Long Range Planning for Church Leaders
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--long-range-planning-for-church-leaders
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well that's a big topic uh but in my book growing a church I talk about seven principles that I think will work for churches of any size and one of those seven is planning now my philosophy is this if you don't plan you're not going to achieve much if you do plan things will change your plans won't be implemented perfectly or probably as you intend so you have to be flexible in the method the timing and so forth but if you do plan God will honor your plans and when unexpected circumstances arise God will help you to change the plans and you can still accomplish your purpose some people say well you know we need the anointing of the spirit we need the power of God you know we don't need to plan well why does it have to be either or I think it's both God is given us a brain God has given us ability we're supposed to work as a team so we can pray pray and consult God and consult our fellow leaders and work as a team in the local church with shared governance and come up with good plans but trust God to guide us so it really needs to be both we need direction from God and we need planning so there are so many aspects to this but we need good financial planning we need good legal planning when we go to purchasing land and buildings or taking out loans or constructing buildings we need experts advice uh every local church should have a financial system that's set up with a professional accounter a bookkeeper and follow best practices and so I talk about that some in my book uh not only growing a church but in my book spiritual leadership in the 21st century uh we talk about Good Financial Planning um and good legal planning so all that's important in the operation of a church but uh there are so many aspects of your question let me just start let me focus on the front end and the back end of a church so let me talk starting a church or a small Church wanting to grow I teach that if you want to grow you have to think of yourself a little bit bigger than you are so don't act the way what you have right now but look ahead the next year two years three years five years and this is true of your own personal Ministry and true of your church where do I see myself in 5 years where do I see the my Ministry in five years where do I see the church in five years and obviously it will probably different than what you see now but you got to at least have a goal to plan toward and so you look at the long term what do I feel like God is telling me or wanting me to be in five years well then what do I need to do this year to make meaningful progress towards that goal and so then you can break it down so you start maybe with five or even 10 years but then you say what about this year next year next year and of of course each year you'll probably modify it it will change it won't be the same but at least you're thinking toward a long range goal and then you're taking meaningful steps towards that goal so take some practical examples let's say and it may be a new church or it may be an old established church maybe you have 25 people and in prayer fasting talking to your team you feel like God wants you to grow to 50 okay well if you overnight grew to 50 is your building big enough do you have enough parking spaces do you have enough chairs if not what are you going to do are you going to wait until you get 50 people and people are not finding a place to park and they're driving up and then driving off because there's no parking space uh or there's no place to sit so they they just don't come to church so you can't wait until the need is imminent you have to plan or let's say you're at 25 and you really feel God wants you to grow to 100 is your building big enough if not what are your PL plans for expansion or relocation or uh a remodeling or building uh do you have enough chairs if not buy the chairs if you Sanctuary is not big enough are you going to knock out a wall you know or then what are you going to have enough Sunday school teachers are you going to have enough Bible study teachers are you going to have enough discipl makers well you don't wait if God gave you 50 new converts what would you do with them you don't wait until you have 50 converts to say oh we need some discipl makers we need some Sunday school teachers we need some uh teachers for our converts class no start training so even before you need the leadership and you don't necessarily have to appoint people as Leaders or even announce it's a leadership class just start offering teaching to the whole church or if you feel God is calling you to a leadership capacity someday in the future I've got a special class for you and you start teaching and training that's what we did when our church was really only a year old in my book spiritual leadership in the 21st century it started uh with trying to train people who'd be Future Leaders even before they were qualified because the idea was playing ahead so if you think in 3 years you're going to need some leaders well start training them now well they're not qualified now okay but if you think they could be qualified three years start investing in them and some may never follow through but you don't always know which one so just start investing so that's what I mean about planning for the future so as a small church you can operate informally just off the cuff the Pastor leads everything the pastor hey hey who has a special song come up here and sing well you could get away with that or let's say you have 25 people and half of them are one family they haven't showed up well we're going to wait 15 minutes for the family to show up but when you do that you're communicating we're small we think small we expect to remain small so I would say do things with Excellence do things professionally um be organized have a plan even when you could get away with minimal or no planning don't slack off but develop good plans of course be sensitive to the holy spirit let the anointing of the spirit lead you and let the Lord change the plans but but have organization because what you're communicating is we might be small now and maybe we can't offer much now but we're working on it people will will come to a vision I remember one of our early convert families they'd come from a larger denominational Church they told me much later they said we knew their