The Pastor as Team Leader: Building a Focused Leadership Team

Abstract

Many ideas exist about how to lead. The pursuit of this paper is to synthesize a variety of leadership concepts into key principles and suggestions that can be applied to the mission of the local congregation. Through surveys a study was conducted to gauge the attitude of lay leaders toward their service and what they think would enable them serve better. Pastors were also surveyed with the focus being on what they are doing to foster the growth of their leaders. While no church leadership team is without struggles confessional Lutherans, through their shared faith, are uniquely positioned to find common ground and unity. Leaders within our churches posses a trust in God that knows even when worldly results are not seen the Lord is working good things through the ministry of the team. Our lay leaders are a gift to the congregations they serve, but we need to study how these gifts can best be used. With an honest appraisal of strengths and weaknesses, strategies to move forward with lay leadership are offered. By viewing the pastor as a team leader we get a picture of a servant who points all his members toward the goal of heaven. This pastor as team leader also coaches his congregational leaders to point others to the same goal.