Leadership Podcast Ep. 47 - Transitions in Leadership with Guest Edward Paz

thanks for checking out the vance pitman leadership podcast this is a conversation all about leadership vision and joining in god's activity wherever you are you can find the show notes links and other helpful resources at hopechurchlv.com podcast youtube or on your favorite podcast app thanks again for tuning in today we hope you enjoyed this episode [Music] well welcome to the vance pitman leadership podcast whether you're joining us on podcast or you're joining us on youtube uh for our third youtube video so far glad you're joining us uh as you can tell if you're watching the video there are a little bit more people here on that's right the podcast we will introduce our mystery guest here in just a minute uh but if you're listening in real time we are in august of 2021 um as you know if you've listened the last couple episodes we're recording these a little early because pastor vance is on an extended sabbatical for being here at hope for 20 years so he is enjoying some time away with his family and so we wanted to get some content for you listeners uh just ready to go and so today we're really excited about our guests but before we introduce our guest i'm here as always with the man the myth the legend my podcast not my podcast my pastor my mentor my friend i i it has to be the mic vance i messed it up because i got this new mic because we got our guest i blame our guests but pastor vance pittman how you doing man i'm doing good and i'm actually in real time doing much better than you are because i am in somewhere that's much cooler than where you are but uh no man it's great to be here um excited about our content today looking forward to having this conversation i think it's really important for where leaders are living but man i'm doing really good really good so as you can tell if you're watching uh we have a guest if not you probably saw in the title we have a guest just talking specifically about an area that he is very familiar with but i don't want to steal all the thunder vance introduce our guest and why he is on the podcast today yeah scott and i were laying out uh podcast episodes for while i was away man i just thought it'd be real beneficial to talk about the subject of transition and leadership because all of us go through moments of change and leadership um and we just recently brought a new pastor onto our lead team here at hope who i'll introduce to you as pastor edward pies edward somebody i've known for a number of years followed at a distance we run in kind of some similar circles different some similar tribes and he's been a church planter up in oakland california for the last number of years and been following his ministry and god opened the door for us to invite edward to join our team he and his wife rebecca really excited only been here a few weeks now um but i'm really excited about having them on our team here and because you just walked through transition to joining our team i thought man nobody better to speak to transition and leadership than where you're living but edward i want to introduce you to our listeners and tell them a little bit about who edward paz is yes thank you for having me and i'm sorry i made you laugh there because i haven't listened to this podcast for some time now i've always heard you say the man and i got to do that in person yeah so that's right i just had to smile um so like you said my name is edward and joined the team here as a lead pastor of prayer and teaching ministries was formerly a founding church planter founding pastor and church planter of the movement church in oakland california we planted the movement in september of 2013 and i find myself here after believing in thinking i was going to be in the bay area context for all of my life i was born and raised there 38 years living in the bay area and find myself here in las vegas nevada and so i'm excited to be at hope church as a staff member as a church member and then now on the vance pittman leadership podcast happy to be here awesome it's awesome well one of the things i remember when i was i'm going to kind of bow out a little bit of this one and just have these guys have a great conversation about transitional leadership but i remember i was a part a little bit of kind of the interview process of edward and kind of talking through just what it would look like for him to be in vegas several months ago and uh one of the statements edward you made and we didn't even talk about this beforehand that i thought wow that is that is kind of a heavy subject is you said man i'm coming as somebody who was the number one guy i was the lead pastor the senior pastor i know you didn't use that language but um to a context now where i'm just among equals serving under vance and i just thought that was as we set up this conversation uh even more of a wow like this is you had to not only hear from the lord but everything you're gonna hear right now is just i think been been given to you from a posture of humility and clearly god um orchestrating it all to work out so we're super i'm just in a few weeks you've been here man just seeing what god's gonna do in in and through our church by using you as his instrument and so really excited about this conversation um vance i'd like for you to to kind of cue it up and and and start talking to edward about some stuff we put together about what it looks like to transition but man just really just want to affirm what vance said just stoked you're here i know god's going to use he already has in my own life and uh really really excited about this conversation for our leaders even if they're not in a ministry context um transition and leadership happens across all leadership and so i think it's gonna be a really really helpful episode yeah so regardless of where you're listening from if you're in a ministry context obviously this is going to be applicable because edward has just walked through the process of hearing god change the course of his direction in ministry and change his role in ministry change his leadership platform but you may be in business you may be in education you may be in the arena of sports whatever it may be all of us are are if you're in leadership you may be in the middle right now of transitioning to a new role or you may be as a christian praying through is it time for me to transition or maybe there's an opportunity that's been presented to you and you're trying to navigate through this i think