Interim Ministry Lectionary Preaching

ShortStop is dedicated to life's transitions experienced in congregations, personal life, and families.  Transitions and what churches call "interim ministry" are "short stops" on the journey to new beginnings.  The ShortStop Lectionary Blog is one way to help preachers in the transition times to find ideas from the Revised Common Lectionary.  Each text will be considered but the focus each week will be on the text(s) that will be most helpful for preaching during an interim transition time. The preacher will be able to "connect the dots" creatively with themes of the lections. 

 

Proper 5 (10)

Second Sunday after Pentecost

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

I wonder what it would be like to approach this text using an “interim ministry transition lens”.   Most of us see change and transition as something that may be good but it involves chaos and difficulty.  Paul’s response to the Corinthian congregation’s questions about Apostleship and Paul’s authenticity as an apostle is one that move the reader from old to new.  Everything, even leadership change in the congregation is to increase the glory of God (v.15). We don’t lose heart in the midst of our difficulty because something new is already emerging 4:18-5:1).

It might be interesting to point to the “new” that is emerging.  In one interim congregation, they were challenged by being all Caucasian in a mostly African American community.  One of their future stories was to become more multi-cultural.  One Sunday, the Vacation Bible School children and leaders presented a recap of the week for the congregation.  As I looked at the ages, the various racial and ethnic backgrounds, I realized that the future was already emerging.  The emergence was not the way they had planned, but it was real.

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)

After a long pastoral search process, I heard one of the congregation’s  search group say, “choosing a pastor is like “casting lots”.  Interim transition congregations have an abundance of protocols and handbooks full of wisdom for choosing a pastor. However, even with all that guidance, pastoral selection is, in the end, and act of faith.   Samuel’s call to select Israel’s first monarch gives us some interesting connections for preaching during the interim transition.  

Samuel was the last of the Judges and a huge change was underway in governance.  The people were demanding a king “like the other nations”.  Samuel’s sons, the heirs apparent to his role as Judge and spiritual leader in Israel’s theocratic form of governance were not acceptable.  Samuel was old and his sons did not “follow in his ways”. 

It was time for a “change in leadership”.  How often have we heard that line?  I can’t help but wonder at how easy it is to leave God out of the process.  The people wanted a human king like the other nations. God as king was nice in theory but not in practice.   Verse 7 records, “and the LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. “it is I whom they are rejecting…”  Pastoral search is a discernment process – sometimes it is a struggle to keep God in that process also.  Corporate processes, leadership inventories and interviewing techniques can easily push prayer and silence to the second chair.  

Bob Anderson
Toledo, OH 
 Interim Ministry Specialist
 Life Coach for Ministry Professionals
 

http://shortstopblog.blogspot.com/ 

www.breakthroughlifecoach.org 

Year B First Sunday after Pentecost/Trinity

ShortStop is dedicated to life's transitions experienced in congregations, personal life, and families.  Transitions and what churches call "interim ministry" are "short stops" on the journey to new beginnings.  The ShortStop Lectionary Blog is one way to help preachers in the transition times to find ideas from the Revised Common Lectionary.  Each text will be considered but the focus each week will be on the text(s) that will be most helpful for preaching during an interim transition time. The preacher will be able to "connect the dots" creatively with themes of the lections.

Year B - Season after Pentecost
Trinity Sunday / First Sunday after Pentecost

Trinity Sunday

 Trinity Sunday marks the fullness of God's revelation in that mysterious, yet wondrous, nature of God in three persons.  Following Pentecost it is a kind of capstone for the new chapter of transition to the fullness of God's work with all peoples of all languages and cultures. 

For interim transition congregations, Trinity Sunday preaching can be a reminder that God is fully present with us at all times - God is big enough to be the Sovereign - Creator, and "small" enough to engage with our humanity - incarnation, and loving enough to pour the Holy Spirit into our hearts (Romans 5).  

  

Isaiah 6:1-8,  Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

Each of these texts declare the common theme of God's initiative of grace in the transition to the new call of God. God's grace is manifest in the cleansing and call to Isaiah. Grace is a gift of the Spirit in our adoption as God's own. Finally, grace is a gift from God that births us into a new way of life, thinking, and comment.

