The Missing Role Behind Healthy Church Growth | Ep 29

Healthy churches do not grow because the pastor works harder. They grow when vision and execution are working together.
If you want help building the systems and team structure your church needs to grow, learn more about the RSG Mastermind here: https://www.readysetgrowchurch.com/pricing

In this episode, the Scott, Hunter, and Mark break down the difference between a visionary leader and a visionary driver—and why that relationship becomes essential as a church grows. This is not just about delegation. It is about building a leadership model that protects clarity, prevents team whiplash, and helps the pastor stay focused on the work only they can do.

They also unpack the hidden risks on both sides of the relationship: visionary leaders who move too fast, and drivers who can become resistant, pessimistic, or overlooked. If your church is growing and things feel harder to hold together, this conversation gives language and structure to what may be missing.

Healthy growth is not built by one person doing everything.
It is built when the right people are in the right lanes at the right time.

Timestamps:
00:00 The role most churches are missing
01:22 Visionary leader vs. driver (what’s the difference?)
03:14 The “whiplash effect” pastors create
05:30 Why great ideas fail without timing
07:16 The hidden challenges drivers face
10:27 How to handle new ideas without breaking your team
14:00 Why recognition matters more than you think
16:45 5 rules that keep vision and execution aligned
19:08 Why your team needs a united front
23:13 Who actually makes the final call?
29:05 How to apply this in your church

If you have a question or topic you’d like us to tee up on a future episode, email us at hey@readysetgrowchurch.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey my friends, today's episode is going to be a little bit different than usual. We recently recorded a brand new five shifts training, and this is part of our new mastermind that we've got, and it's really focused on a few of the specific changes or what we call shifts that you as a leader, your church is going to need to break through some of the most common growth barriers. So instead of just keeping it inside the mastermind, we wanted to pull out a few of those conversations and share them with you here. And that's what you're going to hear in this conversation to follow. If you want to go a little bit deeper on this, then you can find out more about the mastermind in the description below. All right, let's dive in. Healthy pastors function a lot better utilizing the visionary leader and visionary driver model.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, I 100% agree. I think that for every visionary, they need somebody to help integrate the vision into the actual everyday culture. And drivers in the visionary leader, which is usually just the lead pastor and executive pastor roles. Um I love this, like the visionary leader is saying, here's where we're going. And the visionary driver is really the one that's kind of like driving the bus to get us there because they're in charge of the execution. So when we really break this down and put um words to what has always been like a gut feeling of like, this is what an executive pastor does, this is what a visionary pastor, lead pastor does. Um, I think it really helps. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

So let's just say up front, if you don't have an executive pastor, let's say, man, we we're running 120 people, we don't have an executive. No, no matter what size you are, it it would be very helpful for you as a visionary leader of the church to have even a volunteer, a person on the board.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

