Event #7 - A Young Pastor and a Patient Church Make a Big Change
…and it was hard.
For basically everyone.
How, exactly, does a 30 year old church that had only ever had one pastor, that had grown to the size of Liberty Christian Fellowship, end up hiring a 30 year old pastor who had never led a church before?
That, friends, is a fair question.
Let me give you some of the backstory on how the whole thing happened.
It started over lunch.
“Where do you see yourself in the next five or ten years, Tim?”
One of my mentors, Fred, asked me that one day in the middle of lunch over BBQ.
Simple question. The kind of thing any good mentor ought to be asking.
Here was the problem: I had no good answer.
Not being able to answer that question is entirely out of line with my personality. In my world, there is always a plan, always another goal to accomplish, always something on the horizon worth running toward with gusto. At the moment, though, I had nothing to offer.
I had been a youth pastor since graduating college in 2009. I did not see myself doing youth ministry for my entire career. There are plenty of faithful people who do that. I am not sure what the rewards in heaven are, exactly, but I am absolutely certain that career-long youth ministry folks receive triple or quadruple the amount of whatever they are. I knew I was not cut out to be one of those people. I loved youth ministry, but it was not in my long range future. I was pretty certain it was not in my five-to-ten-year future, either.
The problem was, I had no clear picture of what came next.
At the time, Fred was a member of the Leadership Team at Liberty Christian Fellowship, where I was serving as youth pastor. As I offered a stammering word-salad to Fred (which was really just an attempt to buy some time), he politely cut me off and jumped right to the heart of why he was asking. He did so with a second question.
“Do you ever see yourself being a senior pastor? How about in the next five to ten years?”
Now there was a question I had an answer for.
It came quick.
I am fairly certain I laughed.
“No. They have to deal with all kinds of issues that I do not want any part of. Ever. I think I would like to be in a role that allows me to teach people the bible without any of those higher-level headaches.”
Fred replied something to the effect of, “Interesting. I think you would be good at that. But, for what it is worth, I think you would make a great senior pastor. You should pray about it.”
Lunch moved to a different topic.
Then it ended.
In the back of mind, I hoped the conversation had ended, too.
It had not. It was just beginning.
I soon learned via a follow-up conversation that Fred was asking these question because LCF’s current Senior Pastor and founder, Kim May, was moving toward retirement. The Leadership Team was on the verge of bringing in a national consulting firm to guide them through a process of finding the church’s next pastor. Before doing so, Fred wanted to know if I was interested in having a conversation about me being the next pastor. He did not merely believe that I would make a good senior pastor some day at some church. He believed it about that particular day at our particular church. (Side note: we all need this kind of person in our life…and need to be these kind of people in others’ lives. Let’s do more of that.)
I quickly declined. I think I laughed at Fred for the second time.
He asked me to pray about it.
Again, I remember hoping to myself that the conversation was over.
It was not.
Melody and I spent time praying. To my own shock and surprise, we decided to take the next step in whatever those conversations needed to look like. One thing led to another. Soon we were having formal interviews, asking our closest friends to pray with us, contemplating big changes. It played out over a number of months, but in time, there was an offer for me to move through a transition process with Kim throughout 2015 and officially step into the Lead Pastor role on January 1, 2016.
We accepted the offer.
There was a meeting to tell the church.
Kim spoke about his retirement and gave a sketch of the process that led to the Leadership Team’s decision.
Then he named it: After a time of transition, Tim Fritson would be the next Lead Pastor (note: we do not use the title Senior Pastor because I am senior to very few people and I look like I am fresh out of college).
I expected people to laugh.
They did not.
I suspect it was mostly because church people try to be nice.
It was my turn to speak.
Pause for a minute.
The moment was not lost on me. Not then or now. I was on the verge of talking about the thing that I said I was never interested in doing. I mean, I laughed in Fred’s face twice.
But here is the thing:
Those of us who are planners are mostly just delusional. Not that we should not plan. Scripture has plenty to say about the wisdom of planning.The problem is that we think we can construct the future. Have the final say. Chart the course.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“God is in control, and His plans are infinitely better than whatever it is we might try to cobble together.”
We are out here planning what seems achievable, manageable, comfortable, safe. God is planning with a different set of goals, with a bigger view of reality, and with perspective that is eternal. Not to mention the fact that His plan will always win out.
Ask Abraham. Or Joseph. Or David, Esther, Jonah, or Mary.
Sometimes I feel a little like Jonah, honestly. There I was, running away, trying to put safe distance between me and the destination God had in mind. He did not put me into a fish. He sat me down at lunch with Fred.
That is His normal operating mode.
Fewer fish bellies, more normal stuff like lunch.
That is usually where He does the life-changing. The course-shifting.
In the ordinary. The mundane.
I always need that reminder.
Maybe you are kind of running from something right now. Let me tell you, there is beauty and joy in the act of stopping.
Back to the announcement night.
I promised three things:
I would make mistakes (I have nailed that one).
When I did, I would own them and grow (not the most fun, but I have upheld this in front of our congregation, staff, and Leadership Team in some humbling moments).
Most importantly, I would love Jesus and point our church toward doing the same (passionately plugging along at this).
Four years later, here we are.
The church looks different today than it did then.
Literally…we have done some remodeling to the building.
But the people look different too.
Some people left — that is what happens in these kinds of transitions. It was hard. Hard pastorally and personally, for our staff, for our congregation, for me. More on that in a future post.
Some people have come — such is the nature of doing church in a growing suburban area.
Some people have come to know Jesus — insert one million praise hands emojis.
Some people have grown to know, love, and cherish Jesus more deeply — more of the aforementioned emojis.
None of those are small, insignificant changes.
I believe firmly that God has driven them all.
But none of them have been easy.
Our congregation has shouldered the brunt of the difficulty, honestly.
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. They have it in abundance.
I am the grateful beneficiary.
They have been patient as I have learned how to preach weekly. I mean, really patient.
They have been patient as we have made changes to programs/activities.
They have been patient as I have had to learn who I am as a leader.
They have been patient as our pastor and administrative staff, much of which has not changed since 2014, has learned to follow a different Lead Pastor with a different style.
They have been patient as they have learned to follow a pastor with a different personality and style. Kim and I are different. Neither good nor bad. Just different. And that takes time to get used to, especially when there has only ever been one pastor in a church’s entire life.
It is at this point that I want to give the congregation at LCF a big, heartfelt, likely insufficient “Thank you.” I know the last four years have had some challenges. Leadership transitions in any organization are hard. Our’s has been no exception.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your graciousness.
Thank you for your encouragement.
Thank you for being willing to bear with me — all my quirks, flaws, deficiencies, failures, and brokenness.
Thank you for loving my wife, Melody, and me so well.
You all are a joy to serve.
As a church, we are not perfect. No church is. We are human. Anytime you get this many humans together, there are bound to be issues.
But we love Jesus well. And I think we represent Him well, too.
That is the stuff that matters.
Five-years-ago-Tim never pictured himself saying this, but it is a blessing to be the Lead Pastor of Liberty Christian Fellowship. I love you all.
My life looks wildly different five years after that lunch conversation with Fred than I thought it would. And yet, it looks precisely like God knew it would.
