Living and working in 18 cities the past 28 years may sound a bit extreme, but for interim pastor Charles Svendsen, it’s the lifestyle he loves. Now serving as the interim pastor of Palisades Presbyterian Church’his 16th such posting’there’s no questioning the scope of his frequent preaching miles. On Sunday, September 5, Svendsen took over the pulpit of pastor John Todd (who had retired after 18 years of service to the church), and preached his first service. He will hold the interim position for one to two years until a permanent pastor is hired. Growing up in La Canada, Svendsen wanted to become a commercial artist, but at age 19, when he lost a college friend to a hitchiking accident, he envisioned becoming a pastor. His family was also instrumental in his call to ministry’both his father and brother are pastors. In 1984, after 10 years of settled ministry in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, Svendsen opted to make the transition to serving only as an interim pastor. ‘I like to problem-solve and I enjoy traveling,’ he says. ‘I also can get bored easily in one place, so I like change.’ Svendsen, whose congregation sizes have ranged from under 250 to more than 1,000, has served as an interim pastor in Connecticut, Maine, New York, Washington, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. Since his first marriage four years ago to his wife, Catherine, his last four interim positions have been in California. He and Catherine, who has four children ages 16 to 26, have a home in Altadena and a newly rented guesthouse in the Palisades. After arriving at a new church, Svendsen goes through a process he calls ‘affirmative inquiry,’ where he visits with various groups and receives feedback about what they like or dislike about the church. In addition to performing duties that settled pastors perform (‘preaching, teaching, marrying and burying,’ as Svendsen puts it), interim pastors have specific tasks designed to ease and facilitate the congregation during the transitional period. Many jobs are perfomed during an interim period that aren’t performed during a settled ministry. These include taking inventories, researching demographics and setting new goals. ‘We build on the old goals and the old directions, because that’s who we are,’ Svendsen says. ‘But we look at where we are going and where we want to be in the next 10 to 20 years.’ Svendsen, who also assists in the training of interim pastors, says his ultimate objective is to prepare a church for the new pastor. He feels his success is directly tied to the success of the new pastor. ‘Proof of my work cannot be measured in real time. If we’ve completed all the necessary groundwork during my time and the pastor does well, then I’ve done a good job.’ Svendsen says a congregation losing their pastor is comparable to the Kubler-Ross stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), which describes the varying emotions one likely feels following the death of a loved one. ‘[Losing a pastor] is just like losing a family member or a close friend,’ he says. He adds that it’s much easier to follow a beloved pastor than one who was disliked. ‘You would think it would be easier to follow a disaster because anything you did would be good. But there are so many systematic problems in a congregation when a pastor hasn’t functioned well.’ Pastor Todd, says Svendsen, was highly revered by the congregation. ‘This church reflects John’s wonderful personality and theology.’ Recently, during a staff retreat, many wondered how Svendsen’s arrival would affect their positions. He assured them the changes he makes, if any, are implemented ‘very slowly.’ The Palisades congregation will soon organize a pastor nominating committee (usually comprising nine people), and advertise the position. Committee members will then go out and listen to each candidate preach. Once the best candidate is selected, the committee will present him or her to the congregation, who will vote up or down after hearing the candidate preach. If they vote down (which Svendsen says is a rarity), then the committee will have to bring in a new candidate. If they vote up, the pastor is offered the position. Svendsen predicts the church will receive at least 100 applications. The only drawback to being an interim pastor, Svendsen says, is ‘losing so many friends every couple of years.’ Nevertheless, at age 53, Svendsen says he hopes to fulfill five or six more interim positions before he retires. ‘I love interim ministry.’
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