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MEET THE NEW INTERIM PASTOR:   DR. DARRELL COATS Allow me to begin by saying how excited I am to be here with you at Trinity.  This is my twelfth assignment as an interim minister.   The word interim means “an interval or period of time.”  Think of me as your temporary pastor who will be leading you through this time of transition from your former pastor, Dr. Juliette Spencer, until your new pastor arrives.  As the word “interim” implies, I will be serving for the brief interim of six months from January 1st  to June 30th.    We will work together to prepare for your new pastor who should arrive in July.  We have a lot of work…

What is Interim Ministry and How Does It Work? People frequently ask me what is an interim minister and what do they do? Interim ministry is relatively new in the United Methodist Church and just started aa couple of decades ago.  In the past, in the United Methodist process of appointing pastors, often the successor arrived the very day the departing pastor moved out. Because there was no interval of time between pastors, no interim pastor was needed.  However, the General Conference of 1996 placed the term Interim Minister in the Book of Discipline. The Book of Discipline reads, Par. 338.3:  Interim appointments may be made to charges that…