In this episode of The Backstage Pastors Podcast™️, Phil and Tyler sit down with longtime friend and ministry partner Ed Marcelle to explore the dynamics of the Lead Pastor (LP) and Executive Pastor (XP) relationship. Drawing from their shared history planting Terra Nova Church in upstate New York, the conversation traces Ed’s journey from solo church planter to national church planting leader. Along the way, they unpack lessons on burnout, vision, organizational leadership, team-based ministry, and the importance of mutual submission between LPs and XPs. The episode also highlights Ed’s transition into his current role serving church planters across the country and reflects on what it means to steward God’s investment in leaders for long-term, generational impact.
Note: This interview was recorded a few years ago, but we decided we liked it so much, we just had to keep it.
CHAPTERS
02:00 – Ed’s first church plant and lessons from solo pastoring
07:00 – Discovering the power of LP and XP partnership
12:00 – Vision, risk, and planting Terra Nova Church
22:40 – Impact on church planting in the Northeast
26:00 – Steps 1, 2, and 100: visionaries and implementers
29:33 – Behind the scenes of a healthy LP/XP relationship
34:22 – Ed’s transition to Harbor Network
40:14 – Influencing leaders and long-term ministry impact
43:01 – Advice for Lead Pastors and Executive Pastors
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Editing and Support by The Good Podcast Co.
BP_Episode02_Ed Marcelle
[00:00:00] Phil: Hello and welcome to the Backstage Pastors podcast, helpful conversations for executive pastors and second chair leaders in the church and nonprofit world. I’m your host, Phil Taylor, and with me today is my co-host, Tyler Dra. Tyler, I hope you’re doing well.
[00:00:27] Tyler: You too, man. Uh, so for this first series of Backstage Pastors podcasts, we are walking through some of the themes and key voices from your book.
Defining the role of the executive, or, I’m sorry, defining the executive pastor role. I’ve gotta say it right. Close
[00:00:39] Phil: enough.
[00:00:39] Tyler: That’s all good. That’s fair. Yeah. And today we’ve got an interview with someone you’ve known for a long time, pastor Ed Marc.
[00:00:46] Phil: Yes, ed and I planted Terra Nova Church together. Uh, in 2006 in New York.
We planted in a 200 year old factory that had been turned into a micro brewery nightclub. Slash [00:01:00] concert venue. Mm-hmm. And, uh, during that time we also led the northeast region for a church planting network that was doing quite a bit during, uh, during that time. And, uh, we both have gone on to do other things in serving, uh, churches and pastors all over.
More recently, ed became the church planting director for Harbor Network and is having a huge impact on really just like a whole new generation of church planters.
[00:01:28] Tyler: Ed, my friend, man, we go back a while. It’s good to have you on the show.
[00:01:33] Ed: It’s good to see you, Phil, and to be with you here, Phil and Tyler. Hello. Good to meet you.
[00:01:38] Tyler: You too.
[00:01:39] Phil: So Ed and I have kind of a unique relationship over the years, but it’s really an, I think, kind of an incredible display of the different giftings of an LP and an xp.
And as I prepared for this interview, I felt like it would be beneficial to the listeners, which are gonna be primarily executive pastors, to walk through a few of the key things that we’ve [00:02:00] learned along the way, ed, about ourselves, some key mm-hmm. Conversations that we’ve had along the way in that.
Church planting journey and how that gave each of us some more clarity about our unique roles. And so even though Ed and I planted terranova together, our story actually goes back several years before that. Ed, could you just take a minute and talk about planting King’s Chapel?
[00:02:24] Ed: Sure. So directly outta seminary, I was approached by a 200 year old Baptist church in rural, upstate New York that wanted to plant a church.
They saw the need for multiplication. They were actually at a high attendance wise for themselves and saw it as an opportunity to strike while they had those resources. I came up and planted in the suburbs, just on the southern rim of Albany, New York, a town called Glenmont. It’s actually the very. First suburb once you leave the city limits.
And, and really that church was planted in so many ways that, uh, I had to learn from for the second church [00:03:00] plant. So I planted solo, I planted early, I planted low on funds, and for seven years was the solo pastor of that church. Now I, it’s not a sad story. God did great things to that congregation, that plant, but it was definitely a learning experience for me.
[00:03:15] Phil: Um, ed, could you bring us up to the moment where you decided to leave King’s Chapel and kind of what was going on in your heart in that moment?
[00:03:26] Ed: So those seven years of solo pastoring definitely had taken a toll. I, I made the mistakes that I will own, that I would say aren’t uncommon for young church planters.
There tended to be a really tight control and focus. I mean, to give an example, I can remember designing. Printing and folding the bulletins because I felt I was the only one who did a careful enough job creasing the edge with a spoon. Like it was. It was that level of, I, I have to get the detail right on everything.
So it, it was an exhausting experience and to be honest, at the end of those seven [00:04:00] years, I was fairly tired from pastoring that church when. Denomination, well, an association. I don’t like the word denomination ’cause it’s a Baptist group, but a Baptist group came to me and said, Hey, can you lead our church planting in the northeast because we feel you did a really good job in this.
And I had this moment of dissonance in my mind thinking, man, I, I don’t think this was really a great job. But they’re telling me it was the best that their association had planted in a decade. And I was trying to reconcile that and determined in that moment, one thing that I would change the course of my life from being a guy who just wanted to plant and pastor a church, to being a guy who helped other people plant churches better than the way we were doing it.
Because I think we were still planting from the rear view mirror we were looking at at things that worked in models that were early on. In the modern age that when the church still had a much more massive influence and role in society and we were sort of doing the, if we build it, they will come mentality thing that didn’t recognize the [00:05:00] shift that had happened to a post-Christian, postmodern secularized United States.
[00:05:04] Phil: Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Side note, ed, before I move on. When I ended up coming into King’s Chapel, I found a printer, a guy who, you know, printed stuff in that plaza right next to the church that had a machine that actually folded bulletins. Just crazy.
[00:05:20] Ed: It was right there next
[00:05:21] Phil: door. Door, right? It was. It was so close.
