- Published on
Let's End This Era of Leadership, Part 3
Primus Inter Pares: How to Build a Team When You Have Nothing to Work With
By Jame Bolds
If you read Part 2, you know I'm not interested in piling on solo pastors. You're already carrying enough. What I am interested in is giving you a way out of a model that's costing you more than it should. And the way out isn't a bigger budget or a better denomination or a miracle hire. It starts smaller than that. A lot smaller.
But before I give you the research, let me rant for a minute. Because once you see this pattern, you can't unsee it. Consider this your warning.
My Observational Rant
Go look at a church staff page right now. I'll wait.
Notice anything? The senior pastor is usually ten to fifteen years older than everybody else, is the founder, and is almost always the most credentialed person in the room. Every time. And it's usually a he.
Now I want to be honest about my starting place. I'm a cynical academic. So here's my cynical academic question: why do we keep building teams where the person at the top is fifteen years older than everybody else?
I know, I know. Budget. Pipeline. We raise our own people from within. Sure. Maybe. But let me say what everybody sees and nobody says. The lead pastor almost never hires anyone as strong as he is. And he definitely doesn't hire anyone stronger.
I can already hear it. 'We hire from within.' 'We want our staff to have our DNA.' 'We believe it's the biblical model of 2 Timothy 2:2.' I call nonsense.
Look, 2 Timothy 2:2 is about faithful men teaching faithful men. It is not a hiring policy. It is not an org chart. And 'our DNA' is doing a lot of organizational work for a phrase that mostly means people who won't push back. That's not pipeline. That's not budget. That's a choice. A very deliberate, very consistent, very understandable, and very problematic choice. It is built to keep the leader in control. And it works. Until it doesn't.
Max Weber called this charismatic authority, a structure where leadership derives from the personality and perceived extraordinary qualities of one individual rather than from a system, a team, or a shared mission. Weber's point wasn't that charismatic leaders are bad. His point was that charismatic authority is inherently unstable. When the person is gone, the authority goes with them. The institution built around a personality does not outlast that personality. You and I both know that is already happening in churches across this country.
So what am I calling for? End the Great Man theory. End the Rule of the 49%. End command and control. Give away your authority and work as a team. A real team. And if you are a solo pastor grinding through your community with nothing but faith and a calendar, I see you. I have been there. You are my hero. Start small. Find some volunteers. Find someone for $125 a week who takes one thing off your plate. That is how it starts. One person. One chair. One conversation.
But First, the Theology
A critique I take seriously is this: my site is economic theology, but my evidence tends to come from organizational management rather than Scripture. That's a fair charge. So before the research stack, here's the biblical theological observation. Because it turns out the argument for team-based leadership isn't just smart management. It's ancient.
Acts 6 is the first recorded leadership crisis in the church. The Jerusalem congregation is growing fast, the apostles are overwhelmed, and widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The solution is not to find a better apostle. The solution is to build a team. Seven men, full of the Spirit and wisdom, are appointed to carry the practical work so the apostles can focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word. This is not a demotion of leadership. It is a distribution of it. The church grows precisely because the senior leaders gave authority away rather than hoarding it. That's Acts 6. That's the first organizational decision the church ever made.
And it looks nothing like the Great Man theory.
Acts 15 gives us the phrase I've been building this whole series around. The Jerusalem Council is convened to settle the question of Gentiles and the Law. It's the biggest theological argument the early church ever had. Here's how they handle it. Peter speaks. Barnabas and Paul report. And then James renders the judgment. Not Peter, who was arguably the most prominent apostle in the room. James, the local leader in Jerusalem, who wasn't even one of the twelve. The decision is then ratified by the whole council.
Read that again. Peter was first. James decided. The council confirmed.
That is not a flat structure where nobody leads. That is not a monarchy where one person decides everything. That is a team structure where the leader leads without hoarding. First among equals. Primus inter pares. In the text. Two thousand years before McKinsey wrote a word about it.
And here's the thing nobody preaches on: Peter didn't sulk. He didn't pull rank. He didn't remind everybody that Jesus gave him the keys. He made his argument, James made the call, the council confirmed it, and the church moved forward. That's what psychological safety looks like in the first century. That's what a real team does.
And 1 Corinthians 12 names the theological principle underneath all of it. One body, many parts. No one person is the whole body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. The head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. Paul is not writing poetry here. He is making an organizational argument. The body functions because each part carries its own responsibility. When one part tries to be the whole body, the body breaks down. The Duke data from Part 2 is just the medical confirmation of what Paul already knew.
The Research Stack
I want you to have stories and data to make this argument to your board, your elder team, your skeptical spouse, or whoever pushes back when you say you need people around you. So here's the research.
I. Safety First. In 1999, last century, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson studied medical teams and expected the best performing teams to make the fewest mistakes. The opposite was true. High-performing teams reported more errors because they felt safe enough to say so. Nobody was hiding mistakes to avoid getting in trouble. My corporate psychologist wife was sitting on the couch next to me while I was writing this and said, 'Yes, of course. It's trust theory. People will trust you more if you're honest about your shortcomings.' She's usually right. I just don't always tell her that. Edmondson called this psychological safety, the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. Google's Project Aristotle confirmed it was the single most important factor in team effectiveness. More than skill. More than experience. More than how smart everybody was. Here's the bottom line: a team that can't tell the leader he's wrong isn't a team. It's a fan club. And fan clubs feel great. They just don't move anything.
II. Mindshare. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner introduced Transactive Memory Systems in the late 1980s. No single brain can hold everything a complex organization needs. High-functioning teams build a shared cognitive system where each person carries specialized knowledge and everyone knows who to ask. The group ends up smarter than any of its individuals. I found myself a little convicted reading this. I've been the pastor who needed to know everything, be copied on everything, weigh in on everything. I told myself it was good stewardship. It wasn't. I called nonsense on myself. The research suggests it was a bottleneck. That's a kind word for what it probably actually was. Sometimes I couldn't get out of my own way. Don't believe me it just happened last week. Talk to Stuart about it... anyway.
III. Design Then Build. McKinsey studied over 100 global teams and found that nearly 75% of cross-functional teams are functionally dysfunctional. Three out of four. The healthy 25% had three things in common: clear roles, real trust, and distributed leadership. The senior leaders in those organizations weren't the hub of all activity. They were architects. They built the system. They didn't become it. Ron Friedman's research in Harvard Business Review found that of the three psychological needs driving team performance, relatedness is the hardest to build and the most important. You can train competence. You can create structures for autonomy. But you can't manufacture genuine connection. It has to grow. And it only grows in teams.
So before you build anything, ask yourself this: do you genuinely like the people you work with? Would you go to the beach with them on Saturday? Do you call them on a random Tuesday night at 9 o'clock to share something ridiculous that happened? You spend more time with your team than your family. Common sense says you actually have to like them. And remember, pastors, you don't hire a human doing. You hire a human being.
So. What Do You Actually Do?
The Latin tradition, rooted in the early church council structure, has a phrase for this: primus inter pares. First among equals. Not a flat structure where nobody leads. A team structure where the leader leads without hoarding. You're still first. You're just not alone. And the difference between those two things is everything.
a.) Name the chair, not the person. One page. One job. Specific hours, specific responsibility. 'We need someone with graphic design experience, three hours a week, one check-in a month.' Post it. Say it from the platform. 'We need help' gets zero response every time. I've watched pastors say it for years and stare into the void. Name the chair and the right person tends to find their way to it.
b.) Define reality in public. Say it out loud: 'I'm doing this alone and I can't keep doing it alone.' From the platform. In an email. Wherever your people actually are. That's not weakness. It's an invitation. And the people who respond tend to be exactly who you need.
c.) Find the person already showing up. Who sets up chairs without being asked? Who stays late? Who asks the kind of questions that make you think harder? Buy them coffee. Ask them something specific: 'Would you be willing to own this one thing?' Not help out. Own it. One committed person with one clear role changes your trajectory more than you'd expect. It really does.
