Integrity: Beyond Transition
Planting a new campus is one of the most challenging things the church I pastor has ever done. One of the biggest decisions in front of us, of course, is finding the right leaders and getting them in the right positions.
Over time, I've learned it is less risky to raise leaders from within the organization than to bring them in from outside. A growing church sometimes has no choice but to look outside, and that choice is not a wrong one. I have merely observed that there is more risk, because an outside hire is someone we won't know as well. A leader who has grown up from inside the organization is different. You've observed that person over time and in many settings, so by the time they are placed in a position, you already know their character.
This is not rocket science, of course. It's a fact that the longer you observe someone, the better you know them.
I've been writing about integrity lately. Perhaps because, more than ever before, I'm immersed in decisions that rise and fall on the character of people. Integrity is more than a data point. I believe it's tied to an organization's longevity.
Raising a leader from within is slow work. Someone has to notice them, give them room, and watch how they use it, often for years, before any seat opens up. That patience is a decision about the future, because we are preparing someone to be ready, and trusted on the day we need them.
It dawned on me that planting a new campus is like a practice run for a bigger, more challenging moment to come. I'm referring to a day every organization will eventually face: turning the leadership over to the next generation.
Business has a name for deliberately preparing people to take over from the leaders in place: succession planning. When we choose to raise leaders rather than hire strangers, we are already doing a small version of it. And the whole effort rests on personal character and integrity.
The Overlooked Place
Every leader leaves. It sounds obvious, yet most organizations seem to operate in denial, as though a succession plan isn't an immediate need. Truth is, leaders retire, get recruited away, fall ill, or simply run out of years, and the seat never stays empty. Someone will sit in it.
The numbers show how often. In 2011, about one in ten CEOs at S&P 500 companies was replaced, and the average departing CEO was sixty years old with about eight years in the job.1 But don't make the mistake of assuming that those departures will arrive on schedule. A 2010 report on corporate boards noted a rise in CEOs leaving unexpectedly or on short notice, and many directors were not satisfied with their own succession planning.2 A 2025 survey by an executive search firm found that only 8 percent of directors had planned five years out.3 In other words, the seat at the head of the table opens on its own timetable, and readiness for the transfer of leadership takes years.
Researchers who study succession find that a company can hand over the money, knowledge, and relationships and still struggle with identity, trust, and the outgoing leader's reluctance to let go of power.4 To me, these areas point to the importance of integrity, both the current leader's and that of the one taking up the mantle.
A leader's legacy is what remains after they leave the seat. For years, legacy is hard to measure because the leader is still there holding everything together. The handoff is the first moment anyone finds out whether what was built can stand without them. Succession is where legacy becomes visible, and where it gets tested.
So if the handoff is the test, what does the next leader need that no business plan can verify?
The Gap
To answer that question, I want to look at a handoff where we can see inside the leader's thinking. Scripture gives us one. First Chronicles records the last public acts of King David.
By this point, David was an old king, and the text sums up his life as "full of days, riches, and honor" (1 Chronicles 29:28, ESV). His son Solomon was about to take the throne. So David gathered the nation's leaders, officers, commanders, and stewards (28:1), and before them handed the kingdom to the next generation.
Notice who David says knows the heart. He tells Solomon:
"Know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought" (28:9).
God doesn't need an observable track record, because He sees the thoughts behind the plans. David says: "I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness" (29:17). Solomon is "young and inexperienced, and the work is great" (29:1). Even so, as David's son, he may have been observed for years. But God sees the heart more clearly than David could by watching Solomon's actions. That is why David puts the heart at the center of his charge.
The business world gets this right: time is the best tool we have for judging character. But even years of watching have limits, because we can only judge what we can see. A track record is worth having. Yet God sees it now.
So what did David do, knowing that God sees what the rest of us can't?
David's Surrender
Think about what it takes to set a new leader up to succeed. They need a clear plan for the work, the resources to carry it out, and the backing of the people they will lead. Those are the practical pieces of any good handoff.
David did all three. He gave Solomon written plans for the entire building (28:11–19). He gathered materials and gave from his own treasure to fund the work (29:2–5). And he stood in front of Israel's leaders and put them behind his son (28:1, 21), and they pledged their allegiance to Solomon (29:24).
By any business standard, that is a textbook handoff. But look at the integrity David showed throughout.
The temple was to be a house for God's name and the center of Israel's worship, and David had it in his heart to build it himself (28:2). God said no (28:3). The text never calls his desire wrong. It wasn't. God simply decided it would be built by his successor (28:6). Still, David planned, funded, and organized the whole project for a son to finish. You can hear his surrender to the Lord: "In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things" (29:17). David never treated the project as his to protect. It was God's, and David said so: it "comes from your hand and is all your own" (29:16). He wanted success for the Lord's sake.
My point is that integrity was as important for David as it was for Solomon. A leader can give a successor the roadmap, the funding, and the backing, and still hold the real power, still keep the credit, still treat the work as his own. True legacy requires character, both going and coming.
What David does next is something business succession plans usually don't include.
The Heart Before the Task
Consider how Solomon came to be the one. God chose him (28:5–6), and the text gives no résumé or accomplishment as the reason. The seat came by God's choice alone. But God attached a condition to it: Solomon's kingdom would be established if he continued in obedience (28:7). The position was given, and keeping it depended on his heart.
That is why David's charge is ordered the way it is. He puts the heart first and the task second (28:9–10). When we choose a leader, we tend to ask first whether a person can do the job. David's first concern is whether his son will serve God with a whole heart, one that is undivided and given completely to God, with nothing held back for self.
Then comes the last thing David does. After the blueprints, the gold, and the backing of the leaders, he prays. He asks God to give Solomon "a whole heart" (29:19).
Notice the pair. David charges Solomon to serve with a whole heart (28:9), and then he asks God to give him one (29:19). He understood that he could not plan it into his son. However, he could call his son to it and ask God to accomplish that work.
What the next leader needs is a whole heart toward God. What does that mean for your business or ministry?
The Implication
You may never hand a kingdom to a successor, but you are building something someone else will inherit: a company, a team, a congregation, a family. That is your legacy, and the day it changes hands is the day it shows what it stands on.
Remember, whatever you lead is a small piece of what God is already doing in the world and in His Kingdom (28:5; 29:11, 23). In that sense, you are a steward handing it on.
So what do you do with the years you have left in the seat? David shows us three things.
Charge it. Tell the people coming after you plainly that a whole heart toward God comes before the work, the way David did (28:9).
Model it. A charge carries weight when the leader has lived it. David credited the work to God, prepared supplies and plans so Solomon had the greatest chance to succeed, and surrendered the project he wanted to God's will (28:11–19; 29:2–5, 14, 16).
Pray for it. You cannot plan a whole heart into anyone, but you can ask God to give it to them, as David did (29:19).
A succession plan can hand over a position, but integrity reaches beyond the transition, because only a surrendered heart toward God can create legacy. So charge it, model it, and pray for it before the day comes that you must let go.
Notes
- Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, "CEO Succession Practices" (2012), summarizing a Conference Board study. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/05/11/ceo-succession-practices/
- Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, "The Board's Role in Succession Planning" (2010), summarizing a King & Spalding / Tapestry Networks report. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2010/01/20/the-boards-role-in-succession-planning
- Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, "More and Better Options: Strengthening Long-Term CEO Succession Planning" (2025), summarizing a Russell Reynolds Associates survey. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/06/02/more-and-better-options-strengthening-long-term-ceo-succession-planning/
- Li, Wang & Cao (2023), systematic review of 99 studies on family business succession. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10064008/
