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An Interview With Josh Patterson at The Village Church

On Thanksgiving morning 2009, life changed for Pastor Matt Chandler. Life and perspective also changed for the church he pastored, The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas.

Matt suffered a seizure in his home and was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The first reaction of the church’s leadership and congregation was the right one: to pray and fast for healing. Over time, leadership began to think about what was next for the church. Their primary communicator to the thousands of people gathered in services each week wasn’t going to be teaching anytime soon–and perhaps, never again.

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Josh Patterson, Lead Pastor over Ministry Leadership at The Village Church, who’s served on staff alongside Matt since 2004 and been integral to God’s work there. He’s also co-author of Creature of the Word, in which he effectively lays out the “Scripture-based beauty of a Jesus-centered church.”

Check out how this church dealt with their pastor’s sickness and planned for an uncertain future.

An Interview with Josh (my questions are in bold)

Did The Village have a succession plan in place when Matt got the news on his cancer?

No, we did not have a formal succession plan in place. But we did, by God’s grace, have the right team in place to lead the church through that particular season and through any potential succession. Although burdened and shocked with the reality before us, we felt prepared to walk through it even without a detailed plan in place. Principally, we had invested more in having the right leadership team in place rather than a specific plan.

How has Matt’s diagnosis caused your church to think differently about having a succession plan?

The week of Matt’s surgery we gathered as a staff to pray and process. We were shell-shocked with the news and heavy with sadness. A staff member asked us if we had a plan in place should Matt not be able to return to the pastorate. We answered honestly, “No, we don’t have a plan, and we don’t sense now is the right time to make a plan, but we do believe the Lord has assembled and prepared the right team to lead through this. If it becomes apparent that we need to make a detailed plan, then we will.”

Succession varies by context and situation. Some churches face the reality of an aging pastor, while others are confronted by daunting diagnoses. Each situation necessitates nuances and contextual decisions. Ultimately, succession is about change, and any change, whether foreseen or not, requires healthy leadership to navigate it appropriately.

The lessons we learned and the principles that continue to serve us today revolve around having the right leaders in place to navigate change. We have had a shared leadership culture with a strong plurality of voices and influences at The Village, which continues to be a blessing for the staff and church body.

Do you think churches should consider key man insurance on lead pastors?

Yes, this is something a church should consider for risk mitigation. Although it may not be the right decision for a particular church, walking through the process to make an informed decision is good and healthy.

At The Village we felt it was prudent to carry key man insurance and have had policies in place for years. In the same way that we maintain reserve cash funds, certain types of insurance are in place to help the church endure various storms.

What are some practical tips for churches to not be solely dependent on one communicator?

The most obvious tip would be to share the communication platform. In order to develop and multiply leaders, they must be given opportunities to grow. What a privilege it is to pull others onto the stage and affirm them before the church. This process cultivates and strengthens a culture of shared voices.

There is nothing wrong with having a primary voice and communicator in the life of a church, but the primary voice should be a champion for the other voices in the church. Other voices shouldn’t be seen as a threat but a blessing.

I mentioned earlier the value we hold for shared leadership at The Village. We have found that this type of environment raises the overall waterline of leadership. Although we have a primary communicator in terms of preaching, we have several leaders with substantial influence throughout the staff and church body. By God’s grace, we take a genuine team approach.

What is celebrated is cultivated. If the church and leadership celebrate a plurality of voices and influencers, then a culture of plurality will be cultivated.

What strategically needs to happen for churches to have a mindset that any leader may be gone?

Preach it. Teach it. Talk about it. Point it out. Call the church to live in light of it. This should be a common conversation in the course of church life. Scripture makes the point clear: “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:14-15). There are dozens of other texts that affirm the same reality: Life is short, and we are not in control.

Scripture proclaim this truth, and our experiences confirm it. Accidents happen. Tragedy strikes. Circumstances change. This is true for everyone, not just the leader.

We have a strong gospel opportunity to talk about the anchor of our hope and our life and our church. Our anchor is not any person, the church itself or any particular circumstance.

The Church should preach this message with candor, conviction and utter joy. Not only is the Lord Jesus going to build His Church, He will ensure that His Church will persevere to the end.

What do you feel is the strength of ministers having the mindset of being dispensable?

A graveyard is a good reminder that all of us are replaceable and dispensable. The only One who isn’t replaceable isn’t in the grave. Recognizing the reality that we are not essential yet invited to be a part of what God is doing in the kingdom produces freedom, joy and humility.

A few years ago, The Village graciously gave me a sabbatical. The time afforded me some incredible clarity in certain areas of importance and identity. First, I am not the Messiah, so I can stop trying to live like one. Also, my identity is not The Village Church. One of the greatest joys of my life is serving as a pastor at The Village, but this is a role the Spirit has given me and does not constitute my fundamental identity.

