Andy Stanley to step down as senior pastor from North Point Ministries

Prominent Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley announced Sunday he is stepping down as senior pastor of North Point Ministries next year.

He detailed the church’s leadership plans during Sunday morning services at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, which was also posted in a video message to the church website.

“I’m retiring from my job, but I’m not retiring from ministry,” Stanley said. “I’m not going to disappear.”

Stanley will stay on the Board of Elders and will continue to preach in the pastor rotation. But stepping down from these leadership roles will give him more free time to spend with his family and grandchildren, he said in Sunday’s announcement.

“This is our church. It’s our children’s church. It’s our grandchildren’s church,” Stanley said. “But I am absolutely convinced the best thing for this next iteration of what we’re going to do together requires a younger leader.”

He is the son of the Rev. Charles Stanley, the late televangelist broadcaster and lead pastor at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, one of metro Atlanta’s leading megachurches.

The younger pastor left his father’s church in the 1990s and founded the nondenominational North Point Community Church and North Point Ministries in 1995, which went on to become one of the nation’s most prominent Christian organizations.

The organization’s eight member churches in metro Atlanta have 50,000 attendees in person and online each week, according to its website. The organization has historically ranked as one of the largest in the country, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Joel Thomas will succeed Stanley, both as lead pastor of North Point Community Church and as senior pastor over the church organization, pending a congregational vote that concludes this month. The Board of Elders nominated him to take over for Stanley, according to the church.