In this episode of Backstage Pastors™️ Podcast, Phil and Tyler welcome veteran executive pastor and leadership consultant Tim Stevens for an in-depth conversation on ministry leadership, organizational health, and sustainable service in the second chair. Tim reflects on nearly 40 years of ministry experience spanning nonprofit leadership, Granger Community Church, Vanderbloemen, Willow Creek, and now Leading Smart.
The conversation explores the evolving role of the executive pastor, including the tension between being highly executive-minded versus deeply pastoral. Tim shares insights from his e-book 40 Lessons in 40 Years: Wisdom for the Long Haul, unpacking lessons about visionary leaders and integrators, why systems are actually pastoral tools, healthy governance, leadership burnout, and managing energy for long-term ministry health.
Tim also gives listeners an inside look at stepping into Willow Creek during one of the church’s most difficult seasons and explains how focusing on “the next right thing” helped guide the rebuilding process.
The Church Hub: The Church Hub serves pastors, ministry leaders, and their spouses through equipping and training resources. Learn more at https://thechurchhub.org
CHAPTERS
04:05 Introducing Tim Stevens
07:18 Tim’s Ministry Journey and Leadership Background 10:18 Executive Pastor Wiring and Leadership Styles
13:42 40 Lessons in 40 Years
15:26 Why Visionary Leaders Need Integrators
18:01 Why Systems Are Pastoral
22:00 Sustainable Leadership and Managing Energy
26:06 Board Alignment and Healthy Governance
30:30 Leaving Church Ministry for Vanderbloemen and Leadership Consulting
34:10 Rebuilding Willow Creek Through Crisis
39:58 How Leading Smart Helps Churches Thrive
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Editing and Support by The Good Podcast Co.
Backstage Pastors™️ is a Registered Trademark
Ep 09_Tim Stevens
[00:00:00] Phil: Welcome to the Backstage Pastors podcast, brought to you by the Church Hub. I’m your host, Phil Taylor, and my co-host is Tyler Dravis. We’ve got an interview today with Tim Stevens in just a few minutes. Tyler we’ve been doing this podcast now for a few months, and we’re seeing actually a lot of new listeners showing up, listeners and viewers on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, all of it, and they’re finding the show, and they’re finding it helpful.
And so we just wanna welcome our new listeners and viewers. Oh, yeah,
[00:00:40] Tyler: that’s, that’s so awesome to hear. You know, it’s been so encouraging to see more people finding the show, and I’ve actually been hearing about it from people in my world too, friends- Wow … people at church. Even my spiritual director mentioned that he tuned into a couple of episodes.
So, it’s been really fun to see, and just reinforces that some people are finding it helpful, which is [00:01:00] great.
[00:01:00] Phil: Yeah, yeah. You know, I got an email the other day from a listener. It’s cool to start getting emails from listeners. Feel free to do that. Phil- phil@backstagepastors.org. But he’s, he was a new executive pastor, and he had … Honestly, he had just looked up podcasts for- Yeah … executive pastors in, you know, Spotify or whatever, and that’s how he found the show. And so he was asking me via email some questions about the executive pastor role, and as I’m, I’m reading his questions, I’m, I’m realizing, okay, he, he has no idea that the podcast, Backstage Pastors podcast started as a book series- Mm
uh, with the first book being written for executive pastors. And so my answers- I tended to be like well, yeah, so that’s chapter three in my book, and this other question, that’s chapter seven in my book. And so I, I thought, you know, it, it probably would make sense to just sort of like mention some of [00:02:00] those things here for anybody that’s new finding the show.
And so if you are a second chair leader, executive pastor in a church, and you came to our stuff through the podcast first, I just wanna encourage you to pick up a copy of my book, Defining the Executive Pastor Role. Give that a read, and I also wrote a book called Eldership Development From Application to Affirmation.
It’s kind of a, It’ll, it’ll help you build an elder development program at your church. It’s sort of a look at a two-year process that I built. Tyler, for our new listeners just take a minute- Yeah … and talk about the things that you do at MyXP.Church.
[00:02:38] Tyler: I will do that. First, I have to say, in general, I’m gonna also recommend everybody read your book.
Oh, thank you … I’m not sure if anybody told you this, but I don’t do coaching with anyone who hasn’t read it. Oh, well, that’s great … if you reach out to me and want… Yeah, if you reach out to me and want coaching, your first step is to order and read the book, and then it gives us some sort of universal [00:03:00] language and just- Yeah
universal principles to draw on throughout the coaching process, and I didn’t have to create it all, so good work. There we go. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of myxp.church we really like to come alongside kind of churches as a whole. We handle things like finances, payroll, day-to-day systems.
I do tell people I’m the Planning Center whisperer, so if you’re struggling with Planning Center, I can really make it work for you. Just that kind of thing, taking the 20-some odd years of executive pastor experience and doing our best to bless churches around the country. And so not just task-based, but we really try to be a trusted partner, helping churches stay organized, run smoother, keeping things moving forward.
And at the end of the day, we’re taking a lot of that behind-the-scenes pressure off, so churches churches, church leaders, elders, pastors, whoever, can focus more on ministry and people. I think we work really hard to say if, if it doesn’t involve, like, meeting with a person, doing a hospital visit, if it can be done remotely, we wanna be able to come around you and do that.
And so [00:04:00] absolutely check out myxp.church if that kind of support sounds like something you’d be interested in.
