How to Decide When It’s Time to Stay or Go

Leaving a pastoral charge can be hard. Staying can be hard, too. And deciding to stay or go is more complicated the longer one serves. Deep relationships, familiar patterns of worship, well-worn spiritual practices, and hard-won battles loom large before you.

In my autonomous church circle, the pastor, his wife, and maybe his closest friends are involved in the decision over staying or going. His elders or other leaders may become involved later. The pastoral process of staying or going calls for deep reflection, prayer, research, and waiting on God. What might that look like?

Aim for Longevity

Long pastorates give time to work through transitions in polity, leadership, worship development, mission impetus, and pastoral training. Short pastorates generally don’t allow roots to grow deep among a people—roots that should make the thought of leaving feel like tearing up the heart’s soil. So aim for longevity and then develop the following:

• Develop a healthy spiritual walk. A pastor lacks strength for ministry’s rigor if he has failed to train himself for godliness, to devote himself to the Word and prayer, and to watch his life and teaching (1 Tim. 4:11–16).
• Develop good roots in the congregation. “Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds, for riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations” (Prov. 27:23–24). How will we “shepherd the flock of God,” as Peter exhorted, without roots into the soil of their lives (1 Pet. 5:2)?
• Develop attentiveness to the flock instead of the fence. When struggling with pastoral matters, we can start gazing over the fence to find another flock. “Pay attention to your herds” can’t happen if we’re looking across the fence.
• Develop contentment where the Lord has planted you. Contentment frees us to focus on shepherding those entrusted to our care, for whom we will give an account (Heb. 13:17).

Remember Longevity Doesn’t Mean Forever

Not all pastorates are long. Some end abruptly. But when you’ve stayed long, how do you know when it’s time to move on?

First, You Must Have Self-Awareness

Would a vacation or sabbatical rekindle your pastoral juices, or are you at a point where you can no longer serve with joy but can’t bring yourself to admit it? Have unpastoral attitudes affected your ministry patterns, requiring repentance and renewal? Are you reacting to wounds by a few causing you to think of leaving? Has pride gotten in the way of making a good decision about the future? Are your days of effective ministry in the past?

Second, You Must Be Realistic

Have you taken the church as far as they’re willing to go? Have you exhausted your abilities to lead them? Would another pastor be able to better shepherd the flock in this season? Are you lagging in zeal, strength, pulpit passion, and leadership effectiveness, but reluctant to consider that a change might be best? Would retirement from active pastoral duties better serve your church, marriage, and life?

Third, You Must Be Reminded of Your Pastoral Charge

The church doesn’t belong to you. Jesus called it “my church” when he committed to build it (Matt. 16:18). He may be pleased to use you for a season to accomplish his purposes, but that does not make you an owner. He may send you to plow and plant but raise others to harvest (John 4:35–38). Your pastoral stewardship involves the future as well as the present (1 Cor. 4:1–2).

Therefore, hold your pastoral charge loosely. As difficult as it may be, faithfulness may require giving up that charge.

Ask Yourself These Additional Questions

When serving one congregation for an extended period, we develop perceptions that may affect our ability to discern whether to stay or go. Here are questions for further evaluation.

• Do you look forward to preparation for Sundays?
• Do you enjoy the rigors of shepherding?
• Do you sense joy when preaching?
• Are you able to patiently shepherd your people?
• Does your wife affirm your ministry?
• Do you have appropriate physical and mental health for pastoral work?
• Do you maintain adequate energy for the pace of pastoral ministry?
• Does your age significantly hinder your ministry?
• Are you able, with the elders’ help, to keep up with the demands of shepherding?

Negative answers to any of these questions do not demand leaving! Again, you may need a good sabbatical to regain your passion and strength that could have weakened with a constant foot on the accelerator. Or you may need to realign staff and elder responsibilities. Or you may realize it’s time to leave and entrust the flock to another shepherd. Assess yourself, confer with your wife and closest friends, and earnestly seek the Lord.

Prepare for Transition

If, after honest evaluation, you conclude that your church would be healthier if you stayed, then you must further ask yourself: Have I taught the church an unhealthy dependence upon my personality, gifts, and leadership style, rather than dependence upon Christ alone? If so, before considering a move, you may want to work toward increasing shared leadership, training members for ministry, and emphasizing Christ-dependence.

There’s a sense in which pastors must always keep transition in the back of their minds. That may sound contradictory to the earlier appeal for longevity. But you don’t know what divine providence might have for you. Therefore, labor to have your church healthy and maturing.

Consider:

• Is the church in a healthy position so that if you suffered an accident, illness, or death, they’re prepared to progress spiritually? We don’t control life’s narratives, divine providence does.
• Do you have confidence that the elders and staff can lead the church well in your unexpected absence? Train them in case of the unexpected.
• Have you been preparing the church for the day you go? Raise up faithful elders who can shepherd the church until it calls a senior pastor.

Utilize these questions to help you discern motives, perceptions, and readiness for you to stay or to go.

And if you do bid your flock goodbye, leave like a shepherd, not a hired hand.