Leader Connect S2E13: Charles Uptain

This week on Leader Connect, we talk to Charles Uptain, Executive Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey folks, welcome to C2 of Major Connect. Uh this year we're going to be focusing a little bit different than on just our association of ministers. We're going to be reaching out across the state at Southern Baptist Convention to bring others into this opportunity for you to get to know them a little bit and find out how you might use them in ministry in your local church. So we hope you enjoy this episode.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

He's the one of the second chair leaders there. So Charles, welcome to Leader Connect. Thanks. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Glad you asked me to come and spend some time on it this morning.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Well, we're looking forward to it. I've been listening to a lot of your podcasts that you and uh your pastor do. Yeah, uh so those are always good. So this is this is not new to you. You've you've sat behind the microphone before, but we'd like to find out a little bit about you. Tell us about your yourself, where you're from, and family, and those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, I'm I'm originally from Dothan. Um I grew up here. Uh my family uh moved churches from heritage to Calvary Ghost Church when I was in fourth grade. And so I've been a member of Calvary for a long time since fourth grade, and and of course, um felt called to ministry coming out of high school. And uh so I went to I went to Sanford uh after one year at Alabama because I didn't know what I wanted to do that year, but then fast forward Sanford where I got my education and then uh started my seminary degree, and that's when Calvary called uh warning they needed a children's minister, okay, minister of preschool and children, and uh that's what I had kind of grown up doing. I did some backyard Bible clubs growing up and uh did some interns in the summer for children, so just that's where God always kind of placed me. And so um they called me as children's minister in 2000. Okay, and so I've been back at Calvary um since 2000, did children ministry for about 12 or 15 years. But during all that, I also started doing some administration for the church. It was just a need the church had. Uh, I enjoy that kind of stuff, and so um did both of them for a while, and then when Pastor Paul came, I guess 14 years ago now, he he really wanted me to um just focus on the administration, the executive pastor role. And uh so I've transferred transitioned to that and been there ever since, just uh leading from that second chair position of the executive pastor. Yeah, well, tell us about your family. My family, uh, of course, I met my wife at Calvary. Calvary is as much about my is in my story as in. It's kind of like you could wrap me up, my wife Melody, and the church, and really you've got our story between the three. Um, so we met at church. She was already, they'd always been members there. She she was born into that church, so to speak. Yeah, and so um, but met her in fourth grade. We didn't start dating until we were seniors in high school. But we uh started dating at seniors in high school, dated through college, got married, uh, and then of course, since then coming back to Calvary, have now had four children. Um, have three of them pretty much grown, two of them are married, and and uh then I have one in college. Uh she's at Save for now, so she followed us. Okay, and uh then we have our youngest who is 15, who's in ninth grade at Providence, and so um kind of have raised our family uh here in Dothan. Love it, love being at our church. Calvary, like I said, is just a part of who we are, yeah. And um, and so but that's and of course Melody's family, most of them, most of our her family is in Calvary as well. And uh so we just, you know, it's it's wrapped up in who we are. It really is home for you guys, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

