Orval Butcher founded and pastored Skyline Wesleyan Church in Lemon Grove, California, for twenty-seven years before retiring last year. He had previously served small churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
At Lemon Grove he struggled through lean years, building programs, and tests of faith as God established his ministry there. Eventually the church ministered to 2,300 people annually.
In the following paragraphs Orval tells of his retirement and preparation for a new minister.
It was a hilarious evening. My associate pastor of thirteen years was on the platform with me. We were surrounded with charter members who had shared in the beginning of the church twenty-seven years ago. The 1,000-seat sanctuary overflowed with people who had been promised a happy celebration rather than a tearful farewell ceremony. They weren’t disappointed.
The emcee probed for stories from the past, and one set the tone of hilarity. At the beginning of the church, when the luxury of a custodian was beyond our financial reach, I had assigned myself the task of lighting the wall furnaces in the Sunday school building. One Sunday morning I was making the rounds. I worked my way from room to room in the semi-darkness, lighting one heater after another. In one room I saw a cloth intertwined in the heater grill, so I took hold of it and gave a pull. It was the cold, wiggling end of a live snake. By the time I picked myself up from the floor, it had crawled into the partition. Later that morning, however, it appeared again as forty frantic children climbed on their chairs and tables and watched it slither across the floor. Luckily, it was just a harmless garden snake and was soon released in a nearby field. Yes, it was a night of hilarious stories! But much more, it was our farewell service. Through the process of retiring from Skyline Wesleyan Church, I learned several things about how to leave a church. I’d like to pass them along to you.
Don’t try to pick a successor
As soon as my resignation was made official, I removed myself totally from the picture. Not once did I offer suggestions or recommendations to the search committee or any member of the church as to who the new pastor should be. It was my conviction that they had been trained well and were people of spiritual stature who would seek God for wisdom in choosing the right person.
So none of the pastoral candidates was in any way screened by me, and that’s the way I wanted it. I could have doubted the church’s competence; I could have made myself conspicuous, thereby encouraging people to ask for my two cents; I could have second-guessed each choice and decision. But that would have meant second-guessing what God had done in using me to build a responsible body of believers, who possessed the wisdom and spiritual insight to take care of this matter without my help. Staying inconspicuous, I trusted the Lord to provide guidance, and when the new pastor was chosen, I felt in my heart that the church had chosen the right man.
Leave good records
My last six months were filled with the tedious work of seeing to it that all church records and historical information were left in satisfactory form before the new pastor arrived. My wife and the secretary who had worked with me for twenty-seven years shared this task.
Early in my ministry, I served at a church that kept very sketchy records. When I needed information concerning past policies or historical aspects of the church, I was left empty-handed, without valuable information on which to base new decisions. Realizing the importance of updating records, I concentrated on eight areas:
1. The large book of records was brought up to date indicating all members received, withdrawn, dismissed, or deceased. In most churches, this is a big job and requires much time and effort to accomplish. My secretary spent two months on this task alone.
2. Weddings, baby dedications, and baptisms were likewise recorded.
3. We checked all information for accuracy. We did this primarily through phone calls, and it did not require a great deal of time.
4. We filed in metal boxes about five thousand slides and many black-and-white photos of historical value.
5. We had twenty-seven years of Sunday bulletins and weekly mailers bound.
6. Cards bearing current information on the membership were updated.
7. A compilation of board actions spanning the years was gathered to avoid duplicating actions and decisions in the future. This is another time-consuming activity. We were fortunate to have a retired military man in the church who had plenty of clerical and administrative experience. He worked several months, scrutinizing the minutes of past board meetings. We would have had trouble without his diligent help; this is a job for an able volunteer who has time on his or her hands.
8. And, finally, we prepared a folder containing detailed job descriptions for all paid staff members.
All of this was placed in the hands of the new pastor, and the church board was informed of the existence of this material. In my opinion, one of the most important responsibilities a pastor has as he leaves a church is to have complete and neatly prepared records. He owes this to himself and to the congregation.
Prepare the congregation for the new pastor
Another task I felt responsible to perform during my final months was to help the church through the change of pastors. The final candidate, unanimously recommended by the board from a list of fourteen possibilities, was requested to speak for the Sunday services two weeks previous to the voting. And once the vote was taken, I felt it was my duty to support him, thus affirming the people’s choice.
