Team Ministry and Planned Transition in the Local Church

Something I have seen over the past several years is that by and large senior pastors do a poor job of leaving long-time pastorates. Our churches suffer as a result. The typical pattern goes like this: A pastor builds a thriving church over many years. He sets the direction of the church and is in the pulpit every Sunday except for 3 or 4 times for vacation or a conference. When he is going to be gone, he calls one of his evangelist friends to fill the pulpit, and although the people understand that he has to miss occasionally, they don't like it. Many times they will skip church if the pastor isn't going to be there, so the pastor hides the fact he will be gone. The church rallies around his vision, and over time, takes on his personality. Those who really like him stay, and those who don't care for him find somewhere else to go. As long as he stays healthy, turns down offers from other churches or denominational positions, and doesn't experience a moral or ethical failure, everyone does fine. The church supports missions, sends a nice contingent to youth camp, and is represented at district meetings. All in all, this pastor is known as a "good" pastor because he has been able to stay in this one place for many years.

What happens over time is the pastor becomes very protective of his pastorate, and the church willingly complies. They like the stability and the comfort of knowing their pastor well, and he enjoys great status and forms his entire self-image around being the pastor of his congregation. People come to him with their deepest struggles. He marries them and their children. He dedicates their babies. He buries those who have gone on to their reward. Neither he or his congregation ever want this to change.

However, no matter how much we resist, things do change. Pastors get old or they contract diseases that bring them down prematurely. Sometimes they succumb to sins of the flesh and it becomes necessary for them to step down. Sometimes they are presented with the district appointment they have dreamed of all their life, or the call from the one church they said they would leave their church to take. Whatever the situation, eventually every pastorate comes to an end.

What happens at this point has been happening to churches everywhere. Every day more churches are plunged into this situation. There is a huge void left behind because the position of pastor has been overtaken by the power of personality. The church will flounder around until it elects a new preacher. They can call him "pastor" but they are not ready for another "pastor". In their hearts they still have one. The new guy is most likely younger with different interests and ministry priorities than "pastor". People who once had the ear of "pastor" now are on equal footing with everyone else. In many cases, someone who didn't have much influence with "pastor" will become fast friends with the new guy. The new guy doesn't preach like "pastor", doesn't serve communion the same way, or even pray like "pastor" did. Some will leave and some will stay, but those who stay will be cautious with the new guy because if they act like they like him too much, they are being disloyal to "pastor". Sometimes attendance plummets, sometimes not. But in nearly every case, momentum is lost. The church is set back for a period of months or even years while they get used to a "new normal". Eventually, the new guy rides out the storm, the people eventually get to know him and his family, and life gets good again. The new "pastor" preaches every Sunday, establishes a vision for the direction of the church, marries and buries, and the cycle begins again. When his time is over, the cycle repeats itself. Many churches never recover from the departure of a long-time pastor. They spend decades remembering when they were full and exciting.

I have wondered in some of the situations I have observed if these pastors get some sense of accomplishment when their churches suffer upon their departure. If they do, it would answer a question I have struggled with: why don't we structure our churches in such a way as to survive inevitable transition?

Coming from a business background, I am accustomed to evaluating organizations. In my management positions in large corporations, I knew that a major responsibility of mine was to raise up the people around me and to keep a constant crop of potential replacements for my position. I was not promotable unless I could demonstrate that someone could fill my position easily. I also had to evaluate departments around me to see if anyone was becoming a "bottleneck". If I saw a department where the supervisor was making himself indispensable by gathering all of the knowledge and authority to himself, it was my responsibility to replace him. In other words, "if I have to have him, I have to replace him" was the mantra given to me by one of my employers.

So from that vantage point, it is frustrating for me to see churches forced into the position of having to essentially start over every few years because of the failure of pastors to value the strength of the church over the strength of their position.

Now that I have layed out my case for the problem, what do I propose as a solution? Two ideas which have already been tried in some quarters with success but are used but rarely; team preaching and planned transition.