You already have a number two, you've got someone that you lean on to help you execute on the vision. And that's what we're doing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, and really when I'm saying the executive pastor, that kind of profile in your head is what we're talking about here. A lot of times it's their spouse. Uh, we see that you see that a lot uh for people that are breaking 500 uh and beyond, even at higher levels. So let's break this down to like a uh a table to really explain the difference between a visionary leader and driver. So visionary leaders are focused on doing the right things. Hey, are we focused on the right things, the right things? We need to focus on the right things. The driver is more focused on doing things right. It's like, okay, yeah, you said we're gonna do this. Let's make sure that we're doing it really, really well, right? Visionary leaders are passionate about innovation. Are we doing something that doesn't exist? Are we making things better, right? Visionary drivers are more focused about harmony. Is the team working well together? Are things harmonious uh together? Visionary leaders are most likely to be the ones that make up ideas. Visionary drivers are most likely to make those ideas a reality. Visionary leaders study leadership and drivers study management. Leadership is more of like how do we take new ground to where we've never gone? Management is saying, how are we doing with the things we've already committed to? The leader is uh really seeing a desire to see the vision come to reality. What do you desire, visionary leader? I just want to see the vision come true, the vision that God gave me come true. Visionary drivers desire to see everyone working in alignment towards the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah. And I think especially if you're moving into a place where this is new to you, uh, this isn't the way you've been operating, there's gonna be some st uh specific challenges both for the leader and for the driver. So, what are some of the challenges a visionary leader might face in the implementation of this model?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah, I think there's a couple things. Uh let's just name three, which we probably could name 26. But number one is I think what is a challenge when, especially getting this dynamic visionary leader and a visionary driver, is they're quickly and easily bored. You're talking about the leader. The visionary leaders get quickly and easily bored. So, really what this looks like, I'll read it out. Usually, in response to boredom, they create the next big thing, right? And the team uh needs to work on this, and it's like, all right, I know we said we're gonna do this, but now we're doing this. We call that the whiplash effect that the uh visionary leader can do.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Not mad. We were just it got frustrating because I kept complicating issues by going around saying, Man, I got this new idea. Can I just let me tell you, what if we did this? I'm just dreaming, dreaming right now, just dreaming right now. But then people would walk away. And as the lead passer, my words have greater weight, I found. And so even when I'm sharing an idea or a thought, they're going, like, are we doing that?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, you walk out of the office and they're trying to figure out, wait, has he just reconfigured where we're going? I would say part of that was you actually trusted the team around you. So once you knew the team had it, you were able to then go on to the next thing. But you have to be careful about that as it's like.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

That felt great to present that, right? But now I'm probably not a part of the execution team to pull that off. The team is uh the driver and the team, support team around me are helping to pull that off. And I'm a little bored now. Yeah, I'm doing my things, but I want to see that thing again. You got to be careful that this isn't a place to entertain your boredom, it's a place to make an impact.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Um, the way we fixed that is we said, I I told you Mark was the driver, you were one of the drivers later on, but for years, for decades, it's been me as the visionary leader, you as the driver. I just made a commitment to you that if I ever had an idea, I could put it on my idea list or I could share it with you, but I wouldn't tell it to anybody else until we've gone through the process. In that time, what happens is the second one here that we've written down, we did this is we drive too hard. A leader, you a lot of times can drive harder than people can handle. Yes. And what would be like that is we made an agreement that if I shared that idea with you, you would then take it and work out, count the cost. How much time would this take? How much money would it take? All of this, because then that way I wasn't putting new things on the plate when the plate's already full. And we we we needed to have a plan on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

And and it's kind of you have to put yourself in the shoes of the execution team, not yourself. Well, I have space, so of course they have space. I'm the leader, yeah, right. But you you gotta understand that you might be the one that came up with the great idea, but it doesn't mean that you're the one that's pulling off the great idea. And that takes a lot longer. It doesn't mean that it's harder or easier or whatever. It's just different.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

It's like I also don't know how long it takes everything to happen or how much it costs. Yeah, and I'm going, look, man, we can do this, we can do this. And but I haven't, I don't even remember the three other things we're doing right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Well, it's not fair to keep pulling you down into the day-to-day execution because then that means we're pulling you off the mountain, so to speak, like Moses. And instead of uh always drawing you back down to the grassroots level, we want to keep you up there where you're hearing from God, you're getting the what and the why, and then we can figure out as a team and as a driver the how and when it can be executed.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And and what we're not saying here, just to get this really clear, we don't want the visionary leader to not have a vision. Yes. We're just saying the timing matters. So when you're integrating this, the reason we're even bringing this up is lean on your driver, lean on the person that's helping you to solve the first two challenges. When you're quickly and easily bored, present the ideas to them first and they'll tell you if the timing's right. Number two, driving hard for most people, they're the ones that are gonna probably be leading the execution on everything else. They'll tell you if the plates are full. And then number three is for a lot of lead passers, they're scared about implementing a visionary driver and uh raising up to higher elevations uh vision, which is so exciting, but it also forces you to leave behind some of the things that you felt like I'm the best at.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

