Beware the One Meeting the Bus

Some church people may not realize that there is a secret code among pastors.  It is comprised of aphorisms whose meanings are readily understood by clerics, but not so much by parishioners.  One such saying is “Beware the person who meets the bus!”   This advice has been a big help in most of my transitions to new congregations.  As a pastor I have served nine congregations including two as a student pastor during college years and one as an interim post-retirement.  All but three of these pastoral charges have verified the truth of the maxim.

The person who meets the bus is the one who writes or phones you before your arrival in your new church, or meets you at the airport, or travels many miles to spend time with you in your former parish even before your new pastoral responsibilities have begun.  Usually such contacts are outside the usual protocol for a new pastoral start-up, or the result of over-zealous machinations in order to be first in line at the bus stop.

Most of the time these contacts are attempts to ingratiate oneself, to cunningly work oneself into a favorable position with the new pastor.  Most of the time such individuals prove to be power mongers who want an edge up on being sure that things in the congregation go their way.  So this initial meeting with the prospective new pastor is an attempt to work around the stated procedure for introducing the pastor to the church, and at the same time check him/her out to see how malleable the supposedly unsuspecting parson will be to the usurper’s own controlling agenda.

One such episode early in my pastoral career involved a gentleman who showed up at the parsonage right after we had moved in and before my first Sunday in the new church.  Often people show up unannounced bearing gifts of food and other expressions of welcome.  That is a very good thing and deeply appreciated!  But this particular individual bore no gifts, made some inquiry about my being the new pastor, and from there babbled on in a bumbling attempt to curry favor.  His illusions of having succeeded must have ended quickly when at the first Board Meeting after my arrival a scheme he devised that would have served his self-interest found no support from me and was handily voted down by the Board.  His interest in the church dwindled after that.  His effort lacked the cleverness of others I have encountered along the way.

Another person learned that my practice for many years was to take a long walk on Sundays prior to time for me to be at church for Sunday School and Worship.  These lone excursions were meant to provide an opportunity to prepare my mind and spirit for worship as well as review the intended sermon and liturgy for the day.  Also, they were timed so that I usually showed up at church ready to attend to unfinished details and enjoy the day’s interaction.

Learning quickly after the beginning of my pastorate in this church the route I usually followed on my pre-church walk, this gentleman waited for me near my starting point and joined me on the jaunt—not once, not twice, but many times.  He wasn’t as bumbling as the fellow mentioned above, but clearly his agenda was the same—to win over my support of his agenda for the church.  I should have explained to him how important these walks were for my preparation for church, but intuitively suspecting that his sensitivities might not be able to handle it, I simply endured his intrusions until he figured out that his “cozying up” didn’t make a difference in how I saw my administrative role.

Perhaps the occurrence that stands out the most in 46 years of ministerial memory involved a retired pastor (who ought to have known better) who as a retiree took on a number of leadership roles in the church where I was to be appointed, and who, unbeknownst to him, was being edged out of some of these roles by the Staff-Parish Relations Committee (the advisory committee to church staff).  The method of the SPRC was rather circuitous: I was not to give this person any responsibilities that would involve him in worship leadership (their estimation was that he had lost most of his fluency in such duties), but neither was I to let him know that his being “fired” from worship leadership was their doing.

So when a letter arrived from him a month before I moved to this new church, I had already heard of him.  The letter was a summons actually.  I was to meet him at 9 a.m. in front of Wesley Chapel on Wednesday of the week of Annual Conference (the state-wide legislative gathering of our denomination held at West Virginia Wesleyan College prior to pastors being moved to their new congregations).  The letter even included the fact that he would be wearing a green leisure suit at this “bus stop” meeting, so that I could easily spot him amid the crowd that usually gathered around the Chapel entrances.  I went as ordered on the appointed day, but because of the Conference schedule, there was no time for an extended conversation.  He may have envisioned that we would sit together at the Conference business session, giving him time to be sure I understood how important his role in the church was. (Possibly he sensed that some things were about to change.)  Outside of a few gratuitous remarks and an indication that we would talk more when I arrived at the church, we parted and went separate ways.

He did stop by the office several times during those early weeks of my tenure at this congregation.  Our conversations were casual, but he never broached the topic of worship leadership.  Since I was mandated to bar him from such participation, I took the easier step of not bringing it up either.  Today, I would handle the situation much more directly, putting the responsibility on the SPRC where it belonged.  But, alas, too often we grow smart too late.

The rejected retired pastor retaliated.  He began writing anonymous letters to me that catalogued all of my many faults as he perceived them, and he also sent letters to key leaders in the congregation complaining about my inadequacies as a pastor.  And he did manage to win over a few persons to sympathize with him and help keep the dissension going.  (I know he was the author of the letters sent to me because he used the same manual typewriter on which the letter I received from him months before had been typed.)  His interference along with other very complex problems at this church made for a very tumultuous pastorate, one I was relieved to leave.  After all, there is a fine line between loyalty and stupidity.

No doubt, other vocations experience the “bus stop” syndrome.  Children butter up their parents in order to get their way; parents suck up to teachers in an effort to get their children into the gifted program; fawning and flattering fops overwhelm politicians to obtain special favors; brownnosers go so far up their supervisors’ anatomies that hoped-for promotions reek of fertilizer.

But what these sycophants fail to understand is that, whereas other leaders (parents, teachers, politicians, supervisors, etc.) may wield power and the ability to control outcomes, pastors do not.  It’s true that some pastors haven’t learned this lesson and often behave as if their donning clerical garb makes what they say and do about twenty inches above human contradiction.  And, it may be true that pastors in an earlier time had power and authority conferred upon them simply because of their office, but that day is long gone.  And good riddance!  Any authority bestowed on pastors these days is mostly because they have earned it through mutual respect, listening skills, reasoned promptings, disciplined preparation, genuine commitment and other similar qualities.  In other words, pastors may have the ability to influence and persuade congregations to move in particular directions, but that largely depends on the confidence that has developed between pastor and parish.  That is not power and control.

As stated earlier, most people who reach out to the pastor’s family in the earliest days of the pastoral start-up are genuinely interested in extending a warm welcome.  That is gratifying and goes a long way toward bonding the pastor-parish connection.  But some meet the bus for their own cloaked reasons.  Any pastor with savvy will see right through them.  And other pastors will catch on soon enough.