The Church Revitalization Podcast – Episode 287
Check out Part 1 about the church preparing for a new pastor at: malphursgroup.com/286
Stepping into a leadership role at a new church is both exciting and daunting. Whether you’re fresh out of seminary or a seasoned pastor beginning a new chapter, the first few months in a new congregation carry an outsized influence on your long-term effectiveness. You’re eager to make a positive impact, but you may also feel the weight of expectations—your own and those of your new church family.
Success hinges not just on your preaching or leadership skills, but on your approach to building trust, cultivating relationships, and immersing yourself in the rhythms and realities of the church. How you begin can shape how you’re received, how quickly you’re able to lead, and ultimately, how fruitful your ministry will be. Here are three essential steps to start well and lead effectively from the outset.
Be a Student Before Becoming a Shepherd
As tempting as it may be to jump straight into pastoral duties or to initiate changes, the first essential step is adopting the role of a student. Curiosity, humility, and intentionality will be your greatest allies. Spend your initial months asking questions, listening deeply, and absorbing as much as possible about the church’s culture, history, and informal traditions.
You might encounter subtle practices not listed in bulletins or discussed during interviews. Perhaps there’s a beloved prayer meeting the previous pastor attended or local cultural events that greatly impact attendance. Discovering these nuances helps you avoid inadvertently causing hurt or misunderstanding.
The key is intentional curiosity. Ask more questions than you think necessary, explore spaces thoroughly, and clarify terminology or traditions that seem unfamiliar. This approach demonstrates your genuine care and sets the stage for effective leadership. You don’t have to run an undercover investigation to find these things – just ask. When people realize you can’t possibly know everything, but have a desire to learn and understand, grace should be readily available when you inevitably misstep somewhere.
Prioritize Relationships Over Immediate Results
When entering a new church, it’s natural to want quick wins and visible successes. However, effective leadership begins with building strong relationships. Take time to genuinely know your congregation—share meals, attend social events, and engage in meaningful conversations. Prioritizing relationships builds the trust necessary for eventual change and growth.
Keep in mind “Chesterton’s Fence,” a valuable principle highlighting the importance of understanding existing structures before attempting changes. Every ministry, program, or policy exists for a reason. Before you remove or alter something, ensure you fully grasp its purpose and history. Only then can you convincingly articulate why change might be beneficial. Trust earned through deep relationships and respectful inquiry paves the way for meaningful, supported changes in the future.
Communicate Hope Before Casting Vision
Your first messages as a new leader should radiate hope and optimism. Congregations thrive on hope, especially during transitions. Your vision for the future must resonate as hopeful, welcoming, and aligned with the church’s core values and desires. While strategizing and planning for the future is essential, start by fostering a shared sense of excitement about the possibilities ahead.
Identify simple yet impactful early victories—small enhancements or improvements that everyone can support, such as minor facility upgrades or improved communications. These “low-hanging fruit” help establish your credibility and demonstrate that positive changes are underway.
When the time comes for deeper strategic planning, consider involving external facilitators to guide the visioning process. This ensures that vision-casting is a collective endeavor rather than perceived as a unilateral decision. Such collaboration reinforces unity, trust, and shared purpose.
Starting Strong Means Starting Right
Entering your new pastoral role successfully isn’t merely about immediate accomplishments but about laying a robust relational and cultural foundation. By approaching your new role as a student, prioritizing genuine relationships, and initially communicating hope rather than rushing into vision-casting, you’ll create a pathway for sustained growth and enduring impact. These intentional steps will help ensure that your first months set a positive trajectory for years of fruitful ministry.
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A.J. Mathieu is the President of the Malphurs Group. He is passionate about helping churches thrive and travels internationally to teach and train pastors to lead healthy disciple-making churches. A.J. lives in the Ft. Worth, Texas area, enjoys the outdoors, and loves spending time with his wife and two sons. Click here to email A.J.
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Church Revitalization Podcast Transcript:
A.J. Mathieu [00:00:02]:
You’re a pastor about to start at a new church. Let’s talk about how to make that work well at the start right now on the church revitalization podcast.
Introduction [00:00:11]:
Hello, and welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by the Malphurs Group team, where each week we tackle important, actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now, here’s your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu.
