Beeson Podcast, Episode #511 Mark DeVine Aug. 25, 2020 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today on the podcast we are featuring one of our outstanding Beeson faculty who is an expert on a topic with which many of you have at least a little experience, from either the pulpit or the pew, interim or transitional pastoral ministry. This is August 25th, the first day of classes for the fall semester at Beeson. And as you are all aware 2020 has been a trying year for schools like ours, as we have sought to provide first rate theological teaching while also working hard to ensure everyone’s safety. Will you please pray, as classes begin, for God’s protection and blessing on Beeson Divinity School? We’re always grateful for your support. We pray for you as well. So, please drop us a line and let us know how you’re doing. You can find our contact information at BeesonDivinity.com. Kristen, would you please introduce Dr. Mark DeVine and get our conversation going? >>Kristen Padilla: Hi everyone, it’s nice to be with you today. Today on the show we have Dr. Mark DeVine. He is Associate Professor of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity School where he teaches courses on History and Doctrine, and even courses like Evangelism and Church Planting. He is no stranger to the podcast. He has been here before. So, welcome back to the Beeson Podcast! >>Dr. DeVine: It’s great to be back. Thanks so much for having me. >>Kristen Padilla: For those listeners who are meeting you for the first time, how about giving us a Cliff Notes version of who you are, anything that you want to say about your family, and as it pertains to our topic today, how long you’ve served as an interim or transitional pastor. >>Dr. DeVine: Well, I am from South Carolina. I earned a degree in Electrical Engineering as an attempt not to go into the ministry that failed. I met my wife, Jackie, at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. We served as missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand. I started pastoring churches while I was in seminary. And I’ve preached virtually Lord’s Day really since 1979. And I’ve lost a lot of respect for the churches that have been willing to listen to me, but you know that’s what I do for a living. So, it’s been a blessing to do that. Somewhere along the way I had the opportunity to teach at Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, and fell in love with that. But I always wanted to preach. And I had fallen in love with pastoral ministry before I became a teacher. And in God’s providence things have worked out so that I’ve been able to do both of these ministries, both of which are passions of mine. Along the way I wrote on Karl Barth when I was in my PhD studies and I became interested in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a book on Bonhoeffer. I ended up involved in a very interesting and challenging interim pastorate, transitional pastorate, in Kansas City and wrote a book with my former student, Darren Patrick, on that called, “Re-Plant.” And then I recently published a book on shalom, “Yesterday, Today, and Forever.” Since 2008 I’ve been teaching at Beeson Divinity School; courses in History and Doctrine, and also some in the ministry field, as you mentioned. And when I first became a professor at Midwestern Seminary 26 years ago that was when I found myself wanting to preach. Not really thinking about being an interim pastor, but then I discovered that I missed being able to preach to the same congregation week after week. Then I began to realize that where I had opportunity I missed providing leadership to these congregations. So, at first, this dipping of my toes into the interim pastorate world, it was really about needs that I had. But over time I began to realize this was a real ministry need for churches. This was actually a component of calling. It was worthy of that. Mainly because churches lose their pastors very often. The rate of transition or the average tenure of a pastor usually hovers for evangelical churches between 2.5 to 3.5 years. Now, we know of pastors that stay 20 years, 30 years, but there are many, many churches out there facing these great challenges that are confronting us in the world today. And they lose their pastors very often. And even if they don’t lose their pastor very often, then they’re in a position where they’re not used to calling a pastor. So, that time between pastors has come to be recognized as a very significant time that needs to be paid attention to. And I found myself drawn into that world and I’ve greatly enjoyed it. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. DeVine, I was going to begin the main part of the interview by asking you the most basic question, what is the job? What is the role of an interim pastor? But you know our listeners don’t know yet. As we talked about this you were letting me know that a lot of people these days prefer the name “transitional pastor” to the name “interim pastor.” So, maybe I’ll begin by asking you kind of a twofold question. Not just what is the role of the interim pastor, but how are people thinking these days about what interim or transitional pastors are supposed to get done in-between the tenures of regular pastors? >>Dr. DeVine: Well, 26 years ago, when I began to do interim pastorates, I was not aware of another word that was used anywhere about that situation, that context of the time between pastors. And now there has developed this new language of the transitional pastor. And what it