VAN NUYS — It's transition time at the house of worship that Jack built, the large Church on the Way.
Pastor Jack Hayford, 64, is spending less time preaching and administering the nearly 10,000-member congregation that he built from a small, struggling church almost 30 years ago.
Hayford is devoting more time to mentoring younger pastors making pilgrimages to the multifaceted church complex.
Although 1,700 clergy attended the church's annual pastors' conference last year and about 150 were at a three-day leadership colloquium this week, Hayford is launching a seminary this fall and a series of intense, weeklong seminars with mid-career pastors from around the country.
There is a link between The King's Seminary, which expects to start with about 70 aspiring pastors, and the eight or so consultations a year with groups of 35 to 45 pastors.
"Part of our strategy is to build relationships with pastors who will recommend the seminary to students," Hayford said.
But the overall shift of Hayford's activities is designed also to provide a smooth transition in leadership to co-Pastor Scott Bauer, his son-in-law.
For the last year and a half, Bauer has directed the daily operation of the congregation. Hayford gives the sermon at two-thirds of the Sunday morning services but appears at only 20% of the well-attended Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services that average 1,000 and 1,300 people respectively.
The transition in church leadership "has been done so gently, with such grace and ease, that it seems so natural," said church elder Myrene Morris of Northridge, who has been a member with her husband for 27 years.
"I don't think people are comparing Pastor Scott with Pastor Jack," she said. The younger minister "has his own strengths and gifts--a very practical wisdom," she said.
One characteristic of Hayford's approach, long ago incorporated into church policies, has been to offer members and visitors a Pentecostal church--affiliated with the Foursquare denomination--with a sense of decorum.
Church on the Way weekly bulletins periodically discourage emotional displays or disruptive speaking in tongues during worship services--common at other Pentecostal churches--while encouraging such spiritual expressions if they do not "degenerate into mere excitability."
