Episode 50: On the Role of Associate Pastors
What does an associate pastor do? Jonathan Leeman, Jamie Dunlop, and Bobby Jamieson come together to discuss an associate pastor’s function in a healthy church. In this conversation, they contrast the different duties of an associate, senior, and executive pastor. Join them for Pastors Talk as they analyze the authority and roles of an associate pastor as he seeks to serve Christ within his church.
- How is an Associate Pastor Different From a Senior Pastor?
- How is an Associate Pastor Different From an Executive Pastor?
- The Authority of an Associate Pastor
- Advice for Senior Pastors
- When to Seek Out an Associate Pastor
Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
On the Role of Associate Pastors
Jonathan Leeman
Hi, I’m Jonathan Leeman. Welcome to this special episode of 9Marks Pastors Talk. 9Marks exists to present a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches. Learn more at 9marks.org.
Why is this episode special, you ask? Well, Mark Dever is out of town. And since the cat is away, I thought the mice might wanna come out and play. Which is why I’ve invited two of Mark’s associate pastors to talk about being associate pastors. First, we have Bobby Jamieson. Bobby, thank you for being here.
Bobby Jamieson
Happy to be here, Jonathan.
Jonathan Leeman
Who you might know from his books, Sound Doctrine, as well as Going Public. I commend them both to you. And Bobby, you’ve been a pastor for about a year.
Bobby Jamieson
Not quite a year, yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
That’s right, just finished up his PhD overseas, and then here he is. We also have Jamie Dunlop, who you might know from the book he co-authored with Mark called Compelling Community, excellent book. And he was a non-staff elder in this church for how many years?
Jamie Dunlop
Three years.
Jonathan Leeman
And you were working basically as a management consultant here in town.
Jamie Dunlop
That’s right, yep.
Jonathan Leeman
And were doing such great job, great work, eldering that you asked, we asked, you to come on board full time?
Jamie Dunlop
I told my neighbors it was a mercy hire. I was spending more and more time at church and eventually you decided you just put me on payroll so I wouldn’t have to worry about that other job I was doing.
Jonathan Leeman
That’s one way to put it. Another way to put it is that he was extremely fruitful as a lay, non-staff, elder. And so we made him, the church made him a full-time elder.
Jamie Dunlop
So I’ve been here for nine years on staff.
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah, that’s right, very good. And in order for you guys to play the part of Mark, I just want you to know you should feel free to interrupt me and make little sarcastic quips about my hair or clothes or anything else. And that will help keep the vibe.
Bobby Jamieson
I’ll try.
Jonathan Leeman
Nobody has quite his magic at doing that.
Bobby Jamieson
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
Some guys tell me they like that part of the interview, that stuff. And other guys tell me they don’t. I think most people do, I don’t know.
How is an Associate Pastor Different From a Senior Pastor?
Hey, okay, opening question for you, Jamie, how are your roles as associate pastor distinct from the senior pastor or lead pastor’s role? And how are they no different than any other pastors? And I’m asking not just your own, you know, personal role, but you and Bobby and the other associate pastors, what’s the same, what’s different?
Jamie Dunlop
Well, and maybe that starts us with an important caveat, which is we’re going to talk about how we have chosen to structure things at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. And the disclaimer is things will certainly look different at your church. So we’ll just be descriptive here. We’re not being prescriptive.
We’ve chosen to make all of our associate pastors generalists, so we all muck around in each other’s business. And we all have a particular area of leadership focus. And so I would say half my time is spent just being an ordinary pastor. I do lots of marriage counseling. I meet with members of the church. I do teaching. I write lots of memos for the elders meetings.
Jonathan Leeman
And this is true of all the associate pastors.
Jamie Dunlop
And this is true of every associate pastor. The one thing I never do, at least I haven’t since 2001, is preach on a Sunday morning, because we decided to give all of our preaching either to Mark Dever or to guys who are likely going to become senior pastors at other churches, the main preacher at other churches.
And so that’s one difference in my role and Bobby’s. Bobby will hopefully eventually be the main preaching pastor at a different church, whereas the other three associate pastors we intend to be here for the duration of our careers.
