Pastor Legacy Life Plan: Ground Your Present to Build for your Future

By Dave Travis

"I wish someone had told me that earlier...."After hearing this phrase over and over from Senior Pastor/Lead Pastors as he works with their churches in the Pastor Smart Succession Process, Dave Travis decided to write down the accumulated wisdom from his 30-year career serving long-serving pastors

• Language: English
• Publisher: Church Leader Intelligence LLC
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737324812

Dave Travis

Dave Travis is the creator of the Pastor Legacy Life Plan Process. Dave's professional life has journeyed from consulting engineer, pastoral staff, regional denominational leader, and then national staff for Leadership Network, the premier large church resourcing organization in the United States. In his tenure at Leadership Network, he worked with thousands of larger churches in the US, Canada, and Europe. He met with hundreds of senior pastors and their teams each year. After 24 years of leadership, including as the Chief Executive and Encouragement Officer, he retired to spend the last season of active ministry back in serving pastors and churches in a hands-on way. He joined the team at Generis as the Director of Strategic Counsel to Pastors and Church Boards. Through this role, he serves clients in the areas of: • Pastor Smart Succession • Strategy StoryCrafting • Building Better Boards Dave is the author of multiple books and booklets like this one, from scholarly works to quick reads like this one. Dave and his wife, Lynne, live outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

Book preview

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Pastor Legacy Life Plan

Ground your present to build

for your future

Dave Travis

Church Leader Insider Press

Bulk orders available

Denominational and Network leaders may

desire to buy a box of this booklet to share with

their constituents. Email [e-mail]

to inquire about pricing.

Copyright 2021 by Church Leader Intelligence LLC

and Dave Travis

All rights reserved

Book design by Jess LaGreca, Mayfly Design

ISBNs: 978-1-7373248-0-5 (pbk);

978-1-7373248-1-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021910892

Dedication and Foreword

A treasured photo hangs on my wall. It was taken at a Leadership Network event over 20 years ago.

A younger, darker-haired version of Dave Travis is on one side. The other people were some significant mentors to me.

The oldest person in the photo is Peter Drucker. Peter called himself a social ecologist, but his writings were applied primarily by business leaders across the world.

Lyle Schaller is also in the center. Lyle was the foremost congregational consultant in the country for over 40 years. His writings and consultations helped many leaders understand and lead their churches. Lyle mentored me through seminary days and beyond.

Finally, to the left is Bob Buford, the founding chair of Leadership Network. Through Bob, I got to spend several days a year with Peter in the last decade of Peter’s life and spent 30 years being mentored by Bob and serving the organizations he launched.

Bob’s influence and legacy were left not only through his work with Leadership Network but through the codification of ideas around the concept of Halftime.

Bob’s writing on Halftime and the resultant coaching and processes focused on helping business leaders move from success to significance in the second half of life.

The concepts and ideas in this small book are in debt to these men, in addition to the thousands of pastors I have listened to, conversed with, and learned from over the past three decades.

This booklet is dedicated to the three men in the photo who left a tremendous legacy of significance in the hope that readers of this book can do the same.

I hope you find the concepts useful in your life. Feedback is welcomed.

Just drop me an email at [e-mail].

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Family and Friends

Chapter 2: Spiritual and Spirit

Chapter 3: Church and Congregation

Chapter 4: Kingdom

Chapter 5: Community and Home

Chapter 6: Financial

Chapter 7: Multidimensional Health

Chapter 8: The Credo Process

Chapter 9: Plans Change

Chapter 10: Take the Next Forward Step

About the Author

Introduction

I wish someone had told me that years ago.

A large part of my consulting practice with large churches is in Senior Pastor Succession. It is called the Pastor Smart Succession Process.

The client for that process is a congregation to help them navigate the spiritual, emotional, and organizational journey from one leader to another.

The process is designed to help the whole system—including its current pastor—to have healthy endings, productive neutral zones, and good new beginnings.

Some of that process is focused on the current senior pastor and leader.

More than a few times in conversation about the pastor’s future, they say:

I wish I had thought about that a decade ago.

Enough of those conversations convinced me to write this short work and develop the Pastor Legacy Life Plan Process.

Many have life dreams, but few have a life plan that gets them towards those dreams.

The legacy process is your personal, long-term, strategic plan to build toward the ultimate impact you want to have on others and the world.

This booklet serves as an introduction and foundation of that process. The process contains a variety of frameworks, conversation guides, and tools to help you develop a plan to leave a wholesome, positive legacy in several areas of life.

Could other areas be added? Yes, of course.

You can use exercises and tools to add those other areas. We ask pastors to start with the seven core areas.

Pastors work very hard. Every week they counsel, minister, and disciple congregants, and give administrative leadership. There is the guidance