A Tough Act to Follow

How do you follow a larger-than-life predecessor? In 2007 Jonathan Falwell became the senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, after the sudden death of his father, Jerry Falwell, who had founded the Thomas Road church in 1956, and founded Liberty University in 1971 and the Moral Majority in 1979. For seven years, Jonathan has ably led the Thomas Road church. Warren Bird of Leadership Network interviewed Jonathan about his experience of following someone as influential as Jerry Falwell.

Before that terrible day of your father's collapse, how much discussion was there about a successor to your father at the church?

There wasn't a lot of discussion. My dad's plan was to be here until he was about 115 years old, and he had every intention of continuing to serve. He didn't believe in retirement. I differ with him on that. I do believe in retirement; the older I get, the more I believe in it! (Laughter.) But Dad always said he wanted to die with his boots on.

In the last year of his life, Dad said, "I'm trusting God to do more in the next five years than he's done in the previous fifty." Lots of us couldn't get our brains around how God could do that.

In fact, two weeks before he died, he preached a sermon and said, "God's man is indestructible until he has finished the work that God has called him to do."

But he never really talked about what the future looked like after him. In fact, in the last year of his life, he said more than once that "I'm trusting God to do more in the next five years than he's done in the previous fifty." And for him, having seen Thomas Road go from 35 founding members to thousands in 2006, that was a pretty big statement. It was hard for a lot of us to get our brains around how God could do more in the next five years than he'd done in the previous 50.

Then, when Dad passed away, that statement became even more difficult to understand

Was there an envelope with a name in it for insurance purposes? Any forecast of what should happen if his plane went down?

Not at all. I wish there'd been some instructions. I would love to have had a document where he laid out what was on his heart. That would have helped us get from point A to point B in those early days. But there wasn't anything like that.

In hindsight, I'd love to have had his guidance, but in another way I'm thankful that there wasn't because it drove me and it drove the rest of our church to do the most important thing that we could do at a time like that, and that's to get on our knees and say, "God, what do you want us to do?"

And that's exactly what we did. That first Sunday after my dad passed away, we gathered at the altar of the church and knelt. We cried out to God: "Okay, God, what's next? Where do you want us to go?" And we continue to do that even now, six years later.

So you became the senior pastor, and the church is grieving the loss of a much-loved, incredible leader, and you are grieving—this is your dad. And yet you are leading the church into a new future. How did you balance the honoring, the grieving—personally and congregationally—along with dreaming the new dream for what God has next?

I remember that Saturday night after my dad passed away, knowing the next morning it was my responsibility to preach and say something of value to encourage and comfort the congregation. To be honest with you, I had nothing to say.

I was sitting at my kitchen table on Saturday night with our worship pastor, Charles Billingsley, and my wife Sheri. And I had no clue what to say and what to do.

In the midst of that conversation, a phrase came up, "Not I but Christ." Four simple words that come out of Galatians 2:20. That took my mind to 2 Corinthians 3 where we're told that our sufficiency is not in ourselves but in Christ and he is all that we need.

I realized, You know what, it's really not up to me. It's not my ability, not my talent, not my words that I have to offer. It has everything to do with the fact that Christ is still alive, he's still on the throne, and so all that I have to do is to seek his face on what he would want me to say to the church about what the church is to do now.

I felt God leading me to preach a series out of the book of Joshua. I started that first Sunday after my dad passed away with Joshua chapter 1—God speaking to Joshua—"Moses my servant is dead. Now you, Joshua, rise up and cross over into the land that I promised you. And everywhere the soles of your feet will tread, I will give to you. As I promised Moses, I promise to you, and no one will be able to stand against you."

I preached that passage, and the call that day is that "We are all Joshua." That wasn't written for me, it wasn't written for anyone in my family, it wasn't written for anyone on our staff. It was written for all of us as a church, that we have a duty and a responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ to march forward, to keep moving.

So that's what I became passionate about, preaching that message. In fact, on the back wall of our church right now—it's been there for six years—is those four words, "Not I but Christ." I want to remind myself each and every week, it's not about me, it's all about Christ, and we've got to keep moving.

What was hardest for you that first year?

Grief. I mean, that was something that even to this day is a difficult thing to handle. I mean, my dad was young and vibrant and hadn't slowed down a bit and was a huge personality. A great leader. He was my dad, my pastor, my mentor, my role model. And so just the fact that there wasn't that person I could call.

He was always my backstop. Serving here at the church as executive pastor, there were lots of things that I made decisions on, made changes, made transitions. But when it came right down to it, I knew that if I blew it and made a mistake, I had somebody I could call who would cover it, who would fix things because he was able to do that. Now that person was gone. "The buck stops here" now, and that changes everything when it all rests on your shoulders.

That was a difficult thing for me to kind of get my head around.

I want to remind myself each and every week, it's not about me, it's all about Christ, and we've go to keep moving.

Then, of course, Dad had always been the shepherd. Now I realized I had thousands of people now that I've got to minister to and that I've got to make a difference in their lives. So I made sure to tell people, "Yeah, we're a large church, but I'm your pastor, and I want to be there for you." So hospital visitation, weddings, funerals, meeting with anybody in the church that wants to meet with me, phone calls, staying after the service down in the front of the sanctuary to talk to anybody who wants to talk for as long as they want to talk—I made sure their pastor was accessible to them. Those were all things that I had to figure out how to do.

What was the biggest surprise that first year?

Pressure. No question about it. When you're now the key leader and the senior pastor, that pressure level goes up quite a bit. The decisions you have to make—no longer do you have the luxury of someone over you who's going to make sure you don't make a really bad decision.

It struck me that now, when the day comes to a close, the decisions I make are the ones that are going to stick. So I've got to make sure that I put in a lot of prayer, a lot of time into the direction and the vision that God gives me for this church to make sure that I'm going where God wants me to go, not where I want to go or where somebody else is encouraging me to go.

Since Jerry Falwell's homegoing in 2007, others in similar situations have come to you. What do you say to those who are accepting the mantel of following a great leader?

That first Sunday morning after my dad passed away, our pastors gathered backstage for a time of prayer, and any time you get a group of pastors together in a prayer meeting, the prayers kind of sequentially get bigger and grander. You have these wonderful prayers and great statements.

It came to me to pray last before I walked out on the stage to preach for that very first time. And I'd heard some great prayers, calling down the fire of heaven and the glory of heaven. When it came to me, I'll be honest, I didn't have the words in me and I didn't have the energy to try to find them. So I just said, "God, I can't do it, but you can, so God, do it today."

I pray that prayer now every time I preach, whether it's here at Thomas Road or in another setting.

So when people ask my advice, I've always said what I remind myself every day, that God has called you to be you. God didn't call me to be Jerry Falwell, God called me to be Jonathan Falwell. He gave me unique abilities and a unique gifting just like he does for every one of us, and we have to make sure that we are using those to the best of our ability.

God didn't call me to be Jerry Falwell. God called me to be Jonathan Falwell.

I encourage people to just trust God. If God has called you to a ministry, if God has called you to be a pastor, if God has called you to do his work wherever it is, then trust God that he's put you there for a reason, and don't second-guess yourself, don't question whether you've got it or not.

Believe in God, walk in the power of God, and be a person who prays to God often, seeking God's direction, seeking God's face, allowing him to lead you. And just believe this, that "my God can do all things" and with him—Philippians 4—you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Believe it, walk in it, and let God show you his power and his grace.

©2013 Leadership Network. www.leadnet.org. Used with permission and taken from Succession: A Leadership Network Online Event, a video conference on pastoral succession. The entire video is available for purchase at www.churchleadersuccession.com