Team preaching is simply put, having several preachers. This would include the lead pastor, of course. It would also include any associates with a preaching gift. In a smaller church, or any church for that matter, the preaching team could include qualified lay members. Three or at the most four persons would make up the team. The preaching team meets together to lay out the preaching calender for the year. After blocking out holiday services and special events, the preaching team decides together what principles should be presented to the congregation. These are then divided up among the preaching team. There is no need to try to divide the opportunities equally. The more experienced preachers should have the most opportunities. But the strength of the preaching team comes from two areas.

Team preaching allows the supervised development of younger or inexperienced preachers. Under the tutelage of the more experienced preacher, the young preacher develops his outline according to his assignment on the preaching calender. Instead of being given an off week or lightly attended service to deliver a sermon he has prepared by himself and is in a position where he is likely to flounder, as a member of the preaching team he is involved in the whole aspect of sermon preparation from subject, to scripture, to outline, to illustrations, to conclusion of not only his own sermon but also to the sermons of the other preachers. What an incredible gift to a young preacher to be taught by seasoned veterans in the fundamentals of sermon preparation and in knowing how the sermons were developed, to see those sermons actually presented. So team preaching is valuable to raise up a new generation of effective preachers.

The second benefit of team preaching is that it allows variety in styles and personalities of preachers within a predictable schedule. The people of the church grow used to hearing a known number of preachers. They aren't hearing someone different every week, they are hearing the same three or four preachers over the course of the year. If one of the preachers has to be gone, the replacement is a known quantity. If one of them leaves to go to another ministry post, as many surely will because of the experience they have gained, it doesn't cause a major disruption in the church. If the lead pastor has the opportunity to preach at a conference or an event overseas, the congregation is left in good hands. Also, many associates who would like to preach occasionally but do not want the burden of preparing sermons each week will be more likely to stay at their positions even if they only preach four or five times a year. The lead pastor gives up his every Sunday pulpit, but he gains the opportunity to pour his experience into the less experienced preachers on the team. He also gets a break from the weekly grind of sermon preparation, and even allows him the freedom to see what is going on other places occasionally.

If we can begin to celebrate the preacher who raises up preachers as much as we celebrate the preacher who preaches well, we will begin to see an increase in team preaching. Most likely, the proponents of team preaching will be the younger pastor. But it would be great if the older experienced pulpiteer would see the value in this for the coming generation. It could even extend his preaching life and his legacy!

The concept of planned transition is a tough sell. The generation of preachers who are reaching retirement age were brought up in a paradigm where the leader never shows all of his cards. Far too many retirement announcements are sprung on their congregations without any warning. Many older pastors have their entire self-image wrapped up in their identity as pastor, and they hope to preach until they die. Unfortunately, many of their churches will die shortly thereafter. Planned transition is simply put, grooming your successor. The lead pastor would select someone some years ahead of a potential retirement and begin to pour into that person. At some point, the potential successor has to be brought into the plan. Many pastors have had potential successors accept other churches just months from a retirement announcement because they wanted to keep everybody guessing. It would be wise to increase the preaching load of the designated successor so the congregation gets acquainted with his style. He would be brought in on leadership meetings and in vision development. Eventually, it would be made known to the congregation of the plan of succession. Two or three years would be the optimum transition time. In the beginning, the successor would just be present for pastoral responsibilities. But over time, the lead pastor would hand more and more responsibilities to his successor until the time came for his retirement. He would then make it known that he would no longer be responding as the lead pastor and that he will now take the role of lead supporter of the lead pastor.

As I said earlier, I don't have any allusions about our older pastors doing this. It is too different from what they have seen before. My dream is that this idea will resonate with our younger generation of pastors and that the day will come when we judge the effectiveness of a pastorate on how smoothly he is able to hand off his church to the next generation.

I am burdened for our churches. I grieve everytime I hear of an ugly transition. I hear of them far too often. There is never only one answer to any problem as large and complicated as this one, but I do know that the way we are transitioning churches now is costing momentum and valuable resources needed to spread the gospel in this day. Many churches are undergoing leadership transition every year. My prayer is that we stop making the same mistakes over and over and look for ways to strengthen our churches. These proposals are just two of many possible ways.