Itinerancy is dead. All the emerging and continuing branches of Methodism are abandoning the practice. I do not write to stem that tide, nor do I imagine this work to instigate a revival of the itinerant pastor. I have a saying, when I find that my opinion is shared by 51% or more of the people, then I know it is time to re-evaluate my position. This is a minority report. My intent is fourfold. First, to celebrate the good that has come to the church through itinerancy—both to her clergy and her local churches. Second, to answer some common objections to the practice. Third, to encourage perhaps a few clergy and churches to voluntarily embark on an adventure in the Kingdom of God and surrender to itineracy as a guiding principle for their ministry. Fourth, for most of this audience who will choose another path, to offer some suggestions on how the benefits that come from an itinerant system might not be completely lost. The fourth item is my greatest concern, so if you find this essay tedious or aggravating please do not leave without moving down to the final section.
The evidence I offer is mostly anecdotal. I include reflections from personal experience in the itinerant system. I am fortunate in beginning my ministry at a time and place where dedication to and respect for the itinerancy was still the prevailing if not universal attitude. In the second year of one’s appointment, and every year following, both the pastor and local church were asked, “What ongoing ministry would be seriously interrupted by a change in pastoral leadership?” To remain in place beyond three years one must explain what great work is being accomplished that could not be done by any other pastor that the Conference could send.
As a second career or late call local pastor, I served eleven churches in six charges over twenty-six years. My longest tenures were seven and eight years. I enjoyed every appointment. I could have remained at any one of them happily until I retired. Any one of them would have been pleased if I remained longer (with one possible exception). I never had a church where a disruption grew to a point beyond our ability to reconcile. Even the one exception was not an unbearably uncomfortable situation for either of us, and if given a little time may have proven to be no exception at all. Yet, as content as I was in every place, I was more pleased with the opportunity to move on to each new appointment. Itinerancy makes hard demands on a church, the pastor, and the pastor’s family; but I attribute to the itinerancy greater opportunity for all of us to experience adventures in God’s Kingdom and grow in Christian maturity than we could have known any other way.
I I do not know how I could have experienced the breadth and depth of Christian ministry apart from the itinerancy. Not many local churches have fully functional prison ministries and ministries to victims, and ministry in crisis pregnancy, and ministry in foster care and adoption, and ministry to low-income families, and ministry in schools and campuses, and evangelism ministry on the streets, and ministries of reconciliation in transitional communities, and ministry to migrant families, and the list could go on. If a church was large enough to provide all of this, then it would be too large for the pastor to be intimately involved with more than one or two of these. Because of the itineracy I was immersed in each of these ministries and many others at different times in different places.
The itinerant pastor is presented the opportunity for ministry within various community dynamics. Two isolated rural communities just fifty miles apart may seem identical to the Census Bureau or the statisticians in Congregational Development, but at the place where the Church encounters the community the difference can be as profound as that between New York City and a Central American village. I served one community where the high school still had a white prom and a black prom. No black person had ever preached from a white pulpit. Just before school started it was customary for one prominent family to throw a keg party for the students. The local police and sheriff knew it was best to look the other way, yet at the dirt road shanty on the edge of town they were hauling away adults who were a bit too boisterous in the same activity. All of that changed before I left. I served other communities where cross-cultural cooperation among the churches was a given and cross racial pulpit exchanges were the norm. The dynamics of one community may be driven by the sudden affluence of new industry while the next appointment may be grieving the loss of the last remaining textile mill. I learned that the parable that Jesus tells us about storing up treasure in heaven is heard differently when farmers can’t qualify for a loan to repair their existing barn and have nothing to put in it anyway. I have worshiped in churches where the message is best received if I am in shirt sleeves while sitting on a stool, and then in a place where it is better received when in full liturgical vestment. I have led worship where it is the custom of the community to stand, sit, and kneel, and in communities where it is the custom to stand, sit kneel, lie down, and roll over. I have surrendered to the paradoxical paradigm that people are the same everywhere, but no two people are the same.
