Category Archives: What I Am Learning

March 26, 2025 · 8:47 am

Practicing a Third Ordinance

I have often said that “being Baptist is messy”. One could understand this statement about Baptist-ness in more than one way. Baptists are messy because we are an interdependent group of churches who value autonomy over hierarchy. (There is no One greater Baptist Church, just many churches). We are messy in our congregational polity, giving each member a voice and vote. But maybe we are our messiest in our historic toleration of varied opinions and outlooks that exist within a congregation, or denomination, of people. As such Baptists have been organized, in whatever fashion that organization takes, to appreciate the “big tent” of “differents” (different opinions, viewpoints, experiences and people) that we tend to be.

A characteristic that allows this to be part of both our heritage and our present is the appreciation for dissent. What is dissent? Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity (i.e. congregation) or individual. (source: Wikipedia.org)

For example, when the United States Supreme court delivers a split opinion in which a majority of the justices rule one way, while a minority see the issue another – the minority are invited to write and share the “dissenting” opinion. In this way, if the ruling is 5-4 or 6-3, those in the minority are still afforded the opportunity to articulate another viewpoint, even if that viewpoint will not be followed.

In Baptist life this reality of dissent often exists within congregational meetings and votes. I will not forget one of my first congregational meetings as a pastor when two respected laymen voiced opposite opinions on some matter that was before the church. Each man was listened to respectfully by the congregation, then a vote was taken resulting in one man’s opinion carrying the majority. After the meeting the two men met and shook hands, as the man whose minority opinion had been rejected said, “I may not agree with you, but I will support the will of the congregation”. That is about as civil an example of dissent as you can hope for as a pastor!

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March 12, 2025 · 11:43 am

What We Learned Surviving a Home Renovation

In 2024 my wife and I survived a home renovation project. In all reality, our project was relatively smooth and pretty painless. But we did learn some things. After talking about it for over four years, gathering multiple bids and opinions; we finally signed on the dotted line and ventured into the partial finish of our basement and remodel of our kitchen. All told we added just shy of 1,000 square feet of living space to our home.

The wisest thing we did was hire a professional builder/contractor and his crew to complete the project. We knew this was far beyond our scope, expertise and learning curve. We wanted the benefit of someone with a good track record who would tackle the project with a reasonable projected start and stop date, disrupting our home life some, but not drastically. Making the decision to work with a professional and his team was likely the smartest decision we made.

We were told to expect roughly a 90 day start to finish timeline. That was exceeded only by a couple of weeks – not bad. The fact that I was able to be on-site much of the time was a plus, as I could answer questions, ask questions, run errands, receive deliveries, and make sure things were secure and buttoned up at the end of the day. These things became one of my part-time jobs for the final quarter of the year, and just a given in our routine through that time.

Here are some of the things we learned in surviving our home renovation project:
• Always get dressed when you get up in the morning. You never know when the doorbell is going to ring or who is going to show up at or in your house ready to work.
• When the project manager tells you they can do the new kitchen cabinet install in about 3 or 4 days, he really means 4 weeks.
• You can wash dishes in the bathtub, although it doesn’t do much for your back.
• Make sure you time your kitchen reno with a plan to sample the restaurants and fast-food outlets of your city.
• It’s amazing what you can make with a microwave, slow cooker and little creative thinking.
• If you opt to forgo the porta potty (in respect for the neighbors) and offer your half-bath instead, just figure on that half-bath becoming exclusive to the crew!
• Even the best intentions of a project manager or contractor to cover and protect your floors will not be failproof. There’s going to be some wear and tear on the parts of your home that are not being updated!
• Do not assume workers will be as concerned about turning lights off or locking doors as you.
• Be flexible, flexible and then flexible.
• Don’t make a decision without checking with your spouse first!
• That contingency budget? You’re probably going to need it!
• Just keep telling yourself how nice it will be when the project is done. It will be!

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March 4, 2025 · 8:54 am

What I Learned Serving as an Interim Pastor

There is a unique role within congregational ministry, occupied by many yet only truly fulfilled by some. It’s the role of the Interim Pastor. The interim pastor serves between called pastorates in congregational life, as a search team is active guiding the church toward identification and call of its next pastoral leader. In this sense, interim work is liminal in nature – existing in a threshold space in which the interim pastor is helping the congregation look both backward and forward.

