The elders believe that moving from illness to fitness will
require major staff and facility growth.
The facility details will be explored later this year, but the elders
are agreed that in light of Minot’s current real estate market, it may make sense
to remain on our current land as a present main site and future south site and
maximize it as much as possible (including expansion in areas of office, c.e.,
nursery and possibly sanctuary space as well as exterior solutions/updates)
using the proceeds from selling part of our land. This would allow us to move forward with
significant staff hires (generated by our regular income) and still address our
facility needs.
Phase one of our strategic vision will take us into a new
pastoral staff paradigm needed to posture ourselves for growth and maximum
ministry impact into the future. Thus
far in the history of our church, we have had pastors who were ministry
generalists, i.e. though they didn’t do all the ministry in the church, but they
were ultimately responsible for ensuring that it got done; and if there was no
one else to do it, they did it.
Generalist ministry hinders both pastoral health (they are not able to
pour into their areas of giftedness and draw reasonable boundary lines) and
church growth (they can only reasonably oversee so much ministry before
ministry balls get dropped). In such a
system, growth is only sustainable to the maximum point of that person’s
capacities.
We believe greater health and growth for Trinity will be
attained by moving away from seeing any pastoral staff as ministry
generalists. Rather, creating
specialized staff positions which limit their ministry focus, allow them to
operate in areas in which they thrive and balance each other will posture us
for maximum health and growth. Thus far
in our strategy, we’ve believed that the best starting point in this new staff
configuration was to shift Andy’s generalist (Senior Pastor) role into a
specialist role which maximize his gifts (Lead Pastor of Teaching and
Theological Vision), and introduce a ministry partner (Executive Pastor) who
together would form an Executive Staff Team and form the ‘senior staff’ hub of
the ministry wheel as the church prepares to expand into phases two and
three.
As many know, the XP search has been challenging, as we
anticipated that it would. Given the
broad and deep nature of the job description (which some have termed as
‘Superman’), the optimal candidate would be asked to do more than is reasonable
or healthy for any single pastor. The
SC has also discovered that the vast majority of men who are qualified for this
position are unwilling to relocate to Minot for various reasons.
By His Providence, we believe God may be opening a door
which would provide an ideal solution.
Through this search process not one but two men have risen to the fore with
complementary gifts and personalities and we believe that both men serving at
Trinity alongside Andy would form a kind of pastoral dream team which would
advance ministry significantly – far more than an ultimate XP could do. Again, at this point we doubt that the
ultimate XP role which we’ve been trying to fill would be realistic or
healthy. Therefore, we are recommending
that Trinity allow our search committee to explore bringing both men on staff. At least during our season of single sight
growth in health, all three positions would function together as an executive
staff team:
(disclaimer: the follow position descriptions are
approximate and still in process of final formation)
1. Lead Pastor of
Teaching and Theological Vision (Andy)
·
Trinity’s primary Bible student/teacher/preacher
over the church as a whole
·
Primary theological/ministry discipler of the
elders and other pastoral staff
·
Chief architect of Trinity’s philosophy of
ministry and strategic mission vision
·
Trinity’s chief theological thinker, spokesman
and writer, seeking to weave gospel-centrality into every aspect of ministry
·
Nurturing/modeling a life of leadership prayer
·
Areas of occasional ministry will include
select:
o
Counseling
o
Discipleship of prospective elders
o
Weddings, Funerals, baptisms, etc.
o
Leadership in Minot’s Christian community
o
Mentoring younger pastors from other churches
2. Pastor of Ministry
Development with a view toward eventually moving into an Executive Pastor
role when Trinity goes multi-site and begins hiring campus pastors and other
ministry personnel (worship leaders, etc.).
·
The church’s chief leadership/ministry
development strategist
·
The strategic catalyst toward practical implementation
of the vision
·
The strategic trainer of staff
·
Hire, manage and develop all administrative staff
·
Create efficient and helpful systems for all
church operations
·
The designer of the small group system and
trainer of small group leaders
·
The designer of our Christian education system
and trainer of CE leaders/teachers
·
The designer of our outreach and assimilation system
·
The operational representative of and to the
elder board
·
Oversee all fiscal, facility and policy
operations of the church
·
Oversee all operational ministry teams
·
Oversee all operational aspects of the gathering
of the church body
·
He will ‘mastermind’ our local multisite and
regional church planting strategy
·
He will always seek to know where every person
in the church is at in the assimilation/growth/ministry process
3. Pastor of Care and
Connection with a view toward eventually moving into a Campus
Pastor/Pastoral Mentor role in which he would both lead his own campus and care
for other campus pastors and staff members.
·
The pastoral caretaker of the staff
·
Overseer of all pastoral care systems for the
church
·
The leader of the deacons and crisis care
ministries
·
The pastoral representative of and to the elder
board
·
The mentor/shepherd of small group leaders and CE
leaders/teachers
·
The leadership ‘face’ of Trinity’s outreach and
assimilation strategy
·
The mentor/shepherd of worship leaders/teams
·
The staff person ultimately responsible for
weddings, funerals, baptisms, dedications and the counseling ministry of the
church (until we go multi-site)
·
He would always seek to know how every person in
the church is doing in their spiritual/personal health and growth in the gospel
At this point, there are still some unknowns. Both would need to go through the
candidating/vetting process and be elected by the members of the church. What we’re trying to determine as we make this
proposal is whether or not our members agree with the elder board and search
committee that this configuration would so position Trinity for optimum
ministry health and growth that it is worth taking a step of faith and
budgeting toward in November.
Thinking about finances, by God’s grace we are doing very
well and running a substantial surplus for 2012. Though we cannot at this time say exactly
what both salary packages would total, an educated average would be around
$70K. That translates to $2,700
additional income per week. In 2012, we
have been taking in around $900 surplus each week, which leaves about $1,800
more we would need to be given each week to cover these additional salaries. We currently have 97 giving units in our
directory. If just 40 of those giving
units gave an additional $45 per week, it would be covered. If 80 families/singles gave an additional $23
per week, it would be covered. So, this
seems quite do-able. Also, it is highly
likely that these new staff positions will both help attract and retain new
families which will grow our giving base.
We see these potential hires as ministry investments which will
eventually pay for themselves and then some.
Up front other costs would be needed to put these staff members in place
(computers, etc.), but we do have sufficient funds in savings to cover those
costs.
The elders and search committee only want to move forward
with this proposal once we know most in the congregation are behind it. Therefore, we’d love to hear your questions
and feedback. Please call or email any
elder. Thanks so much!
