Showing Up With Questions

What listening looks like in a new pastoral appointment

I have some big news. On July 1st, I will begin a new pastoral appointment as the lead pastor of Huntersville UMC, a wonderful church in a growing suburb of Charlotte. After seven years in regional ministry, I am heading back to the local church, and I could not be more excited.

The moving boxes are back out, the packing tape is on the counter, and I find myself getting ready to do the very thing I’ve been teaching y’all to do — ask good questions, listen intently, and learn a context.

I attended a pastoral move seminar earlier this week where the word “listen” came up so many times I lost count. I thought to myself, “I can do that!” So here are some of the questions I’m planning to bring into my first sixty days at Huntersville UMC.

Listening to God

As I begin my new role, I want to be listening to God in prayer and quiet reflection.

Three questions I’ll be sitting with in prayer:

God, what do you have me here to do at Huntersville UMC?

Where are you already at work in the community?

What is your particular calling for this church in this community?

I imagine these questions will take time to answer. The Spirit tends to answer questions like these slowly, through people and scripture and the things that keep me up at night. By asking them, I hope it will keep me focused on discernment, and on joining in what God is already doing.

Listening to the Congregation

Every church has been writing a story long before we arrive. Our job in the early months is to learn that story with genuine curiosity and a lot of coffee.

I’ll sit down with as many people as I can and ask three things:

Tell me a bit about yourself.

What do you love about this church?

In ten years, I hope this church will...

That first question is where the relationship building begins. And if I want to understand the church, I need to learn about the people who make it up. The last question is one of my favorites. The dreams people carry for their church can be quite revealing. I want to hear what’s been stirring in the people who call Huntersville UMC home before I start making any plans of my own.

Listening to the Neighbors

I also want to get to know the wider community of Huntersville. This is the context in which I’ll be proclaiming the Gospel after all. I’ve already pulled the demographic studies and have started working through them, but numbers only tell part of the story. The rest comes from conversation. Here are three questions I’ll be asking folks beyond the church walls:

What do you love about this community?

What is missing?

What would you look for in a spiritual community?

That last question is the one I’m most curious about. There are people in every community who are spiritually hungry and not quite sure where to take that hunger. I hope to meet some of them.

I’m grateful that Huntersville UMC is already a church that cares deeply about its neighbors. My hope is that as I ask these questions, my church folks will start asking them too. The more voices we gather, the better sense we’ll have of what God might be calling us toward together.

In Conclusion

These are some of the questions I’m planning to ask. They might shift by July. I might get there and find out I’m missing something important. If you’re starting a new appointment soon, your questions might look different than mine, and that’s okay. The important thing is to show up with genuine curiosity, to ask good questions that will help you learn your new ministry context, and to demonstrate to the people you are pastoring that you are more interested in listening than you are in arriving with all the answers.