It’s inevitable. Your Pastor will leave. Sometimes you’ll be shocked. Sometimes you’ll see it coming from a mile away. Often times, a Lead Pastor’s departure lies somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes it’s well planned. Sometimes it’s sudden and jarring. Sometimes it carries with it sorrow and grief…sometimes relief. Sometimes it’s due to a health issue or death. Sometimes, he was caught in sin. In almost every case, it’s a monumental shift for a church family.

When the time comes, what do you do? Be attentive to the items below, and your church will navigate these rough waters with a ship still intact, a crew still united, and a destination still clear.

• Give grace, care, and appreciation to your outgoing Pastor. Even if he has done wrong (or you think he has done wrong), treat him in a way that would honor Christ, be attentive to his soul, protect his family, and give him the best shot at restoration.
• Now, go to your governing documents. Hopefully, wise forward-thinking people long before you put some guidance there that will help. If they didn’t, consider your board drafting what to do and putting it in front of the church for a vote on a bylaw change so that a clear process is established.
• Identify key leadership gaps and develop a plan to fill them. Will another staff member manage the church’s staff and operations? A lay leader? Will you pursue an intentional interim Pastor? Who will preach? Who will spearhead congregational care? What role will the board play? How will accountability be maintained? Make a list, check it twice, and start answering the biggest questions. Resources in your local Association or State Mission Board/Convention are often readily available for churches in transition.
• Set an interim leadership plan in motion and communicate it transparently to the church family. Honor the lines of authority that are drawn so that the enemy doesn’t use confusion to dilute your church’s gospel-effectiveness.
• Get your church praying. It doesn’t have to be a fancy prayer initiative, though nice graphics, well developed handouts, and some type of reminders or prompts are helpful. Just call the church family together one night and get on your knees in prayer to start. Know that the Lord has inclined his ear to your church and wants to lavish his rich graces on you as you rely on him through a season of uncertainty.
• Establish a search committee by the rules of your governing documents. I recommend a committee no greater than 7 with men and women and representation from your board and the church body.
• Where the documents allow freedom and liberty, that team should decide how wide the lanes of liberty are going to be. For instance, a bylaws document likely doesn’t tell you exactly how the search process should be structured. Figure that out and land where the committee agrees is wise.
• Consider inviting another party to help you along. Succession Consultants like Dave Travis, Greg Ligon, or Will Heath will give you priceless advice if you can plan your Lead Pastor’s retirement with him. A firm like Baptist Search Partners can help you structure your search, vet candidates, and recommend only the best fits for your church. We do it every day. Search committees do it once every blue moon.
• Focus on the ministry that matters. Keep preaching the gospel. Keep making disciples. Keep engaging people in Spirit-filled worship. Do whatever it takes to ensure your church stays of the same mind, united in spirit, and intent on one purpose. If you can pull off some new things effectively, do that too. But the Lord may use this season as a way to trim the fat.
• Update the church every 6-8 weeks. Create a Pastor Search or Pastoral Succession page on your website.
• Search, interview, deliberate, and keep praying.

So what can you do now to prepare for the inevitable?

• Review your governing documents to ensure they address a Pastor’s departure and search process appropriately.
• If you are a Lead Pastor, start to talk about the end of your tenure LONG before it becomes a reality. Prepare your sheep for a new shepherd.
• Read at least these books: Next by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird, The Elephant in The Boardroom by Carolyn Weese and J. Russell Crabtree, Managing Transitions by William Bridges, and Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud.
• If you are a church member or leader, engage your Pastor in grace-filled, rightly-timed conversations about his future. Sometimes Pastors don’t want to talk about it because it means facing the end of an identity. Push them a bit to, though.
• Write a Crisis Management Plan. Put it on paper and in a place where leaders can access a written plan if the Pastor has to suddenly leave his position or becomes incapacitated. Outline who will lead the day-to-day operations of the church. Make note of a possible sermon coverage plan. Include ways to care for the Pastor’s spouse. Review and edit this plan every year with your board.

Pastoral transitions are filled with landmines, and you can find headlines galore of transitions gone wrong. It is possible, however, for a transition to go right. It is possible for a church to walk out of an old season, not with battle scars, but with a hopeful view of the future. Of all the things in the church to spend time, energy, and money to get right, this is at the top of the list!