At different times and different places, I have been called upon as volunteer chaplain for a rural hospital, a county jail, a drug rehab facility, a hospice house, and a couple of nursing homes. On 9/11, I found myself in a church where every household had a family member called up to active duty. Suddenly, I was a de facto chaplain to military families. I have served churches which had no children when we arrived and a charge where I was involved with four different youth groups simultaneously as well as a District youth organization. I benefited from the witness of every church I have served and would gladly have stayed longer, and the next church benefited from the cumulative lessons of all the churches I served before.
No seminary and no single church could provide me or my family with the spiritual growth and theological formation that we were gifted through the itineracy.
II It is objected, first of all, that studies have proven that it takes seven years or more for a pastor to realize substantial growth in a local church. I agree with the studies and do not contradict them. That is the way it is. However, we ought to ask the question, “Is that the way it should be, and if not is itineracy the villain?” The only large-scale models we have for studying itineracy in the United States are the United Methodists who practice intentional itineracy and the congregational churches who practice unintentional itineracy. Both are prima facie dysfunctional models of church. The studies prove that among dysfunctional churches it takes seven to ten years for a new pastor to restore the health of a church and oversee substantial growth. A rational reading of the Gospel witness as well as the established tradition of the Church continuing through the early Methodists testifies that it ought not be this way. My ministry witnesses that it need not be this way.
Furthermore, I assert that it is not itineracy that is at fault, but the quality and character of the clergy placed in the itinerant system. In my former denomination theological pluralism was not only a problem in progressive circles it wreaked havoc among traditionalists as well. In my Conference, a church which requested a traditionalist pastor might as likely receive a Calvinist or Anabaptist as a Methodist. This has been a source of some consternation to our pews as they have endured schizophrenic pulpits. An itinerant system cannot be staffed with clergy who adhere to different disciplines, practice incongruent liturgies, and hold contradictory articles of faith. It is understandable that a local church would be slow to follow a new pastor when they know the next one will teach differently and undo much of their efforts.
For that very reason it looks like the Global Methodist Church is moving away from the itineracy. Since her clergy and churches in the United States are drawn primarily from a denomination that contains a theological hodgepodge of Calvinists, anabaptists, congregationalists, Anglicans, Methodists, and some who are just plain confused, the Church cannot take a pastor from one church and place them in any randomly selected church. That is good cause to pause the itineracy, but not to bury it.
The GMC is committed to recovering the primitive religion embodied in early Methodists, but many of us have a distorted view of what that is. We will need time to learn together and accept corrections from each other. We all need some humility to recognize that we may have some things wrong. During that time, it may be wise to leave church and pastor together as long as possible as we rebuild trust and grow in grace together. Nonetheless, we ought not lose our collective memory of the great and unique help that itineracy has brought to the Church. The itinerant pastor may be the last aspect of Methodism that we recover.
I devote only a few words to another common objection: the itinerant system is a hardship for the family. I yield the point. I have witnessed the same in my family. But that does not invalidate the benefit of itinerancy. Even the heathen will endure the hardship of frequent relocation for material reward and take satisfaction in their growth in proficiency and reputation in their chosen vocation. How much more might a Christian family be expected to endure momentary hardships in exchange for heavenly reward and spiritual growth.
If we were to accept that family life is incompatible with the itinerant system, then that is not so much an argument in opposition to itinerancy as it is an argument in favor of celibate clergy. But the two are compatible. It is possible to tend to the care of family and the care of the church. But I speak as one from another century. Indeed, I join the testimony of centuries of itinerating apostles, evangelists, missionaries, preachers, and teachers that say it is so. The rewards outweigh the cost.
III I expect that there remain a few churches and a few clergy that are established in the primitive religion well-articulated by Wesley who will surrender to the hardship of itineracy for the gain in Christian maturity. I commend this way of life for those churches and clergy. Think of the teachers you had in your Senior year of high school. I doubt that any of them were your teachers in first grade. At different points in a church’s growth cycle, she will benefit from different teachers.
Once we have removed the danger of the theological grab bag then we look forward in joyous anticipation of changes in pastoral leadership. What lessons will they bring, what testimonies might they share of how God is working in other places that might be of help to us in our place. An itinerating pastor is an instrument of our connection with the larger church.
