New Dawn: Helping Pastors Flourish in Retirement - with Doug Bullock

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson engage in a deep conversation with Doug Bullock, author of 'New Dawn'. They explore the themes of longevity and impact in ministry, the emotional challenges faced by retiring pastors, and the importance of planning for a smooth transition into retirement. Doug shares insights from his own journey and emphasizes the need for churches to support retiring pastors, helping them to flourish in their new roles. The discussion highlights the significance of processing pain, maintaining relationships, and the potential for retired pastors to continue contributing to their communities.

Get New Dawn

Follow us on Insta @churchtalkproject. www.churchtalkproject.com

Transcript

Jason Allison (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you have joined us again. We still are a little surprised that people actually tune in and listen sometimes to church dudes talking shop and bringing on cool people to have conversations with. But yeah, we love it. We're so glad that we get to do this. Every week we drop an episode because we

Rob Paterson (00:18)
Hahaha

Jason Allison (00:24)
really think consistency matters. we really think that, hey, you know what, pastors and leaders who are out there, we really, we exist to engage, equip and encourage you. And we think you deserve it. And so we just want to let you know that we really do like you and love you and hope we are serving you. We'd love to do more of it. So if you get a chance, reach out to us. We would love to, we would love to chat sometime. Jason at churchdocproject.com or Rob at churchdocproject.com.

Rob Paterson (00:36)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (00:52)
We'd love to hear what's going on in your neck of the woods and how we might be able to serve you. Rob, my friend, how's it going?

Rob Paterson (01:00)
Good, know, one of the things that you and I talk a lot about, you know, when we're together is the idea that after, you know, 30 plus years each in ministry, starting when we were young and stemming till now when we're not, you know, so young anymore, you know, has given us like a combined 60 plus years of ministry. And, you know, I,

I was just actually saying to our guests before you hopped on, cause he was telling me he pastored one church as the lead pastor for over 30 years. And, and I'm like, man, like people here, I've been at the same church for 15 years and they're like, Whoa, like, like I have performed a miracle, you know, our God has performed a miracle and and he, he does all the time or else we'd all be in deep trouble. Right. But, you know, it just made me think just about that idea of

Jason Allison (01:37)
you

Rob Paterson (01:53)
longevity and impact. I, you know, for this is kind of where our conversation is going to go today, but man, I'm just thinking about, you know, maybe for somebody who tuned into this episode in particular, maybe the title caught you, maybe it didn't, and you just hit play, not knowing, but maybe you're just in a season right now and you're thinking, man, like this issue that I just keep banging my head up against a wall on, or that person who at one point was like my

Jason Allison (01:59)
and

Rob Paterson (02:21)
biggest ally and now they just seem to be fighting me tooth and nail at every turn on every issue. know,

like your ministry matters. What you're doing is really important. And again, not this isn't to say you have to do it forever or stay in that that location forever, but I just think we need to, you know, we need to have a little bit more longevity and stick to it if this, if we really care about impact.

Jason Allison (02:48)
Yeah, wow, deep words from Rob right out of the gate. my gosh. You must add some coffee today. That was awesome.

And I mean, honestly, I think the the miracle of you being at the same place for 15 years is more in that the people have kept you for 15 years, not that you stayed because I, I know your people and they are extremely gracious and they actually love you a ton. And that to me is quite miraculous in so many ways, because why would God allow that to happen? Right. No, that.

Rob Paterson (03:14)
Thanks, man. Thanks, buddy.

Jason Allison (03:21)
No, really, it is. It actually is very cool when I get to visit there. Well, we have a guest today who wrote a book and I had the privilege and we were just discussing. We can't remember who connected us. We think it was it was our mutual friend, Dale Sellers, but I could be wrong. And I hate to give Dale credit for anything if he didn't actually do it. But we think it was Dale, but we connected because our guest today is Doug Bullock and

He's connected with me and he was working on his basically his PhD project, which is a book on how pastors can retire well. And the name of the book is, is New Dawn. And so it's a, I had the privilege of reading it while it was still in the PDF format. Actually it wasn't printed or anything yet. And I just really enjoyed it. There was a lot of, there's just so much good stuff.

in it. And I said, Doug, we got to once you get this, you know, the bow tied on it, and we can keep moving. We got to get you on the podcast to talk about some of these concepts. So Doug, man, welcome to the Church Talk podcast. We're so glad to have you on.

Doug Bullock (04:24)
Thank you so much Jason and Rob, I really appreciate it.

Jason Allison (04:28)
Well, so I mean, let's just get started. Tell me a little bit about you. You know, I read the book. I have all that stuff, but then I didn't actually get to know you in the process of doing it. You know, did you grow up in the church? You know, when when did you come to faith and maybe a little bit about the ministry that you fled?

