For the past years, we’ve followed the Lead Pastor/Executive Pastor model when it comes to staff structure. I focused on vision and teaching while Anthony, our Executive Pastor, basically ran the church and ran the staff. It’s worked really well, and it’s one of the reasons that our church has grown from 200 to more than 1,000 in two years. It’s been a great system.

Over the past six months, I’ve been thinking and praying through everyone’s seat on the bus. I’ve been thinking about my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I’ve been asking what I SHOULD do as the Lead Pastor of this church.

After a ton of thinking, reading (things like this post), praying, talking to pastors I trust,  I’ve decided to initiate a pretty big change to our staff structure. The bottom line is that we’re going to more of a team model, with me as the leader of that team. It’s a move from having a funnel for my ideas, vision and leadership, to having a team that I directly lead.   Instead of having one direct report, I will now have four (five really, because my assistant works directly for me, too.)

Here’s how our new organizational chart looks.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll write a little more about why we’re making this change, how it will work, and what it means to the day-to-day operations of Oak Leaf Church.