A mainline pastor from Southern California, commenting on how a new minister might get to know her new congregation.

As a newcomer to the community, I know I am in a unique position which will soon evaporate. Although they have chosen to call me as their pastor, I am not yet really a part of the community. I am an "entering outsider." For the short time while I am still in that position, they can inform me of things that they later will, fairly or unfairly, expect me to know. So I want to structure some intentional opportunities for them to "inform me" about the things they expect me to know and do. That doesn't necessarily imply that I will do things exactly the way they want or expect me to. What it does imply is that I respect their need to inform me, and their need to impress me with their values, experiences, history, and perceptions.

This might lead me to structure a series of in-home gatherings. The purpose of the gatherings would be to "get to know the pastor". (In reality, I would get to know them a lot more than they would get to know me.) The gatherings would be hosted by gracious members of the church, who would know how and when to maximize the opportunity for folks to gather. The meetings would be in homes instead of the church to make it clear that I was a guest on their "turf", attending with the purpose of learning and listening. I might structure the gathering around topics, such as telling the history of the church, or telling what should change/shouldn't change, or some other topic. Whatever the given topic, however, I would be demonstrating to the community my willingness to listen, to be informed. It is important that these gatherings be in small groups, not one-on-one. This enables people to listen to each other, to observe the diversity of viewpoints and of experience, and to see that I am hearing their stories and history.

These meetings would be an important component to establishing community trust. The community can only trust the pastor to handle today's challenges when they believe the pastor is capable of honoring their historic struggles, failures and joys. My task throughout the first year is to listen and to reflect back to them the positive strengths I observe in their community. This could be viewed as "cheerleading", without being superficial or artificial. A pastor must build upon strengths, and until we form a common language about just what those strengths are, we cannot form an effective partnership for growth and development. As I say to them, for example, that I see them as a people who celebrate music, they might correct me and say, "Ah yes, but that's only been true in the past four years since Jolene became our choir director. She taught us that anyone can come forward and sing God's praise." In this correction there is important information: that they celebrate music from an intentional and relatively new standpoint of accepting all who wish to participate. The first year's only task is to get clear on these types of issues so that I can truly honor and celebrate the strengths of the community as we move into the future together with new and shifting vision.