church was small because we didn't have an organized program for most of the things that they were used to they said we knew you were small but we could see you were growing and we were so excited to say you know what we're going to be on the ground floor of a big successful Church what an exciting opportunity So What attracted them was not everything we had to offer but the vision they could see the direction of where we're going by the way talked preached taught practiced the things we try to do it with Excellence even though we could only do a few things we did them with Excellence so that's what I might call the front end planning ahead will actually help you go where you want to go but now let's take the back end Studies have shown of other denominations and our preliminary research in the UPC one of the biggest danger points for a church to decline or even close is a pastoral transition transition so pastors need to be thinking ahead for a transition for many churches the pastor is the primary Financial supporter and the primary volunteer and so the church will sustain itself as long as the pastor's family are contributing heavily but what if the pastor feels led to go to another area or what if he gets retirement age what if his health fails is there going to be someone else to come in there so many times churches die right there or even a larger successful church if the pastor doesn't plan a transition and suddenly the pastor's gone then the people you know they may have lots of preachers come they hear the preacher one or two times they have a brief meeting and they've got to determine who's going to be the pastor for the next 20 years in charge of their spiritual lives based on the best sermon he's ever preached and based on a few answers to questions well that's a poor way to choose you know a Shepherd for your soul I mean if you're having heart surgery or brain surgery would it just be based on that casual interaction so I think transitions are so important and to be very candid many times pastors haven't fully prepared for retirement and they expect their church will keep paying them and so therefore they want someone a family member or friend that may or may not really be the best qualified or May not really have the support of the church but the pastor feels comfortable and secure with that choice well I would back up and say we should plan for retirement and yes we may always be involved in Ministry but we want to plan for time where we're not dependent upon a monthly paycheck from a church and doing monthly work for that church but we want flexibility and so we have the ministers retirement fund uh I think a pastor is deserving of ongoing support but especially those who've labored many years but in practice you're asking the church to be obligated in the future what you should do is set up that plan now and you say well if we can't afford it well if you if the church can't afford it now why will the church be able to afford it when they get another Pastor you'll now be handicapping the future pastor and as the church grows new people come in people that don't weren't under that Pastor they don't know why they're supporting that Pastor his widow uh they need a new building they need to assist a pastor they need to give the pastor a full-time salary and they're handicapped and the average lifespan of those retirement plans in the upci is about 30 months so it's not a very secure thing it's much better for the church or the pastor to set aside retirement sometimes it happens through secular income with a pastor and or spouse but hopefully part of the church Church's compensation and as I said the ministerial retirement fund the ministers retirement fund mrf uh upci.org can give excellent advice it's exclusive to upci so a lay leader or a pastor can call and get very specific detailed plans of how this can be done with maximum tax benefits I won't go into all that but that's a big component of planning that will help that minister or his spouse and will also help the transition of the church now another thing is that often times uh a pastor wants a relative to be the next Pastor in many cases the relative is the best one because they're already there they know the culture of the church they know how their Church operates they've been proven people know them respect them they've been involved but we should never presume that because the church it shouldn't be nepotism where we're playing favorites it shouldn't be um you know we're not a hereditary monarchy we're not a family-owned business we don't have the right to pass on the church just to whomever we choose whether it's a family member or friend or so forth I would say sometimes that is the best but there are three considerations that are very important number one we must genuinely seek the will of God and as much as we can deser know it's God's will of course if it's a personal family or friend we already know there's a bias it's hard to be objective so second thing is that person needs to be qualified and hope ideally by experience in some other form of ministry not just right there necessarily but whether in secular career or business or other Ministry or assisting another church or some combination thereof where they have developed the qualifications that they can really step into the role legitimately and third they need to have the approval of the church so any transition plan should be in harmony with the church board and ultimately be a vote by the church freely not coerced but people should be able to express what they really feel and desire because you can't Minister effectively without the approval of the people and it's not fair to force people to vote with their feet you know half the people have to leave when they and their family may have supported the church for many many years doesn't mean they should control it but it means that they should have a say there should be shared governance they should have a voice the P the people should be able to have a vote on the pastor that's going to Pastor them and their children and be responsible for their spiritual health and life and salvation for many years to come uh so those criteria should be met so ideally there should be a transition plan and of course you should involve the district leadership the district superintendent because I indicated moment ago it's very hard for a local church to vet potential candidates so the pastor in working with the district superintendent or