Leadership Succession in the Missionary Baptist Church

Leadership succession planning is often overlooked in many church organizations. Failure to create succession strategies causes organizations to face uncertain futures during leadership transitions. An absence of succession planning can repress an organization’s financial growth, congregational morale, and spiritual growth, and in some cases, result in permanent dissolution. The purpose of this project is to examine the state of leadership succession planning within the Kenansville Eastern Missionary Baptist Church Association. This thesis project employs surveys and comprehensive interviews of senior pastors of local churches within the Kenansville Eastern Missionary Baptist Church Association to explore succession planning and leadership transitions perspectives. Additionally, this project assesses the pervasiveness or absence of leadership succession planning within the Kenansville Missionary Baptist Association’s member churches. The desired outcome of this project will be the formulation of a biblical leadership succession guide, reinforced by exemplar literature and Bible Scriptures, to guide autonomous Baptist churches through planned leadership transitions. Additional churches may use this guide to fill leadership vacancies