Invest: Your Gifts for His Mission

It has been a few years now since I began serving as one of the pastors at Grace Fellowship Church here in Toronto. When I was first ordained, and when I first accepted a full-time position, we had a list of functions we anticipated I would fill. Yet very quickly the church entered a time of transition where we went from church planting to a time of growth and rebuilding, and my role inevitably changed. I found myself taking on new responsibilities, many of which were executive in nature: tightening and formalizing structures and procedures, and caring for many of the “trellis” functions necessary to maintain a healthy “vine” (to borrow the helpful metaphor laid out in The Trellis & the Vine). I still preach and teach regularly, counsel, oversee the weekly prayer meeting, and run the young adults ministry, so I spend plenty of time pastoring people. But that executive work still has a substantial claim on my time.

Because of the nature of this work, I was excited when I learned about Invest: Your Gifts for His Mission by Sutton Turner, a book written about and for executive pastors. Turner serves as executive pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, but prior to this he was in the business world for many years, working in Texas and the Middle East. The skills he gained there are skills he has now brought into the church.

There are three parts to the book. In Part One, Turner defends the very idea of the executive pastor and offers an “invitation for business professionals to invest in the church—not only with their money, but also with their time, energy, and experience.” He says, “The church needs men who are willing to walk away from their careers and work as paid executive pastors, and the church needs men who will keep working their day jobs and serve as volunteer executive pastors.” The big question for this first section is simply this: Are you called to be an executive pastor?

Part Two explores the role of the executive pastor. When Turner refers to this position, he refers to the second-in-charge function within the church, the person who serves as the lead pastor’s right-hand man.

Early in the book, he shows that in the Old Testament there are three offices of human leadership: prophets, priests, and kings and these roles carry to the New Testament through Jesus Christ. He believes these divisions can also explain how pastors with different skill sets and capacities can function within a local church:

To a prophet goes the work of proclaiming the news of the kingdom, so that more people can receive it and be baptized. He is the primary leader, the main Bible preacher, and the visionary. If a church has any paid employees, it’s the prophet. To a priest goes the work of caring for the people of the kingdom, making disciples, and teaching the family of God how to enjoy new life in Jesus. The priest is a counselor, a midweek class teacher, or a small groups leader. A church typically has more than one priest, usually serving as unpaid volunteers. To a king goes the work of managing the kingdom, wisely stewarding the resources God has provided so that the church can grow until eventually the good news reaches all nations. The king administrates all or some of church business and operations. At a small church, the king is probably a volunteer, while a larger church might employ multiple staff to cover kingly functions.

While he admits that he may be pushing the prophet, priest and king terminology a little too far, he does believe it is helpful in understanding how God equips men to carry out different ministries.

It is important to note that he defines the executive role in relation to the lead position. He compares “the lead pastor and the executive pastor to the CEO and COO of a company; the captain and first mate of a ship; the owner and coach of a football team; the president and provost of a university; and the ‘dreamer’ and the ‘schemer’ in an entrepreneurial partnership.”

What does this partnership between lead pastor and executive pastor actually look like? Through the book he offers many glimpses into his relationship with Mark Driscoll and with the pastors, staff, and congregation at Mars Hill.

His role is to do things the lead pastor can’t, won’t, or doesn’t have time to do.His role is to implement the lead pastor’s vision. “The general sense is that one leader charts the course and sets the vision while another works behind the scenes to make it happen.”His role is to do some of the lead pastor’s “dirty work” by playing the bad guy. He describes a role he had prior to Mars Hill: “When I was working with Pastor Joe, we had an understanding: If somebody came to him with a request, he would either say ‘yes,’ or he would direct them to me. ‘Ask Pastor Sutton’ was our code for ‘no.’ If somebody came up to me after talking to Pastor Joe, I knew that my job was to graciously decline whatever it was they were asking for. In this way, I helped guard my lead pastor’s time and energy. The nos drain a lot more than the yeses.”His role is to be the one who allows the lead pastor to “dump his bucket,” or blow off steam, since “otherwise, he’s likely to pour down on the congregation from the pulpit, which can be devastating for a church and harmful to the mission.”His role is to provide strengths that complement the lead pastor’s weaknesses: “Wherever the lead pastor struggles—be it with fundraising, management, leadership development, guest services, or marketing—that’s where the executive pastor must be strong.”His role is to do or to oversee the executive work in the church, which may involve real estate, policies, hiring and firing, being the “steward-in-chief,” and on and on.