I diligently prepared three supportive messages. I called the first one “Choice, A Sacred Trust,” which focused on the seriousness of calling a pastor and the need to seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The next two weeks I preached on the theme of “Transferring a Treasure,” taken from the first seventeen verses of Hebrews 13. The second message was an exhortation to love the brethren, show hospitality, honor marriage, stay free from the love of money, keep aware of false doctrine, offer praise continually, and obey your leaders. The last point exhorted the church to follow its new pastor.
The final message was built on the benediction found in Hebrews 13:20-21 (NASB):
Now the God of peace, who brought up from
the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep
through the blood of the eternal covenant, even
Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing
to do His will, working in us that which is
pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to
whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
It was a tender time as I interspersed favorite songs within the message. Emotions ran deep, but humor was also evident. A Sunday school teacher, who had taught first graders since the opening of the church, said to me later, “Pastor, you have laid out so much red carpet so deep that the new pastor is going to fall flat on his face when he tries to walk through it.”
But laying out a lot of red carpet for the new minister is a necessity if the resigning pastor cares about what happens to his former church. I took every opportunity at my disposal to tell church members, individually and corporately, that they had made the right choice. This man was of high character, I reminded them. “He’ll be a strong leader.” “You’ll grow to love and respect him.” “God will use his gift of preaching to speak to you.”
You see, the resigning pastor has three choices:
(1) He can openly and lovingly support the incoming pastor. (2) He can openly oppose him. (3) He can remain neutral. But by remaining neutral—simply staying silent when you should be voicing your support—you’re functioning as an opposing force, and the result can only be negative. I know of a church in the East that, by the good graces of an incoming pastor, offered the retiring pastor an office on the church premises. This retired pastor second-guesses decisions, thereby casting a negative shadow on the new man. The new pastor is doing the best he can to establish himself, and he’s gradually succeeding; however, the retired pastor could have made things a lot easier if he’d openly supported the new man.
Lovingly sever relationships
Mechanical preparations for a pastoral transition are sufficiently difficult to deal with, but severing the bonds of love that have developed over the years is even harder. To observe people avoiding you because they don’t want to break down and cry; or to pick up the phone and immediately hear sobs and a faltering voice say, “I’ll have to call you back when I’m more composed”; or to receive a hurriedly written letter from a young missionary saying, “1 don’t know what we’ll do; you’re the only pastor we’ve ever had”—these things wrench the very heart and soul of the pastor.
However, there is a pain that is even worse: breaking up a pastoral team that has loyally supported you as you’ve struggled together to meet the challenge of ministry. Furthermore, your decision to resign automatically removes their security, because the new pastor will be choosing his own staff, and they may be excluded.
I remember thinking time after time about the incredibly far-reaching implications of my decision to resign:
• Staff members would have to find new jobs.
• They would have to sell their homes.
• They might have to leave the ideal San Diego climate.
• Their children would have to be plucked out of their schools.
• Friends would be left behind.
I had a meeting with my staff before I made my resignation official, but try as I did to rationalize my decision, their love and faithfulness loomed like a mountain before me and I wept openly before them. They were understanding and sympathetic.
I made a constant effort to keep each of them informed. My wife and I took them out individually for dinner; in our weekly staff meeting, I encouraged them to ask questions and told them about my plans.
After the pastoral change occurred, I worked hard to help those who were eliminated from the staff to find new positions. This required a lot of time in long-distance phone calls, personally consulting with prospective employers for each person. Furthermore, I saw to it that farewell receptions were held for each staff member with love gifts from the church included.
I sent letters to the congregation, reminding them that these staff members were responsible not only for the church’s growth and influence in the community but also for the spiritual growth of many in the church. I was not shy in pointing out that these people needed and welcomed financial help as they made the transition to new jobs. One by one, the staff did find new places of ministry, and each left the church feeling positive about their years of ministry at Skyline Wesleyan Church. I was thankful to God.
When the day of farewell arrived, we couldn’t believe our eyes as hundreds of people at the reception were wearing large lapel buttons with my picture and the inscription “We love you, Pastor Butcher.”
The fellowship hall was beautifully decorated. Citations from city leaders, church organizations, and state officials were extended to us. Speeches of appreciation were given. It was more than we could absorb.
At the conclusion of the reception, the congregation gathered in the sanctuary while we said thanks and did a bit of reminiscing. I promised a time of no tears with stories and songs. Everyone was ready for joy. Then the sweet strains of “We Are One in the Bond of Love” filled the air as hundreds of devoted people honored the Lord on that summer evening. The transfer of a treasure was complete.
