Monday, February 26, 2018
Hey Fletch … Have been an XP for nearly 20 years and I’m curious on your thoughts on organizational structure of the SP/XP positions. I’ve twice been in the “2nd chair” position, organizationally under the SP, and once things start to go bad I’m the vulnerable one that loses his job when the fault is elsewhere. I’ve seen an org chart that has SP and XP as co-equals organizationally. Clearly the SP is still visionary leader, but the XP reports to the Elders, not the SP. The XP supports the SP but not as likely to have SP try to terminate if both are accountable to the Elders.
DRF—It gets down into the culture of churches. There are a some churches that have the XP and SP report to the board. I haven’t kept a list of them; that would have been nice! They seem to work well. However it is a paradigm shift for the American church. As a nation we are “one leader” focused. All responsibility and authority tends to go to one person, not to a team of leaders. There are some church plants who are changing this. You get two equal guys who plant the church. Otherwise, you are trying to change decades of culture—and many people resist that.
