Unexpected succession

It is widely said that there’s no success without a successor. Succession is a matter of great importance for any minister, but it can reach crisis proportions in the context of organizationally independent ministries.

I arrived in Omura in 1981 as a self-supporting independent missionary with no overseas financial support. It has been a great adventure and a glorious experience of God’s provision, but at 76, the question of who will pastor this congregation after I’m gone has some real urgency. By the Japanese government’s designation, I am now in “the latter part of old age,” so I have been seriously seeking the Lord as to whom he would designate to shepherd this flock after me.

Over the 40 years we have been operating as an organized church, there have been several people who have gone into full-time ministry and left this church, at least geographically. To some of those individuals we gave the title of assistant pastor, but none have stayed planted here. At least two I had considered as real possibilities for a successor.

But I am not worried; in fact, I have friends, including a retired pastor, who are far more anxious about it than I am! I have always felt the Lord would raise up his choice when the time came, and that seems to be happening.

Unexpected provision

Recently, the Lord started opening my eyes to someone I would never have considered in the past. In the first place, this person is a woman, and I have been unsure about women pastors in the past. In the second place, she only has a high school education. In the third place, she suffered from clinical depression in the past to the point that she didn’t leave her house for over two years. Talk about unqualified!

However, the Holy Spirit worked in her mightily, and today she is as mature, grounded, and happy a Christian as you could hope to find. Her brother-in-law and then her husband both became Christians because the changes in her were so dramatic they couldn’t doubt the reality of God.

God’s equipping

Some months ago, I challenged the church to step into ministries for which the Lord had equipped them, including preaching, and she volunteered. She has only preached a few times so far, but each of her messages has been solidly biblical and edifying. Her style is different from mine, and that’s a good thing. Looking back, I can see that she has been increasingly central to the life of this congregation over the past several years.

Although I am a seminary graduate with a master’s degree, I have never felt that academic credentials were essential for people in ministry. (They aren’t bad, but they’re not essential in and of themselves. After all, Christian seminaries didn’t even exist for the first 300 years of the church!)

The question then becomes how have I been nurturing and mentoring her? I am very aware of the devil’s traps, having had multiple friends who fell into adultery, either physically or emotionally, so I have not had one-to-one teaching sessions with this woman. However, my greatest goal for everyone in the congregation is to learn how God loves them individually, to listen to him, and to trust that he really does speak to them and through them. This starts with a vital, consistent devotional life. This woman has definitely grown in her understanding and devotional life, which is why I have great peace with the idea of her being my successor.

I feel she has my spiritual DNA as well as the skills to express it, and that is precisely what we need to look for in a successor. She knows the area as well as this church and has certainly experienced the transformative power of God. I feel she is God’s instrument for this part of the body of Christ for the next several years at least, and I look forward to what the Lord is going to do through her.

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