The Church Renewal Podcast
The Church Renewal Podcast
When Pastors Retire: Preparing for the Coming Leadership Crisis in Churches: A Conversation with Dr. Tom Harris (Part 3)
Dr. Tom Harris, President of Interim Pastor Ministries returns for the final installment of our three-part conversation, delivering powerful insights into the universal challenges facing churches in transition. Drawing from decades of experience, Tom identifies two critical weaknesses that consistently plague congregations: inadequate leadership development and the abandonment of evangelism.
The leadership development crisis stems from a theological education system that fails to equip pastors with mentorship skills. Tom shares a compelling story of a pastor who transformed his church through intentional leadership development—hosting weekly mentorship breakfasts with emerging leaders over decades. This systematic approach created a rich pipeline of capable leaders who strengthened every aspect of church ministry. Without such intentionality, churches remain perpetually understaffed with qualified leaders who understand their mission.
Perhaps most alarming is Tom's sobering assessment of the pastoral recruitment crisis. Where theological schools once had 100 candidates for every church opening, that pipeline has diminished drastically. With 50% of current pastors retiring within five years across some denominations, we're approaching a leadership vacuum that threatens church sustainability. Youth ministry positions already go unfilled, signaling deeper problems upstream in ministerial calling and preparation.
Tom introduces his book outlining eight strategic actions churches can take to thrive during transitions, emphasizing that churches who complete intentional transition work become significantly more attractive to the shrinking pool of pastoral candidates. Despite these challenges, the conversation concludes with hope—reminding listeners that Jesus deeply loves his bride, even in her brokenness, and continues calling and equipping leaders to guide her forward. Connect with Interim Pastor Ministry at interimpastors.com or reach out to Flourish Coaching to discover how strategic transitional leadership can transform your church's transition into an opportunity for renewed mission and growth.
Part 1 of our conversation with Dr. Harris
Part 2 of our conversation with Tom
"Soaring Between Pastors: 8 Actions to Thrive During A Pastoral Transition" by Dr. Tom Harris
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Welcome to Season 3.5 of the Church Renewal Podcast from Floris Coating.
Speaker 2:I'm Jeremy. I'm Matt.
Speaker 1:This is the third and final part of our conversation with Tom Harris from Interim Pastor Ministry. To hear parts one and two, check the show notes for links to those episodes.
Speaker 3:My background is in counseling, tom, so I did a lot of counseling with a lot of different people over a lot of years and at the end of the day, I know one thing Everybody needs a lot of counseling, with a lot of different people over a lot of years, and at the end of the day, I know one thing Everybody needs a lot of good counseling. Right, that's just, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 4:We need teachers, and counselors can be a guide, a spiritual guide, a teacher. So, yes, I think there's a shepherding need for all of us to have self-awareness and to deal with our brokenness.
Speaker 3:Is there a thing or a set of issues that churches run into that surprise them, that you've seen now duplicated in a number of different settings, that you can say, hey, this might not be on your radar, but I can almost guarantee you this is going to come up and here's a way to get prepared.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, it's universal. One is the lack of leadership development. Nothing in my seminary training. I did have at Dallas some teaching by a man by the name of Howard Hendricks, who's deceased, who did a lot in discipleship type of ministries and leadership development. But I never had a class where I had to develop a curriculum to mentor aspiring leaders or deepen existing leaders spiritually, skill-wise strategy, teamwork, a group that really embraces the mission of the Bible, mission of Christ. So I think we think that if we deliver the better sermons, that will be better than the last person just hear me preach and do my job, that the church will flourish. And I used to think that I could preach a little better than the last guy, but I've found that the best sermons ever preached did not cause new disciples to be made necessarily. So leadership development I went to a church in Atlanta of a little different swath theologically but they were conservative within that more liberal tradition. That's why they came to me and I was amazed how well-resourced their leadership was Committee chairs, department leaders, elders, deacons. I was really amazed and I found out the pastor had had for many years 10 or 20 years a Thursday morning mentorship in his home with young leaders, young workers in his church, 20s and 30s, breakfast study and prayer and refinement. And after years and years of that, with some people graduating, some staying in, that they were able, through their church, to be able to know exactly where that person might best fit, at what level of leadership, and seeing them be promoted to heads of leadership. It was no accident that church was well-resourced. It was an intentional result of a pastor that developed leaders and workers Wow.
Speaker 4:The second thing is what Tom Rainer says the church in America. This is a strong word, but he said it's abandoned evangelism. It's abandoned evangelism, you know. I think that if you look at the Great Commission, the whole going thing is the preaching of the gospel. It's the sharing it, building a redemptive friendship, trying to get opportunities. I was on a plane last week coming from Phoenix. The lady was grading papers. We get talking. She started talking to me and she was happy to grade papers and tell me her story and I had a chance to share the gospel with her, recommend the book of John, recommend a new translation of the Bible. That might be a little better than her Catholic translation of the Bible, and I felt fulfilled because it wasn't done and she almost invited me to give the answer to some of her questions. That was a joy.
