Head Coach

With football season approaching, I began to think about coaching, management, and pastoring.

As a manager of a team of people in my automotive days, I always told my crew that I thought of my self as their coach. I was not just the guy that made the schedule and gave the orders, but that I was there to help them any way that I could. If it was to work on a car with them I would do it, if it was to teach them I would do it, if it was to protect them from upper management or an angry customer that was my job too. Not sure if that made me a good manager or not, but it was my style, it was what I strived for.

I began to think about this same concept when it comes to pastoring. The definition of a pastor, is that of a shepherd. One who cares for the flock and feeds them. Often times in churches today the pastor is the one that preaches, teaches, makes decisions, and leads the music; basically he does most everything. In some churches it is set up this way, in other churches it just happens this way. Pray for those pastors, for their work load must be quite large.

Now, what if, we structured it a bit different?  What if the pastor was the shepherd? What if the pastor DIDN'T preach every Sunday? What if he didn't have to lead the music? What if he didn't make every decision? What if he didn't teach, counsel, visit, and do all the things that most pastors do? What if he was "just" oversaw those that did all those things? What if the pastor was like a football coach? What if he chose the starting quarterback - the guy making the decisions with his input. What if he chose the trainer - the guy counseling others? What if he chose the offensive line coach, the defensive coach, the quarterback coach - you know all the folks within a church that were doing all the "specialty" training? What if he made personnel decisions and then let the people do their jobs? This point is important because if we had this type of structure our churches might be a bit more effective. The head coach is part of the team, yet he's separate from the team. The head coach can lose a game with a bad decision, but he rarely ever wins a game, as that's what the team does.
I'm sure there are churches structured like this, I've obviously not been to every church. Maybe more than I even know of. However, in my experience this design has not been something that I've seen very much of. Perhaps it should be attempted.

Now I'm not saying one way is right, or one way is wrong, or that everyone should do these according to my suggestion. This has nothing to do with anything more than just thoughts on a page. But let's consider this shall we? Let's be willing team mates and help out our pastors. Pastors let's not be selfish or prideful and "allow" others to take on some tasks, trust me if you get enough folks doing things you'll be so busy "coaching" them that you wont have time to do those very things anymore.
There's no rule that says you have to preach on Sundays. There's no rule that says it's all on your shoulders. Statistics say that 40% of pastors suffer from burn out, perhaps this would ease that pain.

Again, just something to consider from all sides of the conversation. Why can't a church be a team? Why can't there be unity like a team on a mission? Consider such things..........and ask God how you can get involved to help out your team.