Search and Call - Grief

Today's Topic: Grief

I want to thank everyone who has been commenting on this series of posts about my experience in the Search and Call process. Please keep interacting. Though that which I am sharing is my own personal experience, the stories many of you have shared alongside mine are rich and informative, and in a way healing.

Which is a good place to start for today's topic… Grief.

I often try not to use blanket statements or broad brushstroke generalities… however, in this situation I am confident that what I am about to say is absolutely true across the board.

Each and every Search and Call process involves (invokes) a significant amount of grief.

The three times I have navigated Search and Call have included experiences of deep grief for many of those involved. And yes, I say “many” and not “all” because not everyone grieves when a pastoral 

leader transitions out of a ministry setting.

Take for example the single word response I received recently after announcing my departure from my current faith community. “Hallelujah!” was all that they wrote in the email response.

Not everyone grieves when you leave.

For everyone else involved, the news of such a transition brings with it a flurry of emotions… and an entry into the at times heartbreaking process of navigating grief.

Now, for those of us who have studied grief and grieving processes, the responses to a pastoral leader searching for and accepting a call to another community come as no surprise. There’s plenty of denial expressed initially as well as some bargaining. And anger is always sure to rear its ugly head. These responses are to be expected when someone with whom we have developed relationship over a long period of time announces that those relationships are coming to an end.

Side note for those reading this who are not entrenched in ministry settings and/or pastoral relationships… Within the United Church of Christ, it is recommended that when a pastoral leader leaves a particular setting, they are to cease relationship with those in the community alongside whom they have been in ministry. Now, before anyone challenges that statement… let me also acknowledge that across the varied experiences within the United Church of Christ, I have seen just as many examples of how differently that is actually lived out.

I’ve witnessed pastoral leaders who exhibit exceptional boundaries in their leaving, affording those who follow the opportunity to develop deep relationships with those with whom they are called to serve. And I’ve also witnessed pastoral leaders who suck at this… to the point of causing great harm to both the community they have left and to the leadership that is called to follow them.

It makes sense to me that when leaving a ministry setting, we are no longer to serve as a pastoral presence for those in that community. Whomever accepts the call to follow us in that setting will be stepping into that role. And, it also makes sense to me that in my role as pastoral leader I am not to become “friends” with those whom I’ve been called to serve.

I’ve seen how ugly things can get when those in a faith community think they are “friends” with their pastor and that pastor announces they are leaving and ceasing to be in relationship going forward. Talk about anger rearing its ugly head…! Grief really does, at times, bring out the worst in some of us.

And yet, I also understand that this is all part of a grieving process for those in the community as well as for the pastoral leader who is leaving.

Pastoral ministry is an extremely lonely vocation for many of us. In part, because it can be exceptionally difficult to grow friendships with those who are outside of the faith community from which we serve, without them then wanting to come and be part of that faith community. If and when they do… everything changes.

So for many pastoral leaders, and often their families, the communities from which they serve become their social circle, making it even more difficult to leave when the time comes.

And that is the grief that I am now navigating.

Those within the community I’ve been part of for these past nine years are people whom I have grown to love deeply… making it that much more difficult to leave to accept a new call. And yet, if I am to trust in God’s guidance… I am also to trust in God’s call to new ministry. And no… that doesn’t make this any easier.

And for many pastoral leaders in the midst of their transition, this grief is real and difficult to navigate in a short period of time.

You see, as the faith community we are leaving enters into a time of searching for a new pastoral leader, some of what they are seeking will be a person who can minister with and to them as they grieve during their interim period. The pastoral leader transitioning out doesn’t often get that opportunity.

Many times the pastoral leader leaves one ministry setting and begins a new ministry elsewhere with little to no time in between to grieve. They must therefore be extremely intentional about their own self care and mindful of how much of what they are experiencing is their own grieving process.

In the first post I shared in this series I wondered about how the Search and Call process may be different. I continue that sense of wonder here in regard to the grief lived by so many when the process is engaged.

I know the grief is not avoidable, nor should it be. Yet I wonder if there are healthier ways we can navigate it together which include a reliance more fully on God’s work in our midst.

I wonder what it would look like to dedicate the time left together as an educational journey on how God walks with us in and through grief.

I wonder what it would be like for faith communities and their pastoral leaders to experience significant growth in the midst of this grieving, equipping us all for the times ahead where we will again experience these severing of relationships.

I wonder what we as a denomination may be able to envision in an effort to provide pastoral leaders a period of time in transition to walk within their grief and seek opportunities for healing.

I wonder what it will take for us all to name how deeply we love one another within such a time of uncertainty, and to then wish each other well as we go our separate ways. I’m actually experiencing some of this now with the people whom I love so deeply. And I can trust that God is already at work within them and their journey in grief.

Thanks be to God!

I’m curious… what are your wonderings about grief within this process?

[Photo Credit: Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash]