The Role of the Senior Pastor, P. 2

In the first post in this series we talked about how important it is that the Senior Pastor function as the small group champion.

What’s next?  Let’s talk about how to cast the vision of life in community beyond the core of the church, in fact reaching out into the crowd and community itself.  This is a huge opportunity that every church has, but of which only a few take advantage.  Here’s how your Senior Pastor can play this part and make it happen:

First, keep in mind that depending on the congregation, many members and attendees come fewer than 2 times a month!  In fact, some churches have learned that the average attendance pattern is 1 out of 3 Sundays.  How often is your average attendee in your worship service?  You can get a little bit of a snap shot by comparing your Easter attendance with your regular attendance.  If it averages an additional 30 to 40%, your regulars are less regular than you think!

How does that impact vision casting?  Simply this…if you want everyone to get the message, you’ll have to talk about it more frequently!  If you’re not talking about small groups on a weekly basis you’re missing some of your people.

Second, you’ll need to widen the methods you’re using to communicate with your church’s unconnected members and attendees.  Website, bulletin, e-newsletter, etc. can all be used to allow your Senior Pastor to communicate the importance of life in community.  Don’t want to overdo it?  You can’t!  Regular communication, using multiple channels and a variety of formats is the only way to reach the larger number of unconnected people in your church.

The key here?  If you want to reach beyond the already convinced to the unconnected crowd, you’ll have to use frequency and variety.  Anything less than relentless creativity will not lead to new results.  If you want new results, you’ll have to do new things.

You can read part 3 of my series on the Role of the Senior Pastor right here.