The time will come when you’ll need to step away from being the lead pastor of a local church. Are you prepared? Have you been preparing? Who have you discipled for this position? Will he come from your current congregation?
Over ten years ago, my son-in-law came to serve at Boones Creek Bible Church as youth leader. From there he became the youth/assistant pastor. As of July 30, 2023, he was voted to officially become the associate pastor waiting to be the lead pastor on January 7, 2024.
When I became pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Graysville, TN, in the spring of 1983, the question of who would “fill my shoes” was not on my mind. I had a lifetime of ministry in front of me!!
Now the time has come.
Andrew coming to serve at Boones Creek Bible Church was a blessing of the Lord’s leading as he completed his undergraduate degree. He served here on weekends, then after graduating, he married our youngest daughter, Allison. As the years went along, I handed him more and more responsibility. Through weekly/bi-weekly meetings, I poured into him, and I learned from him. Early on, the opportunity to preach was his whenever he desired.
As he progressed through seminary, the opportunities to use what he was learning were provided to him in healthy doses.
Then came Covid! God used these days, weeks and months to strengthen Andrew and our church. Immediately, the Lord laid on our hearts a mechanism to fast-track us to small groups and the maturing of BCBC into a more healthy congregation. As Andrew has coached the team from an assistant’s role, he has grown, made mistakes, and remained teachable.
A turning point for him was the opportunity to candidate for the lead pastorate of a larger, desirable ministry. He gained a wealth of knowledge from that experience through the process and the mentorship of the men on that pastoral search committee. I personally thought he would be moving on at that time. Much to my surprise and delight, he and Alli believed that God would have them stay in Tennessee, so he declined the offer to move forward with this church.
It was now time. In the back of my mind, I had always wondered if Andrew would someday pastor BCBC. Combined with the desire of my heart as well as Denise’s to encourage pastors and their wives, and having said for many years, “When the time comes to step down from the lead pastorate, I would rather do so too early than too late,” we set the wheels in motion for this transition through much prayer and outside counsel.
Another major piece to this has been and continues to be the major emphasis at BCBC on discipleship (Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:2). Why go through the process of forming a pastoral search committee, a task that had not happened at BCBC in 24 years, and then wait for anywhere between eighteen months to six years for a new pastor to be installed. Add to that the norm of it taking up to five more years for the church and its pastor to be truly melded together.
With that said, pastor, who are you disciplining to be a future pastor or even the pastor to follow you? Will you begin to prepare some men in our congregation to be future pastors? Will the next pastor of the church you lead come from your own congregation?
More to come in the next post, but in the meantime I ask, “Pastor friend, who is your Timothy?”
(Be sure to read the previous post, Part 1.)
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