Executive Pastor Roundtable Part 2
Last week we started a discussion with the Executive Pastors of three very different but fast growing churches: Kevin Peck of The Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Steve Miller of The Journey in St. Louis, and
Josh Patterson at The Village Church in Dallas. This week we talk about the challenge of leading from the second chair.
Rethink Mission: As an executive pastor, you probably have the least sexy job in the entire church. Everyone wants to be, hear from, or talk to Darrin, Matt, or Chandler. What have you discovered about leading from the second chair and exerting influence without having the benefit of a large platform?
Kevin: To qualify the question, many executive pastors have considerable public platform as their gifts align to the task of preaching and teaching. However, the heart of this question is really applicable for second chair leaders who will need to deal with the fact that the lead pastor, the primary public communicator, will always have a broader scope of influence. So, no matter the giftedness of the second chair leader, this question drives at a perspective that will be absolutely critical to the long-term effectiveness and joy of the second chair leader and his family.
The first lesson might be the most important to gaining joy in Jesus from second chair leadership. In leadership, there are often as many detriments to having a large, public, crowd-facing platform as there are benefits. For one, the Scripture, from cover to cover, warns us to guard our hearts from seeking our own glory. This is just down-right hard when the multitudes applaud you. The amount of attention and energy that is required by all three of these godly men to guard their hearts is trying, to say the least.
God gives men in the second chair a great gift to love Jesus and His people with a considerably muffled roar of ministry fans when compared to our lead pastors. This motivates me to take advantage of the constant reminder that I do what I do for the glory of God, and to protect, love and respect my brother Matt who takes many fiery missiles so that his brothers can serve in purity.
Secondly, although a large platform is no doubt a useful tool for influencing, the leader is deceived if he thinks it is required for large-scale influence. Over the last 5 years, I have seen the effectiveness of leadership that uses large platforms, but does not depend on them. Scripture and history show us that effective leaders can lead with or without public platforms. Leading leaders is truly the essential competency of influential second chair leaders.
“Leading leaders is truly the essential competency of influential second chair leaders.” -Kevin Peck, The Austin Stone Community Church
Steve: I’ve worked with Darrin over 6 years now and have tremendous respect for him as a leader, a pastor, and friend. His leadership has made room for many others to be able to lead as well. And I know he agrees with something we heard said at an Acts29 Quarterly recently, that gospel-centered preaching is essential to your church but it isn’t sufficient. That means that we must preach well, but we must also do more than preach well. That “more” is often the day in and day out leadership in the church. The work of priests to care for people and the work of kings to direct and empower people is just as important to the furtherance of the gospel as the work of prophets to preach and envision.
If we believe that God desires to see the work of prophets, priests and kings all leading his church, then what can happen is the ones who are sitting in those chairs can work together in a mighty way. Together we can move people towards maturity in Christ. Because I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what chair you are in, all those chairs need to work as a team. The lead pastor, the exec pastor, the groups pastor, the campus pastor, they all need to work as a team and lead people in the same direction. If the exec pastor is trying to move them one way, and another pastor is going another way, well, that’s no fun.
Josh: Thankfully “sexiness” is not what God has called me to model. One thing that has become clearer to me is that “leaders lead”. God has called me to lead the staff and provide leadership to our executive staff, elders and to The Village Church. This does not mean that I am necessarily the primary leader in all of these areas, but I do lead at some capacity in each. Nobody at The Village leads alone. Leadership thrives when humility is the expectation and leaders can lead.
Matt has desired a plurality of leaders from the beginning and has modeled humility in leadership. When we delegate responsibility and not the authority to act we only hamstring and stifle leadership. It takes both (responsibility and authority). A lot of lead pastors delegate responsibility and don’t empower with true authority. So, I personally have all of the influence and platform I need to successfully fulfill my role at the church.
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Part 1 of the interview is here.
Part 3 on the qualities needed of an executive pastor of a missional church.
You can follow each of these guys on Twitter: Kevin Peck Steve Miller Josh Patterson
The heart of this website are the Missional Q&A Interviews, updated weekly, where church leaders like you talk about the issues they face on a daily basis.
Tags: leadership
[...] Part 2: Leading from the Second Chair. Part 3: The Qualities of an Executive Pastor of a Missional Church (Coming Soon). [...]
great words here: “When we delegate responsibility and not the authority to act we only hamstring and stifle leadership.” –steve miller
forces me to stop and be thankful that I am working with a lead pastor who trusts in the leadership of his team.
keep it coming.
Phil, thanks for interacting with these posts. The last part of this series goes up this week.
[...] weeks ago we started a discussion (Pt. 2 is here) with the Executive Pastors of three very different but fast growing churches: Kevin Peck of The [...]