Episode 306: Rusty George & Mike Nave Discuss "How To Bridge The Gap Between Pastor & Elder"
Rusty (00:01.63)
the elders here at Crossroads. And I just pray that you would use this conversation to bless leaders and the church everywhere. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Mike Nave (00:12.608)
Amen.
Rusty (00:14.99)
Mike Knave, thank you for joining the podcast today. For our listeners that don't know who you are, would you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is that you've been up to over the last few years?
Mike Nave (00:26.182)
Sure. I'm married. My wife's name is Karen. She was an educator, as a teacher, principal, and then training teachers. I have three sons, each of them married to wonderful women. They're all active in their local churches. They live in Texas. One actually lives in Waco. One in Tucson, south of me here in Phoenix, and then in California, north of LA. Six grandchildren, three boys, three girls.
All of the grandchildren have accepted Jesus, except one. We're working on him. He was more excited about the water and the baptism than understanding who Jesus was, so we're fixing that. But family's good. My professional background is in information technology. I've worked with people around the world. And then after retiring from American Express, I did some entrepreneurial activities and now working with a ministry that works with pastors and elders.
Finally, I'm a preacher's kid. So I've seen the church inside and out and discovered probably a year ago or two that I'm actually an evangelist in purpose but an evangelism enabler in practice.
Rusty (01:39.686)
I don't blame what that means. That's fascinating.
Mike Nave (01:43.799)
A couple years ago I go, what really drives me, and I determined it's really evangelism. I want everybody to have the opportunity to accept Jesus. Whether they do or not is up to them, but I want them to have that opportunity to go to heaven and have that eternity versus in hell. But I thought, you know, I'm not a preacher. I don't want to do apologetics. I don't want to stand on a corner.
that God has enabled me to really work well with helping organizations run better. And my view is if I can help a church operate better, whereby the elders and the pastors work well together, that flows to their leadership team, that flows to their staff, that flows to their volunteers, that flows to their congregation, and I believe that church will reach more people for Jesus than otherwise. So.
Rusty (02:16.402)
Hmm.
Mike Nave (02:39.382)
When I'm helping a church function better, it's not purely for them to function better. My real purpose is to reach people with Jesus.
Rusty (02:47.754)
That's fantastic. Well, I think you and I met because of a mutual connection with Don Wilson. And after Don retired from CCV, Christ Church of the Valley there and outside of Phoenix, I think you guys started doing work together with other churches because you had been an elder for Don for many years at CCV. So tell us a little bit about just how you, you know,
how long you were an elder, was that a tough thing to decide to do because you watched your dad be a pastor and deal with elders or did you feel like, boy, I could either redeem this or mimic what I thought was good? You know, what was your journey with eldership?
Mike Nave (03:28.061)
Hehehehe
Mike Nave (03:33.702)
I had been an elder at one other church prior to Christ Church of the Valley. And then through a series of events, God truly released me from that church. Now most people who get released, they're not really released, they're unhappy. God truly released me. I found Christ Church of the Valley and I went in there with no expectations. I just wanted to sit and chill out. And then I became an usher and a greeter and some missions and led some groups.
And Don Wilson and I just hit it off. It was just one of those things where I liked him, he liked me, so we're good friends. I ended up serving on the board for 17 years at CCV, and Don and I traveled the world doing leadership things and just all over the place. So when Don decided to transition out, he said, I really want to pour into other pastors around the country with what I know. And so he and I worked well together. I know how to set up.
organizations and nonprofits. So we started Accelerate Group with the purpose to work with past year and spouse couples around the country to refresh them, encourage them, share best practices, network them with other people, and send them out back into the game ready to enjoy it and make a difference.
Rusty (04:51.818)
Well, that it's been such a blessing. And I know that you have helped out our leadership structure here at the church here in Texas and have been a huge blessing to them. And it's been fun to get to know you and meet you over the course of the last year. Let's dive into eldership because it's such an interesting thing. I think I could go to 10 churches and see 10 different ways elders are operating. And some of that is
Mike Nave (05:14.508)
Bleh.
Rusty (05:18.558)
personality. Some of that is un-clarified expectations where elders just gravitate to whatever they think an elder should be. But some of it's very strategic. And so I think every pastor has some kind of horror story of getting sideways with an elder board or elders that are too in the weeds and want to come in and dictate everything that's done, pick the songs and even the font of the newsletter.