[00:04:05] Phil: That’s great. Thanks for sharing that, Tyler. Well, we’ve got an interview with Tim Stevens next. Tim is one of those guys that seems to have just sort of been involved in a ton of interesting challenges over his career- Mm
in ministry. You know, not the least of which was jumping into Willow Creek in the, in the wake of all the mess there and, and being one of the, the executive leaders that were sort of com- coming in to pick up the pieces there. Now he’s investing all of his time into churches and, and pastors all over the country through his own company- Mm
called Leading Smart. And gosh, he’s just he- he’s a real gift to the church, and I think our listeners are gonna really enjoy this interview with Tim Stevens.
Tim Stevens, you’ve written seven books. You’ve been the XP at [00:05:00] churches like Willow Creek and Granger in Indiana. You helped run Vanderbloemen for a number of years. Your podcast is in season three. You’ve started Leading Smart to serve just a ton of great churches and pastors all over, and you’ve been really an incredible gift to the church for, like, 40 years now.
Tim, thanks for being on the show.
[00:05:21] Tim: Thank you. I guess that just means I’m old now. That’s what I, I still feel like I’m 32, like, but then I look in the mirror and think about my journey, and it’s like, nope, nope, that’s not true.
[00:05:32] Phil: I don’t understand how you’ve got 40 years, to be honest. You don’t look old enough to have 40 years of ministry experience under your belt, but I don’t know.
Was your first youth ministry role at, like, 11? I don’t, I don’t get it.
[00:05:42] Tim: Kinda. So where, where I got my head start above others that my age is I went directly into ministry. I was… I had not even turned 18 yet when I was recruited by this revival ministry. This is back in ’84, ’85. And they, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I knew I was, [00:06:00] for sure I was going into ministry, but I didn’t know what, so I thought, “I’ll just-” I, I didn’t know it was a gap year at the time. We didn’t call it that, but I just thought, “I’ll just take a year and do this.” They were only asking for a year commitment. And then they asked me to come back for a second year and work into leadership, and then they asked me to come back and work in their national office.
And, and then the story just kinda goes from there, so. Just happened early.
[00:06:19] Phil: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’ll get into more of that in a second, but you know, Tim, I feel like our worlds have sort of overlapped for a number of years now. I remember we were on a, a podcast together a long time ago as, like, co-guests.
And, you know, I feel like we run into each other at, at conferences a couple of times a year. And you know, you worked at Granger, which is one of our longtime clients at Plain Joe Studios, and you worked at Willow Creek, which is another one of our clients. I think we rebranded Willow and did a new website while you were there for them.
And I even took part in one of your Leading Smart cohorts a couple of years ago, which was great, in Orlando. You guys did an [00:07:00] awesome job with that. And so lots of overlap there. It’s been fun to be able to kind of come in and out of our, your life a little bit over the years.
[00:07:07] Tim: Yeah, I appreciate it.
It’s fun to, like, in the work we do when we’re both serving churches being able to cross paths every now and then is, Sometimes it gets lonely out there on the road, so it’s nice when you see a face you know. I know, right?
[00:07:18] Tyler: So Tim Phil just gave, like, the briefest flyover of your life. But for our listeners who have not run into you during these past 40 years could you give us just a little deeper window into your ministry journey?
[00:07:30] Tim: Yeah, it kinda goes in four- Four chapters, and I guess I’ve just started my fifth. But I was just talking a minute ago, joined this nonprofit faith-based ministry and spent nine years there. And that gave me, we traveled around the country working with churches. So over that nine years, I was in 800 different churches on site helping them with stuff.
You know, I was just a young kid at the time doing whatever I was told to do. So I ran a soundboard. I did lots of different things. I helped them maintain [00:08:00] their vehicles and then did some teaching and things like that. And then eventually organizational leadership back at their home office. And then in that time, I was living a few minutes from where this brand new church plant I started hearing about, Granger Community Church, had started in a movie theater.
And so we got excited about that, about what God was doing in that place. And long story short on that is I went on staff there, spent 20 years as most of that as executive pastor. And that was from 94 to 2014. And we were in Granger’s a little bedroom community. It’s not even incorporated. It’s a zip code.
Mishawaka, right? Right. Outside of Mishawaka and South Bend. And the whole area is called Michiana because it sits on the Michigan-Indiana state line. And that church just blew up. And it was such a fun experience. We went from a church plant to over 6,000 over those years. And it’s one of those experiences [00:09:00] where you just wake up every day and you’re like, none of us have any idea what we’re even doing.
None of us have ever been here before. And you just figure it out. And you ask a lot of questions and find out some other people that are doing something similar and see what you can learn. So that was 20 years. Then I went to Houston, moved there from Houston to Houston in 2014 to join the team at Vanderbloemen as a vice president of consulting.
And so got to help build out. This was the company was pretty young at the time, maybe five, six years old, and got to help build out the consulting team, working with churches all over the country. Vanderbloemen is known mostly for pastoral searches, which is a lot of what we do, what we did there. But also we got to build out their succession consulting practice and some staff culture consulting.
And then in 2020, long story, which we can talk about sometime, but moved to Willow Creek after [00:10:00] doing the senior pastor search there and then the new senior pastor calling me there to be the executive pastor and got to be part of a really cool rebuild story of just God doing some great things in a church that was hurting.
Had been a couple of years of some pretty deep hurts.
[00:10:18] Phil: That’s that’s a lot in a, in a, a short period of time, it feels like, after your 20 years at Granger. And I, I feel like we could, we could probably just do like a miniseries on like the places that you’ve worked in because you’ve, you’ve been able to serve in some pretty cool areas which is really just neat to see.
You know, with, with your work now at Leading Smart what we often find in the second chair community, of course, this podcast is specifically focused on second chair leaders and whether that’s in the church or nonprofit world. And you know, one of the things that we see again and again that we all see, I think, is that that second chair leader tends to fall into a couple of [00:11:00] categories, right?
