Guest Blogger this week: Aaron Davis, executive pastor Elevate ChurchThis week I’m in Florida at a church planter’s conference so today’s leadership lesson is from Aaron Davis, one of our executive pastors at Elevate Church. He brings some great insight in the area of knowing what type of leader you are:

Recently I have been reading some books for an Executive Pastor Coaching Network I am a part of and we were discussing leading and managing a growing church. It made me begin to really think about the contrast between leading and managing.

Most organizational thinkers would say, leadership focuses on setting the organization’s overall direction and aligning and motivating people; management focuses on planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing, controlling and problem solving. This is very true and most organizations, churches included, stop here when it comes to staffing and structuring.  By stopping there you are really only getting direction and implementation (leading and managing), while this can maintain an organization it is hard for that organization to grow.

Something I came across recently has shed some incredible light on the way we staff and run Elevate Church, it is that the two roles above PLUS one are more useful in guiding and helping to achieve our mission. Leader – manager – administrator, these are terms/titles that I have heard before but not in this sense:

A leader communicates the church’s vision, purpose, and direction and mobilizes people’s energy in support of it. A manager deploys people (and resources), through specific roles, jobs, and tasks, to achieve the mission’s purpose and sees to it that the organization permits and helps the people to succeed. An administrator facilitates the workflow of the organization and attends to its efficiency.

The obsession of the first role is direction, the second is effectiveness, the third is efficiency. All three roles – leader, manager, and administrator – are executive roles and most any organization needs all three. However, leadership is the most important role. The point here isn’t to value one of these gifts over the other. (That would be a fruitless exercise because all are needed for a church or any organization to function properly.)

I think it’s essential to identify how we are gifted and to also consider those we are responsible for in our ministry roles. I invite you to evaluate your church or organization and identify those roles that help you achieve your mission.