Doug Bullock (04:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I, so I grew up in a Christian home. My mom and dad were involved in starting a couple of churches. He was an airline pilot. And so he was, but just deeply involved as a volunteer layman, you know, helping to catalyze a couple of churches. I grew up in a church in Syracuse, New York, went off, got my engineering degree. ⁓ But then found my wife and decided to go to seminary, went to seminary. Then I actually went back to the church that I grew up in.

Rob Paterson (05:07)
Hmm.

Doug Bullock (05:15)
and eventually kind of took over, you know. They couldn't get rid of me, so they decided to make me lead pastor eventually. That was quite a process, but ⁓ good people. And so I pastored there as lead pastor for 30 years. Had four children, four daughters are all married, 12 grandkids. And after pastoring for 35 years total, we moved back, we moved down to South Carolina, which is where we are today in Charleston, South Carolina.

Jason Allison (05:20)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (05:24)
Okay.

Doug Bullock (05:40)
and I currently

Jason Allison (05:40)
Nice.

Rob Paterson (05:41)
Thank

Doug Bullock (05:41)
work at a retreat here for pastors.

Jason Allison (05:44)
OK. That's great. That's great. Well, maybe let's just dive into the book. Obviously, someone who worked in the same place for that long, someone who's retired from ministry after decades of serving. The name of the book is New Dawn, Helping Pastors Flourish in Retirement.

It actually, you sent me a note a couple of weeks ago, it launched at number 45 on Amazon's chart of Christian leadership books, which, I mean, that's impressive. Maybe you don't realize it, but that's actually really impressive. I mean, tell me what made you write this book?

Doug Bullock (06:10)
Yeah.

Well, it would probably help that I bought 5,000 copies.

Jason Allison (06:17)
Well, you know, but did you buy it off Amazon? That's the thing. no, really? What pushed you to write this book and what was the motivation behind it?

Rob Paterson (06:17)
Yeah. ⁓

Doug Bullock (06:28)
Yeah, that's great. Thanks. When I retired, I had a plan. I wanted to help pastors. I moved down to Charleston and ran into COVID and a couple of other things. And so my plan didn't work out the way I wanted it to for the first year and a half or so. And I just began to experience, in fact, for the past five or six years, I've just experienced the difficulty of pastoral retirement and just processing all of the

the things that I had to process and have had to process has been very powerful for me. At the same time, I entered into a D-min program and started just kind of investigating and studying and looking at what retirement and retired pastors go through and discovered there's all kinds of pastors who are retiring and there's very little out there about it. in recent surveys done by various organizations,

Rob Paterson (07:09)
Mm.

Doug Bullock (07:17)
You you discover that there are more pastors over 65 than there are under 40 which blows us away. There are more pastors working over 65 than there are under 40. You gotta be kidding me. So we have two problems. One problem is we got a lot of retiring pastors. Another problem is we need some younger pastors. Well, I decided to address the first problem. And my my thesis has been hey, if we can keep. Retiring pastors.

Rob Paterson (07:23)
.

Jason Allison (07:30)
Mm. Mm.

Doug Bullock (07:48)
on the plus side

in the kingdom game, doing the things and ministering in a way and living their lives in a way that are beneficial to the kingdom. That's going to be a big plus. On the other hand, if retiring pastors don't have a vision for that and aren't able to work through the difficulties of pastor retirement, that's going to be a big loss for us. And what I discovered is there's nothing out there about that. Like there's

Rob Paterson (07:52)
Mm.

Jason Allison (08:14)
Hmm.

Doug Bullock (08:16)
There's hardly

any books at all that are written by retired pastors about the biblical theological issues that they have to face. So I wrote one.

Jason Allison (08:25)
Well, I love it.

Rob Paterson (08:26)
Yeah, that's great, Doug. So Doug, in your book, you talk about pain being a natural part of ministry. you know, I mean, I know lot of pastors, I know pastors who have a lot of pain that they have not dealt with, right? They haven't processed it. Maybe just feelings of failure, like I did all this stuff and it never really worked like I thought or believed that it should or would.

Doug Bullock (08:37)
You bet.

Rob Paterson (08:53)
You know, maybe, you know, I think a lot of people in ministry complain about all the people around them all the time and all the needs and then they get away from that and realized how much they had come to, you know, thrive on and

Jason Allison (09:05)
I

Rob Paterson (09:06)
depend on that and now they're retired and maybe they're, you know, they feel like they're unsupported and all alone. So I'm wondering like, what kind of pain does a retiring pastor need to sort of be aware of and work hard to redeem?

Doug Bullock (09:20)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think that there's there's pain that they experienced in their ministry that they never processed. And so when you retire and you stop and you pull yourself away, you think about all the stuff you put up with all the times when you maybe let somebody say something and didn't confront them and maybe should or shouldn't have. But, know, it just hurt.