But I take the lead on areas of administration. I tell people I dislike administration the least of all the pastors, since I had a career in business before coming here. And so I was just in my office—
How is an Associate Pastor Different From an Executive Pastor?
Jonathan Leeman
Well, people think of you as the executive pastor, or a kind of executive pastor.
Jamie Dunlop
They do. And I don’t like that term because Ephesians 4, the congregation executes ministry. That’s not the job of the staff. Our job is to equip the congregation to execute.
So I don’t like the term, but I embrace the role. And then I oversee our Sunday school, our adult Sunday school, and then coordinate between the different ministries based here in the church, like 9Marks and Campus Outreach, Together for the Gospel, and so forth.
Jonathan Leeman
Jamie has a great article on when do you staff? When does a church staff? When do you hire staff for like pastoral roles? I’d encourage the listeners to go find that on the 9Marks website, Jamie Dunlop, staffing, very good article. But Bobby, how would you—?
Bobby Jamieson
Can I ask Jamie a question really quick? Jamie, you distinguished your role from an executive pastor. When you know of other churches that have executive pastors, how is your role different? What are the main one or two or three things?
Jamie Dunlop
Well, churches use the name executive pastor for a wide variety of roles. In some cases, particularly larger churches, the executive pastor is managing the staff. And so everybody reports ultimately to the executive pastor, except for the senior pastor, and maybe the senior pastor’s personal assistant.
Other churches, the executive pastor is more the pastor who, on the side, is responsible for taking leadership on anything administrative in nature—that would be similar to my role—and I guess there’s a third variety which is someone who really is an administrator, they’re also an elder. You could probably more honestly call them a lay elder who happens to have a job working on staff as an administrator. Their job doesn’t really involve pastoral work by day. That’s more pastoring by night. And sometimes those guys also get called executive pastors.
Bobby Jamieson
Sure, thanks.
The Role of the Pastor with His Staff
Jonathan Leeman
Guys, way way back in 2011 we did two 9Marks journals called The Pastor and His Staff. So The Pastor and His Staff Part 1 and The Pastor and His Staff Part 2. And Andy Johnson wrote an article called, Dear Pastor, Sincerely, the Associate Pastor. And in the article he writes this.
Now this is a long quote but it’s hard hitting and I think it was worth reading all of it, so here we go. Not the whole article, but this long quote.
“Senior pastors have a special and wonderful role in Christ’s church. But like folks in leadership everywhere, they face a sinister temptation to massively overvalue their uniqueness in a way that isolates them from accountability and input and burden sharing. So, senior pastors, don’t buy into the fallacy of thinking that your role is so unique, your sense of responsibility so singular, that, quote, no one can really understand my perspective and the burden I bear, unquote.
This line of reason often comes with a satanic corollary. So no one here can really know me and share my burdens and speak into my life. That is not true for the angst-ridden 15-year-olds.
It’s not true for bosses, business owners, or politicians. And it’s not true for senior pastors either. I’m writing rather sharply right out of the gate because this is the most important point in the article.
I’ve seen this faulty line of thinking cause senior pastors, often unconsciously I think, to wall themselves off from the very people God has placed in the middle of their lives. Maybe they haven’t attained total isolation. Maybe they do talk to a few other senior pastors they got to know at seminary because they understand what it’s like. But of course, these folks aren’t in their daily lives.
And even if they do try to be transparent with each other, they only know what the other wants them to know. That’s very dangerous. That kind of relationship lets you check the transparency box without ever really risking critique.
This is not a recipe for the correction and input that we all need, especially senior pastors. So resist the urge to think that because people around you may not understand everything about you they can’t understand anything or the most important things.
True, no one person perfectly understands your perspectives. Welcome to just being human. But I’ve often found in my own experience that even those who don’t know what it’s like to be the guy where the buck stops can still surprise me with their understanding, insights, and corrections.
Solomon was incisively wise in Proverbs 27:10: “Better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.” Those are good words for every senior pastor to take to heart.”
Do Associate Pastors Have Less Authority?
And I agree with Andy, which is why I thought it would be worth reading that whole thing. Brothers, Bobby, clarify for us. Do associate or assistant pastors have less authority than the senior or lead pastor? If yes, how so? If not, how so?
Bobby Jamieson
I think the basic answer I would give is: Formally, no, they have the same authority—they’re one of the elders. And that answer is only really gonna make sense if it’s actually the elders as a whole who are shepherding and directing the church.
So if it’s really the elders as a unified body working through heart issues, making decisions, you know, coming to common judgment about matters of membership and discipline that they would then present to the congregation for the congregation to decide on, the more the elders are really doing that and bearing that burden together, the more it makes sense to say, well, Jamie or I or Deepak or Andy, no, we don’t have any difference in authority from Mark on the one hand as the senior pastor or from lay elders on the other.
And one thing I’ve been encouraged by coming back to CHBC is just how there really is this sense that the elders as a whole are the leaders of the church, and we share that burden and that responsibility together. So…
Are Elders Being Swayed?
Jonathan Leeman
Okay, so the elders as a whole are sitting there at the table.
Bobby Jamieson
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
We all have one vote. Staff, non-staff. Mark Dever has one and the youngest, newest non-staff elder has one vote. And formally, it’s the same thing.
Okay, we understand that. We also understand, let me just impose this, we understand that the senior pastor has extra measure of informal authority.
Bobby Jamieson
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
We can agree on that easily. Okay, so there you are. You’re at the elder table. Mark’s your boss as a staff matter. Does that constrain how you vote? If you know Mark’s going to go this way, but you feel like, yeah, I want to go that way, doesn’t that affect your ability to kind of vote honestly?
Bobby Jamieson
It’s a good question. I think Mark does a good job of counteracting that by often remaining quiet until late in a discussion or even throughout a discussion.
So it’s not clear which way Mark’s necessarily going to vote. I think Mark also does a good job of highlighting and celebrating other brothers voicing opinions, making arguments even where they disagree with him or wind up voting against him.
Mark will sometimes cheer among the elders when a particular brother votes against him as an expression of that brother’s conviction, authority, leadership in the church, willingness to go against Mark and overcome fear of man. So honestly, for me personally, it doesn’t. Maybe somewhere in some recess of my heart and mind, it factors in.
Jonathan Leeman
You don’t care what Mark thinks.
Bobby Jamieson
Not really. Not much.
Jamie Dunlop
So, let me present maybe one exception to that.
Bobby Jamieson
Yeah, sure.
Informal Authority
Jamie Dunlop
Which is you mentioned informal authority. There’s two ways in which Mark has more authority than either Bobby or I do. One is we’ve built this church, I hope, around the centrality of God’s word.
That means it is not surprising that the man who spends the most time teaching and studying God’s word will accrue to himself a weight and a gravitas that the other elders don’t have. You know, that’s been Mark for the last 24 years.
Secondly, Mark is the manager of the staff and so, we’ll get into this later on, I’m sure, he is both my peer as an elder and we have been elders in the same church now for over a dozen years, and he’s my boss. And every once in a while in an elders meeting I feel like one of my roles, as someone who has been an elder for a long time, is to help the other elders realize, okay, this is an issue we really need to follow Mark. Because if he doesn’t get behind it, the reality of the situation is nothing’s going to happen.
Yes, we are all peers. Yes, we all have the same vote. But I’ve seen this happen before. And I know Mark’s not enthusiastic with this particular initiative. And so I want to, in that elders meeting, almost revert to my staff role and help the other elders realize if Mark’s not on board, it’s not worth doing this.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay, a couple issues I want to chase down there. The first one, there I am at the table. I’m sitting there as a lay elder or a non-staff elder. I prefer the term non-staff.
I have something I feel strongly about. I’m trying to push it or I’m trying to encourage the guys, trying to persuade the guys, and yet I know that Mark is opposed to it. And Mark now has, you just told me, kind of his henchmen, his fellow staff members, to kind of enforce his policy.
Jamie Dunlop
His lackeys.
