Leaving Well

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses how to "leave well" when God calls you to a new ministry assignment. He unpacks why finishing faithfully matters, how to craft an intentional transition plan, and ways to communicate clearly with leaders, staff, and your congregation, helping your current ministry thrive long after you’re gone.

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Host

Jeff Iorg

President, SBC Executive Committee

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Jeff Iorg: 00:55

Welcome to the Lead On podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing this dialogue about practical issues related to ministry leadership. If you're new to the podcast, that's what we do on this podcast. We talk about the daily grind, the ins and outs, the ups and downs of ministry leadership in churches and ministry organizations. Today, I wanna talk about leaving well.

Jeff Iorg: 01:23

Now, if you're like me, every time you've taken a new ministry position, you've thought it was the last position you would ever take in your life. My dream when I was 21 years old to be was to become a pastor and stay with one church for forty years. I rebooted that dream when I planted the church in Portland, Oregon and thought I would be there for at least thirty years, but neither of those turned out

Jeff Iorg: 01:52

to be God's plan. Each time though that I've changed roles, I've thought this will be my final job. And most people in ministry leadership feel that way.

Jeff Iorg: 02:04

We're pursuing a calling. We're not building a career. We're we accept God's assignments and we plant ourselves passionately and permanently. We aren't looking for perpetual greener pastures. We're we're more focused on watering and fertilizing the pasture we have.

Jeff Iorg: 02:24

Yet,

Jeff Iorg: 02:26

most leaders will change leadership roles sometime during a lifetime of service. We grow spiritually. We change professionally. We experience personal upheaval or turmoil. Ministry contexts change, ministry organizations change.

Jeff Iorg: 02:51

And for all of these reasons, God

Jeff Iorg: 02:55

has a way of moving us along at just the right moment. This podcast is about leaving well, and it assumes something. It assumes that you have made a God directed, healthy, positive decision to leave, and it's the right decision at the right time. Now this podcast is not about making that decision. It's not going through a forced termination.

Jeff Iorg: 03:26

It's not leaving a ministry for the wrong reasons. It's not about what happens when you leave without God's clear direction. It's not about going from one thing to another to satisfy your ego or get a bigger job or make a more make more salary. Some of those could be covered in other podcasts, and I have covered some of those in other places. No.

Jeff Iorg: 03:47

Today's podcast is about leaving well. When you've made the right decision at the right time for the right reason, and it's time to move on. It's so vital that you see this part of your leadership responsibility as a continuation of what you've done up until that moment in your present setting and that you see leaving well as a contribution to the ongoing and future health of the church organization you're leaving. I once had a friend, a mentor, who who had known many men in ministry over the years who had moved from one role to another. And my friend said about a particular leader that we both admired.

Jeff Iorg: 04:35

He said, one of

Jeff Iorg: 04:37

the things I most admire about him is he has a great after I left story in his former church. His leaving was a blessing to two churches, the one he left and the one he now leads.

Jeff Iorg: 04:54

So having a good after I left story was a new concept to me. So I started thinking about it then and working on what would it mean when I or if I ever leave a ministry setting to have the same thing said about me, that I would have a good after I left story. Now over the years, I watched some leaders leave well and others not so well. And I've tried to discern some common practices among those who left well compared to those who didn't. So let's, today, focus on some principles and practices

Jeff Iorg: 05:34

so that you can have a good after you left story. Because it's likely, it's likely, sooner

Jeff Iorg: 05:41

or later,

Jeff Iorg: 05:42

you are going to intentionally leave a ministry setting at the right time, for the right reasons, when it's the right decision. How do you do that well? Well, number one,

Jeff Iorg: 05:56

write an intentional transition plan. You know, once you decide to leave, it's more than submitting a letter of resignation or making an announcement and walking out the door. This kind of abrupt exit without a transition plan for you and your organization is frankly leadership irresponsibility. If you can depart without a plan for managing your absence and the transition to the next leader, maybe you weren't that necessary in the first

Jeff Iorg: 06:25

place. Your departure doesn't have the potential for some disruption, and what have you been doing? So the departure of an effective leader mandates

Jeff Iorg: 06:39

a thorough plan. And your plan should facilitate not only the process of your departure, but also steps for moving the organization forward while it searches for a new leader. So here are some things that could be included in this plan. First thing is a communication plan to inform the appropriate people in the appropriate sequence of your plan to leave, and I'm gonna talk more about that in just a minute. Second, a teaching plan.

