you’ re on their side and you’ re curious about their world.
As the lead pastor, you have to maintain a curiosity about the creative world if you’ re not naturally creative. If you’ re naturally more of an administrator, a work guy, a prayer guy or gal, that’ s wonderful, but you have to remain curious about what it takes for them to do their job. That way they feel seen, and they feel appreciated. I think that that’ s really important.
And then remembering as a pastor, you are a spiritual father or mother more than a coach. We have a lot of pastor / CEO / coaches. We’ re more than that. I think being a great dad includes being a great coach. I was upstairs in my boy’ s room last night, and I told them football season’ s coming up. I told them,“ I am not mad at you. You’ ve done nothing wrong, but I’ m about to communicate passionately to you because I’ m adamant about what I’ m saying.” So, there are times when a father functions as a coach, but the primary function cannot be a coach or a CEO. It’ s a spiritual father. I’ m more interested in the condition of your soul than the performance of your work.
And if those things get out of balance, then there’ s going to be a high turnover. If those things get out of balance, there’ s going to be a high turnover in the personnel at your church. But if you’ re a spiritual father, they’ ll feel loved, they’ ll feel safe, and then you’ ll be able to get the best from them.
[ WM ] Good. Love it. I don’ t know much about what makes up your church demographically, but I’ ve got just a statement here. Sundays can be so segregated in some places. A lot of times you have modern worship churches that are primarily white folks, and there are four chords to the worship. And then you’ ve got the Black Gospel churches mostly with black congregants, and you have a wide vocabulary of chords that they’ re using. You seem to blur the line some. Tell me about the makeup of your church and how many chords you guys are using.
[ Tauren ] That’ s hilarious.( laughing)
[ WM ] Are you using F # b7add6 chords, or what are you doing?
[ Tauren ] We use them all. Not as many as some, not as few as others.
I love this old preacher said,“ The safest place to be on a one-way street is in the middle.” So, we are trying to get everyone moving in the same direction, and to get everyone moving in the same direction, you’ ve got to fight for the middle.
And for us, our congregation is extremely diverse, not just in ethnicity but in actual culture. We have people that look different, but also people that think differently. We have a lot of diversity in age, from young to old. It’ s actually a very interesting room, and a lot of people make the comment that they’ re not in a room
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