Daniel Fusco will be a main session speaker at the 2017 CCCM Pastors and Leaders Conference, June 26-19, 2017.

Pastoral transitions are something many churches are facing today. However a church and its leadership chooses to handle it, pastoral transition will go a long way toward the eventual outcome. Pastoral transitions can be the stuff that legends are made of! The statistics are tragic: Many churches never truly recover from a pastoral transition, often splitting in the midst of them. Many churches not only do not grow during a transition, they drastically decline. Transitions are even harder when they involve a large church, and there are many stories of high-profile, failed transitions. For church bodies facing pastoral transitions, this can be some depressing and scary news. It’s especially important for our movement as many Calvary Chapels face an impending leadership transition without a succession plan in place.

Here’s my story of a church transition that worked. It’s not a story about me, or the church I came to love and lead, or the pastor who passed the baton to me. It’s a story about what it looks like to simply respond to Jesus and join Him in the work He wants to do in and through a transitioning church family.

It all began in 2011 with a season where by God’s grace and speaking into our hearts, the Crossroads Community Church’s Senior Pastor, Bill Ritchie, the congregation, the board and I were led to a place where we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was asking us to step into this process together. So in 2012, I moved to Vancouver, Washington, to begin transitioning into the lead pastor role at Crossroads Community Church. Pastor Bill had started the church in 1975 – two months before I was born! – and had faithfully pastored there for almost 40 years. Pastor Bill, along with the Crossroads board, didn’t really do a traditional “pastor search.” Pastor Bill just networked with people he knew and trusted: pastors, former pastors and church leaders. And from there, they just waited on the Lord during that process. I realize for some of you, you are wondering, “How did they end up with that guy? No offense…but you??” Well, that’s a great question, but another story for another time. For whatever reason, I was the guy, and I decided that regardless of the butterflies in my gut, I was going to join Jesus is what He was doing.

When I told a good ministry friend of mine what was happening, he blurted out, “Don’t do it! They are going to HATE you!” Then another friend said, “They invented the ‘interim pastor’ position for situations like this! You are out of your mind.” That might of given me some pause, but to be honest, I was in way too deep to question God at that point. What’s funny is they were right. All the statistics tell us that the guy who comes after the “Guy” doesn’t hang around very long. Maybe I am stubborn, or maybe just dumb, but I went anyway.

I am blessed to say that I was part of a very healthy transition. Almost every week, Pastor Bill and I were approached by churches and leaders who wanted to talk about transition. We were humbled to be written about in Warren Bird and William Vanderbloemen’s book Next: Pastoral Succession that Works, as well as in Dave Rolph’s dissertation about pastoral transition. I am also excited to be able to share a workshop on the subject at the Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa Pastors and Leaders Conference in June.

I want to share with you a few lessons that we learned in the midst of the transition, with the hope that if you are part of a pastoral transition, this will help you and your church. It is important to acknowledge that the success of our transition had more to do with God’s amazing grace than any wisdom Pastor Bill, myself, or the team at Crossroads possess. Only Jesus could accomplish such an amazing work. It is also important to say that our transition wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I have made more mistakes than I can count. Some people do hate me like my friend said they would. Some people left. Some changes that were made were challenging and were not well-received. So it’s tempting to say that everything was perfect. My friends, we are talking about imperfect people following a perfect Savior. So it wasn’t perfect. But it has been fruitful, and God is so faithful. Crossroads is strong today. By many metrics, we are stronger than we have ever been in our history. And I say that to the glory of God and to encourage you that it’s worth investing in the succession process to make it the best possible transition it can be.

The Power of the Outgoing Leader

The health of a pastoral transition rests firmly on the shoulders of the outgoing pastor. If you read anything about pastoral transition, you realize that how the outgoing pastor handles the transition makes or breaks it. By God’s grace, Pastor Bill Ritchie made the decision to transition well before he had to. This realization, that it is time to hand off the leadership baton, is a huge first step. Pastor Bill was still leading with intense vision and preaching strong. The church was still doing well. But he realized it was time, and he devoted his passion and energy to our transition. He also realized he played a pivotal role in creating a healthy transition. He is a ferocious learner, and he had read many books about the issues caused by founders who couldn’t let go and ended up sabotaging their successors.