Jonathan Leeman
His lackeys.
Jamie Dunlop
Yes.
Jonathan Leeman
I wouldn’t say that, but that doesn’t seem like plural elder rule, does it? Help me think through that.
Jamie Dunlop
What’s the space between what you just said and what I just described?
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah.
Jamie Dunlop
I would say one big difference is frequency. The situation I described is maybe one vote every few years. Whereas nearly always Mark is delighted when he and I disagree because it reminds him that he still has an independent thinker on his staff on the eldership.
Jonathan Leeman
Because you don’t think Bobby is, but you think you are?
Jamie Dunlop
Well, I was just talking about myself. Bobby’s very disagreeable as well, don’t worry.
Jonathan Leeman
I get to play Mark now.
Jamie Dunlop
That’s right.
Jonathan Leeman
Go ahead, sorry.
Jamie Dunlop
I think the other is there’s a difference between me trying to enforce Mark’s agenda and me trying to help the other elders realize that this particular thing will not succeed if Mark’s not behind it.
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah.
Jamie Dunlop
And I have seen many times, Mark is very happy to let that thing go forward. Sometimes cause I think he doesn’t, maybe somewhat in contrast to what Andy wrote in the quote you just read, Mark doesn’t appreciate how critical his leadership is at times. Not on most things, but on some things, if the senior pastor isn’t behind it it’s just not going to get momentum.
Dynamics Between Associate Pastors and Senior Pastors
Jonathan Leeman
Now to some extent, you’re answering, we’re answering these questions all in light of Mark Dever, his personality, the size of his personality, his ministry, his history, the weight of who he is and so forth. But if we’re trying to think about this in terms of say a lot of other churches out there where maybe it’s brand new pastor, he’s got an older board of elders, right?
So he’s inherited this church, he’s first year on the job, and he’s looking around the table and the men around him, he’s just out of seminary, he’s 35, he’s got a 50 year old, 65 year old, he doesn’t have that same weight that Dever does. What would you say for the associate pastor in that situation? Is he similarly, does it become even more important perhaps that he advocates on behalf of his senior pastor? How does that dynamic shift your role as an associate pastor?
Jamie Dunlop
I’ve had many conversations with new senior pastors who come to me and they say, hey, you know, Mark Dever talks about this first among equals thing. You know, my elders are all 10 years older than me. They’ve been at the church a lot longer and I don’t have that respect and I feel like they should give it to me.
To which my response is, that authority is earned over time. You don’t demand that authority. And I think that dynamic is important for a new pastor.
Associate Pastors as Mediators
So let’s say that Mark retires next year. I can’t imagine that’s going to happen. But let’s say he does, and we have a new senior pastor in. And I’ve been on staff now for 10 years. What’s my role?
I think my role is to help that man build that informal authority as much as I can. And I want to lend the authority I’ve accrued over the years to help him in that. That’s going to involve a few things.
It’s going to help him understand where there are minefields he’s not aware of, so he doesn’t step in things he shouldn’t. That’s going to involve helping the other elders capture the vision for wanting to support the new senior pastor and support his authority.
Jonathan Leeman
You’re working as a mediator.
Jamie Dunlop
A mediator.
Jonathan Leeman
In both directions.
Jamie Dunlop
An advisor, yes.
Jonathan Leeman
Hey, buddy, be careful of this. Hey, guys, be careful of that.
Jamie Dunlop
Yeah, and I think if you have an associate pastor who’s been there for a long time and a new senior pastor, that’s a really important role you can play. But I think the moment that anybody begins to suspect that you’re merely a yes man, you lose all your ability to help either side.
Balance Between Pastors
Jonathan Leeman
Good word. Okay, so bottom line here is in some ways, I’m hearing from both of you, you’ve got to strike a balance between, hey, I, the associate pastor, and the lead pastor, senior pastor, are equals, elders together.
On the other hand, he’s my boss. And you’re looking to strike that balance and do both somehow in wisdom, case to case, you know, adjudicated case to case. Is that basically the big picture? Am I missing something?
