One of the least understood roles in churches is the "second chair" role -- the person who reports directly to the senior pastor (or sometimes the church board) and oversees a large portion of the church staff. Ideation Experience: The Place for Great Ideas Do you have an idea that could shape the church in the coming decade? Does that great idea ever keep you up at night? Do you love to think and talk about great ideas and how to make them work? This person goes by lots of different titles. Most common is executive pastor, but they're also sometimes known as executive director, executive minister, business administrator, associate pastor, and more. Leadership Network recently conducted a survey of people in this strategic role, drawing 555 responses. The research was done in partnership with xpastor.org and summarized in the April issue of Church Executive magazine. The complete survey and results are available in an illustrated report for free download at www.leadnet.org. Top 10 Findings The project findings were very informative and contained a few surprises. Can you spot which statement below is false? How do senior pastors compare with executive pastors? Leadership Network's senior pastor survey is now open -- with the promise that every participant gets a free copy of the results. Lead pastors in churches with attendance of 800 and higher are encouraged to participate here. 1. More executive pastors come from the business world than from any other field. 2. On average, executive pastors work 50 hours a week and have 9 direct reports. 3. Female executive pastors spend more of their week advising the senior pastor than their male counterparts do. 4. Churches typically create an executive pastor role after they reach an attendance of about 1,000. 5. An increasing trend in very large churches is for several people to share the executive pastor role. 6. Executive pastors spend about 40% of their time in administration or meetings. 7. Executive pastors voice a high satisfaction level with their relationship to their senior pastor. 8. The executive pastor eats dinner with his or her family 4 or 5 nights a week. 9. The typical age of executive pastors is 53 years old. 10. A large majority of executive pastors say their closest friends are at their church. "The Show" Videocast Announced "The Show," a new weekly, 15-minute online videocast from Leadership Network, will feature a fascinating guest, a discussion of current events in the church world, and an opportunity to interact with some of the most innovative minds in today's church. Keep following Advance for more information and program details of the videocast, which will happen live online every Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), beginning May 5. A Radical Future for Women's Ministry Women's ministries are on the cusp of radical future change. Sherry Surratt, director of the Women's Initiative at Leadership Network, shares examples of changes already taking place around the country. Top leaders from some of the most innovative women's ministries are gathered in this installment of Audio Advance to discuss what is working and what is not, with the hope of creating easily replicable models that will
For the one incorrect option, click here... unleash revolutionary change. How a Church Website Can Connect with Social Networks Listening for Opportunities to Bless Others All Access 2009 All Access is an innovative gathering of visionary local church leaders. It will include wide-open worship, teaching from the leaders of some of America's fastest-growing churches, and intentional connections with others just like you. The Economy: What I Am Telling Reporters If you are a pastor or leader with a passion to plant churches or grow the one you're in, don't miss out on this unique event. Reaching People Under 40 While Keeping People Over 60 Ministry in a Shame-Filled World Sticky Church Conference Attend a Sticky conference, and learn to close the back door and become the church no one wants to leave. Interact with Sticky Church ministry leaders. Build relationships, ask questions, and explore why the Sticky Church concept helps transition attendees to members. i 2 Conference 2.0 A new and improved vision for being a Church of Irresistible Influence Strategic ministry philosophy for reaching unbelievers and releasing mature believers You can peruse nearly 100 past issues of Leadership Network Advance and get valuable information on a variety of ministry topics in our Archives. Select VIEW FULL ARCHIVES LIST to see what's there.
