Transitions are always opportunities

I have learned that as we build healthy teams we must always hold staff lightly. If God chooses to move them to a different ministry or role we may mourn their loss but we never want to stand in the way of God's will for their life and calling.

Here is something else to remember. While transitions can be hard (if they were really good team mates) there is always an opportunity to go to the next level in some way at a time of transition. In other words, I choose to see staff transitions as opportunities even though they are hard and even though we will miss our colleague.

Often in transition we can refocus the position toward issues that are more urgent today than they might have been in the past. Sometimes you find that you can hire at a higher skill level than the one leaving. Or, it gives you the opportunity to rethink the position itself and ask whether a reconfiguration is even better allowing you to hire for something totally different.

In some cases, the individual leaving has done their job so well that their position may no longer actually be needed. This give one the opportunity to reconfigure and staff for the future, rather than assuming it needs to look like the past. We have had situations where it was not necessary to replace a position at all as the actual needs of the ministry had changed.

Having a high view of God's sovereignty, I rest in the fact that He always has a hand in these transitions and that I can trust the one leaving that God has their best interests in mind and I can trust that God also has the best in mind for the ministry I lead. Thus transitions, while often hard, are for me an opportunity to reconfigure for the future.