You’ve got the people who are like capital E, lowercase p or lowercase e, capital P, and there’s a lot of different ways to kind of talk about that. And you recently created a tool that kind of helps people figure out where they land on that spectrum. Can you just talk about that tool a little bit and, you know, all of that?
[00:11:20] Tim: Yeah, I did it. I was working with a church in British Columbia in Canada, and they were working through fi- looking for an executive pastor. And as we just were kind of just asking them a ton of questions about what they’re looking for, realized they were looking for a little bit more of an executive than a pastor.
And so they’re like, “How do we figure that out?” So I said, “Let’s put a tool together to help both you guys figure out what you’re looking for,” so any, a church figure out kind of, do they want one, do they want an executive pastor that leans one way or the other? And in a small church, it’s, it might be 50/50.
It might be like, man, we need, they need to be a pastor. They’re gonna be doing some teaching. They’re gonna be marrying and burying people, and they’re also gonna be [00:12:00] helping us administratively, organizationally run this place. But sometimes as a church gets larger, you’re really asked to, to lean one way or the other.
You’re gonna have staff around you that are gonna fill in the gaps that you don’t have. So, so created it for them to help them figure out who they want, and then- … for the candidates they were looking at just so they could get a, a sense of like, let’s ask those candidates some questions to see which way they lean, ’cause if they lean primarily pastoral and we need someone who’s primarily executive or organizational, then we’re gonna pe-perhaps have the wrong match.
Mm. So, it’s a tool that’s just helped us in some, you know, key conversations and it’s not a magic tool by any means, but at least gets the conversation going, so you can kinda get a sense of is this, is this the right match? Is this the right place that I should be or the right place that, right person we should be looking for?
[00:12:44] Tyler: Yeah, that’s, that’s super helpful because a lot of times someone might actually be wired to be a great XP, but if the only model they’ve ever seen is the complete opposite of how they’re wired, they might not even realize there’s other ways to do it. I think even that executive pastor role, I run into people [00:13:00] every week who have never heard that term in their lives, and it’s one that has been present in the church for a long time.
So, I mean, there are just so many different wirings, you know. Like, I think of Phil, he’s not really even versed much on a spreadsheet, period, other than, like, typing in, Right … names into rows. I don’t like them. But then there’s other XPs who feel like, how could you even be called an XP if you can’t, you know, run macros and all the fun things that spreadsheets can do?
And so it just shows that there’s not just one way to approach the role. So it sounds like a helpful tool. How do people find it?
[00:13:34] Tim: So it’s on our website leadingsmart.com under Resources. Okay. And there’s probably a backslash I should have looked up ahead of time. I don’t remember what it is.
[00:13:42] Tyler: That’s all right. But if they go to Resources they’ll see it there. Perfect. Awesome. And so you also recently wrote an e-book that’s called 40 Lessons in 40 Years: Wisdom for the Long Haul. Can you tell us about this project?
[00:13:55] Tim: Yeah, this was coming up on, you know, I was just realizing, you know, a couple years back, it’s like, oh, my word I’ve been [00:14:00] almost 40 years in ministry, and so I’m- Crazy
I am not one who gets very reflective at all- Mm … probably to a fault. I’m just kinda, like, moving ahead and, like, learn from the past but, like, just move ahead. So but I started getting reflective. It’s like, 40 years, goodness. Didn’t know I was that old. But just started writing down, like, what are some of the key lessons.
Some of them, you know, just probably ’cause I, I came from a, a great family, a good church, probably, like, I, I had a good head start and was pretty grounded starting in ministry. But, but a lot of these are, like, things I didn’t know when I first started in ministry and kinda learned along the way, and especially, like some of the folks you talked about, Tyler I’d never heard of an executive pastor when I got into ministry, so figuring out what that was, figuring out that that’s kinda how g- God wired me in unique ways.
I remember, I remember probably 16, 17 year olds being convinced I’m supposed to be in ministry, but being kinda depressed thinking about, like, my youth pastor had already tried to make me a preacher, and it’s like, that wasn’t working. And thinking about, like, missionaries that come to my church with their [00:15:00] slide decks, and it’s like, I don’t think I wanna do that.
And then thinking about youth ministry, and it’s like, I don’t even like students my age. Why, why would I wanna, like? So I thought, what is there for me? And music, it’s like I knew I didn’t have enough musical gifts to, to be a worship pastor. So it’s like I didn’t- I didn’t know what there was for me, so it was cool finding that out.
And then just thinking back over the 40 years of what’s, what’s some of the things that God’s taught me through just asking a bunch of stupid questions and being around a lot of smart people.
[00:15:26] Phil: Hmm. Hmm. That’s really good. You know, I, I read through the whole, the whole thing and, and I wanted to just call out a few of them that we could maybe talk about a little more in depth give you a chance to share some of those lessons.
So, lesson 11 was that every charismatic leader needs an integrator, and I so resonate with that in my own kinda career path. But talk about that a little bit for you.
[00:15:52] Tim: Yeah, I became kind of, aware of this when I was 25, 26 years old and then was [00:16:00] still at that nonprofit organization but had started attending Granger Community Church.
And they had a amazing visionary pastor who had started this and, you know, had come to town a few years earlier and, you know, dreamed the dream and, and rallied the people and started galvanizing. And right before, right as I started attending, I wasn’t even aware this was happening, the place was crumbling as far as infra- infrastructure- Mm
and systems go. And so he, you know, his, his galvanizing personality got it to a place, and then it just couldn’t sustain. And he was self-aware enough to know this about himself. And so we got into conversation, and I remember one of our first conversations, he says, “What do you wanna do with your life?”
