By Jerrie Barber
The concept of having a preacher for a planned
short time after a long ministry is foreign to many people. To some members of the church, if we don’t have a full-time preacher with a long-term commitment, we are “spinning our wheels.” Many churches have done well without an intentional interim. One the other hand, many preachers have been hurt and many congregations have suffered because the leaders hurriedly selected a man who became an unintentional interim—a preacher who was brought in after a long ministry of a faithful preacher or after conflict in the congregation and was soon rejected through no fault of his own.
When might it be good to bring in a trained preacher who will agree to stay for a limited time, give stability in the pulpit, and prepare the church for the next full-time preacher?
Ronald G. Brown wrote in an article on Intentional Interims:
An Intentional Interim Minister is needed if a church finds itself in one or more of the following situations:

  1. The minister served seven or more years before leaving.
  2. The minister resigned under pressure (a forced termination).
  3. The minister’s resignation was requested due to ethical or moral
misconduct.
  4. The minister departed in the midst of severe conflict within the church.
  5. The church has not conducted a self-study of its structure, history,
priorities, mission, or vision in the last five years.
  6. The church has a pattern of the last two ministers leaving after having served the church for only 2-3 years (Ronald G. Brown, © Intentional Interim is copyrighted by Interim Ministry Network, Inc., Baltimore, MD).

When your preacher leaves, what happens next? Often the initial response is to immediately begin looking for another preacher. If the previous preacher had been at the congregation five years or more, the next preacher is frequently rejected. Why? If the alternator goes out on my car, I want it fixed. I take it to the mechanic; he removes the old, installs the new, and my car is fixed.
But people are not machines. Suppose that there are two couples in their fifties. A man in one couple and the woman in the other die within a few months of each other. It might be great for the surviving spouses to marry each other. Natural wisdom says that they need to wait a few months after the funeral. The emotional process of grief takes some time. One relationship needs to be processed and grieved before a new one is started for the new one to be most effective.
Interim ministry is designed for the transition. I have been trained to help a church experience spiritual and emotional growth during this period. When working with a church, I agree not to consider or be considered as the next full-time preacher. We will work together six to eighteen months to prepare the church and next preacher to grow together to God’s glory.
From my practice, interim ministry is not just “fill-in preaching.” My wife Gail and I live in the community. I work with the elders and those they select to evaluate the congregation and the strengths the next preacher needs to help them do the work of the Lord. I believe one of the most spiritual things a person can do is to think. A survey asks each member of the congregation to think and report on participation, outreach, beliefs, evaluation of the worship and work of the church, and many questions about the qualities and expectations of the next preacher for this congregation.
A Transition Monitoring Team taps into the grapevine of the church and relates to the elders what many are thinking. This group of twenty people—ten chosen by the elders and ten volunteers—meet once a month. After setting group structure, we report, without names attached, what individual members have heard from others during the past month. What have you heard from people: What are they saying? What are they asking? What do they fear? What are they losing? What are their hopes?
Team members discuss how they are dealing with this transition and other transitions in their lives. We read a book called Transitions by William Bridges, to learn more about the process we are experiencing. Each month, the members of the transition team share a “mustard seed” they learned from the chapter they read. The third part of the meeting is each person sharing the answer to the question: How are you dealing with this transition and other transitions in your life?
One of the benefits to the congregation is the strengths and specialties of the interim minister. I enjoy teaching leadership classes. One is God’s Great Servants from Jesus’ statement in Matthew 20:25-28 that great people are servants, slaves. This is composed of men (of all ages) of the church for ninety minutes on Wednesday nights for three months. We study and discuss leadership prayers, leadership projects, and leadership principles. Special attention is directed to how people behave in groups and how influence is given and received. Another class, Learning to Love my Friend(s), is taught in homes in groups of about twelve. We meet for two and a half hours and look at Jesus as our Friend. How can be better appreciate Him as our Friend? How can we be a friend to others as He is a friend to us? How can we tell others about our Friend? I like to start with elders, staff, and spouses. I then lead other classes as time permits.
Gail is involved to the extent she is needed. In our interim ministry, which started in May 2007, she has taught ladies’ Bible classes, pre-school, and children’s Bible classes as well as participating in the regular work of the congregation in visitation and providing hospitality to those who visit in our apartment and attend fellowship meals.
If there has been more than normal conflict, I spend many hours in the first weeks interviewing people who can help me understand what has been happening in the congregation. This information is shared with the elders, maintaining the appropriate confidentiality of the people providing the information.
When it is time to begin the search, I conduct a Saturday training class for the elders and any helpers they select as a search committee. The focus of this class is to begin to form this group as a faithful, trusting team that will look for the best fit in a preacher for this congregation. One of the first tasks is to learn to tell the truth in love about what we think and feel. The second mission of this training is to look for the true qualities, both positive and negative, of the candidates and the congregation. This includes good interviews, background checks for the top men being considered, extensive reference checks, and full disclosure of the strengths and weaknesses of the congregation. I don’t believe a preacher is ready to move to a congregation or a congregation is ready to select a preacher until each knows not only what they like about each other but also what they don’t like about each other and how they with deal with both. The third part of the training is to emphasize that we treat the men who are considered but not selected as we would like to be treated under the same circumstance. It is not Christian to be less than honest or fail to keep promises to preachers who do not come.
After the training, the group is ready to start looking for a good fit. It is my commitment that I will help with the process but I will not be involved in selecting the next preacher.
One of the essentials of my interim ministry is that I sign a contract that I will not consider or be considered as the next full-time preacher for that congregation. I like to leave about a month before the new preacher begins.
To learn more about this process, see my web site: www.barberclippings.com. There are many resources for preachers con