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I. The Need of the Broken-Hearted.

What is broken and how does that brokenness display itself? What is the environment that an interim pastor enters when the former pastor has left abruptly?

There are 5 things you can count on:

1. Regardless of outward appearance, the abrupt departure of a pastor is a significant loss for a church.

“When we think of loss, we think of loss through death of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on.”  -Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses

Life constantly makes us face loss: when our pet dies…when we move to a new ministry…or when a great neighbor moves away. Some losses come at joyful times, when we enter a new stage of life (i.e. single to married, start having children, graduate, empty nest) so confetti is often mixed with Kleenex. Or we lose a job, the loss of our health, a divorce, death of a dream. Losses come in all shapes and sizes….some are obvious and some are obscure.

2. The loss of the pastor will bring a church into a season of corporate grief. I often refer to it as the “aftermath”: the consequences of a significant unpleasant event.

-In the same way we have literal seasons where the weather changes for a period of time, so the church as a whole will sense the environment has changed. Helping the church understand this season and have hope in it is crucial.

-Some will resist the season of corporate grief. Just like those who don’t dress for the weather, they will exhibit inappropriate behavior. Others, like snow birds, will leave the church until the season changes, then they’ll return.

3. When the senior pastor abruptly leaves, the grief expressions for many will be as painful as if the pastor had suddenly died. The verbal, behavioral and spiritual reactions we will see are grief-based, and it feels like a funeral has occurred.
4. In many cases, leading your church as an interim pastor from a “grief recovery” model, or point of view, will be incredibly valuable, especially in your first year. It will help you, and the church, remember that grief is not a problem to be fixed, but a wound that takes time to heal.
5. There will be hidden damage. If your car has ever been in a wreck, often, even after the initial evaluation by an adjuster, as the work is done to repair it they find additional damage. Sometimes it isn’t seen until you start driving it regularly!

The following is just an overview. This subject could easily be a full semester course. If you want to do further study on your own, I’ve recommended some books and resources in the bibliography. What happens when a senior pastor abruptly leaves?

A. The loss and grief and damage to the church.

1. When pastoral transition is responded to as a loss, what exactly was lost?

• The loss to the church is not just a loss of function(the bases or responsibilities he used to cover, how his gifts blessed others, how he was the face of the ministry, how he led the staff, etc), but it’s also a loss that is felt.
• We need to appreciate that some people can feel victimized and abused, because something of value has been taken away and they couldn’t do anything about it.

2. The other thing we need to appreciate is if there was a moral collapse, that was an abuse by the pastor of his position, and it has caused widespread damage.

• I have been keeping a list, and through my interviews with people as their interim and the research I’ve done, there are at least 28 areas of damage that occurs when the senior pastor has an affair. Everyone will not experience all 28, but all 28 will be felt by someone.
• interimpastor.org/28-damages/

As interim pastors, some of the churches we serve will experience corporate grief. What will it look like?

B. The various dimensions of grief.

1. When the senior pastor leaves quickly, everyone responds differently. The best analogy is that it will hit the church like the combination of an earthquake and a tsunami.

People are first deeply shaken, then swept into the powerful current of painful questions and emotions. In a very short period of time the landscape of their lives is dramatically altered.

2. Overview of each dimension.

• • • Stress: this is the mental or emotional strain/tension/pressure from adversity or very demanding circumstances. As interims, we minister to people who are stressed-out on many levels.
      • But to experience stress does not mean a person is grieving. Grieving begins with a sense of loss. But once you cross the “loss line” (the dashed line in the graphic), grieving begins…and it brings with it all the traits of stress.

• • • Loss: this is grief over a “separation” which results in an ache, an emptiness, a sense of sadness. Reaction to the loss will be:
      • Physical (i.e. tears, sleeplessness, high blood pressure, no appetite),
      • Emotional (i.e. sorrow, anger, depression),
      • Social (i.e. withdrawal, aggression),
      • Spiritual (i.e. doubt, confusion, blame).