Bobby Jamieson
I think so, and I mean, I don’t have much experience, just been doing this less than a year, but so far in terms of the boss dynamic, on a day-to-day basis, that relates more to my schedule, my priorities, should I say yes to this potentially ongoing counseling commitment that’ll take a chunk out of my schedule, or should I say yes to this outside ministry responsibility that would take me away from normal stuff, and very much I wanna bring those to Mark and defer to him and give him a kind of clear glass pane view into my schedule, day-to-day priorities, that kind of thing.
That’s more related to my work as it impacts the whole church, not a kind of matter for the whole elders. Now I appreciate what Jamie’s saying about sometimes there is a way that a matter before the whole elders uniquely relates to the senior pastor. But at least as I’ve experienced so far, the kind of boss, supervisor, supervisee thing is a bit more about my direct schedule and priorities and so on.
Advice for a Senior Pastor
Jonathan Leeman
What advice would you guys have for senior pastors on helping their assistant and associate pastors strike that balance well? Like, hey, you’re not just my lackey. You are my partner in the gospel and the ministry and shepherding of this church. On the other hand, you know, I have a different staffing position than you, and I’m your boss.
Jamie Dunlop
I think in many churches, the primary relationship is between the associate pastor and the senior pastor. And that can end up as a team of rivals, where we are all competing for the affection, attention, and time of the senior guy. I think Mark Dever has been very wise in, maybe this was deliberate, maybe this is just how things worked out, but he’s built a staff where I think the primary relationships are horizontal, lateral, between the associate pastors.
And that means that we cheer each other on and commiserate with each other about what it’s like working for Mark Dever. He’s a delight to work for, and it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. And he’s not always a delight to work for. And I so respect his wisdom in encouraging those lateral relationships.
There is, as best I can tell, no rivalry between us. We are working together. And I think that dynamic really helps this awkward job of having two hats, the peer hat and the staff hat.
All Pastors are Partners
I think it also helps the way Mark has structured staff, I describe it as: we’re a law firm. We’re a circle of partners. He’s the managing partner, but we’re all partners, which means I feel like 95% of the time, Mark interacts with us, associate pastors—
Jonathan Leeman
As a fellow partner.
Jamie Dunlop
—as a partner, as peer, and not as boss. He is reticent to pull the boss card. And honestly, in my experience in the business world, that’s typical, I think, of good managers. When you have to pull out the boss card, it’s because you have failed to lay out a compelling vision for people to follow.
Jonathan Leeman
Good word. Alex Duke, who writes the first draft of the notes and the questions that I ask, is talking about this tension. And he says, how does Mark make it easier to wear both hats? How does Mark make it harder?
And in parentheses he says, “If they would be able to talk openly about what Mark could improve on, that would be fabulous. One, because Mark is not sensitive. Two, because I know tons of support role guys who would never dream of serving alongside and under a man who ever hears criticism, much less lets them broadcast it for others to hear.”
And we can all agree, it’s probably not good to publicly criticize your boss. Nonetheless, within the bounds of wisdom, I mean, are there things that you would say that are commendable and other things where I think he would say, agree with you and say, yeah, these are things I want to work on.
Utilizing Your Associate Pastor
Jamie Dunlop
I’ve never had a job where I ran on a longer leash than this one. Mark gives enormous freedom. So in nine years, I can think of twice when he’s redirected.
He said, no, we’re not going in that direction. We’re going in this direction. As a control freak, that’s a delight. I feel like it allows me to pastor and I feel like I’m pastoring, I’m not just doing someone else’s work.
Jonathan Leeman
I will—let me interrupt you here. I will say, brother, you are a hardworking, self-motivating man. I’ve had conversations with senior pastors and we’re just saying, look, I have this associate pastor who doesn’t work hard.
And we don’t know what to do with him. So your answer is wonderful, but it’s because you’re a hard worker.
Jamie Dunlop
Well, and I think because Mark knows himself to be a very laid back manager, he’s hired self-motivating people.
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah.
