Category: Associate Pastor

Last week Michael Hyatt posted a blog entry, “The Primary Difference Between the Wise and the Foolish,” in which he recounts a conversation he had with a business acquaintance. The acquaintance was asking for advice about a difficulty he or she was having at work, but was unwilling to change what they were doing. They spoke as if seeking a solution to the problem, but were more comfortable just complaining. “Ten minutes into the discussion,” Hyatt writes, “I realized I was dealing with a fool. There was no point in continuing the conversation. More talk would not change anything.” It reminded me of a quote attributed to Edwin Friedman, “The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change” (Friedman, ix).

In one of the routines from his television show, Jerry Seinfeld talks about how men and women differ in our ways of watching television. He says, “Men flip around the television more than women, I think. Men get that remote control in their hands, they don’t even know what … they’re watching. You know, we just keep going… Women don’t do this. See now, women will stop and go, “Well, let me see what the show is before I change the channel.” … Men just fly. Because women nest and men hunt. That’s why we watch TV differently.”

Though not gender specific, those two archetypes apply to associate pastors. Some of us are hunters. We have barely unpacked the boxes of books from our last move before we are surfing churchstaffing.com, or calling our denomination supervisor, looking for the next opportunity. Others of us are nesters. We think every job is the last one we will have until retirement.