The Mark of a Pastor

When I went to the Vidalia Church back in 1989 from a nine year appointment in Columbus that was fulfilling so many ways, I had no idea and no expectation that my time in Vidalia would be equally fulfilling and would actually last a year longer.  Many Methodist preachers back in those days got caught up in the common practice of going to one church for four years and then moving on to another for another four years.  Somewhere along the way some one had decided that four years was the perfect number of years for a preacher to serve one church.    

When I stayed longer in those two appointments there were those who looked at me with an attitude that said I was losing the upward mobility which was supposedly guranteed in moving every four years.  And of course, it is likely that some who wanted to move did not like me tying up two good appointments for nearly twenty years.  However, one of my clergy mentors was a guy who had proven himself to have sticking power in the local church and I was of a mind to walk in his footsteps. He always told me to work the patch where I was appointed.  Staying deep into the years of a longer pastorate never felt like a bad thing.  To move every four years meant spending the first year coming, year two and three in minstry,and year number four in going.  It never seemed like a good idea for churches to have effective ministry for only two years at a time which is what that old formula provided.  

My experience taught me people want a pastor to be committed to serving among them and not looking out for the next appontment.  It also taught me that a trust level is established as the years begin to add up which cannot be fabricated in a few short years.  The longer I stayed the more it seemed that people trusted me with the stuff of their life and their walk of faith which is what being a pastor is all about.  At least that is the way it always seemed to me.