By Brad Dupray
CHRISTIAN STANDARD sat down via teleconference with administrative assistants to senior pastors of four megachurches. What they said about their roles, and the pastors they serve, is not only revealing, but is filled with principles applicable to churches of all sizes.
TB is Terri Brown, Harvester Christian Church, St. Charles, Missouri. She has served 15 years as administrative assistant; Ben Merold has been at Harvester 14 years.
DC is Debbie Carper, Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky. She has been on staff at Southeast 18 years, eight in the preaching ministry office.
RK is Rose Kisling, Beaverton (Oregon) Christian Church, where she has been assistant to the senior pastor for 20 years. Clark Tanner arrived on staff shortly after Rose.
PM is Pat Masek, Community Christian Church, Naperville, Illinois, where she”s served six years as assistant to senior pastor Dave Ferguson.
What is your biggest battle on the job?
RK: The biggest battle is that everyone wants to talk to the senior pastor.
DC: Amen to that!
PM: I learned from Bill Hybels”s assistant: she says, “He would love to meet with you, but let me ask what this is about.” Then it”s a matter of finding an appropriate staff member who could take care of that person.
Are there certain developments in your staff structure that have been particularly helpful?
PM: We continue to hire people with different abilities. We have other staff who can handle some of the things I began doing, such as having a communications director””that”s something I don”t need to have oversight for. As you grow you can”t do all of those things.
TB: That”s happened here, too. I started as the only support staff that we have.
RK: We started with 350 in attendance and I was the only support person. You develop ownership of a lot of things when you”re in a small church. That”s one of the growing pains. You have to develop other people to do those things.DC: Our once-a-month staff meeting is very important.
RK: We recently hired an executive pastor, and formed a “point team,” which provides direction for the church. That has worked really well.
PM: I”m often able to go to other staff members to get answers without being held up because the senior pastor is not there to get an answer.
Debbie, you referred to staff meetings, what kind of things make staff meetings effective at Southeast?
DC: Recently Dave Stone gave his transition/vision plan. We always swap prayer cards and sometimes we have informational times. Sometimes we have Q&A time with new staff””we try to make it a unifying time. We break into prayer groups to pray for the church. A lot of the departments have their own staff meetings, too.
TB: Our support staff has meetings once a month with support staff and ministers. It”s basically a worship time. Sometimes we”ll have a prayer time after that. I really like that because it gives us a time to take a break from the craziness of the day and refocus.
RK: One of the things we have difficulties with in the church is communication. We actually send out minutes from all of our leadership teams to our support staff.
PM: Since we”re a multisite church we do a zoomerang survey (www.zoomerang.com) from each site on Monday and then we review that at our Wednesday lunch meeting. We also do a monthly all-staff meeting which is usually a little more fun””with worship or an outing.
Do any of the rest of your staffs have unique outings or do fun activities?
PM: We do our staff Christmas party at one of the nicest restaurants in town. We usually have 95 percent attendance. We also do some fun team-building types of things. Last week we did miniature golf.
RK: At Christmas we used to go out to restaurants. Now we have volunteers who cook dinner for us right here at the church. Sometimes in a restaurant you don”t feel as free to laugh and have fun.
TB: We do the Christmas thing, too. It used to be at Ben and Pat”s house until we got too big for that. Our support staff meets once a month when we go out to lunch.
DC: With a large staff it”s hard to do something all together. Once a year we do a dinner at a local restaurant for appreciation””to have a fun time. Our little staff of seven (the preaching staff) gets together once a month to have a prayer time where we”re praying for each other, sharing needs with each other.
RK: We meet once a week on Thursday mornings to do a prayer time for all staff.
What is your role on Sunday?
toRK: Sunday is a day of worship for me (laughs), but it never quite turns out that way. I do not have a work day on Sunday””officially.
toDC: It”s definitely a worship day for me, but Bob does call on me occasionally. Bob prefers that I have the day to worship with my family.
toPM: It”s the same for me.
TB: I”m trying to get our tape ministry going. Until that happens I”m involved with that on Sundays.
How does serving now compare with serving in a smaller-sized church?
RK: You can”t compare the equipment now with what we had then. You also can”t know everyone. When we started we knew everyone.
DC: When I came (18 years ago), Southeast was running 1,700 to 1,800, which still isn”t “small.” The expectation level is the hard part. When the church was smaller, everyone had a piece of the senior minister. As we have grown the expectation level has decreased some. Bob still understands that people who have known him the longest have the highest expectation level.
RK: Those who have been here the longest expect the senior pastor for weddings, funerals, and things like that.
TB: I was here before Ben when we were under 200. Now we”re at 3,000. Now I don”t have to know how to do everything in every department. There were times when I had to help with music, and I”m not a musical person! Now I can focus more on taking care of Ben and the areas of my specific responsibility.
What resources have given you specific help?
DC: Talking to other secretaries has been my greatest way to learn.
TB: I have made several trips to Southeast and have come back with huge ideas of what I can do””even though I have to scale it to our size. We”ve gone to the Southeast Leadership Conference””that”s helped me so much in the past.
PM: We get to go to other conferences, too. I always glean something. Sometimes, we go through leadership books and have discussions as a staff. That has been helpful in my leadership role here at Community Christian.
What would you say to the new administrative assistant, maybe in a smaller church, who is just getting started?
PM: First-time requests to staff need to come from the senior pastor, but once that request has been made you need to go back to get that information. It”s OK to follow up on those requests, but the first-time request should come from senior staff.
DC: I”ve worked for quite a few different staff members, and their personalities are so diverse. Find out what matters to your boss most and focus on those things. There are so many things we have to do, but your job is to try to make him look good.
RK: Always be supportive of the bosses. Be very confidential. Their personal life is their own.TB: I like what Debbie said about making your boss look good. A lot of other people try to get my time around here, and I need to focus on what Ben needs. That”s what I”m here for.
So what”s the bottom line?
PM: I love what I do. I”m glad I get to do it every day.
RK: Me too.
DC: It”s a privilege. We are so blessed to do what we do every day.
Brad Dupray is director of public relations and advertising with Provision Ministry Group, Irvine, California.
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