Transitions and the Sameness of God

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Joshua 1:5 (NIV)

Today is the first official day of organized practice for the 2023 football season and our local high school. This week is also the beginning of a new academic school year for my granddaughters. The carefree days of summer are quickly changing to the structured days of Fall as college students return to campus; teachers and students return to classrooms; and busy parents begin juggling school calendars and carpools.

Change has also come to our beloved church.  For the first time in our storied 64-year history, Briarwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) is without a Senior Pastor. Dr. Frank Barker, Briarwood’s founding pastor, served as Senior Pastor forty years before retiring. Dr. Harry L. Reeder followed Pastor Barker and served faithfully for twenty- four years until his sudden death in May. These two godly leaders are the only two Senior Pastors Bruce and I have known during the last 35 years of our Briarwood membership.

This summer our church congregation has dealt not only with our collective grief over Pastor Reeder’s death, but also the uncertainty surrounding next steps.  Questions abound:

  • What happens now?

  • Who will be our next leader?

  • Where do we start?

  • How do we go about a pastoral search process?

  • How long will it take?

  • How do we avoid a mistake?

For now, our Session and church leaders have decided to pursue an intentional interim pastor until a pastoral search committee can be formed and a permanent Senior Pastor secured. They have also asked our congregation to faithfully pray. In the meantime, our congregation has been blessed by sermons from several gifted pastors.

Reverend Phil Tuttle, President and CEO of Walk Through the Bible, recently delivered a sermon entitled Lessons from Joshua’s Journey using Joshua 1 as his text. This passage records the sudden change that occurred in Israel when Moses died after forty years of leadership and Joshua assumed command. Tuttle noted that most transitions in the Bible don’t go well, but the transition from Moses to Joshua was a healthy and successful transition.  Moses trained Joshua for leadership, but Joshua still had to face uncertainty, fear, and discouragement.

Tuttle suggested seven principles for healthy transitions in leadership:

  1. Realize leadership transitions are inevitable; they are a part of God’s plan. This reality reminds us that we are all finite; only God is infinite.

  2. Leaders will come and go, but God does not change. People are the variable; God is the constant. “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

  3.  Every visionary leader leaves some things unfinished. Those in Christ are sovereignly gifted with at least one spiritual gift, but nobody gets all of them. God sovereignly limits every one of his followers.

  4.  Every believer is called to model both learning and obeying God’s Word. God’s promise is unshakeable: “I will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9 and Matthew 28:20)

  5. Every new leader must focus on unifying the people and preparing them for the future. Prepare and pursue unity now as you wait for a new leader.

  6. Transitions in leadership require transitions in loyalty.

  7.  There are direct parallels between the Israelites’ Exodus with Moses and crossing the Jordan with Joshua. There are different leaders, but the same God. God will both affirm and test new leaders.

Reverend Tuttle ended his sermon by saying, “It’s God’s church and God’s mission did not die on May 18. We all have a role.”
Indeed we do! The mission of the Church is the message of the Gospel. Christ promises to build His Church. (Matthew 16:18 NIV)

Life-altering transitions and changes in leadership are inevitable. Like Joshua, we will also have to battle uncertainty, fear, and discouragement. Author Paige Brown wisely counsels us, “The line we draw is the sameness of God. Don’t despair about what you don’t know. Fix your eyes on what you do know. Draw strength on the sameness of God in the midst of all the chaos of change.  Only when we understand the sameness of God will we not be the same.”

Whatever transitions we face, may we all “be strong and take courage” (Joshua 1:6), trusting in the forever sameness and promises of God.

“Surely I am with you always to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20 NIV)

Donna Evans