Beginning in the Parish
Here's a list of tips for a pastor's first year or so beginning at a new call, whether fresh from seminary or your 10th call. Everyone else chime in with your suggestions, making a running thread.
- Start out with an every member visit: depending on the size of the congregation, this may take you a while, but it means a lot to people, and you'll get to know your sheep.
- Don't change anything the first year. Even false doctrine must be dealt with gently, or the congregation will likely just dig in their heels, and you'll have little success in changing hearts to reflect a forced change in practice.
- Remember that hymns familiar to you may not be familiar to this congregation. Make yourself open to hymn suggestions, especially what people have trouble singing. If everyone is really quiet on one song, that's probably unfamiliar.
- Find out right away what liturgy they're used to and use it if possible.
- Find a way to get involved in the community that fits your personality, whether hanging out at the local cafe for breakfast or joining the volunteer fire department or helping out at the school. It's a great way to meet people outside your congregation as well.
- Consider calling every member during the same week as a birthday or anniversary. It's a great way to make sure you contact everyone at least once/year, and it says, "I'm thinking of you and care about you."
- Find out when seasonal services are usually done: time/date, Communion or not, etc.
- Get a list of shut-ins from the elders and visit them monthly or even every 2 weeks if you can.
- Take advantage of the e-mail lists on this site and at LCMSGroups.com to bounce ideas off of other pastors and learn from the collective experiences of others.
- Set aside time on your daily/weekly schedule for personal Bible reading, Book of Concord reading, and other books
- Mark your weekly day off on your day planner/handheld for time spent with family and make sure to honor your family that day by protecting that day except in real emergencies. You're not doing your congregation any favors by neglecting your family.
OK, that's just a few off the top of my head. Others, add yours as comments or feel free to disagree in comments.
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Theological Category
If you want to see changes
If you want to see changes in the congregation, don't make the changes yourself. By gentle teaching, show the theology behind the teaching and pray that they will see the need for change. Sometimes, it can come in the form of one question asked in a private conversation that will get that one person talking to other people about it. I had one man who was Roman Catholic, taking classes with me. He asked, "If God gives us these great gifts in the Lord's Supper, why doesn't this church celebrate it every week?" Good question. Something to discuss with the rest of the congregation and find out.
And that's the other thing: find out the history behind the congregation's traditions before you seek to change any of them. It may also be helpful to find out what traditions they had in the past that they no longer have and why those were removed.
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Pastor Dale Critchley
LCMSPastor.com Webmaster
A few more
* Visit, visit, visit. Once you've visited every member, start over, and if you get down to a list of a handful that you can't reach, look to your elders for help, but meanwhile, start over on the list.
* For the first few months, have your day off on the calendar in the newsletter and/or bulletin.
Anyone else have suggestions?
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Pastor Dale Critchley
LCMSPastor.com Webmaster