Jeff Iorg: 07:10

You likely have a speaking or a preaching or a writing responsibility attached to your current role, especially if you're a pastor or some kind of church staff leader. So a teaching plan addresses the appropriate issues like trusting God through change, working through the grief process, not fearing the unknown, or other subjects related to the transition that you can teach and preach and write from a biblical point of view to help strengthen people spiritually and make this transition a discipleship moment for many people. Third thing to include in your intentional plan is a succession plan to assign your job responsibilities to people who will cover them after you're gone. I know that when we moved from our most recent ministry assignment into the one we have now, that my wife was at the time, the preschool ministry director for a church plant. And because at the time, we thought moving toward retirement, we had several months of time that we could anticipate this transition.

Jeff Iorg: 08:14

And so my wife developed a succession plan to recruit someone, train them, turn the responsibility over to them, and help them understand how to carry on after she was gone. A succession plan to assign your job responsibilities to people who will cover them when you're no longer there to do it. Another part of this, depending on the role, but particularly for pastors, is a selection plan to initiate the process of searching for the person who will replace you. Now it's very important for you to understand that you do not choose your successor, but you do have a responsibility to put into place a legitimate selection plan that will lead to the new person being being chosen. For example, when I was leaving Gateway Seminary, I very intentionally, wrote a selection plan of how the school would go about selecting the next president.

Jeff Iorg: 09:10

Now some of this was prescribed in the bylaws. Other parts of it were not, were left at the discretion of the board of trustees. And so I wrote the plan, taking into consideration the requirements of the bylaws, and then presented to the board, here are some things you will have to choose. You have discretion in these matters. And then once they had done that, that would set the course for how the selection would unfold.

Jeff Iorg: 09:32

Now hear me clearly. I did not select my successor. I did not plan the selection in order to conclude with a certain person, but I did plan the selection process to involve what needed to be done for the organization to get there in a healthy way. And then finally, the last part of a good transition plan is a timetable that includes dates for things like communication to be released or speeches or sermons to be delivered or persons to be trained to assume duties or, the dates that responsibilities will be transferred, the dates that there will be checkpoints in the search for

Jeff Iorg: 10:10

the replacement, these kinds of things. So, again,

Jeff Iorg: 10:14

these five things are a part of an intentional transition plan, a communication plan, a teaching plan, a succession plan, a selection plan, and a timetable that includes, all of these things I've mentioned and when are they going to occur or at least the sequence for when they're going to happen. Now when you're writing this kind of transition plan, you take into account, like I said, church or organizational policies like governance practices, bylaws, constitution, things like that. Part of this plan, you're gonna develop yourself. Part of it, you won't be able to develop until you involve your key leaders and make them aware of the fact that you are leaving. Some of this, as I said, plan like this.

Jeff Iorg: 10:55

Some of it is spelled out typically in bylaws or policy manuals, but a lot of it won't be. And it'll be at the discretion of the leaders. And it's your responsibility as the outgoing leader not to prescribe for them what has to be done, but to lay out for them their options and help them understand the the issues at hand and help them to think through what they need to decide in making this final plan. Now this plan is a framework for making decisions. It doesn't answer all the questions, but rather identifies those questions and lays out the path to the answer.

Jeff Iorg: 11:28

For example, a poor example of a transition plan for a departing pastor would be something like this. After October 1, reverend Smith will assume the preaching duties while the church searches for a

Jeff Iorg: 11:38

new pastor. Well, that's really not for you to decide.

