Now, here's something that many ministry leaders may not have even thought about: succession plans. In particular, most would not even think about the concept of a succession plan in relation to church ministry. They would confine succession plans to the political or governmental world. However, having a succession plan is not only advisable but needed.
What would happen if your church's pastor passed away in office? Or what would your church do if its pastor decided to retire or leave for another ministry? Are there plans in place for his replacement? Most churches would answer "no" to the final question and those same churches would recoil at the idea that their current pastor would not be in the pastorate. They would prefer to blissfully enjoy the present moment with no concern for what may happen in the future. It may create distress for them to even contemplate their pastor no longer being in the pastorate. So, they may prefer to avoid the topic.
But the topic cannot be avoided. People are not physically immortal in this life, they have limited energy and it gets more limited as they get older, or they may want to move because they believe God is calling them to another ministry. The local church needs to have contingency plans.
A succession plan for a church is simply a plan for who will take over the pastorate from the current pastor if he leaves. The succession plan can be developed even more to include other positions in the church and can go more than one individual deep on the chart. The deeper and more inclusive of other church positions that the plan details the better prepared the church will be for personnel eventualities. Having a succession plan will assist in mitigating anxiety should one of those eventualities become an actuality. Another positive consequent of having a succession plan is that if there are deficiencies in leadership training or it shows a lack of quantity of leaders, then the local church is able to proactively address both the recruitment and training of leaders to ensure that its leadership pipeline stays full with prepared leaders.
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