Starting Over in a Church: What Happens When Pastors Leave

Recently the church I have been attending lost their pastor. Well, technically he resigned (and with good cause). The massive hole he left in his wake has been difficult for the congregation to deal with. He was there a long time (22 years!) and many parts of the church depended on him to function effectively.

As a child of 2 ministers, I had never been the one to stay when a pastor left. I was always part of the family leaving. I never saw the aftermath of even an amicable parting, let alone a difficult one. I had no idea what to expect or exactly what the process would be like. I don't even know everyone's name yet. I've only been going to this church for 2 months.

And somehow I'm on the worship committee.

Sigh.

One of the things that I discovered in my short time sitting in on worship committee meetings is the necessity for sustainable structures in a community of faith. A danger for smaller faith communities is relying too much on any single person for ministries or knowledge. In a small church, it is easy to heavily rely on the knowledge, skills, and experience of the pastor. But what happens when the pastor leaves? He or she takes that body of knowledge, skills, and experience with them, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the church, which the community has to scramble to fill.

Instead, it is better to train church members in various skills in order to make them more self-reliant. A pastor should be a guide, not the whole show. Yes, this is difficult to do when the community is small, but delegating tasks to various church members isn't an impossibility. Fostering leaders within the church in different aspects of worship, care, and other areas benefits everyone. Not only does it take some of the burden off the minister, which prevents burn out, but it also prevents that gaping hole from occurring when the pastor leaves. This means the church doesn't stop or regress when the pastor leaves, which benefits the community as a whole because it maintains community health.

For example, this particular church in question had a pastor who was very musically inclined. When he left, the music went back to hymns right out of the hymnal and most of them were written before 1932. No one knew what to do. It was like this person hadn't been there for 22 years. Suddenly the mantle of worship music had to be taken up by someone else, and no one knew exactly how to do that or where to access new songs etc. No one had that knowledge and no one had been trained to maintain the ministry of music in a way that spoke to this particular congregation.

In short, it was a huge blow.

Having more members in the community with that knowledge and wherewithal would have prevented this abysmal regression from taking place. Fortunately most of the congregation is very gracious, and it hasn't been horribly hurtful (though I'm reserving my judgment for September when attendance typically picks up again) but it could have been.

Obviously it is important to rely some on a pastor's skills, knowledge, and experience. These people are trained to lead communities of faith. There is a reason we pay them (and not just because hopefully they preach good sermons every Sunday morning). That said, the pastor should not be the only leg on which a church's ministry stands. Leadership must come from within the community if the community is to be healthy. Likewise, pastors cannot hold their knowledge hostage, but must share with their church leaders in order to ensure ministries persist despite personnel changes.

Though it should be noted, the same could be said for other church leaders holding their knowledge hostage...

So have you experienced a gaping hole when church leadership changed? What are some lessons you learned from the experience? Please leave a comment below!