In Part 4, I'll show you what this looks like in practice. What I'm trying, and I want to sit with that word, to build is a primus inter pares team. I'm doing it with Stuart Ross, Jennifer Bolds, Luke Dollyhite, Crystal Agnew, Charlie Self, Stephen Lentz, my attorney, my accountant, Jeremy Brown, and the boards of both Pathmakers Foundation and Victory Church.
Is it perfect? Really...No. There's a thing called humans that gets in the way. But we try. And when we try together, really together, it works. More than it doesn't. Considerably more.
I don't have all of this figured out. I want to be honest about that. I'm a development economist writing about team psychology, which is a little like a cardiologist giving dental advice. Directionally correct, probably. But here's what I know for certain: the leader who insists on carrying it all alone isn't protecting the mission. They're limiting it.
Name the chair. Define reality. Find the person already showing up. And then start building something that can outlast you. That's been the point all along.
Let’s create a path. I believe in you.
+PJB
References
1. Acts 6:1-7; Acts 15:13-21; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (ESV).
2. Amy C. Edmondson, 'Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,' Administrative Science Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1999): 350-383.
3. Daniel M. Wegner, 'Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind,' in Theories of Group Behavior, eds. Brian Mullen and George R. Goethals (New York: Springer, 1987), 185-208.
4. Ron Friedman, '5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently,' Harvard Business Review, October 21, 2021.
5. McKinsey & Company, 'Go, Teams: When Teams Get Healthier, the Whole Organization Benefits,' McKinsey Quarterly, October 2024.
6. Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 241-245.
Primus Inter Pares: How to Build a Team When You Have Nothing to Work With
By Jame Bolds
If you read Part 2, you know I'm not interested in piling on solo pastors. You're already carrying enough. What I am interested in is giving you a way out of a model that's costing you more than it should. And the way out isn't a bigger budget or a better denomination or a miracle hire. It starts smaller than that. A lot smaller.
But before I give you the research, let me rant for a minute. Because once you see this pattern, you can't unsee it. Consider this your warning.
My Observational Rant
Go look at a church staff page right now. I'll wait.
Notice anything? The senior pastor is usually ten to fifteen years older than everybody else, is the founder, and is almost always the most credentialed person in the room. Every time. And it's usually a he.
Now I want to be honest about my starting place. I'm a cynical academic. So here's my cynical academic question: why do we keep building teams where the person at the top is fifteen years older than everybody else?
I know, I know. Budget. Pipeline. We raise our own people from within. Sure. Maybe. But let me say what everybody sees and nobody says. The lead pastor almost never hires anyone as strong as he is. And he definitely doesn't hire anyone stronger.
I can already hear it. 'We hire from within.' 'We want our staff to have our DNA.' 'We believe it's the biblical model of 2 Timothy 2:2.' I call nonsense.
Look, 2 Timothy 2:2 is about faithful men teaching faithful men. It is not a hiring policy. It is not an org chart. And 'our DNA' is doing a lot of organizational work for a phrase that mostly means people who won't push back. That's not pipeline. That's not budget. That's a choice. A very deliberate, very consistent, very understandable, and very problematic choice. It is built to keep the leader in control. And it works. Until it doesn't.
Max Weber called this charismatic authority, a structure where leadership derives from the personality and perceived extraordinary qualities of one individual rather than from a system, a team, or a shared mission. Weber's point wasn't that charismatic leaders are bad. His point was that charismatic authority is inherently unstable. When the person is gone, the authority goes with them. The institution built around a personality does not outlast that personality. You and I both know that is already happening in churches across this country.
So what am I calling for? End the Great Man theory. End the Rule of the 49%. End command and control. Give away your authority and work as a team. A real team. And if you are a solo pastor grinding through your community with nothing but faith and a calendar, I see you. I have been there. You are my hero. Start small. Find some volunteers. Find someone for $125 a week who takes one thing off your plate. That is how it starts. One person. One chair. One conversation.
But First, the Theology
A critique I take seriously is this: my site is economic theology, but my evidence tends to come from organizational management rather than Scripture. That's a fair charge. So before the research stack, here's the biblical theological observation. Because it turns out the argument for team-based leadership isn't just smart management. It's ancient.
Acts 6 is the first recorded leadership crisis in the church. The Jerusalem congregation is growing fast, the apostles are overwhelmed, and widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The solution is not to find a better apostle. The solution is to build a team. Seven men, full of the Spirit and wisdom, are appointed to carry the practical work so the apostles can focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word. This is not a demotion of leadership. It is a distribution of it. The church grows precisely because the senior leaders gave authority away rather than hoarding it. That's Acts 6. That's the first organizational decision the church ever made.
And it looks nothing like the Great Man theory.
Acts 15 gives us the phrase I've been building this whole series around. The Jerusalem Council is convened to settle the question of Gentiles and the Law. It's the biggest theological argument the early church ever had. Here's how they handle it. Peter speaks. Barnabas and Paul report. And then James renders the judgment. Not Peter, who was arguably the most prominent apostle in the room. James, the local leader in Jerusalem, who wasn't even one of the twelve. The decision is then ratified by the whole council.
Read that again. Peter was first. James decided. The council confirmed.
That is not a flat structure where nobody leads. That is not a monarchy where one person decides everything. That is a team structure where the leader leads without hoarding. First among equals. Primus inter pares. In the text. Two thousand years before McKinsey wrote a word about it.
And here's the thing nobody preaches on: Peter didn't sulk. He didn't pull rank. He didn't remind everybody that Jesus gave him the keys. He made his argument, James made the call, the council confirmed it, and the church moved forward. That's what psychological safety looks like in the first century. That's what a real team does.
And 1 Corinthians 12 names the theological principle underneath all of it. One body, many parts. No one person is the whole body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. The head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. Paul is not writing poetry here. He is making an organizational argument. The body functions because each part carries its own responsibility. When one part tries to be the whole body, the body breaks down. The Duke data from Part 2 is just the medical confirmation of what Paul already knew.
The Research Stack
I want you to have stories and data to make this argument to your board, your elder team, your skeptical spouse, or whoever pushes back when you say you need people around you. So here's the research.
I. Safety First. In 1999, last century, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson studied medical teams and expected the best performing teams to make the fewest mistakes. The opposite was true. High-performing teams reported more errors because they felt safe enough to say so. Nobody was hiding mistakes to avoid getting in trouble. My corporate psychologist wife was sitting on the couch next to me while I was writing this and said, 'Yes, of course. It's trust theory. People will trust you more if you're honest about your shortcomings.' She's usually right. I just don't always tell her that. Edmondson called this psychological safety, the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. Google's Project Aristotle confirmed it was the single most important factor in team effectiveness. More than skill. More than experience. More than how smart everybody was. Here's the bottom line: a team that can't tell the leader he's wrong isn't a team. It's a fan club. And fan clubs feel great. They just don't move anything.
II. Mindshare. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner introduced Transactive Memory Systems in the late 1980s. No single brain can hold everything a complex organization needs. High-functioning teams build a shared cognitive system where each person carries specialized knowledge and everyone knows who to ask. The group ends up smarter than any of its individuals. I found myself a little convicted reading this. I've been the pastor who needed to know everything, be copied on everything, weigh in on everything. I told myself it was good stewardship. It wasn't. I called nonsense on myself. The research suggests it was a bottleneck. That's a kind word for what it probably actually was. Sometimes I couldn't get out of my own way. Don't believe me it just happened last week. Talk to Stuart about it... anyway.
