Call Process Booklet

The Interim
God’s
work.
Our
hands.
For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s
seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I
will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to
this place. For surely I know the plans I have for
you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not
for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then
when you call upon me and come and pray to me,
I will hear you. When you search for me, you will
find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let
you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your
fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all
the places where I have driven you, says the LORD,
and I will bring you back to the place from which I
sent you into exile. Jeremiah 29.10–14
Taking Time and Looking Forward
They were difficult days when the Israelites were taken away into exile. The interim
period can feel a little like that—what had been comfortable and familiar is gone. What
comes next? Uncertainty and anxiety can cripple people. But God speaks a word of
hope in the midst of confusion: I have your future in my hands and I will bring you
home. As one of our seasoned interim pastors says often, “It’s pretty tough right now,
but things are already getting better.”
Once the initial waves have passed, this interim period is an opportunity to reflect upon
who you are as a congregation and discover what God is calling you to next. Not only
are you, as a congregation, in transition; we as a church are in transition. How will we
speak God’s word of grace and peace in this new age? How will we engage in mission
in our own backyard? How will we pass on the faith to our children and our neighbors?
The interim period is for taking time and for looking forward. Your interim pastor will lead
you through this time, as will your synod staff, in order to claim our “future with hope.”
Walking together † for the sake of mission † in God’s world
944 24 ¼ Street • PO Box 107 • Chetek, WI 54728 • 715-859-6810 • Fax 715-859-6812 • www.nwswi.org
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