NAHANT — Reverend Jeffrey MacDonald is bringing new perspective to Nahant Village Church.
As the congregation’s interim pastor and consultant, MacDonald, who began his tenure in January, has experienced a somewhat unusual career trajectory.
The Marblehead native spent his first few years after graduating from Brown University as a news reporter, completing an internship at The Salem News before eventually moving on to a bigger newspaper gig in North Carolina.
After spending a total of four years working full-time in the industry — a foray he described as a “great experience” — MacDonald said he wanted to explore different avenues, ultimately deciding to pursue a new role in the church.
He went on to enroll in Yale Divinity School, although at the time, he was unsure of what exactly his next steps would be.
“Reporters are interested in truth, and so are people who study the bible and ask the big questions about life. It was sort of the next stage of my truth-seeking, I think,” he said of his divinity school experience. “It sort of crystalized for me while I was there that I could continue to do journalism and I could be ordained and serve the church.
“I could do both. I could write about the truth with a lowercase ‘t’ and the Truth with a capital ‘T’ depending on which day of the week it is.”
Since then, MacDonald has split his time between journalism and the church, managing to find fulfillment in both.
“It’s evolved over time, what I do. It’s been an interesting journey,” he said as he recalled his first post-divinity school journalism appointment on Plum Island in Newburyport.
“I was getting assignments from editors I had never met or spoken to who were emailing me while I was there,” he said. “It was kind of a novelty at the time, getting assignments from people you didn’t talk to. I was just out there on Plum Island, which felt like the end of the world, carving out my own news bureau and serving at a great little church.
“I was like wow, this is a pretty cool life I’ve made for myself. It was very meaningful work on both sides.”
Since becoming ordained in 2000, MacDonald has had ample opportunities to cover both religion and hard news, and his unusual career path has provided him a front row seat to some of the most historic breaking news events of the 21st century.
He’s reported on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Sandy Hook school shooting, and as a freelance writer for USA Today, he reported on the Whitey Bulger trial in 2013, and the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial in 2015.
Rather than shying away from part-time reporters, MacDonald said news outlets often see value in hiring writers with diverse professional backgrounds.
“They recognize that having someone with pastoral training doesn’t hurt on certain stories,” he said. “It can help bring a certain ear and certain sensibility to certain types of stories, including those that involve tragedy.”
He added that the skills he employs as a journalist also play a strong role in how he conducts his congregations.
“It affects the way I do ministry, too. Different pastors have different styles, and I think a lot of my style involves asking questions. Asking questions of the scriptures and questions of the parishioners that help bring out what’s there inside,” he said. “There’s so much richness in the bible and there’s so much richness in our congregations. The stories people have to tell and the wisdom they have to share doesn’t always reach the surface unless it’s drawn out through questions. I feel like I’m using tools from my journalism toolbox frequently in ministry.”
MacDonald most recently served at First Parish Church in Newbury from 2013 until this past October, when he left to become an interim pastor at a United Church of Christ in Kensington, New Hampshire.
Then late last year, he learned from his area minister that Nahant was also looking for an interim pastor after saying goodbye to former full-time pastor Reverend Megan Snell last year.
After completing a series of interviews to determine whether or not it would be a good fit, the church made the decision to hire MacDonald for a four-month contract with the option to extend as needed.
“It’s considered a specialized ministery to do interim work,” he said. “It’s a matter of shepherding a congregation from their prior pastor to the new one.”
Inspired by his experience of balancing two careers, MacDonald also published his latest book, “Part Time is Plenty: Thriving without Full-Time Clergy,” in 2020.
His book explores the changing face of traditional worship by recounting his experience working with nearly two dozen churches across the U.S. that function without full-time staff.
According to MacDonald, roughly 43 percent of mainline Protestant churches currently have no full-time clergy, and that number is growing.
“I wanted to learn from churches that have done really well with clergy who are not full-time and in the office all week designing programs. That’s the type of church that I’ve always served and I know anecdotally that some churches have done extremely well with it,” MacDonald said. “I wanted to learn more about what’s happening in the churches that are growing and thriving, doing impactful mission, even when they don’t have full-time staff.”
MacDonald will remain with Nahant Village Church through at least April 30. Until then, he looks forward to continuing his work with a new congregation.
“I love to see people in congregations grow together, flourish together,” he said. “The process (of looking for a replacement) helps a church reconnect with its roots and its mission. Churches evolve, and you really want to crystalize what people are passionately perceiving is their mission and their calling at this juncture.”
Elyse Carmosino can be reached at [email protected].
