A bit long today, but no breakout ad section to make it a quicker read
In an off-hand conversation, a colleague shared about one of his clients. This larger church was seeking the person to be the next lead pastor. However, at least four other prominent churches in the same denominational family are in the same process.
Some aided by high-quality search firms, the searches had gone on for some time with little results.
"The churches and firms are not finding quality potential leaders for this size church, even when they are looking outside their own denominational family."
He continued: "This is going to be a real problem in (name of denomination) because I know of four more in that group across the country that will be retiring in a few years."
Additionally, he added: "And there is a high bar of education, experience and theological structure in (the denominational family.) I don't think that will change."
My colleague's description of that particular tradition is often told in multiple traditions.
[Photo credit: By http://www.reginalibrary.ca/commform/ReginaArchives/archives.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47813742]
Unfortunately, this store has closed and they no longer have leaders for sale.
The leadership pool can look very thin for larger churches in many tribes and traditions.
Independent traditions and non-denominational churches have a larger fishing pond when seeking new leadership but often find the same issue. Why is that? Part of the answer is below.
My work is primarily with larger churches with long-term senior and lead pastor leadership. These leaders are the primary readership of this newsletter as well. Before I go further, the cases above were not FOUNDER-led churches. Founder-led churches have different issues.
These churches were of some years and maturity. They all had healthy communities, financing, and mostly a healthy staff team. On the other hand, since they were longer serving pastors, the current leaders had developed good equity with the congregation's leadership. They had personal charisma and were excellent preachers/teachers. Almost all had some sort of earned doctorate letters behind their name, though they rarely used it.
My experience with Smart Pastor Succession tells me that there are several streams to fish in for leaders, but each type of church needs a different set of streams. (forgive the fisherman in me. Getting a new fly rod at Christmas.)
But here are the places these churches could go fishing, and maybe yours the next time it is in this situation.
Lead pastor at another large congregation – The pandemic effects have increased relocation among highly talented pastors. Even for some long-term leaders, the combined impact of pandemic issues, politics, and other conflicts have weighed on them. Some of those have sought new places to serve.
The campus pastor/Teaching Pastor for a large congregation has been the most common fishing hole. The two-decade growth of multisite churches has created a solid base of leaders who may not lead the overall church but lead particular congregations within a networked family.
Additionally, some have become a part of regular teaching/preaching teams for the entire congregation or family system. We used to see more part-time "teaching pastor" roles with promising development talent.
Their current congregation's multisite model and approach determine how often and how skilled they speak. But one must also examine their role in leading and shepherding a site.
Another church, a size level smaller, was the pattern for many years in most denominations. Pastors moved from solo pastorates to small staff churches to multilevel staff leadership. Alternatively, they started on staff at a large church, then went to a midsize church as pastor and began their lead pastor journey in that way.
This smaller church option is still an option for many, but I have seen less of this pattern in the last decade. Why? Midsize (for me 500-2000) churches are working hard on retaining their quality talent. Other concerns by these pastors balance a "step up" for financial and other incentives. Often these are related to family issues, including spousal employment and children's education.
The exceptions are when the pastor or their spouse sense an opportunity to "return towards family" in a geographical sense.
Import from another country – The comedian in me used to say – "Every large prominent church has to have a funny talker." That described a trend in the first decade of the 2000s to find an Aussie, United Kingdom, or South African import to bring to pastor here in the US context. Occasionally, I could classify Canadians this way, but except for their pronunciation of words like "process," it's hard to tell.
Many of those imported leaders love the thought of coming to the US to serve a church. There has been a relationship over time with the church in another setting for most that do.
The challenge churches encounter is related to immigration law and permits. A recent client spent over a year getting proper documents for a staff member and family.
Covid has exacerbated some of this, of course.
Imports are more attractive for Asian and some African-based denominations with larger congregations. Many of these churches look first to home countries and regions for their next pastor.
The former imports can have challenges adjusting to US church cultures, which often seem much different from their homeland, even though they have the same theological tradition.
The latter imported pastors have a minor adjustment to the church culture, but more to the community context, which differs from their homeland.
Residencies – In full disclosure, my colleague, Greg Ligon, and I have worked with multiple churches to establish or relaunch their residency programs in the past few years. We define a residency as a more formal training and work process for at least a year.
Some of these residents are used in future staff positions at the host church, while some move to other fields to serve. But it does help ground those persons in your church's culture and leadership values. Residency leaders and pastors get a good look at these potential leaders to begin to track them over time.
In multiple cases of founder-led churches, I have seen a person that becomes the eventual successor start as a resident at the same church. They don't move from resident to lead pastor, of course, but their journey with the church started in that process.
This is a long-term leadership development strategy. It helps the host church and other churches in that family and the kingdom.
"The Farm Team" – the residency issue leads to the category of the farm team.
Farm teams come in three primary ways – one is the resident or "son of the house" that passes through the host church and then goes out to serve other churches for a season, perhaps a long season. But the hope is that one of these may eventually come back and benefit the host church in a vital role.
The farm team effect also happens with church-planting churches. Some recent clients have been able to tap church planters who successfully planted to "come home" and help lead the next season of the church planting sponsor. This is another benefit of being a church-planting church.
In the above cases, we are scattering the seed widely to trust that God will bless those efforts. And if God so wills, some of that seed can come home to be replanted and rerooted.
The other farm teams are literal sons and daughters of current generation leaders. While most often the lineage of the current senior pastor, they can also be children of another high-level leader. These children have been raised in the church, often have key staff roles, and have trust from longer-term leaders.
On the other hand, my experience is that about half of these end in tears. This may be the most natural but also produces an extra set of dynamics and pressures that are hard on all concerned. Handle with care.
Farm teams are generational strategies that pay dividends over time. To my knowledge, none of the churches in the opening example have extensive farm systems or residency systems to build up leadership from the past.
[Here comes the plug away factor] Our story today started with churches where a Senior/Lead Pastor had either left or announced their intention to leave soon. If these churches had come through the Smart Succession Process with me (and none have), they would be in a better position to face the search process. Succession is different from search. Search is a sub-component of the succession process.
Want to know more? Reach out and let's talk.]
And if you want help with your residency/intern process that helps build leaders for the future, reach out to my colleague Greg.Ligon@generis.com and set up a free roadmap session to talk about your needs and get some free resources.
None of the above discounts the Kairos time, divine call of God, or Holy Spirit's direction. We cry out to God to help us in these matters. All of these need to be covered in prayer, fasting and consecration to continue to serve God and our congregations well.
In the same way, we need to sense God's direction in preparing future leaders that can lead the next generation of congregations.