Jeff Iorg: 11:42

So a better statement in your plan would be something like this. By October 1, the deacons will identify and select a person to assume the preaching duties for the church. This is what I mean by intentionality, not going beyond your own responsibility, laying out for the church who will be making the decisions and the timetable on which it will be done, and then helping them to start implementing that kind of plan. This is the kind of of intentionality yet with flexibility that I'm advocating. Now another underlying assumption of making a plan like this is that you will continue to do your job to the end of your tenure, not just to the day you decide to leave.

Jeff Iorg: 12:26

You know, some leaders decide to leave and they pour all their energy into preparing for the next assignment, and this is a temptation that must be resisted. One laywoman actually said to me once, when when a leader leaves our church, too often it's like a school kid who starts summer vacation two weeks before the term ends. So while focusing on your future is enticing, the people you're currently leading are still depending on you. And since you're leaving in the right way, for the right reasons at the right time, you still have a responsibility to the people that you're currently leading, and your final responsibility is to lead them to have the best transition possible. Now when I'm helping organizations to do this practically, one of the questions they usually ask is, how long should a transition be?

Jeff Iorg: 13:21

Now the plan should cover the scope of the transition, meaning the time of the resignation and the time that you'll still be there. But then also, it it moves into some time even after that so that they understand the transition plan may cover months while you may only be there for a relatively short part of that transition at the beginning. And I'm often asked, well, how long should that portion of the transition be? And the answer is it varies. The length of a transition a person is making is determined by the unique needs of the situation.

Jeff Iorg: 13:54

Generally, though, once you announce you're leaving, you need to leave sooner rather than later. That means in a few weeks, not in a few months. Now, again, there are exceptions to this. If you're leaving, for example, to go under appointment by an international missions agency, and they're telling you that you can't go until your visa's approved, until your documents are in hand, but when then when that happens, you'll need to be ready to go relatively quickly. You may need to tell the place you're leaving and have a several month long transition that has some open endedness to it.

Jeff Iorg: 14:28

But other situations might call for much shorter time of transition. And a good transition plan not only outlines the events that will take place while you're there, but the events that will take place after you leave. That includes processes by which new leaders will be selected, put into place, and how they'll be celebrated, and how the organization will make those early steps of following their new leader. So the first step in leaving well is to make a written, clear transition plan that everyone can understand is the framework or the guideline that will take you into the future. Second thing I would say about a good transition plan is overcommunicate about everything.

Jeff Iorg: 15:16

You know, when you announce you're leaving a ministry setting, it creates a good deal of chaos and turmoil. And I don't mean that in terms of negative conflict. I just mean the emotional upheaval of broken relationships and and bringing things to a conclusion in those ways and the emotional, just sensitivities of people and the grief that people are feeling, all of that. So when that's happening, people don't tend to receive information clearly or remember it well. So sometimes it's important to overcommunicate in these contexts so that you can make sure that your message really gets through.

Jeff Iorg: 15:54

So in developing this kind of overcommunication plan, here are some important steps or some important groups to keep in mind. The first step in a communication plan during a transition is with the key leaders in your organization, like the chairman of the board or the chairman of your leadership leadership team, like your elders or deacons or however your church is structured. If it's just to an employee, a supervisor, then that would be the person we're talking about right now. But the first step in a good transition communication plan is to make sure the key leader or leaders in your organization are the first to know that something is going to happen. Why is this so important?

Jeff Iorg: 16:32

Because you wanna honor those leaders by not letting them be surprised, And, also, you want to assist those leaders by helping them to process the loss themselves emotionally before they have to do it publicly with other people. And you wanna give them a head start on answering some of the questions that people are going to ask them so that when people do ask them questions about the transition, they already have some answers in place. So start with key leader, leadership team, or leadership personnel. Second key group to inform is the personnel that you work with that might be involved in this decision. This can be your coworkers, your colleagues, your staff, people that are gonna be impacted by your leaving.

