“Extremely helpful” – “Really?”
“Any pastor” – “I don’t think you know me!”
“Right now” – “There must be a catch here!”
Let me explain. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on the subject of pastoral transitions, a.k.a., pastoral succession.
It’s a big important subject that most pastors and churches avoid most of the time, but it’s very encouraging to me that in recent years, a number of fine people have been thinking, praying, researching, writing and speaking about this subject.
We used to pretty much just leave it to chance. I remember reading – many years ago – in a “how to be a pastor” book, that the departing pastor should have no contact with his successor, for that would be “cheating,” but that it was acceptable for the outgoing pastor to leave a couple of notes and some keys on the pastoral desk for the “new guy.”
No kidding. Well-meaning pastors, who thought they were doing their duty, were actually abandoning their ill-prepared flocks to the wiles of the devil and the trials of a rudderless ship.
The revolution began with the great 2004 book, “The Elephant In The Boardroom” by Carolyn Weese and J. Russell Crabtree. As the name implies, church boardrooms typically avoided the subject of pastoral succession until the inevitable day when the senior or solo pastor announced his resignation, signaled his upcoming retirement or – to put it bluntly – died on the job.
Whatever took the pastor out of the church – from an especially bad Sunday to a literal train wreck – the result was almost always a figurative train wreck for the church, as well as for the pastor and his family.
In the smaller church especially, with a “family style culture” – in which the pastor usually occupied the position of “dad” – it felt like abandonment; like dad was deserting the family. For the pastor himself it was no less traumatizing, unless he was so angry, bitter or resentful that he couldn’t wait to get out of town.
While the books, blogs and seminars which have appeared since “The Elephant…” was published have been wonderful, most of the suggestions offered have bypassed the smaller church, focusing on succession in multi-staff churches.
But of course, most churches are not multi-staff churches; most churches today are well under 100 souls in Sunday morning attendance. The pastor is a father figure; his wife is a mother figure (even if she’s 25 years old) and the subject of pastoral succession is talked about only in hushed tones in darkened hallways.
Fortunately, the authors of “The Elephant…” and the excellent “NEXT: Pastoral Succession That Works,” by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird, made a hint which I’m turning into a very serious suggestion: In the smaller church, where the pastor, for various reasons, might not want to get the church board thinking about his eventual retirement or resignation and the church board would rather not talk about it either, the pastor can help the board formulate an emergency transition plan.
The pastor presents the board with a template for what will become his church’s customized plan. I’ll list a few of the suggested questions below and I’ll include a link to the template which you can customize as needed.
The board can work on the template with or without the pastor’s help. Many boards will not take up such a task without a certain amount of prodding and scheduling from the pastor. Pastor: I suggest you prod and schedule as necessary to make this happen; someday the board will love you for doing this, because, as you know, all pastors are interim pastors (except Jesus, the only “permanent pastor”).
Other boards, I’m happy to say, will take up the task with gusto and do a great job on it without the pastor’s input.
Either way, the board will end up ready for the eventuality of the pastor’s sudden demise at the hands of a train, bus or whatever, and, without knowing it, they’ll also be ready for the pastor’s announcement of his upcoming retirement or resignation, with only a moderate amount of adaptation done to their emergency succession plan.
Again, without their knowing it, you have prepared your board for leading the church through the transition following your departure, and you have given them an invaluable piece of pastoral leadership which will save them from months of chaos and reinventing the strategic Kingdom-building work of their church.
So here are a few of the questions on the template, which you may access by clicking here:
In the event of the incapacitation of our pastor:
- Who will we contact at the denomination or association we belong to?
- Who do we have lined up who can preach a few Sundays until we can find an interim pastor?
- Who will communicate to the church regarding the incapacitation of the pastor?
- Who was the pastor counseling/training/discipling or mentoring?
- Who will do the “unseen” tasks which were being done by our pastor each week without anyone’s knowledge?
This is a small sampling of the questions from the template.
Now let’s end where we began. What I’m proposing here is an extremely helpful leadership initiative which any pastor can take right now. Modify the template to your liking. You don’t have to give me any credit for it. Present it to your board. Help them with it, as necessary.
The result? It will give your board members new confidence in their ability to steer the ship in the event of your absence. Should you actually be hit by a bus or train, your church will deeply appreciate the way in which you prepared them for such an event. Should your ministry end with your resignation or retirement, your board will be ever so grateful that, thanks to your leadership, they have a plan for how they will lead the church through its transition to the future.