And I said, I said, “I really feel like I wanna come, like, I wanna put feet to the vision.” And he said, “What vision and whose vision?” I said, “I’m trying to figure that out.” And so God just kinda knit our hearts together, and it ended up being, you know, be- behind the vision that he had and what God was doing there.
But years after that, there was a book that came out called Rocket Fuel, Yeah … [00:17:00] business book. Great book. Yeah. And in that, when I read that, it’s like, “Oh, this is it. This, this describes a relationship between a visionary senior pastor and an integrator,” I think is the word they use in the book executive pastor, and how, like, if you can get those two working together, I mean, just magic can happen.
And we saw that for 15 of the 20 years that, that Mark Beeson and I were together at Granger where I didn’t want his job, he didn’t want my job but we were both really, really good at the function that we carried out. And, and that’s what I think a lot of a lot of people just don’t see is the need for that systems integrator.
And they feel it eventually when things like, like the condition we were at when I first started attending, when th- things start to get, get tense or start breaking, systems start to not work anymore. Your volunteers can only kinda take it so far, and then you need someone that can actually be an integrator.
Not that they’re gonna ca- it’s not, it’s not being a doer. It, there’s, it’s still a leadership role where you’re galvanizing teams, but thinking [00:18:00] like an integrator.
[00:18:01] Tyler: That’s, yeah, that’s great. Another one that really stood out to me, especially for second-chair leaders, lesson 19, systems are pastoral, and I feel like a lot of us spend a good bit of time trying to convince that go-with-the-flow leader that this is actually true.
So talk about that a little bit. What do you mean when you say systems are pastoral? And maybe share an example of what it looks like in a healthy church.
[00:18:24] Tim: Yeah. I’m working with a church right now, a large church that had a pastor who really felt like systems were not pastoral, so they didn’t invest money in systems and infrastructure and software.
And so as the church got bigger and bigger and bigger, then they’re … Then the way they pastor people is just the people that they know, the people that they’re eyeball to eyeball with, and so many people fall through the cracks because they don’t have the systems to sustain them. So I just think having the right systems help you make sure that you’re gonna care for people well.
So whether that’s a CHMS, you know, church management system whether that’s software that [00:19:00] helps you f- just follow, you know, just personal software, helps you follow up on emails and follow up on phone calls and track that as well. I think even, you know, what you guys do with building systems and website systems and software like that I think is super helpful.
Like, if you spend the money on that and you’re doing it with, with the ministry in mind, with pastoring people in mind, then those systems can actually, you know, serve as a tool. They, they fall into the background. You don’t even know they’re happening if you get a good system. Right. But they’re helping you pastor your people well.
[00:19:29] Tyler: Do you have any advice just because I’ve … I, I’m more systems oriented, of course, and been across from people who just feel like- It, it just is in conflict with who, who a pastor should be or so- ’cause it feels generic, or it feel… But then I’m here on this side, and I, I would hold to the single most important step in discipleship is filling out an info card because if your life has been rocked and I can’t get ahold of you, it doesn’t matter, you know, sort of a thing.
And so how do you navigate that kind of [00:20:00] conversation with someone who feels so opposed to if it’s intentional, it must be manipulative, or if it’s intentional, it must not be genuine? And so do you have any kind of advice largely for me, but hopefully the listeners care too?
[00:20:13] Tim: Yeah, I mean, I give you a couple examples personally.
So now, now that I’m a layperson again at my church, I still attend Willow, but we stepped away two and a half years ago from staff. But so now, like I… You know, we, with my business now, a lot of our giving is at the year-end ’cause we’re trying to figure out how much we made that year. So giving a gift at the year end, I know, I absolutely know ’cause I was there and helped develop the systems, that when I get a thank you letter from my campus pastor or my senior pastor, I know that was an automated system, and it still feels good, man.
Yeah. It still feels like they noticed, they know. They at least hand signed it. You know, it came across their desk, and they took a minute to think about it, and that makes a difference. I think about it. I’m not great with birthdays and anniversaries. So like with my wife, I think, is it better to miss her birthday or Valentine’s [00:21:00] Day or anniversary, or is it better to put it on my calendar, you know, so annually it reminds me?
And I, like I need that reminder. Is it any less important? Is it… Do I, do I value her less because I don’t remember without the reminder? I don’t think so, and I don’t think she thinks so. I think she appreciates it. So I think that’s a, that’s a thing with systems, and we have– we’re dealing with so many people, and we can’t afford to have this, an- enough staff to personally pastor the people that need to be pastored.
We have to ha- we have to use systems. We have to have, obviously, utilize volunteers in an effective way, but those volunteers need systems as well, and we need systems to know that our volunteers and our staff are actually doing that care.
[00:21:40] Phil: Yeah. I, I was thinking about, you know, you, you referenced some of the work that, that we do at Plain Joe with some of those things.
And, and I think one of the things we’re always trying to convince people of is the idea that, like, the signage system throughout your building is actually deeply pastoral, right? Because- … it’s a, it’s a pastoral moment to be able to find where you’re, where you’re going, [00:22:00] especially if you’re a, a new person in the church.
I’ll call out just one more lesson from the book, Tim. Lesson 33 you talked about the idea that sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap. And I think, you know, especially, like, for your role, Tim, you’ve been in, you know, like, fast-growing companies like Vanderbloemen and fast-growing churches like Granger and you know, situations like Willow Creek, where, like, the ship was just on fire when you got there.
And, and so I’m just wondering, like, how in the midst of that were you able to prioritize rest and, and naps, you know, in the midst of that, kind of those situations?