Jamie Dunlop
That’s, that’s a wonderful benefit. I think that also the flip side of that is, is that as associate pastor, you can feel ignored and taken for granted in that if I don’t sound alarm bells, Mark’s not interested in it.
I joked to Bobby when he came on staff. I said, “So Bobby, functionally, I am associate pastor for stuff Mark does not care about but knows is important. And you are associate pastor for stuff Mark cares about.”
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah.
Bobby Jamieson
Yeah, and just to…
Jonathan Leeman
Which makes Bobby’s job harder.
Bobby Jamieson
Well, it makes it very different. Just to fill in my role, I do the next biggest chunk of public teaching and preaching after Mark. I help oversee our internship.
I try to help foster planting and revitalizing, and kind of keep an eye on who we’re training and what other opportunities might be locally. And I help manage the staff a little bit.
So those are all things that Mark himself has a kind of senior role in and I have a kind of deputy role in. So I’m very much like Mark’s extendable arm, kind of doing more, going further, doing different things that Mark himself is doing a lot of and is the kind of senior guy for. So that means that my day-to-day, Mark cares a lot more about what I’m sort of looking at, focusing on, who I’m with, what kind of relationships I’m building.
Correspondingly, I think Mark does a good job of prioritizing, you know, if I have this set of issues I need to talk about that’s kind of time sensitive, I can see Mark kind of prioritize that. So I appreciate it. I don’t know that I have a long enough track record here so far to have useful criticisms to draw on, but I will say one constraint of Mark, and this is very much kind of his personality, his leadership, his style, is Mark loves doing stuff all together.
We have an intern discussion three hours on Thursday morning and the whole staff is there every time. We have senior staff, which is one of the ways—it’s a longer meeting among the full-time pastors—it is a great way to have more of these horizontal relationships. It also claims two-thirds of a day every so often and particularly since I have a lot of public teaching that just kind of locks away a lot of time for prep and other things.
I think in some ways, given the slightly more kind of Sunday driven, deadline driven of some of the stuff that I’m doing, I feel those constraints a bit more. And so that’s just part of recognizing if I’m working under Mark I’m working under his schedule and I’ll joyfully and gladly submit to that and trust the Lord to give me the hours I need to prepare sermons.
Is the Church the Senior Pastor?
Jonathan Leeman
Amen, brother. Michael Lawrence also wrote an excellent article in that journal titled “Dear Associate Pastor, sincerely, a former Associate Pastor.” And Michael, as you know, is now a senior pastor at Henson Baptist in Portland, and he makes this somewhat jarring statement.
Quote, remember the church is the senior pastor’s, not yours, end quote. Now, he’s not talking about the church’s, he’s not denying Christ is the head of the church, but he’s making, I think, kind of a practical observation.
What do you guys think of that? Is that a problem, what he said, or is that just sort of natural and normal? The church is the senior pastor’s not yours.
Jamie Dunlop
Yeah, back to something I said earlier, if your church is built around God’s Word, and this is the guy who spends the most time studying, teaching God’s Word, and authority accrues to the teaching of God’s Word, and a congregation gathers around God’s Word and the teacher of God’s Word, I think what Michael describes is inevitable.
Bobby Jamieson
Michael said to me years ago, we were talking about how do you think about taking an associate pastor position? And he said, you know, it’s like being married, and you’re the wife, because you are in a position that is required to submit. And so what that means is you wanna think very carefully before yoking yourself to a senior pastor.
You want to have respect for that man, confidence in him, trust in him, and a real extensive like-mindedness in terms of ministry philosophy. I’m often talking to guys going through seminary, guys wanting to enter full-time ministry, who are thinking about becoming an associate pastor under somebody they’re really not that like-minded with.
And I’m generally warning them off of it in pretty strong terms, precisely because of this reality. It’s just, yeah, it’s just reality. It’s that guy’s church. If he’s predominantly in the pulpit, he’s the kind of primary leader setting the direction and vision of the church. Yeah, it’s his, and you better be very confident that you can happily follow in a direction he’s going to set.
