How does a new pastor lead honor a church’s past while trying to move forward? Matt Capps, Senior Pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Apex NC, explains: Edited transcript follows: As you step into an established church, perhaps as the new senior pastor or maybe a new pastor on staff, I think it’s important that you honor the past while moving them towards the future. And I think that the proper way to do this—the proper disposition as you step into this role—would be to recognize that you’re in a specific church that’s in a specific community, a specific context. There’s a particular people in this church that have a unique history. And so what that does is when you begin the ministry, I would say you need to take time to study the people, their history, and understand the journey they’ve been on. Because, essentially, you’re joining them in this journey later down the road. So there’s two things I would encourage you with.

Be patient in order  to build people’s trust

Trust is a gift that they will give you when you become the pastor, but it’s also something you have to build relationally in and among the church. I think this is even more important in a society where structures and even authority is often looked at with some sort of skepticism. And so you have to enter into the church, and enter into the the life of that church, and learn how to build trust. And so there’s simple ways to do that:

• Keep an open door policy.
• Always be willing to discuss the decisions you’re making even before you make them, and get the input from others.
• Be willing to repent when you’re wrong and change course on things  that are maybe not essential but mean a lot to the people.

So, be patient in order to build trust among your people.

Prioritize what is most important

One of the things I often think  through when we are discussing ministry opportunities is these questions:

• Will this ministry opportunity help us in our mission of making disciples, or advancing the mission of the gospel?
• In what particular ways will it do that?

As you assess the ministry opportunities—and even consider stopping or changing ministries that have been around for a while—it’s important to address these questions. As you prioritize, you understand that there are some things the churches do that may not  be essential but they’re not unimportant to that church. So you don’t want to be a bull in the china shop that comes in and just changes everything. But you want to teach and patiently lead people to understand what we need to prioritize as a church family. Part of that is, I think, understanding that what you celebrate as a leader in the church, people will emulate. So hold up the things that you think advance the mission of the church and promote gospel proclaiming ministries in the community.