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What is Lead On Podcast?
Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
Put these principles into practice and Lead On!
Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Orch, the president of Gateway Seminary, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. As you know, I am in the process of transitioning from one job to another. I thought I was in the process of transitioning from one job into retirement, but that was not apparently God's plan for our lives. So we've redirected, and now we're transitioning into a new position.
Jeff Iorg:But all of this raises a very important ministry leadership question, and that is, when is it time to leave a ministry responsibility? You're a pastor, a youth pastor, a professor, a president. When is it time to leave? When do you know that you need to walk away or that it's time to walk away or that you have permission to walk away or, and perhaps this is the most important question, you know god is directing you to walk away. So let's talk about it today on the podcast answering the question, when is it time to leave a ministry leadership responsibility?
Jeff Iorg:Let's approach it first of all from the negative. When is it not time to leave? Well, first of all, don't leave just because the work is hard. Ministry is hard work. And just because it's hard is not an indication that you should necessarily leave.
Jeff Iorg:I remember when I became the executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, the 1st year, I was very intentional at going to as many churches as possible and meeting with as many leaders as possible, particularly pastors, and trying to hear their stories and discover their needs and, get in touch with the ministry challenges across the Northwest. And everywhere I went, I heard a similar refrain. A pastor would say, well, I don't know how it is other places in the Northwest, but here, it's really hard. I heard that over and over and over again. Ministry leaders saying, well, I'm not sure about other places, implying, well, it must not be that bad, where they are, but here, is really hard.
Jeff Iorg:After several months of hearing the same thing over and over again, I was talking with one of our senior leaders on the convention staff, and he said, what are you learning from all these, conversations you're having, all these listening sessions and all these dialogue moments? What are you learning? And I said, I'm learning that ministry is hard. That's the number one theme that's coming back through all of these conversations. Ministry is hard.
Jeff Iorg:So if you're thinking today, well, this is a hard job. My church is very challenging. My mission field is very difficult. My circumstances are particularly, challenging. If your ministry is hard, that is not necessarily an indication that you should leave.
Jeff Iorg:And coming out of that, don't leave if you're discouraged. Don't leave when you are frustrated, out of sorts, down, discouraged. Work through that and make a more more emotionally healthy, more measured decision about whether you should leave or stay. So don't leave when the work is hard and don't leave just because you're discouraged. Here's another time not to leave.
Jeff Iorg:Don't leave just because people around you are in conflict. Conflict is difficult, painful, heart heartrending. When people are in conflict with you or in conflict with each other around you, it can make ministry onerous, difficult, ugly. And you may say, I just want out. I wanna go somewhere without conflict.
Jeff Iorg:That place does not exist, by the way. Ministry involves working with people. People, because of pride and selfishness and ego are going to have conflict. So you're never going to find a place that's absent of conflict. So when not to leave?
Jeff Iorg:Don't leave because the work is hard, you're discouraged, or people around you are in conflict. Here's another one. Don't leave just because someone's offering you more money. Now to be sure, there are times when we have opportunity to leave and take on newer or greater responsibility, and there's more money offered. There's nothing necessarily wrong with taking that extra resource and using it to bless your family and to make you a more generous giver and supporter of other ministry or opportunities.
Jeff Iorg:Nothing at all wrong with that, but don't let that be your reason for leaving. You can't chase the money. As, one person said, you can't chase happy. And just because someone offers you a little more money doesn't necessarily mean that's god directing you to go to another place. And then, it's not always time to leave just because you're being offered a promotion, a bigger church, a bigger opportunity, or something like that.
Jeff Iorg:Now, again, you have to be discerning about this because there are times when you offer someone or when someone offers you an opportunity and it is god's direction to leave where you are and move on to that. But you're doing that because of your because of a desire to fulfill your leadership capacities, a desire to expand your impact and the difference that you're making, not in order to satisfy some ego driven need that you have to make it to to be someone special or to to, draw attention to yourself or to quote make it to the big time in ministry. You wanna avoid all that. So these are negative reasons. These are reasons not to leave.
