Why Your Church Might Need a Transitional Pastor

What if slowing down could actually speed up your church's progress? Todd Rhoades joins us on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast to challenge the conventional wisdom of rushing to find a new senior pastor. Learn how an interim pastor can be a transformative force, not just a stopgap. An interim pastor specializes in managing change and bringing renewal, healing, and strategic clarity to a congregation in transition. Todd shares insights on how these specialized leaders address unresolved conflicts, implement strategic planning, and ensure the health of the church body, paving the way for a successful and sustainable search for your next senior pastor.

Tune in to discover the myriad benefits of taking a thoughtful pause during pastoral transitions. Todd delves into real-life examples of how interim pastors have revitalized congregations by tackling outdated programs, facilitating difficult conversations, and creating a clean slate for incoming leaders. By investing in an interim pastor, your church can emerge from a period of uncertainty stronger and better prepared for future challenges. Don't miss this eye-opening episode that will change how you think about church leadership transitions and help you prepare for a thriving future.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes and you are listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today. Today we're going to be talking about a role that's often misunderstood and many times it's just underestimated in the church world, and that's the title of interim pastor. All right, so when most churches face a transition with their senior pastor, their first instinct is to rush out and find the permanent replacement. But what if I told you that hitting the pause button and thinking at least thinking about bringing in an interim pastor could be the best decision for your church's long-term health and vitality? Well, that's right. An interim pastor isn't just a placeholder, it's not just a temporary fix. They're really a specialist that's navigating transitions and they can be a seasoned guide who can help your church heal and grow and prepare for a thriving future. So why in the world would you want to hire an interim pastor? Why wouldn't you just go and hire your next long-term senior pastor? There are a few compelling reasons why your church might want to consider this. First of is just to strengthen your church. An interim pastor can create an atmosphere of renewal and healthy change, and an interim pastor can help your church identify and address any underlying issues, resolve any conflicts and rediscover your church's unique identity and purpose. And another thing that interim pastors do is they bring a real focus on tasks that need to be done during a change in leadership. So a good interim pastor is going to be really skilled at tackling these specific tasks that oftentimes are neglected during a regular pastorate and that's not saying anything bad about your last pastor. But an interim pastor can lead the strategic planning initiative. They can facilitate any tough conversations, difficult conversations that need to be had, and they can help implement some necessary changes to prepare the church for a brand new season of ministry and, ultimately, a new season of a new senior pastor. Okay, congregational health is another really good reason to consider. An interim pastor can prioritize the health of your church congregation and that can prevent a premature or impulsive search for a new pastor.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Sometimes, when a pastor leaves, particularly if it's someone that's been there a long time or if there's been a lot of conflict recently, just a time of reset can be really healthy and an interim pastor can help through that process. They can help your church heal from any past hurts that there might be. They might be able to address any underlying issues and they can really help develop a clear vision for the future. Also, sometimes you just need a transitional vision. Can I say that An interim pastor can guide your church in developing a clear, actionable vision for for the transition period and this vision will provide a roadmap for the future. It can outline specific goals and steps to take before embarking on a pastoral search. And then and finally and this is if it's if your church just went through a bad senior pastor exit, sometimes an interim pastor can come in and honestly help you just clean some house. The time between pastors is an ideal opportunity to clean house, to address some outdated programs, to address unresolved conflicts or lingering issues that may have been swept under the rug, sometimes even for years, and an interim pastor can help you tackle these issues and challenges head on. And here's what I really like about an interim pastor it really does allow the interim will allow to create a kind of a clean slate for the new pastor, so the new pastor doesn't have to come in and deal with anything, because the interim pastor is hopefully taking care of some of that.

Speaker 1: 4:14

And I know some of you might be thinking, todd, won't an interim pastor delay the process in finding a new leader and often actually the opposite. Thinking, todd, won't an interim pastor delay the process in finding a new leader? And often actually the opposite can be true. By investing in an interim pastor, you're really laying the groundwork for a more successful and a more sustainable pastoral search, and sometimes it just takes a church time to heal, time to clarify its vision, time to address underlying issues, and it's better equipped to identify the right kind of leader for its unique needs and context. After this interim period of kind of seeing how things go, it leads to really a lot of times, a more intentional and fruitful search process and it results in better long-term fit between the pastor and the congregation in the long term. So here's your bottom line An interim pastor is don't think of it as a band-aid situation. It's not. It's a strategic investment in the future of your church and if you embrace a season of transition as an opportunity for growth and for healing and renewal, you can really, using an interim pastor, can set your church up for a thriving future under the leadership of, eventually, a new long-term senior pastor.

Speaker 1: 5:27

We deal with succession plans and pastoral transitions all day, every day at Chemistry, staffing, and we've heard a lot of different stories. Every church has a story, every pastor has a story. But if you're facing, if you're a senior pastor and you're facing a transition and want to talk to somebody about a succession plan, or maybe your church just had a pastor retire or a senior pastor leave and you're thinking even about hiring an interim pastor or just want to talk to somebody about what the options are, I would encourage you to just reach out to me at podcastchemistrystaffing. I'm here to help you navigate whatever season you're in, hopefully with some wisdom and grace and a focus on long-term health and vitality for your church. So reach out to me anytime, podcastchemistrystaffingcom. I hope this has been helpful to you. Give me, give you maybe a little different insight on the advantages of an interim pastor and the potential for your church, and I hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're here every day, monday through Friday. Hope you'll join us tomorrow.