Part Three is given to extended interviews with several executive pastors Turner admires and is eager to learn from. A few practical appendices close out the book.

I found Invest both helpful and troubling.

I found Invest helpful in its call to successful, trained and called businessmen to consider bringing their skills from the world of business to the local church. While men can certainly honor and glorify God in the workforce, their skills can also be very helpful within the local church. We are accustomed to telling successful businessmen like this that God wants their money, but maybe he wants more than that.

I found Invest helpful in the way it deals honestly and forthrightly with the fact that the executive function within a church truly is important and that as a church grows, it becomes a critical role. Many churches grow to a certain extent and then collapse because the “trellis” structures have not been built to withstand the weight of the “vine.” This may reflect poor stewardship, and I appreciate Turner’s emphasis on the behind-the-scenes work that allows the church to thrive. While this kind of role may reflect pragmatism or the direct assimilation of unbiblical practices from the business world, it does not have to.

I found Invest helpful in the way Turner shows that the executive role is a serving role. This may be a difficult pill to swallow for men who are coming from the dog-eat-dog world of big business, but it is exactly what God calls pastors to.

I found Invest unhelpful in several ways as well.

I found Invest unhelpful in Mark Driscoll’s foreword where he anticipates the inevitable critiques of this book and immediately cuts them off. “Dear Bible Guy, please don’t be yet another nerd who proof texts verses on lovers of money, lording it over like the Gentiles with curse words like ‘pragmatism’ and ‘it’s all about the numbers’ criticisms. Stop using God’s word as a defense to keep working the upper body and ignoring the legs. Your church body needs some legs just like ours.”

I found Invest unhelpful in that it deals exclusively with the most mega- of the mega-churches, making it difficult to apply to a smaller setting. The list of people Turner interviews and quotes are second-in-commands to Andy Stanley, Ed Young, James MacDonald, Rick Warren, Perry Noble, Bill Hybels, and so on. These are men whose churches are attended by thousands or tens of thousands and whose annual budgets are in the millions or tens of millions. It is difficult to know how the executive role may function in a church just a fraction of that size.

I found Invest unhelpful in that it tacitly suggests that big churches are better than smaller churches, that numerical growth is intrinsically good, and that the primary mission of every church is to grow from big to bigger. As I mentioned earlier, Driscoll anticipates this and immediately attempts to take it out of play, but I believe he is unfair in doing this.

I found Invest unhelpful in that I am not convinced that this model can function well in a church that practices eldership as I understand it—as a plurality of men with equal authority. Yes, there may be one man who is “greater among equals” through his role as the one who preaches and who offers vision and direction, but ultimately, Turner’s model presupposes a kind of leadership that places one man at the head and that builds itself around that one big personality.

I anticipate three groups of people who may wish to read this book: businessmen who are considering taking their skills from the corporation to the church, executive pastors who wish to gain new perspective on their work, and lead pastors who are interested in learning how an executive pastor could serve them and their church. Each of these people will find much to learn, but I would caution them to think carefully before adopting all of what Turner offers. There are plenty of good elements in this book, but they are mixed with quite a lot that is troubling as well.

Failure to Live on Mission Is a Worship Problem

Sometimes we think the way to engage people in mission is to make sure we get the right information to them.

If we just preach the Bible, people will evangelize.

If we show people the commands in Scripture to care for the poor, people will develop a heart for mercy ministry.

If we make people aware of our need for more volunteers, people will sign up.

In other words, we perceive a knowledge problem. People need to know how to apply the Scriptures better, and once they know what they need to do, they’ll do it.

But this isn’t the way long-term change takes place. Most of the time, when we are marked by missional apathy, it’s not that we don’t know what we ought to be doing; it’s that we don’t want to be doing what we ought to be doing.

In our efforts to increase missional fervor, we can get so focused on giving people more information, or better application, that we forget that our main task is to lead people to exultation. That’s a fancy word for “worship.” We exult, we delight in the Savior, we revel in him. Exaltation of the Savior leads to exultation of the saints.

Lack of mission is rarely a knowledge problem; it’s a worship problem. We don’t have any trouble talking about the things we love most. Whenever we find something worthy of attention, we talk about it.

The same is true of our relationship with Christ. The more we are in awe of his worthiness, the more likely we are to speak of him to others and serve others in his name.