Um, and then some elders that feel like, you know what, I'm supposed to represent our people well, or I'm supposed to be deep in the weeds so I can answer every question that somebody asked me in the hallway. What have you seen? Give us, you don't have to tell names, obviously, but give us some of the elders gone wrong stories, and then a little bit more of the, the good thing about what, what eldership can be.
Mike Nave (06:04.707)
I'm sorry.
Mike Nave (06:11.244)
Well, first of all, Rusty, it sounds like you've been in a lot of meetings with me, so you just described a lot of the situations I encounter. As far as elders gone wrong, I can give you two or three examples. When selecting elders, it's interesting if you have a first-time elder, and particularly if that elder hasn't served on many other boards before.
Rusty (06:17.912)
Ha ha
Mike Nave (06:37.172)
because that elder can come on and really feel the responsibility of the role. They're now going, all of a sudden, I am responsible for this church and everything that happens. And I need to protect it from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It so happens the lead pastor is the domestic piece of that. And as you've said, that new elder wants to know everything because their job is to know everything. They want to weigh in on everything.
So in those situations, it's a challenge because they can do a good job of asking questions that haven't been asked before, but you really need a good board chair to manage that relationship. So I would say elders that are new are a different variety, and particularly if they feel that responsibility. Another kind of challenging story I've seen is if you're in your church, all of a sudden someone shows up.
who's a very strong leader and very outgoing. And they've been an elder at another church. But that church is very different than your church. And as a pastor, when you're needing leadership, you might look at that person and go, wow, what a good person to be here. We need to get them involved. And then they want to get involved. And then after they get involved, you're thinking.
They're going to come join us, they're going to show up in the meeting with a blank sheet of paper and we're going to show them what we do and they're going to help us. What the pastor and the current board doesn't realize, that person's going to show up with this pad of paper, but it's all filled in.
And it goes, here's what I've done before that I liked, and here's what I did that I didn't like. And you're very lucky that I'm here to help you with your vision definition and how you need to execute it. And if you get that person on the board, you're gonna spend a few years of misery. Does that one resonate? Okay.
Rusty (08:36.599)
Mm-hmm. Yes, it does. In fact, we used to have a saying at my last church, which was the quickest way to not be an elder is to say, I want to be an elder because those are the guys that you got to be scared of.
Mike Nave (08:44.944)
Absolutely. That's true. And I think one final little horror story is elders who mean well, but they're really not quite sure what to do. You alluded to that before. So now all of a sudden you have somebody with good intentions. They have a lot of authority. They've got lots of intent, but they have a lack of skill. And when you put all that together, you hurt people.
When I think of that, I used to live in Lubbock, so I have some West Texas experience above you. By the way, one of my sons lives in Waco. We had a hail storm and a friend of mine had his roof destroyed, so we were going to re-roof it. And so I'd been roofing houses, and he had me and two other people help re-roof his house. So I was doing the front and two other people were doing the back. And when I got to the back, I looked at the back and I thought, hmm.
I thought rows were supposed to be at 90 degree angles, not varying degrees. I think of that often because good intentions can hurt you if you don't have the skill sets and the right understanding around it. So a good intention to elders is not enough. So that's some examples of some that are not so good. The ones that I really like to see.
are elders who totally buy into the vision and mission of the church. And you can just tell that whether they're new to the church or where they've been there, everything they do tends to be viewed through the lens of the vision and the mission and the team. And the team in this case will be the lead pastor, the staff, volunteers, congregations, everybody. But you just notice this person because whether they're an elder or not, they care about the church and the team.
Rusty (10:14.122)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty (10:39.274)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (10:39.396)
That's the cream rising to the top. That's the person you want to watch. And they usually make a good elder. Go ahead. No, please.
Rusty (10:45.578)
Okay, I'll go ahead.
Well, let me ask this question. All right, that's the kind of elder we're looking for. How would you define what an elder does? It's interesting when you look at the biblical concept, you get some qualities, but you don't get kind of a day-to-day procedural work. I feel like the elders that we have seen over the last, I don't know, 50 years, let's say that, are really influenced more by
either Robert's Rules of Order or American government. And so we build kind of three branches of government. We have elders that will do what they're told. And they're senators, they're congressmen that wander around the church, that listen to complaints, and then they come to the elders meeting as a voice for the people, rather than a leader in the church. So talk to me about, you know,
the way proper elder boards kind of get off track and then what they should be dealing with and what a good elder board should think about.