You can't get into the minutiae as much. You have to allow that there's other people going to be extending the vision a little bit for you.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

For visionary leaders, there is a reluctance to let go because you think that I'm the best one to do this and I want things to be high quality around me.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Or it also could be an insecurity that I struggle that if I let you lead this meeting and you're the driver leading the meeting, that it may mean that I look like I'm not competent. What am I gonna do now? Yeah, what am I doing when really it's empowering you is also releasing me to to be at another level of what I'm doing. But if people don't have a concept of releasing so I can go to another level, releasing means I have nothing and I'm not important, then it can be it triggers your insecurity.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

This is a huge thing, is the reason that you are delegating the execution stuff to a driver is not to get more lazy. If you release it and don't refill it, that might be lazy. It's like I'm not trying to do less work because like I don't want to work hard. That is not the psyche that we're going after. Right. You're buying back your time through another person so that you can work on things that give you a high amount of energy and provide the biggest ROI investment with your time. So you're buying back your time to do things that only you can do.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Okay, so those are some of the leader challenges, but I I would bet there's some driver challenges as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Totally. And so, in this, the number one is uh a challenge for a driver is what we call innovation resistance. So, in this, when the visionary has more time to dream, what do you think they're gonna do? They're gonna dream and have more ideas. And the challenge is gonna be dude, uh, we don't need a new thing to do. We already have so many things that we're already doing, right? This is the driver's first impression of ideas. And you wanna know what breaks this whole system. Idea people hate going to people that don't like their ideas, or at least don't hear them out. If they already have a bias to uh, I'll hear it, but you we're not doing it.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, we've already said yes to all of these other things. I don't want to tell you my idea.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, I don't want to tell you my idea. I'm gonna go to somebody else, and that breaks the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

It's a mutual respect that you have for each other that says, I can't wait to yeah, I mean you got an idea, I can't wait to hear it, because you always come up with great stuff. And then you can say that when you resp when you respect that I'm respecting you and I'm not gonna do it out of timing, out of order. I'm gonna respect the process.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

What I found inside of this is everybody wants to work for an organization that's innovative. What people have a hard time with is the timing of implementation of the ideas. Everybody wants to work for Apple or Tesla or Pixar. Or a church that's on the cutting edge. It's the cutting edge. Everybody is like, yeah, I want to be a part of that, right? It's only the only time they get resistance is you've already told me 10 things I need to do. Are you really adding three more? It's just timing. So you can go in without the resistance of a driver being like, what you said, dude, I can't wait to hear this idea. You always come up with great ideas. I can't wait to find the right time to implement this.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yep. And I think I think the key for that, uh, at least for me, uh, if I would say there is a pro tip, anytime my heart rate would elevate when you come in with new ideas or hey, I thought about this. If I felt my heart rate going up, that was an indication to me that I needed to lean in and listen with clarity. Otherwise, I would start trying to fix the problems or figure out, hey, do we have time for this? So in those moments, it's not for me to figure out, do we have time for this or should we do this? It's for me to lean in and go, let me be really, really clear. And so I would ask questions and get clear. And then that way my heart and your heart could be connected on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

I think a lot of times, too, is just a pro tip on that pro tip is mostly pastors are unorganized. And so the reason they want to tell you their idea as soon as they have it is because they're scared they're gonna lose it. So you don't need to fix the problem. All you need to do is say, I captured it, I got it, and I'll bring it back up when the timing's right in our next growth plan. It's good. That's it. And so next one is a challenge is pessimism. Pessimism is this lingering ache in the driver's heart when they have to be considered as like the bad cop or the whole poker or like, man, no one else is gonna say anything. Every everyone else is a yes man. So like I'm gonna have to say something.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

I better put I've got somebody's gotta protect the organization from all of this new vision, these new ideas. Because if I don't do it, no one else will. Yeah, that's that's that's gonna mess you up.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