That's great, that's great. Well, you you mentioned starting out in the children's ministry. Um, what were those early years like in ministry and serving uh in that capacity?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, I was very I was very blessed to have some good folks in Birmingham when I was up there to really teach me the ropes of of really having a purpose to children's ministry. Uh, really not more than you know, you're not just taking care of kids, so to speak. You're you are uh trying to train them in godliness and come alongside the parents and do that. And so I learned that as an early age and and tried to implement it here, yeah, uh, probably with a lot of foils just because I was young. Yeah. And uh so I probably I'm thankful that the church was gracious with me. Yeah. And uh uh, but really enjoy doing all the events. Um, you know, vacation Bible school was a you know, it's the top of the year for children's ministry every year, and and I still love being a part of that at Calvary. Um, you know, we really try to focus on that as well still, and um, but it was just you know really about the ministry to kids and the preschoolers at the time. Uh, and I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the hands-on aspect of that, but I found uh pretty soon into my I guess late 30s and early 40s or late 30s mainly, I didn't have as much energy as I used to for children's ministry. I I really think children's ministry is you you have to you have to be energized to keep the kids' attention. And um man, I was I was finding it was harder for me to recover from an event than than it was than it used to be. Yes, and uh, and so I was happy to transition into the role of executive pastor, which I still have some oversight for children in preschool ministry, always have in my role, um, and so I I see it now from uh I guess a bird's eye view versus the hands-on, but I really love it. Uh kids' ministry is uh is a lot of fun, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Well, uh then transitioning into the executive pastor role, second chair leader. Uh, how does how has that transition been for you? And what kind of things does an executive pastor do?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Um, it's it's it really fits me. I'm very thankful that God placed me where He did in that role. Um, I like to teach, I like to preach, but I don't feel like it's something God has really asked me to do every week. And so that's one of the big differences in a second chair role is you don't have to spend um a lot of your time during the week preparing for the next Sunday's message. Yeah, and so it frees me up to be able to uh really focus on the to-do list, so to speak. I mean, really, really and truly, yeah, an executive pastor has a big to-do list. Yes. And so I feel like it's my role to um all the structure of the church, all the uh the vision of the church, to the direction, uh, even down to the people of the church, supervising staff, uh, and making sure the building's ready, doing all the things that come with that, like any business would have. The church has some of those aspects just because we we deal with money, we deal with people just like businesses do. And so all of that portion of it is really what I find myself uh doing a lot is is organizing, structuring, making sure things are done correctly from the Bible's biblical standpoint, but also from the government standpoint, how they want things done, uh just all that together, which is uh can be can be cumbersome for a church, especially as they get a lot of employees and and start dealing with liability and those kind of things.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's uh the nuts and bolts, the day-to-day functions of the facilities as well as organizing uh things that are going to be happening, make sure um everything's as it should be.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, and it's and communication's huge for my role, you know, messaging. Um, you know, I was thinking on the way over here, one of the key things that I'm very thankful for is um as a pastor, Pastor Paul, um, is a lot of conversations we have together so that I can make sure that my communication of the mission of the church is the same as his. Yeah. And so that's one of the roles I think as a second chair is to really work hard to make sure that the message that the whole staff is giving is is the same. It's consistent, it helps the congregation know where we're where we're going, what we're trying to do, um, but it also doesn't cause confusion. Um, and and you know, so I I I see Pastor Paul as the leader. Uh he's the one who um God has placed in that role, and the church has placed him in that role. That's another key to that I've learned over the years is is to see my role as um I serve the church and the church has chosen its pastor. And so my job as a servant of the church is to is to follow the leadership of that pastor that the church has chosen. Absolutely. And and if I keep that in perspective, uh it really helps me to to do my job well and not not fight the battles of, well, I would rather do it this way or those kind of things that we all have opinions and ideas, um, but I have to keep in mind that the church chose the pastor, uh, and that's not me. I'm in the second chair. And so my job is to follow him.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Sure, sure. Well, I'll uh I'll ask you a little tougher question. Obviously, excuse me, with um staff responsibilities and overseeing that, and um you're you're I'm I'm assuming you're probably the go-between between the other staff, some church members, and the pastor. He can't handle it all. This plate ain't that big with all the other responsibilities of sermon prep and uh those kind of things. So, how how do you uh help ward off uh issues that keep the pastor from having to deal with it?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well, in in that way, in some ways, I have to even have almost to a deacon's role. Okay, yeah, um, you know, the deacons are are put in place by a church to to kind of handle those day-to-day things so that the pastor can spend his time studying the word in prayer. Right. And so even though I am an executive pastor and I serve as an elder at Calvary, some of my roles during the week actually function a little bit like a deacon would, um, in that I'm trying to organize people, trying to structure people to handle the problems that come up so that Pastor Paul doesn't have to handle them. Um, everything really so that's kind of how it is. So I I try to intercept a lot of those things if I can. Um and if I can handle them without him uh having to hear about it, that's good. Yeah. Um and I'm thankful that he trusts me. We've been together for a while now, 14 years, yeah. That he trusts me to um handle those issues without him having to get involved with them. Uh and then, of course, we have a meeting once a week, and so there that may be a time that I'll I'll give him an update on something or just kind of so he is in the know, but he hasn't had to be in the situation.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