Scott Ball [00:00:30]:
Welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I’m joined by my friend and cohost AJ Mathieu. Last week, we were talking about starting, having a new pastor start at your church. This week, we’re talking about you’re the pastor and you’re starting at the new church. What should you do? So we we laid down in week one some advice to hopefully help you out, help you be successful in that position. And today, we wanna lay some truth on you to help you help yourself be successful in this new position. And as we gave caveats last week, even if this isn’t you, even if you’re not starting at a new church right now, you may you may know someone who’s gonna be starting it at a new church and you could pass this advice along.
Scott Ball [00:01:20]:
You may have some other staff person. This is not just for senior pastors. This is true for youth pastors. Actually, I had a conversation just yesterday, by the way, with a church who let a youth pastor go. And he hadn’t done anything wrong, but it just wasn’t working. And I was thinking, man, I think they set him up for failure.
A.J. Mathieu [00:01:40]:
And So, yeah, this is
Scott Ball [00:01:43]:
this is good advice to have in your back pocket regardless of your current employment situation.
A.J. Mathieu [00:01:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Boy, that’s I hate hearing that. You know? I mean, to to know that they couldn’t work that out, and it which always makes me think, could they have worked it out? You know? I mean, how much effort was put in? How much grace was given on both parties? You know? Any relationship between humans or groups of humans requires Mhmm. Requires grace, requires good communication. You know? I mean, it requires people with an attitude of giving towards the other.
A.J. Mathieu [00:02:18]:
I, you know, I think about this all the time. I don’t think about all the time. I’ve thought about this. You know, people that get divorced, you know? I mean, I I think making a marriage work is putting the other person before yourself. And so, you know, when relationships sever, I think when there’s not necessarily anything has happened, some acute situation has happened, then, you know, I feel like it might often be the product of kind of a selfishness to some degree on one or both parties not wanting to give up something for the other in order to make the relationship work. And then there’s a gazillion different reasons that that things might not work, and it’s it’s no fault of one or the other. But,
Scott Ball [00:03:01]:
Oh, no. I mean, yeah, you’re saying that, but it’s usually the fault of one or the other
A.J. Mathieu [00:03:05]:
or or
Scott Ball [00:03:06]:
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. But also just bad communication. I can and I don’t wanna sort of give details here. But, you know, with this specific situation with this youth pastor, I don’t know that the expectations were clear. Mhmm. I don’t know that, you know, essentially, they were bleeding some families.
Scott Ball [00:03:28]:
You know, and if you kinda have a loss of confidence from the youth ministry families, it can be really hard to get that back. Mhmm. Well, how did that happen in the first place?
A.J. Mathieu [00:03:36]:
Yeah. Right.
Scott Ball [00:03:37]:
You know? So just and sometimes it’s a bridge too far like the you can’t sometimes you can go back and fix those communication things. Sometimes you can’t. And that’s actually the point of this episode is, like, get out get you wanna get started on the right foot. So yeah. Maybe we can hop there.
A.J. Mathieu [00:03:54]:
Let’s jump into our first point, and we’re saying be a student before becoming a shepherd. It’s so important. Whenever you get you hit the ground, you’re maybe not even unpacking yet, and you’re you’re already gonna be working on relationships at that point when you come to start at a new church. You’ve got to be the student gaining as much information as you can. And with with that attitude, like, please tell me everything. I wanna know everything. With last week, we talked about all of the details. In fact, the in the first point we talked about last week, the details that a pastor is going to need to be successful and not, you know, accidentally step on toes and things like that.
A.J. Mathieu [00:04:33]:
So, yes, from your perspective now, coming in, be asking for these things. Be thinking about all that you may not know. You’re gonna wanna know about all of these little things. The example I gave last week was the the people that get hurt because the previous pastor would pop into their little prayer group that was meeting on Sunday morning, you know, before getting getting ready to start the service. Well, find out out. Do these kinds of things happen? What are what are the rhythms of the church? What are these things that aren’t necessarily in the bulletin? You know, the unwritten meetings or connection points that your church is used to having. Or, Scott, you brought up, you know, like the race weekend in Bristol, Tennessee. Cultural things that happen in and around the city or the church.
A.J. Mathieu [00:05:20]:
Just ask. Ask questions to find out things that you don’t even know what to ask so that you can start to have those conversations. But the more details you can get about people and places and things and processes, the better you’re going to be and the faster you can get up to speed.
