Looking for examples of changes to elder-led structure

Yep. The basic run down of their responsibilities:

Senior pastor - head honcho, main preacher

Senior associate pastor - second guy, in charge of all staff, runs ladies' Bible class with his wife and does a lot of the "non-Sunday" teaching (classes and such), oversees small groups, does counseling and is also oversees the preschool.

Missions pastor - in charge of all missionaries and missions trips - we have a heavy hand in our missionaries lives, often supplying their full support and will send a team to help with physical needs whenever needed; he's also in charge of the church building and stuff since he was in construction before he became a pastor. He's been in charge of the renovations of the church building we were given for our third church campus. He is the third guy in line for preaching and usually is teaching at least 2 classes each year.

Family life pastor - was the youth pastor but is now the family life pastor, working to minister to families in the church. He does significant family counseling. He is also in charge of the vehicles since he knows that well. Finally, he's now the new campus pastor for the third church campus.

Administrative pastor - is basically our finance guy. He's in charge of all staff finances and the church finances. With a 2+ million dollar budget, it's a big job. He also will teach classes throughout the year.

Children's pastor - is in charge of all children's ministries. This includes Sunday School and Wednesday night programs as well as all of the things we offer in the summer for the kids (VBS, sports camps, etc.).

Recovery ministry pastor - is in charge of all of the recovery ministries at church. He also does a lot of counseling and runs a military support ministry as well.

Associate pastor/campus pastor of 2nd church campus - (this is my husband) is in charge of the second church campus as well as all things technical. Hubby was a computer engineer in his former life and he worked in the audio industry for many of those years so he's in charge of the sound equipment, computer equipment and things like that. With the church campus, he's the main preaching pastor and he's the worship leader when he's not preaching. He manages all things that need to be done there.

Outreach pastor - right now is helping the two new church campuses get off the ground and he's in charge of doing all advertising and promotion. (he used to work in the publishing field) He works part-time.

Senior youth pastor - is in charge of all of the youth group stuff. He does a lot of counseling and working with the kids. He leads the senior high youth group.

Youth pastor - works under the senior youth pastor and leads the junior high youth group and the college group.

So you can see that each pastor has a different job - none overlapping. But they CAN step in to other roles when needed and most of them are ready with a message at the drop of a hat. You're right - in cold and flu season (and with an aging pastor), it's important that no one is irreplaceable. We've had our senior pastor actually leave for the hospital during the church service and not one person even knew what was happening other than the few staff members involved. Another pastor stepped in and started preaching. The ONLY thing that tipped anyone off was that the note paper had the senior pastor's name and message title on it but it was just explained that "Pastor didn't feel well this morning so I'll be bringing the message." The church didn't even skip a beat!

 

All but the outreach pastor who came on staff with his own decision to not get paid. Finances were tight at that time and he has done well for himself so he said that he'd love to do that job as a ministry. He's currently doing his graduate work at Moody online and while he's not ordained, he will eventually be, I'd think.

We have a staff of 45+ people at our church. In many of the cases, it's family members of the pastors but we also have others who are on staff as well. I think I wrote out our whole staff one time here on BB and it was a BIG list!! LOL Not everyone is full time (most are not) and some are teens who work with the custodial staff so they don't call for huge pay checks OR benefits.

 

Yep - he's got a HUGE ministry. Tuesday night we have three groups running - Sisters of Strength, a group for women in recovery or those who are family members of those with addictions, Rest and Recovery which is the men's group and then SafeHaven which is a group that meets twice a month for caregivers of special needs children or adults. On Wednesday night we alternate sessions of either GriefShare or DivorceCare. Currently we are on DivorceCare, having done GriefShare in the fall. These are GREATLY needed ministries and a great outreach to the community. We have many who have come into the church through these groups.

 

We run about 1 pastor per 100 attendees/members. We're a little high on the pastor part of the ratio right now but with the new church campuses, we need that pastoral staff to get these off the ground.

None of the adding of the pastors had any negative issues at all because every one of them was already doing the work they were later brought on staff to do. But bringing them on staff helped them to be free to do the work full time and to do it to a greater capacity. For example, my husband was leading a worship team for a number of years, was leading the college ministry and also trying to manage the computer/sound/technical stuff at church already but in a very part time capacity while he was still working full time as a computer consultant in the audio industry. He felt the call to be in the ministry more and spoke to our senior pastor (not to come on staff but because he was his spiritual leader and he went to him for advice) and our pastor said that maybe it wasn't God's timing yet but to keep seeking Him and praying that God would lead him to where he needs to minister. It was about a year later when Pastor had lunch with him and told him "It's time. We'd like you to come on staff part time as a pastoral intern doing the three things you're currently doing." So that's what he did. He was an intern for 2 years then went full time as a pastor but not yet ordained and he and 4 other pastors all worked together towards their ordination while working for the church. They were ordained in '93 (I think it was). It was similar for all of the other pastors - they were already doing the job and so were hired from "within" - bringing them on staff and paying them to free them to do the ministry without the burden of an outside job. It's worked out great and the congregation was fully on board with each pastor coming on staff.