• • • Crisis: this is a more intense grief response as it throws a person off-balance and into a state of shock, panic, and uncertainty. For you’ve now added the elements of stress and loss.
      • If often involves a temporary loss of coping, and yet the person falsely assumes that the disruption is reversible.
      • It brings an anxiousness that something must be done now!

• • • Trauma: this is a very deep wounding, as it overwhelms our senses; leaves one numb, disoriented, and can literally change our brain chemistry so that the right and left side of our brain don’t communicate well. It’s feeling powerless because our safe world is out of control. We no longer have a place of refuge. People in the pews can have symptoms of PTSD.

These are the dimensions of grief and as they grow in intensity they build on each other. Back to my analogy, like a tsunami, people are often initially pushed to a high level of intensity but then the wave recedes and over time they begin to move back to less intense reactions. But regardless of which dimension most accurately describes their grief, the need is for each person to resolve it. As shepherds we must know the path they will walk.

C. The phases of grief (Theresa Rando). There are 3 phases people will need to work through regardless of which stage of grief they are experiencing.

These phases are not clean and orderly. People will move back and forth between them. But in general we can observe 3 distinct phases or stages.

1. Avoiding: this is the desire to avoid the terrible acknowledgment of what was lost by denial. At this point they are protesting the loss, they want to undo it, and not have it be true.

• • • Denial is a buffer to absorb the reality of the loss over time. It is often an emotional anesthesia.
    • As recognition of what has happened starts to seep in and shock and numbness slowly start to wear off, denial immediately takes its place.
    • Expressed by outbursts of emotion (anger, intense sorrow, sadness, hysteria, tears, rageful protest, screaming). Others may quietly withdraw or exhibit mechanical action without feeling. Some will feel depersonalized, as if they were witnessing the experience happening to someone else.
    • But there is a contradiction that comes with denial: on one hand is the disbelief in what happened, and yet at the same time a driving need to know why. The more abrupt the loss the stronger the desire to know why this happened and to assess blame.
    • Blame is an expression of denial, and is an attempt to make sense of what happened. It can be seen in “…if only…” statements. (If only…she had been a better wife…the church hadn’t expected so much of him…we hadn’t started that building program)
    • Initial denial is normal. Long-term denial is abnormal and damaging.

Avoiding usually doesn’t last a long time, but in some cases, it can be months. Eventually a person will move into the second phase.

2. Confronting: this is the time when grief is experienced most intensely and reactions to the loss are most acute because the truth of the loss is being accepted.
   • The mourner has the strong urge to find, recover, and be reunited with what was lost. There is a pining or yearning. This constitutes separation anxiety which is the main characteristic of this time.
   • This phase is a painful interval of confronting the reality of the loss and gradually absorbing what that means. This is a transfer to the gut (heart) of what is known in the head.

Rando p.34 “Each time the mourner is frustrated in their desire to be with the deceased, they confront the truth again that the loved one is dead. When the mourner hears a hilarious joke and reaches for the phone to pass it on to his brother, only to remember that his brother is buried across town, that painful realization confronts the mourner. When the bereaved mother hears the school bus but does not see her daughter step-off of it, the searing agony she experiences confronts the mother. When the widow reaches out in the middle of the night to touch her husband, but her hand touches only air, her overwhelming loneliness confronts her.

• When the denial and disbelief of the Avoiding phase start to fade, then depression and despair arise in their place. But that is the signal the mourner is starting the process of relinquishment and accepting reality.
• Angry sadness is the dominate emotion. “It [can be] an overwhelming, confusing, and frightening time as the mourner experiences types, intensities, and vacillations of emotions that make them unrecognizable to themselves, afraid of who and what they will become, and fearful of losing their mind.” (p.35 Rando)
• Be aware that coming to church forces people to face their grief. The absence of the former pastor in the pulpit, the way he led the church to celebrate holidays, special songs he mentioned, the difference in the way you (the interim) preach….things like this make it difficult, for they are reminders of their loss, and that is why many stop coming or come sporadically. Being in church is no longer a refuge!

