Help for the Visionary Pastor

It was the spring of 2007. My wife, Mindy, was working on her Bachelor's in elementary education, and I worked third shift on an assembly line at a local manufacturing plant. A few evenings every week, after she finished working at the bank, she had to drive to Knoxville (which was about an hour away) to attend class. Our kids were nine and three. Mindy got out of class at 10 pm, and I had to be at work by 10:45. On those days, it was my job to pick the kids up at school and daycare, help my son, Austin, with homework, get them fed, give my daughter, Abby, a bath, and meet Mindy in the town where I worked by 10:40. To say that was challenging for someone like me, would be an understatement.

One of those evenings around 9:45, my phone rang. As soon as I saw that it was my wife, I panicked. She asked me if I was ready to leave, and I told her, "almost." Not exactly correct. The reason for my panic, if I had been completely up front with her, it would have gotten ugly for me. This was my situation at that very moment. Abby was playing in the bathtub, hair full of suds from the shampoo, and there was water heating up on the stove for macaroni and cheese. On the nights Mindy was in class, we always had mac and cheese, and only mac and cheese for dinner. I had picked up my kids around 3:30, yet we were not even ready to leave this late in the evening. What in the world happened?

At this time, I was a youth pastor with a thriving youth group. During my time at this church, we had begun a children's ministry through our students, where we did VBS and Backyard Bible Clubs in underprivileged neighborhoods. We were on the verge of becoming a worldwide ministry, reaching all across the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Around this time, I had been making calls to other states, including California. We had already done some ministry in Montana, but we needed to do more. I was constantly on the phone with someone, talking about the vision I had for this ministry. Time always got away from me. Tonight was one of those nights.

Pretty much, from the time I got home from picking the kids up, until I put Abby in the bath, put on my work clothes, and got the water on the stove to boil, I had been on the telephone talking about this ministry. I was sharing my vision and how we were about to move this ministry from where we were to other states and countries. It was all just wonderful. That is, until the phone rang, and I had to talk to my wife. Those kinds of calls never went well for me.

And, to add insult to injury, the ministry was never ready to go beyond the area we lived in, much less other states and different parts of the world. My problem was I could always see the big picture, but never any of the details. Welcome to my world; that of the visionary pastor.

For 24 years, I have had the opportunity to preach God's Word, and lead people. In all of those years I have led with a strong visionary style. Being a visionary is how God wired me. Leading as an uncontrolled visionary was not really His plan, but that was how I did it for most of my ministry. God has led me to write this book, in order to help those who work under, or beside visionary leaders.

I am taking you on this amazing journey. It began with me not even understanding that there were different leadership styles, to the point that I am learning what I have to do in order to lead effectively. I have had the privilege of serving in several churches. However, for this book, I am only going to share stories from two of those.