CHUCK SWINDOLL, AT 90 YEARS OLD, FINISHES WELL AND PUTS ON A CLINIC IN TRANSFERRING TRUE POWER TO THE NEXT GENERATION
PICTURED: Pastor Chuck Swindoll (left) will become founding pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, as Jonathan Murphy becomes lead pastor. (Video screengrab)
DANIEL WHYTE III, PRESIDENT OF GOSPEL LIGHT SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL, SAYS IN A SEA OF DISOBEDIENT, UNFAITHFUL, FAILING PASTORS, HERE IS A LIGHTHOUSE OF FAITHFULNESS TO THE LORD — CHARLES SWINDOLL. IF GOD HAS BLESSED YOU TO HEAR “THE SPURGEON OF OUR TIME” IN THE BLACK AND DARK NIGHT OF LIFE — CHUCK SWINDOLL. LET’S ALL CELEBRATE AND PRAISE OUR GOD FOR THIS EXCELLENT, HUMBLE SERVANT OF THE LORD, WHO, AT 90 YEARS OLD, IS FINISHING WELL AND DOING IT RIGHT. BY THE WAY, AS CHARLES SWINDOLL HAS SAID, PREACHERS SHOULD NEVER RETIRE — BUT HE PUTS ON A CLINIC IN TRANSFERRING TRUE POWER TO THE NEXT GENERATION. GLORY BE TO GOD!
Well-known pastor and speaker Chuck Swindoll is changing titles at his church in Texas but not hanging up his pastor ‘hat’ just yet.
This week Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, founded by Swindoll, announced that a new lead pastor will take over Swindoll’s position starting May 1.
Jonathan Murphy, currently chair of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, will take over the lead pastor position. Swindoll will continue preaching but switch his title to founding pastor.
A statement on the church’s website reads: “In these roles, Pastor Chuck will continue to preach God’s Word at the pulpit on Sundays, while Jonathan will shepherd our day-to-day ministries and fill in at the pulpit when requested. Pastor Chuck will continue to serve as mentor and advisor to Jonathan, and at the appropriate time in the future, Jonathan will then assume primary pulpit duties.”
In a previous interview, Swindoll, then age 75, said, “One of my great goals in life is to live long enough to where I am in the pulpit, preaching my heart out, and I die on the spot, my chin hits the pulpit—boom!—and I’m down and out. What a way to die.”
For 60 years Swindoll has been preaching, making him the oldest megachurch pastor in the country.
Swindoll pastored two churches in Texas, one in Massachusetts, and one in California before he took the lead pastor role for Stonebriar in 1998. Swindoll and his wife Cynthia started Insight for Living Ministries, a Bible study radio program. Launced in 1979, it continues to run to this day.
“We have the founding pastor being able to continue to preach as long as the Lord would have, and I can have a season as a senior pastor taking responsibility for the staff and caring for them and the ministry direction of the church at large,” says Murphy.
Swindoll has been mentoring Murphy for a few years and the transition of titles has been in the works since 2022.
SOURCE: https://julieroys.com/chuck-swindoll-stepping-down-lead-pastor-still-plans-preaching/
* IF YOU WERE TO DIE TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO: HEAVEN OR HELL? IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, “BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED” FOR JESUS CHRIST SAID THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS EVER SPOKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHEN HE SAID, “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.”
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