The Transition Team is a group of trusted individuals the meeting chooses that is spiritually grounded and representative of the meeting as a whole. This team provides a framework for the meeting to systematically assess its pastoral needs and congregational goals before beginning the search for a new pastor.
The role of the interim minister is as pastor to the people and consultant to the Transition Team. The pastor works with the Transition Team to address five Focus Points: heritage, mission, leadership, connections, and future. After each Focus Point, the team will report back to the meeting, inviting feedback.
The Five Focus Points
Heritage. The Heritage Focus Point gives the meeting an opportunity to review how the community has been shaped and formed. This includes the meeting’s history and traditions, healthy and unhealthy. This focus point allows the meeting to put former pastors’ work in perspective and begin to think about what they want in their next pastor.
Mission. With the Mission Focus Point, the meeting defines and redefines its sense of purpose and direction. In this process, the meeting will define its core values, develop a mission statement about why the meeting exists, create a vision statement to show what the meeting will look like, and come up with a ministry plan for how the meeting intends to reach its vision.
Leadership. The Leadership Focus Point reviews the meeting’s needs and ways of organizing, and develops a new and effective staff and volunteer leadership structure. The meeting honors past leaders while considering future leadership needs and recruiting leaders to meet those needs.
Connections. The Connections Focus Point looks at the relationships the meeting builds outside itself, including with the Yearly Meeting and Friends Organizations. The meeting will also consider its relationships with the community and the organizations it supports, financially and with time.
Future. The last Focus Point is Future, where the meeting creates a shared vision for its future. The transition team will finish the congregational profile, engage the meeting in developing the pastoral profile, and write a final report. The meeting will prepare physically, emotionally, and spiritually for the new pastor.
These Focus Points will give the meeting a clear sense of what it wants in a settled pastor. Once the Transition Team has finished its work, the meeting will be ready to begin its search for the next settled pastor.