Gospel centered vision + Spirit led implementation leads to health. Health leads to growth. Growth leads to lack of space. Lack of space leads to a call for more space. Call for more space leads to a need for more financial fuel. The need for more financial fuel leads to . . . well, that’s where the real confusion sets in. Do you hire a generosity company or go it alone? How much will it cost? Is it really worth it? These are hard questions that every growing church faces.
I am one of those weird people that has been blessed with incredible clarity about my role on this planet. I know what I’m supposed to do with my life. Outside of my faith and my family, I’m supposed to help bring vision into reality. It’s that simple and easy (which is to say, it’s incredibly complex and difficult). I help bring vision into reality in my own local church as an Executive Pastor, and I help bring vision into reality outside of my church by coaching, speaking at conferences and now writing books.
Okay, you won’t make millions of dollars. That was a straight up lie. I’m sorry to have disappointed you.
BackstagePastors.com is designed to be a website for Pastors who spend most of their time off stage. This is the place where you’ll find super practical articles on all sorts of ministry related needs and issues. Right now it’s new, but I hope to see a large group of writers develop in this space. Discipleship Pastors, Missions Pastors, Operations guys, etc. etc. If you want to write about preaching prep or leading worship, you’ve come to the wrong place, but if you want to write about facilities and budgets and counseling and HR and . . . you get the point . . . this is your place. Let me tell you how it works.
The Bible is clear that we should care for widows and orphans and my church is pretty awesome at caring for orphans. In the last three years, our people have adopted nearly 100 children into forever homes. But up until recently, we have not put too much focus on the other half of the verse-caring for widows. I’m trying to be a catalyst for change on that front and to kick-start that effort, I spent a weekend teaching on it at our gatherings.
Recently I taught at Mosaic Church on Defining Home. Since my family moved to Florida about a year ago, this is still kind of fresh for me. If you’ve ever left a place you love and moved somewhere very different, you’ll resonate with this.
This fall, I’m excited to be partnering with David Fletcher at XPastor.org by teaching in his XP-Certification Program. David is one of the strongest and most trustworthy voices in the XP Community. His website has long been a great source of information for XP’s around the country and his yearly XP-Seminar has been the ONLY conference specifically created for second chair leaders in the church. Plus, he’s just an awesome guy that you can’t help but like.
A few pastors stay at one church their whole lives. Most do not. I had the privilege of spending over a decade serving as a pastor in the capital region area of New York but this summer we moved to Florida. No, I didn’t retire. I’m not even 40 years old yet. The story of God calling us out of NY to FL is one that could only be written by God himself. It’s a two year journey that involved more prayer than I’ve ever invested into a life decision before. The story was so unique, and so Spirit-led that our Lead Pastor at Mosaic, Renaut Van Der Riet asked me to share it with the church at large. If you are considering a major ministry change, you may find this helpful to listen to.
Recently I had the opportunity to teach at an Acts 29 Network regional one-day conference in Philadelphia. Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Communities was the main speaker. I did a breakout session for Executive Pastors.
Let’s be honest, most Lead Pastors are not great with details and most Executive Pastors are not great with risky church planting environments that need loads of new vision. But every now and then, you can get these two types of guys together to plant a church and something cool happens.
(This article originally appeared on the Acts 29 Network Blog).
A quick Google search for the words “executive pastor” will mostly give you hits for available job postings and existing executive pastor (XP) bios. Dig a little deeper and you might come across the occasional article. The reality is that there just isn’t much out there for the guy who sits in the second chair pastoral role in his church. So XP’s are often left to reinvent the proverbial wheel. This does not have to be the case. Below you will find descriptions of five resources that no XP should be without. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. If you have your own favorites, let us know.
Most people want to climb up the ladder of their career. I climbed down it because that’s what God called me to. Read the story below.
(This article originally appeared on the Acts 29 Network Blog).
English and Spanish versions available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle E-book.
Phil Taylor
My name is Phil. I spent 20 years pastoring (mostly executive pastoring) and now I serve churches all over through consulting on buildings and brands at Plain Joe Studios and coaching Executive Pastors. My wife and I have three kids and one grandchild. I’m into running and kayaking.