III. Design Then Build. McKinsey studied over 100 global teams and found that nearly 75% of cross-functional teams are functionally dysfunctional. Three out of four. The healthy 25% had three things in common: clear roles, real trust, and distributed leadership. The senior leaders in those organizations weren't the hub of all activity. They were architects. They built the system. They didn't become it. Ron Friedman's research in Harvard Business Review found that of the three psychological needs driving team performance, relatedness is the hardest to build and the most important. You can train competence. You can create structures for autonomy. But you can't manufacture genuine connection. It has to grow. And it only grows in teams.
So before you build anything, ask yourself this: do you genuinely like the people you work with? Would you go to the beach with them on Saturday? Do you call them on a random Tuesday night at 9 o'clock to share something ridiculous that happened? You spend more time with your team than your family. Common sense says you actually have to like them. And remember, pastors, you don't hire a human doing. You hire a human being.
So. What Do You Actually Do?
The Latin tradition, rooted in the early church council structure, has a phrase for this: primus inter pares. First among equals. Not a flat structure where nobody leads. A team structure where the leader leads without hoarding. You're still first. You're just not alone. And the difference between those two things is everything.
a.) Name the chair, not the person. One page. One job. Specific hours, specific responsibility. 'We need someone with graphic design experience, three hours a week, one check-in a month.' Post it. Say it from the platform. 'We need help' gets zero response every time. I've watched pastors say it for years and stare into the void. Name the chair and the right person tends to find their way to it.
b.) Define reality in public. Say it out loud: 'I'm doing this alone and I can't keep doing it alone.' From the platform. In an email. Wherever your people actually are. That's not weakness. It's an invitation. And the people who respond tend to be exactly who you need.
c.) Find the person already showing up. Who sets up chairs without being asked? Who stays late? Who asks the kind of questions that make you think harder? Buy them coffee. Ask them something specific: 'Would you be willing to own this one thing?' Not help out. Own it. One committed person with one clear role changes your trajectory more than you'd expect. It really does.
In Part 4, I'll show you what this looks like in practice. What I'm trying, and I want to sit with that word, to build is a primus inter pares team. I'm doing it with Stuart Ross, Jennifer Bolds, Luke Dollyhite, Crystal Agnew, Charlie Self, Stephen Lentz, my attorney, my accountant, Jeremy Brown, and the boards of both Pathmakers Foundation and Victory Church.
Is it perfect? Really...No. There's a thing called humans that gets in the way. But we try. And when we try together, really together, it works. More than it doesn't. Considerably more.
I don't have all of this figured out. I want to be honest about that. I'm a development economist writing about team psychology, which is a little like a cardiologist giving dental advice. Directionally correct, probably. But here's what I know for certain: the leader who insists on carrying it all alone isn't protecting the mission. They're limiting it.
Name the chair. Define reality. Find the person already showing up. And then start building something that can outlast you. That's been the point all along.
Let’s create a path. I believe in you.
+PJB
References
1. Acts 6:1-7; Acts 15:13-21; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (ESV).
2. Amy C. Edmondson, 'Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,' Administrative Science Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1999): 350-383.
3. Daniel M. Wegner, 'Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind,' in Theories of Group Behavior, eds. Brian Mullen and George R. Goethals (New York: Springer, 1987), 185-208.
4. Ron Friedman, '5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently,' Harvard Business Review, October 21, 2021.
5. McKinsey & Company, 'Go, Teams: When Teams Get Healthier, the Whole Organization Benefits,' McKinsey Quarterly, October 2024.
6. Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 241-245.
- Published on
In Part 1, I introduced the Great Man Theory, Thomas Carlyle’s 19th-century argument that basically history is comprised by exceptional individuals, and that leadership is essentially a superpower you’re either born with or you’re not. John Maxwell brought it into church leadership culture with the memorable line, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
Maxwell isn’t wrong. And he does talk about teams. But the weight of his framework, the gravity of it, lands on the individual. The lone leader. The exceptional person. And when you emphasize the individual that heavily, even with a chapter on teams, you create a culture that functionally ignores the team and idolizes the leader.
Maxwell isn’t wrong. It's just incomplete.
And incomplete ideas, applied at scale, produce real consequences. I’ve been flying around the country (and the world for matter) for about three years, lecturing on economic development and sitting across the table from scores of pastors, and I’m seeing a pattern. And it’s ugly. Now, I’m not a leadership scholar. That’s more of my wife’s field. Jennifer flies all over the northeast training engineers who move into management and want to be leaders. I just shake my head. (Wow. OK, focus.)
Look, as a researcher, here’s what I see and what the data confirms: the consequences of the Great Man theory are showing up not only in organizational charts. They’re showing up in bloodwork. Pastoral health is in trouble.
Let me make the human argument first:
Take a 27-year-old woman with an MBA. Sharp. Talented. She’s run an equity fund or a tech startup or something that required her to outthink rooms full of very smart people. She feels called to ministry. She reads theology for two years, does the work, earns a degree. Gold.
And then a Bishop places her in a church in rural Iowa, West Virginia, an urban environment, or a church nobody wants. Typical move. Prays over her and says, “Go win. The Spirit will empower you.”
And then the Bishop goes home.
She’s standing in a church she’s never pastored, in a town she doesn’t know, with no network, no staff, no donors, and a $40,000 salary. The denomination has handed her a building and a benediction and called it a deployment strategy.
That’s not a leadership challenge. That’s a resource failure dressed up as a leadership expectation.
I can already hear the rebuttal. “Well, if she’s a good leader, she’ll know how to gather and galvanize people and resources.” Yeah. Not to be cynical, but to be cynical, here’s the thing: the person who said that probably already bought their house. They’ve got a network, a title, a salary that didn’t require them to build something from nothing in a town of 4,000 people. And if they did, that was a completely different era. That’s not leadership wisdom. That’s cost transference dressed up as encouragement. It’s Darwinian. The survival of the fittest. And if by the grace of God she actually produces something, we call it God’s blessing. What it actually is, is someone operating in an unhealthy and unsustainable structure.
And frankly? It’s irresponsible. (I’m just say’n.)
Here’s what the Great Man framework produces when you apply it without a support structure: it takes talented, called, capable people and quietly sets them up to fail. And then when they burn out, leave, or get sick, and the data says they do get sick, we say it wasn’t the right fit.
We don’t say the system failed them. We say they failed the system.
Maxwell isn’t wrong. And he does talk about teams. But the weight of his framework, the gravity of it, lands on the individual. The lone leader. The exceptional person. And when you emphasize the individual that heavily, even with a chapter on teams, you create a culture that functionally ignores the team and idolizes the leader.
Maxwell isn’t wrong. It's just incomplete.
And incomplete ideas, applied at scale, produce real consequences. I’ve been flying around the country (and the world for matter) for about three years, lecturing on economic development and sitting across the table from scores of pastors, and I’m seeing a pattern. And it’s ugly. Now, I’m not a leadership scholar. That’s more of my wife’s field. Jennifer flies all over the northeast training engineers who move into management and want to be leaders. I just shake my head. (Wow. OK, focus.)
Look, as a researcher, here’s what I see and what the data confirms: the consequences of the Great Man theory are showing up not only in organizational charts. They’re showing up in bloodwork. Pastoral health is in trouble.
Let me make the human argument first:
Take a 27-year-old woman with an MBA. Sharp. Talented. She’s run an equity fund or a tech startup or something that required her to outthink rooms full of very smart people. She feels called to ministry. She reads theology for two years, does the work, earns a degree. Gold.
And then a Bishop places her in a church in rural Iowa, West Virginia, an urban environment, or a church nobody wants. Typical move. Prays over her and says, “Go win. The Spirit will empower you.”