It was so close.
[00:05:23] Ed: I see. An LP will never know that. An XP will find the machine to fold your bulletins.
[00:05:29] Phil: So when Kings Chapel called me to interview to be the new lead pastor, they wanted me to know right away that the founding pastor would still be living in the same town and and would actually stay in the church for a few months during the transition.
Apparently every other. Pastor they’d talked to, like, that was an immediate like, like no. They were like, no, no, no, I’m not. I’m not taking over a church where the lead, the four founding pastor’s still gonna be there. And so they asked me right away like, is that gonna be a problem for you? And I was like, [00:06:00] well, if I like the guy and we could work together, what do I care?
It’s fine. So I said, just let me get some time with him when I interview and it’s fine.
[00:06:08] Ed: Yeah, that was the problem, right? I think everybody and I, and if someone came to me and asked my coaching advice and said, should I take a, a church plant where the lead planting pastor is staying? I would say immediately, no run.
Like it’s Tokyo and Godzilla is showing up out of the water. Get away from that. But you were smart. I mean, I, I think what, what, what has happened is we. Always heard and maintained the oral tradition of the worst of those stories. Right? Right. So e, everyone is afraid of a boogeyman that they heard about from a friend or a seminary prof.
Oh no. I heard that the former lead pastor killed a young pastor in the church basement. And so no one wants to do this stuff, but you and I began to talk and I tried to make it as clear as possible. Now I’m gonna diffuse anything negative. I’m not going to hear people who are trying to end wrong in any way.
Right. I’m gonna take a very low profile.
[00:06:52] Phil: Well, and I remember you saying, ed, that you know that that moment. That shift between the founding pastor and the [00:07:00] second pastor is the moment when a lot of church plants fail. And, and I remember you saying like, let’s try to figure out a way to do this in such a way that that doesn’t happen.
Like let’s try to rewrite that story and see what we can learn from it. And so, you know, I was, I was attracted to that. And so, so when I interviewed there at Kings Chapel, um, we got some time together. So I remember after. Preaching at Kings in the morning, uh, as part of my interview, having some lunch with some leaders afterwards, and then I headed it over to your house.
Mm-hmm. Which was just a few minutes from the church and, and we spent, gosh, I think we spent two or three hours just talking and getting to know each other. And, and you said something that day that really stuck with me. You said, you know, I, I think if, if you and I had started this thing together. I might not actually be leaving right now.
And, and for me at least, I think that was probably the first time that I realized that perhaps I was wired differently than most lead pastors. And, and so that day we were even [00:08:00] then saying like, maybe we’ll work together someday. Talk about, talk about that, that kind of realization that perhaps the burnout, I don’t know if you wanna say it that, that strongly, but at least the, the tiredness from being a solo planter.
Talk about that shift in your mind to realizing it’s gotta be a team.
[00:08:18] Ed: Yeah, and I don’t think burnout is a bad word for it. I mean, I can remember early on with conservative Baptists going around to groups and talking about church planting and saying, I’m not sure I would ever do this again unless it was written in the sky, ed planted church.
And even then I would wanna handwriting analyst to make sure it was Jesus and not somebody else. I mean, I, I really saw the holes in the way we were church planting. And I, I do remember that conversation, Phil, and that was one of the things I saw is we’re, we’re taking people who are. Pioneer leaders who like to be in environments where there isn’t a town, where there aren’t streets, there aren’t ordinances and function much more freely when there aren’t lines.
And then at some point we have to shift from [00:09:00] that pioneer space to a town and there has to be order. If you’re gonna get to a city, there has to be even more order. And so we’re, we’re setting guys up to begin something and then quickly outpacing where their usefulness is less. We can actually get behind the idea of teams planting churches.
And Phil, you and I have done assessments before for church planters and you know, as well as I do that, I don’t like to send people out solo. I think that is a, a terrible thing that the, the church picked up as a habit, probably financially to try to save some money. But just what you’re talking about, and I, I remember a story you told when you, you were growing King’s Chapel and I was just thrilled that it was happening.
I went over to congratulate you and say, Phil. Great job, man. I don’t know what your secret sauce is here, but you’re doing great. And you said, ed, I just found your old notes and I’ve been implementing the vision that you didn’t implement. I have no idea why you didn’t implement it.
[00:09:52] Phil: That’s right.
[00:09:53] Ed: And all, all I could see was the, the, the insurmountable pile of chaos on my desk and thinking, I didn’t even remember.
I had left [00:10:00] notes on what was going on there. So that, to me, those, those were the moments of realizing, yeah, the tandem really does work better than the solom.
[00:10:08] Phil: And that was a big moment for me too. I’m, I’m glad you went there. That was a big moment for me in realizing that, that I may actually be more effective for God’s kingdom if I was partnered with somebody who, who had your wiring.
And, and so that process of discovery, you know, was happening as I was implementing your vision. And I was realizing, okay, like I don’t really wanna preach 40. To 45 times a year. I wanna preach less than that, some number less than that. And I wanna be able to put time into, you know, all the other stuff that has to happen for a, for a church to be, you know, operating well.
And, and so, so that was a big moment for me, you know, for you realizing. That actually perhaps you could be more effective as a LP partnered with an xp. [00:11:00] I think that was an important moment for kind of both of us in, in our friendship and our development. So, you know, it was about this time that God really spoke to me clearly and any.
Really kind of gave me what, what I feel like was my life’s calling, and I know I’ve talked about this with you, but through many months of prayer, I sensed that God was saying to me that my job for the rest of my days was to come alongside of gifted communicator visionaries who have the potential to make a generational impact, but who on their own may lack that organizational ability to bring that vision.
Into reality. And so along the way, God was tugging at your heart to start different kind of a church. And we started talking about, you know, the idea, what would it look like if we planted, uh, this new church together? You as an lp, me as an xp. And I remember one day you actually said, as we were kind of just in that early conversation of Terranova, you said, listen, if we aren’t committed to doing this thing together, I don’t, I don’t think I’m gonna do it.
Uh, what, what [00:12:00] triggered that shift for you?
[00:12:02] Ed: Yeah, so God was doing a lot in my life at that time. I, I spent the first year of that ministry with Conservative Baptists traveling around the country and looking at different church and beginning to create a series of notes for myself on what could be done differently.
I was really trying to look in those days at the end of, and beginning of the millennium, at the end of the 20th and 21st century. How can we drive from the windshield and not the rear view mirror? And one of the things that the Lord clearly said to me one day was, you need to build it flatter.
[00:12:32] Tyler: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:32] Ed: And I began to think about what that meant and what was embedded in that. And the idea was essentially the way we’ve created the church is there’s this one guy, and this is true, especially historical Baptist churches, and he is sort of the CEO general does everything. Thing. And oftentimes either doesn’t have staff that compliment him.
And I do believe in the maxim work to your strengths staff to your weaknesses. Yep. Or, or no staff whatsoever. And I, I realize [00:13:00] there, there needs to be this, this compliment of people who work. Differently, who see differently, who bring different pieces of the narrative to a whole story rather than just a narrow thing.
And it looks everything like the modern networked world in which we live solo and disconnected really doesn’t work in today’s world. And and for those who are kind of temperament geeks, you and I are the exact opposite in Myers-Briggs, right? That that’s right. I’m EFP. You’re an IS tj. That’s
[00:13:26] Phil: right.
[00:13:27] Ed: I, I realized I, I need to be working on my end and have someone else who’s weird like you working on another thing.
Ken Blanchard wrote a book called Mission Possible, and he talks about this thing called the Double Sigmoid Curve, how businesses used to operate on like a 40 year parabola, where they would work to their great strengths, hit their peak, and then slowly decline over that generational piece. But he said, now things have changed to the point where you can be working toward your strengths and at your peak, and immediately you have to start working towards the next thing and the next peak because change has.
So fast in the modern world, if [00:14:00] change has been tied to the ideas that can, how quickly they move and how good, how quickly goods and people move. Up until the industrial revolution, 22 miles an hour was the top speed. And I think that’s what Tofl was getting at in his book. Future Shock, that change is gonna come at a rate that’s rapid enough where you can’t react.
You have to continually build as though change is a normative part of life. And that was a. Big thought for me in terms of how do I apply that to church. The business world sometimes is much more practical than the church ’cause they work for money and not for God. And we sometimes can like slow up because we work for God and not for money.
And I think I, I took that idea from them and said, this is the way to work that double sigmoid curve. There has to be. An intelligent, self activated, organized person, an XP like you, Phil, who’s working that other side of the vision and the energy that that brings and the group that, that gathers, who can then take that and continue to work that into the, the, the family organization structure that we know is the [00:15:00] church.
[00:15:01] Phil: Well, I think I can make a declaration here. I’m gonna guess that that will be the only time that the double sigmoid curve will be referred to in the entire season, which is awesome. So we were getting ready to plant Terranova Ed, if you could just kind of put on your cultural anthropologist hat for a second and just kind of explain a little bit of the vision behind Terranova.
What were we, what were we trying to do there?
[00:15:22] Ed: Yeah, happy to do that. And I, I, as much as I don’t want it to be long, I’ll try to tell a brief bit of my own story because it factors in It’s great. Yeah, go for it. We are, we are, you know, the keyhole lens that we see through ISAs, that is our subject experience.
So I didn’t grow up Christian. I grew up in a very moral Catholic home. My coming of age experience was in the arts community and in Albany that meant Lark Street in the eighties and that was my world. And it was already the post-Christian world that. Christian writers were writing about 30 years later, 20 years later, and so I really thought about many times.
The people I knew and how they wouldn’t have gone [00:16:00] to the white stir steepled kind of village green looking church that I had planted just south of Albany in the suburbs that we would never reach. And I say this with affection, the new barbarian population of America, unless we were. There unless we were in those cities.
So the idea of a downtown church that reached towards the unchurched, because let, let’s face it, we’re not in the Bible belt up in New York state. We’re not just blue, we’re midnight bloom. I mean, that’s, we are, we’re the cultural curve away from the historic Christian moorings of, of this land. So to reach into people that.
In those downtown areas and airing towards the future, saying, how do we reach people who will continue in the patterns of change and understand that better than we do? Was part of the impetus behind that. So we reached into downtown Troy New York, which when we first planted 15 years ago now, had a burgeoning art scene.
It was. Through the process between brownout and gentrification and the middle piece that most people miss. There’s a, there’s a [00:17:00] window in there that I like to call Artification. That’s right. And it, it’s, it’s when people who are coming in, who would’ve been basically the artsy table in any high school, start saying, this stuff is cheap and we can have a lot of fun with it, and we can make it cool.
And then suddenly other people who aren’t like that say, well, we’re attracted to that. Let’s go buy these buildings. And when that money comes in behind the artification, that’s when the gentrification comes in. Troy. Was still in that early, early artification phase. ’cause we were, as you remember, Phil, it was a fairly transitional neighborhood.
Oh yeah. Which we were planting. I’ll, I’ll cover it nicely that way. So we determined through kind of the vision that I was putting out for Tara, that we wanted to reach the next generation of a downtown city. To do that, we determined that, I didn’t think it was a wise direction to spend a million plus dollars on a facility that we would use, you know, two days a week maybe.
So we went into the downtown where everything’s already built up anyway, and it scares a lot of people off. And we rented a nightclub. It was a former shirt [00:18:00] collar factory. Troy, New York is known as the collar city because back in the days when guys had those tab collars on shirts, the majority of ’em were made here in our fair city of two,
[00:18:08] Phil: 200 year old factory.
Right.
[00:18:10] Ed: It was a, yeah. Yeah. And the upstairs had been untouched. It could have been a living museum. They had the cages that were maybe three feet by three feet with numbers where young Irish women would’ve been working 12 hour days up there. So we, we went into what was then a functioning nightclub and determined a few things that were.
I thought self-evident. If it’s a nightclub, they’re gonna have better sound systems than most churches. If it’s a nightclub, because they’re trying to make money, they’ve probably already looked into if there’s parking downtown where they are. So that was another positive. If they’re a nightclub, they’ve already met all the codes for gathering people in a building.
So we walked into a, a ready made church that looked and felt like the culture around us.
[00:18:49] Phil: Yeah. That was a great location. And man, it’s, I have such fond memories of that building. In fact, you know, it, it was next to a brewery. It was a nightclub owned by a brewery. And so, [00:19:00] you know, to this day, hops and barley, you know, that, that says church to me.
You know, it’s the, the smell of church for me.
[00:19:06] Ed: You and you and Luther, I think.
[00:19:08] Phil: Right. So, good
[00:19:08] Ed: for you.
[00:19:09] Phil: My favorite was, uh, you know, if there was a really big party the night before, we’d find the band like. Like still like stoned in the basement, like getting high in like what we called our green room. We’d be like, Hey guys, we’re gonna be setting up for church upstairs.
Just so you know. Just kind of,
[00:19:24] Ed: there were definitely some strange moments, right? I remember one of our guitarists coming by and said, pastor Ed, I need your help with something and kind of tempt us, said What’s going on? And it goes well. Soul Asylum left their weed on our communion table, which is just not a sentence they prepare you to hear in seminary.
[00:19:42] Phil: Oh man.
[00:19:42] Ed: Of course, soul Asylum left their weed at our communion table. It’s Sunday.
[00:19:47] Phil: Well, I remember in the lead up to planting terranova, you know, there was just a lot of uncertainty around funding and locations and details. And, and, and for me, you know, I’m a guy who, who kind of thrives on structure and, and [00:20:00] order.
I, I maybe put a little too much stock in my ability to plan things out. And I, I don’t remember the context of this conversation, ed, but I, I remember one time you kind of. Chastising me one day. You said, listen, Phil, you, you want all the excitement of a church plant with all the stability of an existing church, and that’s just not how it works.
And, and those were hard words that I needed to hear, but you were right. And, and for me that was a moment that felt like kind of this major fork in the road. I was either gonna be a guy who, who was always gonna choose safety and, and kind of security and resting in my ability to kind of bring order to the world around me.
Or I was gonna be a. I who would recognize that there are times in life when you have to take the risk. You have to take, you know, calculated risks for sure, but, but risk nonetheless. And your hard words to me that day were what I needed to choose. Calculated risk over safety and security. Do you remember that?
[00:20:56] Ed: I, I have some vague recollections. I think it was incredibly kind, [00:21:00] gentle, and slow the way I said it. If I recall correctly. Phil, it
[00:21:03] Phil: sounds different in my head. I don’t know.
[00:21:05] Ed: A, actually, what I remember, just if I’m gonna be really transparent, is I was getting frustrated.
[00:21:09] Phil: Yeah.
[00:21:09] Ed: Because we, we were living in the most common tension.
Of LPXB early on, which was I wanted to keep risking getting out over the skis a little, picking up speed a little, and you wanted to pull back and make sure everything that we were heading towards was structured and organized and best right, and most efficient. I had this moment of frustration welling up inside me, and I remember biting off emotion and thinking, okay, what are, what are the words I could carefully say that are true?
And that that was it. And I think that was a good moment for you. And I actually to recognize we have to pull at an equal tension between LP and xp. If one of us pulls too far, it’s gonna really upset the emotional platform and availability of the other person. If one says, we need to go slower and you can’t lead directionally, or if I say, you need to put aside [00:22:00] your, your natural bent and design for order because I need to pull radically ahead, it, it’s gonna disturb the balance of each of us.
[00:22:06] Phil: Yeah. That’s good. And I think that that’s so true just in, in LP XP relationships, a across the board, you know, when we started Terranova, we did see some kind of a, some quick kind of growth there that that happened really in the first year. That was, you know, not. Not really common for church plants in the Northeast, and we took on a leadership role for the Acts 29 network in the Northeast.
Would you just take a minute and talk about the way that that TERRANOVA was able to impact kind of the church planting landscape of the Northeast during that period?
[00:22:40] Ed: Sure. So Acts 29 was a very young network. When we first got involved with the, the first bootcamp that we supported it was actually, I got Mark to come out prior to Terranova’s launch.
So it was the first Northeast presence Acts 29 had, and we had people literally from all over the country come and do that. And I, I [00:23:00] began to realize what I was thinking about what we were implementing was something a lot of people needed help with and direction with. So. What we determined was we would try to serve the, the greater C, the capital C, that the, the Catholic universal Church beyond us and not just our local church.
We, we actually, I made it a policy that we had to give X percent of our time. Mm-hmm. To another ministry, right? I mean, that was just, it was important enough to serve the greater church to do that. And so I took on the role as the regional director for church planting in the Northeast, and we essentially lifted our rows locally and put it on the next string out.
And you became essentially the XP for the, the Northeast region of Acts 29. And we began to just put up a, a. Call out to say, Hey, do people wanna gather here in Troy and talk about church planning in the Northeast and what we’re doing? And we were having sort of informal regionals. Yeah. With 40, 50 people on the first go.
And by the time we started to make it more developed and you know, had a [00:24:00] second iteration where you began to develop the communication, we would literally have hundreds of people, as many or more than we would have on a Sunday in church. That’s right. Who were pastors or planting teams in Rev Hall. And we were able to speak to them about what does it mean?
To be missionaries in the northeast. Again, getting over the, you know, the, the, the, the first and second great awakenings and having this sort of longing, nostalgia for history versus saying, no, no, no, we, we actually want to face forward. We, we want to step into what God is doing. I mean, the name of our church in Latin means.
Fresh ground as I know, you know Phil. Yep. And that was sort of the, the piece that I felt like a lot of Christians were missing. We were so desperate to nail down what we had committed our lives to, that we were missing the dynamic life of the next thing. And I think a lot of pastors at that time were hearing it.
And I think we did a pretty good run leading X 29 Northeast for those 10 years that we did that. Yeah. And certainly I was really grateful for the leadership throughout that 18. I gave.
