Could It Be Time for a Pastoral Transition?
“All the time,” said John Piper, “I’ve been thinking about it for thirty years.”
What had Piper been thinking about for thirty years? A potential transition in pastoral ministry.
He said this around the time of his retirement from his long tenure at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota. “I thought about quitting a lot,” he added. But then Piper mentioned the way God didn’t give him a chance to move at the same time he wanted to move. “Here’s the beautiful thing that I look back on with such thankfulness: the Lord never let those ‘ready-to-move’ feelings come when there was an opportunity to move. The opportunities to move came when I didn’t want to move. He timed it perfect.”
If you’re reading this post about pastoral transitions, perhaps you’re only doing so “for a friend.” But my guess is that you’re a ministry leader who might be in one of these ready-to-move seasons right now, the kind of season Piper mentioned. (If, however, you’re a member of a church, and you want one of your pastors to move to another church, well, that’s a different situation entirely! And if you’re a pastor who wants some of his members to move churches, that’s also another post, one I won’t be writing.)
As the summer ends and fall arrives, I suspect you might not be alone, as the fall is a common time for pastors to begin thinking about transitions. In fact, I’ve recently been writing a draft of an article for another publication about the blessings of not transitioning away, the blessings of what I’m calling “the ministry of staying put at your church.”
But if these thoughts of transitions are rattling around in your heart, I thought I’d offer a few things to consider. Because before you go looking for the tips and tools you need to transition well from one church to another, it’s worth backing up to ask the question: are you sure it’s the right time?
For some pastors, a looming transition is obvious. This is your last semester or two in seminary, and you’re ready to work in the field. You’re being influenced by both “push” and “pull” factors, not just one or the other. You’re being pushed out of seminary and pulled into a new local church. When this is the case, it’s fairly straightforward. Let the transition begin.
Some of you, however, feel like you’re on a rollercoaster. You feel anticipation and excitement as your church grows in size, but then a loop-de-loop and a double corkscrew induce fear and instability. How do you know when your time is done? If you were terminated, others decided the ride for you was over. But what about when the decision is yours?
Determining God’s will is often tricky. Gideon used a fleece, but I’m not sure this was to his credit. So we probably shouldn’t try something similar.
When I was a kid, my parents gave me a choice about a summer vacation. I couldn’t figure out what to do. My parents told me I could go with them on a short trip to visit my grandparents or I could stay home with a friend to attend a local basketball camp. I had no idea what God wanted me to do. One morning I distinctly remember staring at a small bowl of cereal and asking God this very question. As I twirled the last few Lucky Charms with my spoon, I asked God to make the cereal into the shape of the state—either Missouri (basketball) or Iowa (grandparents)—to indicate what I should do. I’m not encouraging you to go and do likewise. After all, when I was a child . . .
Kevin DeYoung wrote a whole book about how to discern the will of God. “‘The will of God’ is one of the most confusing phrases in the Christian vocabulary,” he writes. “Sometimes we speak of all things happening according to God’s will. Other times we talk about being obedient and doing the will of God. And still other times we talk about finding the will of God” (Just Do Something, 16).
Too often we feel as though we need to divine God’s will (say, with Lucky Charms). But DeYoung argues we should stop “thinking of God’s will like a corn maze, or a tightrope, or a bull’s-eye” (23). Instead, we need to realize God gave us brains and passions and mentors and friends and education and experiences and longings. As we listen to all of these—as well as when we adequately take into account our proclivity for sinful, mixed motives—somehow God shows himself faithful to lead us to where we should go.
In his book Before You Move, John Cionca explains thirty-five different categories to help pastors sense whether God is moving them to another ministry. He uses the metaphor of red and green traffic lights. The more red lights, the less likely God may be moving you, and the more green lights, the more likely he may be. So, if you get nineteen green lights and sixteen red lights, that makes things clearer, right? No, it’s not a simple math problem, and neither do each of the thirty-five categories carry equal weight.
Yet I do find it helpful how this approach forces one to think broadly about the situation. Often when a pastor wants to move, it might be that a few persistent annoyances have provoked his restless desire. It’s better to consider the whole picture.
I won’t list all of his thirty-five categories, but here are some I found especially useful.
| Red Lights to Moving | Green Lights to Moving |
|---|---|
| Congregational Hunger | Congregational Apathy |
| Vibrancy and Growth | Stagnation and Decline |
| Good Giftedness Match | Poor Giftedness Match |
| Enthusiasm for the Task | Restlessness or Withdrawal |
| Good Opportunity for Impact | Limited Opportunity for Impact |
| Family Happy and Growing | Family Distressed and Stifled |
| Appropriate Compensation | Insufficient Compensation |
| Tenure Less than Six Years | Tenure More than Six Years |
| Compatibility with Staff | Poor Staff or Key Relationships |
| High Integrity and Credibility | Low Integrity and Credibility |
| Advisors Confirm Ministry | Advisors Suggest Major Change |
| Ideal Geographical Proximity to Extended Family | Less than Ideal Geographical Proximity to Extended Family |
Again, these don’t provide a full-proof plan; they’re simply tools. If the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah had used these categories, the score would have been a shutout: 0–35. These prophets were certainly in one of those ready-to-move seasons. Often, a prophet’s congregation didn’t want to fire him but to kill him.
In fact, when God explains to Isaiah that his job description involved preaching until the pews were not only empty but until they were burned to ashes, Isaiah’s “Here am I! Send me” quickly became “How long, O Lord?”
For Isaiah (and many other prophets), faithfulness meant staying put when all the lights appeared to be green. Why? Because the voice of God became to them like Gandalf thrusting down his staff and roaring, “You shall not pass!”
If, however, God is telling you it might be time for a transition, I would bring several other trusted friends and ministry leaders into that conversation. Ideally, if your situation allows such disclosure, do this with someone in leadership at your church rather than blindsiding them later. Not all situations allow such honesty, however. You might not feel free to discuss this with anyone local until the process progresses.
In the meantime, if you’d like more help thinking through a transition—help finding the right job in ministry with excellence, integrity, and respect for everyone involved—then you might find helpful my book on this topic, Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church.
* Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash