MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Churches, Especially Large Ones, Have Huge Trouble with Pastoral Transitions

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Sun, February 04, 2007
Viewed 45
(7) comments so far

“There is much more tumult than leaders like to admit,” says Jaco J. Hamman, author of the 2005 book When Steeples Cry: Leading Congregations Through Loss and Change. “A church goes through turmoil as individuals and families.

“It is impossible to lose a prominent leader and not change.”

The almost 10,000-member congregation is big enough. But the Coral Ridge network encompasses a lot more.

There’s a seminary and a broadcast wing. There’s a K-12 school with 960 students. There’s a radio station in the 30-story central steeple. There’s a chaplaincy for federal workers in the nation’s capital. There’s a conservative action outfit and a new center for evangelization.

Kennedy, 76, is still at Holy Cross, taking physical therapy. He’s made steady progress, but there’s still no estimate on when he’ll return to the pulpit, says the Rev. Ronald Siegenthaler, executive minister at Coral Ridge.

In the interim, the many overlapping organizations are drawing on years of experience. The session, the church’s governing body, has set a schedule of preachers during Kennedy’s convalescence, and each of the church’s eight main departments has a supervising minister. The church also runs itself during Kennedy’s three-month leave each summer.

If it became evident that Kennedy wasn’t staying in the top job, a church committee would gather candidates from several sources: congregants, friends of the church, and a ministerial job bank at the Atlanta headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in America. The list could top a hundred names.

The committee would settle on a few favorites and visit the pastors’ churches incognito, something like coaches scouting other teams. A couple of candidates would be brought to Coral Ridge to meet the church leaders. The No. 1 candidate would be picked by congregational vote.

The total process could take two years, Siegenthaler says. “I think it’ll be a difficult position to fill. Jim Kennedy is brilliant, he’s on the boards of 10 organizations, and he has an international audience. Nobody can do everything he did.”

When other big churches have replaced long-standing pastors, results have varied, even within one Protestant wing like the Baptists.

Pastor Jack Hyles died in 2001 after 41 years at the helm of the huge First Baptist Church of Hammond, Ind. Succeeding him was the Rev. Jack Schaap, his son-in-law and vice president of the church’s Bible college. The church continued to grow: About 12,000 now attend each week.

Less healthy was succession at First Baptist Church of Dallas, one of the largest and most influential in the Southern Baptist Convention. The Rev. Joel Gregory was hired under senior pastor W.A. Criswell, then left in 1992 after less than two years, accusing Criswell of reneging on a promise to retire (Criswell and the church have denied any such pledge).

Researcher John Vaughan says other dynamics were at work. For one, Gregory couldn’t get the powerful church board to acknowledge his leadership.

“When people have been following a longstanding pastor, it’s hard to ask them to follow someone else,” says Vaughan, owner of the think tank Church Growth Today, in Bolivar, Mo. “[Gregory] is a good man, and it’s a good church. But I think it was just a mismatch.”

Hamman, an associate professor at Western Theological Seminary in Michigan, takes a psychological view of transitions. After studying almost 40 churches since 1999, he says a congregation goes through a process of grief and mourning when a beloved leader leaves.

“You can’t talk about Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church without talking about D. James Kennedy,” he says. “The church’s identity is so fused with the leader. If he doesn’t come back, the question will be, `Who will we be?’”

You can read the rest of the article here in teh Sun-Sentinel...

On Dec. 28, the Rev. D. James Kennedy's heart stopped briefly. It was quickly revived, and he was rushed to nearby Holy Cross Hospital. Ministers and staff at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church swung into action, keeping things running and assuring the 10,000 congregants that Kennedy was on the mend. What they didn't dwell on, understandably, was what if the top man was unable to return -- what would happen to the Fort Lauderdale megachurch, and to the broadcast ministry, and the school and other organizations he heads. When a strong, dominant minister dies, resigns or retires, his projects -- and the relationships he has formed -- may well take a blow. Whether the church fades or bounces back depends not only on how it prepares, but also on how it adjusts...

Comments

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Jade on Mon, February 05, 2007

I think it is not just mega churches that have trouble in transition, but all size churches. Mainly I think it is because as this article points out churches don’t think about what to do in pastoral transition until the pastor has resigned. This is true not just for Senior Pastors but for associates as well. I think a pastor or associate should lead the way in talks about what to do in this situation.

Many denominations have bi-laws set up for this sort of thing, maybe the S.P. could inform them of them incase something should happen.

I don’t know how you all do it but I look for a successor. I have had the privledge of naming my successor in the last two you ministry positions I held. The last position I left because my successor was ready to do the job. I recommened him for the position and he got it. I hope all my ministry transition go this smooth.

Why do you think many pastors don’t think about it?
Bruce on Mon, February 05, 2007

How do we square the succession issue with Scripture. Too much of this sounds like doing business in corporate America rather than doing God’s work as a NT Church.

I believe the article is incorrect about Jack Hyles. The numbers coming out of First Baptist Hammond should be taken with a grain of salt…..........if not considered outright lies.If the 12,000 is correct then it is 1/2 of what the Church reported as attendance 30 years ago.

Bruce
Randy Ehle on Mon, February 05, 2007

I think we can draw principles from scripture about succession; aren’t Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus generally about him preparing his “successors” in a couple churches? Of course, he didn’t give them input about when to retire or resign, but I think, Bruce, that to suggest that planning for pastoral succession is somehow out of line with scripture is a pretty big stretch - and the whole “corporate America” thing is just a straw man.

