By Melissa Thorud

RIVER FALLS – Ezekiel Lutheran Church in River Falls has recently welcomed an interim pastor to its congregation.

Paul Svingen has accepted the position at Ezekiel as Intentional Interim Senior Pastor. Svingen has been an interim pastor across 12 different states for the last 45 years.

“I’ve had a very rich career through many states over the years,” Svingen said. “I drive about 40,000 miles every year for my job.”

He is originally from Minnesota but has lived in many states across the country for his work. After studying to be a pastor at the Luther Seminary in St. Paul, he first went into a permanent pastor position in Minneapolis.

“I graduated from the seminary in 1975 and I took a permanent call as an associate pastor at a church in Minneapolis and it didn’t work out, so I resigned from that position and I took an interim position in Coon Rapids and I really enjoyed that,” Svingen said.

After leaving his first permanent post and taking an interim position, he realized that is the type of role in which he belonged. He decided to take the official training to do interim work in congregations.

“When I left my first interim pastor job, I went on to do four more interim positions before doing the official training. I took the leadership training for interim for 10 years and then I decided to bring my trending program back and led the program at Luther Seminary,” said Svingen.

He became a professional intentional interim pastor and has led the program in St. Paul for the last several years. He has helped to train more than 1,000 pastors in interim training.

“I’m not quite ready to retire because I really like what I do, it gives me purpose. I taught at the Luther ministry for 32 years and in those years, we trained over 1,000 pastors in interim ministry,” he said.

Currently Svingen is living in Stillwater, Minn. during the interim period that he will be serving at Ezekiel. However, his permanent home is in Backus, Minn. on Island Lake with his wife and dogs.

“My wife stays at home, she’s a full-time therapist, but we talk every day and we work it all out,” Svingens said. “She supports me in what I do and she knows it’s my calling and I just always say that my marriage is first and my job is second.”

Svingen will be with Ezkiel until the summer, leading interim work with a task force. During this time, Svingen will lead an assessment for the church.

“I usually contract for 12 months and then monthly thereafter as needed; it depends on how well the congregation does the interim work,” Svingen said. “There is an agenda of work that the congregation must complete and need to do during the interim period to prepare for the next pastor.”

Interim ministry is something that many Lutheran churches have recently implemented between changes in pastors. Once a pastor leaves a congregation, the interim pastors will come in and help encourage a growth period to prepare for the next permanent pastor.

“More and more churches are realizing they need an interim period between pastors and indeed they need a trained interim pastor to guide them during that period,” he said.

The interim period is a time for the congregation and key leaders within the church community to work together and complete the interim work. Svingen explained what the church completes during this time.

“During the interim period we focus on three things especially: Reviewing the mission and the vision, we review the staff and if the church has an appropriate size of staff and the third is a self-study of the organization and the congregation will develop and design their organizational structure,” Svingen said.

He continued, “We have teams for those three areas that make up the transition task force and we currently have 12 people on the task force who all work together for the interim period. My job is to mentor and coach those teams as they work together to give a final report and that gives kind of the marching orders for who they call next to come in.”

Svingen has thoroughly enjoyed his time at Ezekiel and he has seen growth in the congregation since the interim work has begun.

“The interim period is the most exciting time in the life of a church, things happen and I’m here to kind of help things happen,” Svingen said. “The congregation here has been very welcoming and kind and these are some great people to work with.”