The Transition Papers

THE TRANSITION PAPERS.

Helping leaders and churches through transition.

Romans 12:10

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Malachi 1:6,

 A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? 

Simply stated, we have had no matrix / process for the weighty challenge of church leadership transition. Leaving way too much in the realm of nuance and heart, we have found many transitions loaded with unmet expectations, bitter disappointments and seemingly unfair pressure. Love there has been aplenty, but at the end of the day, there has been no true process through which the “founder” [the pastor who has planted / replanted the church;] the “successor” [the pastor who is now going to captain the team] and the community themselves have had opportunities to speak through the anticipated story unfold - especially if the founder stays on in the community, he had been leading.

So, I am asking for your help to design a proforma that we can use in these transitions, as there are many coming our way. We are not looking to redo the more recent transitions. They have run there course. This is finding the correct questions for future conversations. Your thoughts in this regard are most essential.

1. Suggested Pathway.
1. Remember we hold dearly to ‘invited not imposed authority’, so the apostolic voice in is by invitation of all involved,
2. Translocal gift / apostle to meet with the lead / founding couple,
3. The second conversation is with the possible successor couple asking these essential questions,
4. The third conversation is with the eldership couples, individually and as a team,
5. A fourth conversation could then be with the ‘founders’ and the ‘successors’ and process the two sets of answers together,
6. Then process this with broader leadership team
7. Then finally with the whole church
2. Biblical Peep.
1. The Old Testament examples of transitions,
2. The New Testament approach to transition,
3. Lessons learnt from the text.
3. The ‘Founding Father’
1. Do you believe that God has spoken clearly for you to handover the leadership of this community?
2. To this couple? Now?
3. What do you believe God has called you to do in this new chapter of your life? With whom? How do you believe this the  mind of the Lord for you?
4. Where will you anchor yourself and your family relationally?
5. To whom will you be accountable?
6. What does that look like to you?
7. How do you see yourself being funded into the future?
8. Where will your base church be?
9. What do you believe that should look like ito:
1. Elders meetings,
2. Staff meetings,
3. Leaders meetings,
4. Sunday gatherings,
5. Vision casting,
6. Decision making,
7. Prayer,
8. Teams / individuals availability,
9. Hosting of events,
10. If you are seeking to lead a movement / network...  what role do you anticipate this community playing in that?
11. What role do you see your successor and the elders playing in the new chapter?
12. What administrative support do you hope the staff will make available?
13. What financial backing are you anticipating for yourself and for your movement [where appropriate]?
14. You will feel honored when the following happens...?
15. How do you wish to empower the new leader and the team working with him?
4. The Successor
1. Do you believe that God has called you and your spouse to take on the captaincy of this community - how do you know this?
2. Do you embrace this leadership team or what changes do you anticipate making?
3. What does “honoring the father of the work’ mean to you?
4. What role do you and the elders feel the founder will play ongoingly into the church? - what do you see his gifting as being?
5. Role on eldership team?
6. Role in vision casting?
7. Role in eldership selection?
8. Role in major financial decision making?
9. Role in staff meetings, selection...?
10. Role in global conversations - multi-siting, planting...? 
11. Do you agree with what he believes the next chapter looks like for him?
12. Can you and the elders back it fully - explain?
13. How if at all, are you looking to back him financially, health care, travel...? For how long or until what circumstances may change?
14. Will you be providing public opportunities for feedback, buy in and prayer? Frequency?
15. What backing / support are you looking to offer his family when he travels? 
16. Is their a budget that is made available for his translocal ministry, events, hosting...?
5. The Community
1. To make this a true community ongoingly, how often should the ‘founder’ be back at home base, for it to be an authentic base?
1. Sunday gatherings,
2. Prayer meetings,
3. Leaders meetings,
4. Community events,
5. Other?
2. How frequently can the congregation expect feedback? How?
3. How can they feel like they are part of the unfolding story - 
1. Pray for?
2. Travel with?
3. Attend events?
4. Contribute financially?
4. How can the community serve him, his family and the journey that is unfolding?
5. How frequently can the community expect for them to minister / teach back in ?
6. The Global Story
1. Is the community fully backing this translocal journey?
2. Will churches planted be partnering with this translocal ministry?
3. Will the elders / leaders / congregation be made available for translocal adventures,
4. How will the partnership work - role of successor in the translocal story?
5. Other?
7. Q and A ?

Game Changer 3

Ok, a quick wrap up of these thoughts around Acts 8: 26 - 40...

I love the way in which God the Holy Spirit orchestrates this great moment on the road to Gaza. As we have noted, this is the first time we encounter an evangelist of this form in the bible after Jesus himself. Not just the joy of revival in Samaria but also the lonely road to one in the wilderness.

