LEAD PASTOR AUTHORITY

The Lead Pastor serves under the leadership of the Church Experience Senior Pastors and CE Senior Leadership Team. The local Lead Pastor is the primary leader at a CE campus and responsible for fully implementing the mission, vision, passions, and these CE Essentials locally!

WHATEVER IT TAKES

At the top of every CE ministry description at every location is our passion, “Whatever It Takes.” That is the best statement to describe the role briefly. The following is a more detailed outline of the role and expectations of a CE Lead Pastor. We expect Lead Pastors to honor God by maintaining health in every area of life such as their spiritual life, family/friendships, personal rhythms, boundaries, physical health, personal finances, and how they manage their time, tasks, and calendar. We expect Lead Pastors to treat our church like family and train them like an army!

PRAYER

We aggressively pray and fast for CE as a whole and the campuses we lead. We continually pray for spiritually lost people to be found, spiritual growth of our church family, leaders to be raised up, financial provision, protection, and for God to fill the seats and fill up the people in those seats with His presence. We prayerfully seek God’s heart as we envision future initiatives. We pray for CE as a whole, our senior leaders, and other CE pastors, not just for the campus we lead.

PERSONAL GROWTH

We genuinely lead out of a healthy and growing life spiritually, personally, and professionally. We are continually learning and improving in our own spiritual lives, our preaching, and our leadership! We strive to align our learning with the vision of CE. Ongoing training will also be provided to CE Lead Pastors including these required learning opportunities…
• Monthly Lead Pastors meeting on Zoom (90 minutes)
• Team Night (4-6 times each year, for all CE leaders)
• Occasional shared learning opportunities/resources
• Annual Leadership Retreat in Florida each February

PREACHING & SERVICES

We consistently improve our preaching to become more Biblical, practical, dynamic, and with God’s help… life-changing! We work hard at preparation (including asking the Holy Spirit to direct our preparation) and at improving our communication (we seek out training and continual feedback). Lead Pastors will be expected to weekly review and follow the CE Service Plans which outline upcoming teaching series, which weeks will have a required teaching video (up to 30% annually), and occasional shared creative elements/media. The Lead Pastor will be responsible for 70%+ of preaching which will be live/local (within CE teaching series and using CE graphics, bumper, Update Video, etc…). Raising up at least one effective local campus preacher to fill in when the Lead Pastor is sick or on vacation is important over time (CE teaching video is always available as well). Alongside our teams, we prepare and lead inspiring and impacting weekly worship services within the Church Experience boundaries for worship planning. We primarily preach out of the New International Version (which is also the primary translation we use on the screens). Each Lead Pastor (or the person preaching that week) should submit their teaching notes to Mission Support by Thursday evening.

CE MISSION, VISION, & PASSIONS

We lead out of and protect our shared CE mission, vision, and passions (cultural values). If we see something at the campus deviating from this direction, we quickly engage and bring increased leadership to the situation. We model what we want to see in the ministry (“be what you want to see”).

LEADERS

We build a Campus Leadership Team of 3-12 other people, heavily invest in them, and lead the campus through these leaders. We recruit, develop, and empower leaders (“more training = less control”). We invest in leaders’ spiritual lives, personal lives, and increase their leadership capacity. We help our leaders be people developers, not just doers of ministry.

COMMUNICATION & PARTICIPATION (& SABBATH)

Lead Pastors are required to participate in all scheduled meetings assigned by Mission Support (these are kept to a very minimal number). Lead Pastors are required to send a brief weekly update (due at 3:00pm on Monday along with any other requested data/stats from the past week). This update currently asks for a response to a few brief questions such as: “what were your biggest highlights/wins from this past week/services” and “what were your biggest challenges/surprises?” Lead Pastors are expected to weekly review the teaching notes, CE Service Plans, ‘Upcoming’ communications document, and Stories & Stats update which are all emailed out on a weekly basis. Lead Pastors are also expected to check their CE email and return calls/texts daily except on their Sabbath day off. We support the Biblical principle of doing our work on six days each week and fully resting from our work on one day each week to increase our worship (Sabbath). CE pastors may choose their recurring Sabbath day off, but are expected to be in required meetings such as our Tuesday Lead Pastors Meeting and Sunday services/Team Nights. Friday is strongly encouraged as a Sabbath day off whenever possible in awareness that Saturdays/Mondays may have occasional responses needed relating to the upcoming/prior Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday often have recurring meetings and events.

FINANCES

We help raise funds for the campuses we lead through initial fundraising efforts, resource initiatives (such as getting the campus into a CE building or renovating a building), regularly teaching on tithes and offerings, and leading by example through personal tithing. Every CE employee is expected to lead by example in what we ask the church to do in giving our tithe 10% of income (from CE) to God through CE (tithing is required to qualify for raises, other benefits, and long-term continued employment). We help create realistic local campus budgets within our financial model and regularly monitor/maintain our campus budget in a disciplined way.

MINISTRIES

We cast vision for and funnel all campus activity within/through our 7 CE ministries of Music & Arts, Frontline, Life Groups, Kid Experience, Student Experience, Outreach & Causes, and Operations.

SYSTEMS

We strive for excellence and full follow-through in executing CE systems outlined in these CE Essentials to bring unity, excellence, and effectiveness across all CE campuses. Everything speaks to who we are and Whose we are!