You stop and think about the betrayal that you experienced. You stop and think about the people who let you down. You stop and think about sometimes the failure that you yourself had. I think there's pain that comes from failure. There's oftentimes pain at the end. A lot of pastors end in a rather inglorious manner. Sometimes being terminated, sometimes being told that their time there has expired and sometimes not supported by their denomination.

Jason Allison (10:03)
you

Doug Bullock (10:12)
And then there's just the pain that comes with all of the loss that you experience in retirement itself.

And so the time of stepping down gives you time to stop and pause and consider, okay, I remember this. I remember those things and maybe stuff you've buried.

I think we also are not really taught that pain is a part of ministry. I think it's Samuel Chan who said that the level you go in ministry will be determined by your ability to bear pain. And I don't know that's completely true, but I certainly know that there are times when I didn't make a tough decision because I didn't want to endure the pain. And I probably should have made those decisions.

Jason Allison (10:52)
Yeah, that's it.

Doug Bullock (10:52)
So I think we're just not accustomed

to the idea of pain in ministry as much as a desert.

Jason Allison (10:57)
Yeah, we like to complain about it, but we don't actually want to embrace it or, you know, like redeem it. I mean, that's kind of the thing. And, you know, we commiserate, you know, we get together with our pastors and we we commiserate with how terrible, you know, such and such was or this was or this person reacted or responded. And and then we just kind of move on.

Doug Bullock (11:00)
You

Jason Allison (11:19)
We don't actually process it or deal with it or say, hey, wait a minute. What's the root of why that was hurtful to me? And then work from there to say, okay, now that we're talking about pastors as they move toward retirement, how can I take that pain and redeem it in a way that actually becomes a tool for the kingdom of God and moving? those are some of the things that I, the themes that I picked up on.

Rob Paterson (11:26)
Thank

Hmm.

Jason Allison (11:47)
you know, in your book as you were talking about pain and things like that. What do you think as as pastors retire? Oh, yeah.

Doug Bullock (11:54)
Yeah, and I was going to say in in in Newt

Go ahead. Sorry.

Jason Allison (11:59)
Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead, Doug. It's all you.

Doug Bullock (12:02)
Well,

I was just going to say in New Dawn, we talk about Paul's comment in Philippians 2.17 where he says, I'm being poured out like a drink offering. And the whole passage is so meaningful because this drink offering is this extra little thing that's poured out on the altar just as an aroma to God. And what I think pastors need to remember is that my pain, which I am enduring because of my commitment to ministry, is like an aroma to God.

in the sense that God is pleased with my commitment and my willingness to endure pain for him. I don't know, I think of thinking of pain as a pleasing aroma to God. Maybe that seems a little masochistic or whatever, but it helped me to rethink the whole pain issue.

Rob Paterson (12:44)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (12:48)
Yeah. That's great.

Rob Paterson (12:48)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (12:50)
Well, so let me put it, let me turn the conversation slightly. When you think of these pastors who are retiring and maybe they're starting to wrestle through some of the things that you just mentioned, the pain and struggles that they saw. But this is a very practical question. What role should a retiring pastor have in a local church? How do you address that?

Doug Bullock (13:13)
That's a great question. And this was really one of the things that I was just really struck by in so many churches. The role of the retiring pastor is to stay out of the way. And it's kind of the standard practice in many denominations that the retiring pastor has to leave even if he doesn't move. And he may want to stay there because maybe he started the church or maybe he's been there for 10 years or 15 years or friends are there.

But he's not welcomed, which leads to this incredible paradox where the church says, everyone welcome. You know, the marquee, the sign up front says, everyone welcome. And the irony is everyone's welcome except the retiring pastor. And I just think that is not the best way to go. I had a conversation with one pastor who had retired and he had started a church and

Jason Allison (13:46)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Bullock (14:03)
I said, how's going? says, good, I'm staying at the church I retired from or I started. And he says,

I can stay here as long as I behave myself. And it just struck me now, is that the standard? You know, he's got to behave himself. And I get it. I get that retiring pastors have oftentimes acted badly and hurt the church that they were a part of. And so what I think is very often missing between

the retired pastor and the current pastor is the concept of honor. The scriptures say to honor your mother and father. If you think about that, when Moses got up on Mount Sinai and said to the nation of Israel, honor your mother and father, he was talking to adults who were to honor their parents. So he's talking about grandparents. When Moses says honor your mother and father,

Jason Allison (14:37)
you

Doug Bullock (14:54)
primary application to the adults would have been, I got to honor my grandparents, honor the grandparents. And in a way, the retiring pastor is like the grandparent of the church. And if that pastor can be honored and brought into the ministry context in an appropriate way, I think it can be really a positive plus for the church. And what that requires is just mutual humility.

