Andy Stanley Stepping Down as Senior Pastor of North Point

After 31 years, Stanley says he is retiring from his job but not from ministry. 

Andy Stanley, founder of North Point Community Church and North Point Ministries in Alpharetta, Georgia, announced Sunday that he is stepping down early next year as senior pastor of both the church and its overarching ministry.

Megachurch pastor Andy Stanley and his wife Sandra / Video screenshot

Stanley, 68, founded North Point Community Church in 1995 after leaving First Baptist Church of Atlanta, headed by his father, Charles Stanley. During Andy Stanley’s 31 years as senior pastor, North Point grew from about 2,000 adults in attendance to more than 50,000 across its main campus, seven satellite locations and online, making it the 6^th largest church in Outreach magazine’s list of the nation’s 100 largest churches. The network of churches that grew out of it is called North Point Ministries and includes more than 150 church partners worldwide.

According to the ministry’s website, its sermons and leadership messages are viewed more than 1 million times monthly, and Stanley’s personal social media accounts average nearly 300,000 followers.

Stanley’s approach to stepping down differs from that taken by his father, the famed megachurch pastor and radio and television preacher Charles Stanley. The elder Stanley was 87 when he retired as pastor at First Baptist Church in Atlanta in 2020. He died three years later.

Unlike his father, who was a founding member of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition and was president of the Southern Baptist Convention when conservatives took over the denomination, the younger Stanley has avoided both national and denominational politics — but he hasn’t avoided controversy, specifically over his teaching on LGBTQ issues in the church and on the Old Testament.

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Stanley defended the argument as a response to Christians who focused more on Old Testament laws than on the resurrection. He said he intended to support young believers who struggled to defend the Old Testament. His words nevertheless drew criticism because they appeared to undermine the Old Testament’s authority. One critic, David Mappes, director of Noble & Knowable Truth Ministries and a professor of theology and the New Testament, reviewed the book for Regular Baptist Ministries nearly a year after its release. “[Stanley] believes that by unhitching and removing the Old Testament from the Christian faith, the church will not be sidetracked to answer many of the tough and even embarrassing questions presented in the Old Testament,” Mappes wrote.

In 2023, Stanley came under fire again after North Point Community Church hosted its Unconditional conference. The event was presented as a way for Christian parents of children who identify as LGBTQ, ministry leaders and health care professionals to access materials and resources for loved ones struggling with LGBTQ issues. Attendees spoke out, however, when they realized the conference did not address helping others move away from an LGBTQ identity but instead focused on affirming it within the church.

MinistryWatch President Warren Smith covered the conference and the responses from several Christian leaders, reporting that Stanley later clarified that he believes marriage exists only between a man and a woman. Stanley refused to back down from other positions taken during the conference, however, including his belief that it is unreasonable to expect gay members of the church to remain celibate.

Stanley said he had started planning toward retirement four and a half years ago. Retiring next year, he told worshippers, is the right time for the church’s long-term health. There is also a personal reason for his resignation.

“I want to be able to say yes to my grandchildren without having to check my schedule,” Stanley told his congregation. “For somebody in my position, there are really only three exit options open to me … death, being asked to leave, or choosing to leave. … I feel like I’m choosing the best of the three options.”

For now, North Point’s elders have nominated Joel Thomas, the current executive director of North Point Ministries, to become the next senior pastor. The congregation will vote through Oct. 31, and leadership will announce the decision Nov. 1.

Stanley said he will still be involved at the church and will preach as part of a preaching rotation. But he will no longer be a church employee.

“But here’s the thing,” he said. “This is our church. It’s our children’s church, and it’s our grandchildren’s church. So, we’re not going anywhere.”

For more MinistryWatch coverage of Andy Stanley, click here.

Bob Smietana with Religion News Service contributed to this report.

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