Long Range Planning for Church Leaders

Dr. David K. Bernard shares insights gained from his time as a church planter and pastor on navigating change and preparing for future growth.

For more information on this subject, see Dr. Bernard's books Growing a Church and Spiritual Leadership in the Twenty-First Century. Both titles are available at PentecostalPublishing.com. Use the promotional code DKB10 at checkout to save 10 percent on all orders.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you are a church or ministry leader, this episode is for you. Dr. David K. Bernard discusses the importance of long-range planning and how you can set your church or ministry up to successfully navigate in an ever-changing world. Keep listening to find out more. Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first century church. This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard. Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this episode. We're broadcasting this episode late in the year, and so this is a time of year when a lot of churches, church leaders, church uh staff, they get together and they talk about plans for the following year. But today I want to ask you about ministry and long-range planning, longer than just what's coming up next year, what sort of calendar events do we need to uh to plan for? Based on your experience as a pastor and leader, what sort of long-range thinking do you feel like churches and church leaders should be engaged in? Specifically, I'd like you to get your comments on what kind of long-range plans should churches and ministries and ministry leaders be making when it comes to leadership, finances, and evangelism?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

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 has given us a brain, God has given us ability. We're supposed to work as a team so we can pray and consult God and consult our fellow leaders and work as a team in the local church with shared governance to 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's 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 expert advice. Uh every local church should have a financial system that's set up with a professional accounter and 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 and good legal planning. So all that's important in the operation of a church. But uh there's 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 about 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 five years? Where do I see my ministry in five years? Where do I see the church in five years? And obviously, it will probably be different than what you see now, but you've 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 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 plans for expansion or relocation or uh remodeling or building? Uh, do you have enough chairs? If not, buy the chairs. If you sanctuary is not big enough, are you gonna knock out a wall? You know, or then what are you gonna have enough Sunday school teachers? Are you gonna have enough Bible study teachers? Are you gonna have enough disciple 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 disciple 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 with trying to train people who'd be future leaders even before they were qualified, because the idea was plan ahead. So if you think in three years you're gonna need some leaders, well, start training them now. Well, they're not qualified now. Okay, but if you think they could be qualified in 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 says, 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 our one family, they haven't showed up. Well, we're gonna 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 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 gonna 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, we 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. 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 and his 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 a 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 minister's 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 obligating 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 or 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 andor spouse, but hopefully part of the church's compensation. And as I said, the Minister of Retirement Fund, the Minister's Retirement Fund, MRFUPCI.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 oftentimes 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, 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 discern, 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 the second thing is that person needs to be qualified and hope uh 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 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 a 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 presbyter, but they are able to track references. They are able to know the history 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 ahead. 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 gonna 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 burnout. 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, two years, three years, five years, whatever. But if it's with a seasoned minister, it should be relatively short. And I do recommend the plan be in writing because so many times people misunderstand, and there'll 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 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 emeritus 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'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 equal 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 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, of 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 hotel, but hospital visits and 90% 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 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 when I was elected general superintendent. I had some ideas in mind, but I was only 52. So I wasn't ready with a ready-made 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 or the small stages, and you need good planning in the ending stages and the transitional stages.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Thank you for listening to this episode of Apostolic Life in the Twenty First Century. If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to give us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We also appreciate it when you share apostolic life in the 21st century with a friend or family member. And make plans to join us again next time as we look at how the Bible applies to everyday life.