[00:22:39] Tim: I mean, I think it’s … There’s another chapter, I don’t know which one, which one it is, that talks about thinking about the long game. And so I think it go- it ties in with this one with the fact that it is … You think about it as the long game. I know, like, when I’m into my 20s and we’re … I was at Granger, and we’re building this church that’s, you know, it’s growing faster than any of us could ever imagine, and you just think that, “Man, if I just stay an extra hour, if I [00:23:00] just, if I can just finish the stuff that’s on my desk, I can just get it done.”
And then you, and then you reali- You, you just think if you do that, like, man, the m- more lives will be transformed, and, like, the weight’s on your shoulder. And then you realize that the work’s never gonna be done. Right. It’s, it’s just never gonna be done. There’s always more to do. And especially in church context, a lot of that feels very personal and very spiritual.
Like, it’s, it’s, it’s spiritual work, and so I gotta keep doing it. But man, I just think both for the sake of that organization, it’s about the long game. So many- … fast-growing churches have leaders that just burn out and, and flame out. And and then the church suffers as a result of that and goes into sometimes years of plateau or decline because their leaders burned out.
And not only that, it’s just- What’s most important to us? Is it building that organization? That’s super important, but for me, at the end of the, end of my lifetime, it’s I’d r- much rather have my wife respect me and my kids love me and respect me, and a, a small number of people that I poured my life into that [00:24:00] really have, their life has been touched and influenced and changed because of my my leadership or influence in their life in some way, more than the organizations that I’m gonna touch throughout a 40 or 50-year career. Hmm. Hmm. I’m
[00:24:12] Phil: wondering, Tim, was that something that you kind of a- have always been good at?
Was it something that you s- kinda learned the hard way, you know, through, you know, a lot of, like, difficult discussions with your wife? Or, like, tell, tell us about that a little bit.
[00:24:25] Tim: It was definitely a learning about myself. So, I don’t know if you guys have talked on here about Enneagram or if very many listeners are in- into the Enneagram, but I’m an Enneagram 5.
So what I’ve learned about myself, that, that tool has helped me learn more about this, is just that I, like, need to manage my energy really well. If I’m… spend… You know, I’m on the road a lot with churches. If I spend two or three hours in a boardroom with a brand- a board I’ve never met before, I’m gonna be pretty drained at the end of that meeting.
Hmm.
[00:24:53] Tyler: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Tim: If I spend three hours with 10 of my friends, I’m not be- not gonna be drained at all. I’m gonna be energized at the end of that time. So I just need to know what’s on my [00:25:00] calendar to know where do I need to build in that rest, those naps, the vacations, the time away just the time to kinda regain energy.
I remember early on, I would come home, and this was, you know, in the early days of cellphone. I’d come home from Granger, and I’d still be talking on the phone when I walked in the house, and I’d be talking on the phone until my wife’s like, “Hey, dinner’s on the table,” and realized I needed to change my habits on that, and I needed to finish up my work, and I had a really short commute.
It was, like, five minutes. So- Hmm … I, if I need to, like, drive around the block 16 times- … finish up my work, get my head clear so when I walk in, I can give my best to my kids and my my, my wife. I think that’s something you just, you learn about yourself. Like, what is it gonna take? And then back to systems, for me, I have to systemize it.
I have to systemize- Right … not necessarily my naps, ’cause I don’t get a lot of naps, but systemize my rest. Hmm. Systemize the time when I’m gonna be able to recharge my energy, when I’m gonna be able to do that with my my wife. We did that last week on a trip. When I’m gonna be able to do that with my adult kids [00:26:00] now.
Just, like, get it on the calendar. Hmm … otherwise, l- life’s busy. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna happen. Yeah. Sure.
[00:26:06] Tyler: Well, so we called out three of the lessons that really apply to 2nd chair leaders. As you think about the rest of the 40, is there one that you’d point to and say, “This one’s especially important if you’re serving in that 2nd chair role”?
[00:26:18] Tim: Okay, so this might be a little– This might not be every 2nd chair leader, but it’s top of mind because I’m working with so many churches, 2nd chair leaders that are working on this right now, and that’s– it’s number 10, which is every board needs to be aligned. Hmm. And so not every 2nd chair leader’s involved in at the board level in that organization, that nonprofit or that church but a lot of them are.
A lot of them attend the meetings. Some of them are board members. And what I’m find- what I’m seeing, like, it feels like it’s increasing, where you have a church that from the outside or the the average attender would say, “Man, this church is on fire. We’re growing. This is great. I love it. I’m telling my friends.”
And you have [00:27:00] leaders and lead pastors who are they’re, they haven’t had a moral failure, they’re relatively healthy, and the, and then it’s like you hear that they left their church or they got their name in another church, and like, what’s the problem? It’s ’cause- Yeah … the board is dysfunctional or unhealthy.
Hmm. And, and because of that, the board and the lead pastor at odds with each other and And the church doesn’t even know that, and a lot of times the staff doesn’t even know that. But it’s ultimately gonna drive that p- that pastor out and, and then potentially send that church, and a lot of times send that church into years of just kind of malaise until they find a good leader again that can lead them out of that.
So, so I think executive leaders, executive pastors, secondary leaders sit at a place where they can help move that forward. They can help with some just simple board systems, some simple board management, some simple onboarding of board members putting the systems together around that making sure that the lanes are clear that the lane of like, okay, what is, what do the pastors do at this church?
[00:28:00] What’s responsibil- what board, what does the board have responsibility for? What does the, what do the pastors need to take to the board? ‘Cause a lot of pastors ha- don’t– that’s not clear for them. The board hasn’t made it clear to them, and they spend a lot of their time just ha- waiting to get approval because they’re not even sure they need approval, but they don’t wanna move ahead without it.
