Interim and Transition Ministry: a beginner’s guide

MUCH has changed in Scotland over the past few decades. The Christian faith and values which once shaped life in Scotland have encountered huge challenges, and rhythms of life and worship which were once the ‘warp and weft’ of the nation’s spiritual life are no longer a ‘given’. The Church faces a fresh missionary calling to reach the generations who no longer follow without question the faith or the Church allegiance of their forebears.

But beyond the landscape of national change, the Church also faces the internal task of helping congregations to navigate a course through seasons of crisis or difficulty which can arise in any local congregation.

For over 20 years now, a small but extremely dedicated team of interim ministers has been deployed to congregations throughout Scotland on a short-term basis to help congregations face and process this latter form of change. And more recently, within the past six years, a new and additional expression of ministry has come into being with a team of transition ministers whose role, though similar in some ways, is different and quite distinct, seeking to help congregations transition over a longer period to a new and different expression of life, ministry and mission which will be more relevant for the future of the Church in the emerging landscape of Scotland.

The road to each of these forms of ministry begins along the same direction. Following a period of discussion with congregations at presbytery level, an information presentation is made to the Kirk Session of the congregation affected by representatives from the Interim Ministries Task Group and the Interim and Transition Ministries team. The goal of this presentation is to explain clearly what interim or transition ministry is and involves. Only then may the presbytery submit an application to the Interim Ministries Task Group (IMTG) to be considered for either a period of interim or transition ministry.

As part of its initial assessment of each situation, when the IMTG considers an application for interim ministry in a vacancy, it may reach the conclusion, based on the information available that the case presented may not require full-time interim or transition ministry placement. The situation may not meet the criteria set out for interim or transition ministry, nor call for such extensive, in-depth, major work. In such cases, the appropriate recommendation might instead be for a defined period of consultancy. For example, a conflict might be anticipated where a new union is proposed, and presbytery is seeking to avoid this situation developing.

Or, in another example, a congregation may be feeling isolated or unsure about its future direction and a ‘fresh pair of eyes and ears’ from the national Church might help to identify the best way forward. In assessing each application, the IMTG will take account of all known factors and seek to arrive at the most effective solution taking account of all factors, including the current availability of interim ministers.

In order for an application for either interim or transition ministry to proceed, it is important that presbytery and local congregations are clear from the outset as to the distinctive nature and purpose of the two forms of ministry. The differences between the two are as follows: Interim ministry is a short-term, focused ministry, working towards key identified aims and objectives over a period of up to two years, after which the interim minister will move on. Typically, the range of situations for which interim ministry may be the most appropriate solution are situations where there has been some event or series of events which has triggered a crisis or led to a period of local difficulty. It might be the sudden death of a serving minister, or where a series of short ministries has left a congregation unsettled. Sometimes a dii cult experience of change, a season of uncertainty or disruption may call for the particular skills which interim ministry can bring: skills of patient listening and of seeing with fresh eyes a situation which may have got ‘stuck’ in some way or another; skills of reconciliation and of remaining a neutral party or ‘non-anxious presence’ in a situation which has become fraught or brittle; skills of helping a congregation to imagine and pursue a new future having dealt with the past and prepared the congregation to move forward with new ministry and a new direction.

Transition ministry, by contrast, is provided as a longer ministry of between three and five years, focused around helping a congregation to embrace a more fundamental and significant transition to a new form or expression which may draw on the past, but work with the congregation to envision, prepare for and seek to establish a new future. Significantly, at the end of his or her appointment, the transition minister is eligible to apply to become parish minister of the charge should she or he sense a call to do so.

Sometimes a difficult experience of change, a season of uncertainty or disruption may call for the particular skills which interim ministry can bring.

Where interim ministry may often be focused largely around the resolution of interpersonal or pastoral challenges, on the ‘healing of the past’ and the resolution of entrenched difficulties, transition ministry is concerned more with helping the congregation to steer a new course, to find a new and more relevant expressions of its ministry and mission in its context, and to reimagine a significantly new life and future. The circumstances which give rise to the need for ministry are hugely diverse: replanting churches or re-envisioning ministry where a significant crisis event has meant that the old ways cannot be restored and a new future is needed; helping a congregation to prepare to move to a new building whilst coming to terms with the demolition and rebuilding of significant parts of the surrounding community; helping congregations i nd a new expression of life and worship where significant structural change in a whole Presbytery requires a whole new way of thinking about ministry and mission; exploring mission opportunities to significant unreached groups within a community.

The skills which a transition minister may bring will focus less on healing or reconciliation and more on bringing or eliciting creative imagination to explore new possibilities and directions, good leadership to help people engage positively and courageously with the risky business of embracing change, and resourcefulness in identifying a practical strategy to implement change in an effective and sustainable way.

Whilst each of these two forms of ministry has its unique characteristics, both share an emphasis on helping people change and move forward, on recognising and celebrating the good things of the past, but finding ways to be positive and healthy expressions of the local church and being effective in witness to the Gospel within the life of the local community.

Of course change faces all of us, and is, as they say, “here to stay”. It is for every minister, Kirk Session and congregation to wrestle with the need for change in their own situation. To remain true to its roots, the Church of Scotland is “reformed and always needing to be reformed”. Today, as ever, that means embracing the need to envision a new shape for the local church to remain faithful to telling the “old, old story” of the Gospel in a 21st century context. But in amongst this broad ‘change scenario’, there are those places where past hurt needs healing or confusion needs resolving, or where the scope and scale of change required is so much greater and more radical. It is in these places that the need exists for these ministry ‘specialisms’ of interim and transition ministry: just two of a number of emerging ‘ministry tools’ which the Church of today and tomorrow needs within its toolbox.