I am a journalist working on an article for the United Church Observer magazine, about how to welcome a new minister. I'm wondering if there are tips or ideas that worked, or didn't work, in your experience, with welcoming a new minister? Or, from the minister's perspective, what made you feel most welcomed into a new congregation?

A Lay Pastoral Minister was called to a church. On  the first Sunday this comment was made to a group of people. "Oh it will be fine over the summer but when the intellectuals ( 3 people) come back in the fall, it will be another story. They will critique and will speak up and there will be trouble."