So um he it really comes from the pastor empowering his staff to handle those situations, and you know, we have to know the big picture, like I said, the messaging, the mission of the church, we've got to know that well enough that then we can we can act on a situation in a way that would be consistent with that. Um, so we and by doing that, then of course you don't have to go to the senior pastor all.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Sure, sure. Well, that that's uh I I know most senior pastors like to be in the loop. They like to know what what is happening, even though they don't want necessarily want their fingers in all of it. Right, right. Uh they like to know what's happening, so that's a critical role for sure to keep that keep you informed, yeah. Uh keep the church uh communication happening, uh things like um air conditioners tearing up and um you know uh planning out the calendar for the church and all those things that have to happen as the staff comes together to get all of those uh logistics and of course the church's size, those those things only get larger and as they grow. So uh you've you've kind of grown along with a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Uh yeah, the the church is you know basically doubled in square footage. If you actually talk about building since I've been there, um so it's become a bigger uh elephant to tackle, so to speak. There's a lot to handle. Um and and then of course now we're into church planning, which is another another aspect of growth, another way to do church growth that that also takes time and effort and and um and the understanding of how to write bylaws and just all the things behind the scenes to get a church up and running is a new new animal to tackle as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Well, let's talk about that new church plant. Uh, I'm excited. That that literally has just happened. Yeah. Uh and so y'all have plans, I think, by is it 2030 to have three plants?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, that that was our that's our original goal. It's but you know, the original goal doesn't take into account the the work that it takes to get there. To get the first one there. To get the first one there. So um maybe we would we hope to have another one started. I'm not sure if three is possible, yeah. But that's still out there. We would still love to have that. But it's you know, it it uh there's a lot of work to train people to um to get ready to do that, and then you just got to have the the perfect situation, which really Ozark was for us. Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Well, tell us about that. How did uh whether you get into the how it came about or what it looks like now is either one strike?

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Well, you know, we we um we really had been praying about where God would want us to to be involved in church planning somewhere local. We really wanted to um to be able to send more than just a pastor, more than just a church planner. We wanted to send a team uh of charter members, so to speak, to be a church plant. We wanted to um, we really have changed our our I guess our mindset towards church planning to being where the church is planting the church instead of what we've done in the past, even with our other church plant, which is in um you know Manhattan, neighbor Richard Earth neighborhood church upper west side with Steve and Tony Chambers. We just sent Steve and Tony and we still support them and we're uh on the board with them at all those things, but we didn't send any people with them. Yeah. Because of course it's it's out of reach of somebody just being there. But Ozark was a little bit different because we we have a lot of people, or we have enough people that live closer to Ozark than it live to Dothan that are members of ours. And so just by putting it out to the church, this is an area that needs a church, a good church. Not that there's not good churches, but there's everybody needs more good churches, right? Absolutely. And and so we just we really felt like the through state demographic studies, through Allesbaum and other things to say, you know, Ozark is a place that we really feel like uh we might be able to do a work there, but we didn't have any any concrete plans. Well, through some discussions with Zach Daniels, Zach, of course, is from Ozark, he's on our staff as children's minister. Um he he found that this this church was really struggling and was really looking for somebody to come and help them. But as we got more involved in that and just even offered our help, it became more clear that really what they wanted was somebody to take over. Taking over. And and so after a lot of discussion of that, we we really decided the best way to do that is just to allow them to cease existence and then us to start something new in their facility. And so that's what we've done. So East Avenue Baptist Church has now been uh having open public services for three weeks, and um, and so it's been a long process. We probably were in the process of of planning for about a year, yeah. Um, of getting our people on board, the church deciding we are going to plan a church, the church deciding, okay, um, who can we recruit from ourselves to go be these these church members? And and and then training them, going through the basics of of what a church should be uh for a semester with them through weekly classes with Zach and Paul, and and then of course training Zach, getting Zach ready to become the senior pastor.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, that's a step up from uh children's pastor to uh uh senior pastor.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

