Thursday, January 13, 2005

Turmoil

My church is in turmoil as we deal with the impact of a pastoral change. In the United Methodist Church, our ministers are itinerant. They work for the conference and are assigned to local congregations. So in a lot of ways the strength of the congregation is in the laity, rather than the pastor. But this recent change is desperately testing our congregation. It is an exhausting process.

I really like the fact that our churches tend to based less on the success of a charismatic pastor and more on the strength of relationships and community. But the pastor is a such an important part of that community that they can and should have a tremendous impact on the church.

But the trouble comes when a pastor doesn't connect with the laity or the laity doesn't connect with the pastor. How do we fix this?

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