How to Lead When You're not in Charge

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

In a previous post, I said there are three groups every NextGen pastor leads. However, there is a fourth group you lead and interact with every day. 

That’s the other people on the church staff.

No matter where you serve, you are not a ministry unto yourself.

Yes, you have your own worship, lessons, tech, volunteers, and everything else. Pastors in NextGen must do everything the adults do most of the time as a one-person team with volunteers to help. It’s daunting.

However, with all these responsibilities it’s easy to start creating your own ministry silo.

You have your own volunteers that are loyal to you, you have your own vision that may or may not be aligned with the church’s vision, you don’t work with other ministries and may even view them as an enemy for stealing resources and people.

Doing any one of these are recipes for disaster. Maybe not today, but definitely in the long run.

Rob Ketterling once said that a team can only move at the speed of unity. Whether your church has a staff of three or three hundred, it’s your responsibility to forgive, reconcile, and work with the other staff and ministries.

There’s a reason why Paul talked about the church as a body. We can’t do one thing without the other, we are all one integrated system, and it’s foolish to tell one ministry that we don’t need them or look down on them.

Here’s 4 ways to lead when you’re not in charge

Line up with the vision

It’s important for your ministry to have vision. Vision is what makes the ministry grow. There’s a study that came out that said churches of any size grew just because the leader had vision. While that study is talking about the church as a whole, I believe that’s also true for any ministry.

However, it’s important that when you create your vision for your ministry it lines up with the vision of the house. Creating your own vision separate from the church vision is a surefire way to create a silo.

Your pastor brought you on to ultimately do one thing, carry out his vision in the ministry you oversee. 

Now that might mean you’re stuck in the basement never to be seen or heard from or you’re out front and center all the time. Whatever it is, you’re under authority and to do anything outside of that vision is rebellious.

I’m not saying you can’t nor shouldn’t have a say in your vision. Quite the opposite. What I am saying is that when you start creating the vision for your ministry, you need to start with the church’s vision first.

For instance, at church number 1, the vision was 

“We are a community of believers who connected to God, the community, and each other.” 

That’s great for the whole church, but I wanted to tweak it a little to line up with my goals and the pastor’s for the children’s ministry. So, my vision statement was 

“We are creating a community of believers in kids who connect to God, the Bible, the community, and each other.”

When you look at my statement versus the church, while they are different, they have far more similarities. Because they were so similar, I knew that we would be carrying out the house’s vision while also working on my ministry’s.

I’ve seen too many children’s ministries fall apart because the kids’ pastor decided to outreach to a community or serve a group of people that wasn’t supported by the church. The leader’s cause was noble, but it didn’t line up with the house. This can lead to conflict at best and a church split and dismissal at worst. Don’t do it.

Pay Attention

Brian Dollar, in his book I Blew It, tells a story where he was sitting in a staff meeting and everyone was on the edge of their seats. They had been working to raise a lot of money for missions and the past Sunday was the big offering day. The senior pastor came in and announced the huge number. Everyone was ecstatic, except for Brian.

Brian was mad. He didn’t know anything about it and felt like he and the children’s ministry was left out. He went to his senior pastor to express his frustration only to find out his lack of involvement was his fault. They had been talking about the missions push for weeks. The whole staff had worked together to pull resources and market the project. 

Brian hadn’t participated in any of it.  In staff meetings, he’d spent his time on his computer getting work done and only engaging when needed.

I would suspect that we’ve all been guilty of Brian’s mistake. I know I have.

However, if you want to know what’s going on in the church and even have a say, you need to pay attention at staff meetings, prayer meetings, conversations in the hall, whatever and wherever else decisions are being made.

I’ve sat in my fair share of pre-service meetings where the content was all about what was happening in the Main Auditorium, and no one cared to ask what was happening in kids. It can seem unfair, and you can become bitter about it, or you can speak up. 

Say what’s happening. Talk about what you’re doing and what you’re excited about, but also chime in when you’re not addressed and contribute to the plans. Which brings me to my next point.

Contribute in any way you can

Traditionally there are two stereotypical children’s pastors. The administrator and the clown. The clown is the strongest stereotype and often in a multi-staff situation, they’re looked down upon. Sure, they’ll come to you when they need a fun idea or something crazy, but not for anything serious or important.

However, the problem with stereotypes is that they’re often wrong. Even if you can juggle, do magic, and make everyone a custom balloon animal according to their enneagram type, you have more to offer. So, offer it.

Just by nature of the job, you know how to organize a service, recruit and train volunteers, manage multiple rooms at the same time, and address different learning styles. So, when the next big church event comes up, offer to organize the volunteers. When your pastor is talking about a new sermon series offer some Bible stories or object lessons.

One of my passions is technology and marketing and using the two to reach people for Christ. I’ve spent almost as much time honing that craft as kidmin. So, I didn’t hold back those skills. 

I started at church number 2 in October. As part of my research process, I looked at their social media and noticed the last post they had was from Father’s Day saying their car show was about to begin.

And that was it. No updates. No pictures. No engagement.

I brought it up in my first staff meeting and offered a few ways for them to improve. By the end of the day, I was also in charge of the church’s social media.

Now, you may be at your capacity and can’t take anything else on. I’ve been there, but I still offered my services whenever I could, but made it clear I couldn’t own it forever. They still appreciated my contribution, and I was still part of the team. No matter how busy you may feel, you can still be a team player.

Lead through influence

It's not uncommon for a kids' pastor to have a low level of leadership on a staff. Some NextGen leaders earn their way to the "adult table" after years of faithful service and contributing to the team, but they’re rare.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t lead.

John Maxwell defines leadership as influence. You can still influence church decisions on mission, vision, policy, events, and so much more. The first step is doing everything I’ve said first. 

Once you have shown that you are valuable to the team and have something to contribute then, when there is a problem or an idea, you can speak it with boldness. They may not accept it, but at least you were heard.

At church number 2, the pastor decided that we as a staff should read books together and discuss it every week. He is a great pastor, but consistency isn't his strong suit. So every staff meeting, I would bring up the book discussion. Afterwards, I’d lay out what chapters we needed to discuss next. Then when it was time for to pick a new book, they looked to me for which one we should read next. 

I was never THE leader in the room, but I did influence the entire staff with what we read and how we thought about it.

At church number 3, my influence was far more diminished. I was two levels down on the org chart and had very little say in the big decisions the church made. However, I didn’t let that stop me.

In our NextGen meeting, I would ask questions of my NextGen pastor to bring to the lead team meetings. Frequently, I’d have my answer in the all-staff meeting later that day.

After COVID, we decided to relaunch Wednesday night. I knew that the service needed a revamp and many of the staff agreed, but making a big change to that service was way too hard and took too much relational change. Pre-COVID, for better or worse, we waited looking for the right time to make a change.  After taking several months, off there may not have been a better time.

In our all-staff meeting the pastor announced the reopening of Wednesday with the exact same model as we’d done before. I spoke up and just asked the question. Is this the time for change? I pointed to the ideas of the worship pastor for a Wednesday Night revamp and how this was a golden opportunity to make changes.

They all stopped and considered. Next thing I knew, we’re in a new meeting planning an all-new Wednesday night program that aligned better with our mission and values.

Was I THE leader in the room? No. 

Did I lead through influence? Yes. 

Was the church better for it? Yes. They’re still using that model years later with great success.

No matter who you are or where you go there will always be conflict. You’re going to want to do something and someone else is going to have a different opinion. It’s called being human. Your skill as a leader is shown by your ability to work with others and get things done. Move at the speed of unity and see how far Jesus will take your ministry.