Jeff Iorg: 17:14

First, I think you inform the people that are in governance over you, and second, you inform the people who are in ministry or who are working with you. A third step then is to inform key friends or trusted colleagues. You know, there are always a few people that you want to tell personally about your coming transition. You want your close friends, your family members, people like that to know. But, obviously, once you start telling these groups, you've told your leadership group, you've told your personnel group, now you're telling your friends and colleagues group, something else needs to happen fairly quickly because once all of these people start knowing, you you know how how information spreads, it's gonna become well known very quickly.

Jeff Iorg: 17:51

And so that leads us to the fourth group. And that is you need to tell your church or your organization by communicating personally and simultaneously with as many people as possible. Now this might involve, an announcement in a public worship service if your church only has one service, but it might also in instead involve written communication if you're dealing with a situation where you have a church with multiple services or even multiple campuses, or you have an organization like I work in where the the people that I'm working with, I only see a couple of times a year. And there's only one way to really communicate with them, and that's communicate electronically. You get the idea.

Jeff Iorg: 18:31

Now when you're communicating with these groups, these four levels or layers of groups, the the communication among them is gonna flow fairly quickly. You're gonna communicate with your key leaders and supervisors, your key personnel and colleagues, your key family members and friends, and then the whole world, if you will. And you'll do that sequentially, but sometimes just one, two, three, four days in a row to get this done. Sometimes spread out over a little more time, but usually not much more time, and it will move along fairly quickly once you start talking to these groups. Now when you're doing this, it's very important that you develop a statement that explains what's happening and why, a general outline of the timetable and the adopted plan that you've already that I've already mentioned here on the podcast, and that you make sure that whether you submit this information electronically or by video or in person or in multiple media that the same message, including sometimes the same verbiage, is communicated in all these venues.

Jeff Iorg: 19:33

And when you're doing this, let me just encourage you as a point

Jeff Iorg: 19:36

of integrity. Be honest about your reasons for leaving. Avoid cliches.

Jeff Iorg: 19:42

People already know the Lord is leading me. And they're a little dubious when someone says, you know, I really don't

Jeff Iorg: 19:49

wanna go, but I must. Yeah. Be honest. You know, if

Jeff Iorg: 19:53

you're going to a larger leadership opportunity, just say so. If you've changed and no longer really fit where you are, say you're going to a place where you you feel your gifts will be more better suited.

Jeff Iorg: 20:06

If you're moving to care for aging parents or improve the health of your spouse, don't be afraid to say so. I am thinking about a pastor right now who, after several years of effective ministry, said to his congregation, we are moving. And it's primarily because we have

Jeff Iorg: 20:26

a very significant need to be closer to my wife's family so that she can care for her aging mother and father.

Jeff Iorg: 20:34

I appreciated his frankness and his honesty and the modeling of caring for his wife and prioritizing her family. Look. The truth will come out eventually, so go ahead and

Jeff Iorg: 20:46

make it a part of your communication. Be discreet and, about personal reasons or family reasons. You don't wanna embarrass anyone or put anyone else on the spot or disclose confidential information, but most of the time, these are really not the issues. The issues are usually much more public and much better known, and I'm just advocating that you be truthful in preparing your communication in these moments. And then also, this is not the time for any negative attacks or derogatory comments or any any get even remarks about your present ministry setting.

Jeff Iorg: 21:21

Look. Your your final communications are not the final salvo to set the record straight or get even with your critics or say something you just need

Jeff Iorg: 21:30

to get off your chest. You know, that's really not the place. There may

Jeff Iorg: 21:34

be some tension or frustration or disappointment, and that may be underlying what's happening in your life while you're making this decision. It's not the driving force, though. Don't let it become that in your communication. There is time to resolve these kinds of issues. You can do that in one on one conversations and small group relationships, but in some kind of broad based communication, that's not the place.

