Commentary: Interviewing pastors ‘an awful job’
A UMNS Commentary
By Brent Olson*
March 10, 2008
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Brent Olson
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I recently spent a few days at a retreat for the Minnesota Annual
Conference Board of Ordained Ministry where about 30 of us—mainly clergy
but a few lay folks such as me—interviewed people wanting to be
pastors.
It's an awful job. It really is. And I mean that in a couple of ways.
The dictionary offers up a couple of definitions of "awful" including
"causing fear or dread or terror," but also "inspired by a feeling of
fearful wonderment or reverence." I wavered between the two all week.
On one hand, preparing to be an ordained minister in The United
Methodist Church is not an easy task. It takes the better part of a
decade and no one really enters into it on a whim. When you read their
stories and then see their earnest, eager, nervous faces, the
inclination is to say, "Sold. Let's get you signed up and fitted for
your robe."
On the other hand, you think about every congregation, eager child,
puzzled teenager or heartsick parishioner that this person will come in
contact with for the next 20 or 30 years. You think about how they will
work with their colleagues and the larger church, and you consider
whether their particular talents are best suited for the fairly specific
job of being a pastor. It's a brutal job to tell someone that, just
because every fiber of their being yearns to be a pastor, it doesn't
mean they should be one.
These conflicting emotions slow down the deliberations just a little. I
took the job on a whim. A guy from conference headquarters broached the
subject and I thought, "Hmm, that sounds interesting."
Not always the wisest criteria to use in making such decisions.
Not for everyone
It is interesting to be one of the few lay people on this committee.
I've worked with six pastors throughout my adult life as a member in a
three-point charge on the edge of the prairie in Minnesota—not generally
considered a "plum" appointment. It is my opinion that, of those six,
about half actually did more harm than good.
That's a harsh thing to say, isn't it? I wrote that sentence a dozen
times, trying to find a better way to say it. But in the end I decided
to just keep it simple, while hoping I make it clear that it is just my
opinion.
On one level, I can understand why it could be hard to find pastors who
want to give three sermons each Sunday, especially when the first one is
to eight people sitting on the back pew in a tiny church. On the other
hand, these are my people—family and friends whose connections go back
for generations. They deserve pastoral care just as much as the people
in a growing church in the suburbs.
I've been on pastor/parish relations committees three different times.
At least once, our evaluation of our pastor involved shrugging and
saying, "I dunno. They might send us someone worse." Maybe my assessment
skills are not quite as strong as one would hope, particularly when we
move into the realm of theology. Because, you know, I don't care.
Really. Now hear me out…
I don't want Snake Handling 101 added to the confirmation curriculum,
and personally there's a limit to the number of sermons I can hear on
"The Life Force in the Trees." But within that range, there's plenty of
room for variations.
What I want
Once when we were leading a work team in Jamaica, I fell into
conversation with a young seminary student from the University of the
West Indies. He was complaining about some of his more difficult classes
and said, "The thing is, I just want to be a country pastor, and it
seems to me that if I live, and teach, the Sermon on the Mount and the
Ten Commandments, that should be enough of a challenge and enough for my
congregations."
Well, yeah. Add to that Wesley's concept of grace, discuss whether
your heart has been "strangely warmed," and close with "if your heart is
with my heart, then give me your hand" and as far as I'm concerned,
bada bing, you're there.
Because do you know what I want from my pastor? I want him/her to be a
good person. That's it. Genuine, caring, and concerned. Hard working
and involved. I want a smile when they look at a child and warmth in
their tone when they talk to the old guy who smells bad. Those skills
are a little harder to nail down in an interview.
That's what makes the board of ordained ministry an awful job, in all
senses of the word. Anyone we green-light has a job until they retire,
and we're charged to evaluate people based on what we can measure and
confirm, instead of on what matters.
*Olson is a farmer, a freelance writer, and a member of First United
Methodist Church in Ortonville, Minn., and the Minnesota Conference
Board of Ordained Ministry.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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