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What Makes (or Breaks) a Healthy Leadership Transition
Posted on: Tuesday April 15, 2025

📝 Free Church Culture Assessment: How is your church doing in these 6 core areas? https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/churchhealth

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After decades of leadership, I’ve walked through two major successions—first as Lead Pastor of New Life Fellowship Church, and now, as President of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. In today’s episode, I pull back the curtain on what I’ve learned about leadership transitions—not from a textbook, but from the trenches.

Healthy transitions are rare. And they don’t happen by accident. They require deep inner work, Spirit-led discernment, and a long view that stretches beyond your lifetime. Whether you’re handing over a pulpit, a nonprofit, or a small group, the principles are the same.

In this conversation, I share seven lessons that make—or break—a leadership transition, why emotional maturity is non-negotiable, and how Jesus models the kind of surrender we’re all invited into. This isn’t just theory. This is about stewarding your life, your leadership, and your legacy—God’s way.

If you care about the future of your ministry, you need this episode.

Dig deeper by going through the book Emotionally Healthy Leader. Get the book and discussion guide here. This book was written to help you lead from a deep, inner life with God.

Archives:
Tuesday April 24, 2018

Discerning what season you, and your ministry, are in right now is one of our most important leadership tasks. In this podcast Pete expounds on the seasons of Fall (transitions), Winter (death), Spring (fruitfulness), and Summer (abundance), examining how each holds its own gift from God – if we cooperate with it.

Wednesday April 18, 2018

In part 2 of this series, we will look at the journey of Job as a model of a leader who integrated his sadness, anger, and depression in ways that made him an even greater leader who continues to speak to us today.

 

Wednesday April 11, 2018

In this podcast, Pete explores David’s integration of great leadership with great grieving and why this is so critical for us today.

Tuesday April 03, 2018

Limits are often the last place we look for God. The problem is that when we fail to look for God in our limits, we often bypass him. In this podcast, Pete considers Adam and Eve in the Garden, Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert, and David at the height of his power and influence.

Tuesday March 27, 2018

One of the greatest spiritual challenges for leaders revolves around how we frame and respond to the limits God places around us. In this podcast, Pete begins offering a biblical framework to understand limits as gifts of grace from the hand of God and answers three of the most common questions he hears.

Tuesday March 20, 2018

In part 2 of this podcast, Pete issues an invitation to get deeply anchored in God by deliberately structuring your life in ancient spiritual practices that have stood the test of time.

Thursday March 15, 2018

Most leaders are starved for time. Few of us have a sustainable, long-term plan that answers the question: How can I live and lead in a way that is calm, relaxed, and filled with contentment in Jesus? In part one of this podcast, Pete discusses how to deliberately structure our lives around God’s rhythms.

Tuesday March 06, 2018

In Part 3 of this 3-part series, Pete answers five FAQ’s that emerge over and over again around the topic of redefining success Jesus' way and discusses the challenge of "to do the work before the work.”

Wednesday February 28, 2018

In Part 2 of this podcast, Pete offers three different examples of how to redefine success in ways that look beyond numbers. He then looks closely at the three factors necessary to internalize the kind of radical change necessary to make the doing of God’s will, regardless of where it leads, the measure of our success.

Tuesday February 20, 2018

Defining success as a Christian leader is one of our most challenging, vexing and difficult tasks. In part 1 of this podcast, Pete looks at two idols that dominate current Western culture and church leadership.