The Rev. Dianne Christopher
COURTESY PHOTO
“You get to be a Moses. You get to look into the Promised Land, but you don’t get to go there.”
That is how the Rev. Dianne B. Christopher, a professional transitional specialist, describes the role of an intentional interim minister.
Twenty-three years ago, Christopher, then a diaconal minister, was working as a counselor for the Iowa Annual Conference. Accustomed to leading seminars for the denomination, she was not surprised to hear from the Interim Ministry Network. “I thought they were contacting me about teaching,” she says. However, “they asked me to become a transitional intentional interim minister!”
A small, country church in crisis, near Waterloo, Iowa, needed a pastor immediately to serve on “temporary pulpit supply,” she recalls. It turned out to be a four-year stint. She loved it.
Five successive appointments, averaging three years each, followed the Waterloo job. After retiring in 2011, she took on another six-month interim appointment.
In 1996, Bishop Charles W. Jordan encouraged Christopher to pursue elder’s orders.
So Christopher, who already had master’s degrees in counseling and administration, enrolled in the Course of Study at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Course of Study is the denominationwide education program required for local pastors. In 2008, she was ordained an elder.
Christopher and her sidekick – the Rev. “Diane-with-one-‘n’” Mitchell – pioneered a team approach to intentional interim ministry, serving as senior and associate pastors of a conflicted congregation. They co-wrote Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat, a text on intentional interim ministry.
Intentional interim ministry isn’t for everyone, Christopher notes.
“You cannot be egocentric,” she says. “It’s not about me. It’s about serving a congregation.” Interim ministers also must be well grounded in faith, emotionally stable, unflappable, loving and very skilled in ministry. They go into a congregation, knowing they won’t be there forever and comfortable in that knowledge.
“It’s like the [Kenny Rogers’] song,” she says, “‘You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.’
“You are the pastor. You also are the on-site analyst.”
Some people become intentional interim ministers as retirees, Christopher says. “It’s also an exciting thing to do as a career pastor.”
She highly recommends it.
“It’s so much fun to walk along with people as they get their lives in order.”
Barbara Dunlap-Berg