Jason Allison (14:57)
. .

Doug Bullock (15:20)
between the younger pastor and the older pastor.

Jason Allison (15:25)
What do think that looks like? Yeah, what do you think? mean, and just really practical terms when you think of what role a pastor can play, you know, especially and right now we're talking in the context of if he remains at the church that he retired from, you know, what what kind of things are appropriate are helpful. And I know every church a little different, but in a general sense, what do you see being a helpful presence?

Doug Bullock (15:25)
And it's not easy.

Jason Allison (15:51)
of a retired pastor in a church.

Doug Bullock (15:54)
Well, I I think obviously you the the the ideal is that the retired pastor is totally on the team of the pastor that's there and is supportive and is helpful. And they have a conversation in which they say, OK, how in which the retired pastor says, how can I help you? And the and the younger pastor says something like, how would you like to be involved? And they

Rob Paterson (16:19)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Bullock (16:20)
They have a conversation

together to reach some kind of mutual ground. The hard thing about honor is you honor everybody differently. And so some people want to be honored with a banquet and a badge, and that's about it. Other people want to be honored by having a voice and maybe even the ability to speak about something anytime something comes up that they want to talk about. so how to honor that retiring pastor really varies from situation to situation.

But ideally, if that retiring pastor can be on the team in some way, or form, encouraging the younger pastor, getting behind what he's trying to do, being a great cheerleader for it, that's the ideal. And the younger pastor can look to the retiring pastor and say, OK, what input do you have for me? How would you like to be involved? How can we work out and work together?

with your new life and with my life here as the new pastor. I know churches where that takes place. I talk about some of them in New Dawn. And I just believe that to force a retired guy out of the church, you not only lose him and all of that input, but you lose any number of older folks who have money, who have wisdom, who have resources, who could help turn the church in a new direction.

Rob Paterson (17:39)
Yeah, that's powerful. really appreciate that. Doug, you know, I love the title New Dawn because it's true, right? You it doesn't matter if you're there

Jason Allison (17:42)
you

Rob Paterson (17:50)
20, 30, 40, 50 years. When you retire, if you're not dead, the next day, right? Like there's a new dawn for the church and there's a new dawn for the pastor who's no longer leading that congregation.

And this idea of like helping people flourish in the day after and however many days after that they have to steward the remaining years, decades, whatever. So I'm wondering maybe, could you just give us a caricature of, you know, maybe what it would look like for a pastor who was not ⁓ flourishing in his or in her retirement and what the flourishing would look like. And this could be, you know, from things you experienced or

Doug Bullock (18:04)
You bet.

Jason Allison (18:18)
. .

Rob Paterson (18:31)
things you heard from others, like, you know, just give us a picture of what flourishing versus not flourishing would look like for a pastor post retirement.

Doug Bullock (18:40)
Yeah, I had a meeting with a group of pastors who were at retirement. And I

was a nervous first time I'd done this. And I threw out the question. I said, what do you guys think about church? And it was quiet. And then one guy erupted and said, I hate going to church. And then the room just kind of exploded, you know? And it was hilarious.

He said, I hate going to church because it reminds me of how much I've lost. Now, mind you, these are people who had retired, you know, or who had set that aside. Now, in some cases, maybe they were forced out, but they were obviously as I they were as I was obviously unprepared for this emotional shock of loss and then difficulty of fitting back

Rob Paterson (19:07)
Mm.

Jason Allison (19:09)
Okay.

Doug Bullock (19:26)
in. For me,

Rob Paterson (19:27)
Mm.

Doug Bullock (19:28)
for me the

This phase of retirement, and by the way, one of the things that I talk about in the book, one of the things that's confusing is the word retirement has no real clear meaning. And so whenever you do research on retirement, you always have to describe exactly what you're talking about. And so for me, when I talk about retirement, I'm talking about the pastor who after 20, 25, 30 years of key leadership decides to go do something else.

to set aside that key leadership role. To me, the ideal picture is that that person finds fulfillment in following after Christ right where they are in this new role. It might be taking care of their wife. We all know situations where a retiring pastor has to move into a situation where they're taking care of their bride.

It might be a different job that they have because financially they have to find a new job that makes more money. But that there's a sense of fulfillment and a sense of purpose and meaning and that they're now living out their calling but in a different way. And their relationship with God is flourishing, their relationship with some local church is flourishing, and they're feeling, you know what, I am finishing well.

because my relationships with God and others around me are where they should be. And I'm continuing to live out my calling in some way, or form. And for me, not flourishing is if you're not a part of a local church body, if you're not in some way living out your calling, if you're not relationally growing with Christ and with others, if you're bitter and

grieving and feeling out of place in the context of the local church. I mean, I don't think that's where God wants us.

Rob Paterson (21:09)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (21:18)
Mm.