Here are some connections that come to me: 

The interim congregation may hear from Isaiah the call to part with the old ways that don't work and have led the people away from God. Isaiah's call was to lead the people back "home". This is both coming to terms with history and a future story of new possibilities.  The call was heard in the midst of holy worship. This is a rich vein to mine as you consider the possibilities of worship as powerful moment for God to birth new life into a congregation in pastoral leadership transition.

The interim congregation may hear from Paul in Romans the deep story of identity as God's own that enriches the local congregational narrative:  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. The fear of moving into an unknown future with new leaders creates anxiety that will move us back to our default position of "fear" or call forth the "spirit of adoption".


The interim congregation my also hear from Jesus conversation with Nicodemus an invitation to be "born anew".  This dialogue has layers of metaphors but insists on God's prior action that calls us to a new way of being and living.  Nicodemus was driven by a curiosity about Jesus words of new life. He also seems to have a yearning or hunger to explore. Like many of our congregants, he is balanced gingerly on the thin tight rope between head and heart, logic and hope.  This may be a preaching opportunity for exploring a process of discernment - how do we begin to hear God's will for what God's desire for us to be and do?

Bob Anderson
Toledo, OH

http://shortstopblog.blogspot.com/ 

www.breakthroughlifecoach.org 

Year B - Easter - Day of Pentecost : Revised Common Lectionary

Day of Pentecost, May 27, 2012

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The valley of dry bones is one that most of us encounter at some time in our lives.  My long ago transition between being a radio drive time "on air" personality (which supplemented church salary) to the commitment to follow in ministry was such a valley for me.  I lived “in between” the two. That “in between” time needed a commitment from me to stay in the past or to move forward to new life. I don’t recall the exact sequence but the General Manager of a large station in the city heard my afternoon drive show. He called me while I was on air waiting for the network news to finish.  He offered me a job with his top FM regional station. I was tempted big time - a big station, union shop, residuals on voice-overs. I was in the wilderness and needed a prophet.

 I don’t recall who it was or the context, but God did send a prophet.  Someone I respected “prophesied” to me saying simply, “where has God called you? That's your answer.”   Those words were the wind of  prophetic breath that rattled my bones. The brittle became strong, the weak faith muscles bulked up, I began to think what I had never thought, say what I had never said and did what I had never done. 

Interim process congregations will often feel like they are in the valley of dry bones, waiting for the breath of fresh Spirit breath of my interim pastor leadership, preaching or conversation.  The sermon approach I am going to take this Pentecost is “listening for and speaking the prophetic word”.  And that’s when we will start to “rock and roll”.   

 Acts 2:1-21

This classic narrative may get too familiar over time. Reading through the "lens" of transitional ministry gave me a couple new thoughts.

Every interim ministry joins a congregational system that has it's own customs, rituals, patterns. I will say that these add up to a unique congregational "language".  The interim leader joins this system as an outsider with her own "language".   Pentecost drives home the importance of Holy Spirit passion and power of communicating good news in a time of congregational discontinuity. The challenge of one preaching approach might be to focus on what it takes to understand one another in times of turmoil. How can we experience anew the Pentecost Spirit for those moments?

Romans 8:22-27

 Our ancient faith ancestors were deeply torn by the transition to the new work of God through the Spirit. Gatherings of believers formed. The Holy Spirit witnessed to the all embracing love of God by being manifest in the lives of Jews and Gentiles alike. Their conflict stories abound in Acts and the early epistles of the New Testament.  

God's new work in our interim congregations can often elicit much the same response of "maybe", "not now", "no".  The latter is most difficult and troublesome for the pastor's own life as we seek to faithfully lead the people of God.  Dr. James E. Dittes, whose life once adorned Yale Theological Seminary proposed that the "no" of God's people was the "groaning of the Spirit" (Romans 8: 26) who was praying and birthing the new in the midst of the old (When the People Say No, 2004 by Wipf & Stock Publishers - older versions are available from used book sellers ). This perspective puts an element of hope into the transitions of life.  I admit to working without a direct quote and page number but the Amazon link is http://www.amazon.com/When-People-Say-No-Conflict/dp/1592447805      Dr. David Sawyer of Louisville Presbyterian Seminary picks up this same theme in his very insightful volume, Hope in Conflict (Pilgrim Press, 2007). Using Moltmann's theology of hope, David puts together an energizing methodology for life in times of conflict.