And then the Bishop goes home.
She’s standing in a church she’s never pastored, in a town she doesn’t know, with no network, no staff, no donors, and a $40,000 salary. The denomination has handed her a building and a benediction and called it a deployment strategy.
That’s not a leadership challenge. That’s a resource failure dressed up as a leadership expectation.
I can already hear the rebuttal. “Well, if she’s a good leader, she’ll know how to gather and galvanize people and resources.” Yeah. Not to be cynical, but to be cynical, here’s the thing: the person who said that probably already bought their house. They’ve got a network, a title, a salary that didn’t require them to build something from nothing in a town of 4,000 people. And if they did, that was a completely different era. That’s not leadership wisdom. That’s cost transference dressed up as encouragement. It’s Darwinian. The survival of the fittest. And if by the grace of God she actually produces something, we call it God’s blessing. What it actually is, is someone operating in an unhealthy and unsustainable structure.
And frankly? It’s irresponsible. (I’m just say’n.)
Here’s what the Great Man framework produces when you apply it without a support structure: it takes talented, called, capable people and quietly sets them up to fail. And then when they burn out, leave, or get sick, and the data says they do get sick, we say it wasn’t the right fit.
We don’t say the system failed them. We say they failed the system.
Ok, here's the research stack:
Duke University’s Clergy Health Initiative has been tracking pastor health since 2007. What they found should stop every bishop, every superintendent, and every denominational executive cold. Compared to the general population, clergy have significantly higher rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma, and depression. Depression symptoms at nearly double the national average. Seventy-eight percent of pastors are overweight or obese. The lead researcher, Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, identified the structural driver clearly: pastors internalize a mandate to care for others continuously, and in the absence of a co-pastor or team, they have no organizational permission to recover.
No co-pastor. No team. Same thing.
The Pulpit and Pew research project at Duke Divinity School, funded by the Lilly Endowment, corroborated this. Depression and obesity are two of the defining health signatures of solo pastoral ministry. Not spiritual failure. Structural failure. We built a leadership model that requires one person to carry what was designed to be carried by many, and then we’re surprised when that person breaks down.
This is what incomplete ideas cost at scale. Not in theory. In physical bodies.
In our leadership culture, what gets emphasized gets practiced. Which is the man. Thousands of pastors across this country absorbed the emphasis, not the footnote. They went into ministry believing that if they were exceptional enough, called enough, faithful enough, it would work. And when it didn’t, when the church didn’t grow, when the money ran out, when they woke up at 3 a.m. with their heart racing, they concluded the problem was them.
It wasn’t them. It was the model.
I personally walked into a church carrying a $300,000 structural deficit and no staff. I had a theory about what to do. The theory turned out to be right. But not because I was exceptional. Because I stopped trying to be the only person in the room and started building a room worth being in. That shift, from the Great Man to the Great Team, is the one that saved the ministry. And if I’m honest, probably saved me (Plus a decade of sitting in a classroom helped too).
The research on what makes teams actually work, and the practical steps to build one when you have no budget, is what Part 3 is about. But I needed to say this first. Because you can’t build a team if you still believe deep down that needing one is a sign of weakness.
It’s not. It’s a sign of clarity.
Maxwell isn’t wrong. The theory is just incomplete. And you’re allowed to complete the sentence.
Let’s create a path. I believe in you.
References:
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: James Fraser, 1841).
Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell et al., Duke Clergy Health Initiative, Duke Divinity School / Duke Global Health Institute, funded by The Duke Endowment, 2007–2023.
Jackson W. Carroll, Pulpit & Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership, Duke University Divinity School, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.
Duke University’s Clergy Health Initiative has been tracking pastor health since 2007. What they found should stop every bishop, every superintendent, and every denominational executive cold. Compared to the general population, clergy have significantly higher rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma, and depression. Depression symptoms at nearly double the national average. Seventy-eight percent of pastors are overweight or obese. The lead researcher, Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, identified the structural driver clearly: pastors internalize a mandate to care for others continuously, and in the absence of a co-pastor or team, they have no organizational permission to recover.
No co-pastor. No team. Same thing.
The Pulpit and Pew research project at Duke Divinity School, funded by the Lilly Endowment, corroborated this. Depression and obesity are two of the defining health signatures of solo pastoral ministry. Not spiritual failure. Structural failure. We built a leadership model that requires one person to carry what was designed to be carried by many, and then we’re surprised when that person breaks down.
This is what incomplete ideas cost at scale. Not in theory. In physical bodies.
In our leadership culture, what gets emphasized gets practiced. Which is the man. Thousands of pastors across this country absorbed the emphasis, not the footnote. They went into ministry believing that if they were exceptional enough, called enough, faithful enough, it would work. And when it didn’t, when the church didn’t grow, when the money ran out, when they woke up at 3 a.m. with their heart racing, they concluded the problem was them.
It wasn’t them. It was the model.
I personally walked into a church carrying a $300,000 structural deficit and no staff. I had a theory about what to do. The theory turned out to be right. But not because I was exceptional. Because I stopped trying to be the only person in the room and started building a room worth being in. That shift, from the Great Man to the Great Team, is the one that saved the ministry. And if I’m honest, probably saved me (Plus a decade of sitting in a classroom helped too).
The research on what makes teams actually work, and the practical steps to build one when you have no budget, is what Part 3 is about. But I needed to say this first. Because you can’t build a team if you still believe deep down that needing one is a sign of weakness.
It’s not. It’s a sign of clarity.
Maxwell isn’t wrong. The theory is just incomplete. And you’re allowed to complete the sentence.
Let’s create a path. I believe in you.
References:
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: James Fraser, 1841).
Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell et al., Duke Clergy Health Initiative, Duke Divinity School / Duke Global Health Institute, funded by The Duke Endowment, 2007–2023.
Jackson W. Carroll, Pulpit & Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership, Duke University Divinity School, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.
- Published on
I'm grateful to our friends at Influence Magazine for the opportunity to contribute to the leadership field. I had the chance to explore and define key economic realities, supported by practical case studies. Honored to be part of the conversation! Economic theology matters!
- Published on
January seems to be off starting with a boom. I just got the chance to write and article and podcast for Sam Chand's AVAIL The Art of Leadership Journal. It was a great gift, and I am quite glad to be able to help leaders sort through these through these complex economic theological concepts. Economic theology is not an easy field of study. Considering the ethical and anthropological theologies takes time; then, one applies the economic concepts and performs the calculations. It can be complicated. With these kinds of media opportunities, I hope and pray leaders understand and use these powerful concepts. Enjoy the podcast and article.
- Published on
A Few Thoughts
I've been thinking about this stuff for years. I don't do alot of writing on leadership. That's kind of my wife's space, Jennifer leads an amazing leadership foundation that trains on emotional intelligence as a practical skill set and her work is pretty incredible. So I try to stay out of that lane.
With that being said, leadership is always a practice that executives have to learn as well as some core management skills. Leadership and management are different. At the church and the foundation most of my work is in economics and theological leadership. It's really strategic thinking and practical application for other leaders. I tend to answer the question how do we make their vision possible, that's real strategy. Taking an idea and making it work.
Over the past year when I've been traveling, I've seen two things that I think we really need to bring our attention to as leaders. And frankly, I think we need to abandon them. They are what's called the Great Man Theory of Leadership and the Rule of the 49%.
Before we get into this, let me directly think out loud -- I am fully aware that these two types of leadership traits are of a boomer (I know ya'll tend to get picked on alot, so sorry) era of leadership. So overcoming them is probably gonna be a real challenge.