Yeah, that's that's good. I want to camp on that for just a second to like when you're if you were to be talking to a group of pastors who are transitioning out of full time vocational ministry and into the next chapter, you know, we call that retirement, but it may or may not involve employment of some kind, whatever it doesn't matter. But as they transition out of that primary calling,

vocation, know, those two things come into alignment as the senior pastor. What are some things that you would warn them about? You know, that, you know, that as Rob put it the next day, if you're not dead, you wake up and you're no longer employed as a senior pastor, which has been probably your identity spiritually, physically, you know, like for decades. What what would you warn a pastor?

Rob Paterson (22:00)
and I'll you time.

Jason Allison (22:09)
to really be ready for when that season comes to an end and the next one opens.

Doug Bullock (22:16)
Well, I guess in New Dawn, I talk about 10 questions that I think are relevant for the retiring pastor. And those are the questions that I think are the primary biblical theological issues. So, for instance, one has to do with just what is it that I'm going to lose? What are my losses? Because there are unexpected losses that you have when you retire as a pastor, even more so than what many people experience in retirement, because your whole life is wrapped up.

in ministry very often, your church, your family, your income. A second one is how can I deal with my pain? How can God redeem my pain? That's an issue that I think we just don't see coming very often. We think we're moving away from it. I think the focus is when you're trying to retire, the focus is so much is on how can I do a succession well? How

Jason Allison (22:48)
Okay. Okay.

Doug Bullock (23:08)
can I leave this church well?

you know, trying to finish well at the place where you are and planning the physical aspects of your next move, but you're not thinking about the emotional, relational, spiritual aspects. My loss, my pain, what's my role going to be in a local church? That was a surprise to a lot of people. It was a surprise to me to figure out how hard it was to actually just go to church. Kind of.

Rob Paterson (23:17)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Doug Bullock (23:35)
didn't expect that one. Didn't expect it. What do do with my life calling? I think that's really significant. I think being a steward of our experience, we're going to stand before God someday. And God has built into each one of us. I love Robert Clinton's book on leadership in which he talks about how God develops us as leaders. God has spent 30 years developing you as a leader, Jason. God has invested in you.

He's invested in me and I'm now a steward of all of God's investment in my life. What am I going to do with that? I didn't think too much about that. How can I How am I going to continue to grow? A lot of the things that I did in ministry spurred me on towards growth. For me, sermon preparation was very much a growing process. What do I do when that's removed, you know?

Rob Paterson (24:18)
Mm-hmm

Jason Allison (24:18)
Yeah.

Doug Bullock (24:32)
my financial struggle, how the family's impacted. Again, I talked to one supervisor of a Midwestern district in one denomination, and I said, what do you do with retired pastors? And he said, I don't have any. They all leave to move down south to be with their grandkids. And that's a real thing, you know? That's a real thing.

Jason Allison (24:50)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (24:51)
Yeah.

Doug Bullock (24:54)
not to feel guilty about it. So anyway, those are some of the issues that I think you just tend not to think about.

Rob Paterson (24:57)
Yeah.

You know, Doug, there's things that maybe all of

us say when we're younger that we mean in the moment, but if we really put some thought into them, we might not really mean, you know, like, I still remember my mom and dad always used to say, Hey, if I'm ever in the hospital and it's not looking good, no extraordinary measures. still remember for my mom, I had to make that decision. And I did. she, there would be extraordinary measures and she lived and she lived for another decade after that before passing.

She was super thankful that I didn't take what she'd said 20 years younger when she was in good health, you know, as seriously as maybe I could have. You know, I hear a lot of pastors go, know, retirement is not a biblical concept. I'm never gonna retire. But then, you know, they do get to a point where like they're no longer employed, you know, in a specific role in a local church. Maybe just talk about that idea. Like, you know, as you kind of,

You know, have walked through that. You're obviously not retired from kingdom work and from ministry and from wanting to make a difference. But like, you know, how, if somebody said that to you, maybe what would you say to them? you know, no, retirement's really a thing and here's how you need to approach it.

Doug Bullock (26:12)
Well, know, in this is well known by a lot of people, but in Numbers 8, I talked about in the book, Numbers 8, the Levites who were moving the tabernacle reached an age in which they were able to retire. In fact, they were forced to retire. I think it was age 50. They're forced to retire. And now they could hang around and help the other Levites in some secondary role.

or they could return to their village. So there was this expectation that sooner or later you're gonna get old enough that you're not gonna be able to do this job anymore. Now, exactly what you do after that seemed to have been up to them. The text says in Numbers 8 that they can stay and help the brothers, the Levites do the work, which implies they could stay there or they could return to their village. And so I think someone say,

I'm never going to retire, I'd ask, what exactly do you mean by that? Like if you mean that you're going to be a lead pastor until you're 75, well, that may work in certain contexts and for certain individuals, but for the most part, most of us are not able to do the rigorous job of being a lead pastor at age 75. We just can't. So unless you are, you know, Chuck Swindoll or John MacArthur,

You might want to think about an alternative plan because you're going to need one. Because if you don't decide to retire, somebody else might make that decision for you.

