Last week I had the great privilege of speaking at the XP-Seminar in Dallas, TX on The Soul of The Executive Pastor. Contrary to popular belief, this is not an oxymoron. XP’s actually do have souls! This is something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on over the last couple of years and teaching on it gave me a chance to begin to bring together my scattered thoughts into what will no doubt become a book at some point in the future. I promised those in attendance that I would post my notes and here they are. I’ve called out my key points below. Also, I recorded it on my phone and had one of our tech guys master it for me. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing. Enjoy!
Six Things About The Soul of the Executive Pastor
- Control Is One of our Soul’s Idols. (Perfection, Precision, Excellence and Efficiency).
- Our Emotional Intelligence is often stunted by the very thing that makes us great XP’s.
- Our love of strategies and systems is fertile ground for the Pride Monster.
- We are prone to Self-Reliance over Spirit Reliance.
- We ignore Soul Care because is not feel important to us.
- It is far too easy to leave the Gospel out of everyday life.
My name is Phil. I spent 20 years as an Executive Pastor and now I serve churches all over through consulting and coaching. I wrote "Defining The Executive Pastor Role" and "Eldership Development-From Application to Affirmation". My greatest passion is helping others bring vision into reality. I've been married for 25 years, and we have three kids and one grandchild.
