Pastor John Larson and his wife Ruth Ann “passed the baton of leadership” this past year after 34 years years of faithful ministry. NL Moore & Associates walked along side John, Ruth Ann and their church during this significant journey. John is sharing his succession story, and we hope his knowledge and wisdom will help and inspire others. Enjoy.
Transition can be exciting, but it can also be hard. Sometimes it is both.
For me the idea of leaving the ministry I had poured myself into for decades was a painful thought process. How could I ever say “good-bye” to people who have loved me, and that I have loved deeply for so many years, without pain? It didn’t seem possible.
But transitions are a part of life in pastoral ministry. In hindsight I discovered that it got easier after the process got rolling: after the “cat was out of the bag” and retirement announcement went public, and after the consultant was brought in to guide the process.
Before all that, I had a difficult conversation to engage. I had to bring the “topic” of succession to the governing board. I say “topic” because in the early stages succession was just a “topic” in my mind, not a reality. I could remain detached from it. The more I wrestled with it the more real it became. This “topic” was life changing. It would impact the church, my wife, our kids, our finances, our friends, the staff (the list could go on and on). I knew I needed to muster the courage to engage this “topic” with our governing board but it was hard to do.
I knew the Holy Spirit hadn’t given me a spirit of fear, but I could sense fear welling up inside me. I had done enough thinking about it to know that the time was right, and that I wanted to depart under good terms, not whimper out with regret or bitterness. So where was my courage going to come from?
Looking back it seemed to come from a few places. First, I was banking on God’s faithfulness of the past to be there in the future. Numerous times over my ministry life, I had no idea how messes were going to get cleaned up or conflicts were going to be resolved, but God intervened with grace, strength or outside help. So there was a track record I could count on going into this conversation.
Second, I trusted the governing board to be wise and discerning about the timing and the process. I had worked with this team for years around other issues. They had proven themselves worthy of my trust. Of course, I wondered if this time it would be different, but I knew for the good of the mission and the ministry I needed to trust them again.
Lastly, my courage came from fear. Good fear. It was a holy fear that if I didn’t bring up “the elephant in the boardroom,” the process of my departure could be made exponentially more difficult. We’ve all heard of pastors staying too long because of selfish reasons or because they lacked the discernment to recognize the time to leave. The impact can be devastating to the congregation, the leadership, staff and the pastor’s family. I didn’t want that to be my story.
So with God’s faithfulness in front of me, the board’s track record of wisdom and discernment beside me, and a holy fear that my own selfishness could run the train off the tracks bringing up the rear, I engaged the “topic” of succession with the board.
I brought up the idea of retirement. In the early days I would “drip” comments to the board. Just passing comments about retirement and succession that gave them freedom to begin their own processing and talk about it openly with me. That set the stage for a planning retreat where I reminded the board that I would not be at Hope Church forever and that we needed to look toward the future leadership of the church. We read Russ Crabtree’s book, The Elephant in the Boardroom. Once the “dripping” started and the succession planning “topic” showed up on the agenda, this challenging subject became easier and more natural. We all know that once the elephant in the room is pointed out, everyone can see things more clearly.
Succession planning should be a board priority long before the staff or congregation is ever exposed to the idea. And ideally it is the long-tenured pastor who brings it to the table. One life lesson I learned during this process is that being courageous isn’t about one big moment or conversation. It’s lots of little moments that lead to other little moments that add up to the kind of courage required to tackle a hard “topic” like succession.