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.