Tag Archives: team

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4 Ways to Build a Strong, Healthy Elder Team

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Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash

One of the most critical but often overlooked parts of being a lead pastor is interacting with and relating to your elder team. If you get this right, you will find smooth sailing and incredible momentum that is felt throughout the church. If you get this wrong, it can lead to many difficulties, frustration, and heartache on the part of the lead pastor, the elder team, and, ultimately, the church.

Over different seasons, I have gotten this right and gotten it wrong.

Recently, I was reading CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest, and the authors have a whole section on the interactions between the CEO and the board of a company. They are: 

  • Choosing radical transparency
  • Building a strong relationship with the board chair
  • Reaching out to individual directors (elders)
  • Exposing the board to management

Let’s take them one at a time and apply them to churches:

4 important lessons for lead pastors and their elder team.

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Choosing radical transparency. It is amazing to hear how much or little pastors tell their elder teams. I get that it can be hard, and often as a lead pastor, you are dealing with your old wounds and scars as you step into trusting this group.

But one thing you should always strive to do is tell your elder team what is going on. Don’t hide things from them. If something happens in your church or you think something is going to happen, make sure they know before it happens or as quickly as possible.

There have been times I’ve told my elder team something might happen, and then it didn’t happen. But that openness has brought about a lot of trust and confidence. And many times, my current elder team has said, “Thanks for keeping us in the loop.” That trust goes a long way.

Building a strong relationship with the board chair. This person is the lead pastor in some churches, but I don’t think that’s wise.

Our church calls this person the elder facilitator to clarify what this person does, which I like more than the board chair. But whatever you call this person, it may be the person with the longest tenure or most influence on your board, whoever they are, build a relationship with them. They can be an incredible help to you in terms of advice, moving things forward, and getting a sense of what each person needs or where the church is, especially if you are new.

4 things pastors and elder teams must do to work well together.

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Reaching out to individual directors (elders). While the elder team works as a team, it is crucial to understand each person who serves on that team. Get to know their personalities, how they think and process things, their histories, theologies, and passions for ministry.

One of the things I do is meet with each elder individually throughout the year. I get feedback from them on how I’m doing, how the team is doing, and what they see and hear in the church.

If things get off track, they can be a pastor’s greatest asset and the first line of defense. But you have to invest in them relationally.

Exposing the board to management. This one is important but often tricky in a church setting. It is really important to clarify your governance and who answers to whom. In our setting, I, as the lead pastor, answer to our elder team, but everyone on staff answers to me. While the elder team is ultimately responsible for our church, they don’t oversee the staff. So the staff doesn’t have two bosses. In some church settings, this can get confusing. Clarifying this first is crucial to a healthy church team.

Once this is clear, you must figure out how to connect your staff and elder team. Unfortunately, many churches keep them apart, which can lead to disaster. 

One of the ways we do this is through reports that staff write or give to the elder team; we also connect one elder with each staff member to meet once a month to connect, pray together and have that elder attend one team meeting for that ministry each year. The elders then report to the whole elder team about how things are going in that area and what the elders should know and celebrate. 

The relationship between a lead pastor and elder team often makes or breaks a church.

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Many lead pastors, unfortunately, are suspicious of their boards or see them as getting in the way. Working well with your board will relieve so many headaches and heartaches and make your church stronger and healthier. 

4 ways to work well with your elder team.

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How to Focus

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If you’re anything like me, you need to focus. There are times when you need to hunker down and get things done. Yet, your mind wanders. You daydream or think about what will happen later today or tomorrow. It could be a conversation, a meeting or a vacation you can’t wait to start.

Your lack of focus might come from no desire to do what you are doing, how hard something is or because you didn’t sleep well last night.

Many times the reason I am not able to focus well is because of the whirlwind around.

Focus comes from having “white space.” This is the place where you are able to shut down social media or email and think. To narrow down what matters the most right now.

I’ve heard John Maxwell say that leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing and no one would notice. That feels high, but there is some merit to it.

