Waiting on Super Pastor
We are looking for a pastor—a next-gen pastor, a worship pastor, a senior pastor, a campus pastor, or a kids pastor, a missions pastor.
What happened to all the pastors?
Why is your Super Pastor not coming? How long will you have to wait? What if there was another way?
If you’re waiting for Super Pastor to come and save the day, you might want to consider some options while you wait.
Are you aware that there are not a lot of us right now?
Education: Many potential Bible college students did not do well due to the COVID era. Online schooling was a nightmare for many. So many potential pastors became so discouraged that many never even applied to Bible colleges or went through such financial hardships in their families that they could not put together a financial package to afford Bible college. Still, others were so discouraged by the conspiracy theories, lies, and truths revealed that their own faith was shaken. They could not even see themselves as a pastor because of COVID-19, and their poor academic performance during that season of their lives caused doubt to creep into their callings.
The workload: Many people saw their pastors double or triple their workloads as they learned video editing, online giving, online messaging, and all sorts of new tech skills just to keep the doors open at church. They saw the exhaustion and the lack of time spent with family and said, no…not for me.
Politics: So many people have discouraged young people from pursuing Bible college because “It’s college.” The conspiracy theorists got to some of our young people and have convinced them that the cable news networks are right and if you go to college (any college) that, “they” will brainwash you and turn you against your family values and convince you God isn’t real. Most people who have said these things have done zero research into legitimate Bible-believing colleges that practice the beliefs of the inerrancy and inspiration of the scriptures through their chapel services, campus pastors and ministries, and their adamant Bible-believing Christian culture on campus. The assumption is proclaimed that all colleges are the same. Oftentimes, the people proclaiming this are the ones who should be helping a young man or woman find his or her calling instead of condemning every academic institution and discouraging a young potential pastor’s calling. What made pastors even less inclined to either move from Associate to Senior Pastor was watching their former Senior Pastor get chewed up cause of church politics during Covid. No Bueno.
So if you are looking for a pastor, it may take some time. In the meantime. What can you do?
- Be realistic: You may want the best and have super high standards as a church. Still, this new generation of upcoming pastors needs people to believe in them, not for you as elders and lay people to set a massively high wall of expectations for them and then criticize them at every turn once they do come to you. Many of them are pastors’ kids or ministry kids. They heard and experienced the stories. Don’t become a cautionary tale as a church of why some pastor’s kids or kids who grew up around ministry don’t want to be in ministry.
- Stop lying: A church recently posted about themselves:
Has a unified pastoral staff (They don’t. They fired their last pastor because another pastor on staff wanted the job and convinced the board to get rid of the previous pastor).
Has an engaged and committed congregation (people have been leaving for years).
Has committed staff (that’s because there is nepotism and half the staff are related to board members who approve their spouses budgets for their ministry depts).
Has committed lay leadership (they are religiously married to traditional materials that are not working anymore to reach people and are not open to change).
Has a powerful worship experience (the board is afraid to fire the worship pastor because he will take half the church and staff with him cause he actually wants to be the pastor but is passive aggressively controlling the church. He enjoys this power).
Emphasizes missions (It’s their biggest sacred cow as over 30% of their general fund goes to missions and they actually can’t pay their grounds keeping, or basic maintenance on their building).
Strong doctrinal beliefs (A couple of the elders disagree with the doctrines of the church and have tried to pull the church out of the denomination on more than one occasion, believing the problem is those pesky beliefs and not the disunity of the staff and board).
There are several churches across the nation that have posted descriptions like this. They interview potential pastors. But …pastors talk. And your church has a reputation outside the walls in it’s community. It’s the information age. And it’s not hard to find the last pastor or the last three pastors and discover the truth about your church. Things get shared among other pastors, and denominational leaders. Any attempts by the denomination to help are often rebuffed through indirect avoidance or outright lies to the denominations by the church leaders who will eventually go down clutching their sovereignty in their cold dead hands.
Many of these churches have faced multiple rejections. When this happens a group think narcissism can set in. They blame the candidates and double down on their own view of their own self importance, not acknowledging that their process and leadership internally might be too flawed to make a healthy decision of a new leader to present to the body for a vote.
