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| The CE Interview: Jack Taylor NACBA
Board President |
| From Volume 2008, Issue 7 - 7 2008 |
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| Jack Taylor, Director of
Operations, Sycamore Presbyterian Church,
Cincinnati, OH |
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by: Ronald E. Keener |
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Jack Taylor knows how to write a message for a roadside
billboard. “Seven to 10 words was the max you wanted to use
because of the drive time and the attention span going down
the highway,” says the former sales and general manager for
outside advertising firms. “You had to get your message
across within that parameter in a very short time frame, so
the elements of art work and words all had to marry up to
get the image across,” he recalls.
Taylor is illustrative of the varied career fields that many
church business administrators have had before moving to
church positions, and many, like Taylor, learned their basic
business skills in other careers and on the job.
Much of his business experience was gained in that outdoor
advertising career. “It was all seat of the pants, trial and
error kind of stuff. I was never good in college in the
financial area, but in Indianapolis [at the agency], I was
promoted to sales manager with a $12 million sales budget to
run.
“In Cincinnati, when I moved here, I ran the whole business,
the expense and profit side, but it was trial and error
for me.”
It was there that the educational training of the
National Association of Church Business Administration
came into play. Years later, Taylor is now a certified CBA
and this month concludes his two-year term as chairman of
NACBA.
In his first position, as business administrator of
The Knox Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, where he
spent 12 years, “I knew I needed some sort of way to
transition from the secular to the religious world. Not that
there is truly a huge difference.”
In what way?
I’ve told this to parishioners over the years and they raise
their eyebrows at me, but we’re [church and secular work]
all in business — we have product, we have income and we
have overhead. That’s not very religious but that’s really
what we do and so there’s a very business side to this.
In addition to the denominational and legal nuances and how
they affect what we do in the religious side of things, I
just knew that I needed some support and some help,
somewhere to go. So what I found in
NACBA was a mechanism that I could use to build and
learn and it’s been remarkable for me.
I started going to the national conference in 1996, the
summer after I came to Knox, and began my certification that
same year, became certified in 1999 and then was recertified
a couple years ago.
Your college degree was in
broadcast communications and you did some radio work for
awhile. How did you get into church work from the secular
advertising side?
It was the summer of 1995 and I was on the buildings and
grounds committee at the church where we were then attending
and I had been at the church doing some work that day. Knox
church had designed their first CBA position at that time
and they sent the job description out to all of the churches
in the presbytery.
Somehow that job description wound up in my buildings and
grounds mailbox. Was it a hint from God or one of the
parishioners, I thought? But you know, it got here, so I
called Knox and had three or four interviews and got the
job. That’s how I got into this.
I tell you it was a little bit of a gamble on my part
because Knox was just in the closing stages of an interim
pastor; they had not yet called their new pastor and I took
that job knowing full well in six or eight months I could be
out the door.
Did you ever use your
outdoor ad experience with the churches you’ve been at?
No, not in the classic sense of outdoor advertising. I
learned some of the creative concepts from some remarkable
artists who designed and painted those big signs. And some
of those concepts were helpful in designing other things for
the churches, such as publications, Web sites and smaller
on-premise signage, but neither Knox or Sycamore has done
any outdoor advertising as yet.
After 12 years at Knox you
moved to the director of operations post with
Sycamore Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. What’s your
work there?
We have about 1,050 members and we are in a very upscale
northern area of Cincinnati, an area that is growing
considerably. Back in the mid-90s the church went through a
transitional time in its leadership, not at all unlike what
other churches go through from time to time.
We saw some membership declines and as I understand it, I
wasn’t here, but I really think it was a period of
adjustment the church had to go through in order to prepare
it for what I think is happening here right now and is going
to happen.
About four years ago the church called Larry Kent as pastor
and he has done a remarkable job of healing those
transitional wounds and has brought the church together very
nicely, but not without the leadership of those folks who
stuck through it.
We’ve seen some steady growth over the past three years and
the church does virtually no marketing. The growth to the
greatest extent here so far has been word of mouth. Last
fall the church contracted with a company called Living
Stones Associates to do some strategic planning and an
assessment of pretty much every part of the church life.
