I’m happy to be your Interim Minister and to begin our walk together through these next two and a half years.  So far, I’ve been working to attend as many committee meetings as I can to start to meet people and learn what all is going on at the church.  My observation is that you are very friendly, very capable, and very busy!

 This is my twentieth year in the ministry but I’ve not served in an interim position before, so there is lots to learn.  I’m currently enrolled in a seven-week online class for professional interims offered by the UUA.  In April, I will take a multi-day in person class offered by an organization called the Interim Ministry Network.

I’m learning the ways that interim ministry differs from settled ministry.  Interim work has specific goals of helping a congregation examine its past, heal from the loss that always accompanies change, name what must be brought forward or left behind, affirm its identity, re-commit to a mission, and strengthen systems that will be needed to support the coming settled ministry.  And of course, while that work takes a particular focus, all the regular tasks of ministry must also be attended to:  leading worship, offering pastoral care, and so on.

One way that you can help with this work is to foster an ethic of experimentation in the church.  An interim period is an opportunity to try some new things, without having to feel that we’re stuck with our choices forever.  We can better manage the discomfort of change if we enter the transition time with a spirit of curiosity, exploration and play.  If something works, great, we can keep it.  If something doesn’t work we can let it go and try again, no harm done.  And if something really doesn’t work, well, that’s good information for the Search Committee and your next settled minister.  Knowing what we aren’t is as important as knowing who we are.

Are you wondering about the title of my column for this newsletter?  I was a big fan of the TV show, “Downton Abbey.”  When the family had finished dinner and were ready to move to the Drawing Room, someone would ask, “Shall we go through?”  The phrase charmed me, and it seemed an appropriate motto for an interim ministry.  As we work to close our time together in one room and make our way toward a new room for something different, we can ask each other,  “Shall we go through?”