And so, Dad, I'd love for you to talk about how there's a tendency to want the executive pastor to kind of put like their arms in front of the pastor and be like, I need to create a separation.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I don't need anybody to protect me from the organization. I love the organization. Uh uh, you know, and what basically what it is is it's this relationship that has a mutual respect. I respect what it what you're having to do is your job. I need that. You respect me, and we validate each other. And I want to lift you up and the organization, not as the whole poker of man, we could do so, you know, but you mean he's always telling me I can't do things. Don't make those jokes. Don't say that. I don't say jokes about how you won't let me do anything or this type of deal. That first of all, if I say you won't let me do anything, that doesn't make you look bad. It makes me look, it makes you look bad and me look bad, like I'm the weakling.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Well, it explains who doesn't it plants ideas and thoughts in the rest of the team, even though you and I were we were like this, dude. We were close, but we don't do any ideas in a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

I want to lift you up of man, hey, I love it that every time we have an idea, we as a team are able to count the cost, figure out what to do, prioritize it, and God tells us when to do it and how to do it. We can't lose the God factor on this thing. If I'm getting an idea, is it my idea or God's idea? And if it's just a good idea, I don't have a lot of room as we get bigger to do good ideas. We got ideas and God will give us the timing.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

And we're gonna talk about this in the five rules of engagement, but a lot of this is the pessimism and the hole poking come in because, dude, I gotta the the trains are the wheels are spinning and we're going and we're moving down the track, and I have to say, halt, stop. And usually that happens when pastor doesn't have a space to present ideas and things and decisions to the executive pastor or to the driver, whatever the role is, or the spouse, whatever, um, before they talk about it to the team. And so they have to publicly be the whole poker in instead of having a a one-stop shop where they present all ideas and they can do it at the right timing. Yeah. All right. Next one is bitterness. Um, bitterness really happens for the driver because uh a lot of the recognition externally goes to the lead pastor when behind the scenes they might be feeling to themselves, dude, like I was the one that led that whole team. I was the one that did that, but everyone keeps saying, like, Pastor, you're so amazing. Pastor, you're so good at this.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

And that's where as a lead pastor, I've got to be aware of that and give recognition. I need to continue to recognize and to honor. Every time I recognized you and honored you and talked about the greatness, and there's no way we could pull this off without Mark. Man, I don't even know what I would do without Mark. It not only empowered you and fueled you, you like filled your tank of recognition, but it also in I was enabling you to handle things at a higher level because everybody goes, like, I don't have to talk to Scott, I can talk about what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

The encouragement was a door opener for me into other rooms and other ways of thinking a lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

I don't think it does anything to lose credibility as a lead pastor by giving recognition to other people because it looks like you're humble and it looks like wow, pastors built a great team.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Well, actually, it doesn't just look at it, it means I am. I I I think anybody who is is saying, Hey, I don't just pass out compliments is a person of insecurity. It's a person who's saying, if I compliment you, somehow I lost something from me. Like if I make everybody think you're so great, then what is anybody going to think about me? Yeah. That's that's a place of insecurity. When you are secure, you're constantly wanting to encourage everybody and to build everybody up. And don't think, hey, guess what? If he's unbelievable and he's on the team with me, what does that make me somebody he thinks is unbelievable?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah. So I think the key on that bitterness piece is that if God has called you to be a driver to a lead pastor, a visionary leader, you need to own the role that God has given you. It's kind of like the John the Baptist. Hey, look, a person has only that which is given to him from heaven. So if God called you to that role, then you can rest in that role without feeling like you have to be elevated.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

And in this too, it's like thinking in a we mindset, not a me mindset. Right. It's us that won. Yeah. It's not, it's our church that won. It's because of your generosity, we won. Like it's all it's us, not me.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

So there's engagement happening between the visionary leader, the visionary driver. What are some of the key rules? I know we have five rules really that help engage.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Let's start with the first one, and and I'd love to go back and forth on this. Number one is stay on the same page. How do you stay on the same page uh as visionary leader, visionary driver?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