Mike Nave (11:56.616)
Right. Great question. John Maxwell says that leadership is influence. So influence is obviously very important.
Rusty (12:04.552)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (12:11.504)
You spot elders by what they do. And again, I'm looking, do they have influence? Are they using influence in the right direction? Because the biblical qualifications, to me, are the basics to allow you to be a candidate, which I think is your point. So if you stack up well against that, you're a candidate. But are you the right person for the right time? And I think timing is very important
Rusty (12:29.418)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (12:41.436)
Churches have life cycles, and you can call it things like pioneers, builders, sustainers, expanders. So not all elders are good for every lifestyle. That's why I'm a big fan of elder rotation, because some are just pioneers. They're good at the beginning, where you really want somebody to help you dig in there.
Rusty (12:56.456)
That's really good.
Mike Nave (13:09.056)
You're almost a pseudo staff member. You do know how many parking spaces are out there and you can answer every question. But then you have people that wanna build beyond that. And then also within the life cycle, a church may say, we're going through a major growth period, maybe facilities expansion. I need a certain kind of elders who can deal with that. But I might be after that where I need to say, we need to let everybody catch their breath.
and I need a different kind of elder. So again, I think biblical qualifications allow you to be there. But what are the skill sets as well that you need? And what is the mixture between executive elders who are used to dealing with big issues and big strategies, but you also need people that care about the heart of individuals. So you have to have that right mix. So an elder board is not just putting people on the,
Rusty (13:38.799)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (14:08.524)
It's putting the right people at the right time. And I believe that all elders have a shelf life. I had a shelf life at Christ Church in the valley. And I was standing on the shoulders of people before me, and I valued their work. And I always wanted people 10 years down the road to say, I don't know who those people were, but they did a good job.
Rusty (14:34.442)
a great definition of the life cycle of the church and the need for certain elders at certain times. Would this be, because I think this is a growing trend right now in churches, to have an advisory board. And let's dive into this a little bit, because I think that in some churches, their tradition is to have elder boards that are pastors of other churches. And so they speak into what you're doing because they know it. They know the game, they've been in it.
They're living it themselves and they're kind of advising. And then you have local people from your current congregation that are more advisory and that just help we do things around here. Now those terms kind of get flipped back and forth, but what would you say based on your experience at Christ Church and then also in seeing other places, what's the value of having local elders versus elders from around the country that do the same thing?
versus an advisory team and those kind of things. Can you kind of sort that out for us a little bit?
Mike Nave (15:37.388)
Sure, sure. I see advisory boards misused a lot. And by that, one of the lead pastors' major jobs is to properly work with, lead, and submit to his local elder board. And in doing that, if you have a get out of jail free card, so to speak, in monopoly terms,
that if I don't like something that my board is doing, I can always go to my advisory board and override that. I don't like that as much from what I've seen because your local elder board understands your church better than anybody on the outside. So an advisory board, you know...
Rusty (16:16.874)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (16:29.432)
If you called me and I'm a pastor across the country and I talked to you six months ago and you go, what do you think about this? I really don't have the background to answer that question. So then I've seen some people who start a church and the church planting thing where maybe they had a really bad experience with elders, so they definitely want an advisory board that can override their board. So I think the other reason for this, Rusty, is...
Rusty (16:53.383)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (16:59.156)
The church needs to operate at the elder board level with confidentiality, not secrecy, but confidentiality, because you're talking about so many options, and perhaps you talk about ten options, but only do two of those. And you don't need eight of those undoable, not doable options rattling around the church and the congregation. So I think it's better local, and I've seen it work locally.
Rusty (17:22.807)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (17:27.74)
Anytime I see an advisory board, I think it's a good precursor to a full board. But once you have a full board, my experience is it works better to do it local.
Rusty (17:39.439)
How big should an elder board be? Because I've seen them be very large, I've seen them be very small. What seems to be the optimal range in your mind?
