“Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). 

A young mother told me at church yesterday, she’s already praying for the girls who will some day marry her four young sons.  My guess is that family has a dozen years to wait before their first wedding.

It’s never too early to pray.

I have never known of a church with a pastor who was loved and supported that spent any time praying for its future pastors, but it makes sense. The present guy clearly will not be at that church forever. In due time, the congregation will be forming a search committee for the next shepherd.

Only then will the church members begin asking the Father, “Show us the next leader.”

Where have they been? Didn’t they know how these things work, that one pastor follows another?

What if in next Sunday morning’s offertory prayer, the church prayed, “And Father, we lift to Thy care and direction and guidance the next pastor of this Thy church, no matter who the person is.  Prepare them. Protect them. Deepen them. And prepare us for their ministry.”

I know a half-dozen churches of small to medium size presently seeking new pastors. In every case, the fields are “white unto harvest” all around them (John 4:35). They are sitting in the midst of great opportunities for ministry and are set up for a wonderful harvest.

As they have been for years.

For ages, many of these churches have been wishing and hoping and praying to reach their field, but with little effect.

Why so little harvest?  Why have they (seemingly) contented themselves with a handful of baptisms each year and miniscule growth and limited ministries when they could have had ten times that?

Mostly, it comes down to leadership.

Now, each of those half-dozen churches will read this (if they do) and “just know” that I have singled them out here and may take umbrage that I’m posting this in a public place instead of emailing the office.

Believe me when I say that what follows pertains to your church and ten thousand others.  (Not all, thankfully. But so many.)

1)Your church may well have had a leadership failure.

This is not a blanket condemnation of pastors. I’m a pastor by calling and know something of the obstacles they encounter from within the church and inside themselves. I know the frustration of trying to grow a crop in ground hard as a city sidewalk and the burden of disciplining myself to get up and try it one more time.

But work with me here.  Concerning the churches that have sat there year after year doing little or nothing, I’m thinking the problem was a failure of leadership.

Every one of those pastors meant well and loved the Lord and presumably gave his best. But it has been my observation that search committees sometimes settle for someone less than the person God had in mind.  (Perhaps, it’s like a marriage. God had someone special in mind for you, but you jumped the gun and married another.  From that moment on, you and she are married and that is what God works with. So with churches that bring in a pastor other than the “one” God had in mind.)

I’ve seen pastors who were undermotivated, uninspiring in the pulpit, and lazy. I’ve seen pastors on the other hand who were hard-working but had no clear sense of direction for the church and when leaders looked to them, they had nothing to say.  Some pastors are caught up in the race for recognition, for attention, for acclaim, and simply do not devote themselves to the needs of the church.

I’m sorry to say that.  My instincts want to say “You deserve better than this,” but let’s not get into what we deserve.  We don’t want to go there.

In so many cases, your church needed God-inspired leadership and did not receive it.

2) Your next pastor must be a leader.  Insist on it.

A leader knows the way and is willing to walk out front with the machete clearing the brush. A leader faces snakes and potholes and obstacles and does not panic but deals with each one as it appears.

A leader knows from his study of the Word that, as with Moses, sometimes the most difficult people to lead are God’s redeemed; he’s dedicated his life to this.

A leader does not take a vote of the flock to ask where they want to go.  Mark this down in big letters: “The people don’t know where they want to go.”  That’s why the Master Shepherd sends His undershepherd to lead.

Or, perhaps more exact, they want to go in a hundred different directions.

The best way to determine if a minister you are considering is a true leader is to find out what he has done in the past.  Ask around. Then, ask some more. Then, go see for yourself.

–Has he led churches (or ministries of any kind) to start something from scratch and been effective in reaching people and building something that lasts?

–Has he worked with his team, being both visionary and compassionate?  That is, he was not a bully who insisted on “my way or the highway.”  If he was the latter, keep on looking, friend. Your church has had dictators in the past and doesn’t need another.

–Has he treasured each person in the church, each member of his team, or has he run over people (leaving them “bleeding in the road”) to get his project done?