Rob Paterson (27:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Doug Bullock (27:44)
And one of the problems we have is if guys today are not going to retire, then oftentimes what they're saying is, I'm not going to prepare for retirement. And oftentimes they mean I'm not going to save any money for retirement. And so oftentimes they can't retire because they haven't saved any money. And then the people in the church are left with this

Jason Allison (27:44)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (27:56)
Hmm.

Doug Bullock (28:09)
very difficult situation. Do we kick this guy out of the church or do we leave ourselves? And so what tends to happen unless you are an exceptional communicator and leader, the older pastor faces a diminishing congregation. And which is why there are a ton of churches with nice buildings and nobody in them. One of the reasons why.

Jason Allison (28:28)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (28:28)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (28:30)
Well, I want to let's build on that a second as a and you didn't you didn't really go into this in the book. So I know I'm moving outside of that purview, but I feel like it's important here when you think of churches and they are looking at this pastor who, you know, honestly, his best days of leadership are behind him. You know, he's just

you know, because he's been there a long time. Maybe it's a personality thing. Maybe it's aging. Maybe there's a ton of factors. Right. But they're looking at this pastor who they love. Right. He hasn't done anything. There's no moral failures. There's nothing like that. ⁓ But they're also. Well, I didn't want to say anything, Rob. But they but, know, they're looking at this person going, we love you, but you really should not be the lead pastor of this church anymore.

Rob Paterson (29:04)
I'm feeling triggered here, Jason.

Jason Allison (29:18)
for the sake of the church. How does a church go about approaching that kind of situation?

Doug Bullock (29:24)
Well, I think one of the things is they need to think about what happens if we don't approach that situation. And if we chose not to approach that situation, if we choose not to address it, the church faces a really difficult situation because while the key leadership might say, well, we'll put up with them anyway, the rest of the church is not gonna feel that way and they'll just leave. so the church will shrink. And so you have to...

Rob Paterson (29:29)
Mm.

Jason Allison (29:45)
Yeah.

Doug Bullock (29:49)
I think the first thing you have to do is just think about the alternative. Okay, if we do not approach the situation, people are going to leave. then secondly, think approaching it with honesty and with a picture of a better future for that pastor as well as for the church. Because I think that when a church handles these situations rightly,

Jason Allison (30:04)
you

Doug Bullock (30:13)
there can be a better future both for the pastor and for the church.

Rob Paterson (30:19)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (30:20)
Yeah.

Doug Bullock (30:20)
By that I mean, you know, at the right time, an older pastor with the right attitude and the right spiritual gifting can bring in

a younger pastor, be supportive. Sometimes they can continue on with some kind of income to that older pastor. There are creative solutions that different churches use to make these things work. But if they don't address it, they're just putting off demise and conflict.

You cannot avoid this conflict unless somebody dies of a heart attack. Then, okay, you've got out of that one.

Rob Paterson (30:50)
Doug, you know, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking, you know, Jason and I, in a recent episode, we were just talking about like how you make decisions. And I was articulating, you know, my church, we always filter things through like the lens of our mission, vision and values. And if it doesn't align,

You know, we just, you know, might be a great idea, but it's not for right now or, and, or for us. And, and so, you know, I think a lot of people in ministry, you know, they do that and they have over years and sometimes decades gotten to the point where their life, you know, their everyday life aligns with their own sort of calling and gifts and all those things. So to go from sort of that level of.

engagement and connection to then all of sudden you wake up one day and you're retired. Like, you know, how do you do that? How do you prepare for that level of transition? Seems like a pretty like rude awakening. Potentially.

Doug Bullock (31:48)
Yeah, no, think I think it was it can be. mean, for me, it really was. I was totally in favor and wanted to retire and very excited about moving from Syracuse, New York to Charleston, South Carolina, as you can well imagine, going to be around three of my daughters and super excited, but was totally unprepared for the emotional, spiritual, relational losses and difficulties that I talked about.

I think that I think it doesn't always have to be that drastic in my situation because I was moving from one location to a whole nother location and going from deeply involved in ministry to not involved at all. It was very drastic. But I but I have seen situations where pastors remain in the church and the transition is much more gradual. They may. ⁓

Rob Paterson (32:36)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Bullock (32:37)
have a leader that they identify as a key leader who's going to perhaps take over the church and they engage in transitional strategies. Or even pastors who go from one church and they move, but they take up a role in a different church as an associate or something. So it doesn't always have to be that drastic. can be really, especially if you're going to stay in an area and want to stay in a church.