Here's what I hear all the time -- "There's not a pipeline of leaders coming behind the senior leaders." Well that's not true. All the church planting conferences, training symposiums and funding applications are all going great guns. So what's going on? The reality is there's a pipeline of younger leaders they're just not gonna work for the Great Man and live with the Rule of 49%. Sorry. They ain't working for you, or me for that matter. But they might work alongside ya?
The Great Man Theory of Leadership
In the 1800s, Thomas Carlyle who was a Scottish historian and intellectual is widely known as arguing that, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." This has given us the idea that, “Everything rises and falls on leadership”, marketed from John Maxwell’s pithiness who ultimately finds his intellectual roots in Peter Tufano and John Kotter of Oxford and Harvard respectively.
When we think about following leaders, I think we simply need to abandon the theory of, “We need to find the right guy.” and adopt a “Who is the best member of the team?” mindset. I'm thinking it would be better if we would strategize away from the “great man” to the idea that he/she would be a “great team” leader.
In practice, leaders need to be collaborative rather than directive.
I understand fully that the great man theory is the prevailing cultural milieu in our churches. I also understand that even some Gen X and Millennial leaders lead that way. Why? That's what was taught and modeled for them. Let's stop and think for a moment, can we admit that the collective experience has shown us that we need a new animated leadership theory for the Babylonian era that we now live in. Simply put, the old wines skins won’t hold the new wine.
The Rule of the 49%
The Rule of the 49% is an observation that I made during my time as a campaign manager for United States Congress, District 7 located in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey.
I call it the Rule of the 49% is when leaders tell you 49% of the truth in order to retain power by not giving all the information.
As an example, when a leader is asked a direct question not all of the information is devolved rather just enough information is given so that one has enough information in order to get in to action. Team members are not given context to make a solid decision. Rather team members on making decisions based on partial information of which they have partially interpreted so they have partial understanding toward partial outcomes. (In church life it's mostly simply to drive numbers for the weekend experience.)
This 49% is not an outright lie, but it is the conscience and deliberate decision to withhold information.
Let me be direct, it seems we would all be much healthier if we just abandon this era of leadership. Simultaneously, I do understand that the higher level of leadership, the more level of confidentiality. To this there is no argument.
In order to provide uber clarity, collaborative leadership would provide answers like:
“At this point, I really don’t know what to do so I’m going to rely on my team.”
“Is the answer in the room?”
“That is a great question, but I am in conflict with myself.”
“What do you think?”
“That’s a great question and I have several moving parts that I’m not at liberty to really say anything at this time. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear but that’s just kind of where I am as a leader.”
I am observing that it is time for a more collaborative leadership style rather than a directive, and one that shares appropriate level of information.
I've got a couple other leadership thoughts as I begin to work with large swath and styles of leadership in different kinds of context so I'll have some more thoughts in the next couple weeks.
Thank you so much for reading and leave me your thoughts below.
I've been thinking about this stuff for years. I don't do alot of writing on leadership. That's kind of my wife's space, Jennifer leads an amazing leadership foundation that trains on emotional intelligence as a practical skill set and her work is pretty incredible. So I try to stay out of that lane.
With that being said, leadership is always a practice that executives have to learn as well as some core management skills. Leadership and management are different. At the church and the foundation most of my work is in economics and theological leadership. It's really strategic thinking and practical application for other leaders. I tend to answer the question how do we make their vision possible, that's real strategy. Taking an idea and making it work.
Over the past year when I've been traveling, I've seen two things that I think we really need to bring our attention to as leaders. And frankly, I think we need to abandon them. They are what's called the Great Man Theory of Leadership and the Rule of the 49%.
Before we get into this, let me directly think out loud -- I am fully aware that these two types of leadership traits are of a boomer (I know ya'll tend to get picked on alot, so sorry) era of leadership. So overcoming them is probably gonna be a real challenge.
Here's what I hear all the time -- "There's not a pipeline of leaders coming behind the senior leaders." Well that's not true. All the church planting conferences, training symposiums and funding applications are all going great guns. So what's going on? The reality is there's a pipeline of younger leaders they're just not gonna work for the Great Man and live with the Rule of 49%. Sorry. They ain't working for you, or me for that matter. But they might work alongside ya?
The Great Man Theory of Leadership
In the 1800s, Thomas Carlyle who was a Scottish historian and intellectual is widely known as arguing that, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." This has given us the idea that, “Everything rises and falls on leadership”, marketed from John Maxwell’s pithiness who ultimately finds his intellectual roots in Peter Tufano and John Kotter of Oxford and Harvard respectively.
When we think about following leaders, I think we simply need to abandon the theory of, “We need to find the right guy.” and adopt a “Who is the best member of the team?” mindset. I'm thinking it would be better if we would strategize away from the “great man” to the idea that he/she would be a “great team” leader.
In practice, leaders need to be collaborative rather than directive.
I understand fully that the great man theory is the prevailing cultural milieu in our churches. I also understand that even some Gen X and Millennial leaders lead that way. Why? That's what was taught and modeled for them. Let's stop and think for a moment, can we admit that the collective experience has shown us that we need a new animated leadership theory for the Babylonian era that we now live in. Simply put, the old wines skins won’t hold the new wine.
The Rule of the 49%
The Rule of the 49% is an observation that I made during my time as a campaign manager for United States Congress, District 7 located in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey.
I call it the Rule of the 49% is when leaders tell you 49% of the truth in order to retain power by not giving all the information.
As an example, when a leader is asked a direct question not all of the information is devolved rather just enough information is given so that one has enough information in order to get in to action. Team members are not given context to make a solid decision. Rather team members on making decisions based on partial information of which they have partially interpreted so they have partial understanding toward partial outcomes. (In church life it's mostly simply to drive numbers for the weekend experience.)
This 49% is not an outright lie, but it is the conscience and deliberate decision to withhold information.
Let me be direct, it seems we would all be much healthier if we just abandon this era of leadership. Simultaneously, I do understand that the higher level of leadership, the more level of confidentiality. To this there is no argument.
In order to provide uber clarity, collaborative leadership would provide answers like:
“At this point, I really don’t know what to do so I’m going to rely on my team.”
“Is the answer in the room?”
“That is a great question, but I am in conflict with myself.”
“What do you think?”
“That’s a great question and I have several moving parts that I’m not at liberty to really say anything at this time. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear but that’s just kind of where I am as a leader.”
I am observing that it is time for a more collaborative leadership style rather than a directive, and one that shares appropriate level of information.
I've got a couple other leadership thoughts as I begin to work with large swath and styles of leadership in different kinds of context so I'll have some more thoughts in the next couple weeks.
Thank you so much for reading and leave me your thoughts below.
- Published on
Dr. Self, Dr Mostert, and myself discussing whole life disciples with leaders. (Richmond 2016)
So yeah I kinda wrote a book, with two other scholars, Dr. Charlie Self and Dr Johan Mostert.
Dr. Self and Dr. Mostert, started this project a number of years ago and asked me to come alongside them and provide some economic and business insights. It's been a real pleasure to write with them and do this research.
So what are we researching?
We're asking the question what are the dimensions of whole life discipleship?
Influence Magazine did a podcast interview with us where Charlie, Johan, and I all had a great conversation with George P Wood executive editor of Influence Magazine.
Click on the graphic below and you can listen to it -- tell me what you think in the comments.
Dr. Self and Dr. Mostert, started this project a number of years ago and asked me to come alongside them and provide some economic and business insights. It's been a real pleasure to write with them and do this research.
So what are we researching?
We're asking the question what are the dimensions of whole life discipleship?
Influence Magazine did a podcast interview with us where Charlie, Johan, and I all had a great conversation with George P Wood executive editor of Influence Magazine.
Click on the graphic below and you can listen to it -- tell me what you think in the comments.