Each day you must be able to say, “If I accomplish nothing else today, here’s what must get done.” That focus helps you to stay on track.

When you find your brain wandering, stand up, walk around, get some fresh air and then return to something.

Focus for Your Church or Organization

Focus doesn’t just matter for you personally, but it has enormous implications for your team and your church.

Many teams lack focus. They are stuck in a whirlwind of activity, simply doing the thing right in front of them. In a church, this is easy to do because worship services come around with such regularity (every seven days), so there is a deadline to that whirlwind.

For our team, just like in our family, we talk through what is most important for the next 2-6 months as a team. What are we all going to be working on and moving towards?

Why Focus Matters

Without focus, anything and everything is important.

This is where many churches and people get off track in their lives and ministries.

Focus says, this matters more than that.

That is hard to say, because it determines ahead of time what you will think about, work on, spend money on and give manpower to.

Whether you sit down and write this out or say it, you do this exercise each day.

The ones who accomplish things and see greater effectiveness are the ones who decide this instead of falling into it.

The days that I flop into bed with a feeling of “what did I really accomplish today” are the days I wasn’t focused and allowed my day to get away from me.

Amazingly, as you read through the gospels you see the incredible focus that Jesus had. He was fully present wherever he went. Whether he was teaching, healing, resting, praying or spending time with his disciples, he was focused on what he was doing. When you think about what he did, you also get a sense of the things he didn’t do. He made the choices we have to make each and everyday: what will get our time, energy and attention.

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The Leadership Mirror

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A leader’s mood profoundly influences those around him as people tend to reflect their leader’s tone, whether it’s good or bad. -Charles Stone, from People-Pleasing Pastors: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Approval-Motivated Leadership

One of the things many leaders forget is the power of their attitude, presence and words.

Here’s some examples:

  • Chris is a energetic and excited, about everything. He exudes confidence that everything his church attempts will work.
  • When Tim talks to volunteers about his ministry, he downplays how great it is. Instead, he talks about how much of a sacrifice it is to serve, how hard it is.
  • Linda always has a listening ear. No matter who it is, or what the topic, she will listen, give advice, pray with you and then check back in with you.
  • Patrick recently hit a physical wall. He struggled to turn off his phone, take his days off and unplug from ministry. Consequently, he had nothing left to give. While his team picked up the slack as he took a few weeks off, when he arrived back rested and ready to go, he lost several key leaders because they were now too tired.
  • Tom sat in a meeting and threw out an idea. At the time, he didn’t think anything of it or think it would happen. The following Sunday, he walked into the kids ministry and saw signs and decorations up that were exactly like his idea.

Each of these leaders are people I’ve met. What they failed to realize at the time is everything they do reverberates as a leader. In the same way that a skyline reflects in water or a person reflects in a mirror, a ministry, church or team become a reflection of the leader. 

As a leader of an organization, every word you say carries weight, so you have to be careful and wise with your words. -Dave Ramsey

I talked to a children’s pastor recently who told me, “The kids ministry I lead is so bad, I wouldn’t bring my kid to it. There’s no excitement at all.” One of the other pastors looked at him and said, “You’re the leader, fix it. If you don’t like the ministry you lead, you are the only person with the power to fix it. You also have no one else to blame for its lack of excitement or ineffectiveness.”

What many leaders fail to realize is that they hold the power to fix the attitudes, relationships, excitement and movement within their church or ministry.

Given enough time, a church or ministry simply become a reflection of the leader. 

I learned this several years ago when I didn’t manage my emotions well. I got tired and had very little to give. Several months after this episode, when I was starting to feel healthy, I noticed there were others who weren’t handling their emotions well and were burning out from giving too much without rest.

They were reflecting what they saw me do.

This is similar to John Maxwell’s law of the lid. This law states that as a leader, if you are an 8 on a scale of 1-10, you will only attract and keep at best, 7’s. The law of the lid relates to this, in that, no one will be more bought in or excited than the leader. You are the lid for your church.

You as the leader, are also the reflection (humanly speaking) of your ministry.

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