reflects is the recognition by all of the major denominations and by other independent type of evangelical churches, their recognition that the time between pastors can be a critical time. It isn’t always. But for many churches it’s a critical time, in the sense that churches are sometimes particularly vulnerable during that time to the loss of members. It’s a time when there are problems in the church that perhaps could be address better during the interim time than when the new pastor comes. An array of other matters ... the denominations, all of the denominations, major evangelical denominations recognize this, have programs to help train churches for dealing with the interim time and interim pastors. So, this word “transition” has developed. It reflects that this is a serious time. Interim sounds somehow unserious ... we’re just in-between, it’s a placeholder. Some churches are so healthy they’re fine with that. They have a person come in and preach and they don’t need anything else. But many other churches, they need someone who comes in and diagnoses that church – its health, its condition, its needs – with a particular alertness to what can we do in this interim time to optimize the search for, calling of, and settling of a new pastor and their family? So that it optimizes the potential for that church to really get a good launch into their new life with the new pastor. One of the ways I think about it in terms of my responsibility: What can I do to make sure there is a honeymoon period for the next pastor and it’s extended. And what I mean by that, a period in which both sides in this marriage, if you will, the congregation and new pastor are giving the benefit of the doubt to each other and really help them recognize that once you call the pastor now the success of the congregation is tied to the success of that pastor and vice versa. Now, before then, put them under the microscope. We just called Doug Sweeney, so we put him under the microscope and so forth. But once Doug Sweeney is our Dean now our futures are tied together. And so I try to help congregations see that, work for that, discern that, and put things in place to make that transition to the next pastor as healthy and hopeful as possible. >>Kristen Padilla: Dr. DeVine, what makes a good interim pastor? Or to put it another way, what kinds of qualities is needed in someone who is called to serve as a transitional or interim pastor? >>Dr. DeVine: Number one, is learning to discern through questioning and spending time with the committee that calls you, usually. What that church expects from you. Then making a decision about whether you might want to put out before them. Because they may have never thought about these things before. Are there some other things that they really should be looking for from you? And then you need to have as clear a sense as possible about what you bring to the table, so that you can assess the fit between you and this congregation. It doesn’t mean that you have to bring to the table everything that they need, but you need to know what are those things. Are there things they need that you can’t bring to the table. Then you need to find that somewhere else. So, the first thing is that the transitional pastor needs to be able to discern and diagnose on the front end of the interim pastorate to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they bring to the table. Help both sides discern whether there’s a fit and let them see you do that together. So that when you get to the point of saying, “Yes, we’re going to call you as a transitional pastor,” all sides as much as possible agree, “Yes, we understand why this is a good fit.” And then going forward, a new kind of diagnosis takes place that can only take place when you’re there and you’re learning the church, you’re learning the people, and you begin to discern and diagnose that church and how well they are able and if they are able to receive a new pastor, and to discern, help them to discern what they need in a pastor. A lot of times churches actually do know what they need, but they haven’t reflected on it, cannot articulate it, and therefore they are in danger of calling a pastor that they could have recognized would not fit them. So, this diagnosis and prescription for churches and leading them through that is very, very important. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, Mark, on the flip side of that I think there are a lot of pastors who wind up in interim or transitional pastoral ministries in ways that they never anticipated. I’ve had a number of friends in ministry over the years who never thought they were going to be interim or transitional pastors but were called to serve in that role at a certain point in their ministries. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a number of people listening to our podcast now who are going to fit this description – never really thought before about the idea that the Lord may take them, at least for a season, into an interim or transitional pastoral ministry. But this may indeed be part of what the Lord has planned for them. So, for people like that, are there things that you can say about what’s special, what’s different about being an interim or transitional pastor than about being a regular pastor? What would the special challenges be? And what would the special joys and blessings be of interim or transitional ministry? >>Dr. DeVine: First of all, I am one of those persons. I backed into this. Didn’t realize that by my desire to preach and by my desire to preach to the same people week by week rather than a different congregation every week that I was really opening myself to a very significant part of my life now. I mean, over a quarter of a century I’ve been doing this. And I would say that it’s a very exciting ministry. It’s unique. It is a ministry where you’re working yourself out of a job. You need to embrace that. It’s like a midwifery, maybe in a certain way. It is a reception of something and a handing off of something. I guess in a way I was prepared for this to some extent as a teacher and a professor, because the students really do come and go, don’t they? They come into your life and you have a chance to be blessed by their presence and what they bring to your life, which is tremendous because they’re someone who’s looking to you for help. If you can help someone it makes life worth living, if you feel like you’re helping someone. But then they go away. Now, my best students, I would have to say I didn’t contribute anything to them, but I get to claim that because they were in my class. But they were so good they were going to be good whether they met me or not. But the churches where you’re an interim pastor, there’s something similar like that. You come into a congregation and if you’re able to help them learn some things about themselves that will help them call a pastor that fits them and they realize that, and then that happens, and that church flourishes under that pastor, and you can see how you are involved with that congregation in ways that if those times of learning and developing and decision making, and sometimes taking hard decisions on matters of finance and personnel, and any number of things have not occurred it would have greatly reduced the possibility. Maybe eliminated the possibility that they would have called the right pastor and would have flourished. I’ve been doing this so long now. I think I’ve finished my 19th interim and transitional pastorate. And I can look back now and there are churches that I tried to help and I didn’t help them much. There are churches that I tried to help and I did help them, I really helped them. It’s very, very satisfying. And then there are other churches that didn’t need much from me. But it’s a very, I feel a deep sense of gratitude that I’m involved in it. And that I discovered it. I see God’s hand in it. And I think it is a growing ministry that people are discovering, just like you said, Dean Sweeney. People are discovering it, they didn’t realize what it was. Then they discover it and realize this is important, it’s unique, and I’m gifted to do it. Or, I’m gifted and I can become more skilled by learning, training, and that’s happening. The churches need it. They need it so much. And so it’s a very, very exciting thing. >>Kristen Padilla: We also have many committed lay persons who listen to the podcast, who will likely serve on a search committee or a personnel committee, or be part of this process of calling an interim pastor. You’ve already shared a little bit about what churches can do on the front end, like being aware of what their needs are. But what else would you say to a church, church leaders, about how they can, on their end, help an interim pastor, transitional pastor, serve well? And to do what they need to do in this role. >>Dr. DeVine: They need to develop an identity in which they are very aware of their understanding of the kind of leadership they welcome and want. There are different sorts of leaders out there. Not all pastors want to lead in the same way. And some churches have particular DNA that fits them for one sort of leadership versus another sort of leadership. Some churches want deep involvement by powerful lay persons and committees to be very involved in how the church is led. And they’re not going to change from that anytime soon. If they call a pastor who is against that sort of thing, well, it’s just an explosion awaiting. There are other churches that want very strong leadership. They’ve had a history ... a lot of times congregations either need to have a clear understanding about the leadership they’re looking for or they need to be helped by someone, and oftentimes a transitional pastor, to understand that themselves. When congregations do that they love it when someone helps them put words and ideas to what they already actually believe, you see? And so they feel much better about their search process than they would have otherwise. I can remember a congregation, years ago, where I was a pastor, I wasn’t a transitional pastor. But they had learned through their ... they had a couple of very sharp people in their congregation who realized, “We’ve had pastors that we like their preaching. We like this or that. But we’re a church, because of our setting. A small town, this and that. We need a pastor who loves to visit in the homes of the shut-ins.” And they got a pastor who didn’t do that. That wasn’t in his DNA. He didn’t cotton to that, as we say in the South. So, when they interviewed me, they asked me that question. This is like my third church. I said, “I love that question. I love the questions you’re asking me. Because it’s helping me understand that you understand some of the things you really need to have in place if you’re going to be satisfied with your pastor.” And I said, “I love to visit the shut-ins.” And I was there for four years while I did my PhD. But just getting to know who this congregation is and help them understand who they are and that nothing is foolproof. But what it does is it makes it much more likely that they can call a pastor who fits with them, at least in the initial stages. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. DeVine, the next question I want to ask you is a very practical one. But I know it’s also a question on which people disagree a little bit. And we want to hear what you think. So, the question is, is there an ideal length of time during which an interim or transitional pastor should serve? And then if I could add just one little codicil to that one, do you think it’s okay for congregations to consider their interim pastors for the possibility of becoming their regular senior pastor? >>Dr. DeVine: On the first question there’s definitely not an ideal time. Churches are so different from each other. There are churches where I have been who really, they needed me to preach, they didn’t need me to do much of anything else. And as soon as they find a good fit they should call that pastor. I can’t think of anything dumber than saying, “Well, we know the ideal time is 14 months” and you really have good reason to believe you have a good fit within 6 months. No, you need to call that pastor who is a good fit for your congregation. So, there’s no one size fits all on the timing. I think I would say, generally speaking, that really extended interim pastorates – that can be troubling. There are situations where it’s not. Very, very healthy congregations, in certain settings, can do fine with a long transitional pastorate. But I think that’s not usual. That’s not usual. Now, on the next question, I think as a general rule there needs to be an understanding between the congregation and the interim pastor about whether the interim pastor is going to be a candidate or not. And in most cases it’s better if the understanding is that the interim or transitional pastor will not be a candidate. And that way the congregation is in no way encouraged to have a divided mind where they’re falling in love with Mark DeVine. How can we live without him? And the other part of their mind is the search committee. Well, the search committee is undermined, in a way, by that process. Unless they’re deciding they want that interim. Generally speaking, I think it’s often a good situation in which the transitional pastor says, “I’m not a candidate. No matter.” Right? It’s Lyndon Baines Johnson, “If nominated, I will not accept.” You know? I’m not going to be the pastor. But there are many examples out there where the interim pastor becomes the pastor and it works out beautifully. And that’s not surprising at all. Because what has happened in those situations is that the church has ... they’ve been able to assess that interim pastor in a way that they never get to assess pastors usually, in a situation in which one or both sides weren’t thinking about that person being the pastor. And so kind of a real authentic, all the guards down, lots of transparency has allowed a kind of trust and observation of fitness and competence has taken place, and it turns out it really is a good fit. Now, if you’d asked me 20 years ago, I’ve been doing it 26 years. I would have just said, “No.” But now I’ve seen too many examples where this has worked out. The dangers can be great, because there can be people in the congregation who say, “Well then the search process was not fair and it was a fraud. Because none of these other candidates that we’ve invested in had the opportunity. And if they’d had that opportunity ...” So, you can see how division ... I think talking about the situation is good. But we are talking, though, here about relational dynamics and spiritual matters that can take turns that no one meant and no one expected. And that does happen sometimes in this case and the interim or transitional pastor becomes the pastor, and sometimes it doesn’t work out, but sometimes it really does. And I’m just not in a position to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have followed that rule.” >>Kristen Padilla: If someone is listening today who is serving in this type of pastoral ministry, we all know that pastoral ministry can be at times discouraging. What would words of encouragement or valuable lessons that you’ve learned in your experience would you share with those serving in this way? >>Dr. DeVine: When Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited Rome he said some things that are remembered by many. He said, you know, when I visited Rome and compared the Church of Rome to my protestant church, my provincial protestant church, I experienced there a universality and a permanence. And he said that there’s a word when a Catholic hears it, it stirs up the feelings of mother and home and that word is “Church.” He said that if we protestants don’t start feeling that way about that word “Church,” then we’re headed for a bad time – or something like that. I remember when I first read that. I was probably 19 when I read that. And I thought, well, the way he’s describing what he thought Catholics were experiencing, but he wasn’t as a Lutheran, I actually did experience in my Southern Baptist Church. And as I read more about Bonhoeffer I thought, well, you might have felt more deeply about your church if you attended more. You know, his family didn’t attend church. They had church in their home and went twice a year. But I say that to say this, that I had a fantastic, rich, and healthy experience of church growing up in South Carolina. And then as I went to seminary and started reading church history and writing, it’s only confirmed to