Scott Ball [00:05:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. I you could summarize it as just be, like, be curious. Mhmm. Be inquisitive. I, this is a this is good advice for consultants too, and I and I I like to pride myself. I think I’m pretty pretty good about being curious, but sometimes I find myself skipping steps and not being as curious as I should be. And if anyone from this church is listening, you’ll know.
Scott Ball [00:06:01]:
It’s a it was a minor mistake, but a mistake I made just a couple of weeks ago. I was doing a a an analysis with the with the church and they kept talking about a particular space on their property. And I had been around their property but I had not been in every room and in every space on their property and there were a lot of comments as we were working through this analysis on this one space and I kept thinking that they were talking about one building that they own. And some of their comments were about that one building, but most of the comments were about a building I had never walked into. And so it kind of like I definitely didn’t catch the drift and then they were like, why don’t we take you over there so you can see it? And then I was like, those comments make way more sense now that I’ve seen this room. And so I I know that as the pastor, there’s probably not gonna be, like, rooms you haven’t walked into, but, there can be programs that you might be making an assumption that when they say women’s bible study, you think it’s the one that meets on Thursday nights, but, actually, they’re talking about the one that meets on, you know, Tuesday mornings, and that’s not the same group of people. You know, like, there are things that you just don’t know. You don’t know the dynamics.
Scott Ball [00:07:14]:
You don’t know the relationships involved. It’s like you should ask way more questions. People will be gracious with you. So, So, like, in that situation, I’d be like, woah. I totally missed this. Sorry, guys. And no one was mad. Everyone was like, yeah.
Scott Ball [00:07:27]:
It makes sense. And it didn’t hurt anything in the process. In fact, we all had kinda a a huge laugh about this particular space and why they’re like, yo, you’ve really missed out. You really should go see this room. But people will be gracious with you if you go, can you explain that to me? I feel like I’m missing something. Tell me more about that. People will be gracious with with you, but when you kinda go in guns blazing making assumptions, it’s a great way to get people not to like you.
A.J. Mathieu [00:07:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s gonna be things that they don’t even realize. You know? I mean, pet names that buildings or rooms end up with, you know, that might sound like one thing to you, but it’s not. It’s something different. So these are the the weird little things that from no fault of theirs, they’re not intentionally trying to mislead you. They’re just using the lingo that they use. And you’re gonna have to go, tell me exactly what that is.
A.J. Mathieu [00:08:20]:
I wanna make sure, and we run into this all the time, Scott, because churches come up with cute names for all kinds for ministries and and events and all kinds of things. And, and we’re always having to go, okay, tell me what this is.
Scott Ball [00:08:34]:
What is that exactly? Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit of the lightheartedness, a lot of curiosity.
A.J. Mathieu [00:08:41]:
Yeah.
Scott Ball [00:08:42]:
A ton of humility goes a long way.
A.J. Mathieu [00:08:47]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright. Our second point is to prioritize relationships over results. Don’t come in there guns blazing because you’ve got great ideas and you’re really excited about the future and potential that the church has, we’re gonna we’ll speak into this a little bit in our next point as well, but prioritize relationships first. And we would always tell a pastor, unless, you know, there’s there’s some sometimes different circumstances, but for the most part, you know, give it give it six months. Give it at least six months. Just get to get to know the people and the rhythms of the church and just the things that can’t be explained on paper.
A.J. Mathieu [00:09:27]:
You just have to experience them and feel it out. So just take some time. Don’t don’t expect that you’re making changes on day one unless there’s some really weird circumstance and you know already know all about it and they are excited for you to do something, and that’s not usually the case. So just take take the time. Plan plan times for this, though. You know? I mean, have coffee times and dinner plans and, you know, weekend outings or various things to to get to know people. I mean, I I know you’re you probably have left relationships behind from wherever you were previously. And, you know, there there may be this, you know, this human relationship need even.
A.J. Mathieu [00:10:06]:
So you want to make friends. You’re gonna have to prioritize that, for you and your your wife, your kids. I mean, these you know, everybody that’s been affected by the change. And, yeah, just plan that out. Don’t don’t get so buried in the work, that you miss out on the opportunity to build new new friendships and relationships and, and get to know the people.
Scott Ball [00:10:29]:
Yes. I’m going to read to you a quote Alright. From from GK Chesterton.
A.J. Mathieu [00:10:37]:
Okay.