Jeff Iorg:Don't leave just because the work is hard or you might be discouraged or people are in conflict, and don't leave just for more money or a bigger opportunity. Now, as I've said, in all of these five areas, there might be some motivation to consider the possibility of leaving and you might even leave while some of this is going on around you. You might leave while there's some conflict. You might leave while the work is hard. You might leave when you're discouraged.
Jeff Iorg:You might leave in the context of that, but don't let that be the reason that you're leaving. Same thing with more money and larger position, a promotion. You might get that in the context of leaving one ministry and going to another, but don't let those two things be the reason for you making the change. So we've started on the answer to the question, when is it time to leave by looking at the negative. Now, let's shift and look more positively at try to answering the question.
Jeff Iorg:The key issue in determining whether you should leave a ministry role is asking yourself, why were you placed there in the first place? Why did you get that role originally? What was god accomplishing by placing you in your particular current leadership role? Well, first of all, you were there because God called you. God called.
Jeff Iorg:God gave you as I defined in my book, a profound impression that established parameters for your life, and that can only be changed by a subsequent superseding impression from god. I wrote about that in the book, is god calling me. God calls. He gives you a profound impression that he wants you in a particular role or responsibility. Now I say in my book that god calls through 3 primary means.
Jeff Iorg:He calls through sudden experiences like a burning bush or a Damascus road or even Matthew being called from his tax collection booth, a sudden experience where just in an eye blink, you know, god is calling me. He also calls through a reason process where god gives you a series of opportunities to think through the pros and cons and to reason out what he wants you to do. And then finally, god calls through the prompting of others. God sends people your way to say, I think you ought to consider this role or this responsibility or this position. God's assignment.
Jeff Iorg:This is what I've been living through in recent days. I knew a year ago that my time of being president at Gateway Seminary was coming to an end. I'm gonna talk about that more in just a moment. My wife and I concluded last summer that it was time for us to leave. We were sure of that.
Jeff Iorg:We thought that meant stepping into the shadows, taking a lesser leadership responsibility, moving into more field based missionary support of church that we would join in Portland, Oregon, and caring for our family and doing things in those retirement years that would focus our attention elsewhere. And then god called. On January 23rd, I started receiving phone calls and text messages and emails saying the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, the person that was about to be proposed to take that responsibility has withdrawn from the process, and many of us, as these text messages were saying, would like for you to step forward and take on this role. God was calling me through the prompting of others. And in fact, it became a bit overwhelming because there were literally dozens of people that reached out to me are reached out to the search committee with texts and emails and voicemails saying, please consider stepping forward.
Jeff Iorg:I believe God wants you to take on this role at this time. So I'm leaving not Gateway Seminary because god called me away. I had already determined that it was time to step away from Gateway as I'll talk more in a moment. But god is calling me really to set aside retirement dreams, retirement plans, and a life that we had mapped out for ourselves that included ministry, but family and a much quieter role in the shadows. God called.
Jeff Iorg:And because he's calling, we are moving. It's time to leave our current ministry role and go and do a different role that we're now assigned. So the first answer to the reason you are where you are is god called. 2nd is god placed you there for character development. Now, again, I wrote about this in my book, The Character of Leadership.
Jeff Iorg:God places us in ministry responsibilities in response to his call primarily to shape our character and to remake us into the image of Jesus Christ. This is promised to us in Romans 82829, which says, all things work together for good. What but what are those all things and what is the good? Well, the good, the passage goes on to say, is the conforming of our character to the life of Jesus Christ. And all things is all things, not just tragedies and bad days, but your leadership role falls in that all things category.
Jeff Iorg:All things work together for good, the good of developing your character in Jesus Christ, including the ministry role that you've been assigned. In my book, I say this is the being answer. Why has god called me and placed me in my current leadership role so that he can shape me into the image of Jesus Christ so that I am being conformed to his image, the being answer. This has been a journey for me on this issue over the last few weeks. As I prepared to step away from the seminary, I asked myself on multiple occasions, lord, how will you shape me in retirement to be more like Jesus Christ?