Speaker 4:I don't think we're preparing people how to build those redemptive friendships with their neighbors and with their families and how to ask very powerful questions like if God could do a miracle in your life right now, what would that be? You're talking about anybody on the street and you've all of a sudden got to the very heart of their need and what's on their mind, and that could lead, of course, to a chance to share the salvation that's in Christ. Those two things are really constantly weaknesses. So what we see is the result is a church that's kind of inbred, trying to perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect for the same people perfect them more, perfect them more, fill them, fill them, fill them more and we're not seeing the additions like in the book of Acts happening. And secondly, when they are there, they're not being multiplied and discipled, especially in the areas of leadership and in working within their gift mix.
Speaker 4:I just love the whole concept from my generation 20 years ago helping people find a gift-based, passion-driven ministry. What is it, children? Is it a cause? Is it a teaching? What is your passion? And secondly, how has God gifted you, and even your own personality brings another flavor to that mix. A person that has a gift of evangelism but is very competent and detailed-oriented, research-oriented, might have an apologetical approach to answering the tough questions, whereby someone that's gregarious and sanguine might have a more jolly and they're giving you bad news and you're just laughing all the way through it because their personality has won you and been winsome. So I think that we don't do a good enough job with helping people find their divine design, and what happens is then we don't have healthy leadership, and then we don't have healthy department or leaders that are working with leadership, and then these problems come and they actually have a very quick adherence to the weaknesses that are deep in people, and then we have maladies that happen.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you didn't ask anything you're passionate about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your passion comes out, which is marvelous. Let me pull the lens back some and just ask you what you see in terms of trends. One of the trends that I see as I try and meet other leaders that do this sort of work across the US it feels like maybe, oh, let's say, 10 years ago, a decade ago, that if you were going to find somebody to do this work, you're going to go to IPM, you're going to go to Vital Church, and we didn't even exist yet, okay, and we weren't doing this, and so the independent nonprofit ministry that can help you in a transition used to be the place that you would go for help like this. This other leader observed and I think it's true, and now I've started to pay attention to it there's a couple of settings, a couple of denominations that now do this almost completely.
Speaker 2:I can think of three that do this almost completely in-house. They're not looking for an organization like yours or mine or Vital. They're trying to figure out how to do this almost completely in-house. They're not looking for an organization like yours or mine or Vital. They're trying to figure out how to do this on their own. Have you noticed that as well?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I guess I do. You know it depends how big the organization is. If they're under 1,500 churches nationally. You know, to build a ministry like ours would be about a $650,000 internal general fund budget. That's a lot for a group to budget to do a ministry like ours. And I've also seen some groups try this and fail. We have one right now that's a fairly, you know, 1,600, 2,000 churches and they tried this and they didn't succeed, maybe because they didn't run up the right hill or they didn't send the right people up with the right resources or they didn't have the backup to those people. So I guess I do see that some, but not in the little groups. You know the little denominations or fellowships and it's amazing how many are out there that we don't even know about. They have 400 churches. They have 500 churches. They don't have anywhere to go and they are some of the best groups to try to build a relationship with because they know they don't have a solution. So maybe I'm not talking to the same people.
Speaker 4:But you know I grew up Southern Baptist. I love my Baptist background. You cut me a lot of that still in me, you know. It just led me to Christ. I grew like crazy. I got called to ministry. A big group like that could have something. But what is insufficient is for a personalistic podcast of training and then take a written test and maybe do one and declare that they have been credentialed as a quality interim pastor that can do training. I think it's got to have a little bit more of a flavor of personal connectedness, accountability, coaching, that kind of thing to build maybe a reputation for strength in this area. And you know it's cumulative.
Speaker 4:When I was doing interim work I had no resources. I started going. There was a guy by the name of Bob Logan in my day. You know he had CoachNet. You know I went to his stuff. I went to natural church development stuff and got credentialed in those tools. I read I had a notebook. I'm putting materials in, not knowing a little bit about everything church organization, different governances, you know outreach ideas putting them in my notebook and eventually a lot of that worked itself into IPM.
Speaker 4:I think the biggest threat we have is not the lack of churches that want us but the lack of people going into pastoral ministry. Period. Listen, I want to say it is not happening. My theological school is one of the largest in the country and they told me a couple years ago, for every church that had a need for a pastor, we used to have 100 resumes.
Speaker 4:Wow, now, if we have of this and that and they're not choosing the track of pastoral ministry, and I think we've done a really poor job of challenging our youth and our churches or our college campuses that are followers to consider how wonderful—I think they hear the war stories and therefore their perception of church ministry is not good or they would love to do it if they could be on the staff of a megachurch. Well, how many people does a megachurch have? Just a certain number. So something has to happen, because a national church consultant a few weeks ago, who is a search consultant, said these very words to us they aren't coming down the pike and that's going to turn off in time, the filling of pulpits permanently and maybe eventually those that aren't available to do interim ministry. So I'm not being pessimistic, but there's a real need there for people to come into pastoral ministry.