all of this edward's going to be so helpful for our listeners so let's just start by talking about opportunity you know transitioning from where you were to las vegas there had to be some moments that were kind of the catalyst that that inspired that transition what are some of those things that were catalysts for you in making a transition yeah definitely um so the story behind the story is that you all had invited me out to preach the week before thanksgiving weekend uh never had preached at hope church before but had been a big fan of your ministry and followed your ministry for quite some time and so upon the conclusion of that first weekend service that i preached here um travis your executive pastor uh stepped out and just asked me if i'd be willing to consider joining the team and so the the first catalyst for transition was an invitation you know an invitation an opportunity to do something other than than i was doing and and honestly um that was a huge catalyst because uh the idea of being anywhere other than oakland had not crossed my mind until that invitation was presented but when i got back to the bay area and uh through some time of prayer really heard clearly from the lord and so an invitation an opportunity is a catalyst for transition but i heard a strong word from the lord and this word from the lord wasn't as much about joining hope church as it was i heard very clearly from the lord the best way i know how to hear from the lord that my time at the movement was finished and that the lord was releasing me from the responsibility of being the senior leader at the movement church and i just got to tell you i knew that had to be from somewhere other than myself because that is not a thought i've had that's not something i ever saw coming and when i when i heard it it it was incredible how um something i had held on to for so long and knew that was my responsibility like in my heart i had just let go of it because god had said time was up the third and final one other than invitation opportunity and a strong word from the lord is just what came next was affirmation from counsel i began to share with my wife obviously close family and friends hey i think the lord's speaking to me about my time being done at the movement and then this opportunity is opening up in las vegas what do you guys think about that unanimously amongst uh my friends family and then ultimately the staff and pastoral team and their wives of the movement church there was this sense of peace and rightness there was this sense of as much as we don't want you to go it or maybe they did want me to go who knows that we could see that god could be doing this in your life and so uh those were the catalysts for my transition oh that's awesome and and you know to hear you tell that story our listeners it sounds like that uh travis just surprised you but actually the backstory is travis and i had for some time and been following your ministry as well and watching an invitation for you to come preach was really one for us to kind of see how does he fit in our context and culture and then to actually begin to have a conversation and i think we actually went to dinner after the thursday night service before sunday and i'd ask you some questions about how long you see yourself in oakland and and you'd said man oakland ride or die like i'm here you know and we talked around that and then i just kind of left it with travis because part of what you know as a senior leader trying to raise up the leaders around me i wanted him to begin to experience those conversations and i said man i'm not there sunday you're there if by the end of sunday you sense the freedom to ask edward would he be open to having this conversation then do it and travis walked through that with you that weekend and when he presented that it was something we'd been praying which i think points out that sometimes these opportunities that surface in our lives are really the story of god working in the lives of others that opens those doors now sometimes those opportunities are not what god has for us um but but but sometimes there and i was thinking about um you know how how sometimes these these challenges are these these decisions that we have to make sometimes they they're they're difficult decisions that we're weighing through and they come with certain sets of challenges and i was thinking about um when when when god called us to las vegas a lot of people that our listeners have heard me tell the story of of how i discern hearing god's voice that you articulated a little bit differently but it's the same principles a word from the word uh counsel and circumstances lining up sense of peace and rightness i'd gotten this word from god about we were supposed to join in his activity in another city of expanding god's kingdom um and before johnny my pastor mentor reached out to me and opened the door to las vegas a local church in memphis that was in the urban center of memphis had declined from being a church of about 2000 to a church of 200 they had uh about uh 20 acres of property they had about 200 000 square feet of worship of building space they had about a 1500 seat auditorium completely debt-free but they were down to this little handful of people and they said would you come and do a relaunch of this church in the urban center and everything on paper looked like hey i could go live this out and i wouldn't have to sell my house i live in the same city i wouldn't have to move so it was a difficult there were challenges to making that decision obviously now having made that decision and being here in vegas for 20 years god's hand was all over this decision but there were challenges in making that decision edward anytime you make decisions there are challenges when you talk about transitioning what were some of the challenges that you had to deal with in transition yeah and we don't have this one here but as you tell this story i just it just comes to mind one challenge was as i told one of my close buddies in ministry there who who we're in partnership in ministry for many years i said hey there's this opportunity and he's like bro it's the first one like you got to turn something down you can't just jump at the first one and so the first challenge was am i really going to accept the first opportunity that's ever come to me to go somewhere else you know yeah uh ended up doing it but the second one and the strongest challenge to me that i had just thought about as we prepared for this was was disappointing