I serve at a church alongside several very gifted preachers. Some of them lead our campuses. Others serve in various leadership roles on our staff. They are all good, even very good, and every time one of them preaches when I’m out of the pulpit, my congregation tells me, “They’re going to take your job.”
Truth is, one of them will. In fact, one of them should. One of my most important roles as pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church is preparing the future leaders of this church. I have, in fact, changed my mind on this. I used to think the best pastors were the best preachers.
Now, I’m convinced that the best pastors identify, invest in, and prepare the next generation of pastors. Preaching is like a cut flower –it exists at the moment and only at the moment — without the grounding and fertilization of discipleship in the hearer’s life.
Jesus modeled this for us. He poured His life into His disciples. More to the point, He focused a lot of His most intimate teaching in the lives of Peter, John, and James, who then became leaders in the early church. Paul poured his life into Timothy and Titus. Throughout the history of the church, the church has found its leaders are those young people who have been spending time with older leaders.
When I was a young pastor, I learned to pastor a church from older pastors. For some reason, these old guys liked me, and they would take me to lunch and coffee. During these moments, they would tell me how to visit a hospital, how to respond to a grieving family, how to get a sermon done in the middle of doing everything else required in a local church, and most importantly, how to keep my sanity in the midst of the craziness that exists in every local church.
Now, I am the old guy.
Like Moses before me, the people I love and serve are counting on me to prepare their next leader. There are things about this congregation only I know. There are things I’ve seen, done, experienced, heard, lost, found, and put up on a closet shelf that make me the leader I am for this congregation. If we pursue the traditional pulpit search committee route, our church will be dead in the water for at least four years. It will take one year to find the new pastor and one year to learn the congregation. It will take another year to discern the new direction of the church and then, one more year putting in the new structure to support the new vision. As fast as things move now, the church will be so far behind it will never catch up.
Therefore, it’s on me to make sure my campus pastors know the vision of our church so deeply that it has, in fact, become their vision. This is where our church is going. Is this where you want to go? If not, then we need to help you find a new place to serve. If it is, then how do we align your gifts and passions (which will be different from mine) to best achieve this vision?
I will teach them about the importance of the spiritual disciplines. Ministry, however, you express it, comes out of the overflow of what Christ is doing in our own lives. Most ministers fail not because of persecution or some doctrinal controversy. They fail because they make the fatal mistake of thinking that working for Jesus is the same thing as being with Jesus. It’s not, and the difference is deadly.
I will teach them to monitor their boundaries. They must protect their marriages and relationships with their children. The church is a wicked mistress and will reward you with self-destruction. You have to keep your soul, your marriage, and your children healthy. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
For me, there’s nothing more meaningful than serving a local congregation. I love Brentwood Baptist Church. I love being pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. I recently turned 65. I’m not going to retire, but let’s face it, I’m closer to it than I once was.
I will be sad when I step down as pastor, but I won’t be distraught. The church will have a grand future because all of our work has been in preparation to accomplish it. Seeing this will continue to bring me joy.
What a shame it would be to have run all this way and then lose the race because there was no runner waiting for the baton. I don’t want the last sound of my ministry to be the sound of the baton falling to the ground.
