By Ken Fletcher

As I sit at my desk in the church office and reflect over my recent experiences, I am once again impressed with how God leads us through the various seasons of our Christian walk. To be where I am and doing what I am doing was never by personal design or plan but I believe orchestrated by God in his own sovereign way.

I strongly believe that God called me to serve in the public school system as a teacher and Elementary School administrator. After a fulfilling career I retired from Education in 1997 wondered what the next chapter of my life would be like. Being actively involved in the local church, in the larger Christian community, and in short term foreign missions has been and continues to be a passion. With all of my involvements in the Christian community, never did I picture myself in the ministry role of Church Pastor.

During the fall of 2003, our church was engaged in a process of “Re-Focusing and Vision Setting”. While that process was proceeding, the senior pastor of our church resigned his position leaving a senior leadership vacuum for the church. Fortunately for the church, we have a few capable teacher/preachers within the congregation who were willing to step in and provide excellent Sunday morning teaching. The Re-Focusing process continued with total congregational involvement and was completed in early 2004. The administrative, planning and pastoral load on the elders was significant. Throughout this transitional time the congregation was encouraging and supportive of the elders. The elders, were anxious to secure the services of an “Interim / Transitional” Pastor as soon as possible to give visible, tangible leadership to the congregation.

The first Sunday of January, was the day that my life took a significant and unexpected shift. A member of the congregation came to me in the foyer after church and said, “Ken, I believe you should serve as our Interim Pastor. I have spoken to a few others and they feel the same way.” Had I not felt and seen the sincerity of his comment and known the integrity of his person, I would have dismissed the idea immediately. We later met for coffee and he shared in more depth his idea. Having had time to digest the idea in prayer with my wife, we came to peace with the idea. I asked him to poll a significant cross-section of the congregation to be sure that the suggestion had support. Upon doing that task, and finding strong support, he wrote a proposal to the elders. The elders, discussed the proposal and agreed with the member that the idea should be brought to the congregation. At the end of January 2004 an announcement of intent was made to the congregation, which was overwhelmingly endorsed. I have now served as Interim / Transition pastor for two months as of this writing.

Now that I have served for a short time, I believe that my professional skill set, and my heart for people have prepared me for the tasks and situations that lie ahead. I am fulfilling the roles of administration, staff support, long term theme / preaching planning and pastoral care. Just as significant as the tasks previously mentioned, my time is also focused towards relational renewal and maintenance within the staff, congregation and elders. I have not taken a preaching ministry role. The church appears to be moving ahead in a healthy manner. Attendance is up, the congregation is being fed through systematic biblical teaching, missions initiatives are continuing, the staff are securely providing leadership, the congregation speaks hope and anticipation, and the church is now actively engaged in the process of finding God’s person for the “Senior Pastor” position.

Everyone is secure knowing that Ken will not be that person! My focus is for the here and now of healing, restoration, maintenance and hope.

Please see Ken's subsequent article From School Principle to Transitional Pastor