14. Go to the local Chamber of Commerce or Visitor's Bureau and get a physical map of the community around the church. I know you can do this online but you will be better served in your early days to take this map and peruse it often. Make notes on it where the other churches are located. Note where the schools are and the shopping. Note drug stores, theaters and liquor stores. Highlight new housing areas as well older ones, including apartments. Once you've gotten all this on there, locate your flock on the map as well. See if you can perceive any patterns. Ask yourself if there are any areas which seem to be under-served by the existing churches. Now, go out and drive these same streets and look at the housing, the yards, and get to know your new home.
15. If a work day is scheduled for the church - be sure you are one of the first ones there and be willing to work along side the congregation. This should include your spouse if able. You don't have to be the first one there, but you need to be one of those and you don't have to be the last to leave, but nearly so. This will garner a great deal of respect from your congregation and you may need that later when you make a stupid mistake (and you will).
16. Be careful about being too vulnerable. If you have been wrong, admit it, we are all wrong sometime. It is great to be able to laugh at yourself and you need to learn how to do this. However, don't use anyone in your congregation, no matter how much you feel you can trust them, as your confident. Although some in the congregation may want you to come to them for counseling avoid it like the plague. You will need counseling from time to time - find it with your spouse or with a peer or even your supervisor, not with one of your laymen, and especially not with one of the opposite sex. Can you say the word: IDIOT?
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