Mike Nave (17:49.56)
In my mind, it is nine or less. That is my preference. I know the military likes teams of eight, but you know, and I also consider the lead pastor to be one of the elders. So, if you have nine elders plus the lead pastor, that's 10. But with eight or nine elders, you really don't have enough people to build separate teams and cliques. You're sort of all forced to work together.
Rusty (17:53.33)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty (18:14.91)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (18:17.76)
And the other thing I've seen in churches related to that is it's amazing, regardless of the size of your church, how few people really fit the bill to be an elder. But if you've got 25 elders, then good luck to you. And I don't think I want to try to help you because you're unhelpable. Mm-hmm. Thanks.
Rusty (18:40.582)
You've made your bed now lay in it. So are you seeing a trend going away from having deacons or are you still seeing that model out there as kind of a, hey, they're kind of in training to be elders or they're for such a time as this, they're really great servants in a particular area. What's the trend with deacons right now is what you've seen.
Mike Nave (19:06.508)
From what I've seen, long-term traditional churches have deacons. And the reason they have deacons is purely because they've always had deacons. Whereas a lot of churches now look at their congregation and they encourage their members to serve, and we're all deacons. So I see more of that. The other challenge with deacons is it's quite frankly one more thing for the lead pastor to manage.
Rusty (19:12.522)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty (19:17.332)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (19:36.008)
and for the elder board to manage. And so I don't see as much toward deacons. And you really touched on a point I want to make, and this may be controversial, but you said the deacons as a pipeline for future elders. My view on elders, and this is my own coined phrase, elders are discovered, they are not created.
Rusty (19:38.101)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (20:04.04)
What I find is you may have someone who's obviously an elder. Let's look at it in terms of a diamond. You look and say, OK, that person's an elder. There might be somebody out there who's a diamond, but they're surrounded by coal. And they just need to chip that off so you can tell what you have. But I don't believe you can make someone a deacon, categorize them as a deacon, and go, OK, this is a pipeline, and you may be an elder. Some people are born and bred.
Rusty (20:18.479)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (20:33.236)
deacons and some are born and bred elders. So I don't see it working that way as a pipeline.
Rusty (20:42.182)
Well, that is a great point. I've seen that in churches where, whether they're a deacon or not, they're a really good servant, you know, as far as they just, they're always there. They serve really well. They work really hard. They're always at set up or tear down or serving food behind the counter on various Sundays. And so I think the tendency is to think, oh, well, they're a leader, thus they could be an elder.
Mike Nave (20:50.366)
Yes.
Rusty (21:11.334)
which we've all had moments where we've given someone eldership responsibilities and they don't want it. They just want to be in the weeds. They don't want to be in a high level thinking. Do you still see that a lot?
Mike Nave (21:18.101)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (21:22.428)
Well, I see it. I try to avoid it. I try to avoid it, yes. Again, that's why I'll hit rotation of elders one more time, because if you do make a mistake, then you have a remedy to it. But if I go to church and this person says, I've been an elder for 35 years, or I have my own people who come to me, you know, it goes back to that thing Rusty about you said earlier as well.
Rusty (21:37.831)
Yeah.
Rusty (21:49.618)
Yeah.
Mike Nave (21:51.164)
My people have told me they're concerned about this. That means, quite frankly, you should not be on the board. Because elders, regardless of the size of your church or the number of campuses you have, elders must look at the whole, not individual parts. So, yeah.
Rusty (21:54.108)
Yes.
Rusty (21:58.185)
Right.
Rusty (22:11.123)
Mm hmm.
Rusty (22:37.595)
And are they still voting on this from the entire congregation? What's the method that works pretty good?
Mike Nave (22:43.912)
Well, that method varies across all churches. And you made an interesting comment on what works really good. Since each church is different, things work good at one church that'd be a disaster at another church. And so one of the things I really focus on, and we'll come back to your original question, but one of the things I really focus on is understanding a church's point A, which is different than other churches' point A.
Rusty (22:59.216)
Yeah.
Mike Nave (23:14.496)
And then what is the point B we're trying to take them to? To be the most effective. Because I want that church to be successful, Rusty, and the way I define success is, have you achieved everything that God wants you to achieve in your church? If you're a church of 500 and God wants you to be 500 people, you're a success. If it's really target number is 700, you're not. So get the 700.
