Last Friday I spent the day at the required Boundary Training which has historically been about preventing sexual or financial misconduct. But this workshop expanded the definition of inappropriateness and/or misconduct to include Staying Too Long in a parish.
Hmm.
Last spring, I left a parish after 22 years, and although I can’t seem to find a numerical definition for what constitutes a “long term pastorate” 22 years probably qualifies. In fact anything past 10 years and certainly 15 years could be considered “long term” in our fast-paced, transient culture.
Ed White of The Alban Institute who has supported long pastorates for years says, “I used to think that long pastorates were a good thing. I now think that they’re not just good, but necessary.” After 10, 15, 20 years a pastor’s relationship with a congregation is sealed with history, loyalty, and devotion. Especially if a pastor has been present for multiple generations of family milestones and years of community involvement, a congregation can find stability and deep transformation in those years together. It takes a long, long time to change the culture of a church, especially if that church has experienced trauma or weak leadership. And this shift from a 1950s Church to a 21st Century Church has been compared to turning an ocean liner. It takes time.
But what if staying too long becomes a problem? What if it borders on misconduct? It might be unintentional misconduct, but misconduct all the same in terms of a congregation’s health.
Frankly, I worried about this in the last years with my last parish. I looked at other positions through the years, but nothing else felt like a call. I did not feel called out of that congregation until circumstances nudged the move. Was it healthy to stay for 22 years? I don’t know.
But what I do know, after just six weeks in my new call, includes this:
- Churches can become complacent when the pastor is not only present for 20+ years, but when the pastor does too much of the ministry for the congregation. Christendom nurtured a culture in which churches paid people to do the ministry for them even though the Bible teaches that a pastor’s job is not to do the ministry but to train others to do the ministry.
- Our denominations offer incentives for pastors to delay retirement which makes it tough for younger pastors to move into those leadership positions. Those nearing retirement worry about outliving their savings and churches can become stagnant if those pastors basically retire in place.
- Some of us pastors find it hard to give up “the power” of being the center of a congregation’s life. It’s fun being The Beloved Pastor or The Institutional Memory, even if it’s no longer healthy for us to be there.
- Pastors who have “always been there” can become an idol.
It all comes down to the word “healthy.” There are healthy long term pastorates and there are unhealthy ones. There are pastors who consider themselves to be the center of the church and there are beneficent dictators and there are humble servants. Maybe those of us who’ve served for multiple decades have a little bit of all those characteristics.
It’s not just about spiritual relationships and intimacy. It’s also about theology. God calls us to make earth as it is in heaven. And that takes a long time.
A Church for Starving Artists 
Well said. In the past few years, I’ve seen a little of both in churches I’ve observed. Perhaps as the way we organize ourselves in the larger church adapts and changes, we can find new ways to support our leaders in seeing/discerning the health of their relationships. Too often the structures have been about accountability in the punitive sense, and collegial relationships about competition. Neither of those support honest evaluation on one’s relationships, effectiveness or call.
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My dad stayed 33 years in the parish where I grew up. Around the time I was in middle school (20+ in parish) he tried diligently to move, but could not find a call that felt like the right move. He became depressed. Our church nurtured him back from that depression, knowing and loving him as they did. It changed his ministry there and he stayed another decade. I think the last decade of his ministry may have been his best. The people who were youth during that period became amazing church leaders as adults, lay and clergy. He did end up retiring early (at age 62) because he felt he didn’t want to coast for another several years at a church that would have let him do that and he realized he was not up for big new challenges there. He took a year off and then did some interim and supply ministry and then really retired. I think it’s really dangerous to start suggesting long-term pastorates may be misconduct. Even suggesting that the two are related gives a terribly negative connotation to what can be a long, growing, exciting and positive relationship. I’d go with the Alban Institute’s assessment any day. They have made it their duty to figure out what works.
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This could become “requred reading” for clergy of all ages and stages of ministry – discernment, preparation and beyond. Good thoughts. Well written. The key word is healthy – a key characteristic of healthy pastors is, I think, self-awareness – staying attuned to self/congregation/call/bigC-Church and the transformative power of God – which as you say so well and so often is not staying put. Yet – as you also acknowledge- staying with the same people/place does not always equal “staying put.”
Peace, Jan, and continue to share the quetions and thougths with us.
Sarah
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I think much of this decision comes down to, as you say, “healthy”. Personally, I think it would be great if pastors (and all staff) and congregations could have discussions about this issue together throughout a pastor’s time with a congregation.
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As you note, it depends. If the presence of that pastor continues to contribute to the vibrant and dynamic life of the community, then of course not. If they’re spent and just puttin’ in time to ratchet up the pension, or if they’re not empowering others to lead and are instead clinging to power, then yes, it’s unhealthy.
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I think that many (most?) pastors have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to leaving one church for another. This is for a variety of reasons, among them boredom, frustration when all the revolutionary things they want to do don’t fully materialize in the first 3-5 years, and this fear that you name about possibly getting too comfortable. I’ll mark 7 years in my first pastorate next month, and in some ways it feels like we’re just getting started. According to one study or another, I’ve met or exceeded the average length of stay for a mainline pastor; I thought about leaving after 4, but realized that there was more to do. It turned out to be the right call…I could see myself staying at least another 3-5 years before certain things fully bloom.
Like you said, it’s like turning an ocean liner. But it doesn’t seem like a lot of pastors have that patience. Or, it doesn’t seem like that patience is nurtured. Or both.
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very interesting … obviously our responses come from our experience … my experience would cause me to reply “yes long pastorates are a boundary problem” because I have seen only long pastorates where the congregations struggled for years after the “beloved, can’t be equaled” long term pastor left.
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