Recently, my friend Rich Birch from UnSeminary.com had me on his podcast to discuss the Executive Pastor role and my new 10th Anniversary edition of “Defining The Executive Pastor Role”. This is the third time I’ve been a guest on Rich’s show. He’s always so generous with sharing that platform and the conversation is always meaningful and engaging. You can check it out at this link.

10 years ago, I had the privilege of writing a book called “Defining The Executive Pastor Role”. It’s hard to believe that much time has gone by since I wrote it! Way back in 2014 when the book came out, I had the intention of following it up with a second book, also for Executive Pastors, and possibly a third. But life got in the way. Our church was growing at a very fast clip. We needed more staff, more space, more everything. And that second book stopped short after I’d written a couple chapters.

Then, I started getting questions about a teaching I’d done on Elder Development at a couple conferences. Those questions turned into phone calls and those phone calls turned into a book that you’ll find on Amazon called “Eldership Development: From Application To Affirmation”. As it turned out, both of these books did really well and found their way around the globe without much effort. Along the way, I started doing a lot more coaching with pastors and consulting with churches. In 2022, I shifted into serving other churches full-time (instead of my own church), and that was bit of a learning curve in and of itself.

As 2023 began, I realized that 1. I wanted to update the XP book. 2. I had good content hidden in evernote files that needed to be at least added to the original. 3. I had gotten great feedback on what was missing from the original book and I wanted to add it.

So I set a goal.

Publish the new version of Defining The Executive Pastor Role in 2023! I worked diligently on the update (if not somewhat sporadically) and as fall 2023 came on, I was within striking distance of finishing the project. Unfortunately, I also realized that my work for PlainJoe Studios with churches across the nation and internationally had me entering a season that would create travel 10 out of 12 weeks straight through mid-december.

So I did what anyone would do. I altered my goal. I would at least get the updated manuscript to an editor by the end of the year. It’s ok if publishing it happened in 2024.

With this new goal in mind, I worked hard to finish things up on the weekend and on planes. As Christmas approached I decided to take the time between Christmas and New Years off completely from my day job with PlainJoe Studios. (No pastors were working anyway, so it was fine). I put a solid three days into one final push and on New Years Eve, 2023, I sent the newly updated manuscript off to my editor and rested in knowing that I had met my goal! (Even if it was altered a bit from earlier in the year).

The book is now with my editor. After that, it goes to my formatter. Cover design update is in the works with my graphic designer. My hope is that the updated version will be live on Amazon by the middle to end of February 2024. Stay tuned! I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

UPDATE:: Due to a death in the family, the release of this book will move to April, 2024.

Recently, I was on a coaching call with a great Executive Pastor that I have the privilege of coaching. He’s working on a building project for his church and as such, he’s moving a lot of money around. 300K almost got moved into a hackers account!

At the end of our coaching call, I said “Hey, can we take 5 minutes and record this story? I want to share it with others so they can learn from you.” I hit record on Zoom. Please forgive the bad lighting and productions skills. This is just meant to be a quick thing to help you out.

Last week I had the great privilege of speaking at the XP-Seminar in Dallas, TX on The Soul of The Executive Pastor. Contrary to popular belief, this is not an oxymoron. XP’s actually do have souls! This is something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on over the last couple of years and

It was a privilege to be interviewed by Rich Birch at UnSeminary Podcast recently. Check out the video on YouTube or listen to the audio on Itunes. Find all the details at the UnSeminary website.  If you don’t already subscribe to this podcast, I’d suggest checking it out. Its got some great practical topics to help you out in everyday ministry.

Today at 1PM EST, I’ll be interviewed by the team at Innovate For Jesus on the role of the Executive Pastor. Tim Stevens will also be on the show with me. Tim used to be the XP at Granger Community Church and now works for Vanderbloemen Search Group.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend the week with 175 middle and high school students from Mosaic Church. It’s not something I would usually do. Was it worth my time? I don’t have a particular calling to students and I have no unique gifting with teenagers. But when our student ministry pastor asked me to consider going, I prayed about it, and decided that it was in fact, a good use of my time even though I’m in one of the busiest seasons of my working life.

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.

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.