Executive Pastor Competencies Paper

Competencies of the Executive Pastor In the last fifty years, the Christian church in America experienced great change and redefinition. That time period saw the rise of so-called mega-churches, religious communities with large congregations and footprints that dwarfed their historically small counterparts (Kiel, 2012). With attendance rolls in the thousands, these organizations necessitated a new leadership model and could not rely on the single traditional model of a single senior pastor (SP) providing every component of preaching, pastoral care, and organizational leadership. Enter the executive pastor (EP), an executive leader charged with staff management, organizational leadership, and a varying set of pastoral duties in support of the

Blanchard and Thacker (2013) define competency as a group of related knowledge, skills, and attitudes that set high performers apart from ordinary performers. Since executive pastors fill a trifold role as executive to employees, assistant to the senior pastor and board of elders, and shepherd to churchgoers (Fletcher, 2004), competencies can be categorized across those three areas.

Executive

As an executive, the EP provides organizational leadership to large churches, coordinating various departments and subordinate managers. EPs motivates and empowers employees. Religious institutions rely on goodwill at every level and an EP’s ability to inspire and enable employees is antecedent to organizational success. Moreover, an executive pastor requires competencies in change management, project management, and problem solving. This author possesses competencies here, but must continue to hone them to be a successful as an EP.

For this role, the EP supports and implements the vision laid out by a senior pastor and must be competent in strategic planning and implementation. Because the executive pastor assists the more visible and public leader in a church, the position demands an attitude content with supporting behind the scenes and necessarily facilitating the success other people. EPs need to be loyal, supportive, and complementary to their senior pastor. The complementary nature of these roles means that some requisite competencies for an executive depend on those possessed by their senior pastor. Thrives on supporting, assisting, and enabling the goals of visionaries, this author possesses core competencies as an assistant that can be further cultivated over the course of a career towards being an executive pastor.

Shepherd

Lastly, consider the pastoral portion of an executive pastor’s role. They serve as a spiritual leader, mentor, and figure in their religious community. Thus, the EP must have a core set of KSA here, beginning with a concrete knowledge of theology, that is, the intellectual beliefs and theories behind religion. Next, they need the skills of pastoral leadership and counseling, two areas demanding commensurate attitudes and abilities of perception, sensitivity, wisdom, and emotional intelligence. In these areas, I fall short of competency and require development, experience,