A Transitional Pastor is a specially trained and experienced pastor who serves a church using a defined process when they are between long-term pastors.

A Transitional Pastor does what any other pastor might do (preach, lead, care, administration, etc.) but ALSO leads the church through Flourish's three step Church Transition Process.

Certainly every church should consider using a Transitional Pastor. Why? An external voice of experience bringing a thoughtful process to bear typically yields a better transition from one long-term pastor to another. Average pastoral tenure in America is around 5 years. That means pastors are leaving just at the point when a well-matched pastor is beginning to enter the "productive years" of his pastorate. The use of a Flourish Transitional Pastor can help your congregation successfully call a pastor who will remain with you for a decade or more.

Perhaps. But your church will likely be healthier, know itself better, and find a higher quality candidate when it comes time to enter the Pastor Search phase of Flourish's Church Transition Process. Using a Transitional Pastor is an example of how to go slow to go fast. Not using a Transitional Pastor when it would be wise to, can lead to the church's next pastor becoming an unintentional transitional pastor (for this very real danger see here and here). Can your church bear the cost of your next pastor having a rather short tenure and starting all over again with a transition process?

It varies from church to church. Like in other kinds of business arrangements, the first goal is to define a "scope of work" after the needs of the individual congregation are understood.

Generally speaking, there are two components to the cost of a Transitional Pastor. First, in terms of a "monthly fee" Flourish's goal is to seek to have the church's monthly costs be the same as 1/12th of the next pastor's total package (i.e. total hit to the budget including salary, housing allowance, and benefits), Second, we ask the church to provide a place for the pastor to live that is free to the pastor. Recognize that the money Flourish would pay a Transitional Pastor is used by that man to pay for his own permanent residence elsewhere. A suitable portion of the last pastor's "expense reimbursement account" should be granted to the Transitional Pastor to cover his ministry expenses.

To meet this financial goal, quite often the Transitional Pastor will commute for long weekends to the church site while maintaining a primary residence elsewhere. Such a Transitional Pastor will end up working somewhat less than full-time though maintain effectiveness. This is both cost-efficient for the church and humane on the Transitional Pastor who can sleep in his own bed some nights of the week.

A "full-time" Transitional Pastor obviously costs more. But if the church desires that and can afford it, then Flourish maintains a roll of vetted, experienced, and trained Transitional Pastors who are willing to pick up and move for a full-time role.

Yes! Flourish only employs highly experienced and vetted pastors for Transitional Pastor roles. Each of our Transitional Pastors undergoes initial training, receives ongoing coaching and training, and utilizes Flourish's proven Church Transition Process.

Of course! Our goal is to put the resumes and sermons of two qualified candidates before the Elders of the church and allow them to pick a first candidate to interview. Assuming the interview goes well, it is common for the church to pay for the candidate to come for a visit and ascertain if a match is made.

In picking two candidates to put before the Elders, we seek to match the gifts and experiences of the Transitional Pastor to what we understand to be the situation on the ground at the church.

We count among friends of Flourish a bevy of independent Transitional Pastors. These men certainly bring the strengths of their experiences to the table as Transitional Pastors. For this we are grateful. However, there are distinct downsides to using an independent Transitional Pastor.

1) Flourish has worked with a couple of hundred churches over the course of our 10 years of existence as a ministry. We can bring all that experience to bear in the situation of your church. An independent Transitional Pastor brings merely his experience (good as it might be) to the table.

2) Many times an independent Transitional Pastor has had no specialized training for the rather nuanced work of church transition. All Flourish Transitional Pastors are trained and then coached through the work they would do at your church.

3) We have found that almost all independent Transitional Pastors do not have rigorous, thorough, data-driven, field-tested, market-leading and spiritually wise processes they have performed at many churches. Flourish uses our processes every day to bless a wide spectrum of churches.

4) When it comes time to find a pastor, an independent Transitional Pastor brings merely his network of contacts into the equation. Flourish brings a database of candidates, a network purposefully cultivated for the decades our staff have been in ministry, and easy access to other networks we have curated for this purpose. This means Flourish can very easily get your pastoral opening in front of hundreds of qualified and potentially interested candidates.

5) As the word "independent" would suggest, an independent Transitional Pastor does not have an organization sitting behind them to assist them, coach them, troubleshoot when needed, or even provide additional resources from other staff members. Flourish brings all of that to the table when we place a Transitional Pastor at your church.