Boy, I'd really try to figure out how can we transition this leadership from me to another person over a period of time and do it in a way that honors and lifts him up, do it in a way that honors the contribution that I've made and utilizes my ongoing gifts and do it in a way that helps the church to continue to grow and make a difference or maybe to start to grow and make a difference.

Jason Allison (33:26)
Yeah. Well, so I was, I've been working with chemistry staffing and Matt Steen is the president and he and I have done a couple of succession planning type events with churches and so forth. And one of the things that we talk about is this idea of how a church and even how a pastor also

can begin preparing for that process that is approaching. And obviously it's kind of like they say the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is today. Yes, you should have started, but you didn't, so let's start today. And there's a lot of truth in that. And one of the first questions that, I mean, I got this last night at a meeting with a group of elders, hey, what should we be planning for?

Doug Bullock (33:53)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (34:14)
You know, what are some things if we're going to look at the budget and set aside some dollars for this whole process, what do we need? And for us, some of the things that I recommend and maybe I can get your feedback on this. you know, I recommend number one, you got to plan for the whole you got to plan for the party. Right. I mean, you get people are going to want to celebrate this pastor as they retire. You know, there needs to be.

a process where they get to celebrate and that might mean, you know, a cake and a whatever it might mean a big party, it might whatever depending on the church and and so forth. But and the pastor is going to balk at that and say at least outwardly, maybe inwardly, they actually want the party because they like that. outwardly, no, no, no, we don't want all that. But honestly, the party is more for the people. Right. It's kind like a funeral. It's not for the dead person. It's actually for the people to process the loss.

Doug Bullock (35:06)
Yeah,

Jason Allison (35:07)
And so there's

Doug Bullock (35:07)
yeah.

Jason Allison (35:07)
a little bit of that. We also said they need to plan for counseling for the pastor, like to at least connect him with some kind of coach or counselor that just helps him. Everything you just mentioned, your 10 questions like, hey, what if the church actually stepped up and planned to help the pastor engage those questions in that transition process? I mean, what a blessing that could be.

to a retiring pastor, which I think then would make him even better at being the retired pastor at the church because they're healthy, right? They've processed the stuff. Because usually when a pastor lingers past when he should still be there or he retires and he sticks around and it becomes a burr in the bonnet of everybody, it's because they haven't processed everything you listed in the book. Pastors, please read this. You need to think about these things.

Because you will become a pain in the butt to your church if you don't and we don't want that we want you to run And so, know, those are the couple of things I'm trying to think there was one other one and and another one was to in the same vein as counseling What would it look like if churches planned to help a pastor as he retires? meet with and there are different words they used to describe this but it's kind of like a

Doug Bullock (36:05)
Yep. Yep.

Jason Allison (36:24)
a life coach that helps you figure out the next chapter of your life. Right. And they put together a plan. If they if you start setting aside money now and not that that's that expensive, but I'm saying if you plan for it and you've got this little fund that basically set up to say, hey, as our pastor retires, you know, if we have a pastor who retires from here, we want to be ready to serve him well.

How does that sound in line with what you wrote in the book? How do you see those two things working together? Can they or are they, I don't know, what do you think?

Doug Bullock (36:51)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, think that that if a church begins to think about, OK, what is going to happen with our pastor, that's great. mean, honestly, that's really good. I think that so often the focus is on, hey, this guy's retiring and we are focused completely on the new guy that we're bringing in. And I'm I'm delighted that chemistry staffing is even raising those questions about what about the guy who's leaving? Because I think so often

Jason Allison (37:18)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Bullock (37:23)
in these contexts, they're not raised. Nobody really thinks about that. He's just on his way out. When in reality, the health of that pastor could be really important to the future of the church. And depending on what his plans are, because these things are so situational, depending on what his plans are, they could be extremely important to the future of the church. mean,

Rob Paterson (37:36)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (37:45)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (37:45)
Yeah,

Doug Bullock (37:45)
again,

⁓ one of the things one of the things that I.

Rob Paterson (37:46)
yeah.

Doug Bullock (37:49)
I would recommend is give them all a copy of the book New Dawn, know, give all the elders, let them read. I mean, you know, I'm not making a lot of money off this book, so it's not really about that, but it's about it's about. About them thinking through what what is our pastor experiencing? What will he experience? Where's his head going to be? I think a life coach or a counselor, I think that's great, depending on the role to depending on the role.

Jason Allison (37:53)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (37:54)
Amen. ⁓

Jason Allison (38:06)
Yeah.

Doug Bullock (38:17)
that the pastor had. I mean, I may be crazy

Jason Allison (38:19)
you

Doug Bullock (38:20)
on this, but I think if a pastor started a church and the church is thriving and the pastor gave 30 years to that church, they should continue to invest in some way, or form in the life of that pastor. Again, that may be an but man, you start a company and you spend 30 years building into that company. I would expect at the end of your time, they would continue to build into you.