If a person addresses their grief well over time, eventually they will come to the 3^rd phase.

3. Accommodating: this is the social and emotional reentry into the reality of everyday life. They ask less ‘why?’ questions and more ‘how?’ questions. They also look less within and more out. They look less to the past and more to the future.

• • • The person or loss is not forgotten, but the mourner learns to live with the reality of the loss and its implications in a way that does not preclude healthy, life-affirming growth.
    • This phase doesn’t mean a person has come to the place where they would have chosen or wanted the loss. But they no longer fight it.
    • The loss will leave a scar, similar to a scar that remains after a physical injury. This scar does not necessarily interfere with overall functioning, but on certain days and under particular conditions it may ache or throb.

*6 Observations about Grief’s intensity:

1. Grief deepens over the perception of the replaceability of what was lost. (losing a cell phone is different than losing a child; a storm which takes out a church’s 50 year old oak tree is different than losing a beloved pastor of 15 years)
2. The more intense the grief response, the more intense and overwhelming the emotions, till trauma then there will be an initial numbness followed by disorienting emotions.
3. The more intense the grief, the more difficulty in working through each of the phases.
4. The more intense the grief, the more time it will take to work through one’s grief.
5. The more intense the grief, the more intentional help a person will need.
6. The more intense the grief reaction, typically the # of people in each dimension of grief drops.

 

Bibliography and Resources

Hopkins, Nancy Myer, and Mark Laaser, eds.  Restoring the Soul of the Church: Healing Congregations Wounded by Clergy Sexual Misconduct. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995

Out of print. Insightful volume by main line denomination leaders helping their churches understand and respond to the violation of trust and deep wounds in the wake of clergy sexual misconduct.

Gaede, Beth Ann, editor.  When a Congregation is Betrayed: Responding to Clergy Misconduct. The Alban Institute, 2006

Out of print. Another very helpful book on how afterpastors (interims) can be bearers of hope to those church they serve where the senior pastor violated his position by an affair.

Card, Michael  A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament. Carol Stream, IL.: Tyndale House, 2014

Singer, songwriter Michael Card, writes out of his own experience and scriptural study of how believers need to learn to lament. Written to lead the reader in a journal format to learn about grief through the life of Job, David, Jeremiah, and Jesus. Particularly helpful for developing a biblical theology of grief.

Bridges, William  Managing Transitions. Philadelphia, PA.: Da Capo Press, 2009

The classic book from a secular perspective on leading through transitions in corporate settings. His Neutral Zone illustration is applicable to every interim.

Bridges, William  The Way of Transition. Cambridge, MA.: Da Capo Press, 2001

Bridges personal journey (he is not a believer) of handling the transition of the death of his wife.

Wright, H. Norman  The Complete Guide to Crisis & Trauma Counseling. Minneapolis, MN.: Bethany House, 2011

The best resource for pastors wanting to understand the field of grief recovery, and how to personally minister to the hurting.

Wright, H. Norman  Experiencing Grief. Nashville, TN.: B&H Publishing Group, 2004

An 80-page handbook of short chapters which is appropriate to give to someone struggling with their grief and wants biblical help and perspective.

Rando, Therese A.  Treatment of Complicated Mourning. Champaign, IL.: Research Press, 1993

A secular clinical evaluation of why people struggle to grieve. Find the book at a library and copy Chapter 2 which defines and describes loss and grief, and how people process their mourning.

Resources:

“Tear Soup: Recipe for Healing after Loss” RamMedia Productions , 2014 (animated video from book)

Grief Share (www.griefshare.org) A national ministry with curriculum for promoting grief recovery small groups.

One day seminar by H. Norman Wright “Recovering from the Losses of Life” (www.hnormanwright.com) For information on hosting his workshop/seminar call 800-875-7560.

© Transition Resource Ministry 2018