Jonathan Leeman
Michael says himself, your job is not to steer the congregation in a new or better direction, rather your job is to help him lead the congregation in the direction he’s already going. And I think that’s right. Bobby, you just mentioned you warn guys against certain situations.
Situations to Seek Out As an Associate Pastor
Let’s conclude with these two questions, and we only have a minute or so here left. What’s an unhealthy situation look like that guys in that role should try to leave? And what kinds of situations should they seek out so that they will thrive as an associate pastor? Get out of these situations, get into those situations. What do you got?
Bobby Jamieson
Well, I’ll take the second one. What kind of situations should you seek out? It’s difficult because if you aspire to full-time ministry and you’re on some kind of training path, you know not every church is able to even hire a number two guy. Many churches can only afford to pay one full-time pastor.
So you’re often facing a difficult decision of, do I maybe stay in my church longer term, try to become a lay elder, get as much ministry as I can, versus kind of making the leap into being a senior pastor or solo pastor. And that’s a hard decision. I think sometimes that scarcity and that difficulty will push guys to consider situations that I think wisdom dictates they really shouldn’t.
So I’d say the only situation to seek out is one where you can look at a guy’s ministry, see the fruit of it, know his convictions very thoroughly and say, yeah, for all intents and purposes, I completely agree with the philosophy of ministry, the approach to ministry, from what I know of this guy’s character, he seems to be godly, trustworthy, not just somebody I’d be happy to work for, but someone who I’d want mentoring me and me being imprinted by him.
Jonathan Leeman
So you’re not just looking for a job, you’re saying I’m looking for a man who I can support and get behind.
Bobby Jamieson
Absolutely. Because if you can’t, it’s going to fracture the whole working relationship.
Situations to Avoid as an Associate Pastor
Jonathan Leeman
Jamie, what are you looking to avoid? What should you try to get out of? What are you looking for? Give us our concluding thought here.
Jamie Dunlop
I think you have to decide how long you’re going to be an associate pastor for. I think your goals are different. If you’re thinking, okay, this is four years and I really want to be the main preaching guy at a church, you have one set of goals.
If you’re like me, and I committed to this church before I ever dreamed about working for it. My commitment is to this body of believers. And so my coming on staff was the intention, we’ll see what God does, but my intention is, I wanna be here into, I hope, long into the career of Mark’s replacement.
In the first category, I think you can have, you need a position which is gonna train and develop you. And if there are some, you know, small degree differences in vision between you and the senior pastor, you can probably put up with that for four years.
In the second category, you really want to feel like, no, this is a vision I can get behind with my life. You only have one life. Spend it well. Don’t be in a place where you and the senior pastor are going to be pushing against each other. And so character, philosophy of ministry. What kind of church is he trying to build? You want the same idea.
Jonathan Leeman
Now to some extent, that’s advice. It probably works for guys in America. Might be a little harder for pastors in some areas of the world, where there’s not the luxury of choosing from so many spots. But certainly I think in many places, that is the case, I think that’s helpful.
Brothers, any concluding thoughts, either to the associate pastor or to the senior pastor? You don’t have to, but if you have anything else you didn’t say and you wanted to say.
Bobby Jamieson
I don’t think so.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay.
Jamie Dunlop
I think it’s important to recognize an associate pastor is sometimes part deacon, part elder. And that can help explain the two hats thing. So you know, Mark, when he came here, told the congregation, look, I’m willing if necessary to let everything fail except for the preaching of God’s word.
That’s not my job. I’m willing, if necessary, to let everything fail except for good administration. That sounds really boring. It sounds very unspiritual. Sounds very unpastoral.
And you know, if that was my whole job, I wouldn’t take the job. I want to be a pastor, but I do feel like the pastoring pieces of my job are a luxury I can do so long as the administration is done well enough that Mark can continue preaching God’s word. And that means that generally I get to spend most of my time being a pastor and every once in a while, I don’t. And that’s just part of what it means to have linked myself to this preacher and I want to spend my life supporting him.
Jonathan Leeman
Good words, brothers. Thank you for your time.
Bobby Jamieson
Thanks, Jonathan.
Jamie Dunlop
Thank you.
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