So I think we, we work a lot with churches on just helping them get board alignment and get board health in a way that you have appropriate accountability, so it’s… But also the leaders have freedom with parameters.
[00:28:28] Phil: Hmm. Yeah, that’s really interesting. You know, it’s funny, I, you know, the work that I do with Plain Joe is often related to like, say, a large building project or something, right?
And one of the questions I always ask as we’re getting ready to move forward from, like, the blue sky period where we’ve created, like, some cool imagery that they can cast vision with, and we’re moving into the next stages of, like, architecture or design for the, the building, I always ask like, “Hey, what is the approval process like in your church context, [00:29:00] right?”
Because that will tell me everything about how quickly we’re gonna move forward, right? Hmm. So, like, you know, one church will be like, “Well, you know, we meet monthly as a, a team, and so, you know, we’ll bring this to the team in three weeks’ time, and, you know, we’ll discuss it there, and then there’ll probably be another meeting where we actually vote on it.”
And I’m like, okay, so- Two, three months before we do anything. Got it, right? Other churches, they’ll, you know, I was just talking to a church last week, and they were like, “Yeah, so at our last elder meeting we agreed that we’re moving forward with the building project, and the elder team agreed that now that the project has been approved the only thing that needs approval from here on out is the total dollar spend, and we’ll- we know we’re not gonna be able to figure that out for a few more months as we develop the next step.”
And so it was like the decision-making was done at the elder level at one point and then handed to the lead pastor and executive pastor to execute from there on out, and I was like, that’s perfect. Yeah. And I wish [00:30:00] every church was like that, right? Because I see so many churches just get bogged down in that board decision-making process.
Mm. And that’s not the role of the board, right? I mean-
[00:30:12] Tim: Yeah. It sounds like that board ha- they, they’ve established clarity and trust. Like, we’re gonna be– We, we’re clear on what we’re approving, we’re empowering because we trust, and and they’re s- and they’re also saying, “Here’s what you need to check.
Here’s what you ne- do need to come back for approval.” Right. “Once you get that total dollar amount, then we’ll, we’ll talk again.” That’s great. I love that.
[00:30:30] Phil: Yeah. So good. So, Tim, you were in the XP role at Granger for 20 years, you said, and then you went from there to Vanderbloemen. And I think one of the things I wanted to talk about with your role at Vanderbloemen was a lot of times when you’re in that XP role and I think especially if you’re in it in a large church environment you can sort of reach a point where you go, “You know, I’m already in a big church.
The, the bigger church is not gonna be a big draw [00:31:00] for me to make a shift to. You know, I’ve built the buildings, I’ve done the, the campaign initiatives, I’ve, I’ve done a ton of hiring.” You know, y- y- I think XPs tend to get bored a little bit in their role a little easily ’cause they, they, they’re looking for more things to kind of work on and learn.
And so what I’ve noticed is that when an XP actually leaves working directly at a church, they seem to go in one direction or another. They tend to go to like nonprofit management. You know, they become the executive director of a large, you know, multinational nonprofit or whatever. Or they go into a for-profit business that primarily serves the church, right?
So they’re staying in the ministry world, but they’re just sort of shifting one direction or another. You obviously chose the for-profit business that primarily served the church at Vanderbloemen. Just talk about, like, that shift for you. You know, what was that like? You know, how did that feel to kinda come out of the church world [00:32:00] and into that space?
You know, and having just a whole different set of like goals and outcomes and all of it. Talk about that a little bit.
[00:32:07] Tim: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, the shift was not… I, at the time I wasn’t feeling like burned out or like I can’t stand the church, I’ll never work in a church again. I did, I did feel very– I did feel tired, though.
I felt like- Right … tired and wanted a new challenge. I don’t know that I would’ve said, or even looking back, I don’t think I was bored, but all of the challenges were similar. You know, we were still growing and, you know, there was l- there were challenges, but I wanted something new. And so, what I loved about going from, you know, a church to a church adjacent for-profit business was how tactical– No, tactical’s not the right word.
Tangible- Mm knowing you are winning is in a business. Hmm. So in the church, it’s like, you know, we’re, we’re transforming lives for Jesus Christ. We’re helping- Right … people become disciples. That’s really hard to measure, and you find, you find 1,000 ways to measure it, and you find lots, lots of good tools and systems.
But [00:33:00] man, when you go to a business and it’s super clear on did that, did that sale happen? Did we… Was the customer satisfied? Very, very clear. And for someone who’s wired, I’m wired more like the E part of executive pastor than the P, I really love the having that. And so as I built the team out when I left there, I think we had 10, 10 consultants on the team.
It was just like we had dashboards that were really easy and understandable, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t nebulous at all. And so that was a really cool thing. Loved that. Loved serving the church. Coming alongside, but three phases where I’ve kind of been serving adjacent, you know, church adjacent. So the nonprofit I mentioned first nine years of my career, and then, and then I was in local church for 20 years at Granger, and then six years at a for-profit business, and then four years back at Willow in the executive pastor seat.
And now again, the last almost three years serving churches as well in the work I’m doing through Leading Smart. So, it’s, it’s a ton of… I, I, I love the ch- I just love working in and around the [00:34:00] church, and so having that kind of experience in nonprofit, for-profit, and local church has been super cool.
It’s prepared me well for what I’m doing now. Hmm.
[00:34:10] Tyler: Hmm. That’s awesome. Well then, after Vanderbloemen you mentioned it, but you wanted to take a nice, easy church situation, so you went to Willow Creek right after Bill Hybels was removed. Practically a vacation for you, right? Talk a little bit about that.
