Hi everyone!
I recently asked members of our Church Council to listen to an episode of my "Basin and Towel Podcast," and begin a series of conversations over the next couple of years about how we can work together as Pastor and Congregation to transition into a new phase of our ministry here. At our Council meeting on April 23 we had the first of those conversations. In this post you can read the transcript of the podcast episode (or listen to it HERE>>), and then read about the questions and concerns that were raised by our Council members that day (my responses are in red).
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When I (Pastor Cahill) turned 65 years old, quite a few of the folks at Christ the King asked me “So, Pastor, you’re not planning to retire yet, are you?” I smilled and said, no, not for a while yet. But I also started telling people here and there “If we made a ten-year plan for Christ the King today, you have to realize that it’s likely I won’t be here by the end of those ten years.’
Now it’s five years later - my wife and I both turned 70 years old in January - and I’m realizing that it’s time for me to say “I might not be here five years from now!” And it’s time for us to have some serious conversations about what that might mean for the congregation of Christ the King. This episode is the starter for the first of those conversations; and I’m Pastor Chris Cahill.
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I’ve watched from the sidelines over the last few years as several pastors I’ve known began a time of transition from active ministry into retirement. A couple of them who were at larger churches stepped aside from the role of senior pastor into associate roles. A couple of them retired outright, even though it would take a while for the next pastor to come in. For some of their congregations, the transition was smooth and seamless; for others, it was rough and rocky. Then the year 2022 came. It was a tough year for my wife and me, marked by the losses of family members and dear friends, including a couple of wonderful pastors who were dearly loved by their congregations. Despite the fact that those pastors had already retired from active ministry, many people in the congregations that loved them were deeply saddened by their losses.
Meanwhile my wife Bev and I started looking at what might be possible for our future together. I’ll get into some of those details in future episodes, but for today let me say that we’ve been talking to advisors, reading books, and listening to webinars to try to navigate the personal voyage ahead. Among those were my friend Zach Zehnder and his dad Mark, who recently hosted a webinar on this whole area. They recommended a book titled “NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works", that forms the outline for these conversations. (By the way, 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 just want to focus on the first chapter, “Why Every Leader Needs this Book” and to summarize the Key Lessons from that chapter:
KEY LESSONS
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS RAISED at Christ the King Council April 23, 2023 (my responses in red)
I recently asked members of our Church Council to listen to an episode of my "Basin and Towel Podcast," and begin a series of conversations over the next couple of years about how we can work together as Pastor and Congregation to transition into a new phase of our ministry here. At our Council meeting on April 23 we had the first of those conversations. In this post you can read the transcript of the podcast episode (or listen to it HERE>>), and then read about the questions and concerns that were raised by our Council members that day (my responses are in red).
++++++++++++++
When I (Pastor Cahill) turned 65 years old, quite a few of the folks at Christ the King asked me “So, Pastor, you’re not planning to retire yet, are you?” I smilled and said, no, not for a while yet. But I also started telling people here and there “If we made a ten-year plan for Christ the King today, you have to realize that it’s likely I won’t be here by the end of those ten years.’
Now it’s five years later - my wife and I both turned 70 years old in January - and I’m realizing that it’s time for me to say “I might not be here five years from now!” And it’s time for us to have some serious conversations about what that might mean for the congregation of Christ the King. This episode is the starter for the first of those conversations; and I’m Pastor Chris Cahill.
++++++++++++++
I’ve watched from the sidelines over the last few years as several pastors I’ve known began a time of transition from active ministry into retirement. A couple of them who were at larger churches stepped aside from the role of senior pastor into associate roles. A couple of them retired outright, even though it would take a while for the next pastor to come in. For some of their congregations, the transition was smooth and seamless; for others, it was rough and rocky. Then the year 2022 came. It was a tough year for my wife and me, marked by the losses of family members and dear friends, including a couple of wonderful pastors who were dearly loved by their congregations. Despite the fact that those pastors had already retired from active ministry, many people in the congregations that loved them were deeply saddened by their losses.
Meanwhile my wife Bev and I started looking at what might be possible for our future together. I’ll get into some of those details in future episodes, but for today let me say that we’ve been talking to advisors, reading books, and listening to webinars to try to navigate the personal voyage ahead. Among those were my friend Zach Zehnder and his dad Mark, who recently hosted a webinar on this whole area. They recommended a book titled “NEXT: Pastoral Succession that Works", that forms the outline for these conversations. (By the way, 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 just want to focus on the first chapter, “Why Every Leader Needs this Book” and to summarize the Key Lessons from that chapter:
KEY LESSONS
- The Bible teaches and models succession planning. You might remember that God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and to the promised land; but Moses also mentored young Joshua for years until God called Joshua to be the actual leader of the people into the promised land. King David was ably succeeded by his son Solomon, who made the kingdom of Israel even more glorious than it had been under David. And, of course, Jesus called twelve men to walk with Him in His ministry so that they could learn from Him during His life, and carry the Gospel into all the world after His ascension.
- Conversations are starting. I remember pastors (and maybe so do you) who served their congregations faithfully for decades, but rarely if ever gave thought to their own retirement, much less to the pastor who would follow them. They were good and faithful pastors in the ministry, but often the congregations they had served faced a long, rough, and rocky transition period when they retired as the congregation tried to make the adjustment to life without that pastor. Some of those pastors thought they should just not even talk about retiring until about three to six months before the actual retirement; these days, research is showing that the more we can communicate about the transition, even if it’s a couple of years away, the better the transition is for everyone (or at least, there are maybe fewer surprises).
- Every pastor is an interim pastor. What this means is, that every pastor should have in mind that there will be another pastor after them, and realize that what they’re teaching their church explicitly or by example will have an impact on that next guy whether positively or negatively. For instance, in the first church I served, the pastor who had been there for almost four decades had routinely refused salary raises when the Council offered them, always saying “the church can’t afford to give me a raise this year.” As a result, the congregation inappropriately learned that it was acceptable to pay the pastor well below the scale recommended by the District.
- Constant succession planning builds long-term health. I confess that I haven’t been constantly planning on how I’ll leave Christ the King, nor who the next pastor will be, for the 34 years I’ve been here. But I do realize that when we talk about an idea frequently (if not constantly), the idea is often shaped, developed, and even embraced as time goes on as opposed to when we remember to think of it only occasionally.
- Early planning produces higher-quality planning. You know what happens when you come up suddenly to an important event or occasion and realize you haven’t done any (or very little) planning for it? You want to find a nice Christmas present for somebody - and end up giving them a gift card. You hope to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday - and end up taking them out for lunch to Bob Evans. Those of you who’ve retired may also have experienced this: without good planning you may have been unprepared for something about retirement - maybe not the financial part, but maybe you were unprepared for all the free time you suddenly had? maybe you were unprepared to have your spouse underfoot all the time? You see what I mean? The more time you give yourself to plan, the more you’ll be satisfied with the final result.
- Succession clarity requires time to develop. Here is why this one is important: As I sit here and write out the wording of this episode, I wonder what questions will you have when you hear it? What feelings will be going through your minds and hearts? Is there anything here that I haven’t explained clearly enough for you? What concerns will you have about the future, or even about the next couple of years? That’s why I not only want to share these thoughts with you, but talk about them when we meet. Developing clarity together will give all of us a sense of relief and peace in the days and months to come.
- The earlier you plan, the more likely you are to succeed. I’ve mentioned this several times here, but just let me conclude with this thought - This process, these conversations, will probably take us a couple of years to get through. I have this notion that somewhere along the line things will start to gel and solidify in my mind - or in your minds - or in our minds together - and specific ideas, plans, and even a timeline will become clear to us all.
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS RAISED at Christ the King Council April 23, 2023 (my responses in red)
- “Pastors should consider themselves an interim pastor”
- “Interim pastor” is the guy between two pastors - how does he hold the ministry together between these two guys
- What about a vicar / someone to come along beside you? Is that feasible for Christ the King?
- Not enough people at CTK to easily identify someone to become the next pastor
- Our route might be to get somebody from the seminary (as pastor or vicar); but those options are limited because there aren’t currently enough seminary students to meet the needs
- When a pastor comes from outside the congregation, it takes him and the congregation 3-5 years to become accustomed to each other
- The best we can do is to examine ourselves like we did with Jacob (and with District self-evaluation tools) so that we can say to ourselves, the District, and potential pastors, “this is who we are and who we need”
- What about an associate pastor to come along side for a couple years, then be the senior pastor?
- CTK has limited office space; an associate pastor and CTC would be tripping over each other
- A better plan would be for CTC to get out of the way completely
- We’ll be talking more about this later (where could the next guy come from?)
- We’re financially able to support a pastor of 40 years of experience with a doctorate; we should be able to financially support a younger pastor with less experience
- Should the council members plan to read the book NEXT?
- I don’t think it’s necessary or advisable - it contains a bunch of stuff about pastoral transitions in huge congregations that just don’t apply to CTK’s situation; please trust that CTC has plowed through these weeds to dig out the parts that do apply
- Is it reasonable to think that a church this small could get another pastor?
- Whether a pastor would accept a call to CTK is always somewhat unpredictable and unknown, but it’s reasonable to try
- What about sharing a pastor with a neighboring congregation?
- How long is the average call process? Do we have that luxury of time?
- Interim ministry specialists say that when a pastor leaves it’s not a period of grieving to be rushed through (even though there is grieving) but rather an incubation period until the congregation is ready for the new ministry to begin
- It’s great that we’re starting to discuss this early and take our time to go through the process step by step
- Part of this process may be that CTK begins a process of self-study; the District is the HR department, and needs to know as much about CTK and its ministry as possible in order to search for good candidates for the next pastor
- Part of the self-study is the work we did with Jacob Hoyer; may do more with him, but who knows
- We’ll get to other self-study items later, or as we go along in this process