Rusty (23:19.177)
Hmm.
Mike Nave (23:45.212)
So that's why that's important. But go back to your original question. I got sidelined here from that. Oh, the rotation. Yeah, yeah. So what I have found is three years is a good number. Now, churches play with that, and they say, we have three years, but you can renew for another three years. So I explain that's not a three-year term. That's a six-year term.
Rusty (23:52.882)
Just the rotation, how many years, yeah.
Rusty (24:08.82)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (24:14.568)
Because you can't come to me and I'm Mike and I've served for three years and you go, well Mike, we really appreciate it. We don't need you for the next three. Well, now you've created a problem. With three years, I think it works well because you get three years on, you get a little bit of a break. And what I would actually do as chairman, let's say Rusty, you're one of the elders. And you are really good at change agents.
You're really good at influence. You're really a progressive thinker. And let's say that we've just finished some major initiatives for our church and I want us to take a break for a couple of years. You're eligible to come on, but I may not want to bring you on this year because I know in three years, I'm going to hit some more really big challenges. That's when I need you. So elder rotation gives you that ability. Plus, like you said earlier, let's say you bring me on.
Rusty (24:58.474)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (25:11.736)
and I'm looking at a $10 million budget going, hey, I saw that food service went up $85 this year. What are we gonna do about that? Then you know that I'm probably not the guy to stay. So elder rotation, I think three years works well, like you said. And the other expectation if set properly is I may not be asked back. So now there's no loss of face. It's not like...
Rusty (25:34.929)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (25:38.844)
Okay, they asked me to step aside and they're not going to ask me back. I knew, and I did four, I think four terms during that 17 years, I did an extra term for somebody. I knew there was no guarantee I was coming back. And that was okay, because I was committed to the church regardless of being on the board
Rusty (25:51.58)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty (25:57.19)
Right. So let's walk through just an actual elders meeting. Somebody, you know, we all gather together. What does a healthy elder meeting look like? Because we've seen these that they do get deep in the weeds with the $85 line item. And I had a great conversation with your friend Don Wilson one time about it. And he described it kind of there's some stuff we need to do.
But then there's some things that I need to tell them I'm dreaming about and kind of having a little bit of time to think way into the future. What's it, what's a typical elder meeting look like that you've been part of and how do they, you know, obviously every church is different, but what's healthy eldership look like as far as that 60 to 90 minutes are together and is there a time when it goes too long? In other words, some elders meetings I've been in can go four or five hours and that's not helpful at all. So.
What have you seen that works really well?
Mike Nave (26:55.564)
Well, what works well is first of all, all the elders are focused on the mission and vision of the church, so that's what drives us. But when you come together, what I call it is you have operational issues, which are staff issues, and you have policy issues, which are really elder issues. Where are we trying to go? And it's very important that the chairman can facilitate properly.
Rusty (27:01.727)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (27:22.644)
because the chairman's role was not to dictate, not to demand, it's really to draw the best out of everybody in that elder meeting. So when you go through that meeting, we did all the mechanics like, you know, we approved our minutes, we went through our budget, made sure all that's okay. But the highlight of the meeting is what we would call the lead pastor report. In this case, it was Don Wilson. Don, tell us what you're thinking. What do you sense God is saying? Where do you think we need to go?
Rusty (27:44.138)
Hmm.
Mike Nave (27:53.264)
And he had the freedom to, I call it, be pregnant with us, with ideas. And he would just, we needed to say, Don, what are you thinking? He said, well, I think we might do this, and I think we might do this, and he might even say, I haven't really thought about this, but it just came to me. And as a board, a healthy board, you have to let a visionary vision. Visionaries need the ability to bounce ideas and think about things.
Rusty (28:17.29)
Hmm.
Mike Nave (28:22.224)
And as a board, you can't come back and say, okay, now that's interesting. I think we need to do this and this, and let's put some bolts and nuts on this thing, or it won't work. So a healthy board meeting is where the elders focus on policy, operational issues are handled by staff. Don, in that case, would keep the board updated, make us feel informed, keep us informed, and we respect him. And it's, people would often ask us, how do you do this? You know, can you send me your paperwork on how you do this?
I said, you know, it's really team and trust. We're all on the same page. We actually never had an elder fight in those 17 years.