Pastor Bill was also bold enough to think outside the box. He had the wild idea to not make a safe pick for his successor. Contemporary logic goes something like this: If your pastor is 65, find the next pastor that is 55 and similar in temperament and style, who has led a large ministry like yours. That way, it’s not too hard on the people. The problem with that logic is that as the leader, you set yourself up for another pastoral transition in ten years. Not to mention that when you hire the “poor man’s version” of your current pastor, at some point, everyone realizes that pastor is the poor man’s version of the original, and they resent him for it. I’m not saying this is right, but it’s how it goes. So Pastor Bill decided to skip a few generations. Instead of looking for a pastor in his mid-50s, he found a guy in his mid-30s. Instead of looking at a pastor of a large, established church who was ready to take the “next step,” he looked at younger church planters with bloody knuckles, people who were hungry to change the world. Was it safe? No. Was it wise? After five years and as his successor, I think it was brilliant. And I think you’ll see why I say that.

The Power of a Plan

We had a plan, and we executed that plan. Long before I was in the equation, Pastor Bill and the leadership team here at Crossroads had been planning his succession. He had been leading the church for more than 30 years, and it was not going to last forever. So they had been putting a plan together. Each pastoral transition has unique elements. There are financial considerations, staffing considerations, buildings and budgets, as well as ministry focus and vision. One of the things that made our transition unique was that Pastor Bill wanted to stay at Crossroads after he was no longer the senior pastor. He wasn’t looking to go anywhere. Their family had been in our community for almost 50 years, and they wanted to stay here. But that can be problematic to say the least. Yet it was a variable that needed to be addressed up front. So when I arrived in the picture, we started to plan more earnestly. I cannot stress enough how important working hard on a plan is for this endeavor. Unfortunately, many churches think planning isn’t Spirit filled. Now why people believe that is beyond my comprehension. God is the ultimate planner. The Bible is full of detailed plans. You can do it in a way that fits your community. For us it looked like some days locked up in a hotel room, praying, planning, discussing ideas and praying some more. And we walked away with our action steps. So whatever it looks like for your leadership team and church, please make sure you plan and plan and plan. The old saying is true – “if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Planning in and of itself is not enough. Having a plan is one thing, but executing the plan is an entirely different thing. Sometimes the best-laid plans fail in the execution. As a team, we felt that we had a solid plan. We knew what we were going to do with communication, leaders, ministries, vision casting and more. We committed that our transition would be completed in 24 months. We knew that when the transition was complete, where I would end up and where Bill would be. It was all dialed in. But could we actually do it? A great plan that’s poorly executed is a poor plan. A poor plan that’s executed perfectly is still a poor plan. But a great plan properly executed is a success. I am humbled to say that we were able to execute our plan, in 14 months instead of 24.

One of the overarching keys to our plan was that Pastor Bill and I made the commitment to guard our relationship with each other. Many times that is forgotten in a pastoral transition. When you have two strong, type-A leaders working together it can get pretty hairy. But because of our commitment to keep short accounts with each other, we worked through the rough patches and are closer today than we have ever been. I am so grateful for his friendship, ministry and investment in me.

The Power of the Spirit’s Leading

We were open to the leading of the Spirit. No matter how good your plan is, you can’t do it without the Holy Spirit guiding you each step of the way. As our transition began to unfold, we learned a number of things very quickly, and the Spirit helped us course-correct.

First, we realized that we had designed our transition not to lose people, but we neglected to leverage our transition to reach new people. It was an honest mistake. We figured as long as we didn’t kill this great church then we did a good job. But we totally missed the reality that God didn’t want Crossroads just to survive, He wanted us to thrive. Very quickly, we realized that with a new pastor coming in, it created a tremendous opportunity to reach new people. As this became apparent, we began to embrace what we weren’t ready for. We began again to do weekly altar calls and watched people come to know Jesus in the sanctuary week in and week out. Long-term Crossroads families started to realize that our church wasn’t just for them, it was a place of healing and hope for our community, especially if they didn’t know Jesus!

