Last month, VitalChurch interim pastor Dave Miles concluded his time at Christ Community Church (CCC) in Rochester, Minnesota. When VitalChurch arrived, the church was still reeling from the loss of their longtime lead pastor. There was a lot of grief and conflict associated with his resignation, and the 1,000-plus-member church was having a difficult time discerning how to move forward. After going through VitalChurch’s diagnostic assessment, which revealed the issues the church was facing, … [Read more...]
Latest News & Insights
An Interim Pastor’s Practical Ideas for Leading Your Church Through the Covid-19 Pandemic
I am currently serving a church that is exactly 3,068 miles from my home. As an interim pastor, I spend two weeks a month at the church I serve, and I lead the church remotely the remaining weeks. In some ways, I am already skilled at running parts of the church remotely, but to run an entire church virtually is a new challenge! Here are some practical ways the staff and I are leading through this crisis moment: More Time with Staff We have a remote all-staff prayer meeting once a week … [Read more...]
9 Leadership Principles from an Interim Pastor to Get You Through a Crisis (Like Covid-19)
The world is in an uproar. An unseen enemy, known as Covid-19, has brought our planet to its knees. World leadership is being tested. At VitalChurch, leadership in difficult times is our normal. So how do our interim pastors lead in times of crisis? The following are nine leadership principles that we hold to. Have an accurate assessment of reality and communicate it. No one is helped by pretending, or assuming, things are okay when they aren’t okay. No one is helped by making false … [Read more...]
Do We Need an Interim Pastor if We Have Someone We Can Promote from Within?
This is a question that should be asked much more often than it actually is. Churches often mistakenly think that the best route after a lead pastor leaves is to promote a pastor who is already on staff to the vacant position. On the surface, this seems to make sense. There will be little or no “downtime” from one lead pastor to the next. The congregation is likely already familiar and comfortable with the current staff member. He can hit the ground running, since he will already have an … [Read more...]
Why an Intentional Interim Pastor Is Key When Transitioning to a New Pastor
Many (but not all) of the churches we work with are in a crisis situation when one of our interim pastors arrives on the scene. Some churches have the luxury of knowing ahead of time that their lead pastor will be vacating his position. It may be that the lead pastor has decided that it’s time for him to retire. Or he may be moving on to a position at another church or leaving the ministry in favor of another career path. In these cases, the pastor will ideally give his church plenty of notice … [Read more...]
The Benefits of Working with VitalChurch Interim Pastors from the Church’s Perspective
We talk a lot in this blog and on our website about how we help churches in transition or crisis. We outline our three-phase process and how it helps revitalize churches. But in this blog post, instead of us telling you how our work benefits churches, we thought you might like to hear from some of the people we’ve worked with recently in churches around the country. So, we reached out and got some great feedback! The Diagnostic Analysis is a Key Part of the Process Even before we send an … [Read more...]
VitalChurch Aids California Churches with Interim Pastors and Church Health Assessments
With headquarters in California, and several of our interim pastors using the state as their home base, we find ourselves doing a lot of work in California churches. If you know anything about the state, you could probably conclude that there are a diverse set of churches in California—and you’d be right! You’ll find traditional, denominational churches, non-denominational community churches, megachurches, and just about any other type of church you can think of. Experienced Intentional Interim … [Read more...]
Meet VitalChurch’s Newest Intentional Interim Pastor: Steve Ignash
The VitalChurch team of interim pastors is growing! We are pleased to announce that Pastor Steve Ignash has joined our team as an Associate and will be serving as an intentional interim pastor in churches throughout the country who are experiencing a season of transition or crisis. It has always been one of the goals at VitalChurch to raise up the next generation of church leaders who can carry on the legacy of the organization’s founders. This means training new intentional interim pastors … [Read more...]
Serving as Intentional Interim Pastors from San Diego to San Francisco, California
Many people don’t think of California as an overly “Christian” state, but even though it’s not anywhere near the Bible Belt, it definitely has it share of Christians and Christian churches. It’s hard to say exactly how many churches are in the state, but it’s estimated that there are more than 15 million Christians in California, according to the U.S. Religion Census. There are plenty of denominational churches in California, but the state also has a large amount of independent, … [Read more...]
VitalChurch Interim Pastor Finishes Up Successful Intentional Interim Period in Massachusetts Church
Another intentional interim period just came to an end for one of our VitalChurch interim pastors. Gregg Caruso, VitalChurch Managing Partner, spent 20 months at Christ Community Church (CCC) in East Taunton, Massachusetts. CCC was experiencing a time of transition following the departure of the Lead Pastor. CCC had also experienced significant staff turnover and there was mounting conflict within the elder board. CCC contacted VitalChurch and after a few months of vetting various transitional … [Read more...]