Speaker 2:We have a relationship with the denomination and the last time that we did a training together, I actually did some training for them as well, and the last time we were together, one of their leaders quoted that in their setting, 50% of their pastors will retire in the next five years. So they're at the end of the baby boomers and they're all going to retire out and they don't know what they're going to do. And in their setting they have a very hard time finding pastors. And it's actually interesting, as I talk, we have a guy that's interviewing there in a couple of weeks in this denomination.
Speaker 2:What we told the elders was you look more inviting to candidates if you've done the work, and so it's a sales point for us to help them, but also for them that they become something that is desirable for the few candidates that are out there to say, hey, here's a church that did their stuff. For the few candidates that are out there to say, here's a church that did their stuff, they've reflected, they've, you know, revisioned, and they're looking for somebody to lead them forward out within the Great Commission, in their community. So that's something that we're seeing as well. Yeah, it's going to be a different world in 10 years. I know it and yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to love that world, but it's going to be a different world.
Speaker 4:And this search consultant has a big firm set also try to fill a student ministry position. Now we cannot find student ministers for churches that are asking for it, so we need to do a better job somewhere upstream to be able to downstream guide these people into these kinds of positions.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of threads here that I've been listening to that I think tie this together really nice. Number one those are really challenging things that you both have said, especially here at the end, about what the future holds. But as we've talked, we've talked about leadership and we've talked about the call and the gift that comes from God and that's, I think, the highlight here for me. I think about the words of Paul in Ephesians. He has called the guys who are going to be pastors and teachers and those he calls, he equips, and he's called people to be under shepherds to care for his bride, because he loves his, his bride. And we haven't really talked about all the painful things that generally go into a church that is going through transition, the things that they're facing. But we we know them, we've seen them, we've heard about them. Jesus loves that broken church. Yeah, jesus loves those people. And jesus even more than that. If even possible, he wants the world around that church to see how amazing he is through, how much he loves those broken people.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we have the opportunity here to encourage the next generation to really gird up, to get girded up and to get ready, because God is clearly doing something. He's clearly moving us to a different place than we have been, and something that you both said separately, but I'll tie it together here. When you got into this, you weren't really sure what you were doing yet. You labored, you sought out books, you sought out the resources, you made yourselves students of what it meant to be a good, caring, intentional leader. I think the same is going to be necessary for every person that wants to be used of God to lead a church as time marches through the next couple of decades here. I think it's a big challenge, but I believe that there's a lot of guys and possibly gals, depending on where your denomination is that God will raise up and prepare to stand in the gap for what he's doing.
Speaker 4:During COVID and before COVID, I had a passion to write a book that could be used as an explanation or a rationale for intentionality, and I did that. During COVID it was about a year and a half. I had a second author, george Bullard, from then the Carolinas, but this book tells you eight actions to thrive during a pastoral transition. The first action is the first 60 days. What are you going to do? And you can look at all your solutions of how you're going to cover pulpit, cover, preaching and leadership and stuff.
Speaker 4:We really think that most of the time, the most wonderful solution is an external, seasoned, skilled, strategic, seasoned, skilled, strategic interim pastor. And the last one talks about what that person is like and how you can evaluate them, and that there's a breadth of ways to discover those kind of pastors temporarily. So I would just like to encourage the people there. This is on Amazon and we've sold about 1,200 copies now and I think it's a great tool for any church in transition, because my passion is that we lift up churches, just like Matt, your passion is we lift them to a higher level of the love of God, a higher level of the passion of the gospel, to a higher level of the love of God, a higher level of the passion of the gospel, a higher level of the Great Commission, and that they could have altitude going forth and fruitfulness. That's our heart and passion that I know the three of us share.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. I'm happy to come into your book and, tom, thank you. I appreciate our friendship and that the Lord's given us a similar passion for churches in transition. We really appreciate that you came out with us today. Thanks, brother.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. Love to be here, love to hear what you're doing. Where can people reach you? They can reach us at interimpastorscom. Interimpastorscom is our website and our phone number is 800-501-7117.
Speaker 3:And that's not ringing on like a phone by your bed stand or something.
Speaker 2:I hope not, and we are glad to come in to you listener. Ipm uh, ipm is ministry. Uh, they've done wonderful work.
Speaker 4:I still love you. You got one of my best guys, richard Holmes. I mean, we had him in a church in Maryland. You know, all of a sudden he flies the coop for this other group. But we love you brother, we love you. You had been mentoring him for years so you know there's a long-term relationship there, but he's a good guy.
Speaker 2:He's a tremendous guy. We're very, very blessed. Yeah, so appreciate you, tom, take care, all right, god bless Okay bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that, this day dawned, jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information, go to our website, flourishcoachingorg, or send an email to info at flourishcoachingorg. You can also connect with We'll see you next time to say thanks. A huge thank you to all our guests for making the time to share their stories with us. We are really blessed to have all these friends and partners. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was directed and produced by Jeremy Seferati in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you. Bye for now.