In my last article, I talked about seven shifts a staff pastor makes when becoming a lead pastor. Those shifts are:
- The shift from serving a vision to creating a vision
- The shift from being on staff to leading a staff
- The shift from spending money to raising money
- The shift from occasional communication to weekly communication
- The shift from focused ministry to executive responsibility
- The shift from working “IN” to working “ON”
- The shift from doing to delegating
While these are certainly shifts you will make when you move into a lead role, it doesn’t mean you have to wait to prepare for these shifts. As John Wooden said, “When opportunity comes it’s too late to prepare.” So, how do you prepare now for each of the shifts above?
1. Take Extended Time to Engage the Three P’s of Vision
Before we planted 7 City Church, I spent a considerable amount of time wrestling with a 7-word prayer: “God, how do you transform a city?” (Not that a single church can transform an entire city by itself, but this question was the catalyst God used to form a vision in my heart.) In fact, I prayed this prayer for three years. That extended period of time allowed my vision to become crystal clear. When the time finally came to start 7 City Church, there was no question what God was calling us to do. I’m not suggesting that you have to take three years to clarify your vision. I’m simply saying that it’s easier to get clarity when you’re not in a rush or running up against a deadline.
If you want to successfully make the shift from serving a vision to creating a vision, don’t wait until you’re thrust into a lead role to start wrestling with future vision. Start now. Vision is often formed at the intersection of the three P’s: Problems, Passion, and Prayer. All three were present when Nehemiah captured a vision to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. He discovered a problem in Jerusalem—the walls and gates were decimated. His passion was ignited by the condition of the people of Jerusalem, whom he loved. Then he spent four months in prayer before finally stepping out to pursue the vision. The overlapping sweet spot of your city’s problem, your personal passion, and time in prayer is often the process God uses to awaken fresh vision. As you work through this process, write it down. Writing will help you clarify your thoughts.
2. Practice Leading a Staff by Recruiting and Developing a Great Volunteer Team
You may not be in a position right now that allows you to hire staff members, but you can still apply similar team building principles to your work with volunteers. Draft job descriptions, conduct volunteer interviews, create a new volunteer on-ramping system, provide regular volunteer training, and conduct one-on-one coaching. Volunteers don’t have to follow you. If you do a good job recruiting, developing, and leading volunteers, you’ll develop many of the soft skills needed to lead future staff members. The shift from being on a staff to leading a staff will be easier if you’ve made volunteer development a top priority.
In addition, read up on best practices for hiring staff members. A great book on hiring is Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. Learn how to create a hiring scorecard, a multi-stage hiring process, and a list of great hiring questions. Furthermore, identify several assessments that you can use when building a team. Becoming familiar with these assessments will help you position team members in their greatest strengths.
3. Seek Out Resources and Mentoring on Church Finances
Finances can be a complicated part of church leadership. You have to learn how create a smart church-wide budget, meet with donors, cast vision, appreciate donors, teach on stewardship and generosity, and conduct financial campaigns. Before you step into this world, take four steps.
First, make a list of every question you can think of about church finances. Second, meet with a CFO or business administrator to ask your questions. Also, ask them what questions you should be asking. Third, study the preaching of pastors who communicate on stewardship and generosity in a healthy, respectful, and biblical manner. Pay attention to the language they use and the approach they take. Fourth, interview a handful of pastors to discuss how they do financial vision casting, appreciate donors, and build a culture of generosity. If you’re going to shift from spending money to raising money, you need to do your research to ensure you build and maintain trust, integrity, and health.
4. Develop a Communication and Content System
Communication is a critical part of senior leadership. As a lead pastor, not only will you preach regularly, but you’ll also have to cast vision and inspire leaders and volunteers. Two things helped me prepare for this shift.
First, I created a communication system. Anytime I had to preach, I chose to manuscript every word of my sermons. This helped me remove redundancy, craft better transitions, and create intentionality with every part of the message. This also helped me become a better steward of communication opportunities. Your wise stewardship will determine whether your leader can trust you with future communication opportunities.
Second, I developed a content system. I became an avid reader, and with every book I read, I highlighted great quotes, great content, and great stories. Then, I had my assistant file those quotes, content, and stories. When you do this year after year, you build a great source of material to help you develop engaging sermons. Trust me, you’ll run out of personal illustrations quickly when you have to preach every week. Becoming an avid reader, and building a robust filing system, will help you more than you ever imagined when the times comes to shift from occasional communication to weekly communication.
5. Become a Student of Organizational Leadership
As noted in my previous article, executive responsibility encompasses things like boards, bylaws, budgets, hiring, strategic planning, culture, and more. Start studying these organizational dynamics now. Read leadership and business books. Study the bylaws of healthy, growing churches. Practice creating a budget for an entire church, not just a single department. Learn to think cross-departmentally. Mature leaders don’t focus solely on their ministry or department; instead they adopt a big picture perspective of the organization. If you’re going to shift from focused ministry to executive responsibility, you have to become a student of executive level leadership.
6. Carve Out a Space and a Strategy to Work “ON” Your Current Ministry Assignment
Working “IN” ministry is what most of us think about when we think of doing ministry–preaching, teaching, counseling, investing in peoples etc. Working “ON” ministry is the 30,000 foot view of ministry that includes things like vision, mission, values, and culture. The biggest challenge to working “ON” an organization is creating the space and strategy to do so. We’re so busying being “IN” ministry that we rarely have time to work “ON” ministry. The more responsibility you assume, the more difficult it is to set aside “strategic think time” to work ON ministry. But here’s the good news. You don’t have to wait until you’re a lead pastor to develop this skill. In your current ministry context, take two steps.
First, carve out a space to work “ON” your ministry. This might include an annual planning retreat, a bi-annual strategy day, or a series of strategic conversations with your volunteers. If you don’t intentionally carve out the space in your calendar, you’ll never make time for it. Develop this discipline now.
Second, engage a strategy to work “ON” your ministry. You might ask a series of thought-provoking questions. For example: What are our two greatest growth engines and how can you leverage them for greater impact? Who are the top 20% of your leaders, and how can you invest more time in them? What are your greatest weaknesses and obstacles, and how can you remove them in the next three months? How do you need to shift funding to leverage your greatest opportunities? Does your current ministry have the ability to scale? How could you restructure staff or volunteers to prepare for greater growth?
Another strategy is to conduct a SWOT Analysis. Take time to reflect on your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and then use the results to craft a clear set of goals to move your ministry or department forward. When you have space and a strategy, you’ll be prepared to make the shift from “IN” to “ON” as a Lead Pastor.
7. Give Away Ministry
If you want to prepare now to shift from doing to delegating, start by identifying your highest priorities. John Maxwell suggests using the three R’s: What’s required of you? (This is found in your job description). What gives you the greatest return? (These are the activities that give you the greatest return on your investment of time.) What are your rewarded for? (This is what you have the greatest passion for). If there’s overlap in these three areas, you’ve found your sweet spot.
Next, review your calendar and to-do list. Everything that falls outside of your sweet spot is a potential task to be handed off to a volunteer. Recruit leaders and volunteers, train them, and then empower them to run with these tasks. The more you give away ministry now, the more prepared you’ll be to make the shift from doing to delegating when you step into a lead pastor role.
Making the seven shifts from a staff pastor to a lead pastor isn’t easy, but the good news is you don’t have to wait. By engaging the seven practices above, you can start now.