–One more thing: find out how he dealt with failure of a mission. Did he pick up and go forward, working with his team to make the most of a difficult situation? Or did he act like a spoiled child and place blame?  Nothing tells on us like how we handle failure.

Search committee, do not stop until the Lord leads you to a leader.  No pun intended. The Lord is your leader (see Psalm 23:3). Stay with Him until He fingers the person who will be just right for your church.

3. Do not settle for anything less than a God-called proven leader.

Churches and committees grow tired of languishing in limbo, grow impatient with long searches for pastors and bored with fill-in preachers.  Tired, impatient, and bored, they often settle for someone far less than what they need.

“Well,” they say, “the congregation was dwindling. We had to do something.”

Granted, you “had” to do something. But why did you decide that something was to take matters into your own hands?  You got tired of waiting on the Lord?  Did you not know this is His church and the diminishing membership is of concern to Him, too? Or did you think He had willed the church to you to run as you think best?

“Well,” another protests, “our church does not pay the kind of salary to attract the best pastors. We have to take what we can get.”

With that attitude, friend, it’s easy to see why.

You either believe God calls pastors or you do not. You either believe He sends pastors to churches or that He doesn’t.  And if you think He only sends them to the churches that can pay the big bucks, you have just slandered His integrity and insulted pastors.

Bear in mind, even if ten thousand pastors do want the larger churches with the prestige and big salary, you are not looking for ten thousand pastors. Just one. “The one.”

Hold out for that one.

–Keep on praying and continue your search.

–Do not settle for less than the Lord’s best.

–Do not be surprised if the Lord has someone surprising in mind for you. What does that mean? I have no idea, other than, if you truly want “the best He has for you,” then you must not give Him the specifications your committee wrote–please smile; they do this!–but assure Him you’re not doing anything until He answers the prayer.  Bear in mind, the next pastor may be on the mission field at this moment, or still in school, or unemployed because he refused to give in to the tyrants in the last church.

–In running references on him, talk to as many former staffers as you can find who worked under his leadership.  If you talk to enough, the picture of his leadership style should tell you all you need to know.

–Do not fall in love with any pastor too quickly.  If you do, all bets are off. People in love do not want to hear anything negative about their beloved.  You are setting yourself up for major trouble once you become convinced early on that “He’s just the greatest thing ever! Let’s grab him before some big church comes along and gets him.”  No. Take your time.  Only if God has chosen him for your church do you want him.

–Leave the pastor’s position vacant until the Lord sends “the” one.

4. Plan to do some things to help make your next pastor a success.

Get counsel from a few godly and mature (usually older) pastors and denominational leaders on how to do this. Invite one or two to meet with church leadership (not just the members of the search committee) to discuss this with them.

–Make sure your prospective pastor presently works with his people and does not try to dominate them. Otherwise, when he gets to your church he will not welcome input from anyone..

–Start at the first. Do not give him months to settle in before your church’s leaders invite him to meet with them (or invite themselves to meet with him!) to make plans. Day one is the time to begin.

–Do not smother him or dictate to him. He is the shepherd, the leader. All you want him to do is to lead in the way the Lord says.  Knowing how close to get to him without smothering him is difficult. Work at it.

–Do not make demands on him.  Be careful of putting your goals and expectations on him.  Support him. Believe that the Lord knew what He was doing in sending this shepherd to this particular flock.

–Continually pray for him and his family, as well as the church staff (which usually means other ministers).  He’s not a one-man show, and relies on his lieutenants for a hundred things.

Moses told the Israelites, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your own countrymen; you shall listen to him” (Deuteronomy 18:15).  He was referring to Jesus.

Study the life and leadership of Moses.  If Jesus was like Moses, and you want a shepherd like Jesus, there must be some wonderful similarities here.

God send you a wonderful pastor, one who knows the way and is willing to pay the price to lead your church.

And, God give that pastor a congregation that doesn’t mind him offending them and pushing them and demanding more of them than they think they are capable of giving.

That’s a pastor like Moses. A pastor like Jesus.