As a pastor, there’s one question I get a lot. Well, there are actually many questions I get a lot. But here’s one I’m guessing most people want to ask:
What does your typical workweek look like?
That’s the “nice” way of asking what people really want to know – “What do you DO all week?!?”
Every pastor gets that question from time to time. Some more frequently than others. As a Lead Pastor in a church where the majority of our preaching is video driven, I would fall within the “more frequently” category! What does a Lead Pastor who only preaches 15 times a year do all week? How is that even a full time job?
It’s a great question. Some people assume I show up on Sunday, welcome them to church, pray for the offering, and then pray and read the Bible for the next six days. As a pastor, I wish it were that easy. That actually sounds appealing! Leading a church of any size or kind is challenging. A Lead Pastor must be both a pastor and a savvy business leader (hence the position title, huh?).
If you’ve ever wanted to know what a Lead Pastor (especially a non-preaching Lead Pastor) does all week, here’s a list of 8 unique tasks I try to accomplish every 7 days:
1. Cast vision daily.
My friend and fellow campus Lead Pastor Jeff Henderson does an amazing job of casting vision, and he’s challenged our teams to make vision casting a team sport. The entire church staff must be vision-casters. However, as the Lead Pastor, I serve as the Lead Vision-Caster – not just on Sunday, but every day of the week.
So in every meeting, every gathering, and every conversation, I try to ensure the vision remains front and center and moves forward daily.
2. Develop staff systematically.
Leadership development is a necessity for organizational growth. As our church grows, the leadership quotient required for success grows in direct proportion. The only way to ensure our staff and volunteer teams are ready to succeed is to ensure everyone is growing in leadership, skill-set, emotional intelligence, managerial skill, et al.
To help ensure our staff is developing, from a schedule perspective, I meet with my direct reports either weekly or monthly, depending on their need and position in the organization. Part of this hour-long conversation involves identifying leadership gaps and opportunities for growth and learning. And I try to follow up on the identified next steps and contribute directly often.
I also calendar time for personal growth and leadership content development for our entire staff.
3. Raise money consistently.
This is the most difficult part of my job. I’m not great at asking for money. Unfortunately, money is required (if we want to pay salaries, create ministry environments, and open the doors weekly). The good news is raising money is directly connected to casting vision, because people don’t give to need, they give to vision. So in the end, raising money is a significant part of casting vision.
For scheduling, as often as possible, I try to meet with people who can help further fund our mission. And I ask them to fund it. Directly. And sometimes in specific amounts.
4. Engage the disengaged.
Our church, like most every church, is full of people consuming from the mission, but not yet participating in the mission. This is a somewhat healthy dynamic, as it indicates we have the right people in the room (i.e. not just super-Christians). But, we don’t want those who are disengaged to remain disengaged, as spiritual growth is partially connected to church engagement. So, every week, I work to engage the disengaged.
That means mining for stories of life change, leveraging all our communication mediums to share these stories, connecting the dots between engagement and growth, teaching people HOW to participate in the mission, hosting “next steps” conversations and meetings, etc. Basically, discovering new and leveraging current ways to entice engagement.
If you have disengaged people in your church, you must calendar time every week to engaging the disengaged.
5. Build relationships with key leaders.
Relationships ultimately are the fuel for organizational growth. As the leader, it is important to be relationally connected to our staff and key volunteer leaders. These people are fantastic supporters of our mission, raving fans of our vision, and helpful critics of our environments. Some of our best evaluations and organizational changes have come from conversations with our key leaders. So deepening relationships with the core of our church is an important element of my job and my calendar.
6. Connect with seekers.
There is nobody I’d rather meet with than a person seeking God or exploring faith. I try to do this as much as possible. One, helping people discover a relationship with God is a primary personal mission. Two, connecting with non-Christians helps me remain connected to the exact people we are hoping to connect. Win-win.
7. Speak in other ministries or businesses.
There are so many opportunities to speak, preach, teach, and lead outside of the Sunday morning pulpit (or in our case, plasma). As a non-preaching Lead Pastor, I have the opportunity to teach in our middle school and high school environment. I also meet with business leaders and help other organizations go further, faster.
I may not do this weekly, but I try to ensure it is in my schedule monthly.
8. Remove obstacles.
At the highest level, this is my primary job. I am the COR – Chief Obstacle Remover. At Watermarke, that means meeting with our staff to identify and solve problems, anticipating issues and providing preemptive course corrections, starting new environments to reach new people, killing current offering that are no longer necessary, etc.
To help me, I have several weekly meetings that provide me direct touch points to every area of our church. Specifically, I have a weekly, 2-hour leadership team meeting where we evaluate, discuss issues, and make strategic decisions for our church. I meet weekly with key staff members responsible for our Sunday morning experiences. I also meet weekly with the North Point Ministries Leadership Team for the same purpose. You get the point. We systematically meet for the purpose of making our church obstacle free.
Of course, as with any organization, there are weekly interruptions and unexpected needs. Very few things in my schedule are written in stone (except getting home for family dinner every night). But if I’m not careful, my schedule can quickly become non-intentional, and weeks can go by without me progressing organizationally, relationally, developmentally, or personally.
If you are a pastor or organizational leader, how is your calendar structured? Do you have standing meetings? Who do you meet with weekly or monthly? I’d love to know! Feel free to share in the comments below, or if you have any calendaring questions, feel free to ask!