We have celebrated the arrival of this Jesus grace gift given to Philip. It seems like the wonder of Jerusalem did not need the evangelist. The encounter of Pentecost and all that flowed out of that produced growth and conversion as in revival times.

Now however the pioneering role of the evangelist is needed... to break open new vistas.

But I want to hone in on the text that the Eunuch is reading - from Is 52:13 - 53:12. Amazing isn't it ? This is the suffering servant text - which is exactly what the eunuch was - a suffering servant:

Can you imagine when Philip explained this Jesus to the eunuch. I am sure the eunuch would have jumped with joy saying - "this God gets me... he understands me... he can save me for he did it for someone just like me"

"his appearance was so disfigured" he gets me, I am also disfigured
"so he will sprinkle many nations" he embraces me, even from the uttermost
"He grew up like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground" I also felt out of place, vulnerable
"He was despised and rejected by men" That is how other men treated me too
"Surely he carried our infirmities / griefs / weaknesses"Every day I pain with my grief and weaknesses
"As a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth" All too often I too had to hold my tongue when I wanted to speak out
"Who can speak of his descendants?" I longed for a child, one of the things I will never have, neither will he!

Wow, no wonder he said 'yes' to Jesus. Our loving task is to help everyone find their place in the story of redemption. They are written into some moment of the great Jesus story. Help them find it and watch salvation takes His course with them.

Romans 10

I love the theological tension that Paul lived in so comfortably. As described to me before, we are like a train that travels on to rails that exist in parallel but never meet except on the horizon [in God in eternity].

The sequence of Romans 7, 8, 9, 10 is simply exquisite. Depending on your theological bias, or bent, that will determine which parts of these chapters you will choose to emphasize. However we cannot simply explain away the difficult verses, so as to endorse our theology.

To those of you who are TULIP protagonists, it is good periodically to approach the text with humility, and embrace the texts which are awkward for this position without feeling the obligation to do exegetical gymnastics. Read and enjoy!

vs 1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them [Israelites] is that they may be saved

vs 2b they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge

vs 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes

vs 9  ...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved

vs 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved

vs 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him

vs 13 For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved'.

vs 17 So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

Aren't those texts empowering? I keep trying to live in the width of the texts and find myself struggling with the constraints set by the  definitions of men

Game Changer 2.

Our conversation around the latter part of Acts 8 now takes us to examine the chief players in this unfolding drama.

There are four:
       The angel - space does not allow me to explore this most glorious piece of the text, yet we do it at our peril. Simply stated angels are still catalysts in the global gospel outworking. They are God's to send not ours to commission. They are there to minister to the believers [Heb 1:14 - 2:4] not our servants to direct. However we have to be somewhat humble enough to say we do acknowledge their presence and role but do not fully understand it - are we ready enough to embrace them?

       The Holy Spirit - We simply cannot live without him. This new creation story is supernatural. It is not improving the old me with some extra morality. It is me recognizing that I was dead in my transgressions and sins and have been born again to a new life by the Spirit. Then living this new life, is only possible through the empowerment of the Spirit. Being co-laborers in the kingdom, we can only uphold our part of the story by "being filled by the Spirit... led by the Spirit... live in the Spirit... with the fruit of the Spirit... operating in the gifts of the Spirit..."

       The Ethiopian Eunuch - this is a remarkable man. He travelled from modern day Sudan to Jerusalem and "still haven't found what he was looking for." In him we see
*   An educated seeker - reading and desiring to find answers
*   Even being a foreigner / alien did not prevent his hunger from wanting salvation
*   Being wealthy and influential were not deterrents to asking humbly for help
*   Possible religious rejection [he would not have been able to enter the temple] was not going to stop him pushing into God
*   His sexual identity was not a hinderance from finding a messiah who could make sense of his situation...
There is so much more to say about this man, but enough to say, there were many reasons why he could have disengaged from this story, but he chose to overcome them all, for he knew there was a savior worth pushing all these aside for - to travel thousands of miles to find.

        Then Philip - Up until these last two chapters, the church was about the apostles did. Then deacons are appointed and Stephen gets stoned and we know that the game has changed:
*    Philip was probably a business man - few were salaried by the church in these early days. God still loves using the ordinary person who sees their whole lives as a gospel adventure collaging all the pieces into a single entity;
*   He was a good father who raised his daughters to love the church and flow in the gifts. We read in Acts 21:9 that he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied;
*   He was a bible lover as he was able to explain the texts to the eunuch;
*   And he was an evangelist. This is the first time this most noble office is reported in the early church. This piece is important because up and till that time the apostles have been the loud voices and big names of the early church. However God makes himself clear as this was not his plan. The apostles stayed in Jerusalem while "Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word" Acts 8:4. Now we see all believers preaching the word, not just the apostles. We also see that we need more than one or two gifts for the church to advance but all five of the Ephesians 4 gifts to pioneer the new frontiers.

