Abstract
Succession planning is vital for certain Protestant churches that utilize a unique ministry model called multi-site. For multi-site churches, a critical senior leadership role is the campus pastor. The focus of this qualitative research was to study how multi-site churches within the Converge denomination conduct succession management of their campus pastors. In order to explore campus pastor succession, church leaders were interviewed about the process by which they think about, plan for, and execute succession management. A multiple-case design was used for this research, examining four selected multi-site churches that have succeeded at least one campus pastor. Multi-site churches in this study did not have a formalized process to manage the succession of campus pastors. However, these churches did conduct intentional leadership development that aided in the succession planning for campus pastors. This research contributed toward the scholarly literature on this topic by providing researched-based case studies on how multi-site churches plan and execute a campus pastor transition, a topic previously unrepresented in the published literature. An evidence-based succession management framework for multi-site church leaders is recommended.|Keywords: church leadership, multi-site church, succession planning, succession management, case-study, qualitative research, leadership development, Converge.