Jeff Iorg:How are you going to use this set of circumstances? And I thought I had that mapped out in my mind. I was going to learn humility. I was going to learn serving in a quiet place. I was going to learn to invest myself in a smaller group of people, particularly my family.
Jeff Iorg:And I was going to develop contentment in doing those things and learn a new way or approach to what it meant to be involved in ministry leadership? And then god said, no. I'm gonna sign you instead to the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. And in doing that, friends, god is testing me and will shape my character in ways I could have never anticipated and quite frankly, find stretching and difficult. God is going to use these circumstances to test my patience, develop my courage, increase my stamina and dependence on him for day to day function, challenge my wisdom, deepen my understanding.
Jeff Iorg:I am moving into a new level of crucible type experience of spiritual growth because of the pressures, the demands, the problems, and the public responsibility this job entails. So I have been at Gateway Seminary because god wanted to use these circumstances to shape me into the image of Jesus Christ. Now he's placing me in a new set of circumstances to continue the character development work in me and to do deeper in me things that I could have ever imagined would have been possible through the previous role that I had or the desires that I had for a future retirement. Character development. So then you have to ask yourself this question when you're thinking about, is it time to leave?
Jeff Iorg:And that question is, has God finished shaping me through these circumstances? Now be honest about that answer. It's too glib to say, oh, well, yes, he has and I'm ready to move on. No. No.
Jeff Iorg:No. No. No. Get more serious about it than that. Get alone with god and bow your head and ask him, god, have you finished shaping me in this responsibility, Or is there more for you to do here in me?
Jeff Iorg:And if there's more to be done, then don't leave too quickly. Stay and continue to live in the circumstances in which you find yourself, letting them be the growing, shaping, character producing circumstances that god wants them to be in your life. When I wrote the character of leadership, I said that after being the executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, I found myself in a very comfortable place. I think I likened it in the book to swimming laps in a warm pool. And then God picked me up out of that warm pool, swimming laps in a very comfortable place and dropped me into San Francisco Bay and said, let's see you swim now, son.
Jeff Iorg:And I started swimming for my life as the new president of Gateway Seminary. Now 20 years later, I would have to say the same thing. The seminary is like swimming in a warm pool. Sure, there's daily challenges, but, frankly, the culture here is strong. The missional focus is, is, riveting.
Jeff Iorg:The people I work with are mature and committed and and capable. The character development that's taken place in my life has been substantial, but quite frankly, it's not that intense these days. I feel like I'm swimming in a warm pool. And then god came along, picked me up, and he's dropping me into a new challenging situation and saying, alright, let's grow a little bit. And so the aspect of my future assignment that's most intriguing to me is not solving the problems that have been thrust upon me or upon upon the executive committee or upon the Southern Baptist Convention.
Jeff Iorg:Solving those problems will be interesting to be sure. But what really intrigues me the most is reflecting on how God is going to work through these next few years to continue to make me into the image of Jesus Christ. And I expect some of that growth is gonna be painful, stretching, enhancing, and enlarging of what I know about myself and about god. But I'm going into this new responsibility knowing that god has called me and that he's placed me for the purpose of shaping character in me and I won't be able to leave that one that I'm now getting assigned until I can honestly say that character shaping work has been complete through those circumstances. And then another reason you are where you are, god's call and his placement for character development.
Jeff Iorg:But 3rd, he's placed you there for mission accomplishment. This is what I called in my book, the doing answer. God wants you to do some things. He wants you to lead your organization or your church to accomplish his mission, and he wants you, yes, you specifically with your talents, your gifts, your perspective, your abilities. He wants you to lead your church organization to accomplish its mission.
Jeff Iorg:And you have to ask yourself, has god finished using me to do that here? So we've looked at some reasons not to leave and now some reasons that were assigned somewhere and why we stay in those assignments. God has called us and as a result of his calling, we're experiencing character development, and then secondarily, we're focused on mission accomplishment. So as you think about leaving your current ministry setting, you have to ask yourself, is god calling me to something else? And is that something else a place where I can have my character shaped in new, fresh, different ways than I can in my current context?