Second, we realized that our transition was happening quicker than we imagined. I told you that our transition had to be completed in 24 months, but we got it done in 14 months. We had to be open to the Spirit to see what God was doing and adjust what we were doing and how we were doing it. We believe that if we had waited the full 24 months, we would have missed part of what God was doing. There was a palpable momentum we were experiencing, and we adjusted our plans so we could “ride the wave” that God was creating.

Finally, we learned that the transition didn’t end when Pastor Bill and the church leaders laid hands on me and I became the Lead Pastor. We learned that was just the first stage. After handing off of the baton, the next phase of transition began. Pastor Bill was now the founding and former lead pastor, I was now the lead pastor, and the entire church was in a new season. To be honest, after the Sunday service where we literally passed the baton, there was about another three years of transition that we had to manage if we wanted our church to be healthy. As things are changing and adjusting, it is very challenging, for everyone. In the midst of the turmoil that the transition creates, lots of beautiful and terrifying things can go on. I often get asked about those “things” and to be honest, I believe they are different for every situation. But the foundational principle is the same: What is Jesus asking the pastor, the leadership and the church body to do, and is everyone hearing and responding to it?

It is with great joy that I can stand here today and say that Crossroads has been a successful transition. Pastor Bill would absolutely say that same thing. The church has continued to grow in size and impact, beyond what any of us imagined. So as we see many churches already transitioning, and we know that many churches will soon begin that process, my prayer is that we transition well, and because of the success of those transitions, the world will know that Jesus is real!

Planting a church is a big deal. Jesus ordained the Spirit-empowered Church to be His vehicle through whom to reveal Himself to the world. The Church with a big C is the universal gathering of believers of all generations, cultures and styles, redeemed by Jesus. But the Church with a big C has always gathered in local expressions. Each of these local expressions should be deeply biblical and highly contextualized for their location, generation and mission.

If you are reading this article at all, you are interested in planting a local church in the 21st century. Since you are reading this on CalvaryChapel.com, you are probably interested in either planting a Calvary-styled church or at least learning from one of the largest, organic church planting movements of the last half-century. So I am going to write from that perspective. My hope is to be really practical in how to plan your first public gathering.

However, before I begin, you have to remember that while most of us want to pastor and teach the Bible, church planting is about pioneering. Before you can pastor and teach the congregation, you need to gather people together. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that all you need to do is hang out a sign and everyone from the community will flock to hear your erudite biblical exposition. That rarely happens! So you have to think like a pioneer. You need to meet people, lots of people. You need to share the gospel and about the church you are launching. Too many church plants are just designed to reach already churched people. That isn’t really a church plant—it’s a church move. With the numbers of Christians in America going down and the number of church plants going up, we need to make sure our pioneering is of the lost multitudes and not of the already saved. I always say that you can tell the success of a church plant, not by the numbers in attendance but by the number of baptisms. A true church plant does not recycle Christians. It makes new Christians.

Launch Team

Before you “go public,” you have to know who you are going public with. Your first gathering is your introduction to your community. As the old advertisement goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” So when you go live, you need to have things together. Much of this is taken care of by a solid launch team. I always tell people that you need “the big three” on your launch team. And no, not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Absolutely you need the Triune God. And Lord willing, God is on your launch team! It is God’s church! The big three is someone to teach the Bible, someone to lead worship, and someone to teach the children. At the very least in our generation, that is what people expect from a Sunday church gathering: Bible teaching, worship, and age-appropriate children’s ministry. Don’t get me wrong—you can go live without those, but you don’t want to. Trust me! Been there, done that! Sure, you can have someone double up on those roles (where two people can fulfill the three roles). But the big three are important to going live. Also you will need a few more support people to greet, run the sound and lyrics presentation, and set up and tear down.

Space

Let’s talk about space. If you are having a public meeting, you will need to be meeting in public. As our culture has become more skeptical, people are stereotypically less likely, unless they are believers, to join a home study that will launch into a church. So a public space is needed! This can often be the hardest part of a church plant. To rent public space takes money, which is often severely limited. Renting public space is always a step of faith. But here are some space considerations:

Are you called to the area in which you have found space? Location will be a major factor in the type of ministry you do. So don’t neglect where you plant your congregation.