- Published on
This article in PDF | By Donna Hein / Photo by David and Tiffany Photography
Victory Church in Yorktown, Virginia, is what Pastor Jamé Bolds would call an average, small-town church that has stewarded well the resources God has given them.
And it’s the principle of stewardship that stands out at Victory. Bolds is a visionary and scholar, who since coming to the church in 2013, has encouraged the congregation to step out of the box and find ways to be generous, especially when the church and its preschool, Victory School, were in the red.
Early on, Bolds floated the idea to sell the parsonage, which was paid for but still incurring debt, and create an endowment for the church. By doing so, the congregation reinvested part of the sale proceeds back into the church and started an endowment fund through Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing™ with the rest.
“People didn’t know what an endowment was, so I explained that it’s like a retirement savings vehicle for the church, which never retires,” says Bolds, a Thrivent client with membership.
As people donated or left money in their wills to the endowment, it grew quickly and enabled the church to pay off its mortgage of more than $1 million and eliminate the debt that was a burden to the church.
“It revolutionized our church,” Bolds says.
More recently, the church decided to offer a $1,000 scholarship for children who begin Victory School in the infant program and graduate from the Pre-K4 program. The Victory Scholar Program requires in its guidelines that the scholarship be deposited into a legitimate college savings plan.
“The family must meet with a Thrivent financial advisor or other licensed financial advisor to guide them through the process,” Bolds says. “We want to make sure the money is used for future educational purposes.
“This is a way we can invest in children’s lives after they leave us. And we can do that because we have an endowment.”
Bolds appreciates the relationship between Thrivent and Victory. Pre-COVID, Thrivent financial advisors held a number of workshops at Victory, and Bolds anticipates doing more.
“Asset management, money management and financial education, really understanding how money works, are the three big topics,” Bolds says. “And we get a great turnout. We’re really building this into the life of the church.”
And the financial clarity that comes from the education enables the congregation to have the culture of generosity it desires.
Click for a PDF of this article.www.thrivent.com/thrivent-winter-2021.pdf
Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing™, a separate legal entity from Thrivent, is a public charity that serves individuals, organizations and the community through charitable planning, donor-advised funds and endowments. Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing works collaboratively with Thrivent and its financial advisors.
Thrivent is the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Insurance products issued by Thrivent. Not available in all states. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Thrivent Investment Management Inc., a registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC, and a subsidiary of Thrivent. Licensed agent/producer of Thrivent. Registered representative of Thrivent Investment Management Inc.
Thrivent.com/disclosures.
Insurance products, securities and investment advisory services are provided by appropriately appointed and licensed financial advisors and professionals. Only individuals who are financial advisors are credentialed to provide investment advisory services. Visit Thrivent.com or FINRA’s Broker Check for more information about Thrivent’s financial advisors.
Also in this issue:Achieve work-life balance as financial advisor
Spread Christmas kindness
Thrivent clients put generosity in action
Victory Church in Yorktown, Virginia, is what Pastor Jamé Bolds would call an average, small-town church that has stewarded well the resources God has given them.
And it’s the principle of stewardship that stands out at Victory. Bolds is a visionary and scholar, who since coming to the church in 2013, has encouraged the congregation to step out of the box and find ways to be generous, especially when the church and its preschool, Victory School, were in the red.
Early on, Bolds floated the idea to sell the parsonage, which was paid for but still incurring debt, and create an endowment for the church. By doing so, the congregation reinvested part of the sale proceeds back into the church and started an endowment fund through Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing™ with the rest.
“People didn’t know what an endowment was, so I explained that it’s like a retirement savings vehicle for the church, which never retires,” says Bolds, a Thrivent client with membership.
As people donated or left money in their wills to the endowment, it grew quickly and enabled the church to pay off its mortgage of more than $1 million and eliminate the debt that was a burden to the church.
“It revolutionized our church,” Bolds says.
More recently, the church decided to offer a $1,000 scholarship for children who begin Victory School in the infant program and graduate from the Pre-K4 program. The Victory Scholar Program requires in its guidelines that the scholarship be deposited into a legitimate college savings plan.
“The family must meet with a Thrivent financial advisor or other licensed financial advisor to guide them through the process,” Bolds says. “We want to make sure the money is used for future educational purposes.
“This is a way we can invest in children’s lives after they leave us. And we can do that because we have an endowment.”
Bolds appreciates the relationship between Thrivent and Victory. Pre-COVID, Thrivent financial advisors held a number of workshops at Victory, and Bolds anticipates doing more.
“Asset management, money management and financial education, really understanding how money works, are the three big topics,” Bolds says. “And we get a great turnout. We’re really building this into the life of the church.”
And the financial clarity that comes from the education enables the congregation to have the culture of generosity it desires.
Click for a PDF of this article.www.thrivent.com/thrivent-winter-2021.pdf
Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing™, a separate legal entity from Thrivent, is a public charity that serves individuals, organizations and the community through charitable planning, donor-advised funds and endowments. Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing works collaboratively with Thrivent and its financial advisors.
Thrivent is the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Insurance products issued by Thrivent. Not available in all states. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Thrivent Investment Management Inc., a registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC, and a subsidiary of Thrivent. Licensed agent/producer of Thrivent. Registered representative of Thrivent Investment Management Inc.
Thrivent.com/disclosures.
Insurance products, securities and investment advisory services are provided by appropriately appointed and licensed financial advisors and professionals. Only individuals who are financial advisors are credentialed to provide investment advisory services. Visit Thrivent.com or FINRA’s Broker Check for more information about Thrivent’s financial advisors.
Also in this issue:Achieve work-life balance as financial advisor
Spread Christmas kindness
Thrivent clients put generosity in action
- Published on
Here's some reflection on the sabbatical that finished in the summer of 2021.
My hope is that it gives you a blueprint so that you can plan your pastoral sabbatical. It's a great time to rest and hear the word of the LORD.
Here's how my sabbatical went...
My hope is that it gives you a blueprint so that you can plan your pastoral sabbatical. It's a great time to rest and hear the word of the LORD.
Here's how my sabbatical went...
In the fall of 2019 I went to my board and I requested several weeks off during the summer of my daughters high school graduation. We have been at Victory Church 8 years now and I needed a sabbatical, I just needed some time to rest. I needed some time to reflect on our ministry and I needed to carve out some time to work on my Ph.D.
When I asked our board about it I was pleasantly surprised at how receptive they were about the whole idea. I asked my board if they knew what a sabbatical was? My one board member answered pretty quickly and I think summed it up so well -- he said, "Yeah, isn't a sabbatical where are you stop doing your main job and you go do another job that makes your main job better."
I was completely blown away because that's 100% right.
When I asked our board about it I was pleasantly surprised at how receptive they were about the whole idea. I asked my board if they knew what a sabbatical was? My one board member answered pretty quickly and I think summed it up so well -- he said, "Yeah, isn't a sabbatical where are you stop doing your main job and you go do another job that makes your main job better."
I was completely blown away because that's 100% right.
Sabbatical is not a multi-week vacation. It's a time to reflect, think, study and rest so you can get gear up for the next season of leadership.
Whew... And I need to rest and think about the whirlwind that we've been in for the past eight years. The Lord has been good to us at Victory Church. We have been able to architect a $4.5M revitalization in five (5) years. At completion we will have a $30M turnaround, 46 acres in two counties, two 501c3 nonprofits, a recreated preschool, a 100 unit retirement community, three (3) LLC’s, four (4) economic engines, all debt-free. I think I'm allowed to be tired.
