This is the third episode in a series about the conversations I’m having with our leadership at Christ the King Lutheran Church, where I serve as pastor. I’m starting to think seriously about retirement and what that might mean for me and for our congregation. I hope these conversations will help us to plan together for the transition from this current ministry to the ministry of the next pastor.
Our conversations are based on the book titled “NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works.” (As always in this series, in the shownotes I’ve included links for the book as well as for the ministries of both Zach and Mark Zehnder). In today’s episode, I want to focus on the third chapter, “Three Essential Questions” and the fourth chapter, “Ten Models of Post-Pastorate Professions.”
CHAPTER 3: “Three Essential Questions”
It seems that “retirement” means different things, depending on who you’re talking to. For a pension plan or the Social Security system, it seems to mean little more than a process for determining the amount of your monthly benefit checks. For family members, maybe it means your schedule is more free to help with the baby-sitting and transportation of children to school and sports events. For your spouse, maybe it means you finally have time to address that list of chores that has been lengthening for years - or maybe it means that you’re constantly under foot. Maybe for members of your current congregation, it means that they’ll lose you as their pastor and have to embark the dreaded process of looking for a new pastor. But sometimes, the retiring person has no idea what “being retired” might actually mean for them. So, these “three essential questions” are good places to start.
Essential Question 1: What would a successful hand-off look like, and how do I achieve it? or What do I need to do now to prepare for passing the leadership baton? (NEXT, pl. 61). I can’t answer this question for anyone but myself and the congregation I’m currently serving; if you’re listening to this podcast, this is something you have to figure out for yourself. However, I think there are several pieces that will become apparent over time. These two are already in the works at Christ the King:
First, I’d like to see some kind of “Retirement Worship Service” that would see me hand back to the congregation’s leadership the various “symbols of the pastoral office” that I agreed to when I was first installed as pastor. For instance, I’d like to see a part of the service where I hand a Bible to the Sunday School staff and say something like “When you called me to be your pastor, I accepted your call to a ministry of teaching the Word of God; as I hand this Bible to the Sunday School staff, I relinquish this ministry to the congregation, to be held in trust until the next pastor accepts the call to teach the Word among you.” This part of the service might also include handing a Chalice to the Board of Elders, a Baptism shell to the Congregation Chairman, etc. This would be a visibile reminder to everyone that these functions (preaching, teaching, caring, the administration of the Sacraments) belong to the congregation and are held in trust by the pastor.
Second, a little over a year ago several folks in our congregation joined me to begin to explore a process that would help us to see what the values of Christ the King are - how we express them, how we teach them, how we encourage them. We also thought about the direction God might be leading us in the future. It seemed to us that He was leading us to focus on this transition from the end of my ministry to the beginning of the next; but what about the “gap” in between? That’s where we think we need to work on discipleship and leadership development here. So, recently I enrolled in a course called “The Disciple Making Playbook” to help me gather a lot of scattered thoughts into some organized and targeted discipleship emphasis at my church over the next couple of years. (“The Disciple Making Playbook” was developed by Zach Zehnder and offered through his Red Letter Living organization - there’s a link in the shownotes.)
Essential Question 2: Identify a new life passion. We’ve all known of people who retire, but can’t seem to sit still! They’re always doing something. Some join bowling or golf leagues; some get into hobbies or crafts; some get some kind of job (maybe several in succession); some get involved in community groups or activities; some are always traveling. Then there are others who don’t seem to do much of anything.
What might retired pastors do? Any of the above, but there are other possibilities, too. (This seems like a good time to say that in the book NEXT the authors offer “Ten Models of Post-Pastorate Professions” in Chapter 4. Here’s their list of possibilities (some of these require specific training and licensure from some denominations):
Personally, I don’t know yet what I might do in retirement - but I think that I will probably at least still continue to preach and lead worship on Sundays, either as a substitute for other pastors, or as a regular preacher at a small congregation that can’t afford a full-time pastor.
Back to the Essential Questions in Chapter 3, and to Essential Question 3: Determine Financial Need. My wife and I have been particularly concerned about what our finances might be over the next twenty years or so, since our family medical histories seem to hint that unless some catastrophic health condition comes to light, each of us stand a pretty fair chance of living into our nineties. We’ve already done some significant work in this area with the help of a couple of good financial advisors that we trust.
As I said before, this is what I’ve been doing. Your situation may be different - the point of these chapters is to say “please don’t go into retirement without giving each of these essential questions some considerable thought and prayer.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THESE POSTS:
Our conversations are based on the book titled “NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works.” (As always in this series, in the shownotes I’ve included links for the book as well as for the ministries of both Zach and Mark Zehnder). In today’s episode, I want to focus on the third chapter, “Three Essential Questions” and the fourth chapter, “Ten Models of Post-Pastorate Professions.”
