One Sunday when I was a pastor, our youth minister announced at the start of the service that he was leaving for another church. As soon as he said that, two of our youth got up and walked out of the building, never to return. It was not easy to preach after that!
Anyone who has been involved with churches for very long has seen similar things happen. A pastor leaves the church, and some people start to leave as well. Sometimes, it is planned. Some pastors consider this church planting. As a Resource Minister I worked hard to get a pastor a severance package from the church when he resigned under pressure. A couple of weeks later I received a call from a very angry church leader who told me the former pastor was starting a church in the community and using the church directory as his prospect list. I tried several times to call this pastor, but he refused to accept my calls or return them. Highly unethical. In another situation, a music minister left the church, and for the next several weeks nearly the entire choir met with him at a nearby lake for worship.
Often, the former pastor moves far enough away that the people don't follow him or her. They just leave the church. Perhaps they came to faith under this pastor's ministry, or they developed a close relationship with the pastor. Now that the pastor is gone they have no connection to the church. This is unfortunate because we are not supposed to follow a person; we are to be followers of Jesus Christ.
Pastors come and go. It always amazed me how surprised church members can get when their pastor leaves. Every pastor is a departing pastor from the first day he or she begins. Whether the pastor leaves vertically or horizontally, unless the Lord returns, that pastor will one day leave. But, Christ is always there at the church. Where two or three are gathered, He is there. If our eyes are upon Him, as they should be, the pastor leaving should have no impact on our relationship to the church.
I pastored one church for twenty years. The last four weeks I was there I tried to remind everyone that they should not look for another pastor like me. (I doubt they could have found one anyway!) As I explained to the congregation, if God wanted their next pastor to preach like me, to minister like me, to act like me, He would have left me there. They needed a pastor with different gifts than I had.
One of the things I often recommended to pastors when they were seeking placement in another church was to move far enough away that no one would be tempted to follow them. While pastors need to be sensitive to God's leading, I think this is sound advice. Taking another church in the same community or the same association or district invites the problem of people following the pastor to the new church. Personally, I think we do our former church and its new pastor a disservice if we do that.
It's perfectly acceptable to grieve over the loss of a beloved pastor, but please do not attempt to follow him or her to their new place of service or leave your church when the pastor moves. Your gifts are needed where you are.
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