The day I left my last parish, I was nervous and excited. There was unfinished business, things I still wanted to do; however, my time was done, and it was essential to move on. At the same time, I was excited to see how the faithful would step up and continue the ministry, and I wanted to know whether I had done enough to REPLACE MYSELF.
When you start replacing yourself, you move from owner to steward. The position you hold is not yours to keep but to nurture, cultivate and build so that the next person who steps in is in a place of success. To replace yourself depends on many different factors, but it should not be rushed; in fact, replacing yourself means:
Regardless of how long you’ve been in the position, you need to look at the programs and people you oversee and answer the question, “If I were to leave tomorrow, would this thing keep going?” The answer you want to achieve is obviously yes; however, we can all think of something that will suffer in our absence.
As a leader, you need to train people to do what you do. You have to invest in models and structures that are sustainable and simple to run. While you won’t have it figured out on day one, today should be the day you start figuring out how to do that.
It does not matter how dynamic your content or program is; if you do not have the right people to run it, then it will fall apart when you leave. Investing in people is showing them what you know and helping them discover things that you’ve never had the time or energy to do. Investing in your team (volunteers or paid) means introducing them to brilliant minds, transformative experience, and challenging resources.
Delegating tasks that you might not enjoy doing is more accessible to stomach; however, a good leader knows how to give it all away. That doesn’t mean figuring out how to do nothing; instead, it’s learning how to create the capacity to do more with the ministry. It might be challenging to give up what you love or feel that you are best at doing; however, letting go will enable you to listen to where God is leading you.
One of the best ways to know whether you are on track to replace yourself is to plan to be away yet and continue the ministry flow. Look at your ministry calendar and a day where you can take off, but instead of canceling, equip your leaders to run the program without you. Afterward, sit down with them to evaluate what they did right, learned, etc.
The next time you do this exercise, have your team involved more in the prep work. Have them plan everything with little of your input. After the program is completed, sit down with them and evaluate the entire process. The more comfortable you get your team with preparing, planning, and executing the ministry in your absence, the stronger the ministry will be as a whole.
The more you replace yourself, the more you engage leadership as a steward of God’s gift. Not only will you create a stronger future for your parish, but you’ll discover more joy in what you were called to do. Your joy will come from the fact that you are serving with others and no longer wondering, “Will this end when I leave?”