CHAPTER 3: “Three Essential Questions”
It seems that “retirement” means different things, depending on who you’re talking to. For a pension plan or the Social Security system, it seems to mean little more than a process for determining the amount of your monthly benefit checks. For family members, maybe it means your schedule is more free to help with the baby-sitting and transportation of children to school and sports events. For your spouse, maybe it means you finally have time to address that list of chores that has been lengthening for years - or maybe it means that you’re constantly under foot. Maybe for members of your current congregation, it means that they’ll lose you as their pastor and have to embark the dreaded process of looking for a new pastor. But sometimes, the retiring person has no idea what “being retired” might actually mean for them. So, these “three essential questions” are good places to start.
Essential Question 1: What would a successful hand-off look like, and how do I achieve it? or What do I need to do now to prepare for passing the leadership baton? (NEXT, pl. 61). I can’t answer this question for anyone but myself and the congregation I’m currently serving; if you’re listening to this podcast, this is something you have to figure out for yourself. However, I think there are several pieces that will become apparent over time. These two are already in the works at Christ the King:
First, I’d like to see some kind of “Retirement Worship Service” that would see me hand back to the congregation’s leadership the various “symbols of the pastoral office” that I agreed to when I was first installed as pastor. For instance, I’d like to see a part of the service where I hand a Bible to the Sunday School staff and say something like “When you called me to be your pastor, I accepted your call to a ministry of teaching the Word of God; as I hand this Bible to the Sunday School staff, I relinquish this ministry to the congregation, to be held in trust until the next pastor accepts the call to teach the Word among you.” This part of the service might also include handing a Chalice to the Board of Elders, a Baptism shell to the Congregation Chairman, etc. This would be a visibile reminder to everyone that these functions (preaching, teaching, caring, the administration of the Sacraments) belong to the congregation and are held in trust by the pastor.
Second, a little over a year ago several folks in our congregation joined me to begin to explore a process that would help us to see what the values of Christ the King are - how we express them, how we teach them, how we encourage them. We also thought about the direction God might be leading us in the future. It seemed to us that He was leading us to focus on this transition from the end of my ministry to the beginning of the next; but what about the “gap” in between? That’s where we think we need to work on discipleship and leadership development here. So, recently I enrolled in a course called “The Disciple Making Playbook” to help me gather a lot of scattered thoughts into some organized and targeted discipleship emphasis at my church over the next couple of years. (“The Disciple Making Playbook” was developed by Zach Zehnder and offered through his Red Letter Living organization - there’s a link in the shownotes.)
Essential Question 2: Identify a new life passion. We’ve all known of people who retire, but can’t seem to sit still! They’re always doing something. Some join bowling or golf leagues; some get into hobbies or crafts; some get some kind of job (maybe several in succession); some get involved in community groups or activities; some are always traveling. Then there are others who don’t seem to do much of anything.
What might retired pastors do? Any of the above, but there are other possibilities, too. (This seems like a good time to say that in the book NEXT the authors offer “Ten Models of Post-Pastorate Professions” in Chapter 4. Here’s their list of possibilities (some of these require specific training and licensure from some denominations):
- Intentional Interim Pastor
- Seminary Professor
- Politician
- Church Consultant
- Missionary / Mission Organization Ambassador
- Prayer Minister
- Ministry Champion (in the congregation the pastor just retired from)
- Church Planter and Coach
- Denominational Leader
- Chaplain
- (bonus suggestion) Author
Personally, I don’t know yet what I might do in retirement - but I think that I will probably at least still continue to preach and lead worship on Sundays, either as a substitute for other pastors, or as a regular preacher at a small congregation that can’t afford a full-time pastor.
Back to the Essential Questions in Chapter 3, and to Essential Question 3: Determine Financial Need. My wife and I have been particularly concerned about what our finances might be over the next twenty years or so, since our family medical histories seem to hint that unless some catastrophic health condition comes to light, each of us stand a pretty fair chance of living into our nineties. We’ve already done some significant work in this area with the help of a couple of good financial advisors that we trust.
As I said before, this is what I’ve been doing. Your situation may be different - the point of these chapters is to say “please don’t go into retirement without giving each of these essential questions some considerable thought and prayer.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THESE POSTS:
- Zach Zehnder is author, program leader, and President of the Red Letter Challenge at https://redletterchallenge.com/; along with Chris Johnson, Zach cohosts the Red Letter Disciple podcast at https://redletterchallenge.com/red-letter-disciple-podcast/
- Mark Zehnder recently retired as the senior pastor of King of Kings Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and currently ministers at https://www.alwaysforwardministries.com/ to pastors, boards, staffs, and churches as they work through periods of leadership transition.
- The book “NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works” by William Vanerbloemen and Warren Bird is available at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Next-Pastoral-Succession-That-Works/dp/080100571X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SF9EGP9KPD3&keywords=next+vanderbloemen+bird&qid=1681756932&sprefix=next+Vand%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-1