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High-level church leaders are smart, resourceful, godly, experienced, and most importantly they want what’s best for their body of believers. But when their senior pastor abruptly leaves, they are rudely shoved into a transition season they not only didn’t expect but weren’t trained to handle. It is so easy to miss the key element to leading in painful times of pastoral transition!
What is that key factor that church leadership teams can’t afford to miss? Let’s start with the obvious, and then drill-down to the ambiguous.
The hasty exit of a senior pastor is a sure signal something has gone terribly wrong. It’s tragic when an accident or illness suddenly takes his life. It’s heartbreaking when he takes his own life, or when there is the moral implosion of an affair or his hand is caught in the financial cookie jar. And how sad when a pastor announces he is moving on to another ministry, and within days is gone.
What do all these potential scenarios of an abrupt departure have in common?
- First, the church suddenly has a leadership vacuum: something has changed –he is gone.
- Second, the fact that the pastor is physically gone embodies what is now missing.
- And third, if something is missing (and won’t be coming back), then there has been a loss.
Pretty obvious stuff, right?
But it’s understanding and responding to what happens next that is often missed. The loss to the church is not just a loss of function (the bases he used to cover), but it’s a loss that is felt. And here is the often-missed key: when the church experiences loss, the church begins to grieve!
Effective leaders are mindful (both on a corporate and individual level) that change is seen as loss, and our hearts respond to loss by grief.
The church body is going to enter a season of grieving the loss of their pastor. Even if there was no sin involved, but especially if there was, grief will be the common experience. It is this corporate experience of grief which many church leaders underestimate. Its depth will be different for everyone, but its extent will cover most everyone.
To effectively lead in pastoral transition, the leadership team needs to take into account the impact grief will have on the church as a whole. To miss this is to inadvertently hinder the church from recovering from the tragedy.
How do church leaders lovingly address the impact of grief in their church? There are 4 realities about grief which leaders need to embrace. Each of these will help the church over time recover well:
1. Grief is not a problem to fix, but a wound to heal.
A grieving person is not broken. A person’s mourning is a time of recovery.
2. There is no one “right way” to grieve.
Personality, spiritual maturity, and how close they were to the epicenter of loss, all impacts the way in which a person grieves.
3. Everyone works through grief in their own timetable.
Though the stages of grief can be identified, each person will travel through the stages in their own time.
4. One’s current experience with grief has a way of reaching back into our past and bringing into the present all unresolved grief.
When grief isn’t effectively resolved, it compounds upon itself.
When the church leadership team recognizes, embraces, and communicates publicly these 4 truths about grief, it will start to normalize the grief process, and help a church work through it well. This is part of how a leader lovingly shepherds at a painful time!
By the way, if you’re not aware of the damage that is done in a church when it’s senior pastor leaves due to an affair, then sign-up to receive my email newsletter, and I’ll send you my free eBook that outlines the 28 ways a church is hurt.
And if what I’ve described above has unfortunately just happened in your church, and if your team could use someone coming alongside to walk with you as you start this pastoral transition, contact me at rick@interimpastor.org for resources that can be custom fit for your situation.
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Great thoughts. These were so helpful when Rick helped guide us through the pain and leadership hurdles of a sudden departure of our Senior Pastor. Thank you Rick. So much.
How wonderfully insightful, and practically helpful. So many churches and church leaders have struggled on those fronts, and some have not recovered. This site and this particular blog needs to be read and passed along. Thank you Rick!