There was so much persecution in the first few centuries of Christianity that I wonder how long pastors survived - literally - in their roles. Retirement wasn’t a first century practice, so succession planning was probably more along the lines of, “who will become pastor when I get killed?” In 21st-century western culture, we don’t generally have that problem, but we do have finicky, self-centered, consumer-minded congregations (nothing new there). Taking care of the sheep includes preparing the sheep for a new shepherd and the new shepherd for the sheep. I would suggest that he is a fool who doesn’t heed the warnings of history, only a few of which are noted in this post.
Bruce on Mon, February 05, 2007

Randy,

I am always disheartened when one throws up the “straw man” excuse right out of the gate. Usually that means the writer is dismissing me.

Most Churches are run on a corporate board model. The pastor may or may not be the CEO. He may just be one of the board members. I know a fair number of pastors and pastored a Church or two myself and most operate to some degree or another this way. The Church congregation many have a part to play but the real power rests with the board. and in many cases the CEO of the board, the pastor.

In the case of Timothy and Titus….....they were appointed elders in the context of new Church plants. They were also appointed by an apostle or by an apostle led congregation and as far as I know none of those guys are still around.

Well, Randy here is my big stretch…..

The Bible teaches that Churches were led by a plurality of elders

Succession was handled from within not without

Elders were trained within the local Church

Retirement was not an option. No such thing as an elder getting too old.

As a result…........every elder KNOWS the Church. No new guy coming in and reinventing the wheel. The Church knows the elder, the elder knows the Church. His doctrine is the same because he was trained in the Church. No secret Calvinists because the elder already knows what the Church believes on those issues (pro or con) No music fights. No program fights. Gee….........please tell me WHY we would want to continue doing it the way we do it now.

Many Churches search for a pastor just like a corporation does a CEO. Please tell me how it is different. Resumes, Reference Checks, Employment contracts. The candidates track record is checked out. What kind of numbers did he put up at his last gig?

I have been through my fair share of pastoral search situations and I have also been through a few management level corporate job interviews. The similarities are there whether people want to acknowledge it or not.

I hope Randy you will rethink your subtle jab (or maybe not so subtle) at those of us who still believe the book of Acts and the pastoral epistles are quite sufficient to guide the Church in its government and pastoral structure. Count me as one of those fools who thinks history DOES show us what happens when the Church ignores the blueprint God has given us. We end up with the mess we have now. True Church reformation is needed.

Bruce
Randy Ehle on Mon, February 05, 2007

Bruce, I agree that many churches are run like corporations - and I share some of your concerns about that, even if perhaps not to the same extent. When you wrote “How do we square the succession issue with Scripture?” then followed that question with your statement about corporate America, it struck me as suggesting that the answer to your own question is, “we can’t.” I’m sorry if I misunderstood the intent of your statements.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the problems inherent in the methods many (most?) churches use to search for a new pastor. Ironically, it seems to be that the ones most ambivalent toward a corporate model are the ones that use a similar search process but with untrained, inexperienced amateurs rather than professionals. That is, they don’t want to use a professional search firm because it’s too “corporate”, but instead they rely on a search committee of church members, most of whom have no experience in the intricacies of hiring someone, especially for a senior leadership position. So on the one hand you have a “corporate” church using an outside firm that knows how to find leaders but doesn’t know the church, while on the other hand you have a group of insiders who know the church but not how to find a leader. I think both models have some pretty significant problems.

So what should succession in the church look like? Ideally, as Bruce has suggested, leaders are homegrown - well-trained, mentored, known individuals who have shown themselves faithful and fruitful. In real life, however, until we begin to reach that ideal churches of all shapes and sizes - and especially those that have had one pastor for a long time (10+ years) - need to be thinking about life after Pastor X. And the leaders of that church - elders, pastors, board, whoever - owe it to the church to lead in that way. If you value homegrown leadership, show it by starting to prepare someone now. If you anticipate “needing” to bring in an outsider, start figuring out what the process will look like.

A final word, then it’s to bed for me: There are no guarantees in church leadership. The most loved and well-“groomed” associate pastor/elder can become a lousy senior pastor, or can become very unloved by the very congregation in which he was trained. Likewise, the most diligent and professional search can result in a terrible match, no matter how well-known the church is to the search team. There is no perfect pastor or elder, and there is no perfect church. We pray, we do our “due diligence”, we trust God…and we’d better submit to one another in love, or it will all come crashing down. Like Bruce, I’ve been around long enough to have seen it.
Dan Moore on Tue, February 06, 2007

I was an enlisted soldier for 20 years. In all my units, we were sent our officers. They weren’t interviewed by the local company or platoon. We depended upon the army’s process of recruitment, training and career development. We respect the rank and learn eventually to respect the officer when he or she proves capable. It is imperfect but it works.

I suspect from my reading of church history that the Apostolic/bishop model was the primary form of pastoral selection and sending process. The American culture has infilitrated and influenced greatly the pastoral selection process. I’ve always wondered how a new group of believers could actually be sufficiently discerning to identify God’s man. I know of a few horror stories of small starts and churches a few years old who were fooled into selecting the wrong person.

Transition does come in ministry. I have always held to the idea that in a healthy church the congregation should look inside for the next replacement. One of the failures of using the corporate model from American business is selecting someone who has no clue to the local culture and customs, someone who is not familiar with the church family in any way. I am told it takes 4-7 years for a new pastor to become “the pastor” of a congregation - the point when the pastor has earned the respect and trust of the flock. Calling one who is already proven in an existing church should, in theory, alleviate this.

God’s grace is good. I think of the many churches that did endure pastoral transition and somehow God was able to lead the right pastor to the right church in a smooth transition. The news of the few failures tend to take away from the many successful transitions.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Dan
greg on Fri, May 02, 2008

coral ridge presbyterian church has been lying for at least 15 years about the number of members it has and weekly attendance! this place is all about perception! this was all done to boost kennedy’s ego. this is just a church looking building w sudo christians and really should be called the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Country Club or The Church Of Corinth!! Sad old country club for politicians!