Qin Shi Huang. Toyotomi Hideyoshi. King Solomon.

History calls them great. But they all ultimately failed.

Not in the ruling part. The leaving part.

Qin Shi Huang unified China for the first time in history, then died believing his dynasty would last ten thousand generations. It lasted four years. A palace conspiracy installed his weakest son, and the empire collapsed almost overnight. Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from peasant sandal-bearer to ruler of all Japan, but he died leaving a five-year-old heir guarded by a council of rivals. Tokugawa Ieyasu took everything, and within a generation, the Toyotomi name was erased.

And then there’s Solomon. The wisest man who ever lived built the temple and expanded the kingdom — but he did not prepare his son to lead. Rehoboam took the throne, rejected the counsel of the elders, listened to his barkada instead, and in a single conversation split Israel in two. It never reunited.

The pattern is painfully consistent. Empires rise on the strength of one leader. Then they crack at the handoff. They did not create healthy leadership runways.

Here’s the truth every leader must face: your job is not just to wear the crown. It is to build something strong enough to outlast you. You will not be leading forever — the real question is whether what you built can stand without you holding it up.

Two Ways to Hand Things Over

Shakespeare gave us the cautionary tale. King Lear split his kingdom between the daughters who flattered him best. The moment they had power, they threw him out into the wilderness. Lear picked successors, but he never tested them. He assumed love would do the work that principles and process were supposed to do.

Assumption is not a succession plan.

Steve Jobs went the other way. For years, he prepared Tim Cook and others, handing them increasingly harder assignments. By the time the handoff came, it had been rehearsed a hundred times.

THE OTHER STEVE

We saw this same principle up close in our own story. Steve Murrell came to Manila in 1984 for what was supposed to be a one-month summer mission. But from the very beginning, he did something rare for a missionary of his era: he raised and trusted Filipino leaders, handing them real authority and real responsibility. He calls himself the “accidental missionary,” but there was nothing accidental about his succession plan. Because he entrusted the work to local leaders, Victory did not plateau when he stepped back — it multiplied. What started as a one-month outreach became a movement of churches across the Philippines and, through Every Nation, the world. That is what happens when a leader builds successors instead of a spotlight.

Most leaders spend their careers nurturing an organization. The best ones spend part of that time identifying, instructing, imparting, and deploying (internship) the people who will inherit it.

THE THIRD TIME AROUND

I’ve been thinking about all this because I am now on the receiving end of a handoff. Again.

Coming to Victory BGC is my third time inheriting a church. And inheriting a church is a sacred, sobering thing. You are not just receiving an org chart and a building. You are receiving people. Stories. A culture that someone else prayed over, wept over, and built brick by brick.

That’s why I am deeply thankful for Pastor Paolo.

Pastor Paolo did not hand me a kingdom held together by his personality. He handed me a culture — of honor, of discipleship — and a team of leaders who know how to pastor people and dream God-sized dreams. He did the slow, unglamorous work that Lear skipped and both Steve Jobs and Steve Murrell mastered: he built people, not just programs.

Because of that, I don’t walk into BGC needing to hold everything up with my own two hands. I get to pastor. I get to dream with the team. I get to ask, “Lord, what’s next?” instead of, “Lord, how do I keep this from falling apart?” That is the gift of a leader who finishes well. (though Pastor Paolo has more leadership responsibilities on his plate, haha)

Scripture is full of handoffs. Moses laid hands on Joshua. Elijah threw his cloak on Elisha. But my favorite succession verse is Paul writing to his spiritual son:

“And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” — 2 Timothy 2:2 (ESV)

The word “entrust” is the Greek paratith?mi — to deposit a treasure into someone’s keeping. It’s a banking word. You don’t deposit treasure with someone you’ve never tested, and you don’t deposit it in a panic on your way out the door.

Paul describes four generations in a single sentence: Paul, to Timothy, to faithful men, to others also. That is not a handoff. That is a pipeline. The gospel has reached Manila because, for two thousand years, leaders kept making the deposit.

7 Best Practices for Handoffs

You may not lead a church of thousands, but you lead something — a team, a business, a small group, a family. Here’s what I’m learning about inheriting well and handing over well:

1. Build people, not just programs. Programs end when you leave. People carry the mission after you’re gone.
2. Test before you entrust. Lear rewarded flattery. Jobs assigned hard things. Give rising leaders real responsibility while you’re still there to coach them. Push them to
3. Honor the one before you. When you inherit something good, say so. Publicly.
4. Receive before you renovate. Learn the culture before you change it. The first months are for understanding, not overhauling.
5. Dream with the team, not at the team. Vision that is co-owned outlasts vision that is announced.
6. Start your succession plan now. The best time to develop your successor is years before anyone needs one.
7. Hold it all with open hands. You are a steward, not an owner. The Lord builds the house.

Qin Shi Huang built an empire and lost it at the handoff. Solomon built a temple and lost the kingdom. Pastor Paolo pastored a church and handed over a culture. Some things are built for a lifetime. Others are built for generations.

So let me ask you what I keep asking myself:

If you stepped away from what you lead today, would it stand? Who are you making the deposit into right now?

Be the kind of leader whose greatest work outlives you. Entrust it to faithful people, who will be able to teach others also.