Is it sufficient space for what you are trying to do? Are there at least a few rooms—one for the gathering and one for the children/nursery? Is it too big? Is it too small? Will anyone be able to find you? Can you place way-finding signs to help people find you? Remember, it is hard for people to attend a church that they can’t find! It is also hard for people to stick with a mini-church in a huge space or a church crunched into a room like sardines. Carnal, you may say? But it’s a reality nonetheless.

Finally, is your space consistent? One of the biggest issues young churches have is the lack of consistency. It’s hard to reach, nurture and build a congregation when you are always moving around. Whether we like it or not, people want stability. Finding consistent space is essential.

Advertising

I realize that the term “advertising” or “marketing” might seem like a dirty word to some people. But here’s the deal. No one will ever come or join a church that they have never heard about! So if you are planting a church, I assume that you want to actually have church, which means people. And if you want to reach people, that means at some point, in some way, they need to hear about the church. And friends, people hear about the church through advertising! Now, without a doubt, the best advertisement for the church is word-of-mouth invites from people who love the church. But if it is your first public gathering, then you probably don’t have that yet. So you advertise.

For me, I will use whatever means necessary (excluding sin) to let people know about the church. So use little handouts, social media, print media, bulk mailings, radio, t-shirts, signs, billboards, give-aways, etc. Really, whatever you can think of and can afford. Do it! For your first launch, use anything and everything that you can to let people know about the church!

Conclusion

There is much more I could talk to you about, things like planning a good order of service, making sure you have lyric presentation for worship, making the space nice by using tablecloths and fresh flowers, going the extra mile to make a brand-new church feel like home, and doing amazing follow-up after the first meeting. But I am out of space and time. In conclusion, go all out for your first gathering. Do all of it as unto the Lord, and trust Him to build His church. But as Keith Green was known to have said, “Do your best, commit the rest, and then pray that it is blessed!”

The Christian message is not that life isn’t messy. Honestly, it’s the opposite. The Christian message doesn’t claim that life is neat or tidy or straightforward. The Christian message says that life is— and always will be—exceedingly, frustratingly messy. You know it, and so do I.

But there’s another part to the message. It’s just as true and even more important. Yes, life is messy, but Jesus is real. That’s a big deal. That’s the gospel. That word gospel, which is a churchy word, for sure, means good news. And the fact that Jesus is real in the midst of life’s messiness is good news. He’s where everything that’s healing and good and grace-filled begins and ends.

But it begs the question: How do we flourish in this messy world?

Step 1 – Acknowledge the Mess

It seems simplistic, but we have to acknowledge the mess. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t try and save face. Just own it. This is a mess. I am a mess. I have failed. I am hurt. Things are broken. Acknowledging the mess is the first step in the journey, and our ability to own our issues is the beginning of God’s healing work. No matter how long you have followed Jesus, you are still messy. Don’t forget how messy Jesus’ life was, along with every Biblical character. Your life is messy too. Own that.

Step 2 – See God’s Resolution

If the only reality were that life is a mess, well, that would be a pretty dreary outlook. Life is messy. But Jesus is real, and Jesus is God’s resolution to the mess. Jesus’ perfectly lived life, death on the cross, resurrection from the dead and ascension is how God resolves all of our angst about the messiness of life. The story that is even more important than the messiness of life is the reality of Jesus. The person and work of Jesus is the defining narrative of our lives. If we can begin to see our messiness in the context of the good news of Jesus, things begin to quickly change.

Step 3 – Continue in the Pursuit

Once we resolve the mess with the person and work of Jesus, then the pursuit begins. This is the life journey of everyone who follows Jesus. Each and every day, we are learning to walk through this messy world with grace and peace. God loves the journey. Humans love the outcome. But God loves the process. Every day, Jesus is teaching us to follow Him in and through the mess, to be His hands and feet in the world. Sure, we are messy. Yet, God has chosen to display His attributes through His people as they walk through this world in grace and peace. This is a journey that begins on the day of conversion and continues until God calls us home.

Step 4 – Sing the Psalm of Love

We sing the psalm of love as we journey through this messy life. The Bible places a priority on love. Not the mushy, situational and selfish love of our culture. But the self-sacrificial and outrageous love of God displayed in Christ, a love that God shares with us by His Spirit. God desires us to live His love out loud in bold and vibrant colors. Our life becomes His song. It’s God’s amazing love that changes us, and it’s through God’s amazing love that the world is transformed through us. Lives displaying Jesus’ love are needed more than ever in our messy world. This is the journey God has us on. So let’s enjoy the ride!