[00:24:57] Phil: Yeah, we saw a lot of churches planted in the [00:25:00] northeast and I know we, we had kind of talked about the idea that we wanted to see, you know, a kind of a culturally aware, but theologically conservative church planted in kind of every first, second, and third tier.
MSA metropolitan statistical, uh, whatever, uh, in, you know, in the Northeast. And, and, and we saw that happen over those 10 years, which was, not that we planted all of them, but we saw it happen through the network and through the relationships that we were trying to serve. And, and, you know, that was a, a pretty cool thing.
And I think it, you know, it goes to that concept of, of making that generational impact when you’ve got people who are wired differently, serving together. You actually can, you actually can have a. Like a legit generationally changing impact and that was a lot of fun to be a part of. Shifting gears a little bit, ed, and by the way, just a quick side note, we haven’t forgotten about, Tyler, our co-host, Tyler.
Hello here. We just felt like this first part was so relationally driven between our history Ed, that I would kind of take [00:26:00] point here and then Tyler will be jumping in a little bit. But you know, I remember there was a concept that, that you shared early on Ed in kind of our working relationship. And I talked about it in my book for executive pastors.
It’s the idea of you understanding steps one and step 100 and that two to 99 being a little bit of a, a mystery for you. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you came to that idea?
[00:26:24] Ed: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I, I give LPs the credit of steps one and two, Phil, not to, there you go, step one. But I know, I know you wanna believe we’re only confident enough to see step one.
[00:26:33] Phil: I bet you you could get all the way to five ed if you tried.
[00:26:37] Ed: It’s a lot of sweat and a lot of spreadsheets and spreadsheets and dizzy me, but. Yeah, no, it actually, that came out of a conversation that I had with a graphic person I’d worked with for years, and he became very frustrated with me and said, I understand now You see steps one, two, and you get frustrated that you’re not at 27, but you don’t even know there’s a three through 26.
And I was highly [00:27:00] offended and left the meeting and then sat and thought about it. I said that, that’s exactly right. That’s, that’s sort of how visionaries work. I, and I’ve come to see it as we see mountaintops and knot valleys. So there’s this peak of a brand new idea, steps one and two, and, and, and that becomes just.
Burnt into our retina in our, in our mind’s eye. We see that and then we see this is what that could lead to. This is what could make that happen. If, if it happened, here’s the where it could be done. And that’s step 100. And we just see it like it’s one line and we don’t see there’s this massive valley of step three through 99 to get up to that place.
And it, it’s not for lack of trying. I think it’s wiring and I think it’s the passion and the ability to see like that, that makes a lot of lead path. Master’s visionary communicators because they’re, they’re talking about something that seems thrilling and exciting, compressing those points of time, that will be those other steps, but to them, it’s just the way they really see it.
That’s how I was, and, and it [00:28:00] helped me to see. I, I really need not, would be better off, not would find it helpful. Really need co-laborers who see, understand, and can care for the people and the process in steps three through 99. Otherwise visionary leaders can become one of two things, neither, which is good.
They can become unfulfilled dreamers who saw the thing that they wanted and say, oh, what a sad state. I could have done this in their whole lives. They believe that or they become tyrants who out of their frustration, keep trying to push things from step two to 100 without understanding the process of getting for through three through 99.
[00:28:38] Phil: Yeah, and I think on the executive pastor side, you know, if, if all I’m doing is trying to figure out. Three to three to 99, and I don’t have somebody who is thinking 1, 2, 100. Then, then really what happens is I’ve, you know, I’m gonna end up with a, a highly organized church that is probably as about as exciting as [00:29:00] sawdust and, and, and you, you need, you need that.
That combination of both. And I think it’s that idea that, you know, we can go a lot, a lot further or farther. I’m sure you’ll correct me, ed, on the grammar there, we could go a lot further together. You know, I didn’t want your job. You didn’t want my job. You had the vision clear in your head. My job was to figure out how to make it, make it happen through the gifting that the spirit has given us.
And those were were fun years together. Take us, take us backstage, so to speak. What do you think would surprise people about the LP XP relationship that maybe they don’t know?
[00:29:33] Ed: Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s hard to say what people know and don’t know, but I think given what a lot of church leaders have seen, they would see a hierarchical experience that almost seems like a military in its rank and structure, and the LP does this and says this, and the XP just runs out and goes, got it, chief, that, that’s like an LP fantasy world, right?
That’s That’s
[00:29:54] Tyler: right.
[00:29:55] Ed: Yes, chief, and they just run out and do the thing, but it’s not realistic and not good at all. [00:30:00] What I think would surprise people is there’s actually a really vital need for a lot of relationship time, I believe for an LP and an XP to work together effectively. And it doesn’t have to be efficient time, it doesn’t have to end with spreadsheets and opportunities.
There just needs to be constant communication and understanding. So if that LP is thinking steps one, two, and a hundred. Three different project lines and is is, you know, not saying them yet. It’s really helpful for that, that XP to know, even before the LP has decided, it’s time to talk about that. Right.
Because that XP is already gonna be thinking, ah, this is gonna be a second timeline that won’t work. ’cause we need these people. I can, I can remember being frustrated one time, Phil, you may not, because it happened enough times where you may not recognize it. But I was like, well we need to do this. And you very calmly said, we, we will.
But right now we need to train eight. People to do that, we need to have $25,000 to implement this, and we can’t do that until we’re done with this, this, and this. So it’s six months from now. My only two choices were to [00:31:00] say that’s really reasonable, or to stomp off to, you know, my office and slam the door and say, why are XP so insufferable?
[00:31:08] Phil: Yeah. It is that balancing for sure. And that’s, that’s okay. You know, I think,
[00:31:13] Ed: but I think it’s the conversations and the relationship that allowed us to do that. Well, Phil, I really do.
[00:31:17] Phil: Yeah, because it wasn’t just, you know, the, the formal meetings that we would have, it was also, you know. The afternoon was a little bit light, and at four o’clock, you know, we, you wander over to my office or I wander over to your office and go, Hey, you wanna go next door to Brown’s and grab a beer?