Rusty (28:55.53)
Hmm.
Rusty (29:01.691)
Hm.
Mike Nave (29:02.932)
So it is doable. But can I speak to an inverted org chart with you? OK. There's two org charts I talk to churches about. One is the legal org chart. Legally, the lead pastor reports to the board. That's the legal structure. But the spiritual structure is I think the board needs to honor the lead pastor as the spiritual leader of the church.
Rusty (29:09.646)
Absolutely.
Rusty (29:22.695)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (29:33.308)
Now, some elders will go, well, it's our job to be the spiritual leader. It's the whole group's job to be the spiritual leader. But my view is, if a lead pastor doesn't have more vision and insight on what the church should do than the elder board, that lead pastor's probably not doing their job. So if I'm on your board, Rusty, I want to know what's God telling you? Let me tell you what God's telling me. That I expect you to lead the church spiritually.
Rusty (29:36.906)
Thanks for watching!
Rusty (29:53.143)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (30:03.512)
And that's why some pastors will talk to the church and they'll say, we want you to come lead. But they don't really want you to lead, they want you to preach. And they'll confuse people. Okay, now that you're here, like you said, let's see your sermon series. Let's talk about what you're going to do. And by the way, we can do everything but preach, so we hired you to preach. And that causes problems.
Rusty (30:13.35)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty (30:29.978)
Talk to me about the elder that gets stopped in the hallway and somebody says, hey, what's going on with... and they don't know, but they feel like they should know. And they're, I mean, I hear this comment a lot from, you know, previous experiences and certainly churches where the elder feels such a way to know everything because they feel like if they get stopped and asked, then they...
Mike Nave (30:38.816)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty (30:57.394)
They need to have an answer for it or explain something. So if a decision gets made and they don't know about it, they feel like, well, I'm not allowed to do my job well, or you guys are keeping things from me. Or, you know, obviously a lot of suspicion gets into this. Um, what's a good approach an elder should have in that situation?
Mike Nave (31:16.14)
Yeah. Well, first of all, if it is something of a significant nature, the elders should know about it. Again, it's not the parking spaces, how many of the parking spaces. But as an elder, as our church changed, I didn't know all of that. And I was okay not knowing all of that. So, for example, our church had a choir for a while, several years ago. But quite frankly, we were not a choir church.
Rusty (31:36.374)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (31:44.828)
But we had a choir. Yeah, it was different. It was different. So it lasted, I know, three or four months. And it was stopped. And I had a friend of mine come to me and said, you know, why did you do that? That is my gift from God to the congregation. And I said, you know what? I said, that was the decision made by the church. And I said, you know.
Rusty (31:46.426)
Having a hard time picturing that by the way.
Mike Nave (32:12.652)
I support it because it's made by the Church, and if you have more questions, I suggest you go talk to the pastor in charge of that. So I didn't hand them off to that, but people learned after a while, and we insisted on this with our elders, if people come to you asking why the Church is doing things, you need to send them the right source, and particularly even if it's staff asking me, it's unless – this is another term I have. I call it the health of the franchise.
As an elder, I'm concerned about anything that threatens or helps the church, but underneath that, talk to the person responsible. So if I had an elder in our eldership who was out answering those questions and people knew that was the conduit, that's someone I would talk to. And if I had elder rotation, it would be very unlikely they'd be back. Does that sound cold?
Rusty (33:07.078)
Mm-hmm, definitely. No, I totally understand what you're saying. Okay, Mike, let me just give you a couple sides of the coin here. I would love for you to talk to our lead pastors and speak on behalf of all elders and say, here's what I need from you. Here's what your elders need from you. And then I'm gonna ask you to talk to elders and say, you know what, I really noticed this is what lead pastors need from us. So let's start with
Talk to our lead pastors, what do elders need from them?
Mike Nave (33:43.808)
Here's what I would say to them. I think, and if you were my lead pastor, Rusty, this is what I'd say. I think I'd say, keep me informed. Let me know what I need to know and make me feel like a team member with you being informed. I would say, honor my role. Legally, you report to me, I honor you, you honor me, but honor my role. I would tell you, be the primary vision caster.
