013 | Simpsonwood Conference Center, Atlanta, GA
Leader: Ed White, Alban Consultant and author
April 16-18, 2013 | Doubletree Airport hotel, Cincinnati, OH
Leader: Dan Hotchkiss, Alban senior consultant and author"What to Say When You Don't Know What's Next" by Lance Wallace
Leadership transitions pose communication challenges. Consider these three questions in developing your strategy. Only two executives have stood at the helm of the 21-year-old Cooperative Baptist Fellowship(link is external), a Moses(link is external) and a Joshua(link is external).
I serve as the director of communications and marketing at CBF, and the uncertainty ahead has me pondering three questions about what our strategic messages should be.
What is the message to the faithful when the leader steps away?
Is it honest to speak definitively in the face of so many unknowns?
How do we stay focused on telling the story of God at work through Cooperative Baptist Fellowship?
Maybe you are wrestling with similar questions as you confront a transition of your own. Allow me to offer my responses to the three questions, and please, take a minute to respond with a comment below to offer yours:
First, I believe the message to the faithful during a time of transition needs to be two-fold: gratitude for the leader who is transitioning and discernment for future direction. Functional atheism should be avoided at all costs. It’s not OK to act like we and we alone are responsible for moving the Fellowship forward in the absence of Daniel Vestal(link is external). We must recognize that God is at work and discern how to follow where God is leading.
So in addition to news releases about interims and search committees, we are publishing personal blog entries from constituents(link is external) that offer perspective and reassurance. We let the 2012 Task Force(link is external), whose job was to outline a plan(link is external) for the Fellowship Community’s future, have center stage at our General Assembly(link is external) and openly talk about life after our executive coordinator’s retirement. The more transparent the transition, the more receptive your congregation or constituency is to your message.
We are also praying together and reminding each other through our tweets, blog posts, Facebook entries and conversations that God will see us through the transition.
Second, I believe it lacks integrity to use an authoritative voice in our communications during this transition. People know there are things we don’t know. They will not trust a message that tries to gloss over that fact or divert attention from the questions. Communicating through a transition means engaging the community in conversation. We must let constituents share their hopes, fears, dreams and calling. This intentional process does create buy-in, but it is also true to our core values that encourage openness and interactivity.
Third, I believe the stories of God at work through our Fellowship are all around us, and staying focused and ready to receive those stories is a spiritual discipline. I’m not one who approaches my rather pragmatic daily tasks with a mystic’s candle and the Book of Common Prayer open on my desk. But when an e-mail pops into my inbox from one of our field personnel or a pastor calls to let me know about a new ministry giving her congregation new life, I have to pay attention. That’s God at work. I need to share that story.
Life is full of transitions. As we navigate a significant one, I hope our message is one of hope and trust. God is still at work. I can’t say that enough right now.
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