people there were so many people who i pastored over the eight years even newer people who've come to the church who were expecting to be in a discipleship relationship with me over a longer period of time it was the turn of 2021 there were people who were expecting coming out of kovid if i know anything i know edward's my pastor and i go to the movement church in oakland and the fact that i was going to be shaking all of that up uh during a time when um everyone's world had already been shaken up and we were looking to turn a corner as we told our pastors and wives we even had one of the wise but just transparently and openly saying on the original conversation edward this sounds great for you and your wife and i don't mean to be whatever but like how about us yeah you know and gosh it was so hard to to say like i i get it i know the pain that that's gonna cause but but this is what the lord is calling me to do um but but the challenge of disappointing people and um even recently as as i've been reading through acts again this verse of of we must obey god rather than men um even on the back side of this decision is something that informs yeah in any given circumstance even when you've loved a people for so long and they're relying upon you and they love me and they love my leadership in their life and that's why they want me to stay uh at the end of the day i i must obey god but but it was difficult yeah that's a challenge especially when you have a heart for people yeah uh and you you do want to shepherd them well those are challenging things in the midst of transition and and hearing you tell that reminded me of just the real reality that god never moves one piece on the board without having other pieces ready to move as well yeah it's not like when god spoke to you that it was right for you to move it wasn't just right for you it was also right for the movement church and god had a plan there that that he wanted to continue to to execute that that meant edward and rebecca needed to move on and so it's not like god's plan only affected your family and now they're on their own right i love the verse it says faithful is he who calls you and he will also bring it to pass he's not just faithful in the calling and you figure it out he'll take care of the rest if we're following him so really appreciate that heart so obviously one that that that heart that you have when you make that decision you've seen the opportunity you've heard god you've wrestled with the challenges then there's the process here's what transition begins to look like for me as a leader talk to us about the process of transition yeah this this process part is definitely some things that can uh connect with people across all different spheres of whatever type of work or business you're involved in i think these are things that i've learned through this process so three things one communicating the timeline clearly seems kind of obvious but and then concentric circles of communication you know communicating it to your inner circle obviously your wife and family and then the people of leadership in the church then the membership of the church and then you know the general congregation and then social media i think there was i praise god for having been able to watch other leaders communicate things in a timely manner giving people enough room uh we gave people about four months is when they knew okay so there was just time to land the plane um there wasn't any confusion around you know what's going on here and so just communicating the timeline clearly was a big part you want to say something well i want to ask you a question as you talk about that because you mentioned a four-month timeline and i've heard other pastors caution against that long of a timeline having just lived through that do you think four months was the right window for you do you think you wish you'd had it a little shorter a little longer it actually for us turned out to be uh just a sweet spot um in terms of it gave us enough time to to meet with a lot of um couples and a lot of people in the church and that's the next point finishing well relationally i don't know if we would have made it shorter how i would have been able to finish well relationally in the way that we wanted to in terms of a ton of dinners face-to-face conversations uh answering questions and then also making sure the staff was prepared for what was next you know thankfully we were able to find uh the next lead pastor right as i left um but that was important too just being able to to look and i even said uh in one of my last messages and i said hey look before i leave if we have anything against one another like let's talk about it because i want to clear the decks of my own heart of anything that might be unsettled with any of you and i want you to have the opportunity before another pastor comes in here to clear the decks of your own heart and so i praise god that i can look back because we know when it comes to leadership transitions pastoral transitions so many times it is because there's um relational conflict yeah and that's okay um but one of the evidences at least for me that this was god's will for my life was that i wasn't running from anything i wasn't running from anything unhealthy and actually i had some of our leadership say ed what makes us most confident that this is god's will for your life is that you are relationally good with us and the majority of the people in this church and so there was even some affirmation um just found in the health of the relationships and so really good communicating the timeline clearly finishing well relationally and then finally and this is the hardest one is letting go gracefully letting go gracefully and i say that because um as those months wore on there were a couple meetings that i wasn't invited to there were a couple of meetings that i was uninvited to and whether or not that was the right or wrong decision i had a choice in how i was going to go out was i going to go out in such a way where my opinion had to be given over everything that was going to be made another thing i had empowered people to make decisions i had said go do this and you are now the first among equals and go do this but when it started transitioning and they were doing things that i wouldn't have done was i gonna pull the carpet up from under them and say i know i told you this but um and so you'd have to talk to the people back home whether or not i did this well or not all i know is what was going on in