This has given me insight of the new model which my pastor is training and implementing.

We are a new church, only two weeks old. My pastor was called to a church where succession planning had never been part of their trainning curriculum nor discussed.

Trying to work with the membership for five years was very challenging because they were not open to change.

The Lord released him from that church to start the ministry which he had been called to do prior to pastoring the former church.

Currently we are pursuing a partnership. I will share this information from this site with my pastor.

Succession planning is crucial for the body of Christ.

This will continue to help the church go to the next level/demenision of ministry instead of getting bogged down, standing still,becoming complaiance and just going through the motion of doing ministry.

When there comes a time for change, and there are equipped trained leaders that know their calling and gifts in ministry, ready, knowledgeable, and understand their role, the leadership and the membership can continue to work effective and efficient as a team. Outreach to lost souls will continue,souls will be saved,healed and delivered, the fruit of the spirit will continue to be manifested in the belivers, retoration will continue and the body of Christ will be built up to better be prepared to do ministery.

This website has been a blessing to me. I will stay in tune to others comments.

Again, thank you for sharing and allowing others to share.

Great post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7wzfvYkCW0&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_956707

I’ve even started informally calling one of my younger pastors Innovations Pastor - he’s young, wired for ideas & is a great asset

The successor does not have to come from the right hand team. In fact, probably shouldn’t or there might be competition within the team. (I saw this at a previous church.) These team members are specialists through gifting. They probably don’t have the gifting to be the senior leader.

Having people fill roles like this is great for the leader and great for the immediate needs of the congregation, both of whom now know who to go to when they need a solution or support. They’re both comfortable that they’re getting the expert; and the leader has some large areas of his life freed up to focus on the bigger picture.

One downside to this model is that it’s not always so good for the right-hand-team itself. When you’re the go-to person for a class of issues - say the admin guy - you become an expert at admin problem solving, but you aren’t necessary entrusted with the ideas or the creativity. Buildings & Grounds yes; youth ministry not so much. When the leader allows himself the luxury of such a team, he takes upon himself the responsibility for that team’s development and must work to counter their specialization attitude (The “When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” syndrome.)

The second problem is much larger. At no time can the leader of a church ever divest himself of the responsibility to plan toward replacing himself. Succession planning is an essential component of leadership, and far too many churches have discovered this too late to their ultimate cost. Filling the shoes of a great leader takes great preparation and deliberation on that leader’s part. (Moses must train Joshua before the invasion can be successful.) An effective right-hand-team takes the sum of your responsibilities and works under your guidance to fulfill those obligations. You’re the head; someone is the hands; someone else the legs and so on. But the more ‘handy’ the hand becomes, the less he is like a head. There is a very real danger that the right hand team, in performing their jobs in obedience to the leader’s direction, are removing otherwise eligible names from the leadership succession. This is a perception issue more than anything else, but there are four perceptions to deal with: the congregation’s at the handover (can he handle the job as effectively as our last leader?), the leader’s before the handover (will he handle the job effectively enough for the next step in the vision?), the peers’ immediately before the handover (can he handle the job as effectively as I could?) and the team member himself (All I’ve done is administration. Can I acquire the other skills effectively enough to lead on them?) This last impediment, in my experience, is the most difficult to dislodge.

It’s no good having/developing a team if one of them isn’t being groomed for succession – that’s just bad leadership on so many different levels (and in fact as succession looms, the successor should be grooming his own successor too). However, a competent leader will ensure that the right person is being groomed for the next generation. If we’re talking about a team, the point is too important not to be mentioned.

Sorry, I think I just blogged on your blog.

1. a gatherer: someone who can recruit people.
2. a visionary: someone who sees what could and should be.
3. a strategist: someone who can form multiple, fluid paths to the destination.
4. an administrator: someone who can communicate, gather resources, and will FINISH the job through consistency.

at the willowcreek lead-summit i got this through a speaker and an adjacent conversation. Some people may have 2 of these 4 components in their leadership skill package…a few have 3 of 4. and nobody has 4 of 4.

and

idea people often don’t finish well
visionaries aren’t strategists because they get bogged down when they stare at the details