I get quite a few e-mails or phone calls each month asking, “What in the world is an experiences pastor”? I thought I would take just a few hundred words to try and answer that question as best I can.

First let me define an experience.
At Seacoast we have three streams that people experience our church. These are the places that they will run into our “brand” (for lack of a better word) which is the emotional aftertaste left behind after you experience something. These three streams are:

1. weekend
2. web
3. word of mouth

So, as experiences pastor I am responsible for shepherding the weekend, web and word-of-mouth experiences and the teams that make those experiences happen as being a resource to all of the other teams and volunteers that make that happen at each of thirteen campuses.

Another question I am often asked is, “what does your team consist of?”  I hesitate to answer this sometimes as although at Seacoast we feel very blessed to be able to have staff to do these positions, I know that we and other large churches are the minority when it comes to having staff for these areas.  I have much honor and respect for the churches that knock it out of the park with volunteers!  I also am very honored to work with the unbelievable team below…

Administrative Assistant (Part Time)
Communications Director
Creative Director
Graphic Artist
Internet Experiences Director (Part Time)
Production Director
Production Assistant
Production/IT Specialist
Video Storyteller
Video Storyteller/Weekend Director
Video Editor (Part Time)

These teams accomplish a ton of assets (See our videos) and energy towards these experiences and I will not elaborate on what each of them do as they are pretty self explanatory.

then the last question I am asked after people see that list is: “So, what do you do?”
The area that I concentrate on personally is the weekend teaching process. I shepherd that process through 3 major meetings that produce a lot of weekend centered information and involve the staff I lead as well as matrix relationships in the organization and then I also facilitate a couple of groups on TheCity that share that information.

Monthly series planning meeting. I facilitate this meeting and it involves our other teaching team members as well as our creative director and our communications director. This meeting looks 2-3 series ahead and keeps us approximately 3-4 months ahead on our weekend schedule as far as very broad topics.

Monthly experiences call. This meeting is a opportunity for me to share everything I know with all experiences stakeholders at all campuses and is done via Adobe Connect on the web

Weekly message planning meeting. This meeting involves the teaching team and a our communications director who is the liaison to a team that does research for our messages.

So that gives you a little deeper look (maybe deeper than you wanted) into the life of an experiences pastor.

So, What do you do?