Not the only one, I have ideas as well. But know more than I do and show me that you know more than me. Otherwise, you're going to create an unnecessary gap and I'll try to fill it. And if I fill it, I'll feel it wrong. If I tell you no to something you want to do, I would ask you to trust my judgment. And if you do that well, you're going to earn points for the future when you want to take a risk.
Rusty (34:24.382)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (34:42.12)
and I'll go with you. But understand that I want the best for you, so understand if I say no. And then maybe the final thing I would say is don't put our relationship on autopilot. Sometimes a pastor can go, my board is fine, I don't need to worry about that right now. I'll just look away for about six months, I have other things to do. If you look at your org chart as a lead pastor, although...
Rusty (34:43.602)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Nave (35:12.308)
they're not underneath you, you need to add a line on that org chart that says Elder Relations. And you've got to keep those things up to date, because if they get stale, you're going to walk into an elder meeting sometime and be unpleasantly surprised.
Rusty (35:27.282)
That's a really good point. Okay, let's flip the coin. Talk to our elders. And even though you're not a lead pastor, you've experienced a lot of these relationships. What do lead pastors need from elders?
Mike Nave (35:36.171)
Yeah.
Mike Nave (35:43.856)
I think one of their biggest needs is the elders need to be a safe place for me. One of the safest places I can go. It's where I can go and share my dreams, my visions, my hurts, my concerns, my problems and opportunities. But be that safe place for me. And a little bit like we mentioned earlier, Rusty, when I'm sharing a potential idea or direction, realize that visionaries like me need places to do that.
And don't prematurely support it, kill it, do anything to it. Just listen to me and let's see how things develop. Be patient. I think lead pastors need consistent confidentiality. And so as a lead pastor, I need to be able to share anything with you. I need to be able to come in and go, you know this key person in our church that everybody knows. I'm really struggling with whether.
they're the right person to stay. Well, you can't go home and tell your spouse, I can't tell you what's happening, but it's not looking good for John. Because they need that place. And then I would say probably finally, make an elder meeting the highlight of my month. I can't wait for my elder meeting. I wanna meet with these people I love and I trust, and they will listen to me, they will give me good feedback, they will advise me.
can't wait to go see them because they're co-labors in what we're doing, whereas I feel sorry for many pastors who are like, oh, it's coming up. You've got to get through it with the least damage possible. But I really believe if everybody understands their roles and they run in their lanes, it'll work. You know, when we were about, say, 25,000 at Christ Church of the Tenders, people would come to me and they'd say, Mike.
it must be really difficult being an elder. It must be very challenging and hard. And I'd say, you know what? Not really. I said the elders know what they do and they're good at it. Don and the staff know what they do and they're good at it. We all run in our lanes and if everybody does their job, nobody has to excessively have a list and it works well. It's actually easier to be an elder in a large, well-run church.
Rusty (38:02.355)
Hmm.
Mike Nave (38:08.576)
than a smaller church because the smaller you are, the more details the elders have to get into. You start talking about copier contracts and who mows the lawn and all that. So there is a way to do it, but there is no best way. There's just best ways for each church.
Rusty (38:26.126)
Yeah. Oh, the copier contract. That's, that's a sticky one. I've been through that one. Well, buddy, this has been, uh, this has been fascinating. I know that you help out churches. Do you want to share how people could get ahold of you if they need to talk or they, they want to bring you out or you and Dawn and your team out.
Mike Nave (38:31.999)
Oh.
Mike Nave (38:46.704)
For simplicity, I'll just give you my phone number, which would be the best way. It's area code 6025246284. That's 6025246284. And our website is accelerate.group. Interesting, our name is Accelerate Group, Accelerate Like a Car. And we have the domain group, so it's Accelerate Group.
Rusty (38:51.277)
Okay.
Mike Nave (39:15.328)
and our domain is accelerate.group. But I love pastors and I just want the church to win.
Rusty (39:18.186)
That's great.
Rusty (39:23.89)
Well, you've certainly helped a lot of churches do that. We're one of them and I am grateful for our new friendship and grateful for all you've done for Crossroads and for countless others. So Mike, thank you so much for the people you've helped today on this podcast and the many others you've helped over the last few years. So keep up the great work.
Mike Nave (39:42.304)
Thank you, Rusty. Blessings to you.
Rusty (39:47.57)
That was perfect, my friend.