We’ve gotten a few hints of what’s coming out of that
report, perhaps a few recommended directions, but more than
anything their input to us is going to be facts in what they
have seen and what they have observed with a few recommended
things that we can do.
I view this as one tool that Sycamore is going to be using
over the next year to assess where God is leading us, what
we need to do to be responsive to that, and then to make a
plan to actually implement that response.
Some churches shy away from
consultants. Churches need to ask for help some times?
Absolutely. Sometimes that helps the leadership of the
church step away from the situation and gives them a
separate set of eyes, a separate view from the outside.
We’re already finding that. Some folks before I came were
suggesting certain things be done. When it appears in an
independent report from eyes outside the organization, it
helps lend credibility to that and we’re finding that in
some of the early briefings from Living Stones.
With
NACBA, you’ve had two years as chairman. What stands out
as a couple of accomplishments?
One of the biggest accomplishments that we have had is this
whole transition to policy governance. It’s been huge
internally for this board and for the staff, but it was one
we had to do. The byproduct of that has been empowering CEO
Simeon May for the responsibility of the day-to-day
operation of the Association. That in turns empowers the
board to better guide and direct what we do.
In terms of accomplishment, I’m huge on what helped me, and
that is the educational components of what we do. I think we
have progressed well in our conference: It has quadrupled in
four years in size, our teleweb seminars we started on a
quarterly basis are now monthly. We initiated an e-mail
Weekly Update.
We are going to regional gatherings starting this year, with
three on tap. We’re targeting CBAs of all levels and all
church sizes. One of the suggestions we’ve had over the
years is from folks at larger churches who have different
needs than folks who are at smaller churches. We are trying
to focus more of our attention on the folks who have those
different kinds of needs and issues that they are dealing
with.
When we spoke two years ago
you mentioned the role of executive pastors being a
membership objective.
We are making some slow and deliberate progress. We realize
that many of the aspects of
XPastors and CBAs are the same but there are again those
nuances that differentiate the two somewhat. One of the
things we are doing is we’re in pretty close conversations
with some of our members who are also executive pastors.
They’re helping us with input on what we can do to begin to
help the
XPastor in those nuances in their roles. One of the
outgrowths of those conversations is a new track at this
year’s conference.
We are also doing a track featuring Val Hastings talking
about coaching up, about how
XPastors and CBAs can help mentor the senior leadership.
It is still a work in progress for us. But we realize it’s a
market that we think we can serve, we just want to do it the
right way and sometimes that’s a deliberate way.
What about membership growth
in general?
A couple years ago we hit the 3,000 mark and we are well
over that mark now. We hear that quite a few associations
are somewhat on a decline and I think we are bucking that
trend. We are incrementally growing and we’re pleased with
that.
Over the next two years the
association is working at doing more of the same?
One of the things the governance transition has allowed us
to do as a board was to focus on long-term thinking. We
completed a process last fall that allowed us to go through
more of a strategic plan and identify areas where we need to
identify and focus on.
I think on balance what you’re going to see
NACBA working on most is what we are good at, and that
is developing our educational offerings. We have to focus,
we have to continue to remain on the cutting edge of the
educational side of this thing. I believe we will do that.
You once spoke about
churches who were large enough for a business administrator
but haven’t done it. Why do churches hold back?
You have budgetary matters involved. You’ve got churches and
pastors who just don’t realize the value of having a CBA. It
is becoming more critical in our time as we deal with the
increasing litigation issues, legal and tax issues, all the
things that are impacting ministry now days. It is critical
that there be someone on staff trained to help recognize
those kind of situations and avoid them.
Besides that, I’m not convinced that pastors who are called
to that ministry by God realize how freeing to that ministry
the off loading of the day-to-day stuff can be. It is like a
flower that can’t fully bloom until they divest themselves
of some of that daily routine.
