WHEN A PASTOR IS FIRED

PART 3

CARE FOR PASTOR’S FAMILY

A critical component that COMs should attend to when a pastor is fired is the family of that pastor. The pastor can easily be so traumatized that s/he can’t respond to the needs of the family, but someone should. Here is where the connectional church should come into play. At a bare minimum, the family should be personally contacted with a live voice and provided some counseling resources to help them respond to the chaos in their lives even while the pastor is sorting out the chaos in his or her life. Depending on their location, that might be a trusted counselor, a member of the presbytery staff with counseling skills, or even a pastor in another church who is open to listening to them.

WHO WILL LISTEN?

All of this is true regardless of whether the pastor is at fault or whether it is a case of being treated unfairly by some power base in the congregation. Eventually, both the pastor and the congregation have to take responsibility for their actions, but the family needs someone to listen to them, hear their hurt, and help them assess how they can best respond to the pastor who is part of their family. Failure to do this has occasionally led to further disruption resulting in divorce or other tragic results. In many cases, they may also be frightened about how they are going to survive financially, where they are going to live, how they are going to respond to friends, what it means for the schools the children are attending, etc. These are all things that a sensitive counselor can help them sort out.

PREPARED TO RESPOND

The separation from a congregation is traumatizing for the pastor, the congregation, and the family. The ability of the COM to respond with sensitivity can be an excellent witness to the faith.

These blogs will be part of a new booklet, “Good Beginnings and Healthy Endings for Churches.”

If you want to be notified when it’s available, send a request to stephenmccutchan@gmail.com.