What to do? Go get some help. Bring in a consultant, fire the passive-aggressive associate remove the narcissist board members in your midst. Clean house. Bring in your denomination and go into some form of denominational oversight or District supervision. Have some humble pie and admit that there are multiple reasons why you have gone 2-4 years without a pastor. Stop leading the congregation to believe that your church is amazing and the problem is the candidates alone. What you are doing is teaching your church to distrust your future pastor when you tell them there are no issues or problems here. It’s all the candidates (potential pastor’s) fault.
- Love your current team: If your Associate pastors and lay staff are not narcissists or egomaniacs, and none of them are jockeying for a position to be the next lead pastor, and they are serving, loving, and patiently waiting, they are going through what we call missional fatigue.
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion at home and church.
- Increased mental distance from one’s calling, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s ministry.
- Reduced professional efficacy and lack of energy even with basic tasks.
- A feeling of dread of the overwhelming desire to quit, resign, or that you can’t take one more Sunday.
Your Associates are often some of the best people in your church. Many have been raised up from within and they have been holding the ship together, waiting for that Super Pastor to arrive. If the relationships are not manipulative and they are just good people trying to stay in their lane and love the people they are called to shepherd, love them back! Give them a bonus, acknowledge their contributions, and give them an extra week’s vacation. Show them you appreciate them. Use the art of the second sentence on them. Thank them and then take a second sentence to compliment them for holding strong and standing firm during this long time of transition.
- Don’t lower your standards, adjust them: I once heard a board member say to the entire congregation on their livestream during their pastoral search, “I’m greedy for our church. I want the best!” While this is a great sentiment in the corporate world, that same mentality doesn’t usually play out well in the long run for a church. Does the person have character, competency, and chemistry? But…He’s 28 and never pastored a church before. Adjust your standards. He might be the right guy for the role, and if you love him and his family in 3-4 years, he’s gonna be an amazing pastor.
God chose David as king before David ever killed Goliath.
- Don’t mistake your standards for God’s: Board members tend to focus on what they want, not what’s best for the body. Look not just to your standards but to God’s desires for the long-term health of His church.
- Develop a leadership pipeline: A team of volunteers who can take turns holding the role of the associate pastor. If you are looking for a Senior Pastor contact an interim pastor association, or your denomination to have an interim step into the LEAD pastoral role in the interim.
- Look for the boring leader: Really? Not the flashy charismatic guy with the accent who’s designer clothes cost more than the average suit? Not the lady with the podcast & 4 million Instagram followers who just wrote her 5th book? Not the pastor with the PhD in Organizational Leadership and Missional Strategy? Not the person from the 2,000 person church? No. Boring leaders are often more consistent, more adaptable, less ego driven, more decent, more strategic, more thoughtful, and more available. They serve for longer, and usually cause less damage to the body. Look for the boring leader.
- Prepare for the possibility of adoption, Parent Affiliation, or revitalization: Does your church have a reputation or a history of poor behavior? Is it time for the board leadership to stand down and allow a healthier organization to lead you back to health? We call this adoption or revitalization. Where a church that does not have vision or direction or has exhibited a difficult past is able to extend its own lifecycle by up to twenty-five years or more by being adopted into another church’s healthy culture. Is there a church in your denomination or fellowship that is known for it’s health? Has it been reaching people? Does it have a healthy discipleship and leadership development pipeline? Are you willing to swallow your pride and realize maybe the best thing is not a surrender but a standing down so another organization can nurse your church back to health or outright adopt you as a campus of their own so you can be released from the burden of missional fatigue?
Your pastor will come. But they may not come according to your current expectations and your church culture may have to change. They may come through your church being adopted by another organization in the next 2-5 years. And at the end of the day, what is the most important thing? That your name is on the outside of the building? Or that people are being reached for Jesus through your church? What if you’re waiting for Super Pastor and Super Pastor is already effectively pastoring the healthy place 5-20 miles down the road? All you have to do is start a conversation with your denomination and/or the pastor of that church. What would it look like if?
Start taking your next steps with God. Look for the boring leader, develop a leadership pipeline, don’t miss God’s standards, but adjust your own, be realistic. And if your next steps lead you to adoption, revitalization, or a parent-affiliated partnership with another body, isn’t that the best route towards healing and dynamic movement toward the very purpose why God has called you to exist as a church? Your leader will come. But don’t die waiting on Super Pastor cause you wouldn’t re-examine your own culture.
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(Photo credit: tom_bullock