Here's some real practical steps for planning a successful sabbatical:
1. Start Early & Get a Plan.
a.) Start Early. I worked with my board and leadership team a year before the proposed sabbatical. We mapped out every Sunday as to what guest or in-house communicator would be teaching that Sunday. We worked with the kids ministry and set up various summer events.
b.) Recruit a Leader. Now, in my case my co-lead pastor, my wife, Pastor Jennifer Bolds lead the church during the summer. I can hear the noise already, "OMG", "Your wife", "Such a cliché", and "Co-lead pastor", blah, blah, blah. Yah. So my wife, Jennifer Bolds is a Gordon-Conwell grad, a practicing marriage and family therapist, a leadership consultant who trains scientists and engineers how to use emotional intelligence as a practical skill set, and leads her own foundation plus she's a professional musician. So...if your wife can match that, great! If not, sit down. She did a great job and church grew by several families while I was gone.
Somebody else can lead while you're not there. Find a retired pastor, have one of your staff pastors, a denominational or network pastor to lead for the summer — it will be fine. Believe me they would love to pastor your church through a summer. They'll probably do it for free or really cheap. (For 8 weeks, I'd do it for like $250 a Sunday - It would be fun.)
c.) Get a Plan. I wrote up a schedule of every week and put everything in there. What I planned to produce, the church services I wanted to attend, family vacation and I even landed an office at a friends church across town.
2. Disappear. Here's the reality as a lead pastor you're important but you're not that important. Disappear and trust your sabbatical pastor to lead the church.
a.) Start Early. I worked with my board and leadership team a year before the proposed sabbatical. We mapped out every Sunday as to what guest or in-house communicator would be teaching that Sunday. We worked with the kids ministry and set up various summer events.
b.) Recruit a Leader. Now, in my case my co-lead pastor, my wife, Pastor Jennifer Bolds lead the church during the summer. I can hear the noise already, "OMG", "Your wife", "Such a cliché", and "Co-lead pastor", blah, blah, blah. Yah. So my wife, Jennifer Bolds is a Gordon-Conwell grad, a practicing marriage and family therapist, a leadership consultant who trains scientists and engineers how to use emotional intelligence as a practical skill set, and leads her own foundation plus she's a professional musician. So...if your wife can match that, great! If not, sit down. She did a great job and church grew by several families while I was gone.
Somebody else can lead while you're not there. Find a retired pastor, have one of your staff pastors, a denominational or network pastor to lead for the summer — it will be fine. Believe me they would love to pastor your church through a summer. They'll probably do it for free or really cheap. (For 8 weeks, I'd do it for like $250 a Sunday - It would be fun.)
c.) Get a Plan. I wrote up a schedule of every week and put everything in there. What I planned to produce, the church services I wanted to attend, family vacation and I even landed an office at a friends church across town.
2. Disappear. Here's the reality as a lead pastor you're important but you're not that important. Disappear and trust your sabbatical pastor to lead the church.
When I mean disappear, I mean literally disappear.
Don't post on Facebook, change your voicemail on your phone, don't answer texts, put an auto responder on your email.
Literally go away. Poof. Bye...Bye...You're away....Relax.
3. Get Paid. In all fairness, the reality is your church should continue to pay your salary and should probably give you a stipend for the summer. If your church is not going to fund your sabbatical you might wanna have a denominational official or a trusted pastor in the area come talk to your board. Also start fundraising, whatever you think you might need. Simply, go ask. It will come in...You can raise that money. There's more people out there that care about you than you think you know.
4. Plan for Outcomes. So at the end of a number of weeks what do you want to show for it? I personally don't think, and this just might be me, that sleeping in and some summer vacation pictures is a good stewardship of your churches finances. I mean heck, yeah I did all that... But not only that. You want to produce something.
5. Leadership Sessions. I've already contracted with the Jennings Leadership Group to have a 1 on 1 session with an organizational psychologist who did her PhD at Rutgers where the famed Daniel Goleman is a professor. Professor Goleman is the author of Primal Leadership, and godfather of emotional intelligence, and well that's a constant growth area for every executive leader.
6. Engage in "Fun" work. So I realize I'm kinda high strung. I totally get that, not every pastor is gonna be this ambitious but here's what I've planned in my sabbatical:
a.) Research and Write. I planned to finish chapter 3 in my Ph.D. dissertation which is about 35 to 40 pages in round numbers; this should give me a roadmap for the next phase of research. (I did accomplish this but it will take me until the end of September to clean and edit it.)
b.) Visit Other Churches. Since I'm not preaching at Victory; I went to see my friends churches. Every Sunday I would go to an 8:30am service at one church and then go to another church's service at 10 AM. All in all, I visited 14 Sunday morning services.
c.) Write a book. I know, I know I hear ya. But the popular book I'm writing flows out of the research for my Ph.D. so I'm killing two birds with one stone. I completed a book proposal and wrote 2 chapters.
d.) Go on Vacation. During my sabbatical I went to OBX with my wife for a couple days, we went on a family vacation to the islands, and we took a family trip to Boston to drop off my daughter at Gordon College. YIKES!
e.) Read. I read about 20-30 books in a 8 week time frame. That's a good mix of Ph.D. research books plus some leadership and some financial literacy save for retirement make money books.
f.) Crazy. If I could have gotten all that done, and that’s a big if, in the last 2 to 3 weeks, I planned to study for my certified business economist license. Why? Because I just think that would be cool to be a certified business economist and a practicing pastor. (What a nerd).
7. Have a “Re-entry” Plan. What do I mean by that? Your church people haven't seen you for a few weeks now and you just show up like everything's fine? Nope.
a.) Leaders. I'll connect face to face with my pastoral staff, board and leadership teams and communicate what I've learned and where we are going since I've come down from the mountain.
b.) Letter. I'm going to send a letter out letting people know that I'm back and inviting them to a new series called, "God Speaks!?" I'll outline some things that LORD told me and where the church needs to go.
c.) Coffee. On my first Sunday back we're going to have "Discover" at my house, which is time where visitors learn more about Victory. I'm also going to launch "Java with Jamé" where every Thursday morning from 7am-Noon I'm just going to camp at coffee shop and people can stop by.
All right well that was my sabbatical plan and the journey was amazing. The Lord really spoke to me and showed me so much. I'm forever grateful, thank you Victory Church.
4. Plan for Outcomes. So at the end of a number of weeks what do you want to show for it? I personally don't think, and this just might be me, that sleeping in and some summer vacation pictures is a good stewardship of your churches finances. I mean heck, yeah I did all that... But not only that. You want to produce something.
5. Leadership Sessions. I've already contracted with the Jennings Leadership Group to have a 1 on 1 session with an organizational psychologist who did her PhD at Rutgers where the famed Daniel Goleman is a professor. Professor Goleman is the author of Primal Leadership, and godfather of emotional intelligence, and well that's a constant growth area for every executive leader.
6. Engage in "Fun" work. So I realize I'm kinda high strung. I totally get that, not every pastor is gonna be this ambitious but here's what I've planned in my sabbatical:
a.) Research and Write. I planned to finish chapter 3 in my Ph.D. dissertation which is about 35 to 40 pages in round numbers; this should give me a roadmap for the next phase of research. (I did accomplish this but it will take me until the end of September to clean and edit it.)
b.) Visit Other Churches. Since I'm not preaching at Victory; I went to see my friends churches. Every Sunday I would go to an 8:30am service at one church and then go to another church's service at 10 AM. All in all, I visited 14 Sunday morning services.
c.) Write a book. I know, I know I hear ya. But the popular book I'm writing flows out of the research for my Ph.D. so I'm killing two birds with one stone. I completed a book proposal and wrote 2 chapters.
d.) Go on Vacation. During my sabbatical I went to OBX with my wife for a couple days, we went on a family vacation to the islands, and we took a family trip to Boston to drop off my daughter at Gordon College. YIKES!
e.) Read. I read about 20-30 books in a 8 week time frame. That's a good mix of Ph.D. research books plus some leadership and some financial literacy save for retirement make money books.
f.) Crazy. If I could have gotten all that done, and that’s a big if, in the last 2 to 3 weeks, I planned to study for my certified business economist license. Why? Because I just think that would be cool to be a certified business economist and a practicing pastor. (What a nerd).