my mind is i have to be gracious as i go and um if if i'm going to be kicking and screaming that i'm not getting my way on the way out that's not how i want to go out i want to go out affirming the leadership as much as i can encouraging them as much as i can um just because i think that's the way god would have wanted me to do it you know um one last thing i'll say here there's a pretty uh well-known pastor his name is francis chan had the opportunity to have a brief conversation when i was in the midst of transition and hopefully this could be helpful for some of the listeners but when i asked them you know francis you've had two pretty significant transitions one out of simi valley your original church that you were at and then another leaving san francisco for china you have some advice for me on how to make a smooth transitions and he said you know what um really everything you've done up into this point is going to make your transition smooth or not you can't do anything right now and what he was speaking to in particular and i think this could be helpful for leaders of all different types of organizations is if you want to have an organization that can run healthy without the lead pastor or the leader you have to have already been sowing seeds into other leaders because by the time it's time for you to go you can't do anything to change that and so uh just a little principle here that maybe can be helpful is that every leadership decision we make maybe i'll address the people who are watching every leadership decision that you make whether you're transitioning or not is either going to make your transition in the future easier or harder and so everything that we do as it relates to developing leaders developing cultures i guess you could say from the day you get your job you are preparing for transition it's just a matter of how you're preparing for transition and whether that transition is your death or that transition is god calling you somewhere else uh every decision you make is preparing for an either easy or smooth transition um so i know if you have any thoughts about that a lot of wisdom there i think the decisions that we're making i hope everybody who's listening tuned into that that whether you're a teacher whether you're an administrator whether you're a business owner uh whether you're a contractor the decisions that you're making today in leadership will determine the success or failure when it is time to transition because the bottom line is leaders are temporary all of us no matter how long i've been here for two decades now plus but at some point i won't be the leader here all leaders are temporary but god's kingdom his mission his work is eternal so what he's entrusted us to as leaders is to steward a portion of his activity for a season but at some point either through retirement job change or death we will pass the baton to somebody else and everything we're doing today is laying the foundation for what that transition is going to look like and if we're not preparing for that well then it's not going to end well so i think there's a lot of wisdom in what you said well now you have transitioned you are now here um what would you say to people about the posture once you've transitioned now that you're on this side of that decision what's the right posture now yeah and i'm really excited about sharing some of this stuff and this is just live in my own heart and and and putting words around it and so i hope this could be helpful and i i definitely haven't aced this in any sense of the word but i i just know uh that these are some things i know the lord has me uh posturing myself so the first is just unworthy but equipped unworthy but equipped i feel so unworthy of my office uh the expenses that were reimbursed for me to move out here um the beautiful facility that i get to be of the staff the team the 20 years of you laying the groundwork there is just a real sense of i did not do enough in my ministry context i did not build enough of a quote-unquote successful ministry to be given this opportunity so a real sense of unworthiness but at the same time i'm equipped i'm not worthy of this opportunity but i know god has equipped me to do this work i know that when it comes to the prayer ministries here that he's taught me some lessons that there's a real passion for prayer that he's equipped me with so that i could do this job when it comes to the teaching ministry side of things there are things over 10 years of preaching that he's equipped me for this season and then in regards to the church planting part of the work that i'm going to do here obviously my church planting experience and i love i actually shared this idea with you and you said you got to stay right in the middle of that tension because if you feel too unworthy you've got a false humility going on but if you feel too equipped you've probably got a pride going on and so my job is going to stay in this tension and i think that's with all three of these things that i'm going to share do you want to share something before you go to the second one i just it's awesome to see you live that out because you really are doing that and um and you just everybody who's been around you up to this point on our team and to those of you that are listening that are in transition the temptation is you want to get to a place and you now feel like okay i got to prove to everybody that i belong here and so you start taking big swings when what you really need to do is just get some bass hits uh and um and what you've done is just stepped in with that mentality and that heartbeat that says man i'm unworthy but i'm also equipped and it's allowed you to step right in and just simply that characteristic alone has earned you immense respect from the people around you i know scott would even affirm that the the people around you have gained so much respect from from that i don't know yeah i'll just add i mean the first time i think you would you got here right before we went on a lead pastor's retreat and uh vance and i got to be in the car with you on the way up it was after sunday so vance and i are tired and you asked so many questions but it was really like man this dude is so hungry yeah to learn about this church and it kept us on our toes because we're like man i don't answer questions like this on sunday afternoons but you were just trying to get to know our church sure um and it just speaks to that i mean just a humility that you're saying man i feel so unworthy but i also feel