Rob Paterson (38:30)
That's

Doug Bullock (38:40)
And so to envision some ongoing relationship, I think would be very helpful. But again, those are the issues you need to think through.

Jason Allison (38:50)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (38:51)
Yeah. So Doug, we're kind of running out of time, but I have one last question. I think this because I remember the only time in the last 30 years I wasn't in full-time vocational ministry

Doug Bullock (38:55)
Yeah, yes sir.

Rob Paterson (39:03)
was a six month transition and I sold cars. So I went from preaching every single week to not preaching at all for six months. And then I remember even just after six months, feeling a little rusty. Now didn't take me a whole lot of, know, to get right back into it.

Jason Allison (39:12)
Okay.

Doug Bullock (39:10)
my goodness, yeah.

Rob Paterson (39:19)
but in that same way, somebody who's retiring, do you have just like, you know, a tip or two for somebody who might be heading into that process now and the brother like, but I want to stay sharp. want my tools,

Jason Allison (39:32)
Okay. Okay.

Rob Paterson (39:32)
you know, to be ready to go for whatever door God does open for me next, whatever role maybe he has for me, even kind of in more of retirement capacity. What, what are one or two things that you would say to somebody like that, just to help them stay sharp and ready to go.

Doug Bullock (39:49)
Yeah, no, I mean, think one, depends what they mean by staying

sharp. But I would take it. I want to continue to grow intellectually and spiritually and relationally. And so you have to think through what is it that that provided the growth for that? In other words, what is it that I did that I'm not going to be doing now that provided the growth for me now? For me, a lot of spiritual and intellectual growth for me came out of sermon preparation.

Rob Paterson (40:28)
you

Doug Bullock (40:18)
Well, I've hardly spoken in six years. I have spoken under 10 times. I know some pastors retire and they go do a lot of interim stuff. And I just haven't done any of that.

And I've spoken, yeah, under 10 times. And so for me, the intellectual and spiritual growth that I got from preaching was channeled into writing. And so I started writing a sub stack and then ultimately wrote a book. I went back to school.

to get my doctorate and all of that was done so that I could just continue to stay sharp, continue

Rob Paterson (40:53)
Mm.

Doug Bullock (40:55)
to grow spiritually, relationally, emotionally. And God provided this ministry at this retreat where I we bring in 15 pastors for four days and I just get a lot of time just talking to pastors. So you're right, you have to plan on how is this going to happen?

How am I gonna stay sharp? Absolutely. And it's something you gotta figure out based on your giftedness and your new reality.

Rob Paterson (41:23)
Yeah, that's good.

Jason Allison (41:23)
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we have run out of time, but I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I'm sure we will continue it in various capacities as we keep going. I do want to recommend the book New Dawn. It is Helping Pastors Flourish in Retirement. The link, of course, will be in the show notes so you can get it on Amazon. It's it's

It's just a good primer for people who are looking at retirement to say, here, a bunch of things I need to think about scripturally, you know, as well as just practically. And so I would encourage you to take some time to work through that. And actually, it's not a bad idea to, know, if you're within 10 years of retiring and you think you retire from the church that you're currently at, get a copy of the book for your elder team and let them start processing. Hey, here's the things that we're going to go through.

Rob Paterson (42:04)
. .

Jason Allison (42:11)
help me be ready to do that and help me be ready to lead the church through that. So I think that would be a good thing for them to do.

Doug Bullock (42:21)
You know, I would say too, as a younger pastor, if you have retired pastors in your world and you're like, what do I do with this guy?

Jason Allison (42:26)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Bullock (42:29)
You know, I think that would be a great book to read because because I had no idea how to handle a retired. Now, fortunately or unfortunately, very few showed up at my little location in Syracuse, New York. Maybe it's because of the snow and the sun. I don't know. We get too much snow and no sun. But so it wasn't a place of retirement.

Rob Paterson (42:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (42:41)
.

Doug Bullock (42:47)
But if you're in a location where there are retiring pastors moving in, man, read this and understand what they're going through and talk to them about it, because they could become a real asset if you can understand them.

Jason Allison (42:48)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (42:55)
Mm.

That's right.

Jason Allison (42:59)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, to all of our leaders and pastors who are listening, we appreciate you. We thank you. We take a minute and like and subscribe to the podcast that always helps us leave a review. Those are always things that help the algorithms and everything.

that I have no idea how they work, but apparently that helps. And we always love your feedback and would love to hear from you. reach out to us. Thanks to our guest today, Doug Bullock, and his book, New Dawn. We look forward to talking to you again next week. Have an amazing week.

Rob Paterson (43:18)
Okay.