It now occurs to me that Pentecost is a watershed moment in the life of God's people.  As such, it is bound to create conflict and turmoil as the new life shatters the earthen clay jar of my life and that of the congregation.


 Bob Anderson
Interim Ministry Specialist
Leadership Coach of Ministry Professionals
Toledo, OH

http://shortstopblog.blogspot.com/ 

www.breakthroughlifecoach.org 

Year B – Easter 7 May 20, 2012 - Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

ShortStop is dedicated to life's transitions experienced in congregations, personal life, and families.  Transitions and what churches call "interim ministry" are "short stops" on the journey to new beginnings.  The ShortStop Lectionary Blog is one way to help preachers in the transition times to find ideas from the Revised Common Lectionary.  Each text will be considered but the focus each week will be on the text(s) that will be most helpful for preaching during an interim transition time. The preacher will be able to "connect the dots" creatively with themes of the lections.

Year B – Easter 7 May 20, 2012

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 • 1 John 5:9-13 • John 17:6-19

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Here is an interim transition leadership passage if ever there was one!  A new apostolic leader was needed for the early fellowship. Judas was gone and through a process of drawing straws, the lot fell to Matthias. Congregations select new pastors and staff. The also select Elders, Deacons, Vestry and Council members and more.

The preacher may go a variety of directions with this. Preparing for new leadershipe is the focus for the preacher.  The interim transition congregation is preparing for a new relationship with a leader who is yet unknown.  The disciples believed they needed to fill the hole left by Judas. And the Holy Spirit is actively involved. There were no signs and wonders but the Spirit lurks in the background of the pericope.

Theses disciples had one critical qualification – one who had been with the resurrected Jesus.  This qualification leaps out from the page for me – one who met the resurrected Jesus.  The leaders were to be ones who had first hand testimony to the resurrection.  I also suspect this means the leaders were to have a spiritual vitality because of the experience of an encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus.  One sermon approach may be this focus on how we can nurture our spiritual lives and the practices that draw us close to God. This is a much different approach than looking for a “warm body” who will say, “ye”,  to being an officer in the church.

The selection process belies Roberts Rules of Order. They prayed.  Then drew straws.  The discernment process is probably no more crude than a majority vote. In the end, each method depends on God calling through the people and the activity of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

-          Bob Anderson, Toledo, OH

 

http://shortstopblog.blogspot.com/ 

www.breakthroughlifecoach.org 

Easter 6, Year B  May 13, 2012

Psalm 98

Sometimes the ideas that come spontaneously can be the most fun (to me, anyway!). This Psalm jumped off the page as a celebration of God’s work in an interim transition congregation’s history.  In my mind I could see the Psalm being a kind of litany with the verses punctuated with a brief sentence describing a celebration of the congregation’s coming to terms with its history. Here’s a sample of what came to me. You can adapt it for your own setting. I won’t use the whole psalm but the repeated refrain is, “O sing to the LORD a new song, for God has done marvelous things”.  In a setting with smaller numbers of people, these might be spontaneous, rather than planned or written.  Or, a group of members could help plan worship and write a liturgy with the celebrations written out.

One:      O sing to the LORD a new song, for God has done marvelous things.

              Someone reads a brief celebration, e.g. “God has been good to us and met our needs for     

              new church school teachers last year!

     

  All:       O sing to the LORD a new song, for God has done marvelous things.

  One:    The LORD has made known God’s victory and has revealed God’s vindication in  the   

               sight of the nations.

               A member then celebrates, e.g.  God has been faithful over our generations and we   

              celebrate the multiple generations who witness to the Good News as we gather to

              worship!

   All:     O sing to the LORD a new song, for God has done marvelous things.

Continue on using all the verses of the Psalm or select the most meaningful for your group. Oh, by the way, loud and joyful reading works best!