Jeff Iorg:And in my new place where he's calling me to serve, will I have unique gifts, abilities, talents to accomplish the mission in ways I can't do where I'm currently located? If you will keep your focus on God's call, character development, and mission accomplishment in that order, you will make a much better decision about whether you should stay or leave your current ministry setting. Now, let's shift gears and talk about some principles to think through about making the final decision about leaving. Number 1, it may be time to leave, as I've said, when you sense god's character shaping work is complete. Now this requires discernment and a sense of spiritual insight because god's character shaping work is constant.
Jeff Iorg:It's never complete in the sense that it can't be done anymore where you are. When I say complete, what I mean is substantially complete. The the the the main thrust or purposes have been accomplished. Has god finished with the big picture of using your current circumstances where you are to shape you into the image of Jesus Christ? As I said, I felt that way when I left the northwest.
Jeff Iorg:I feel that way when I'm leaving Gateway now. It's not that I couldn't have stayed in the northwest longer or couldn't have stayed at Gateway longer and god continued to do some shaping work through me. But if you can imagine like a bell curve, when I came, there was this huge surge of work that god wanted to do in me and shape me and change me and make me into a different kind of a leader and a man and a Christian. And now that seems to have abated some, which is just not as intense as it used to be. Well, my friends, god is ramping up the intensity for me now because he's placing me in new roles where I'm gonna be once again in the crucible of spiritual growth, not, on the, the lesser side, if you will, of that path or that process like I have been here recently at Gateway.
Jeff Iorg:A second reason that you know that it may be time to leave is when you sense your contribution, your particular contribution to fulfilling god's mission is over. Now as I said earlier, I would comment on my leaving of Gateway more later in the podcast. Well, here's here it is. I I'm leaving because I believe my season of contribution to the mission of the seminary had come to an end. I had been president here for 20 years.
Jeff Iorg:And when I look into the future, I realize I'm not going to be president for 20 more years. That that's just not physically possible. I'm not going to do that. And so as I looked into the future and I thought about the future mission of the seminary, I can see the mission needs to be accomplished, and I have not abated one bit on my commitment to the mission of shaping leaders who expand god's kingdom around the world. I think that is at the core of what god called me to do and align me with this school because that's what we're about.
Jeff Iorg:But the hard reality is the kind of visionary leadership that's needed for the next 2 decades is not going to come from me. We need someone who sees the future and is passionately committed to getting the seminary there, who can move us in ways that we need to move to accomplish things that are dramatic and remarkable and different than we've been doing. Methodological change to accomplish the core commitment to our mission. That's what we need. And some people said, well, doctor George, can't you stay and do that?
Jeff Iorg:And the answer simply is no. I might could stay and do it for another year, maybe another 2. Maybe we can stretch it out to 5 or a few more even than that. But for 20, that's not gonna happen. And the big decisions that need to be made are not decisions for 1 or 2 years, but they're for the next 5 to 10 to 20 years to chart us in the direction of where we need to go.
Jeff Iorg:Do you realize that a faculty member hired this year will likely teach at Gateway for 20 to 25 more years? Do you realize that if we were to do something to remodel or change our building or to purchase more apartments or something like that, that these decisions take 2 to 3 to 5 to 10 years to fully implement? That's what I mean when I say when you sense your contribution to fulfilling god's mission is over. It doesn't mean the mission is over. It doesn't mean that you don't still see some things that could be done going forward, but you have to take a good step back and say, you know what?
Jeff Iorg:My season, my unique contribution, my skill set, my vision, it's come to an end, and I need to let someone else step in and take this church or this organization forward. This requires maturity from leaders. I see too many leaders today that hold on too tightly to what they have and don't think enough about the long term future of the organization or the church they're leading and recognize that they have to make intentional choices to hand leadership over to people who will sustain the mission, but will do it in very different ways because they honestly are willing say, my season of contribution is over and now it's time for somebody else to take this to another level. Another reason to leave that you may consider leaving is when you have lived through some difficulty and it's been resolved, but the scar tissue remains. As I said earlier, you don't leave when it's hard or you're discouraged or people are in conflict.
