Brian Croft features this pearler about how to spend year one in a new parish (especially for first time pastors):
“Preach the Word. Love the people. Don’t change anything.”
You can read the rest here to find all the necessary qualifications.
2004 in Mount Gambier Presbyterian was pretty similar to 2003.
My predecessor, Rod Waterhouse, had just concluded a ten year ministry and I determined to see what in the life of the church was of God and what was of Rod.
This isn’t a reflection against Rod; my general observation is that churches fall into patterns of behaviour because they share a conviction or, sometimes, because that’s just the way the minister preferred to do things.
You can learn which is which, because when the pastor moves on, the congregation simply go back to doing things the way they’d done them previously.
Sometimes, pointedly, the first Sunday after he’s gone, other times after a more respectful interval.
Over the course of the last nine years here there have been some changes.
Most of the time we’ve implemented them in a way that hasn’t made going back possible.
Or we’ve waited until there’s been significant acceptance of the change involved, along with an understanding of the reasons which necessitate it.
Ideas have been planted, and time and effort have seen those ideas cultivated into shared convictions.
I’m hopeful that the first Sunday after I’m gone will be a lot like the last Sunday that I’m here.
And that growth and change will go on from there.
I believe what made this process possible was because during that first year I also demonstrated that I shared the Congregation’s convictions and preferences in lots of discretionary matters.
I still miss some of that from which we’ve changed.
But our shared mission meant that keeping our preferences, when they were an impediment to our ministry and mission was not an option.
The congregation weren’t a problem to be solved, or obstacle to be negotiated.
They certainly didn’t need to be ‘fixed’.
They are friends and partners in Gospel work.
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