Leadership Transition

I think any leader of a growing church eventually comes to place in their church where their style of leadership must change where they can better serve the church and allow her to continue to grow.

I am sure it is different for everyone when that happens. For me that transition has has to begin. I can’t explain why but our growth from 6 families to 500 people really didn’t affect me that much. Going from 500 to 700 was a different story. For whatever reason, I knew in order for us to continue to grow and continue to minister to the people we are reaching that I had to begin to make some changes.

I know that instead being in the middle of everything and having my hands in every small detail we do as a church that has become time for me to fly 30,000 feet above everything where I can see the big picture of what is going on at RSC.

That is not a easy transition for me. RSC is my baby. It is the vision and mission God has given me and transitioning to not having my hands in every aspect is hard. BUT if I want RSC to become the church that I know God wants her to be then those are transitions that must be made.

In the last month some of the ways in which I have transitioned my leadership:

1. We have developed a Lead Team of staff. This team consists of our Family Pastor Preston Porter, Connection Pastor Malcolm Young, Creative Arts Pastor Tim May, and I lead this team. Every ministry in our church and every other staff person is under the direct leadership of one of these men. They are under my leadership. This took me from having a ton of people reporting to me to having three reporting to me. It simplified and maximized our staffing process.
2. I have narrowed what I do down to four things:  Primary Teacher, Overall Vision Caster, Lead the Lead Team, and Marketing (our branding is very important to me).  As a hobby I meet with church planters because I love it. :)  If it doesn’t fall in one of these areas, I am allowing the great team around me to do what God them to do and what we feel they are in leadership for.
3. I have accepted the fact that I can’t have a personal relationship with everyone.  This is the hardest one to me.  I am a people person.  I wish I could know everyone’s name in the church but it isn’t possible anymore.  I’ll still be on the curb greeting everyone every week but I can’t stress anymore if I can’t remember every detail about everyone’s life.  I wish I could hang out and grill burgers with everyone in the church but if I did that every night of the year, it would take me two years to get to everyone.  The reality is that I through our staff, Home Team leaders, and ministry team leaders, we have people in place to make sure everyone is connected.
4. I have brought on an assistant.  I now have two women who run my life: DeAnna and now Taylor.  Taylor will 100% control my schedule, my e-mails, my meetings, etc.  I am a big picture guy and oftentimes I forget the little things and that is not good.  Taylor is going to be a God send in helping take a ton of stuff off of me.
5. I have put together a FIRM weekly schedule.  I have learned to manage my schedule or it will manage me.  Monday - Staff day - I am in staff meeting all day or meeting with Lead Team staff all day.  This is their day to discuss everything they need me for.  Tuesday - Creative Team Day - We do creative meeting this day and cover all aspects of the service and upcoming services.  Wednesday - Study day.  Won’t answer phone or email this day (this day has always been this).  Thursday - Meetings, church planter phone calls, reading, miscellaneous stuff.  Friday - work until lunch on my sermon then go home.  I have had to become firm about my schedule or I rob my family of time and that ain’t happening.

These changes are not easy but I refuse to be the bottle neck in what God wants to do.  I honestly think by not changing sooner, I became the bottleneck for a while.

God has sent us a awesome team so by me stepping out and doing less, the church will accomplish more.