AUGUST 2023 featured Article

Introducing DALE RINKE

Rev. Dale Rinke serves as the Interim Regional Director of the Michigan Region. He is a member of the Ministry Leadership Counsel, MCIF Board, and the National On-Mission Team. Dale has served as Associate Pastor at Orchards Community Church in Romeo, Michigan, and has held several marketplace leadership roles in the high tech and automotive industries. God has blessed Dale and his wife, Geri, with two children. He and Geri live in Almont, Michigan.

TRANSITION: the dirty word

I’m in “transition.” The mic drops. The room goes silent. People offer their condolences and sometimes apologies, for the pastor upon hearing the announcement. Let’s face it. We know that transition or change is a part of life, but it still makes most of us uncomfortable. It forces us to jump into something new, where there are a lot of unknowns, uncertainty, and vulnerability. With that said, I have still found life transitions to be a time of opportunity and learning.

Over 20 years ago, the Lord spoke to me three times (yes, like Samuel). He said, “I AM coming, be ready!” At that moment, God changed me forever. This radical conversion experience changed me from death to new life. Then came the hard part, the transition. I began my transition journey by consuming God’s Word, and He began to expose the areas of my life that I needed to fix. This included broken relationships, selfishness, and pride. He completely changed me during this time of transition. As many of us know, the truth is that God uses our transitions to hone and refine us. As disciples of Jesus, we are all in transition to becoming more like Him every day.

As believers that are being made into the image of Christ, the Church also is in a spiritual transition — freeing us from sin, expanding our territory through a new church or ministry, removing our impurities through the refiner’s fire, shepherding a flock gone astray, and the list goes on! We are all in some state of transition (sanctification) under the Lord’s direction, and it’s not always comfortable. By our nature, we naturally gravitate to comfort and status quo. Admittedly, some of our churches are in various lifecycle states. This includes the new church plant and the growing church as well as the stuck or declining church. All are forms of transition. I’ve been thinking about all the changes that are taking place in our communities and ministry lately. The fear and trepidation toward a transition has been commonplace. Whether it’s in the ministry or in the marketplace, the negative perception is the same. I would like to debunk this perception.

You can call me weird, but I love to talk about and help in these uncomfortable transitions because that is where God is about to make something fresh and new (Isaiah 43:18-19). Change is good because we know that God is working all of it for good (Romans 8:28). Recent events in my life have me thinking about what it means to handle transition well. The Lord’s reassignment of me from pastor and marketplace minister to the appointment of Interim Regional Director is my most recent transition. I humbly desire to do this well. 

My ministry has been a combination of church, consulting, and marketplace leadership. As pastors for a number of years, Geri and I have had the privilege to work with our church and communities to launch new ministries. We have also led the Strengthening Local Churches (SLC) team in Michigan, through which God has revealed how to support and encourage church transitions. Through our marketplace ministries, God provided numerous opportunities for us to share and be Jesus to people all over the world who would never walk through our church doors. We’ve had the opportunity to share our testimonies and have seen many people come to Christ and grow in faith together. Through our successes and many failures, God has taught, and is still teaching us, how to manage transitions well. Here are some thoughts to consider as we all navigate our transitions and the making of disciples together using the Lord’s approach spoken to Joshua.

God Has Chosen Us: We must remember that God has chosen us for our role. Each of us has been called, and we have said, “Yes.” This takes courage, the same courage that the Lord repeatedly commanded of Joshua: be strong and courageous.

God Has Prepared Us: The Lord has designed and equipped each of us for His purposes. Fasting and praying is critical to hear and discern the Lord’s voice on our direction. If we have not received confirmation to transition, we stay where we are until God tells us to move (Prov. 2:6-11). He holds our success and will make a good path for us.

We need to be ready to courageously cross over into our next role while we gracefully exit our current role. It’s important to ensure that nothing is missing or broken (shalom) along the way. Unreconciled relationships hinder a leader’s next assignment. We must try to be reconciled with all our past relationships so that we can be used as a blessing to our former colleagues while offering a platform to support us in our new journey. This can be challenging for some of our churches too as the Lord ushers in new wineskins for the Holy Spirit to reside in. In addition, leadership must take action only as the Lord leads, understanding that we may not have the complete picture or even all the answers yet. Thus, extra humility and grace will always be required.

In our new role it is important to assess and know the new landscape. In other transitions we have seen that unwritten, untold expectations cause division, distraction, and constraint on the transformation that God wants us to orchestrate. These can be a sink hole and keep us from running the transition race. A solution to this challenge includes seeking out wise counsel and support and also building a focused prayer team. Whatever we do, we should not go it alone.

God Is Making Us: We must lead from the wash basin as we serve and come alongside our new team. Jesus is the greatest example of servant leadership (John 13) when He washes the disciples’ feet. As we apply the servant leader approach, we must remain faithfully committed to His teaching as seen in Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” We need to be flexible and adaptive, which includes understanding God’s plan for our role. We need to expect the implementation plan to change as we go (Nehemiah 3-8). 

God Gets the Glory as We Pursue the Goal: We must keep the “main thing” the main thing (Jesus), diving deeply as we lead. It’s imperative to cast sharp vision and goals with the new team and know what success looks like. Joshua knew his goal was to take God’s chosen people into the promised land as the Lord commanded (Joshua 1:4). The ultimate result is that God gets all the honor and glory.

We are all in constant transition. God uses these opportunities to mold and shape us to achieve His purposes and for His honor and glory. You may be in a transition now, or there may be one waiting for you. Either way, take heart and enjoy the process. Transition, will you embrace it?