I learned many great lessons during my time church planting, and when I came to Northview, I made it clear to Pastor Steve that he would never have to worry about me wanting his job. My one-year stint had inoculated me from any desire to be a Senior Pastor. However, it did offer me some unique insight into the best ways for a person who reports directly to the Senior Pastor to be helpful. There are many, but here are four key ones:

I once heard John Maxwell share a message on 25 ways to hire smart. Twenty-five! His first which he said far outweighed the others was to hire positive people. He said that you can train people for almost anything. However, you cannot train a person to be positive. They either are or they are not. Every supervisor wants to have a team of people who are infectiously positive. No supervisor enjoys working with staff members who are chronically negative. As you go about the ministry that God has called you to and as you serve your Senior Pastor, be positive. If for whatever reason you can’t be, your current role is likely not the right position for you. Do yourself and your Senior Pastor a favor and find a new ministry opportunity. There are many out there.

“Mark, when you lead-out ministry initiatives that we have all agreed on, do not speak on my behalf. I can speak for me. Instead, speak for yourself.” These were the wise words of my Senior Pastor. I was somewhat new in my role as Executive Pastor, and I had fallen into the common trap of trying to get things done by leveraging the authority of my boss, saying things like, “Well, this is the way that Pastor Steve wants it done so that’s how we’re going to do it.” In doing so, I was not helping Pastor Steve’s leadership or mine. His point was well taken and one that I have never forgotten. I served on a leadership team of seven at the time. When we made a collective decision, we were empowered to lead it out according to our collective agreed-upon plan, and I was hurting everyone on the team when I played the “Senior Pastor card.” Help your Senior Pastor by owning and advocating for the plan personally.

In our environment, there are no positions where people are sitting around looking for things to do. I’m sure this is true of yours as well. We are all busy with the responsibilities that the Church has entrusted to us. If you supervise others, you know just how difficult and ultimately unworkable it is to have an employee who habitually does not follow through on assignments. This is certainly true for every Senior Pastor. If the day comes when your Senior Pastor feels like he has to follow-up on you to make sure that you “made the call” or “sent the email”, it could very well be the beginning of the end. He has enough on his plate to say grace over. He has no desire to do his job and yours. Nor should he have to. It’s basic, but one of the best ways that you can serve your Senior Pastor is simply doing what you say you’re going to do.

I’ve got good news for you. The church has lots of problems to solve. This reality is the reason you have a job. If there were no problems, there would be no need for the church to hire anyone. Problems can often get pigeon-holed as a bad thing. Some are but many are not. For instance, every weekend we need someone to preach a sermon. Most would agree that this is a good problem to solve. On the other hand, if we have lost a lot of members because of COVID and are not effectively reaching new people, then just about everyone would conclude that this is a challenging problem that we wish we didn’t have. Either way, every church has a plethora of problems needing solutions, and you have the choice. You can either focus your energies on the problems or on the solutions. The more you focus on the solutions and solve problems, the more helpful you will be to your Senior Pastor.