I think we had to have well, you know, we'll talk like me and you because that's what we did for decades. Is we had a official uh formal intersection of meeting. We met every week at this time, let's say Monday at nine, something like that. And and when we'd met, it would be, hey, here's everything I need to tell you that's in my mind and my thoughts, my ideas, or whatever. And then that's when you would say, Here's what I need to tell you, here's what decisions I need to be made. Here's the tendency. I think sometimes you can get like we're on the same page, and so you get in your mind, I don't need a formal intersection, hey, we don't need to meet, I'm too busy. Hey, we you know, we we can talk later or whatever. Especially if you're listening right now and and and your your uh driver is your spouse, you can really get mixed up with your roles of we talk all the time, I'll tell you tonight at dinner. And man, you don't want to do that stuff. You want to when when it's time for leader, visionary, leader, visionary, driver talk, you need to have that hat on. You have your driver hat versus your spouse hat on.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, and I think it's okay to recognize sometimes that assumption is that, hey man, our hearts are good. We're together in this. But that's different than head. Head is the information, the details, the things that you might not know because you weren't in these rooms and I might not know because I weren't in those, I wasn't in those rooms. Let's get that information out and let's make sure it's formal that we don't miss anything.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

You gotta have a formal time because there can be informal times. But you gotta have a formal time to even check. Hey, what do I need to be telling Mark? What do I need to tell Mark? What do I need to make sure Mark knows? What do I need to remember to tell him? It's it's getting my mind in the place of it doesn't mean it has to be an hour, but we will do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, we're gonna do it. There's a lot of things that can go wrong by not having it. It's really easy to have a 10 minute.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

And by the way, as the leader, you may think, I don't need it, I'm good. What does that have to do? You're that's selfish. You need it.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

And I need you to need it. You know, I want to be there for you.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Okay, so the both, so both of them are getting together, but then there's some front facing to the rest of the the community or the people that are on the team creating.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

This is how I like to say it is we want to have a united front, not a divided front. Yeah. Can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Well, I think at at home it would be like, you know, how there can be a tendency as mom said something, you came to me and said, Hey, can I ask you something? And and I needed to make sure, did you ask mom about that? Or let me talk to mom because I didn't want it to be you are playing us against each other. The same way. We don't want anybody. I never let somebody come to me who went to Mark and got a no, so they want to come ask me. Well, I'll go ask God, he'll say yes. No. Never, never, never, never. I would always say, Did you talk to Mark about that? Always. Nobody should be coming to talk to me. Everybody should be talking to you unless it's a personal deal. Hey, could you pray with me about someone with my family or something like this? A pastoral deal. So I didn't let people skip, but I also did it in front of everybody. I always made it where that's the man. Yeah. He knows what's going on. Ask him. If he needs to talk to me about it, he'll talk to me about it. If he says no, it's no. And I always did that up front. I also said, I'm not gonna answer you until I talk to Mart. Yeah.

unknown 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

That's what I mean. All right. Next up is anchor yourself to the shared vision. So here's how I want to like tee this up. So the visionary and the driver think differently. One's more execution focused. We talked about this, and one's more of like a dreamer type mode. And so there's a lot of times where this could cause like frustration of like, hey, we're telling you no, or we're telling you slow down.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