7. Have a “Re-entry” Plan. What do I mean by that? Your church people haven't seen you for a few weeks now and you just show up like everything's fine? Nope.
a.) Leaders. I'll connect face to face with my pastoral staff, board and leadership teams and communicate what I've learned and where we are going since I've come down from the mountain.
b.) Letter. I'm going to send a letter out letting people know that I'm back and inviting them to a new series called, "God Speaks!?" I'll outline some things that LORD told me and where the church needs to go.
c.) Coffee. On my first Sunday back we're going to have "Discover" at my house, which is time where visitors learn more about Victory. I'm also going to launch "Java with Jamé" where every Thursday morning from 7am-Noon I'm just going to camp at coffee shop and people can stop by.
All right well that was my sabbatical plan and the journey was amazing. The Lord really spoke to me and showed me so much. I'm forever grateful, thank you Victory Church.
- Published on
- Published on
I was driving to my office on Monday morning when the phone rings. One of our church members tells me a family member tested positive for COVID, so they’re quarantined for 14 days. They call me back 45 minutes later and said they were let go from their job. A staff member walks into my office and says another one of our members is completely out of work because their company is shut down because of COVID. I get a call from an entrepreneur who says the market has virtually dried up – they’ve got zero work coming in.
It’s a terrible Monday morning. It may be true that COVID stole their jobs. But for a disciple, COVID can’t steal their vocation for their occupation.
COVID has exposed the gaps that have already existed in transformational and biblical discipleship. The reality is our mission as pastors is to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:12-16) not within the walls of our churches, but in the context of their work. If we don’t know what our people do to make a living the other six days, and how the characteristics of a disciple play out in the real world, I would suggest that we are in trouble. Public intellectual Charlie Self says, “We must prepare people with vocational clarity and occupational flexibility”.
Vocational clarity is about a sense of calling that every believer has heard from God about their specific purpose in the Kingdom. We have all been given unique gifts and talents and a divine design that benefits us, our families, our communities and as we seek the common good. As we think about vocational clarity we think about the dignity of our work and how that matters, but it goes much further than a job. It’s about the long game of who we are at the core, whether we are a big picture visionary, a detailed analyst, a relationship seeker, or a natural contributor. Vocational clarity also plays itself out in our mission with spouse and how our teamwork is guided by the Holy Spirit.
Occupational flexibility is about how our practical skill sets accomplish our vocational clarity. In other words, our occupational flexibility is how we use our hard skills in different and creative ways to adapt to changing market conditions like those posed by COVID-19. If your vocational calling is being an artist or being a creative thinker, your occupational flexibility is about using your hard skills in construction or woodworking, deck building, plumbing, designing organizations, solving very complex problems, applying digital algorithms, or working the budget so that there’s a dynamic financial velocity. Occupational flexibility is the practical and hard skill sets that can be applied as a master tile cutter, your brilliance on excel spreadsheets, economic modeling, electrical work, or solving complex legal problems. It’s the millwright who can machine at a very detailed level for minute tolerances to build a custom steam furnace. It is the discipline of expanding and honing your practical skill sets that creates your occupational flexibility.
When you have occupational flexibility, work becomes a matter of location and preference. You get to choose how you fulfill your vocational clarity and apply your occupational flexibility within the work that you are able to do. As a disciple we understand the divine design at a deep personal level creates vocational clarity. But the disciple also has to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to develop occupational flexibility. That’s when work is no longer a chore but a joy. Work then adapts to the location and context of what and where you want to spend your time.
The reality is COVID may have stolen your job, but nothing between heaven and hell can steal your God given vocation (i.e. your divine calling). Your occupation is a matter of navigating and honing your practical skill sets. Once you’ve achieved vocational clarity and you develop occupational flexibility with your practical and hard skill sets, your work becomes a creative act of worship unto God, and no virus can steal that from you!
The Discipleship Dynamics Assessment TM is a discipleship tool that allows you to measure your discipleship progress in four of the Discipleship Outcomes that are mentioned in this blog (see the Outcomes in italics).
Jamé Bolds, Ph.D. Candidate (Universiteit Stellenbosch) is the lead pastor of Victory Church, Yorktown, VA as well as an adjunct professor at Gordon-Conwell. He writes on Pastoring Faith, Work and Economics at jamebolds.com
It’s a terrible Monday morning. It may be true that COVID stole their jobs. But for a disciple, COVID can’t steal their vocation for their occupation.
COVID has exposed the gaps that have already existed in transformational and biblical discipleship. The reality is our mission as pastors is to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:12-16) not within the walls of our churches, but in the context of their work. If we don’t know what our people do to make a living the other six days, and how the characteristics of a disciple play out in the real world, I would suggest that we are in trouble. Public intellectual Charlie Self says, “We must prepare people with vocational clarity and occupational flexibility”.
Vocational clarity is about a sense of calling that every believer has heard from God about their specific purpose in the Kingdom. We have all been given unique gifts and talents and a divine design that benefits us, our families, our communities and as we seek the common good. As we think about vocational clarity we think about the dignity of our work and how that matters, but it goes much further than a job. It’s about the long game of who we are at the core, whether we are a big picture visionary, a detailed analyst, a relationship seeker, or a natural contributor. Vocational clarity also plays itself out in our mission with spouse and how our teamwork is guided by the Holy Spirit.
Occupational flexibility is about how our practical skill sets accomplish our vocational clarity. In other words, our occupational flexibility is how we use our hard skills in different and creative ways to adapt to changing market conditions like those posed by COVID-19. If your vocational calling is being an artist or being a creative thinker, your occupational flexibility is about using your hard skills in construction or woodworking, deck building, plumbing, designing organizations, solving very complex problems, applying digital algorithms, or working the budget so that there’s a dynamic financial velocity. Occupational flexibility is the practical and hard skill sets that can be applied as a master tile cutter, your brilliance on excel spreadsheets, economic modeling, electrical work, or solving complex legal problems. It’s the millwright who can machine at a very detailed level for minute tolerances to build a custom steam furnace. It is the discipline of expanding and honing your practical skill sets that creates your occupational flexibility.
When you have occupational flexibility, work becomes a matter of location and preference. You get to choose how you fulfill your vocational clarity and apply your occupational flexibility within the work that you are able to do. As a disciple we understand the divine design at a deep personal level creates vocational clarity. But the disciple also has to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to develop occupational flexibility. That’s when work is no longer a chore but a joy. Work then adapts to the location and context of what and where you want to spend your time.
The reality is COVID may have stolen your job, but nothing between heaven and hell can steal your God given vocation (i.e. your divine calling). Your occupation is a matter of navigating and honing your practical skill sets. Once you’ve achieved vocational clarity and you develop occupational flexibility with your practical and hard skill sets, your work becomes a creative act of worship unto God, and no virus can steal that from you!
The Discipleship Dynamics Assessment TM is a discipleship tool that allows you to measure your discipleship progress in four of the Discipleship Outcomes that are mentioned in this blog (see the Outcomes in italics).
Jamé Bolds, Ph.D. Candidate (Universiteit Stellenbosch) is the lead pastor of Victory Church, Yorktown, VA as well as an adjunct professor at Gordon-Conwell. He writes on Pastoring Faith, Work and Economics at jamebolds.com
This article was originally published on July 21, 2020 on Discipleship Dynamics, LLC blog.
Reprinted with permission. https://discipleshipdynamics.com/blog/
Reprinted with permission. https://discipleshipdynamics.com/blog/
