Growing as an XP

Classic Books for XPs Liquid Church: 6 Powerful Currents to Saturate Your City for Christ Tim Lucas and Warren Bird In today's fluid culture, many churches are adrift---longing to reach spiritually thirsty [...]

Stepping into, or leading through, the role of an Executive Pastor can be one of the most challenging yet rewarding positions in ministry leadership. If you're navigating this path, you’re likely familiar with the [...]

For the last few years, I have spoken at the XP-Seminar, except for the Snow-Covid Seminar a few years ago. The seminar is one of my few live speaking gigs every year. David and [...]

Taking time to visit other churches in your area or across the country is a great way to grow in your leadership. I love seeing a church in action and I always come away [...]

Like it or not, Executive Pastors are coaches. You can embrace your role as a coach and improve your effectiveness by coaching your team. I’ll admit it. The word coach used to make me [...]

A quaint story circulated among Methodists describes a young pastor, fresh out of seminary, who had just begun his first pastorate. As he drove up to the small church, he noticed an old tree [...]

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results, written by George Bradt, Jayme Check and Jorge Pedraza, is a book about helping executives succeed in [...]

As was mentioned in the title, I’ve learned five lessons during my first eighteen months as an Executive Pastor. In order to provide some context, I will briefly state my ministry experience. My background [...]

Recently, after eventful days at the church office, David and I have compared those events to the movie, Grand Hotel. Grand Hotel, which came out in 1932, is the movie in which Greta Garbo famously [...]

Let’s face it—life happens. We all get off track at one time or another. And it’s always more difficult to get back on track the second time. Third time. Fourth time. Several weeks ago, a [...]

To all my fellow XP’s out there---many who, like me, have come out of marketplace---I say, “If you 'wanna learn' what you need to know to be an effective pastor, administrator, leader, and coach, [...]

Peter Drucker’s goal in The Effective Executive seems so simple; as he states in the preface, “The subject of this book is managing oneself for effectiveness.” It does not take long to realize, however, [...]

Leaders can effectively communicate their mission with people from all walks of life by using several different methods of communication. One of the best ways I’ve found for communicating your message is through networking [...]

I’ve been somebody’s “Number Two Guy” for the majority of my career. I’ve been someone’s “Commander Riker” to their “Captain Picard” for almost twenty years. And, yes, I realize I’m dating myself with this analogy—Star [...]

Turnover in churches is high right now. Senior Pastors are retiring as baby boomers age, and the wave is only going to grow. Perhaps more than I’ve ever seen, there are scores of people [...]

The following is a dissertation written by an Executive Pastor. To aid in making the information more readable on the web, the footnotes have been removed. Chapter 1---Research Concern Leadership and management skills are [...]

Executive Pastor David Troublefield read a comment on XPastor that said, "And if you want to forget all your troubles, eat a cherry popsicle while running through the sprinklers barefoot!" So David put on his [...]

Many capable, idealistic, servant-minded people find themselves in "second chair" management and leadership roles within Christian organizations and churches across the country. For many, this is a positive, fulfilling experience; for others, it is [...]

When a United States President enters office, there is a lot of press given to his first 100 days agenda. The reason for this is everyone understands the early days of the new administration [...]

If you ask most Executive Pastors to show you their radars, they'd look a lot like FAA snapshots charting planes in flight across the country. While I know you're as stressed as a control tower [...]

“Had I known then what I know now!” How many times have you heard that famous phrase? Hindsight truly is 20/20, but normally we do not get to enjoy it, unless we learn from [...]

In the American religious landscape, there is no clear path for an individual to become an Executive Pastor. Whether a man or woman comes from the executive or church world, there are a variety of paths [...]

“I felt my heart strangely warmed.” Those were the words Jonathan Wesley used to describe his conversion the night he attended a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. The words also describe how I felt [...]