And we're getting to the same outcome, but maybe different. Approaching it.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah. And I think that's what is is the the key here is uh exactly what you just said, as we're approaching it differently, but we want the same thing. So inside of this, what I like to think about is first off, I want to give each other the benefit of the doubt. You're not against me, and I'm not against you. I'm not trying to win at the expense of you losing. It's a we, we're a team together. Um, next up is someone needs to take the initiative, intense moments to break the ice and almost like do a T with your hand and be like, hey, hold on, time out, time out, time out, time out. Let's just remind ourselves we're on the same team. We want the same thing, right? And and number three is the driver is an extension of the leader's heart and desires. Mark, can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, the the key thing that I always wanted to recognize. About myself, and I wanted to paint the picture for the rest of our team is that whatever gifting set I have, whatever skills I have, and whatever I'm doing to uh execute on the vision is actually an extension of you as the pastoral visionary leader. Okay, it's not a separate lane. I'm actually extending your reach, your heart, and your desire at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Which is a very different approach than thank God I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah. And I don't want anybody on the team to think in their mind, thank God Mark's here. No, you and we even had this conversation. I mean, there's a number of instances. And one of the times I just said, look, I always want you to understand whatever you think I'm doing here, I'm doing because this is Scott's heart. This is his mind. This is his desire. And I have a unique skill set to expand and extend what's already in his heart.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Which really goes to the next part, and I'd love for you to share on this, Dad, is lane comfortability. How can you be comfortable in your lane and in your lane?

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I think this is why even I talk all the time about going to counseling. Because I think if you're not as a leader, if you're not secure, you're not gonna just have a hard time delegating. You're gonna have a hard time recognizing them, and you're gonna have a hard time being comfortable in your lane. You're gonna keep thinking, I gotta be in every lane because I got to be seen as the expert. No, I'm I'm the one who's trying to, God, where are we going and what are we doing? Cast a vision, move on it, encourage, inspire, all of that. I need somebody by me who is doing the efficiency and doing making it happen and the execution. And so being comfortable in my lane means I'm comfortable being you being in your lane and I'm not gonna get in your lane. I'm not gonna get on your side of what needs to happen, and you're not gonna get on my side of it either. We're gonna work together as a duo.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I think uh in in this too, you want to uh limit the amount of trump cards uh because that is you're saying I'm stepping into your lane and I don't care. I'm gonna trump card you.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah, well, what you mean by a trump card is that y'all actually at one time gave me like two cards. Yeah, but they were basically you said, Listen, we're saying yes. We don't say no to you. You're the pastor who's accountable to God to where we're going, what we're doing. So we're not saying no. We are saying, hey, just know if we say yes to this, we're saying no to other things that we already said yes to. And so we're cool with that if you need to pull a trump card or a God card and say, hey, we're doing we are doing this, we are changing this. Which but I wouldn't, I I don't even remember ever using it.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

You probably never officially used it.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah, and you know what it is is it's you recognizing I'm carrying a weight that is God's the responsibility to do everything I can to do what God I feel like God's tell me to do. But knowing that you're recognizing that made me never want to use that.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah, the experiment that we ran was basically cool, you can pull a trump card or a God card, but we're gonna give you three. Can you do three? Okay, three sounds good. Let's try that on for this season, and then we can reset at the end of the season. And you actually never use them. You just never used them. All right. Last one here is if there is a debate or if there is a frustration, the visionary leader is the tiebreaker.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah, so that's what we're talking about, even on the God card is if there's some kind of disagreement, like, hey, I don't think we should do that right now, and I go, listen, I appreciate what you're saying, I hear what you're saying, and what you're saying is valid. Okay, so I'm validating you as your person, your role, respecting what you're doing, and I'm saying, I gotta make a tough decision here. This is what we're gonna do. And then at that point, you say, Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yep. In even imperfect motion is better than a stalemate and we do nothing. And so in this, we might not you might not have gotten it 100% right. And maybe you're not sitting there in the background being like, see, I told you so. Like we can disagree and commit.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Well, and what it is is I always wanted to bring my full perspective and not hold anything back. And you did, you invited that. Once I shared my po uh full perspective, I know that you have to give an account first. You're first in line. And the gap between first in line and then the rest of us on the team is actually huge. And so owning that and recognizing that, I'm like, okay, he's first in line. That's what he's sensing the Lord wants to do. And if that's not like some kind of moral deal breaker, yeah, then now my heart is fully committed to executing.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

