Blog #24
The best leaders learn by noticing what other leaders do, good and bad. With a focus on self awareness and a desire for continual improvement, even a seasoned leader can become better by noticing what other leaders do.
Actually, the more experienced (and older) a leader becomes, the harder it is to ignore the good, bad, and ugly of other leaders. And never forget, you don’t have to be the person in charge to be a leader.
Many people in the trenches or on the line, volunteer or paid, have a significant impact on an effort or organization without ever wearing leadership stripes. We’re all informal leaders from time to time whether our impact is positive or negative.
For instance, my church has a volunteer safety/greeter team. The person who comes in on time with a good attitude, friendly smile and strong situational awareness has a positive leadership impact on others whether they know it or not. Those who come in late with a poor attitude and without a desire to serve others contaminate the group. It’s all leadership.
Church leadership is what’s on my mind. Of all my years of trial and error, failure and some success as the person in charge, I don’t think I ever had to multitask the way our senior pastor has to multitask. In fact, I believe the leadership required of a senior pastor is a more challenging leadership. I also think the observation is interesting even for those who don’t attend a place of worship.
Our church campus includes a thriving Christian school, grades 1 through 7 (soon to include grade 8), a day care center currently open to the public, and a church of about 450 parishioners divided into two services every Sunday. The campus includes three buildings, one with the sanctuary, two large gymnasiums, an industrial size kitchen and several office/meeting rooms, a second building that serves as the school house, and an old parsonage that now serves as the church office. It’s a big operation, employing many people and serving many families.
The senior pastor is the CEO. Just overseeing this campus operation is a full time job unto itself. Pastors who make it to our church have significant experience at smaller church operations. The senior pastor has a small team of highly qualified assistant pastors, but the buck stops at the senior pastor’s desk. There are many moving parts and many issues on any given week.
On top of all this, the senior pastor is the spiritual guide and leader of the congregation. This means when any church member has a bug in their bonnet they expect the senior pastor to want to hear them out. And, the senior pastor must prepare and present an impactful, meaningful, and scriptural message almost every Sunday. And of course, Congregants expect the senior pastor to receive and reply to their weekly emails and texts about the message, music, lighting, fog machine, technology, etc. In other words, regardless of the weekly crisis brewing concerning the other elements of the campus, the senior pastor must give his full time and attention to the church part of the operation as though it is the only thing he has on his plate.
It’s an amazing exercise in leadership to watch from the cheap seats, where I usually sit. Our current senior pastor and the two senior pastors that came before him (spanning the almost 25 years I’ve been hanging around) performed this duty extremely well. I think their success is due to their true, solid call to the ministry AND the skill and experience they developed before being tapped for the job at such a demanding campus. And of course, their ability to recruit and retain an excellent, talented, motivated group of loyal team players as their close, small staff has been critical.
Have you held a leadership position that required the day to day running of a multifaceted operation, while also requiring expertise at preparing and executing a critical presentation every weekend without regard to the first part of your job? I have not. If the Lord weren’t with you; if you weren’t truly called to be there and if you didn’t spend significant time in prayer, I doubt you could pull it off.
To make things worse, consider that every person involved, from the people who attend services to the employees (teachers, staff, etc.) to the parents and students, is vulnerable to: believing misinformation, giving in to knee-jerk-emotional response, the challenges of their own mental health issues, etc. just like all human beings. And social media provides all who disagree with the senior pastor the affirmation and relevance they seek. It’s like some forget that through prayer, Christ will provide the affirmation and relevance we seek. Maybe Facebook is more immediate.
I suspect that large, multifaceted campuses of other faiths are very similar with the most senior Rabbi, Imam, etc. having a similar role, but I don’t know that. I also see similarities between a senior pastor and a full time command officer in the National Guard or Reserve, but those officers usually have their weekend command in a different unit, away from their full time job. They also wear a rank that limits the amount of abuse tolerated from anyone of a lesser rank. And casting dispersions on one’s commander on Facebook was not considered a First Amendment right.
For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. – Galatians 5:13
The role of a senior pastor in a multifaceted church operation is a true study in leadership, faith, commitment and calling. It’s a more challenging leadership than most of us will ever experience. If you are church going, pray for your pastors with a special prayer for the senior pastor. Always support your church leadership especially when mistakes happen. When immersed in the “people business,” mistakes will happed. If you don’t attend church or synagogue and spend time with your faith family you are missing out on one of Gods greatest gifts in your spiritual walk.
And always remember the golden rule of military, law enforcement, and church operations: “Never believe the first report.”
Well said brother!
Thank you kind sir. I know it’s been more than a spectator sport for you.
Well written and well thought out. Any organization solely dependent upon the monetary support given by its membership must have a strong, experienced leader at the helm or risk losing that support. It is indeed a testament to the senior pastor who has to juggle the logistical needs of the institution and its infrastructure, the spiritual and emotional needs of the community, and the diverse nature of the congregation (age, cultural, financial status, etc). It is an under appreciated profession and to be successful a senior pastor must feel that strong calling from God and be totally passionate about that calling.
Good article. Great insight! You noted in your article your large church of 450 and the team needed. Yes a large united team of either paid or volunteers or both is needed to herd/ manger/ minister and inspire that size group no doubt. We are presently on the verge of breaking 70 people and demands are expanding again. In The COTN prior to 2019 there were 70 churches in North American running over 1000 people. Now there are only 13 running over that many ( which means there are lots of churches with lots of extra room likely). Jesus himself was able to influence and deal with 5,000-15,000 plus for teaching events and all without any tech. When it came to caring for their immediate needs he had leaders help him break the crowd into groups of 50. “For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” Luke 9:14. So 12 leaders managed to get a very a large group organized into groups of 50. That is a minimum of 100 groups of 50! Talk about leadership! So his immediate top discipling influence was more like around 50 people who walked and really knew him. Since Covid when the world changed there appears to be an obvious shift away from large groups to smaller groups. The stats now in North America in the COTN are likely similar across the board for all denominations and networks of churches. 28% of all churches in N America and Canada are now under 25 people. 32% of churches are between 25-50 people. that leaves 60% of all other church sizes north of 50 people and only 13 of those run 1000 or more. I am seeing this trend in geriatrics as well where people are shifting away from the large facilities to care for 50 or more aging seniors to private homes run by a highly qualified aids and professionals for a small group of 10 or less seniors. Throughout Scripture it appears 1 person can effectively manage a group of 50. The question at hand is can we reach more people by getting bigger or by developing leaders to deploy to keep branching out for smaller groups? I pastor a church that is 62 years old. It has never grown past past 120 people in 62 years of history. I have been here for 15 of those years. It also never tried to plant a church in the this time either until 7 years ago when we finally succeeded in a first plant that stayed the course more than a year. Now our combined efforts and congregations combined are running about 130 people using the same facilities. Big has it advantages and is nice, but planting has still proven to be the most effective means of reaching the most people. I’m glad you guys are planting as well as growing. Shepherd is a great model.