Jeff Iorg: 22:00

And then a third part of leaving well is defining your future relationship to your now former organization. You know, most people where you currently serve because you're leaving well, you're leaving at the right time, you're leaving in the right way, they love you and they'll miss you. And you'll have a temptation to wanna cling to that and hold on to that relationship.

Jeff Iorg: 22:25

But the hard reality is that assumption is both impractical and unhealthy.

Jeff Iorg: 22:31

Part of leaving well is defining the nature of your future relationship to your former ministry setting or organization or context or church.

Jeff Iorg: 22:39

It sometimes is sticky, but it's very important that you do this in a very healthy way. I'll give

Jeff Iorg: 22:46

you two examples. When I left the church I planted in

Jeff Iorg: 22:49

Oregon, I remained in the same community when I went to work for

Jeff Iorg: 22:54

the Northwest Baptist Convention. My wife and children and I remained in the same home, and my family wanted to remain in the church we had planted and that we so deeply loved. I knew, however, that as the founding pastor, I needed to move on. And so I told the church that I was going to leave for one year. And after a year, at the discretion of the new pastor, we would decide if I was going to be allowed to return or if our family would need to move on to another congregation.

Jeff Iorg: 23:24

When the new pastor came, I told him very clearly, I'm here to serve you and to serve the needs of the mission of God as it's expressed in our church. If it's best for us to move on, all you need to do is say so. No controversy, no conflict, no vote. We'll just quietly move on. And he was a man of security and confidence and humility, and he said to me, why would anyone want that to happen?

Jeff Iorg: 23:51

Of course, you're staying. Well, I laughingly told him, we'll see because I know how difficult I can be, and and I knew the challenges of having the former pastor in the community, but we did make it work. In fact, he stayed for more than twenty years as our pastor. And, ultimately, I was able to serve him and the church in some meaningful ways, especially in leading building programs and other behind the scenes work for the pastor during those years. I faced this again when I left the San Francisco Giants as their chaplain.

Jeff Iorg: 24:22

I'd served there for ten years. And quite frankly, one of the problems in the baseball chapel ministry is former chaplains wanting to hold on to the relationships they've had with players. I mean, it's kind of a cool thing to be able to say that you know some major league players and you can hang around the ballpark and see them. And so when you resign as chaplain, frankly, the the ministry actually sits down with you and says, now you understand you're leaving, you're moving on, and these relationships need to end. And they were very specific with me.

Jeff Iorg: 24:54

They said, if players reach out to you, of course, be kind and reach out or or reach back to them. If they text you or call you, help them as you can. Just make sure you're not making any of those phone calls because the new chaplain needs to establish new

Jeff Iorg: 25:09

relationships. Well, that turned out to be hard for me. I loved that work. I'd invested ten years in those relationships, and yet I knew that that counsel was wise and I need to move on, so I did.

Jeff Iorg: 25:27

Only two players reached out to me and continued relationship with me by asking me for prayer or counselor insight along the way. And I maintain those relationships without compromising the work of

Jeff Iorg: 25:39

the new chaplain. When it's time

Jeff Iorg: 25:42

to move, it's time to move on. And that means you have to define the relationship to your former role and make sure you don't violate that definition. Sometimes that's simple things like, for example, not returning to your former church for weddings and funerals and other activities. I made that commitment to the pastor after I had resigned from the church I planted. And I told him, if I'm ever invited back for any of these things, I'll only do it with your permission and perhaps coming to assist you in those roles.

Jeff Iorg: 26:12

And it really wasn't a major issue because he was so beloved by the church very shortly after he came. But about ten years into his pastorate, a member of our church there passed away, and I received a call. Would I come back to be a part of the funeral service? And I said, well, let me check with your pastor. I called him and said, I've been asked to do this.

Jeff Iorg: 26:33

I'd prefer to come and assist you in the service, but, with your permission, I'd at least like to come back and be a part. And he said, oh, man, Just please come and lead the service. I'll help you any way I can. And we were able to do that that work together. Again, it's about showing deference and respect and understanding that when you leave, you're gone.

