Document 14 · Read first

Purpose of this document

Across today’s churches, the person called the “Senior Pastor” carries almost everything — the Word, pastoral care, worship, evangelism, vision,…

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Across today’s churches, the person called the “Senior Pastor” carries almost everything — the Word, pastoral care, worship, evangelism, vision, staff, finances, and operations — in a single office. The Sonrise Revival framework places the pastor differently: he is one elder among elders who carries the shepherd-teacher gift (Doc 6 Pattern A; Doc 8 §2.6).

Being paid makes the pastor more available than the bivocational elders — but more available is not more senior. This document sets out, before and after, how the duties presently bundled into one office are rightly distributed: the spiritual core stays with the pastor, the operational layer moves to a new Church Manager — an operational management role that runs the day-to-day administration of the church — and whole ministries return to the Saints and elders. Pastoring is a spiritual role, not an operational one.

The shift in one sentence

The pastor’s paid availability is spent on Word, prayer, care, and equipping the saints to find their own callings — and almost everything else is returned to the body or carried by operations, so the church is protected from the one-man-show the flat structure exists to prevent.

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The biblical pattern — Acts 6
Document 14 · Redefining the Pastor’s Role · section 1 of 9

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