[00:34:23] Tim: You know what was interesting is of the, of the four kind of chapters and, and moves that’s the only one that was, that l- looking back, I think was really a call.
[00:34:32] Phil: Hmm.
[00:34:33] Tim: Hmm. Like, like, and I, I remember when I was with Vanderbloemen and helping hundreds and thousands, over the six years, thousands of leaders figure out what’s next for them, I would hear them say, “Well, I feel called to this or called to that.”
I’m like, “You, you just wanna move to San Diego. You don’t feel called.” I, I don’t I like it. It’s like, sure, okay, okay. But, but then I got, then I got called and then I knew what it was. And so just, and what I mean by that is nothing made [00:35:00] sense about it. Everything else that I’d mo- you know, where I’d had a shift in career, it was like the right next step, made sense for my family, made sense for the challenge that I wanted, makes, you know, made sense for growth, personal growth.
This one was like nothing made sense. And yet God was absolutely telling us we needed to move back up to the north, where I said I would never live again and shovel snow again or buy another snowblower, and I, and… But that’s, but it was a call. And so yeah, everything was on fire when we got there. That was the first organization I went You know, I joined where no one was excited that you were joining and that everything was on fire.
Hmm … and just people, people were very, very hurt. I mean, it was just the walking dead in some ways as far as- Hmm. Sure … just a sense of like, just trying, and the staff, you know, just trying to get through Sunday after Sunday after Sunday when most of their senior level leaders had, were gone. And so just coming into a place that was in deep trauma, organizational trauma, and then a lot of deep personal hurt [00:36:00] and then figuring out, okay, if there’s 32 things on fire, and we can only focus on four of them, what are we gonna focus on?
And just having to kinda day after day after day figure that out. I remember probably the thing that helped me the most in that was like just doing the next right thing. Hmm. So like, a- and, and even doing the next right thing when you weren’t, when you wouldn’t, it might be weeks or months or years before you’d ever see any success from that next right thing.
Hmm. So, you know, just f- helping a, helping a church rediscover th- their mission and their vision and their purpose, and then helping them… Again, the COVID, you know, we were in COVID shutdown, so part of it was the trauma of the leadership failure, and part of it was the entire world had shut down and nothing at all, not even weekend services were happening for 13 months.
So- Right … then rebuilding a church and figuring out, okay, are we gonna have groups? Okay, let’s be a church of small groups. You know, what are we gonna do with our weekend- Sure … what’s the purpose of our weekend services? Like, all the things you would figure out as a church planter, we were figuring out with [00:37:00] this large existing church with seven campuses, and then figuring out, okay, like, just, just do the next right thing, and eventually- Hmm
we, we know it’s gonna start working. We know that that God’s gonna rebuild His church here, and then seeing that happen. It took months and months and months of that, but that was probably the most helpful thing of just, okay, this, this is the right thing. This is the right decision. We have to find $25 million in the budget.
We have to move a couple hundred people off staff. Like, these are hard decisions, but we know they’re the right decisions to help us recover. Sure.
[00:37:31] Tyler: Wow. That’s, yeah, crazy. Well, I mean, we won’t, we won’t unpack the whole story here. You’ve actually had a couple of great conversations with Carey Nieuwhof where you where people can hear the full version, and so we’ll point listeners there.
But for the XPs listening today, I love that next right thing. I think that’s so important, especially for an XP and that strategic mind to keep in mind. Anything else that you could give that you’d want those XPs to take away from that experience you had?
[00:37:56] Tim: Yeah, I would say, um You know, [00:38:00] if you’re in a, in, in, hopefully very few of your listeners are in a place where everything is on fire.
Yeah. But there’ll be seasons. There’ll be seasons of that, of like, man, just just like what is happening? You know, you have like, like everything’s like stable for a while, and then you have a key staff person leave, and then two other like s- Right … you know, and then it’s like suddenly, like half of our staff is, we’re having to rebuild.
So- … just figuring out like what, putting everything in front of you, and then f- what are the lead dominoes? Like what it, like we really, we can let this burn for a bit because we need to focus on this. So, for example, at Willow, we had to let some campuses burn for a bit. Like we just can’t even focus.
Like it’s, it’s on fire. There’s no leadership or, … like very unhealthy leadership, but we’ve gotta get the finances right, or we’ve gotta get the staff at the top right, or we’ve gotta get the elder team rebuilt, those kinds of things. Figuring out what are the things that I, that if I fi- if I get some health there, it’s gonna help me long term.
And then, yeah, you have to go home at the end of the day, and you have to care for your soul and for your family, and [00:39:00] so, and in those cases, like the work absolutely, definitely is not done, and it’s okay. We’re gonna let it burn for another day- … because we are doing the right things. And eventually we’ll get to it.
[00:39:09] Phil: Yeah, you know, one of the pastors I worked with that I planted a church with a number of years ago, he, he would of- always say that one of the greatest acts of faith is to take your hands off the plow, right? And just walk away from the, the field and say, “All right, I’m, I’m gonna go rest for the night now, and I’m gonna have to trust that the harvest, the work is gonna be there tomorrow.”
So I, I hear you on that. So after finishing your time at Willow Creek battle scars, you know, complete in that journey you went out on your own and started Leading Smart, and you guys are doing some great work with a lot of different things. Give us just sort of the elevator pitch on what Leading Smart is, what you guys are doing, how are you serving churches and organizations.
Just give us a little bit of that.
[00:39:58] Tim: Yeah, absolutely. Leading [00:40:00] Smart for 20 years was a l- a side hustle where I would just try to, and it was mostly focused on coaching executive pastors. And we’re still doing that. That’s still a, a piece of what we’re doing and an important piece. But once I kinda was freed up full time to focus on it and then started building a team around it, we really started focusing on things related to the organizational health of a church So, that’s health- healthy suc- healthy transitions and what that looks like probably 25, maybe 30% of our work is focused on helping churches h- have a healthy succession.
