Excellent Matches
Some matches of pastors and congregations can be recognized as excellent matches from the first day. Everyone worked well in the search for the new pastor — with wisdom and judgment, vision and compassion, common sense and prayer — to achieve an excellent match. They knew from early on that this was an excellent match. From the beginning they resonated well together...They began to love one another. The competencies of the pastor and of the congregation reinforced one another. They began to discover a mutual mission together. They are growing whole, healthy lives together.
Regrettably some matches are excellent mismatches from the first day. No one intends to create a mismatch. Indeed, everyone works bard to avoid this predicament. Yet, for whatever reasons, sometimes it happens. We see, early on, that there is no resonance, no likelihood for an excellent match.
Sometimes, the harder a pastor, a congregation, and a denominational leader work to avoid creating a mismatch, the more likely it is to slip through. We get too tense and tight, nervous and anxious. We forget the many solid matches that grow and develop. We remember the mismatches that have happened.
We become too anxious that everything must work really well, almost exactly and perfectly, from the first minute. We do not give ourselves, as pastor and congregation, time to grow and develop together. Instead, what happens is that our old friend, compulsion toward perfectionism, shows up. We try too hard. We are not relaxed. The result is that we head toward an excellent mismatch.
Most matches are somewhere in the middle. They are neither immediate excellent matches nor obvious mismatches. They are possibilities that can go either way.
Overall, there are more immediate excellent matches than there are excellent mismatches. The excellent matches are constructively off and running. What helps is for us to deliver the gift of encouragement to these beginning excellent matches. However, regrettably, we often become preoccupied with the excellent mismatches. Amid much noise and confusion, we allow them to take up considerable time. Denominational leaders are called in to adjudicate and referee, console and consult. Community grapevines feed on them.
All this attention creates the illusion that there are more excellent mismatches than really exist. In reality, there are more excellent matches. Moreover, the majority of calling and appointive matches are neither immediate excellent matches nor excellent mismatches. The majority of matches are in the middle; they have the possibility of moving one way or the other. The best contribution of calling and appointive processes is to create this constructive possibility. With this possibility, the responsibility lies with the pastor and congregation to move forward to develop a healthy, excellent match.
At their best, calling and appointive processes primarily seek to create this possibility. They have done solid work when, as in the vast majority of openings, they accomplish this. Whenever denominational leaders place upon themselves the burden that they must create an excellent match, they are laying too much upon themselves. Further, the effort takes away from the pastor and congregation's ownership for developing together an excellent match.
Ownership is key. it is the task of the pastor and the congregation, given an excellent possibility, to grow and develop — with one another — an excellent match. It is not the task of the denomination to deliver the excellent match. Even if the denomination could do so, the pastor and the congregation would have no ownership for that excellent match. It is decisive that the pastor and the congregation participate together in growing a healthy, excellent match.
The Relationship
People have a longing for a pastor who genuinely cares with and for them. In a larger sense, people do long for, and look for, a good shepherd, a helpful preacher, a wise and caring leader, and a community pastor. The basic longing is for whole healthy relationships of compassion between the pastor and the congregation.
The foundation of leading is love. People long for and look for a pastor who puts people first, who cares more about helping them with their lives than about the survival of an institution or the growth of an organization. People growth is more helpful than church growth.
A house does not make a home; people do. A building does not make a church; people do. A chart does not make a church; people do. Begin not with the plant or the policies, but with the people. 1 Corinthians 13 does not end with the words, "Now institution, organization, and church growth abide, these three; and the greatest of these is church growth." The text is very clear: Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
Mutual Ministry Goals for Pastors ("The Lord looks on the heart." [1 Samuel 16.7])
- Helping persons to discover and claim power in their lives and destinies.
- Helping persons to construct communities of reconciliation, wholeness, caring, and justice — in the name of Christ.
- Helping persons to embrace a theological direction and specific, shared purposes.
- Helping persons to intentionally meet specific, concrete human hurts and hopes - both societal and individual in the world.
What Makes an Excellent Match?
Falling in Love
- The pastor and the people develop a healthy, constructive relationship of trust, respect, appreciation, and genuine love with one another. They live with the desire to nurture a whole, healthy life together with the grace of God.
A Good Fit
- The pastor's competencies mesh with the objectives and hopes of the congregation and the congregation's mission in the community. Pastors and congregations bridge their strengths and objectives to discover a mutually advantageous way forward.
Mutual Growth
- The pastor and the people resonate well together is if they are mutually growing in the mission. Mission growth is different from church growth. Mission growth has to do with the persons we are serving in mission in the wider community — helping them with their lives and destinies in the name of Christ. The compelling question is, "Who is God inviting us to serve in mission?" People who are helping other people get along with one another better.
Growing Whole and Healthy Lives
- The pastor and people are experiencing the grace of God, the compassion of Christ, and the healing hope of the Holy Spirit. They are advancing the gifts and competencies with which God is blessing them. Healthy people develop healthy congregations. Healthy congregations develop healthy people.
Exerpted from A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations: Building an Excellent Match upon Your Shared Strengths by Kennon L. Callahan. Jossey-Bass 1999.