I Had a Plan

by Doug Scholten

edited by Bob Terwilliger, summer 2023

I Had a Plan

Fresh out of Western Theological Seminary in 1982, I received a call to become the copastor of Fellowship Reformed Church in Muskegon, Michigan. I had a plan that I would stay there a few years before moving into a solo pastorate. My wife, Mary, and I moved 36 miles north of Holland and bought our first home. We had seven good years there as our son and daughter were born and we were embraced by a loving congregation and staff. Sherwin Weener was a great mentor for me as I learned what it is to be pastor, leader, and preacher. Sherwin, though 15 years my senior, shared the ministry, inviting me to do half the preaching as he recognized I had gifts in that area that experience would deepen.

In my sixth year there the church hosted the church consultant Lyle Schaller for a conference. As a benefit of hosting the conference, Lyle did a consultation with Fellowship Church and the pastors. In my one-on-one time with Lyle, he said that it was time for me to step into a solo pastor role. I recall that he said to me, “You will be gone from here within a year.” His words proved prophetic; in ten months I had a call to be the senior pastor of Community Reformed Church in Buena Park, California. I followed a long-tenured pastor who retired from the church after 24 years. I could not imagine staying at one church that long. I had a plan to minister in Buena Park for a few years and then signal my openness to return to the Midwest where my wife and I grew up. Yet as the years went by and the ministry flourished, one decade became two; then I passed my predecessor’s tenure as I celebrated 25 years there. We had come to love living in California, and the church and the ministry in that context.

Something began to change in me in the next few years. Mary, a marriage and family therapist, said she thought I was experiencing burnout. So I made a plan. My plan was to retire from the church, now called Christ Community Church, by my third decade mark. But, because I would only be 62 then, I planned to become an interim pastor, helping churches through transitions between their installed pastors. I signed up for The Art of Transitional Ministry training, put on by the PCUSA. I completed the training about six months before I began taking our consistory through the book by William Vanderbloemen entitled: Next: Pastoral Succession That Works. I wanted a smooth transition for the church as I concluded my ministry with them.

I had a plan to help the church I had spent half my life serving to transition well into the next season of its ministry. However, yet again, my plan did not come to be. As I approached my announced date of retiring from Christ Community, the church called a team of three pastors to take my place. However, within six months of my departure the team had fallen apart, and the smooth succession plan did not succeed.

Interim transitional ministry was not valued in my classis at that time. While I could have done interim ministry with RCA churches in Michigan and other states, my services were not needed in my locale. Most churches in my area used commissioned pastors from their staffs while they searched for their next lead pastor. I did not want to relocate to another state for a year or two, because my wife was still engaged in her practice as a marriage and family therapist and her license was only for the state of California. So since my plan was not working out, I did some guest preaching in area churches and became a retiree chaplain with RCA Board of Benefits Services, staying in touch with retired RCA pastors in my area.

Additionally, during the COVID pandemic, I took on the role as the preaching pastor of an RCA church in our area that was in a search process for a part-time pastor. Since they held their services online, I preached via Zoom each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. When things began to open up again, Mary and I wanted to find a church close to our home to be a part of, so I planned to conclude my preaching with the vacant church. Not wanting to leave them without a preacher, I offered to continue to preach for them by uploading my sermons to my YouTube channel where they could download them into their Sunday services. They liked the idea, and so we have done that for over a year now.

Consequently, when I counted the sermons I preached in 2022, it was about 60. I enjoy the discipline of weekly study, sermon preparation, and the preaching of a sermon. Likewise, I like being able to attend and worship at a neighborhood church where I am just another parishioner. While this was not “my plan,” perhaps it is God’s plan for this present season in the third third of my life. When people ask me now if I am retired, I often say, “Well, sort of, but maybe not.” As has been said, “Old ministers never retire, they just go out to pastor.”

“The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established” (Proverbs 19:21).

Doug received his BA from Northwestern College and his MDiv from Western Theological Seminary. He served Fellowship Reformed in Muskegon, Michigan, and Christ

Community in Buena Park, California. Doug and Mary live in La Palma, California, and have a married son and daughter and three grandchildren. doug.scholten@gmail.com