Scott Ball [00:10:39]:
This is gonna be familiar to some of our listeners, maybe not to to others. It’s the, the principle of Chesterton’s fence. So he says, in the matter of reforming things as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle, a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or a law, let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or a gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes up to it and says, I don’t see the use of this. Let us clear it away. To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer, If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think.
Scott Ball [00:11:29]:
Then when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. So it’s it’s this idea that until you understand why something is the way it is, you shouldn’t get rid of it. Mhmm. So if you can explain why it’s there and then explain why it would be better if it were not there, then you shouldn’t torpedo the thing. And so we have when you’re a new pastor, you have the benefit of objectivity because you see things perhaps that other people do not see. But you’re you are unwise if you think that it it showed up that that program or that system or that team or that bureau you know, bureaucratic rule, if you think that it just showed up de novo, like, you know, they just thought here’s an here’s a thing that we’re going to do, it’s it’s there for a reason. Someone started that ministry, that program, that committee, instituted that rule or that policy for a reason. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t get rid of it.
Scott Ball [00:12:38]:
It just means that until you understand why it was instituted in the first place, you shouldn’t recommend it because, one, you might very well come around to it and go, yeah, we really maybe should keep that thing. Or two, people will not I think people will not buy into the change that you’re wanting to propose. Mhmm. Until you can speak their language and go, I know why we’ve done this. Mhmm. You know, we did it for this reason, but here’s why we shouldn’t do it this way anymore. And so, it kinda goes back to being curious, I guess, to point one. But you need that relationship.
Scott Ball [00:13:12]:
You need to know why things are there. You need to have the, you know, the and have the trust currency in place to be able to make recommendations. So I know I’ve kind of maybe started to bleed into point three a little bit, but I I think it’s so important for us to understand why are things the way that they are. Maybe just a kind of a small subpoint here or a story. You and I, you know, taking over for our founder, Aubrey Malphurs, We have found sometimes, like, we come up with new ideas or new ways of saying or doing things, and then, we’ll come across some, like, old document of Aubrey’s in Dropbox or something and go, I think we thought we were getting away from something or innovating, and then we see Aubrey had the same point or was making the same point or saying something the same way. And so sometimes that happens. You you think you’re innovating, but really you’re just going back to to something more fun.
A.J. Mathieu [00:14:04]:
Which is kind of the nature of our work altogether, you know, that we help churches sometimes realign back to some biblical principles
Scott Ball [00:14:12]:
Yeah. That’s
A.J. Mathieu [00:14:12]:
true. That we’ve innovated away from over the centuries.
Scott Ball [00:14:16]:
Yeah. Not that we ever thought that Aubrey anything Aubrey was doing was was not good or something, but we No. No. Sometimes we go, oh, let’s try it in a new way, and then we we found ourselves innovating our way back to something that Aubrey was doing. Maybe we call it something different or whatever, slap a slap some new paint on it, but it’s like, no. This is what Aubrey was doing with churches twenty years ago, and it because it was smart and it was good.
A.J. Mathieu [00:14:37]:
Yeah. Yep. You and I have not authored 26 books or, taught in the seminary for thirty years. So, yeah, we still have things to learn as well. Yep. Okay. Our last point here is to communicate hope before you try to cast vision. And again, I think it was in our third point last week.
A.J. Mathieu [00:14:58]:
We talked about the relationship between pastor and church coming together in this new relationship in regards to vision and the future of the church and how this should be, you know, a symbiotic relationship, that that really God ordains together for the benefit of the church and for the world that the church will affect with the gospel. But, but, yeah, communicate hope first, before we get into strategy and all that. And this can be done even in the early stages of relationship with the church. Hope, obviously, is where what we want the church to sense and feel, regardless of where it is. Excuse me. We’re gonna sort of flavor this point a little bit with, you know, a church that maybe is in need of some revitalization or could benefit from optimization to be able to move into a growth trajectory. But communicating hope first, you can do that in almost any situation in the church as somebody new. And you probably feel that way.
A.J. Mathieu [00:15:55]:
I mean, it’s it’s rare that a pastor would accept this new position not feeling hopeful himself or seeing potential in the church and in the people. And so I think this is a good additional relationship building element to feel hopeful, to project hope as you’re getting to know everybody and and learning your way around this new environment. And then in the right time, in format venue, begin to cultivate strategy for vision that hopefully will, again, have been talked about in the hiring process, and, you know, between the senior leadership of the church and the new pastor. But but I think this is going to help people to feel maybe confident towards you and excited about the future with you leading that, that you see a hopeful future for them.