You know, and, and that, you know, unscheduled time where, you know, sometimes that’s when you end up having you. You know, that like we don’t have an agenda for this hour, and so you end up talking about, you know, a dream that, that you’re having for an idea that, that may be two years down the road, but you get that early kind of conversation going about it.
And, and sometimes the, you know, the sharpening of the idea makes it even better and it’s off agenda stuff, right. [00:32:00] But, but it is really helpful for the development
[00:32:03] Ed: and I think it helps us understand each other, right? I mean, we’re, we’re saying if people can like really hear this. We’re wired and gifted differently.
So our subjectivity constantly tells us two different things. So for us to start to understand, oh, that’s how this guy thinks, because I remember you saying to me one time, I said, Hey, how come we didn’t implement this? And you said, oh, we only, you only said it once. I’ve learned if you say something three times, you really mean it.
[00:32:28] Phil: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Ed: And that was just, that was just by wiring and exposure,
[00:32:31] Phil: right? Right. Yeah. I, my, my pattern with you, and I’m sure I’ve told you this, is the first time you had mentioned something, ’cause you were, you’re a guy who was like an idea factory, right? Like you just always having ideas. The first time you had mentioned something thrown away, right?
No, actually, my first time I would say, Hey, that sounds really interesting. Can you do some more thinking on it? And, and quite often, like the idea never came up again. Like, it just never even came up. And the second time you’d bring it up, I’d say, okay, that’s, that’s, [00:33:00] I, I like this. Let’s put some ideas on paper.
And then we’d begin to do that. But if, if you kind of lost interest quickly and were onto something else, then, then I too would kind of stop putting a lot of effort into it. ’cause I was realized, okay, that’s, maybe that’s not as important to him as, as he initially felt that it was two weeks ago or what, or whatever.
But what I learned with you, and this was just kind of a, a. Quirk of your, your artistic wiring, if you showed up at a meeting with a, a, a piece of art Right. That you had done on Photoshop, that was like, that was like, if
[00:33:32] Ed: there was a logo, it was time.
[00:33:34] Phil: Right. That’s, that’s what I knew. Like, all right, it’s time to crank this up and put some really good time into this and start, it’s making
[00:33:39] Ed: pictures now.
It’s
[00:33:40] Phil: real, it’s figure out the budget. But, you know, that was like a, a way that honestly, like for me, it kept me from not. Like being, like a, running around like a chicken with his head cut off and, and having too many things that I was trying to implement all at once. It kept our budgets in line. It kept our, our, our people [00:34:00] resources in line, and I think it, it served us well.
But that’s good. You stayed at Terra Nova and you added a. Third congregation or campus as some, some would call it. And the church has continued to be really just an incredible gospel voice in the capital region. It’s now 15 years old. Right. And you’ve just accepted a new role. Ed, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your new job with Harbor Church Planting Network?
[00:34:22] Ed: So Harbor Network is a new name for an organization that has existed for a little while. Some of your listeners will probably know the Sojourn Network. That was a church plane network out of Sojourn Church in Louisville, Kentucky. And they, they recently changed their name and branding to Harbor just, uh.
In the recent year, so what that is is a church planting network of like-minded missional churches with, I would say a bent towards reformed soteriology and complementarianism in church polity. And one of the big. Add-on values that I’ve heard from the pastors within Harbor Sojourn [00:35:00] is the community and care piece that a lot of planters will say.
We felt kind of alone. We didn’t fit in our denomination. We were sort of the young JV add-on, and we didn’t really have people who understood what we were doing, why we were doing, how we were doing it. And that network has become a fraternity of people who really have appreciated that much. By the way, I don’t know if you remember Phil, a young intern who worked under you for a few years named Sean Nolan.
[00:35:24] Phil: Yeah.
[00:35:25] Ed: Sean is now a Harbor Church planter in Albany, New York. After all those years of,
[00:35:29] Phil: yeah.
[00:35:29] Ed: You telling him to remember to turn on the lights in the youth room, he finally got it all together and is now leading a church.
[00:35:36] Phil: He, you know, our intern duty at Terranova was always in the wintertime, you get to clean up the frozen puke on the.
On the sidewalk outside of the church. Remember that man,
[00:35:45] Ed: remember that
[00:35:45] Phil: was rough.
[00:35:46] Ed: There, there was a story that became sort of the white whale story that put fear into the interns. ’cause one intern when they were pushing a, a drunk outta the nightclub, threw up in February, right in front of the church entrance.
The nightclub entrance. And it was, you know, two degrees in [00:36:00] upstate New York in February. So he had to boil a kettle of water. That’s true. And pour boiling water over frozen vomit as he was then having to sort of like. Chip it out. Every intern was afraid after that, that we were gonna give them that job.
It was great.
[00:36:14] Phil: Uh, church planting.
[00:36:15] Tyler: So Ed, we talk a lot about return on investment as as xps, and one of the things Phil and I will talk about is just kind of ensuring that we’re giving God the return on investment that he’s made in us. And so as you think of your shift from a local pastor to a network leader, is that a question of giving God a different return on investment that he’s made in you?
Or what sort of led to that decision to take that role?
[00:36:38] Ed: Yeah. So I mean, a change of ministry is something that nobody should take lightly. If we’re called to something, I think we wait until God has called us to something else, and we don’t always determine the leave. That’s just my, my theological bias on that.
It’s not just my choice. That can come up in a lot of very human ways. I th. Think people finding a wholly discontent with where they are is often where it begins, at least in my [00:37:00] experience, that the, the status quo no longer seems to have a, a spiritual vibrancy to it. And I, I, I felt that a little bit and was beginning to look at the edges of that and combined with a more important timeline piece, I’m, I’m 55 years old.
And we were looking to transition our church to a younger leader. Our average aged, our church is 33 years old at this point, so we’re, we are an outlier in terms of where the congregation should be in average aged, the pastor. And that was great, but it’s also, it’s also means that there needs. To be a pastor who is more that generation.
So we had a three year timeline and one year into it, God decided my timeline wasn’t great, and a friend outta the blue reached out and said, Hey, I, I think you should consider this job. I didn’t think it was the right time, ’cause I guess I still was believing in my timeline and not sure that this was from the Lord yet.
