On today’s Vandercast, William Vanderbloemen talks with Russell Howard, lead pastor at McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers, FL.
Russell and William talk about guiding your staff through a time of transition and the importance of maintaining your faith in the face of hardship.
Russell Howard came to faith in Christ in the fall of 1971 at the age of nine. Soon after, he was baptized into the membership of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
As Russell progressed in his faith, even in his teenage years, he taught adult Sunday School and, at the age of 15, to begin serving on a Senior Pastor Search Team.
In the fall of 1983, Russell married his wife, Gail. Their two sons, Philip and Kyle, were born in May of 1988 and September of 1990.
Russell served as Executive Pastor at McGregor Baptist Church until 2017 when the church voted him as its new Lead Pastor.
[Church] McGregor Baptist Church
[Book] Honest Dogs by Brain O’Donoghue
[App] Waze
“A typical senior pastor transition in a baptist church comes in three phases: rush, replace, and regret. That’s why there are so many short ten-year guys out there..they go out and they execute a replacement and then they begin to get buyers remorse and things can get weird.”
“To be living with your head up and open to ‘ok something we didn’t expect that is a wallop just happened; if God is sovereign, He might mean something by that.’”
“If there’s a deep conviction that the church is to be a place where the stream of God’s work and God’s will are moving, no one particular person other than Jesus himself is suppose to matter all that much. You should be able to coherently continue and execute God’s will for your church, whether or not a particular person is around to champion it.”
The Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast brings you interviews from leaders across the theological spectrum of the global Church. Our goal is to bring you thought-provoking interviews that encourage you, challenge you, and help you build, run, and keep great teams.