4 Reminders for Executive Pastors

My first job description as an Executive Pastor had two pages of administrative responsibilities and two bullet points of pastoral duties. While this may be typical of most executive or administrative roles, we cannot forget that we are pastors and bear the responsibilities that come with this biblical office.  Here are some reminders to keep you focused in your ministry as an Executive Pastor.

You are a pastor

You are in your role as an Executive Pastor because you enjoy administrative tasks and are gifted that way. But let’s not forget our responsibility as a shepherd of God’s flock.  If you are at a church of a size that necessitates an Executive Pastor, then your membership is too large for your Lead Pastor to bear the burden of providing pastoral care alone.  Help to ease his burden by making calls, hospital visits, and helping with counseling sessions that are within your capability.

Your ministry is people

Budgets, logistics, and facilities dominate most of our time. If we’re not careful, we forget that those are merely means to help us accomplish our main purpose to reach people. We stick to budgets to ensure we are committing the resources necessary to reach the lost. We guard mission statements to keep us on task in our Great Commission to make disciples. We build and maintain facilities as a homebase from which our members are equipped and refreshed from their work in the field. But when we overlook people to accomplish a task, we have lost sight of our true assignment. People are not assets we use to build our ministry; we build people and trust God to build the ministry.

You are a disciple

More than we are administrators, we are followers of Christ. As such, we are to continuously pursue Him. If you have served in your roll for several years, you may have reached a point where you can function effectively without great effort. The challenge in your day-to-day responsibilities may have declined. It is at this point where you must push yourself to keep growing lest you fall into a rut both professionally and spiritually.

You may be doing an excellent job in maintaining your existing skills, but look for other areas in which to grow. Maybe for you it’s preaching or teaching that you would like to develop, so take on a Sunday School class or small group. Maybe it’s time to consider a post-grad or advanced degree from seminary. Prayerfully consider an area of growth for you and pursue it as a faithful disciple of Christ.

You are a church member

As pastors, we often exhort our members that church membership requires more than sitting in a pew, but also involves actively serving. Let’s preach this message to ourselves and get up from our desks and serve in ways in which we are not compensated. Serve in church ministries, don’t just oversee them. Some examples are to host a youth or college get together in your home, volunteer to go on the next senior citizens trip, be a VBS volunteer, give one Sunday a month to be in the nursery. Your church context will dictate how you serve, but remember to be a church member, not just an employee.