By Darrel Rowland
“Many are the plans in a man”s heart, but it is the Lord”s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21).
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As a generation of longtime megachurch ministers approaches retirement age, more and more church leaders are faced with a crucial question: Who will fill their shoes?
A growing number are not waiting until the preacher gives notice to start looking for a successor. They are developing formal succession plans.
Perhaps it”s time to ask: How well are they working?
It”s not difficult to find poster children for how such a plan should work.
“¢ Bob Russell and the leaders at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville planned in the late 1990s to pass the baton to Dave Stone; that handoff successfully took place a year ago.
“¢ In January, Tim Coop of Pantano Christian Church in Tucson, Arizona, transitioned from 14 years as senior pastor to pastor of community and pastoral relationships.
“¢ Setting up a formal process has eased the leadership transition at Bible colleges, too. Ozark Christian College President Ken Idleman stepped down earlier this year after a three-year transition plan.
But plenty of examples can be found where things didn”t work out as planned.
Sometimes the church is caught unprepared.
Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, was only in the early stages of succession planning this spring when Max Lucado, 52, was diagnosed with heart arrhythmia and forced to leave his post as senior minister.
Sometimes changing circumstances upset the best-laid plans.
Trader”s Point Christian Church near Indianapolis had its timetable all set when senior minister Howard Brammer discovered he had Parkinson”s disease.
And then sometimes, well . . . things just go a little crazy.
Although no official succession plan was drawn up, Jud Wilhite was regarded by many as the heir apparent to Barry McMurtrie at Crossroads Christian Church, Corona, California, after Wilhite moved there from Texas.
But Wilhite ended up in Las Vegas.
And Crossroads”s leaders were back to square one in finding a replacement for when McMurtrie would return to his native Australia.
They did it in four months.
The “˜R” Word
When 66-year-old Marshall Hayden, senior minister at Worthington (Ohio) Christian Church, scans Christian Standard“s list of megachurches and emerging megachurches, he recognizes the names of well over a dozen of his contemporaries. They were the leading edge of a movement that exploded with megachurches over the past two decades. And now that these pioneers are hitting their 60s, the trend toward succession plans is growing””but it”s still far from universal.
“There”s more than before””probably due to Southeast””but it”s still not a majority movement,” he said. “It”s interesting that many planned successions haven”t gone as planned.”
Worthington Christian, which averages nearly 1,200 each Sunday, does not have a formal plan beyond Hayden”s promise to provide leaders with at least a year”s notice before his retirement. Until then, he”s banned “the R word” in the church, which he has served since 1981.
Role Model?
Although Russell acknowledged that “in some ways we blazed a trail” at Southeast, the church never set out to become a role model for how to carry out a succession plan. But since the church has a weekend attendance approaching 20,000, leaders in other churches naturally want to hear “how Southeast did it.”
The wheels started turning in the spring of 1999 after Russell read Too Great a Temptation: The Seductive Power of America”s Super Church, Joel Gregory”s book on how First Baptist Church in Dallas tore itself apart during Gregory”s attempt to succeed longtime pastor W.A. Criswell at what was then the world”s largest Southern Baptist church.
Russell said he realized “leaders must ask themselves: There comes a time when I”m not going to be involved here anymore. What is going to happen when I”m gone?”
Southeast”s elders advised Russell to work out a transition plan over the summer. That led to a gradual changing of the guard to Stone, who was given increasing responsibilities until Russell departed Southeast”s pulpit in June 2006 at age 62.
“I didn”t want to be in charge of a megachurch and look back over my shoulder and wonder if I”m losing it or not,” Russell said.
One thing he says he would have done differently is shorten the seven-year transition time. Only his close friendship with Stone, as well as his successor”s great patience, allowed it to work, Russell said.
Breaking the Rule
Coop, 67, freely admits Pantano broke one of the cardinal rules of transitioning because he remained on staff when Glen Elliott became senior pastor.
“Most people say they have never seen anything like what we have done,” Coop said. “They have transition war stories.
“We were warned along the way, especially Glen, that having the old guy hang around just doesn”t work. We insisted that if we are truly living out the values of Christ there is no reason this cannot work! In fact, it will work well or there is something terribly wrong, and we”ve got a lot of “˜splainin” to do.”
Coop listed four key factors in successful succession plans: a trusting relationship between the pastor and his successor; a predetermined timeline that is well-thought-out and methodical; resisting the temptation to shorten the timeline; and humility/transparency of all involved.
Talking About Death
The process to select Idleman”s successor at Ozark Christian College began after he attended a workshop for college presidents that pointed out how colleges tend to lose momentum during presidential transitions because there is no strategic plan for a smooth transfer of leadership. And the longer the tenure, the greater the need for a well-thought-out and executed transition plan.
Idleman said he had always envisioned stepping aside when the college achieved record enrollment and graduating classes, attained a debt-free financial position, and built a strong, stable administration””and when God raised up a successor. Idleman was only 57 when those planets aligned, but he launched the plan anyway.
“It is not what is good for me that matters, it is what is good for the cause,” he said.
The plan was executed exactly as envisioned, and Matt Proctor assumed the presidency earlier this year. Idleman became Ozark”s chancellor, after serving 27 years as president.
However he is now facing a new transition: he was slated to become senior pastor of Crossroads Christian Church in Newburgh, Indiana, on July 1.
He says many Christian leaders are (perhaps willfully) ignorant of the critical need to prepare for a smooth transition.
“It is rather like talking about death. The ending or separation from relationships with good friends and valued coworkers is not something to which we are attracted. We tend either actively or passively to resist this life passage, especially after a satisfying and productive leadership tenure of many years.”
No Plan
Lucado, who has sold more than 40 million books and been dubbed America”s best preacher by Reader”s Digest, told his congregation in a March 5 letter: “Though I have always known that at some point my responsibilities would change, I had envisioned this happening years from now. However, these health concerns have moved up the timetable . . . Oak Hills needs a healthy, full-time servant in this position.” No transition plan was in place.
Lucado, who remains with the church in a less active role, says now, “We should have been more aggressive in identifying my replacement sooner.” But he added, “We succeeded in building a strong leadership team that can withstand transition.”
Leaders who advocate succession plans cite a variety of scriptural precedents: Jesus to the apostles, Moses to Joshua, Elijah to Elisha, Paul to Timothy/Titus/Silas.
Lucado said Oak Hills turned to the Old Testament.
“The story of Samuel anointing David teaches us much. God chooses his leaders and leads godly men to find them.”
Changed Plan
Brammer had planned to retire from Trader”s Point at the end of 2008, shortly after his 66th birthday. But the onset of Parkinson”s, plus an unrelated health scare, caused him to move up the date to mid-2007. He has been at the church since 1983; during that span attendance rose from 430 to a peak of 2,200, although some (including a minister who had been a potential successor) have now moved to a new church plant.
Initially, the church focused solely on one potential successor at a time. But after the first few didn”t work out, leaders realized they had invested several months in the process but were no closer to finding a replacement. As of this writing, the church does not appear likely to name a successor by the time of Brammer”s retirement.
“Ideally, I would have another year,” he said.
Wrong Timing
Brad Dupray, chairman of the elders at Crossroads Christian, acknowledges that no formal plan was in place for McMurtrie to be replaced by Wilhite, a preaching associate for nearly two years. While Wilhite was viewed as the logical successor as senior pastor, it was difficult to craft a succession plan because McMurtrie always seemed to be five years away from leaving.
“We had a guy champing at the bit who wanted to lead a church and didn”t really know when Barry was going to leave,” Dupray recalled. “For Jud, there was no end in sight.”
Dupray said McMurtrie realized the timing was off, too.
“He felt kind of like he had a foot in the middle of the back.”
Despite the uncertainty, the two pastors worked together well. But when an opening suddenly occurred in 2003 at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas (when Gene Appel, senior pastor for 18 years, went to Willow Creek), Wilhite went for it.
“Personally, I”m of the opinion that there was a greater force at work,” Dupray said.
Wilhite, who is still friends with McMurtrie, agrees.
“Ultimately, I not only felt it was time to step up and lead a congregation, I also felt released from Crossroads by God. That was when I talked to Barry and sought his blessing to move toward my next step. God led us to Central.”
But God”s hand was not apparent at first.
“I came to Central and it was a church of about 7,000 people in attendance. Over the first six to eight months, I helped “˜grow” the church to 6,000! People left. The vision changed. New things were introduced. It was inevitable and it was hard. But because we made hard decisions, we then began to see God move in huge ways.”
Today, Central is averaging 12,000. And Standard“s recent megachurch issue showed Central”s attendance grew more in 2006 than any other Christian church.
Meanwhile, back at Crossroads, McMurtrie decided in the spring of 2006 he would leave in June 2008. The leadership team developed a two-year transition plan and drew up a list of ministers who fit their ideal characteristics. The man atop that list was Chuck Booher, who had come to Christ as a teenager at Crossroads, served as its youth pastor in the mid-1980s, and was preaching at a church about 30 miles away. When he filled the Crossroads pulpit one Sunday last year 40 people came forward.
Long story short: By December, Dupray said, Booher was all but ready to come. But Booher worried about waiting until mid-2008. A few weeks later, however, McMurtrie returned from a visit to Australia and expressed a desire to leave before mid-2008.
Those plans dovetailed into a rapid transition. McMurtrie departed at the beginning of March, and Booher started the following Sunday.
“It was God”s perfect timing,” Dupray said. “We couldn”t have asked for more.”
God”s Timing
Wilhite said succession plans can work if all leaders are on the same page, but “glaring weaknesses” in the process can”t be ignored. He”s glad Central didn”t have a plan, because he wasn”t even on their radar at first.
“We can”t overlook the beauty of God”s work in this. We make our plans, but God knows what he is doing. I am such a perfect fit for Vegas and Central. And Chuck Booher is an amazing leader and the perfect fit for Crossroads. He will do an incredible job. God”s perfect plan is working, sometimes with us and sometimes in spite of us!”
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Darrel Rowland is public affairs editor of The Columbus Dispatch and an adult Bible fellowship teacher at Worthington (Ohio) Christian Church.
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