I will say it again: No seminary and no single church could provide me or my family with the spiritual growth and theological formation that we were gifted through the itineracy. I will add: No church could have received the benefit of that gift if they were not open to itineracy.
IV The reality is that for most Methodists in the U.S. the itineracy is dead, or at least taking a long rest. We want to be intentional about seeking practices so that the great benefit of the itinerant system might not be completely lost.
First, we should recognize that in some contexts the benefit of itineracy is accomplished naturally without the need for a change in pastoral leadership. Given the mobility of Americans, in some of our urban communities the pastor stays put, and the congregation changes every few years. Similarly, what the protestants tend to call mega churches really serve the purpose of cathedrals. Without pursuing that definition here, suffice it to say that a cathedral benefits from a stable, longer-term leadership for reasons that do not apply to parish ministry. The senior clergy have little or no personal contact with most of the parishioners anyway. The congregation experiences itineracy through the natural rotation of class leaders, Sunday School teachers, Ministers of Visitation, and other missional and pastoral staff.
For the rest of us, we need to compensate for what is missing. I served two long term appointments (long-term by my standard). In a long-term appointment, it is essential that I avoid the real danger of imprinting my personality along with my biases on the congregation. It is a challenge for pastors to take as much of themselves as out of the way as possible in their preaching, teaching, and service so that the people might see Jesus. A pastor who is even older than me once advised, “The Holy Spirit will do a lot with the church if the pastor just gets out of the way.”
One way for the pastor to get out of the way is by using the ancient liturgy utilized by Christians including United Methodists until the 1988 hymnal. Adapt it to the local context if need be. Make use of common prayers mixed with extemporaneous prayers as the early Methodists did. The fact that it does not sound like the way I speak is exactly the point, and should we neglect to pray for our missionaries because they are not on my mind this morning. The liturgy with common prayer calls us away from the distractions pressing about us in our local setting into the cosmic redemptive work of God in the greater Church of which we are a part. There is plenty of opportunity in worship to present myself…vulnerable, struggling to live the life the Gospel calls me to live in this time and place…but the whole service must not be about me and my concerns or even the local church and our concerns. Worship also needs to invite the voice of the Ancients and those of our own time worshiping in places less comfortable and less safe than our own.
It is important that the congregation hears more voices than my own. After the third year at each appointment, I am more deliberate about turning the pulpit over to visiting clergy. I utilize retired clergy, campus ministers, chaplains, student pastors, and seminary teachers. I make it clear to each that this is not to be a fund-raising appeal for their cause. We would do that another time. Perhaps, that evening over a covered dish. I want them to preach the Gospel knowing that for this hour the assembly is their pastoral responsibility. I do not use these speakers for a Sunday off because I need to hear them too, and I want to know what my pastoral charge is hearing.
At one charge I was able to recruit two families who each agreed to visit a different Methodist church once a month. Preferably, a church outside of our community. It could be on a Sunday, a Wednesday, or a special service. If it was Sunday, I asked them to attend Sunday School and worship. They report back to me and to anyone else that might benefit from what they have seen. How is God’s work evident among them. They may encounter something that will help the worship team, or the trustees, or maybe a missional effort where it might be mutually beneficial to share resources.
The last suggestion is one that I have become fully convicted of in recent years. Every church should adopt a mission. Don’t just send a check. It ought to be that every person who comes through the church door at least once a month cannot help but know the name and nature of the mission. Every child and adult ought to be able to tell a visitor the name of the missionary, their challenges and successes, the make-up of the missionary family, and how things are going for them. They should be included in the prayers every Sunday, as well as at every youth group, women’s circle, and men’s ministry. This is not only a great help for the mission, but it makes concrete the connection of the local church with the church universal.
I understand that the itinerant system will not be available for most of us in the United States. Like much of our doctrine and polity, it has been seriously harmed and will take a while to recover. Yet the great help it provided to both the vitality of the connectional church and the depth and breadth of the Christian formation of our churches and clergy will not be magically replaced when it is set aside. The general church, the conferences, and each local church will need to make intentional efforts to mitigate the loss.
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