That is a long way of saying that I think there may be a
marketing problem here for all of us. I don’t think we’ve
done the best job of educating and reaching those smaller
and middle range churches who can certainly use an
administrator but either just don’t think about it or don’t
plan for it.
Your bio says you’ve had a
connection with the
Indianapolis 500 Raceway.
I’ve never been a racer and I don’t have any involvement
with it now. It’s one of those things that spices up life a
little bit. I spent 17 years in a couple different
capacities with the Indy 500 through my association with the
United States Auto Club. They were the sanctioning body of
the 500 for almost as long as the 500 has been around. I had
a very distant relative on my mother’s side who had been
chief timer of the races since the 1940s.
In passing I mentioned to him that if there’s anything I can
do I wouldn’t mind getting involved. He gave me a call the
next year and gave me a minor qualifying weekend assignment.
I didn’t have any race day assignment at that point. I did
that for a couple years and moved into the timing and
scoring booth, and then worked with him as his assistant. I
was there for a few years until he retired and I took over
for him.
And that was basically timing the qualifying attempts for
all the qualifiers on the tour. Then I became what they call
chief scoring observer on race day. That was a separate team
of 16 individuals who were stationed at various places
around the track. My sole responsibility was to track the
leader. We had to know where the leader was at all times,
even if he was in the pits. And after a leadership change we
needed to know who it was.
When the speedway formed the
Indy Racing League about 1995, I was asked by USAC to be
on the traveling, timing, and scoring crew to score those
races and I did that for a couple years. The speedway all
along was positioning itself to assume the sanctioning of
its own race and that happened in about 1997 or 1998. So
USAC took a back seat and the IRL sanctioned its own race,
so I went on down the road. But it was fun. You never know
where you’re going to end up.
You’re also building a cabin
in Sturgeon Lake, Ontario? Retirement plans?
I go up to mid-Canada in mid-June to clear the property that
I bought last year and then back up for three weeks in late
August to build the cabin and at least get it under roof and
get the walls up. I’m not going to retire there probably.
It’s about a 22 and a half hour drive from Cincinnati to the
landing and then more time by boat. It’s also 90 minutes to
the nearest town.
And that’s called fun?
It is incredible. This lake is 51 miles long and 8 1/2 miles
wide at its widest point but it is more than a place to
fish. It is a place to see God for me. It’s truly spiritual.
When I can sit on my dock at 11:00 at night and watch the
Northern Lights move through the sky, watch the satellites
and count shooting stars, and see more than an occasional
black bear and bald eagle, that’s a great time. I’d probably
go if there wasn’t a fish in the lake. It’s remarkable.
 Conference
has sessions for ‘Head of Staff’ roles
“Head of Staff” is a relatively new position to church
administration and catches up such job titles as executive
pastor, associate pastor, chief operating officer, chief of
staff, and others.
It is also a function that the National Association of
Church Business Administration is attempting to appeal to in
its programming and membership efforts. (See comments of
Chairman Jack Taylor in nearby interview.)
To that end, two Monday breakout sessions will be held at
the NACBA’s convention July 12-16, in Nashville’s Gaylord
Opryland, that focus directly on the Head of Staff role:
- Mike Bonem, co-author with Roger Patterson of
Leading From the Second Chair will bring a work session
on the role of second chair leaders, at 1:00 pm. Bonem
is minister of discipleship at West University Baptist
Church in Houston.
- Allen Walworth of Generis and Bonem are facilitating
a roundtable discussion at a 3:45 p.m. session. Walworth
led one congregation to move to a head of staff model in
navigating the changes in relationships required.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer Phill Martin says that “we
are aware that the demands of the head of staff role in a
large congregation carry with it unique responsibilities
that other administrative roles do not have.”
Keynote speakers and some 92 educational sessions on a
variety of topics of interest to church administrators will
occupy the week, plus the trade show of more than 200
exhibitors (including
Church Executive).
The “growth experience” will be presented as well in four
powerful speakers:
Tim Sanders, sought-after speaker and experienced in
cutting-edge businesses such as broadcast.com and Yahoo.
Registration and program information is at
nacba.net. |
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