Sometimes people worry that the rough edges of Christianity will lead us to avoid serving our neighbor and sharing the gospel. So we play down some of the harder truths of the gospel, not denying them of course, but not giving them their proper weight.

The reality of hell is an example. There are all sorts of ways to downplay the truth of one’s eternal destiny; the most common is simply to not speak of it, or to recast salvation as dealing more with this life than the next.

But what happens when the reality of hell is no longer grounding our talk about salvation and the gospel? We miss out on a moment of worship.

Consider this scenario. You’re walking with a friend, not paying much attention to where you are headed. Suddenly, your friend grabs your arm and yanks you backwards. At first, you are annoyed that you’ve been stopped so suddenly. But then your friend points in front of you. Sure enough, he had a reason. You were about to step off into a ditch, where you might have broken your foot or sprained your ankle. Your annoyance turns to gratitude for his “saving you” from possible harm. You thank your friend and move on.

Consider the same scenario, except this time your friend doesn’t pull you back from a ditch, but a cliff. You were about to fall to your death, hundreds of feet below. What would your reaction be in this situation? Not just a word of “thanks.” You’d be crying and hugging your friend, overflowing with gratitude for the way he just saved your life.

In the same way, when we minimize the severity of God’s judgment for sin, we are less inclined to stand in awe of the marvelous salvation Christ has provided for us. We think we’re pushing aside an obstacle when we neglect the reality of judgment. But what we’re actually doing is pushing away one of the truths that most leads us to worship. The reality of God’s grace is all the more amazing the more we see our sin and what it deserves.

A gospel-centered teacher isn’t satisfied to see his people learn truths about God. A gospel-centered leader wants them to feel those truths. To feel the full weight of God’s provision for us in Christ. To have the heart’s affections stirred to worship the loving God who has saved us by his grace and incorporated us into his family.

The Mission to Ramothgilead

A common way of reasoning in Proverbs is to contrast two options in order to illustrate for us what our priorities ought to be. For example, it is better to be poor and righteous than rich and unrighteous. But we have to remember that this is a choice between two when there are actually a total of four options. And because of our culture's rampant egalitarianism and propensity to fuzzy thot, we need regularly to consider all four. So still in the background is the question of whether it is better to be poor and unrighteous or rich and righteous.

Let's apply this principle to what it takes to be faithful in our missions work. It is better to be faithful and ill-equipped than unfaithful and well-equipped. This is certainly true, and it applies to every task we might undertake. It is better to take on a job you cannot do in your own strength while under the blessing of God than it is to take on a job you think you can do in your own strength without the blessing of God. Some men trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the Lord our God. So faith plus a great challenge reveals the glory of God. Faithlessness without a great challenge often reveals how self-sufficient men trip over nothing, and come to nothing. Nothing we say here should take away from how much God loves to tell David and Goliath stories.

But there are two other options. It is possible to be under-equipped and presumptuous and well-equipped and faithful. History is littered with the kind of faithlessness that glances at the surface of the Bible, and determines that whatever it wants, however outlandish, must be given if they just wave the name of Jesus over it. From the occasional story in the newspapers of devout Christians not taking Uncle George to the mortuary because God told them he would be raised, to the Children's Crusade, to the invasion of Canaan after Moses told them no dice (Num. 14:41,45), to the false prophets telling Jehoshaphat to go up to Ramothgilead (2 Chron. 18:11), we see the bane of presumption.

And do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings (Prov. 22:29). When God told Samuel, who was reviewing the sons of Jesse, that man looks on the outward appearance while God looks on the heart, we think that he would then have had to go through seven ruddy, tall, and powerfully built warriors until he came to David the scrawny hunchback king-to-be. But David was powerful, and good-looking, and musically-talented, and prudent in wisdom -- a regular Rhodes scholar. He was one of those guys. God looks on the heart.

The fact that God looks on the heart does not mean that we have to be ill-equipped, or that we are supposed to plan poorly. We are supposed to trust in God, as Cromwell once said, and keep our powder dry. In missions work, craft competence should never be set aside unless the clear providence of God has determined that it must be set aside. So far as it depends on us, we should strive for excellence in linguistic mastery, excellence in cultural understanding, excellence in true accountability, excellence in economic understanding, excellence in logistical training, and excellence in theological breadth and depth. And above all, beneath all, and through all, excellence in faith.

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