These truths wash over my heart in really healthy ways. They rattle my pride and develop humility. They free me from a posture of trying to be something or someone I am not. There is more room in my heart for joy and gratitude. Even more, I can celebrate the gifts of God in others. The biblical paradox we all have to embrace is that pastoring, leading and living from a position of weakness is the only time we are ever truly strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

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Check out Josh’s book, The Creature of the Word.

You can follow Josh on Twitter @PattersonJosh

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Who Owns Your Content? The Church or You?

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When a church employee writes a song, who owns it?

When a church employee creates a video for the church, can they sell it to another church?

When a church employee writes curriculum for a regional literature company, who gets paid?

When a church employee writes a book, who owns the content?

And if you have answers to all those questions, what if in all those cases the employee used church resources to create those things (computer, time, and other staff)?

If your church and its leadership don’t have answers to these questions, you‘re potentially setting yourself up for tenuous personnel situations, such as: employees abusing the church’s resources, your church abusing the employee’s talent, and perhaps even litigation.

As I did above, I could provide countless examples of intellectual property occurrences, but the point is your church needs to have a policy that deals effectively with intellectual property rights as situations occur.

“Music City,” the city I live in has a lot of talented people. And this means the church I serve has a lot of talented people, including its employees. This means there’s a lot of intellectual property (IP) being developed around me. And whether your church is in a “music city” or not, you no doubt have talented people. Talented enough they get paid to create content in their talent-field.

In my church’s case, it means we need a policy to clarify IP ownership. Our church leadership had the foresight to create a policy years ago. It clearly delineated which IP was the church’s and which was the employee’s. Over time, as more of our church staff created IP, we found that our policy only addressed a portion of the various styles of IP. It dealt greatly with book writing, but not as much with other areas.

In developing a revised policy, we collaborated and learned from some experts in the field. As a team, we had four goals in revising our IP rights policy:

  1. Protect Brentwood Baptist Church
  2. Protect Brentwood Baptist employees
  3. Inspire and allow for creativity among employees
  4. Clearly state to all impacted how we handle IP

After several drafts, we were able to accomplish those goals and develop a policy. The policy itself is lengthy and goes into quite a bit of detail. We also created examples of IP types that are produced and how we handle each one. I’ve included an abridged version of this policy here.

We determined that all IP will be allocated into one of three buckets: 1) “Employee Created – assigned to Church,” 2) Work for Hire—owned by Church,” 3) Employee Creation – not owned by Church. For each bucket, we have supporting material to deal with the various nuances of each.

If you would like to view our full policy or the other supporting documents, you can link to my website’s free resources.

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Visiting Another Church? 6 Ways To Avoid Comparing

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If you serve at a church, you’ve probably experienced the temptation to judge other churches.

You’re away on vacation or visiting your in-laws (notice that I don’t believe visiting in-laws is a vacation), and you decide to go to church. You arrive at the church with the intention of worshipping God, but you end up comparing.

  • You compare their church services to your church services.
  • You compare their practices to your church’s practices.
  • You compare their pastor to your pastor. (I’ve blogged about what I call church leader jealously syndrome.)
  • You compare their child security to your child security.
  • You compare their music and production quality to your church’s music and production quality.

These comparisons may lead to a sense of pride, or they may lead to coveting. You either self-righteously think God has blessed your church more than theirs, or you perceive a gap in what they have versus what you have. Whatever your conclusion, it doesn’t lead to worshipping God.

It leads to judging. And it’s not your job.

The Apostle Paul critiqued several churches, and James critiqued his own church in Jerusalem. Even Jesus critiqued seven famous (infamous) churches. But when they did this, they were dealing with sin issues. They weren’t judging the production of a worship service, or the cleanliness and security of the childcare rooms.

You’ve got 60-90 minutes to be there. You can use it engaging God, or engaging in the comparison game.  One choice pleases God.

I know firsthand that it’s not easy to turn off your staff minister mindset, so I have some simple things that help minimize the comparison distraction.

Practical takeaways to avoid comparison while visiting other churches:

1. Pray in advance, specifically for the Spirit to help you focus on God and not on other things.

2. Arrive just in time. Waiting in common areas or in your seat allows idle time for critical eyes to search out a church’s inadequacies.

3. Worship in a denomination different than yours —it’s easier not to judge when you’re not comparing apples to apples.

4. Don’t peruse or pick up their church collateral or bulletin. You’re there only once, and you really don’t need to know their purpose statement or what they’re serving at their Wednesday night meal. Reading bulletins and brochures almost always leads to comparing.

5. Celebrate the differences they have in worship practices.

6. Throughout the whole experience, ask yourself – “What is God trying to teach me?”  instead of “What can I take away as transferable to my church?”)

Unless you’re a paid church consultant, stay away from the comparing game. Most often, it tempts you to break the tenth commandment, and it keeps you from worship that’s pleasing to God.

 

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