So I, I actually went to the interview the way I think I would encourage people to do job interviews in the future. I went in completely as a guy who didn’t care, and I don’t mean that terribly. I was just honest, like when I was younger to interview meant. I was trying to come up with the right [00:38:00] answer. I was trying to talk my way into a job.
I really wasn’t. I was just allowing myself to answer all the questions to the point where my wife is bombing on the phone going, no, no. I don’t think that’s what you really want to say, but I did, and I think there’s no bait and switch. This group now sees who I am. My brothers at Harbor understand the good and bad that is Ed, but that certainly was a big piece of it.
And the return on investment piece, I, I would, I hear what you’re saying. I’ve heard Phil talk about this many times before and where that came up in this. Process was one night Diane and I were talking about it, and I will just say for anyone who has planted a church, they’ll understand the way a parent understands what being a parent is, there is a connection to that church plant that is difficult.
It it is a part of you. It is more like family and common DNA and blood. Than any other thing I’ve worked on in ministry, if I’ve been staff, it’s just different. And so leaving I found was hard to disconnect and I thought, but Diane, I can do this. I said to my wife and she said, yes, and a lot of people can do it, [00:39:00] but I don’t think a lot of people could take on the role of directing a church planting network.
And I think you can and should consider that. And it’s different language, but that same idea of how, how can you best be used? What is, what’s the function in the body that would best serve and get the best return on investment? And. So my resume had mentioned that I had worked with Conservative Baptist directing church planning Northeast.
I had mentioned that I worked with Acts 29 in the Northeast. Later I worked with, I worked with Converge in the Northeast. So three times I had been starting church planning networks really from the ground up. All three of those were either so long without leadership that it was like starting again, starting again.
And Harbor was at this unique pivot point and reading all the tea leaves. Anyone can argue any way they want to, but when my wife said that, it was essentially the return on investment argument. It made sense to me.
[00:39:48] Phil: Yeah, it’s good. It’s great. So Ed, you’ve worked with a, a lot of different pastors over the years and you know, we all have kind of those moments where we get to have just kind of a unique [00:40:00] impact on somebody and you’ve, you’ve had a lot of those moments over the years, but can you just talk about maybe one or two moments that really kind of stick out where you say like.
This is it. Like, this is why I do this job. This is why I put time into impacting others.
[00:40:14] Ed: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’ll tell ’em particularly about leaders, because God did a very unique thing, guys, as we were praying through the whole job position. What do I do? I, I said to Dan, what if I’m not really good at influencing other leaders and in a week’s time without other people knowing that we were looking at this job?
I received five different calls or emails from pastors who had said. I want you to know that this moment, some I remembered, some I honestly didn’t, was the thing that made the difference in me sorting out what God would have me do direction wise. And if I, I’ll just tell two of them with specifics that will, we’re the ones that mad that will answer your question directly.
I got an email from a guy who is pastoring a church [00:41:00] that he planted now, and it was a long email. And he said, this is years overdue and I want you to know I’m grateful for you, but for years I was very angry with you. And I thought, oh, what did I do now that I’m unaware of? And what I had done was told him when he was young, you’re not ready to plan a church.
Well, I’d done enough assessments where that just, it went. On it passed by out of memory, but for him that was incredibly real and at the time hurtful. And he went on staff at another church and grew in life and ministry and grew in the Lord and now is successful at planting a church. And just wanted to say you were right, which.
It’s not just because, yes, that is my favorite sentence in the English language, but it’s not, it’s not just because of that it, it was to see that what I was saying honestly, that was difficult to say to a young leader was now seen as something that actually was helpful over years. And it made me realize some of the things we say in human development, whether it’s pastoring a congregation, developing leaders are seeds of [00:42:00] trees and we will not see the result of that ministry and work for years down the road.
The, the, the other one was a guy who came to me and said, do you remember when? And I did. He was trying to figure out how to leave a church that was, for lack of a better word, toxic and dying at the same time, and was, he was just struggling and he felt disloyal, felt like he was abandoning these people.
And I, I put my hand on his shoulder and I. You never went through a marriage ceremony with the church. The church is Jesus’s bride. You are just taking care of one segment. You, you can leave a congregation. It’s okay. You’re not betraying the Lord or the church. And he now is in 10 years into a different healthy church plant in, in the Northeast.
Because of that, those kind of moments that you don’t see in the moment, it’s just being available, caring, and honest.
[00:42:49] Tyler: That’s, that’s great. Well, ed, so you have worked with a couple of different XPS now, and so from a lead pastor perspective, what’s something that you’d wanna really say to [00:43:00] XPS or those in similar roles?
[00:43:01] Ed: Mm-hmm. Well, to xps I would say be, be very patient. Just try to learn that LPs aren’t trying to frustrate you. We are completely different animals in the same species. And to LPs, I would say understand that you need to adopt and understand the phrase. Submit to your XP in certain areas, you, your, your title of lead will make you think that sometimes you have to step in and be the tip of the spear on everything.
And there are moments, and Phil will attest to this. And my other XP I was blessed with two fantastic xps, Paul Gordon, who was a former banker who just did an amazing job organizing as well, that I would say thank you, pastor. I’ll submit to what you’re saying on this, when it came to timelines, people and organizations, and it was a freeing and humbling experience.
But I also think it’s a more dynamically biblical and Christian experience that we submit to one another in those ways. So I, I would encourage that for XPS and LPs to find that dynamic.
[00:43:52] Phil: Yeah, that concept of mutual submission is so often overlooked in that XP LP relationship. But I think it really is [00:44:00] key and, and I would say, you know, for.
For, you know, those that are leading a staff, whether it’s five or, or 50 or whatever, that really, that mutual submission should happen throughout your whole team. Well, ed, I think this is a perfect place to, uh, to end right here. I really wanna thank you for taking, taking time to be on the show. Your decades, really decades of ministry will pay huge dividends and serving church planters really all over the country.