Here are a few topics of interest we covered recently: Fewer Americans Call Themselves Christian The United States has grown less religious in the last two decades, a new study shows, with a 10 percent drop in the number of people who call themselves Christians and increases in all 50 states among those who are not aligned with any faith. The false statement was #4, which described typical church size for adding an executive pastor. Instead, the trend is toward adding an executive pastor sooner in a church's growth. Ten years ago the role might be added at an attendance of 1,000, where today it's more common at 500 to 800. In fact, many new churches are launching with a staff team, one of them being the executive pastor. The idea is to free the lead pastor from heavy administrative work from day one of the church. To download a free copy of "Inside the World of Executive Pastors," click here. To participate in the just-launched senior pastor survey, click here. Warren Bird, Ph.D., Leadership Network's director of research, designed the executive pastor survey and served as editorial director on the project. Contact him via stephanie.plagens@leadnet.org or call 214-969-5950 ext. 119. Second Chair Fascinating Insights about Executive Pastors by Warren Bird Post a Comment View Comments Rate this Article: Average Rating: 5
Ideation Experience: The Place for Great Ideas Do you have an idea that could shape the church in the coming decade? Does that great idea ever keep you up at night? Do you love to think and talk about great ideas and how to make them work? The Leadership Network Ideation Experience on July 20-22 in Dallas is a gathering of innovators, creative thinkers and idea junkies who will work collaboratively in an interactive and iterative process to develop ideas that could not only change the church, but change the world! Working with Catalyst as our partner, the plan is to create a total immersion experience and deliver a list of the 10 big ideas that could shape and change the church in the next ten years. We're looking for creative, playful leaders who want to change the world. "The Show" Videocast Announced "The Show," a new weekly, 15-minute online videocast from Leadership Network, will feature a fascinating guest, a discussion of current events in the church world, and an opportunity to interact with some of the most innovative minds in today's church. Keep following Advance for more information and program details of the videocast, which will happen live online every Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), beginning May 5. All Access 2009 All Access is an innovative gathering of visionary local church leaders. It will include wide-open worship, teaching from the leaders of some of America's fastest-growing churches, and intentional connections with others just like you. If you are a pastor or leader with a passion to plant churches or grow the one you're in, don't miss out on this unique event.
April 27-29, 2009 C3 Church, Clayton, NC Sticky Church Conference Attend a Sticky conference, and learn to close the back door and become the church no one wants to leave. Interact with Sticky Church ministry leaders. Build relationships, ask questions, and explore why the Sticky Church concept helps transition attendees to members. Special one day event: May 11, 2009 Mountain Lake Church, Atlanta i 2 Conference 2.0 A new and improved vision for being a Church of Irresistible Influence Strategic ministry philosophy for reaching unbelievers and releasing mature believers A new kind of visioning process that helps leaders develop a unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement Workshops that help move your leadership team forward in developing clear vision New strategy for evangelism that works May 4-6, 2009 Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, AR Fewer Americans Call Themselves Christian The United States has grown less religious in the last two decades, a new study shows, with a 10 percent drop in the number of people who call themselves Christians and increases in all 50 states among those who are not aligned with any faith. Between 1990 and 2008, the percentage of Americans who identified themselves as Christian dropped from 86 percent to 76 percent, reports the American Religious Identification Survey, released March 9. The group that researchers call the "Nones" -- atheists, agnostics, and other secularists -- have almost doubled in that time period, from 8.2 percent to 15 percent. And, in a further indication of growing secularism, more than a quarter of Americans -- 27 percent -- said they do not expect to have a religious funeral when they die. "Traditionally, historically, people are interested in their immortal soul, salvation, heaven and hell," said Barry Kosmin, the co-author of the survey and director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Connecticut. "If you don't have a religious funeral, you're probably not interested in heaven and hell." The survey of more than 54,000 respondents followed similar large studies in 2001 and in 1990. Though the largest increase in "Nones" occurred between 1990 and 2001 (from 8.2 percent to 14.1 percent), Kosmin said more people have been willing to identify themselves as atheist or agnostic in the last 7 years. The greatest percentage of "Nones" are in New England, followed by the Pacific Northwest. Beyond identifying
the increased secular nature of the country, the survey found a surge in the number of people who called themselves "nondenominational Christians," from less than 200,000 in 1990 to more than 8 million in 2008.