equipped for this work and i want to i want to find out all i can about how i can serve this church the as best i can so no i i i affirm it for sure what else would you say what about your posture now yeah so uh unworthy but equipped and then uh proactive so key proactive hear this folks proactive but submitted proactive but submitted so what do i mean by that like i i i've been equipped so i have to come with some solutions i have to come with ideas i got to be proactive in how i could add value to this team but more important than me being proactive is i gotta be submitted because i'm not well even as the lead pastor you're still submitted in a plurality of elders but i i have to be submitted to the vision of this house that has come from you over the course of 20 years um and this really gelled for me i remember both you and travis asking me hey you're not going to be preaching as much when you come on board here how do you feel about that and god had already and i'm not saying everyone has to be at this point when it comes to transition in terms of how you feel about the leadership that you're going to be serving under but i'd hope that you could get to this point and i praise god that he brought me to this point but you said are you going to be okay with that and i said look i trust you with god's plan for my life and so if if if if you feel like i should be preaching more than i trust that that the holy spirit is going to lead you to allow me if you feel like i should be preaching less then i'll preach less but i'm not going to control that i believe as i submit myself to your leadership god will take care of the rest and i think i even said you guys have to answer to the lord for what you do with with what god has brought into me and but there's such a peace because it's like okay i'm gonna be proactive but if they don't want these ideas or if they don't want this method of how i'm thinking about doing something that's okay because i'm submitted before the lord he could take it if he wants it but if not i don't feel because because i'm not supposed to be here anyways i don't deserve this anyway so it comes back to as long as i could not be entitled to the position i'm not going to be entitled to anything that i think should happen while i'm in the position it's awesome and i've watched you demonstrate this one as well and that you it's not like you're just sitting in your office waiting on us to tap you on the shoulder you are proactive you've brought me already several things in the arena of prayer and teaching ministries and church planting that are value add but you've brought them with a heart of submission and you one of the things i've appreciated getting to know you better and scott just mentioned it is i i talk myself to clarity you question yourself to clarity uh you you ask a lot of questions and so you come proactively and give me the guy any day that i'm having to go whoa whoa whoa versus the guy i'm having to go come on would you do something here so there is that proaction but there is this submission to recognizing god is doing something here and you came to join what god was doing not to try to do your own thing and so that's been incredible yeah um what's the third one that you would add here yeah finally it's just expectant but patient you know um man i believe god has brought me here to do something awesome you know i believe that the best days of my ministry life are ahead of me and i really am expected but i tether that with patience in in god's timing you know um and was so blessed like just a couple weeks ago i got to lead the corporate prayer moment for the very first time and travis asked me you know are you ready to do that and the expectant side of me was like absolutely i'm ready to go i came to play but the patient side of me had already uh just determined in my mind if i wasn't gonna lead that moment any time soon that's okay yeah you know because i'm submitted but i'm also realizing uh god's timing is perfect and when he presses play on whatever i'm gonna do here and the impact that i'm gonna have here i i and i've just and i don't i i don't have these thoughts because i've lived this way all my life i just know what it's like to not live this way and the the negative impact that being prideful about your gifts not being submitted to leadership being impatient has done and so i just have another opportunity to do it differently and i'm so thankful for another opportunity and i would just say this again to those listening man pray that god would bring people to your team with the heart that he's just described because i'm just telling you as a leader it's a breath of fresh air but it's also contagious to the rest of the team to be around that posture that you just described and i think there's even a takeaway uh for those of us that are leaders that are that are hearing you say that and the kind of people that we're looking for because as a leader not only do we have to walk through moments of transition in our life but we have to kind of navigate transition in the lives of other people and man i'm telling you those are some things that i'm going to be looking for in the future because of the way that you've articulated him and enjoying the experience of having added you to the team appreciate it yeah edward we are excited man we're so excited hope church if you're listening to this and you're a part of the whole family and you hadn't got a chance to meet edward um i can't wait for you to meet edward cause just the last few weeks with him really really expect it for what god's gonna use you for at this church and i appreciate you being a guest on the vance pitman leadership podcast man i can knock this off the bucket list come on and we need to help you with your bucket list if this is on your bucket list oh man well uh hope you're enjoying your summer you are finishing up in august um and we will catch you in september for another episode of the vance pitman leadership podcast thanks again for joining us today for the vance pitman leadership podcast if you enjoyed what you've heard we would love to help spread the word you can drop a comment on youtube leave a review on your favorite podcast app or share this episode on your social media thanks again for joining us you

Channel: Hope Church LV

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Keywords: hopechurchlv, hope church, hope church lv, church

Id: ru-cB81muys

Length: 35min 49sec (2149 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021