I’m excited that you’re gonna be, you know, kind of dedicating more of your time to serving the Big C Church in this way. And I can’t wait to see all the good that comes out of it. So, man, I love you. Thanks for being on the show.
[00:44:39] Ed: Thank you, Tyler, Phil. It’s been a real joy to just sit here and get to talk about ministry today, so I appreciate that and to have some chances to reminisce about times that we had.
Phil was fantastic from the heart. Thank you for being my XP for those years. Those were great years of ministry together.
[00:44:54] Phil: Likewise.
Well, it was so good [00:45:00] to talk with Ed again. Uh, man. When I was planting Terra Nova with him, we, we just, um, we had such a, a great time together. And, uh, I had this sense then that no matter where else God took me in the future, I would always look back on those years as some of the best years of my life.
Like I just knew it was a uniquely energizing season. Uh, we, we planted that church 20 years ago this month, and I really do look back at those years, uh, with just a, a lot of fond memories. Um, you know, we were. Flat broke. Uh, as church planters, we rented, you know, that old factory, um, it was like too cold in the winter.
It was too hot in the summer. It smelled like hops and barley all the time, which I didn’t actually mind that, you know, it was kind of a beer snob. But it was awesome. And it was really special. And, um, I’m so glad that, uh, we had my lead pastor from that era on the show.
[00:45:53] Tyler: Yeah, I, I love that. I think it’s so important to reconnect with those seasons every now and then to.
Look back and remember how [00:46:00] faithful God was right in the middle of all the chaos because let’s be honest, ministry gets hard and it’s easy to forget what, where you’ve seen God show up in the past. And so I’m really glad we got to talk to Ed today and that you were able to revisit such a meaningful chapter in your life and in your ministry.
I remember, uh, we’ve got an event coming up about church building projects that I think everyone needs to sign up for. Yeah. So why don’t you remind us about that.
[00:46:24] Phil: March 5th, I’ve got an online event with the Unstuck Group, uh, partnership between the Unstuck Group and Plain Joe Studios all about church building projects.
So when you do a building project, um, you know, typically for most pastors, it is the only one and only building project they may do in their entire life. Right. Uh, that many, many pastors never do one, right? Mm-hmm. Um, so if you’re doing one, it’s, there’s a good chance it’s the only one you’ll ever do. Sure.
Uh, and so you don’t really know what you’re doing. Um, you know, you need space. That’s about all you know, or, you know, you need to fix the space you have, and that’s about all you know. Uh, and so you know that there’s probably gonna [00:47:00] be a building that needs to be designed. And so you’re probably gonna have to talk to like an architect or somebody.
Uh, you’re probably gonna need to talk to some kind of designer type person. You know, you think, well, gosh, we might need to take out a loan. So banks are gonna have to get involved. Uh, we might need to raise some money. So that’s some kind of a giving campaign. There’s just so much involved in a building project and it dominates your life for several years.
Uh, having done several myself, I, I, I know what that’s like. Uh, and so on March 5th, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do like sort of a masterclass on church building projects. It’ll be five hours, it’s free. We’ll have a bunch of different people on. That are, uh, you know, subject matter experts in each of these fields that I’ve mentioned.
Right? Wow. So all the different aspects of it. Uh, and you’ll be able to kind of come to this five hour, uh, online seminar. Catch a good kind of rough overview over all of it. [00:48:00] And I think by the end of those five hours you’re gonna have a, a decent handle on what to do with your building project or at least have a lot of steps of where to go next, um, so that you’re not completely in the dark on the process.
[00:48:12] Tyler: Yeah, and I would just recommend that, um, regardless of where you’re at in any stage, regardless of if you believe that. You won’t have a building. I do think if you feel like God’s called you to ministry, especially in this kind of role, get on, get on the call and or the Zoom or whatever it’s gonna be, and pay attention because I can speak personally.
You just have no idea what God has planned for you and your church and your building and your needs, and so. Having that, you know, I, I don’t always love this, uh, phrase. I worked at Starbucks for a number of years and always talked about putting tools in your tool chest. Yeah. So I don’t love it, but it’s true.
That’s a great tool to stick in your tool chest. Even if you don’t need it today. At some point you’re gonna need to do that thing and need those tools and so for sure make it a priority. Absolutely. I think it also gives [00:49:00] you great exposure to Plain Joe Studios, which I shared before, man our church was deeply blessed with, and this is a really.
Kind of soft step into like what do they do and how do they go about it? And so I think it’s right. It’s great for everyone. Absolutely. But, well, with that said, we are out of time, sir. So if, uh, you wanna reach out to me, you can always get me at Tyler, at my XP church. That’s. MY XP church, and if your church could ever use help with bookkeeping or even the full support of remote executive pastor, we would love to come alongside you and serve however we can just check out my XP church, that’s MY XP Church for more info,
[00:49:36] Phil: and then my email address is fill@backstagepastors.org.
Email me if you want to talk about XP coaching or if you’ve got any kind of building project master planning architecture. Kids ministry theming, uh, that you wanna talk through. I do that with churches and nonprofits, Christian schools, uh, of all types through Plain Joe Studios, and you could check out some of our past [00:50:00] projects@plainjoestudios.com.
Um, there’s a lot of cool stuff to look at there, like
[00:50:04] Ed: mm-hmm.
[00:50:05] Phil: Uh, the project that we did with, uh, Saddleback Church a couple of years ago during COVID. Where, uh, they asked us to add 1500 seats to their sanctuary, uh, without adding any square footage. So you could see how that turned out. Saw studios.com.
Mm-hmm. It was really cool. Uh, so if you wanna keep up with the podcast on social media. You can follow us at Backstage Pastors on Instagram or Facebook. The Backstage Pastors Podcast is brought to you by the Church Hub. The church hub serves pastors, ministry leaders and their spouses through equipping and training resources.
Check ’em out at the church hub. Dot org. Our podcast is produced by The Good Podcast Company. Our theme music was written by Seth K. Follow him on Instagram at Seth is elsewhere. Tyler, we’ll see you on the next show.
[00:50:52] Tyler: Sounds good. Have a great [00:51:00] week.