So that tends to be longtime or founding pastors that we’re coming alongside two to four years before the, before maybe even the church knows the transition’s gonna happen. Hmm. But they know they’re probably two to four years out. We’re wa- We’re just holding their hand and walking their way very, very systematically, but very organically and personally helping them.
And a lot of that’s helping that lead pastor grieve, like figure out, like What is the right time? What do they wanna do next? Are they g- do they have [00:41:00] something lined up to do next? How are they gonna leave in a healthy way so they don’t hurt the church on their way out? Right. No lead pastor leaving a church ever wanted to, but a lot of them do.
Mm. Especially founding pastors hurt the church in- unintentionally on their way out. We could talk for an hour about that. Hmm. Another thing we’re doing, I mentioned already, is helping churches with healthy boards. Then we’re also, … And that’s, that’s typically go- that’s often also with a founding board moving into kind of like a sustainable governing board over the long haul, or it’s a managing board where, you know, they kinda set up their board when the church was 500.
Now the church is 3,000, and they’re still trying to, like, manage the day-to-day of the church, and it’s just not working. And so we help them kinda move from managing to governing and then set up systems around that. And then probably a third category would be, like, organizational health really jumping into churches and helping their lead team get healthy.
Hmm. And most of those are larger churches, maybe 1,500, 2,000 and up just helping them make su- sure they have a lot of health and systems at that top level [00:42:00] ’cause I really believe health trickles down, and you gotta start there. And then you can work for the, you know, the whole staff level.
And then we’re doing cohorts and gatherings, so executive pastor monthly virtual cohort. We have three gatherings a year that are in person. Phil, you referenced the one that you’d been at in the past, but just in the next few weeks we’ll be releasing the dates. We do them on purpose in the wintertime in warm places-
Because everyone who lives where I live doesn’t wanna be where they are in the winter, in February and March. So we’ll have three next year one in January two in February. One- two will be for executive pastors. One of them will be for lead pastors, and we’ll have those dates and signups coming here in the next few weeks.
[00:42:38] Tyler: We will make sure to include all of that information in the show notes. Before we sign off, anything else for us, Phil?
[00:42:44] Phil: Yeah, you know, I was just thinking about that, the cohort piece that you do, Tim. You know, in the, I think in the executive pastor space there’s you know, you’ve got the one-on-one coaching, and certainly a lot of people do that.
You do it, I do it, you know, tons of people do the one-on-one coaching. And then you’ve got a couple of, like, large [00:43:00] group events, like, you know, the XP Summit in Dallas in May. You’ve got, you know, David Fletcher’s thing in February, the XP Seminar. There aren’t too many of those. But that cohort space I think is a really nice in between.
And, you know, there’s a number of cohorts certainly available. Most of them are online. Mine’s entirely online. But what I like about yours, it’s just a little different angle, is it’s sort of a mix of online and in person, right? It’s sort of a- Right … you’ve s- so you’re sort- sort of jumping in for a year.
You’ve got that mix of online and in person, and I think that’s just a kind of a great niche to carve out, and I think you’re doing a really good job with that.
[00:43:37] Tim: Yeah, they’re not exclusive, meaning if you’re in the monthly online, you don’t have to go to the gathering, and if you go to the gathering, you don’t have to be in the monthly online.
But there’s a lot of, of crossover. Okay. Probably half of the people that show up at the gatherings are in our online cohort. That’s great. It’s awesome.
[00:43:53] Phil: Anything you’re excited about that you wanna talk about, Tim that you got cooking in the, the project lane?
[00:43:59] Tim: So [00:44:00] this, this month and next month, here early in the summer, we’re gonna
We’re working on a I talked about the board governance and kinda … We’re working on a, a tool. We’re not exactly sure what it’s gonna look like, but some kind of a master class kinda tool that will help the normal sized church, meaning the small to medium sized churches take steps in their board health.
So we’re … It’ll be a tool that a board can, like, play 10, 15, 20 minute segment at each board meeting over the next year. And we’ll, we’ll just help them get from wherever they’re at to a hopefully a little bit healthier, and take steps in a way that’s bite size, that don’t, they’re not committed long term.
They don’t have to pay f- pay a lot of money for consulting. They’re just able to have a tool to plug in. So that’s pretty exciting. We’re working on that right now. I am very excited. If you
[00:44:41] Tyler: need a beta tester, you let me know. Oh, I love it, Tyler. That’d be great. We probably will. Perfect. Well, Tim, thank you so much for being with us today on the Backstage Pastors podcast.
We really appreciate you taking the time to join us. Thanks. Appreciate it.[00:45:00]
Man, what a great guy, and honestly, what a fascinating story, just to understand and, and hear kind of how some of everything just unfolded for him and through his time at Willow and all of that. Just really i- in the right place at the right time, responding to God’s prompting to be able to help so many people over his ministry journey.
Just amazing, for sure. Absolutely.
[00:45:20] Phil: Yeah. Well, Tyler, that’ll close out our episode for today. You can catch me on Instagram at philtaylorxp, and you can follow the show at backstagepastors. And
[00:45:30] Tyler: you can follow me at, @TylerDrewitz, that’s D-R-E-W-I-T-Z. The Backstage Pastors podcast is brought to you by the Church Hub.
The Church Hub serves pastors and their teams. Check them out at thechurchhub.org. Our podcast is produced by the Good Podcast Company, and our theme music was written by Seth K. We’ll see you on the next show.
