Unlikely Successor

"Don't do it!"

"They are going to hate you!"

I'm grateful for honest friends. I shared what I thought God had called me to and my buddy hit me upside the head with the above warnings. Truthfully, I thought he might be right! But I went ahead anyway.

Let me rewind. I spent most of my pastoral ministry pioneering church plants in liberal U.S. cities. From age 25 to 35, I started faith communities in urban New Jersey, San Francisco, and Marin County. I loved church planting. But God was doing a work in my heart, calling me to walk once again by faith, to do something different than I had ever done.

God was calling me to walk by faith, to do something different than I had ever done before.

Bill Ritchie founded Crossroads Community Church, one of the first generation of mega-churches in the Northwest. Crossroads is located in Vancouver, Washington, on the northern banks of the Columbia River across from Portland, Oregon. By the time I got to know Bill, he was an elder statesman: buttoned up and regal, a consummate pastor. His regional radio ministry was 30 years old, and he communicated flawlessly. When we saw each other at conferences, we would talk and laugh. But when we met up in 2011, things were different. Bill shared his desire to transition Crossroads to a younger pastor so he could focus on keeping retiring Boomers on mission with Jesus. Before we knew it, we were talking about the possibility of my succeeding him.

A Crazy Choice

Bill and I share a love for God, his Word, and people. We are both strong communicators, but that's where the similarities end. If Bill is an elder statesman, I am that statesman's crazy nephew. Bill is buttoned up, while I prefer a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Bill is neatly groomed, while I have dreadlocks and a beard. Bill is quietly refined, and I'm 100-percent Italian from New Jersey. Bill preaches like a classical composer with everything in its perfect place. I preach like a jazz musician with structured improvisation.

On top of these differences, there's a yawning generational gap: Bill is approaching 70, and I'm younger than his children.

Bill said his pastoral legacy was tied to the success of our transition, and he delivered.

When the search process concluded, the church board offered me the lead pastor position. I came on staff in January of 2012, and we designed a transition plan. Given our radically different styles, the transition was a success. Not only did the church not tank, we actually grew by about 10 percent during the transition and continued to grow after I became lead pastor. Whether it's people jumping into groups or volunteering, giving or coming to Jesus for the first time, we are thriving. This is only by God's grace.

Let me share what I've learned along the way.

Planning, Communication, Execution

Long before I was in the picture, Bill and the leadership team had researched leadership transitions. When I arrived, we spent time seeking God and strategizing how we would transition, seeking to avoid potential pitfalls. We decided that the transition had to be finished in two years. We laid out our preaching schedule and decided how we would navigate whenever we disagreed on anything.

We communicated our transition to the congregation in multiple ways. We created a new section of our website dedicated to the next chapter. We distributed brochures. As we preached, we referred back to what we were doing and why. We regularly talked about who we were as a church, the transition, and where we were going. This clear, consistent communication alleviated many of the concerns people had.

Could we execute the transition plan? In many ways, this was the biggest question. Much of our success was because of Bill. When a senior pastor is successful for many years, it's common for that pastor to struggle to "let go." But at Crossroads, Bill said his pastoral legacy was tied to the success of our transition, and he delivered what he promised.

Bill helped me get "buy-in" with the congregation and gave me every opportunity to succeed. We were not only transitioning the leadership, we were expanding how we did ministry. By God's grace, what needed to be finished in 24 months was completed in 14. One of my most profound memories of our "Legacy Sunday" (our formal hand-off date) was bumping into Bill in our speaker's room. He gave me a hug, handed me his resignation letter and said, "We did it! Now let's keep going!" What a model of class and honor!

Guarding the Relationship

The enemy loves to divide and conquer, and pastoral transitions create countless opportunities for him to do just that. We are both visionary leaders, and it was inevitable we would disagree along the way. But from the beginning, Bill and I promised each other that we'd guard our relationship. We agreed we would be unified before the congregation and disagree in private. While Bill was the senior pastor, I deferred to his leadership and we discussed disagreements privately. Since the transition, Bill has deferred to my leadership and we have discussed things privately.

We decided that Bill would remain at Crossroads in a founding pastor role. His new position began immediately after he transitioned from being the senior pastor. Looking back, I think it would have been healthier to give Bill a one-year sabbatical to rest, refocus, and adjust to life after more than 37 years of being a senior pastor. Although Bill has done well, I can only imagine how challenging it must be for him to watch things change.

Facing Tensions

One of my greatest fears about the transition process what dealing with what I call "cross currents." A cross current occurs when you have two conflicting areas of momentum. As you can imagine, with two Type-A leaders in the room, there were many cross currents. Pastor Bill's leadership had one trajectory; my leadership had another. Also, because of our age gap, our approaches to leadership and "best practices" were vastly different.

Part of me wanted the founding pastor to love every idea I have and everything I do. But that is not reality.

How do you navigate between the past and the future? How do you reconcile two unique visions? As you might imagine, there was some choppy water. When we talked about everything—from staffing to what we were preparing for as a church body—there were often divergent ideas. Bill with his dignified packaging preferred classy sermon series ideas. I leaned more toward the edgy and contemporary.

Throughout the transition, I continually reminded myself that Bill was the senior pastor. He was responsible to God for the leadership of Crossroads. When that was the structure, I deferred to his decisions. I had to decide what I wanted to fight for and why, and how to approach conflicts. I had to determine where I needed to exercise patience and simply wait. In the same way, when Bill was the senior pastor, he would often defer to me on a decision that had longer-term consequences. For instance, he knew in the end that new hires or the shifting of staff positions would impact me as a leader far more than it would him. We both, I believe, tried our best to honor each other in the calling that God had on our lives.

Different Ideas

I had some ideas that Bill was just never going to like. The reality is I will do things that he would never have done. This is a challenge for any successor, especially in a situation like ours where the founding pastor is still an integral part of the church.

There is a part of me that wants the founding pastor to love every idea I have and everything I do. But that is not reality. After becoming the lead pastor of Crossroads, I immediately hired a few key executive positions. These were people that Bill would probably never have hired because he looked for different things in those positions. But as the lead pastor, I had to build my team, designed around the structure and future I believed God was asking me to help bring to fruition. I was not building Bill's team. I was building the team I needed to serve the church.

There were other things that were an adjustment for him. I changed the look and feel of the senior pastor's office. Throughout the process of transition, and especially afterwards, I needed to learn to be okay with making decisions that Bill would never have made. I'd been called to lead the church into the future. To do that, I needed to make adjustments to our structure, culture, look, and feel.

Looking Forward

God blessed the transition at Crossroads in amazing ways. Everyone was committed to the process and committed to let God lead, no matter what. We continue to grow and reach out in fresh ways, while standing on the shoulders of a blessed legacy. Despite all the fears out there about senior pastor transitions, we are a living example of God's grace as we continue to take huge steps of faith. As more churches transition from their long-term senior pastors, it's my prayer that there will be many transitions that are as healthy and exciting as ours. God's church is that important. He and his people deserve nothing less.

Daniel Fusco is pastor of Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington.