The Succession Conversation Nobody's Having (Part 1): Why We Avoid the Elephant in the Room

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades tackles the often avoided topic of succession planning for senior pastors. He discusses why many church leaders resist having this crucial conversation, the anxiety it causes within church leadership, and the importance of proactive succession planning to ensure the church's future. Rhoades encourages pastors and board chairs to begin openly discussing timeline considerations to avoid leadership void situations that can destabilize the organization.• Succession planning is often avoided by senior pastors and church boards, creating anxiety and risk.• Discussing succession isn't about leaving; it's about considering the church's future and loving it enough to plan ahead.• Avoidance of this conversation can be due to the 'control paradox' and feelings of dispensability.• Healthy succession involves beginning the conversation early to facilitate a smooth transition.• Both pastors and board chairs should have honest discussions about future timelines and transitions.

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Transcript

Why Silence Breeds Anxiety

Identity, Control, And Letting Go

Boards, Gratitude Traps, And Stalemates

A Reality Check On Succession

The Cost Of Avoidance For Staff

The Weekly Challenge: Start The Talk

Next Steps And How To Get Help

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You're 55 years old, you've been a senior pastor for 12 years, your board chair just turned 62, and everybody knows this conversation needs to happen, but somehow every time it almost comes up, someone changes the subject. You know, the success and planning discussion that never ever quite happens. Sound familiar? Well, we're gonna talk about it today and this week, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at Chemistry Staffing.com, and I'm your host right here every day, every weekday anyway, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Well, we act like succession planning is bad luck. Like talking about it makes it happen faster, as if ignoring it keeps you young and irreplaceable. But here's here's what actually is happening. The silence is creating anxiety for everybody. And that anxiety is making some very smart people act sometimes very foolishly. Why in the world do senior pastors avoid having this conversation? Who are you, if not the senior pastor? I mean, you've built the whole sense of calling around this role. And talking succession feels like planning your own funeral in a lot of ways. Even thinking about training somebody to be a replacement feels like you're admitting that you're somehow dispensable. This is what I call the control paradox. I mean, really, you want to shape your legacy, but succession planning requires you to start letting go of some of that control. And letting go feels like losing before you're ready. Now, listen, wanting to finish strong isn't selfish at all. You're not in the flesh when you think that way. But avoiding the conversation is not gonna protect anyone. And a lot of times your board will go silent as well. I mean, you you kind of fall into that gratitude trap. I mean, you've given you've been a good pastor, and your board doesn't want to seem ungrateful by, you know, planning your exit. So so they wait for you to bring it up first. And meanwhile, you know, yeah, you're not gonna bring it up. You're kind of waiting for them to bring it up. So it it's you know, it's the proverbial conflict avoidance. I mean, nobody wants to be the person to suggest that the pastor start thinking about leaving. I mean, it feels disloyal, it feels like you're starting a f uh fight, like you're picking a scab. So no one, so everybody just stays quiet and hopes that someday, someday, someone will go first. Well, I'm here today, and maybe I'll maybe I'll pick a few scabs today too. I don't know, but I want to give you a a reality check when it comes to succession. And I will say that, you know, I worked at Leadership Network 10 or 15 years ago when we started to have this conversation because people, aging pastors would reach out to us, you know, they were aging at the time, and you know, they would say, you know, privately, you know, I need to start thinking about what's going to happen when I when I'm not here anymore. But if we were to have any kind of it was all a very private conversation. Nobody, nobody was talking about succession. Nobody even mentioned the word, nobody even really knew what it meant. And now at least a lot of people are talking about it, but not a lot of people are doing it yet. So there's a little bit of progression here, but the reality check is that healthy succession planning isn't, it's not about leaving. It's about loving your church enough to think beyond yourself. So if nothing else should get out of today's podcast, think about it in those terms. Healthy succession planning is not about leaving, it's about loving your church enough to think beyond yourself. Every great pastor eventually stops being a pastor, every single one of them. And the question isn't if it's whether you plan well or you just let it happen. And you know what? Your staff's watching this dynamic as well. They're they're learning that hard conversations get avoided here if you're not having those conversations. They're wondering if leadership development is actually being valued at your church or if it's just something you say, you know, in the vision statements. So here's the bottom line. When we're talking about succession, succession silence is not protecting everyone. Succession silence is not protecting anyone. Matter of fact, succession silence is putting everybody at risk. So here's the challenge for you this week. And I think this is true for anyone, right? And not I'm 62, so it's not just people in their 60s, it's not just for people in their 50s, it can be for people in their 40s. I want you to have an honest conversation about timeline, about what's going to happen in your church, no matter what your age is, no matter what your life stage is, what's going to happen in your church when you transition off of the role that you are in. Not the whole succession plan. I'm not, I'm not asking you to write the whole thing down yet. Okay? I'm saying just just have one honest conversation about timeline. And maybe, maybe before you have that conversation, you need to actually kind of think about it yourself. But you need to start acknowledging out loud that this conversation has to happen. Sooner or later, it has to happen. You don't want to wait too late. It's not going to be good for you. It's not going to be good for your board or for your church. You know, if you're a senior pastor, ask your board chair when they think you should start planning. If you're a board chair, ask your pastor what his timeline looks like. Hopefully you have a good enough relationship that you can have a conversation like that without it feeling like a threatening conversation. The goal here is not to solve it. Don't want you to try and solve it. I just want you to start to break the silence. The churches, we work with a lot of them in our work at chemistry staffing, that the churches that do succession well start talking about it early. And this next week, we're going to talk about how to actually have that first conversation. So I hope you'll join me. We're going to be talking about succession all this week, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks for listening. Share this with a leader who needs it. Share it with your board chair. Maybe this is one of the ways that you can start to have this conversation. And we're going to continue and pick this up again tomorrow. If there's any way that I can help you, we do succession conversations quite often in our work at Chemistry Staffing. You can reach out to me. Just head over to my new website. It's todd.church. Todd.church. There's a little area there where you can send me a message. Just say, hey, Todd, I'd love to have a conversation with you about how to start this conversation conversation on succession, and I'll be glad to reach out to you and see what I can do to help you and your church. All right, that's it for today. Hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.