Jeff Iorg: 26:54

And you need to define the relationship of what that would be like and make sure you honor those definitions. Well, finally, I wanna just say that, another part of leaving well is expressing and receiving appreciation for the work that you've done. Now when you leave, some leaders don't wanna party. They don't wanna be noticed. They they they don't want any gifts or any kind of recognition, and I understand that.

Jeff Iorg: 27:21

We don't want it to be about us. We don't wanna draw attention to ourselves, etcetera, etcetera. But my wife has really helped me here. When I was preparing to leave the seminary, for example, I said, man, I know they're gonna wanna do something, but I just hope we can keep it really simple. And Anne said, you know, Jeff, you'd have to understand.

Jeff Iorg: 27:36

You've been there twenty years, and people wanna celebrate not just you, but they wanna celebrate what God has done in those twenty years. And they also wanna celebrate their sense of achievement in what's been accomplished. And so I said, yeah. Okay. Let's do

Jeff Iorg: 27:50

it that way. Let's try to

Jeff Iorg: 27:52

make it more about a celebration of what God has done with all of us than just about me or an

Jeff Iorg: 27:57

individual. And that's what

Jeff Iorg: 28:00

we did, and that's what I've encouraged you to do. Don't deny the need to celebrate, but try to keep the focus on celebrating what God has done. And yes, he's done it through me as your leader, but he's also done it through you as the followers. We've done it together, and we celebrate what God has done through us together. And then don't be afraid to either give or receive little gifts or meaningful gifts during those times.

Jeff Iorg: 28:24

You know, I once received a gift when I left one ministry organization of a home plate. Yes. A baseball home plate. They took that and and and had a little thing mounted on it where where they could put a photograph in it, they put a photograph of their of of the staff in it, and across the plate, just inscribed, from your home team. And I took that plate with me as a as a reminder of those dear people that I had worked with and the staff that I had shared with and the home team that had worked together.

Jeff Iorg: 28:58

Another time, when I left a church, my first church, one of the women had embroidered a a picture of the church and a and a saying about my pastoral leadership there in in gratitude for God's work in our lives together. I still have that embroidered plaque that she gave us. You know, these are not expensive gifts. They're sentimental gifts. They're more memorabilia, you might say, but they carry powerful messages.

Jeff Iorg: 29:27

And both in the giving and receiving of small gifts like this, we celebrate what God has done. And then the final thing I would say about leaving well, and this might need to be an entire podcast at some point, but when you're leaving well, remember that your whole family is leaving. So think about how to involve your family in the process of the decision to move, the planning for your family's move, and the establishment of yourself in a new location. This includes more than just your spouse, and it also includes your children, making sure that every person is noticed. Their needs are validated.

Jeff Iorg: 30:07

Their emotions are considered. Their concerns are addressed. Now, I once asked a family, that was moving to Gateway that had six children. I said, well, is everyone happy about the move? And the father looked at me and said, well, of course not.

Jeff Iorg: 30:22

I was a little bit shocked and I said, oh. He said, don't worry about it. He said, well, you have six children, someone's not happy, most any day of the week. But he said, we don't get too caught up in day to day emotional response in our family. We know that if we're doing the right thing, right way, that in God's time, we'll all get together on it.

Jeff Iorg: 30:44

And I will tell you that having watched that family over the past few years, they did get together on it. They're all very happy with the decision they made to relocate. But they were partly that because the father did give attention to each person in the family and to acknowledge them, notice them, care for them, address their concerns, but also remind them that we're a family and we're going together and trusting that God would bring about what needed to be done over time to give them the excitement they needed about the new position. Well, leaving well. This is not about when you get fired.

Jeff Iorg: 31:15

This is not about when you leave mad. This is not about any of that. When you leave well, when you've done a good job, and now it's time for a new opportunity, and you're leaving for the right reasons, and you're leaving at the right time, here are some things we've talked about on the podcast today that will help you to leave well. When your time comes to do this, put it into practice as you lead on.