For many Christians, the term “social justice” (or “social gospel”) is a dirty word. A simple study of contemporary Protestant history in America reveals why. In the early part of the 20th Century, many Protestant churches found shame in “preaching the cross.” That God would kill His own Son, Jesus, for humanity was appalling. So they began to focus on doing “social justice” instead of preaching the finished work in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They focused on demonstration instead of proclamation. Those churches that would not be swayed from preaching “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) actively spoke against this “social gospel” and continued to preach the finished work of Jesus. Thus a great divide was erected among those who called themselves Christians. On the one side, churches proclaimed the cross and salvation in the name of Jesus—the evangelical churches. On the other side, the churches who were ashamed to preach the cross instead chose to focus on the social implications of God’s kingdom—the social gospel churches. One focused on gospel proclamation. The other focused on gospel demonstration. Given the space limitations I have, this is a realistic, although overly simplistic, summary of what transpired. For this reason, in our own tribe, clearly being evangelical, social justice is a derogatory term.

But here’s the thing: the gospel of Jesus Christ does have very pronounced social implications.

God’s word exhorts us towards social justice. Justice is very much at the heart of God and the finished work of Jesus. You know that in the Hebrew language, “righteousness” and “justice” come from the same root word. God is righteous and just. We are reminded by the prophet Isaiah, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes, Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:16-17) We love to quote Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” The call to seek justice indisputably rings.

In the New Testament, we see that the finished work of the death and resurrection of Jesus impacts how humans are to interact socially. Our oft-quoted Acts 2 passage shows how a truly Spirit-filled church conducts itself. This passage contains radical acts of social justice (people voluntarily selling what they had to provide for others in need – Acts 2:45). The Jerusalem Council reminded believers to remember the poor (Gal. 2:10). The Apostle Paul was not shy to ask for money from the Gentile churches to help support the impoverished Jewish church (2 Cor. 8). James reminded us that pure and undefiled religion was to visit widows and orphans (James 1:27). These were all acts of social justice!

Think about what Jesus taught.

The greatest commandment is to love God with the totality of our being. The second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. When we choose to love God, we are invited by the Spirit to love our neighbor. When we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we find ourselves working for the way things ought to be for them. We advocate for people and work to make sure that they are taken care of properly. We become a voice to those without a voice. We love them the way God loves us. In the classic Sheep and Goat Parable of Matthew 25, we find the defining characteristic for differentiation based on simple acts of justice (clothing, feeding and caring).

So how is it possible then that social justice can be vulgarism for many?

The last three paragraphs were not even close to an exhaustive look at what God’s word says on the subject. Over and over again, we are exhorted to do justice to others. So how should we proceed?

I want to share with you what I believe to be the key to this dilemma. We are empowered by the Spirit to proclaim the gospel and to demonstrate the gospel. It is not either, or; it is both. Although there was a division in Protestantism historically, there is not a division in our Bibles. We are meant to proclaim the finished work of Jesus and live out all of the resurrected reality in real life, real time and at street level for people. We proclaim, and we demonstrate.

But always remember this: A person is saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

We are saved by grace, through faith, apart from works (even works of social justice). The good news is that Jesus is Lord. The gospel is what God has done for us, not what we can do for God or for others. But this amazing salvation has radical implications when we live out of the overflow of God’s love. Because we are saved, we respond to God’s love by engaging in works of social compassion and justice. We let the finished work of Jesus influence everything we do.

At Crossroads (www.crossroadschurch.net), where I have the pleasure to be a pastor, we always say that we are “simply responding to Jesus.” Because of our salvation, we live self-sacrificially towards others. We do it because of what Jesus has done for us. We call our social compassion arm “LoveNow” because we are called to love now!

Since we are not ashamed to preach the cross, and we chose to engage our communities in their places of pain in the name of Jesus, we can see the gospel move out unhindered. We show our communities the love of God (in acts of social justice) and tell them why (because of the finished work of Jesus). My friends, do not be afraid of social justice. Boldly preach the finished work of Jesus and boldly live out all of its implications.