Legacy Transition Group Assisting Churches Through Critical Seasons of Change

When W. Don Barnes was getting ready to step down as senior pastor at Lawton First, he knew the church needed help finding a successor. Between his tenure and the previous leader, the Oklahoma congregation hadn’t conducted a pastoral search for 42 years.

“I realized nobody on my board had gone through the process,” says Barnes, 71. “They didn’t have a clue about what to do. I told them, ‘You have to find somebody who fits if you want somebody who will stay here for 20-plus years.’”

That’s why Barnes placed a call to Ron F. McManus. The former senior pastor has been helping churches find transitional pastors since an AG church near Chicago called him for help in 1999, desperate after its founding pastor died of a heart attack. McManus flew to Chicago nearly every weekend for two years until they found a replacement.

“That’s how it started,” says McManus, 75, who helped North Carolina’s Winston-Salem First grow from 200 to 3,000 over 17 years before cancer forced him to step aside in 1997.

“Most of my weekends for the past 25 years have been helping churches through transitions,” McManus says. “I didn’t realize when I got to this point in my life it would be a critical need to expand and start Legacy Transition Group (LTG).”

One reason McManus calls his work so important is a coming wave of pastoral retirements. He cites a 2022 study by the Barna Group that shows the average age of Protestant senior pastors is 52, with only 16% age 40 or younger.

With assistance from General Superintendent Doug Clay, McManus launched the consulting organization in the fall of 2022. He has since expanded to a network of more than 20 consultants, many retired pastors who have either been through the process or attended an LTG training.

Since that emergency call from Illinois, McManus has helped 20 churches transition to a new pastor. He is close to wrapping up the latest at Monmouth Worship Center in Marlboro, New Jersey. The church’s founding pastor stepped down a year ago after 38 years.

Author of a 2022 book titled The Transition Leader, McManus advises churches to think of hiring a transitional pastor rather than an interim. This process encompasses far more than temporarily filling a pulpit, he says.

“We’re looking at all the things we need to do to prepare that church for the future,” McManus says. “For example, evaluating their constitution and bylaws and training the board or search committee how to go about transitioning the church.”

In Lawton, this assistance included regular meetings with the board, where McManus advised them to avoid rushing to a decision and offered tips on getting candidates. He also helped them consider a key question: did they want a CEO-style leader or a shepherd-leader? Everyone agreed on the latter.

“We started in September of 2021 and it wasn’t until February of 2022 that I announced I was looking at retirement,” says Barnes, who became an LTG consultant after leaving Lawton First.

“It’s not an overnight process,” Barnes adds. “The biggest thing Ron says is, ‘We’re a Pentecostal church, so we’re going to bathe this in prayer and let the Holy Spirit lead us.’”

The candidate who emerged near the end of the review process wound up receiving a 98% approval vote. Barnes went on to help Carbondale AG in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrap up its pastoral search in 2023.

While transitions often take at least a year, Barnes says Carbondale had initiated part of the process before calling LTG at the recommendation of their district superintendent. So, his stay there only lasted five months.

“When a transitional pastor comes in and says, ‘I’m not electable,’ it helps the congregation feel safe,” Barnes says. “They feel they’ve got somebody who will care for them, act as a liaison with the staff, and keep the vision before the people. They realize they’re not going to twiddle their thumbs; they’re going to be the church.”

When Transitional Pastor John E. Johnson, 71, arrived at Bakersfield First in October of 2023, he thought it might take two years to bring the situation into balance. The previous four pastors had either been terminated or departed voluntarily.

However, in 10 months the central California church chose new pastor Jason Kennedy with a 98% approval vote. Board member Brock Meadors called the LTG process “biblically sound.” He says the three phases the church experienced included spiritual healing, updating its bylaws and constitution, and preparing to receive a new pastor.

“The key point is we wanted to pick the pastor that God had chosen for us,” says Meadors, 50, who has attended the church throughout his life. “We wanted to be in His will, not (choose) who we thought was good.”

Johnson, who recently met with a church in Hawaii, says seeing Bakersfield First turn around from a church divided to one filled with a sense of unity was the highlight of his time there.

“They had lost their hope,” Johnson says. “Legacy is able to step in and help people find hope by getting their focus off themselves and on Christ.”

Over the past 25 years, McManus says the most surprising discovery he made was how little he knew at the beginning about the critical nature of transitions.

“The best time to help a church is in transition,” says the longtime pastor. “So often we miss that moment and just go the next pastor. We never deal with the issues that church has and they continue to be repeated over and over again.”