What Kind of Transition
by W. Wayne Price
Sometime during the height of a terrible church fight, one of my friends said, "You'll get a book out of all this." I thought, "No way, when I'm out of here, job-one will be amnesia." As it turned out, my friend was right. I did write a book: In Transition: Navigating Life's Major Changes, published earlier this year by Morehouse. The book had to be written. I needed to clarify what was happening to me and I needed to share what I learned and am still learning.
As I looked back on the fifteen months I endured at the end of a seventeen-year pastorate, I realized how much I had left behind and began to realize how much still lay ahead for me. One of MTM's Wellness Retreats helped me begin to look forward. I knew from an earlier study I had done on the subject of rites of passage that all good transitions share the same pattern: letting go, waiting, and incorporation into whatever we choose.
The issue is never a question of whether or not we will experience transition; it is always a matter of what kind of transition it will be. I could have chosen to remain depressed to the point of bitterness, or I could choose and embrace a promising future. I had friends and God's spirit to help me. My future and the future of every clergy person who suffers from any kind of forced termination does well to turn loose of the baggage accumulated in conflict.
Roles change. Wounds fester and will not heal until the minister and family forgive the perpetrators. Self-pity, fear, anger and uncertainty cast a heavy cloud of sadness; these must go if the sunlight and joy are to return. Distrust and suspicion of all churches and church people may be understandable for the short haul, but these too must go if new trust is to emerge. Prayer, public and private worship and a community of faith help us clear the slate so we can heal and grow.
The waiting time is next. I found comfort in those Psalms, which admonish us to wait on the Lord. Most ministers are tempted to think they can save everybody and fix everything - and do it right away. Forced terminations say something quite different. My time of waiting was indeed a fallow period of allowing God to work in my life by the power of the Spirit, the love of people of faith, and the medical community. In fact, the periods of letting go and waiting overlapped, but I became aware of the lessening need to let go and see what God had in store for me.
The five-year mark comes at the end of this year. Resurrection has occurred. I have been ordained to the Episcopal priesthood and serve as a Rector's Assistant in an exciting and growing church. 1 still cherish my forty-year ministry as a Baptist and refuse to allow the behavior of a handful of people in one Baptist Church to negate a long and fine career. As a friend said, "You have simply moved to another room in God's great house."
Transition? A forced termination is a forced
transition. With a great deal of help, I chose to make mine the best
possible.
Dr. W. Wayne Price is a member of the MTM Board of
Trustees. His book In Transition: Navigating Life's Major Changes (Morehouse), can be purchased from most bookstores or on the Internet.