On September 8 (2024) I was installed as a pastor at Bethel College Mennonite Church in North Newton, KS. It was a beautiful time of worship and blessing for me and the full pastoral team. The choir sounded amazing, the children’s conversation was a blast, and the cake was soooo good. 

But the event got me thinking about this odd terminology we use in the church–that we install pastors. Like a light bulb or a new dishwasher or a car part. For a pastor to be “installed” suggests that there is some particular pastor-shaped slot just waiting to be filled. It’s a nice thought, I suppose, that plugging one person into a church system can make it all run smoothly. But anyone who has been involved with a church knows this is not the case. 

As I begin ministry in this new place, I am talking and praying and working with the other pastors, staff, and lay leaders of the church to figure out exactly how and where I fit. Yes I am filling a “pastoral opening,” but there is not just a perfect Joanna-sized space for me to seamlessly step into. The entire church has to shift around a bit to make room for me. And I, in turn, have to be open and humble and flexible enough to enter into church life in the ways that are most helpful for the whole. 

When you “install” something, it is clear exactly how the newly installed part will fit into and work within the system in which it is being installed. If you welcome a pastor with the expectation that she will simply slip easily into whatever system is already in place and just help everything that’s already going run more smoothly–well, you will be sorely disappointed and will quite likely drive away the new pastor. 

Rather than being “installed,” I like to think of myself as “transplanted.” I am still the unwieldy person I have grown to be over these several decades of my life, and now I am trying to take root in this new garden space alongside all the others who are already here, who already have their own spaces and roles. All of us will be sharing the same soil and sunlight and water even as we remain our own wonderful, individual, colorful selves. (I’m envisioning more of a cottage garden or even a prairie than a formally manicured situation.)

Being installed is a once and done thing. But being transplanted means that I will need continuing nurture even as I strive to nurture the whole garden. May God grant us all the grace to both give and receive nurture in whatever garden we find ourselves so that our roots may grow deep and our flowers may be fabulous.