me that Jesus cares about church. God cares about church. And so what I would have to ... I don’t think I can speak for other people, but for me there’s never been any question in my mind that the church is at the heart of what God cares about, and what he is doing in this world. And so I’ve had many bad experiences in church. When you do 19 interim pastorates ... I see terrible, awful things. But I’ve never had trouble at all with the feeling of the weight of responsibility and opportunity in church work, that that’s kind of at the heart of what the Lord cares about. Even when I teach at Beeson, when I taught at Midwestern Seminary before I came to Beeson, I think about the church all the time when I’m teaching. I see myself at Beeson in a service role, not a front line role. So, I’m thinking about that all the time. So, when I’m in the church, to me it’s like now I’m going to the front line, I’m going to the heart of the matter. And so I think if people believe that, because it is true, it is true. And so the Lord they pray to, I mean, Jesus died for the Church. He made these promises to the Church. So, I think for me this is a very theological matter. And so when the difficulties come I think about how awful the first churches were. I think about the Church at Corinth, how awful that must have been. And then I reflect on the fact that you’re reading it and you’re thinking, well, at the end Paul is going to say, “Look, we tried the church thing, let’s just admit that it didn’t work, and we’ll just pray, come together, four or five times a year to have a potluck.” But he couldn’t do that. Because what the Lord created us for and died on the cross for are many things, but one of them is this – to put us in the Church and make us brothers and sisters in his Body. It’s like gravity. Our opinion about it doesn’t have any effect on its reality or the danger it poses if we try to ignore it. Nor does it change the benefits that can come to us if we acknowledge, accept, and yield to what is God’s will that’s not going to change. >>Doug Sweeney: Amen. Dr. DeVine, we are so grateful to you for being with us today and sharing from your many years of experience in interim or transitional pastoral ministry. As you know, we like to end these podcasts by asking our guests what the Lord has been teaching them recently – just as a way of encouraging our listeners. And as we all know, these have been some pretty unusual times we’ve been living through these last handful of months here. Anything special that you’d want to share with our audience about what God’s been teaching you recently? >>Dr. DeVine: Absolutely. The way the pandemic is driving us apart, it’s having the affect on some people to highlight for them in a new way how life is diminished when we’re driven apart. So that even as we marvel at the technology and how it helps. I’m very grateful for it, as I’m sure both of you are. As time goes on we miss being together. We realize this is not right. And we long for the time when there won’t be a mask. We can hug each other and be together. And so I think it’s a time when we can talk about that from the pulpit and in other settings and say ... because when you’re deprived of something it’s like when you lose a loved one people say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. And I think this is a time to say, look, it’s right for us to deprive ourselves of the kind of intimacy we had with each other before for the sake of health. Not that anyone is the expert on exactly what we should do and not do, we’re all struggling to get through this, but it is a right time to say when you’re deprived of something that is precious it’s a good time to reflect on how precious that always was and to begin now to anticipate how there’s going to come a time that this is not going to be so. And these barriers that are between us are going to come down some time. And let’s thank God ahead of time, look forward to it. Tell him that we didn’t realize what a blessing we had before we had to give it up. Marvel at the communion and fellowship in the Body of Christ that we were made for, and prepare to embrace it. I tell you what, I’m glad you asked that. What I don’t think we should say is, “We’re learning it doesn’t even matter.” I saw some of that. “We’ve learned that it doesn’t even matter. All I need is Jesus.” Well, when you have Jesus you’ve got the Jesus of First Corinthians 11 and 12, and of course the whole Bible. Jesus cares about the Church. So, this can be a time of anticipating, a re-engagement, with that togetherness, with a new sense of how precious it is and how easy it is to lose it. So, that’s kind of been at the front of a lot of my teaching and preaching over these last weeks. >>Doug Sweeney: Amen. You have been listening to Dr. Mark DeVine, one of the dearly beloved faculty members at Beeson Divinity School. We are so grateful to him for giving us time today and sharing from his many years of experience in interim pastoral ministry. We’re confident it was a blessing to you. We hope it will be used by the Lord in the lives of some of you who either become interim/transitional pastors, or call interim/transitional pastors to serve your congregations. Thank you, Dr. DeVine. Thank you to our listeners for being with us. We are praying for you. We would ask you to pray for us as we try to do life together again in the midst of the covid epidemic at Beeson Divinity School this fall. We love you. See you next time. Good bye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.