Let Me Come Clean

I wish I had had a coach in my early years of ministry. If I had had a coach I might have avoided issues which led to unhappy endings to a succession of calls. Oh, I give thanks for executive and associate presbyters who helped in the relocation processes. But none ever pressed me to look into myself and ask the tough growth questions. I give thanks for a couple very supportive elders in those early years and who were encouraging. I knew they had my back. They all were helpful. What would have been more helpful would have been a person outside of my particular situation and outside of my presbytery who would have been a guide in taking an honest and fearless assessment of my behaviors. I am not talking about therapy (although I probably would have benefited from that also).

My first call ended poorly after about eighteen months. I was engaged as an assistant pastor with responsibilities in Christian Education and social ministry. We were having some budget pressures. I didn’t feel the amount budgeted for Christian education was sufficient. In a conversation with the leader of Women of the Church, I was very clear about my disappointment with the proposed budget figure. She told the head of staff. I can see now that my expression of disappointment was received by the head of staff as subversive. He and I had a tense conversation with his invitation and my intent to relocate as quickly as possible. A coach would have been helpful for me to see other means and places to voice my concerns.

My second call was to two congregations. One was in a small village and the other was in an open farming area of the county. I know now they felt pushed by me to be much more programmatic and they wanted somebody just to walk with them. A coach would have helped me to see the difference before it was too late. After three years, with the third year being very tense, I sought relocation.

My third call was to an area near St. Louis where suburbanization was rapidly expanding. What had been a rather staid country congregation which, years before was the result of a three congregation merger, was now facing an influx of new people and new ideas. For about the first five years things went fairly well. There were some rough spots, but we lived through them. If I had had a coach I could have had significant growth through those rough spots. The sixth and seventh years were really rocky. Turnover in the membership was rapid as job transfers and disaffection took their toll. In one fourteen month period we rotated fifteen people on and off a session of twelve. An elder could only serve one three year term and then had to be off the session for a year. The year before, we had finished a twelve month mission study. With the rapid turnover I was practically the only one with a commitment to the goals which came out of the mission study. A coach could have helped me deal with things much more effectively.

It took me three distressing endings to calls, before I finally was able, in my fourth congregational call, to begin to get some handles on being a more faithful and effective pastor, still there were rough spots to be lived through. In my fifth call, to presbytery service, which lasted twenty-three years, there were still many situations which could have been handled better with the help of a coach.

So now, I am seeking to provide coaching to ministers and commissioned ruling elders in their early years of service. I want to provide them with the opportunity to have somebody outside their context and presbytery to reflect with them upon their ministry for present and future growth. After three calls with painful endings my goal is to help others avoid many of the pitfalls into which I tumbled. Here is my website https://wayostccs.com.