Today the position is given additional names like “transitional pastor” or “acting pastor”, but I prefer the term “interim”. Interim clearly identifies, from the beginning, that this is designed as a temporary role. From the moment you say “hello” to a congregation as their interim pastor, you know you will sooner than later be saying “goodbye”. And, if you do your work well, you will leave them prepared for their next chapter.

In order to do this, interim pastors do far more than simply fill the pulpit on Sunday. If you only have someone doing that for your church, you have a supply pastor, not an interim. The work of the interim pastor extends beyond the preaching task, though through preaching much of the work can be addressed, but not if the preacher is only a Sunday guest.

In their notebook on the tasks of Interim Ministry, American Baptist Churches USA list these five objectives interim leaders should help a congregation work through:

  1. Coming to Terms with its History
  2. Discovering a New Identity
  3. Shifts of Power
  4. Rethinking Denominational Linkage
  5. Commitments to New Leadership and a New Future

In my own interim ministry I tried to champion each of these tasks in various ways including through worship/preaching, Bible study, and working alongside congregational leadership. I’m not sure how successful I was in achieving these tasks to the degree that I had hoped, but at least those in leadership knew they were part of the objective of our shared time together.

In this reflection, however, I’d like to speak to some other level learnings from the interim experience. One might call these the “softer” or less objectified learnings that can take place in such a crucial time in the life of a church. So, here are some of things I learned while serving as an Interim Pastor:

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February 25, 2025 · 9:17 am

What I have learned being in the minority

I believe everyone should experience being in the minority at times. It has much to teach us. Admittedly, I write this as one who has spent almost the entirety of my life as part of the privileged majority. If that seems too much of a “woke” statement for you, hear me out. I am a white, male American who has a higher education and has occupied positions of authority others often defer to in respect for the office if not the occupant. This alone has positioned me as a person of privilege and influence most of my life. It is a position I’ve occupied somewhat by fate, having been born into my culture and socioeconomic state. But I have also built on the foundation I was born into with certain efforts of self-improvement. While I try not to take my status for granted, or abuse it, I begin this reflection, admitting it.

That said, there have been several times in my life in which I’ve found myself in the minority. Almost always these have been learning opportunities, causing me to pause and reflect on life from the viewpoint of another. I’d like to share just a few of them.

Mission trips: I have been blessed to have participated in short-term mission trips to Mexico, Haiti, and Chile as part of ministry groups I’ve led or joined. While these trips took place in the security of like-lived groups of people, and under the direction of western missionaries sensitive to our places of origin, each offered moments in which I became acutely aware of my minority status.

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February 18, 2025 · 2:28 pm

Gardening by Dynamite or Cultivation

As a student of change theory and practitioner of leading change in pastoral ministry, I’m often curious about the methods leaders use when it comes to leading a group, be that a congregation, school, community or nation, through change. I debate my own success in that effort over many years and with several institutions. Some might say, those who can’t – teach or write! But I’ll leave it to others to evaluate my record of success as a change agent. What I want to reflect on in this article is how and why a very different approach to leading change, than I ever tried to utilize, seems to be in vogue today, and why it may just be the most dangerous leadership process of all.

First let me share the image of a change leader that I am most comfortable with and have tried to employ over my vocational career. It’s the image of a gardener, one who works in the midst of the garden (congregation, people, community or group) as part of them, faithfully doing the things gardeners do: cultivating, trimming and pruning, weeding, feeding, fertilizing, watering, training and harvesting. If a gardener came into his or her garden one day, mid growing season, and went scorched earth, ripping out plants alongside of weeds (I think Jesus cautioned about that), or taking a weed eater to all the vegetation, or applying weed killer to everything; the gardener wouldn’t have anything left to work with. That may well have been the gardeners intent, but the entire garden would become in the matter of a short timeframe, a do-over. Years and seasons of growth, cultivation, produce and discovery would be wiped out all at once. The biosphere of the garden would be in shock. The clear-cut approach would be as if a bomb (sticks of dynamite) had been set off, rendering what had once been, no more.

Some people lead change in this way. They fancy themselves “disrupters” and set about using the only tool they carry in their toolbelt – the tool of disruption – overturning, uprooting, clear-cutting whatever lies in the way. The rationale is often that things have become corrupt or broken beyond tweaking. Maybe, they say, the organization is too far down the lifecycle of decline and it’s better to start fresh, do away with, and go scorched earth. Never mind that this is a garden, and the earth (soil) matters. Never mind that some plants have been very productive, some growth extremely lush, and others at least faithful in their rootage if not always the most abundant.

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