Everything is different in the church from this time forward. That is why this is a game changer. The church then and longingly today needs all believers on divine gospel assignment. Then we need all of the five fold gifting involved to get the global job done...

Game Changer 1

I loved teaching at Rock Harbor this weekend.

Going through the Book of Acts series can always be captivating and inspiring. When I was asked to teach the latter part of Acts 8, my heart leapt - I always seem to get the cool texts.

This is a game changing chapter - in fact I framed it as a two part new season opener. Up until Acts 7 the early church was dominated by those who had been with Jesus. But the new landscape changes everything:

Wilderness:
Isn't it amazing how often key things happen in the wilderness. God could have gotten the Eunuch and Phillip to meet in a cool little eatery in Jerusalem. But God does some of his deepest work in us in the wilderness - where the noises of the many are silenced to empower us for the voice of one. When I look back at my life, my most impacting moments with the Father have happened in the wilderness. Look at Moses, Abraham, David, even Jesus - all had major wilderness victories. They are orchestrated for our good, not ill. They are not passive but are on the road headed somewhere. They answer the question that we so often pray "there must be more than this".  There is, but we often find it in the wilderness with a bible in our hand, a prayer on our lips and a stranger who may bring a prophetic word of clarity. The best way to handle the wilderness is quickly - "hear and obey".

Trust:
In order to understand this text we need to frame this story is through the lenses of trust. Imagine being Phillip. God has moved dramatically through you, salvations, miracles, deliverances, even big name dudes in the region are coming to faith. Now God [through the angel] says that it is time to move. Can you imagine the confusion for this evangelist? He is to leave a revival to go to a dusty desert road - but he is not told why! Trust reassures me that "God will get us to leave the much and to what may seem little but it will never be less". He did not know that he would meet an eunuch, who would come to faith and take the gospel to the uttermost. He was not to know that his lonely convert would take this good news of Is 53 to Africa for the first time. But he had to trust his Father. God is both providential is his construction of this meeting, but he is also sovereign in his global gospel adventure - lets be part of that.

These are great moments to pause and reflect on how God has used the wilderness in our lives. We somehow feel robbed with these moments, as we subconsciously don't feel like they should exist. The wilderness, finds to souls colliding together around the text. One to be the student, one to be the teacher. Sometimes our wilderness times are for our own soul - getting clarity in contexts of confusion. But sometimes, we are in the wilderness for others - that we might teach them. That is a sign of maturity - "living for the benefit of others'. Where are you know?

March 2013

Thanks for the prayers and perspectives.

Here is a quick look at the March calendar for M and myself -

Feb 22 / 23 M to teach at Redemption Church Ladies event; then teaches on Sunday at their main gathering;

Feb 23 / 24 I teach at Rock Harbor at the 6, 9, 11 on Acts 8

Feb 24 pm - teaching the Intro to Leadership at Southlands

Feb 28 - meet with all the LA lead pastors of the churches that we are working with in that city

Mar 7th our monthly Exploration - conversations for pastors & planters at Rock Harbor, followed by some strategic conversations about the way forward with new church plants;

Mar 8 - 11 off to Toronto to connect with our friends there as well as minister with Redhill Church

Mar 14th - lunch with Costa Mesa pastors we journey with;

Mar 17th - well Darren and Alex & crew at the Garden in Long Beach

Mar 21st - day down in San Diego with planters we are journeying with

Mar 22 - 25 off to Tyler Tx to teach and ordain elders at Harvest Church

Isn't that a cool month?

Hey friends

Here is a list of books I am reading right now - may be helpful:

Victor Frankl: "Man's search for meaning"
A remarkable little book that interprets man's quest for meaning and survival in Nazi death camps. A very helpful lens of such weighty matters.

James D Hunter: "To change the World"
I am finding his writings carry some important substance. Without grumpiness, he is challenging the common held perspectives on how evangelicals believe the world can be changed. Reading is slow but very impacting.

Leslie R. Crutchfield: "Forces for Good"
Assessing which key ingredients are evident in all Nonprofits that have held firm over decades. I think it is a good read for church leaders as it gives us different lenses on how we can be effective over the long haul.

Leon Morris: "Revelation"
Am enjoying his eyes on this very powerful book - what are the truly big pieces of this book - not the charismatic propensity for the exotic and existential.

Any good books you are reading?