We don't want to end in analysis paralysis where it's like, well, we don't disagree, so I guess we're not doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

And I'm not waiting in the wings, no, wanting to prove uh, well, he's gonna find out that we're gonna do the best we can.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

But here's here's why I think this is important. Because if we've made a decision, okay? So, like I said, hey, here's what I want to do in this next cycle or this next season, right? And then you're executing it and you're doing it. So what you're doing is you're even helping me with my calendar and helping me with, hey, we're gonna put you need to do this. And if I'm not doing it, you'll come to you and say, Hey, are are you gonna have time to do this? You need to get this done because everybody else is waiting on this. If I, if some kind of change happens and I say, Hey, we're not, then you can't, well, no, you can't do that. You can't tell me what I can't do. You're helping me to do it. Otherwise, the reason why I'm saying that is it can become a frustration that goes like, you feel responsible to make sure I stay on task, and I'm saying you're not my boss. Okay. So that's where we have to get clear on what is it that we're doing right now. I will be responsible for where I'm going and what I'm doing. You're gonna be responsible for the execution, and we're gonna keep talking back and forth to make sure we're on the same side. We're serving one another.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

All right, let me give you a little rapid fire round. We can go real quick on these, okay? Can the same person be both the visionary leader and the driver?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yes or no? Well, in some ways, I think that it's possible. It's just not possible for very long to really play that out. And from the Bible, we see most big initiatives is there were people that were on the team. It was no solo acts.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Exactly. You have even Jesus himself had disciples and he even had the three. He gave them execution orders to go do. And so, yes, I think there may be a season that if you're in a if you're in a church that you don't have a bunch of staff and you have somebody, you're you're you cannot, you may have to be the visionary leader and driver when it comes to something, but you're going to uh uh but you're going to try to create opportunities to disciple people in your church to be drivers in certain areas.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yeah. So in this, you might be a quote unquote solarpreneur right now, but as you build out a team, what kind of roles do you need? Well, are you going to lean more towards the visionary leader side or the driver side? And those are the things that you need to fill in as you go. Number two, what if our church already has an executive pastor? Does that mean that they're the driver?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yeah, I think that's an easy default, that that's that's a likely possibility. Uh as your church grows, that's not always uh exactly how it's going to be. Think of the driver as the person who has the most skill, the most capacity and ability to execute vision. And that may or may not be your executive at this point. But oftentimes that's the default.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Number three is at what size church? Is there like a decent like, hey, once you hit 300, you need to, or is there like a at what size church should I get a driver? Well, you kind of brought that up.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

I mean, regardless of the thing, no matter what size you're trying to decide. I think we're thinking about discipleship here and getting somebody who can come alongside of you to execute on things. It may be, hey, Sunday morning setup. I've been in there doing the chairs and lining them up and getting everything clean and washing the but you know what? Maybe we could get a driver in that deal. You know, set up and tear down for setup and teardown. And I'm letting them know what I want. They're doing it. We're having interactions. Hey, could we change the chair? I think we need more chairs. You get what I'm saying? And so I think at any size, there may come a time where you say, hey, we're kind of coming to a place in size where I need a full-time driver and bring time, part-time report.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

And we go from there.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Okay, cool. So let's jump into activation. So we've unpacked this pretty deeply for you guys. I think it's gonna be a benefit to you. So two steps on the activation. Number one, determine who's the driver, who is the person that I want to take on this journey with me to help execute. And then secondly, establish a clear rhythm of when you guys are going to do your formal intersection and you're gonna meet up and then just get after it.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, I think final advice on this is try this on. And it might feel awkward at first because you were the person that was doing everything. And when you do this and build this rhythm, you're gonna find that I'm not trying to uh get rid of stuff and leave empty space where I'm becoming lazy. I'm trying to refill it back in with the visionary leader on the things that have the highest return on investment. Any final thoughts from you?

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah, I think you're just trying to do the things that only you can do, and that everything else, somebody else is doing it.