Scott Ball [00:16:45]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I think this is so important. You know, they they have to people have to trust you. People have to have confidence in you. People have to see what you’re seeing, they have to be excited about where you’re wanting to lead the church, and it needs to be in alignment with where they see the church. We talked again, we talked about that last week.
Scott Ball [00:17:04]:
Direction should be shared, you know, and they shouldn’t be you should be winning them over on your ability to guide them towards that shared destination rather than trying to win them over on the destination. So, you know, if if you got hired by a church and they didn’t have a vision for the future, don’t sit in your office and go, well, I waited six months and I cooked up a vision over the last six months, and now I’ve been here six months and I can spring it on them. Don’t do that. Build it with them, that part. And then beyond that, try to get people excited about your leadership and your ability to take them there. You know? And you can do that through your sermons. You can do that through relationships. You can do that, you know, through casting vision.
Scott Ball [00:17:48]:
But and then and look for early wins. You know, what are what are some things you know, we didn’t talk about this last week, but we should have a piece of advice we we give to churches that are going through transition is, like, save low hanging fruit wins for the new pastor, things that no one is gonna be offended by and everyone is gonna be happy with. Like, you know, we’re gonna re stripe the parking lot, you know, and it, you know, it’s gonna things are gonna look fresh or we’re putting in some new sign things that peep no one’s gonna be mad about. Everyone’s going to love. You know, hopefully, you can get some of those things early too because that that makes people go, oh, things are changing and they’re and that oh, I really like that. We should’ve done that years ago. You know, if there’s some easy things that you can do like that in the first nine months, then that’s that’s good too. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say you should consider an outside process.
Scott Ball [00:18:41]:
If you’re if the church doesn’t have a vision for the future so that it doesn’t come off like you’re trying to railroad something down the throat of the church, if you partner with someone like the Mouthers Group, let us be the ones who are guiding the discussion, then it won’t feel like, oh, well, it’s just, you know, pastor AJ’s idea. You know? I’ll go, oh, no. This you know, we we built this thing together. So consider that because it really is a it’s a great way to get kicked out is if people feel like you’re jamming something down their throats.
A.J. Mathieu [00:19:17]:
Yeah. What it communicates is let’s work on this together. You know? Me, pastor, you, church, we are we are one, and and we’re gonna have somebody come lead us through something that we can we can develop together. And that just builds ownership in it. You’re just Trust
Scott Ball [00:19:35]:
that you wanna hear. That you
A.J. Mathieu [00:19:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It’s a it’s just a really healthy way of processing through the shared vision, developing strategies, and making sure that everybody is unified. I mean, unity in the church is is a huge element. And so, yeah, when the church is is moving in the same direction together, the fruit of that is just the sky’s the living. Heaven’s the living.
A.J. Mathieu [00:19:59]:
So
Scott Ball [00:19:59]:
That’s right.
A.J. Mathieu [00:20:00]:
There you go. Alright, Scott. We’ve we’ve got, some things last week that the church can do to, prepare healthily for their new pastor. And then this week, things the pastor can do to work, from a healthy perspective building the relationship with his new church.
Scott Ball [00:20:16]:
Yeah. And like we said last week, go to healthychurchestoolkit.com. Sign up free for seven days. And inside the toolkit, you’ll see there’s, a thing called the church checkup challenge. It’s a it’s a seven day kind of mini course that’s inside there. I’d encourage you to go through that because with with your team, with your elders or whatever, because it will get them starting to ask some of the questions. That’s something that you can do before you would go into a whole revitalization process. Go through that church checkup challenge because you’ll go, well, we don’t know.
Scott Ball [00:20:51]:
We don’t know what our discipleship pathway is or, oh, I’m not sure. Are we clear on our our mission language or I don’t know. Do we have a clear vision for where we’re going? It it doesn’t give you all the answers, but would get your team asking some of the right questions. And, you can sign up at healthychurchestoolkit.com for seven days and go through that material with your team in that time frame, and it might be helpful for you to figure out should we go through a revitalization process or not?
A.J. Mathieu [00:21:20]:
Brilliant idea. Thanks for being with us, everybody. The links that we’ve mentioned are gonna be down in the description, for this episode in your podcast app or in the YouTube description below. Thanks. We’ll see you again next week.