Jeff Iorg:But when you have had a hard season and it is difficult and there is has been conflict, you work through that. You may get to a point where you say, even though we've resolved these things, I think it's time for me to move on and a fresh leader to come in and take where we are, take us to another level. This means that you don't leave because of the difficulty, the hardship, or the conflict, but you leave once it's been satisfactorily resolved knowing that someone else will come in and build on what you've done. Another reason to leave is when you've grown or developed and you realize that your current position is just a bad fit. It's not who god now has shaped you to be for the long term.
Jeff Iorg:This was part of my reason for leaving the Midwest and moving to Oregon many years ago. I was in a good church, and I had come through after six and a half years there. I had come through to a place of real stability and of commitment and of, ownership, and the people had embraced me and I was the pastor. But I knew that I wasn't going to be there forever because I was not the best fit for that church and for its long term ministry. I knew that my ministry perspectives had changed in in the years that I've been there.
Jeff Iorg:My ministry gifts had been reshaped and refocused. My ministry passions had been, shifted. And that's why I turned my attention to the West Coast, to Portland, Oregon, and then San Francisco, and now Los Angeles. Because even 30 years ago, I knew that for some unique reason that I couldn't fully explain, but I definitely understood, God wanted me on the West Coast doing these kinds of ministries that I've done over these years. When I got here, I felt like I found my people.
Jeff Iorg:My wife and I arrived in Oregon, and we had only lived there for just a couple of 3 weeks. We left our house, drove down our street, little cul de sac, stopped at the stop sign, and I remember turning to her and saying, I feel like I've lived here all my life. And my wife looked at me and said, yeah. We found home. We'd only been there a few weeks, and we found our people.
Jeff Iorg:And I know this sounds strange to people who live in Texas where we came from or the Midwest where we were ministering before, people who love those regions of the country and have lived there all their lives. People sometimes look at us and say, how could you stand it out on the West Coast? And we just smile because it's the greatest place we've ever lived. Why is that? Because we found our fit.
Jeff Iorg:We found our people. We found where we were supposed to invest our lives. So when do you know it's time to leave? Well, first, you resolve the issue of call and character development and mission accomplishment. That's at the core.
Jeff Iorg:And then in the context of deciding about those issues, you may need to leave if god's character shaping work is substantially complete where you are. You may need to leave when you sense your contribution to the mission, your unique way of leading to fulfill the mission, which was right for a season, has come to an end, and now it's a new season for a new leader to take the church organization forward. You may need to leave when you've solved some conflicts, but the scar tissue remains and it's best if everyone has an opportunity for a fresh start. You may need to leave if you've grown and changed and your current position is just a bad fit. And for reasons that maybe many fold, you're a different person than you were when you got to where you are, and now it's time for you to be somewhere else.
Jeff Iorg:And then the last thing I would say is this, if you're considering a major change like this, the most important people in your life are your spouse, your children, and your closest mentors who care the deep the deepest about you. Listen to them for that confirmation that you need about this kind of decision. I don't trust myself sometimes on big decisions. I wanna listen to wise people around me. So when it came time to make the final decision about my current change, first went to my wife and then to my 3 children.
Jeff Iorg:And all 4 of them said the same thing. You have to do this. This is God calling. We'll all adjust as needed, but you need to be sure you follow the Lord. That kind of confirmation from the people closest to you can be the final step in helping you to know it's time to leave.
Jeff Iorg:I hope you stay where you are a long time because longevity in ministry is one of the keys to effectiveness. But let's be honest. No one stays anywhere forever. And most of us change ministries a few times over a lifetime. So think about what I've said today as you're contemplating, is it time to leave?
Jeff Iorg:Don't make a premature decision you'll regret. But if it is time to leave, have the courage to follow the Lord forward as you lead on.