Acts 10:44-48

Luke gives hints of what is to come in the ministry to Gentiles.  These are the “outsiders” and the “new people” who didn’t know how things have always been done!  Transitions shift the patterns of congregational life.  The informal communication web of links will break in places.  Members who haven’t been active in years suddenly show up to be nominated to the Pastoral Nominating Committee. Without the pastor’s presence some members will feel abandoned.

At the same time, leadership change tends to open up the congregational system. This is a fruitful time to recruit and train those new leaders who are often on the margins or marginalized. 

A preaching approach could be to put a lens up to our resistance to including new people even though we say we want to include them.  It seems the ministry of the Holy Spirit helps to make these first disciples very intentional in their inclusiveness.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is evident in seemingly miraculous ways.  I wonder if this is to be the norm rather than the exception?   In any event, I am prompted to think that for congregations in transition there are shifts in power as the system changes.  Luke moves us to the power of the Spirit rather than our human power.  These new Gentiles experienced Jesus “power with” people and not our tendency to have “power over” others.

Bob Anderson

Toledo, OH

Interim Transtitions Lectionary Connections Easter 5B May 6

ShortStop is dedicated to life's transitions experienced in congregations, personal life, and families.  Transitions and what churches call "interim ministry" are "short stops" on the journey to new beginnings.  The ShortStop Lectionary Blog is one way to help preachers in the transition times to find ideas from the Revised Common Lectionary.  Each text will be considered but the focus each week will be on the text(s) that will be most helpful for preaching during an interim transition time. The preacher will be able to "connect the dots" creatively with themes of the lections.

Easter B5, May 6, 2012

Acts 8:26-40

Times of congregational leadership transition are full of turmoil as the familiar ways give way to the shifting sands of change.  Luke creates vivid accounts of the turbulent movements of transition for the early followers of Jesus.  That transition of post resurrection life in Acts 8 has a steady beat of already established spiritual practices that set the stage to hear God's call and the Spirit's promptings.  The Ethiopian is already in the habit of reading scripture and Philip leverages that practice for revelation and teaching. Baptism was not an unfamiliar ritual and Philip quickly utilized that practice.  One movement in preaching and worship leadership might be to emphasize the spiritual practices that nurture the life of the church.  That same thrust could include time to become familiar anew with the rich teaching content of "rituals" such as baptism, the Lord's Supper, membership and ordination promises, etc. These practices and rituals are strong pillars that support the church as it adjusts emotionally and spiritually to the change in pastoral leaders.

John 15:1-8

Transitions are times to say good bye. We say good bye to a pastor, a member who is moving away or even to the “way things have always been”. This transitional dynamic or developmental task is known as  “coming to terms with history”.  Celebration of what has one before is crucial.  But, these words of Jesus indicate that “pruning” is not irrelevant.  

As a congregation prepares for a new future of mission and ministry with a new pastoral leader, “pruning” or “coming to terms of history” cultivates fruitfulness.  One powerful sermon strategy may be to focus on what in us is not fruitful?  What don’t we need anymore?  What belongs to the past and not the future? 

In my interim ministry leadership “startup” retreat, one of the questions I pose to the leadership is, “what baggage do I carry from the time of ministry with _____(name )?”  A time of worship and prayer help us to begin to let go of that which may hold us back.  At times, “letting go” is not as important as creating meaning out of something that caused us to become stuck in the past.  Conversations in the retreat can help to create new meaning that helps one to be “unstuck” and step forward.   

Those sitting in the pews are also coping with various transitions – career, graduations, marriage, a move to a new home, pending retirement, an illness, or any number of challenges.  These questions can be asked of them.  What was good?  What do I need to leave behind that won’t help me on the journey to the future? 

Another theme in this text is “abiding”.  Exegesis will reveal the deep relational nature of “abiding” as Jesus used it.  The shifts of the transition time need the spiritual resources of our faith.  As a transitional pastoral leader, the interim minister has the opportunity to help the congregation draw on those resources (prayer, scripture, fellowship, etc.) in ways that are appropriate to that setting. 

Bob Anderson

http://shortstopblog.blogspot.com/ 

www.breakthroughlifecoach.org