NEXT Chapter 10: Seven Surprises about Succession
Observations from NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2020
This month's chapter is about several surprising thing the authors of the book NEXT learned as they studied how churches transition from the ministry of an outgoing pastor into the ministry of an incoming pastor. My comments are in italics below. Pastor Cahill
Observations from NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2020
This month's chapter is about several surprising thing the authors of the book NEXT learned as they studied how churches transition from the ministry of an outgoing pastor into the ministry of an incoming pastor. My comments are in italics below. Pastor Cahill
- God is in control, and can transform even the most challenging situations into kingdom gain. Congregations and call committees like to think that the more we plan and anticipate, the more we'll be able to eliminate surprises and uncertainties. The truth is, that God is the one who is in control (Lutheran's would say that it is the Holy Spirit who "calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth") and He will bring about His goals for a congregation in His good time, often despite our best intentions and plans.
- Nearly everything rides on the back of the outgoing senior pastor. It's true - it's up to the outgoing pastor to set the tone and the direction for how he will leave, and how the congregation will welcome his eventual successor. Then, as we've learned in a previous chapter, it's up to him to "pass the baton" and get off the track!
- New pastors shouldn’t dismiss the leadership and staff they inherited before taking a long look at them for the future. Sometimes, a new pastor can be impatient with folks who say "this is the way we've always done it." But those folks often have something called institutional memory, which includes the reasons why they started doing something "this way," and the trials and errors they've made along the way. They're worth listening to, so that the same trials and errors aren't repeated.
- A perfect state is not required. Have you heard the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good"? That's true, you know. When a pastor leaves, his leaving will not be perfect; the transition period will not be perfect; and the coming onboard of a new pastor will not be perfect. It will all be as good as we can make it, given our human limitations and the will and work of the Holy Spirit.
- Succession might involved not calling a new senior pastor. This is a reality many of our LCMS churches are facing, and it's not only about "senior" pastors. In the LCMS we're seeing a growing number of churches who are served by only one pastor, whose search for his replacement can be long, tiresome, and frustrating. "Vacancies" tend to be longer than they used to be. The pool of available, active pastors is shrinking every year; so is the pool of available seminary graduates. All the Districts are helping some of their congregations to continue their ministries through various models of partnerships with other congregations that mean that not every congregation will be able to have exclusive claims on a pastor. That can be a tough pill for some churches to swallow.
- All successions are unique. This goes with number 4 above. There's no recipe for success in this process. It's kind of like a woman I know who bakes chocolate chip cookies every week, tweaking the recipe just a smidge each time in her search for the "just right" that never quite happens - and yet people who eat them each week tell her that "there's no such thing as a bad chocolate chip cookie." We can talk about what we've observed in other congregations, but what happens in our congregation will be uniquely ours.
- Bylaws about your incoming pastor should reflect qualities that your incoming pastor MUST have, not just your desires. In light of #5 above, it would be good for a congregation to take a good look at what the bylaws say about what's expected of a pastor, and see what changes need to be made to reflect current realities (especially if it's been a decade or two since the bylaws were last revised).