sometimes the district superintendent will uh appoint the preser but they are able to track references they are able to know the history of of the candidates and how they fit with the church in a way that church members can't really find out and so it's it's a mistake not to involve the district leadership now I would say the same thing the district leadership should not play favorites or nepotism or either or manipulate the system they should come along to help fulfill the true wishes of the congregation but in the best interest of the congregation helping the congregation with things they're not able to know as to who would be the best fit um so ideally a transition plan would happen over time with the appropriate participation of the district leadership the current Pastor the church board and ultimately the church membership now how can you do that many times an assistant can be working alongside for a number of years and they're proven you already know uh or you may have several different assistants over time and maybe you don't make any promises or pledges or say it but in the back of your mind you're looking at who would be most suitable or there may be guest ministers who have a relationship with the church who preach there over time or who who are from that church maybe sent to go somewhere else but the church has an ongoing relationship with them and they know who they are they know their qualifications so ideally uh the senior pastor should look ahead and I recommend say when you're about 60 you should really be looking ate now with people's health and strength you know I know jtp told me years ago the most productive years of a Minister's life are between age 50 and age 70 because they're old enough to have lots of experience and wisdom but they're young enough to still have ability and health and strength of course that can change from Individual to individual so somewhere around 60 you ought to realize you know life has a way of catching up death Health are just uh not only physical burnout but emotional burnout where you just don't want to fight the fight that you have to fight constantly uh and you don't want to attend to the details of pastoral Ministry and counseling so somewhere along the line you're going to want to transition so don't wait until that's forced On You by bad health or death or or leaders coming to you saying you're not able to be effective or burn out but when you don't when you still feel capable start thinking ahead so bring on assistance if you don't have them already develop relationship if you haven't already and perhaps God will lead you to a definite plan and it may be you know 2 years 3 years 5 years whatever but if it's with a season Minister it should be relatively short and I do recommend the plan be in writing because so many times people misunderstand and there be a date of effective transition because so many times I can get pushed around and it needs to involve the church board so they're not in the dark they're part of the agreement and ultimately it's going to have to be a vote of the church before there's an actual change but when there's an actual change of Pastor there needs to be a release where the outgoing Pastor sometimes we call him bishop and sometimes we mean Pastor ameritus or honorary Pastor or sometimes we mean spiritual overseer where he still is spiritually guiding the new pastor but if we mean he's still the senior pastor well he should be still listed in the upci directory as the pastor because no matter what the title is here here's the four things that need to be transitioned because I believe Authority equals responsibility so whoever has the majority of the responsibility of caring for the people in a pastoral way he should have the corresponding Authority it's dysfunctional ultimately going to be dangerous to have one person with most of the responsibility another person with most of the authority if the outgoing Pastor doesn't want to release the authority he needs to still be the senior pastor but if he's ready to relinquish the daily role he has to relinquish the responsibility and the true Pastor is determined not by the title but by four things who controls the preaching schedule Who uh oversees the staff paid and volunteer who oversees the Pastoral guidance and counseling that is giving direction to individual members and families and who controls the finances who has the ultimate say whoever the real Pastor is he he or she needs to have the ultimate authority of course along with the church board and the church congregation as appropriate but he has to be the overseer and the leader in those four areas if he doesn't he's not the real pastor and everybody should be honest about who the real Pastor is and if those four things have not been transitioned or only half of them have been transitioned well then you have maybe co-pastors or you're in the middle of a process but you haven't finished the process and if you're the incoming Pastor while you may be willing to work as an assistant associate co-pastor whatever I would recommend having a date where those four things are transferred so not only the title is transferred but the reality is transferred both Authority and responsibility and if you're preaching 90% of the time you're doing 90% of the counseling you're doing 90% of the uh the hotel I mean not not hotel but hospital visits and 90% of of The Daily Grind then you should have the authority as the senior pastor to do that and if you don't you're setting yourself up for a problem if one if the authority and responsibility are divided so my point is pastors and all ministers should think ahead and have contingency plans for the unexpected but also even more have plans for the expected and that can probably the number one danger point for churches is the Pastoral transition if we can plan that transition over a process of time with all the re relevant stakeholders being able to participate then I think God can bless any transition is going to have some challenges but I've been through that transition myself uh when I was elected general superintendent I had some ideas in mind but I was only 52 so I I wasn't ready uh with a readymade plan but I had a long-term associate and we were able to make a smooth transition with the cooperation of the church board the church congregation and the district leadership and we were able to make a successful transition so that's an example of where you need good planning in the initial stages