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Pastor Tommy Barnett ignited our hearts Monday night with an encouraging word dealing with not quitting when things look overwhelming.  ”It’s not the burden that keeps you going, it’s the call of God.”  We were able to catch up with him to ask a few ministry questions.  His answers were lights out!  Take a look.

by Dan Reiland

It seems like I should be writing more on the responsibilities of staff members, if for no other reason, the raw numbers. But curiously, more Senior Pastors have been recently talking to me about the core of their  role and responsibilities.  One church planter said, “I’m doing literally everything, that can’t be right.”  Another pastor told me he wants to study the Word, teach  and do nothing else.  Yet another pastor who has a great staff confided that he won’t delegate and empower basic roles to his team.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you are leading from the “First Chair”.  Between the board, staff, parents of teens, choir, first time visitors, benefactors, and local officials (and on it goes) you may feel more like the caboose than the engine. It is, however, not only possible for you to truly lead, it’s at the core of your job to take the reins and go for it.  Responding to all these people and their agendas can take you off track.  You can lose sight of what your job is.

My hope is to encourage you and give you fresh permission to lead.  Not to make everyone happy, but to  lead. You can’t do that if you are running on everyone else’s agenda.  You need to know what your job is and stay ruthlessly focused on it.  Your personality and unique passion contributes heavily to what you  choose to do and how you choose to carry out you role and responsibilities.

The culture and community of your church have a  significant influence as well.  In some churches, the local church board  has a strong say in what the Pastor does. In other churches there is so much freedom that the freedom itself presents its own set of  complications.  Every leader is different and every church is different, but there are  some basics that hold true for all. There is more than one way to lead from the First Chair.  This article does not attempt to offer the unique nuances that are just for you, but the baseline that you build upon so you can arrive at a unique job for you without compromising the basics.  Here’s the list of basics.  I trust they will help you stay on track.

Call upon God

Your non-negotiable responsibility is that of chief intercessor.  Your whole church prays, but you lead the way.  It is unlikely that many in the church pray with more zeal and commitment than you do.  You set the pace.  It’s not that your prayers are more spiritual or God listens to you more, but there is something deeply sacred about the office of Senior Pastor.  It’s not a power thing, it’s about calling.  God chose you to lead your church and frankly, God has stuff He wants you to know.

Your uniqueness is not as much about how you pray, or even what you pray.  It’s about what you hear.  That’s the key, hearing the voice of God.  I don’t think there is anything more important.  Everything starts with God’s direction for you and your church.  Hearing His voice often and clearly is essential.  What is He saying to you today?

Communicate the Word

For most Senior Pastors this is the fun part.  You can’t wait for Sunday!  There is a grind and discipline to the preparation and the “every seven days” nature of it all, but what a cool thing!  You get to teach, literally, the Words of God!  Unlike your prayers where your words are very important, but not critical, now every word counts.  And The Word counts even more.  On any given week, these thirty or so minutes (the “or so” covers a lot of  latitude for some of you!) may be the greatest public work you do.

You can’t overestimate the need and value of your preparation. If you are a gifted communicator, please, you still need to prepare.  The same is true for those of you who aren’t as gifted.  If speaking isn’t your sweet spot, go shorter rather than longer.  Wrap it up in twenty-five minutes.  Your church will immediately think you just got better.

Cast the Vision

This is where direction for the church and your leadership kicks in.  You are the primary vision-caster.  Great vision is collaborative in its execution, but not so much in its origin.  More often than not, God speaks to a man or a woman, not a committee.  The team matters huge, but God sends the dream to the leader and the team helps the dream come true.  This is not to infer a dictatorship.  Leaders can “hear” incorrectly.  That’s why you need other trusted leaders around you to test what you believe God is telling you.  But when it’s settled, cast vision and lead.

That’s what  you’re there for.  Leadership.  The people are counting on you to point the  way. What if you don’t have a sense of direction from God right now?  That happens.  My best advice to you is to call your church to stay focused on core activities of the Great Commission (Matthew 28 – Evangelism and  Discipleship), while you and your key leaders seek the mind of the Lord for the specific direction.

Carry the Stewardship

Let me be blunt, the church needs money to move forward.  We don’t like to say it, read it, and sometimes even admit it.  It doesn’t sound spiritual, but it’s deeply spiritual.  Scripture is very clear about our hearts and our treasures.  In that way it’s not as much about money as it is about priorities and passion.  It’s not as much about money as it is calling and commitment.  Money reveals the depth and maturity of your church and their level of buy-in to the vision.

Pastor, you cannot escape the reality and responsibility of raising faith and raising funds for your church.  In contrast to “preaching,” most  pastors don’t like this role, and either partially ignore it or attempt to have others cover it.  That never works well over the long haul.  Pastor, embrace the biblical nature of what giving reveals about the maturity of  your congregation.  And if giving is down, especially in this economy, don’t be upset with your people.  Instead, ask yourself what you can do to  make the beauty, power and promise of God’s Word more evident to your people.  In other words, how can you better inspire your people to embrace God’s Word?

Create the Culture

Many can help you carry this out, but you set the scope and direction.  Every church has a culture.  It’s either the one you want or the one that created itself.  I’ve never seen the latter go well.  You can cultivate and guide it or just go on its own and land who knows where.  Whether your culture is casual or formal, local or global, traditional or edgy, mercy or justice, caffeinated or decaf, you need to know you who are and be yourself.  There is no right or wrong.  Well, the only wrong is to not know who you are or pretend to be something you’re not.  An interesting experiment is to ask visitors to describe your church culture to you.  They often see it more clearly than you do!

Coach the Staff

If you are in a mega-church environment, you may have an XP (Executive  Pastor) to coach the staff for you, but most of you who are Senior Pastors carry this responsibility as well.  This is what I do so there is great danger of me writing for pages!  I will discipline myself to hold back!

Let me just say that you have primarily two avenues by which to invest  in your staff:  Nurture and Leadership Development.  Everything else falls into the large category of “getting stuff done.”  There’s nothing wrong  with that, but if you want a world class team scoring large in competence, character, and chemistry, investment is the key.  Let them know you care and give top quality leadership training on a consistent basis.  If you do this well, month after month, year after year, I promise you it will make a huge difference.

Cultivate the Community

Last but not least, it’s time to leave your office and get out into the community.  I know, after the first six, it’s easy to feel like there is no time left.  The good news is that you don’t need to give huge amounts of time to this, but you do need strategic time.  Cultivating the community includes your personal evangelism, connecting with key leaders in your county, and a general awareness of what is going on outside your church.  A few hours a week can get this done pretty well.  The cumulative effect is powerful.  Keep out in the community on a consistent basis and, though not  immediate, this will come back to you with strong results over the long haul.

I hope this basic set of responsibilities is helpful to you.  Whether you are recently out of school and in your first or second church, or you are a veteran of many years, this list will hold true for you.  Add your personality to it and give it 100%.  Let the other leaders carry the rest of the load.

Websites

www.youthspecialties.com – lots of good stuff to purchase and some free ideas.

www.sermoncentral.com – free sermons, over 35,000 of them.

www.cpyu.org – reaching jr. high and high school campuses.

www.fca.org – fellowship of Christian Athletes is not just for athletes and they can help you get in schools.

www.egadideas.com – the name says it all.

www.thesourcefym.com – you have to check this site, it is the best youth ministry site out there.

www.youthministry.com – got cool stuff.

www.outreach.com – great pre-designed marketing stuff.

www.vistaprint.com – free business cards.

www.overnightprints.com – the best prices on printed stuff anywhere.  Full color.

www.oneighty.com – The largest youth ministry in the states.  Great resources, anything from them is awesome.

www.dougfields.com

www.blainebartel.com

www.eriklawsonministries.com

www.artistrymarketing.com – pre-fab websites that look great and cost little.

www.generationchurch.org – amazing student ministry

Videos

www.bluefishtv.com – great Christian commercials and video series.

www.visualrealityonline.com – incredible videos with hard hitting meaning.

Have you ever tried to lift something that was really heavy? You realize after you pick it up that you are probably going to pull something.  Rather than do the smart thing and set it down until you have help, you just go ahead and continue doing mortal damage to your body so that you won’t have to ask for help.

The other day I am bringing in the groceries for my wife and she has completely filled the back seat full of groceries and me, being the brilliant genius that I am, decide that I can get them all in one trip. As I get to the door, with the plastic bags leaving two-inch indentions in my arm, I begin to think of how stupid I am. At the moment of my epiphany one of the bags slips and a can of beans lands directly on my little toe, which already has a complex. I yelp in pain and dive over the threshold of the door desperately trying to get inside so that I can win some small victory by saying I carried all the groceries with just one trip.

As ministry leaders we often do the same thing. We try to do everything ourselves without asking anyone for help, because after all, no one can do it as good as us so why try. By keeping this method of leadership up you will soon begin to see a reduction in productivity from your team and a decrease in your personal well-being. In order to be a successful leader you have got to learn the value of building a team. I didn’t say forming a team, I said building a team. Big difference! Often times we are experts at forming a team but we quickly steer the team into a mud hole with our poor decisions and inability to recognize individual skill sets and put them into action.

E4 Staffing Method

Evaluate!

1. What am I doing right now that a student leader could help me do?
2. What am I “NOT” doing right now that a student leader could help me do?

Estimate!

1. Make a list of your team leaders and their capabilities.

Educate!

1. Explain to your team clearly what is expected of them.

Elevate!

1. Put them out there and let them go for it!

You have to empower your team for success. Formulate a plan and implement it. Your team will only be as effective as you are. You can’t attract what you are not. If you are disorganized and erratic in your approach to your ministry, the chances are much greater that your staff will be the same way. This collision of disorganization and inefficient leadership will result in poor results and a management domino effect.

Allow your team to have input on the major decisions and be positive about their input. One thing that will kill team mentality and the unity of your ministry is negativity. I can’t stand someone who is always saying, “No, it can’t be done” or, “Why are we doing it that way, we’ve never done that before”. I want someone who is going to be positive, especially in the face of adversity. I understand that every idea will not work but we can use the bad ideas and develop them into a springboard to help us expand and test our limits.

Too many leaders have a lottery mentality when it comes to their team. They think, “One of these days I am going to have an awesome team and then we are going to get some incredible things done.” Keep living in dreamland if that makes you happy but there is no such thing as the leadership lottery. Great leaders are made not born so start making your team great now.