But it's just amazing how God works, that God had been working in his heart just by, you know, because Paul likes to, Paul wants to, uh, as we have discussed in the past through some of the things that we've done here with the association, you know, we want to be a training center, which means training some of our people to be to preach and to teach. And so Paul tries to give us opportunities for that. He's done a a uh preaching cohort and and those kind of things at our church. And so Zach preached a couple of times and was like, man, that study I did that week, I've heard Zach say this, that study that week, I just felt like this is what I need to be doing. You know, God was moving, it's his heart, absolutely, and and so it just worked perfectly. It's his hometown, yeah. Um, and so he has great connections there. Sure. And uh so we can just really see God's hand in every portion of making East Avenue um really a healthy start. And they have, they've had a great start. They they took about, I gave you some numbers, they they took about 50 people from Calvary. Okay, so a lot, some of those were students and children, yeah, but about 50 of our what we would consider our attenders, but they were all members, you know, the ones who are old enough to be members, sure. Um, took them to Ozark. So that was 50, and then the first two Sundays, I haven't heard about this past Sunday, but the first two Sundays, they had over 50 guests both times. So about about a hundred and I don't know, eight, eighteen, I think was the number the first week, and then almost a hundred the second week. And I'm not sure what they did this past week, but just a great start. Oh, that's that's phenomenal. I mean, just to start with that many committed people, um, and and you know, two elders, uh, Stephen Whitfield is is the other elder that that Calvary put in place that he's he's leading worship for them. Okay. Um, and so two elders and and some deacons, actually, some I think there may have been maybe two, maybe three deacons from Calvary who also went. And so they've got great structure in place. And and people that are are gonna do uh do the work of church planning and growth, and and uh so we're excited to see what God does there. Absolutely. Um and of course they'll they'll they'll have their growing pains like we all do, but I think they have a core that is ready to tackle those, and I'm excited to see what God's gonna do with that church plant.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

That's good, that's good. Well, is there uh there's uh not a lot of churches in our association that have second chair leaders? Uh maybe they have a worship leader and they're usually part-time, but you know, there are some out there that have uh large enough staffs, yeah, and others around the state that may be uh listening to this. Uh, what advice do you have for other second chair leaders?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Um, well, I'll tell you, some of the best advice I got was I went to a second chair conference back in, it was actually funny, it's the week before COVID started in Nashville, which was where from the south side, that's where it was first found. So it's funny my wife and I came back from that, and people were asking us, did you see anybody with COVID? Yeah, that's a side note. But anyway, I was I was at a conference up there, four second chair leaders that weekend, and one of the things that that they that the the guys who were teaching or training us there talked about was um that that second chair person has got to ask the question, what does my pastor need from me? And and really to evaluate am I doing, am I accomplishing what my pastor needs? Um because you know, like I said, sometimes we're all in ministry, we feel like we are here to equip the church, and so we have our own ideas of how to do that. But a second chair person has always got to refer back to the pastor's, um, the pastor's vision for the church, the pastor's what he feels like that God has led him to do in the church, and then helping accomplish that. So for me, it's just constantly asking myself the question, what does my pastor need from me? Um so he can do what he's like you said, so he can do what he's been called to do as being the senior pastor. Um and then the second thing is is really I learned this when right before Pastor Paul, when we had an interim, which actually was Jerry Grandstaff, longest time here, was our our uh intentional interim between pastors. And something that really hit me during that time period um was what I said earlier is that the church has chosen its pastor, and those underneath on staff need to accept and uh follow and be all in with that pastor, right? And if you can't do that, then you probably need to find another church, not try to change the church, don't try to change the church's opinion of who its pastor is. Instead, maybe you need to change your church.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Well, this may be a little more difficult question. The pastors that may be listening to this, what would you say to them in uh leading or working with a second chair? What what what could they do to help make that position a little bit um better?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Um I think number one would probably because it is such a a broad position a lot of times, administration or it's executive pastor, it can be so broad. I think I think it would help uh for senior pastors to really define what they want that second chair to do. Um you know, is there specific things that they see in that second chair that they're really good at that they can say, focus on this? Um, or there's there are things that they need help with that they're not that good at, and they can say, hey, focus on this for me. So I think some some some really uh you know, some defining of the role in specifics would be very helpful in the second person. And then the second thing is just it's it's trust. And that just has to, and maybe it comes over time, maybe it comes over working together, understanding. Each other a lot of communication, which is very key, but that that pastor has got to show the second chairperson that they trust them by their actions, by how they allow them to make decisions, by the communication they give with them, how much they tell them, all those things together make my job easier because I have a pastor who trusts me. And so I would say for a pastor that that's key. Great.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

That's great. Well, uh, we certainly appreciate uh Calvary's involvement in the association, and of course that includes you and your pastor and other staff members as uh different things happen, and we're going to be having the ladies' event coming up in April, and you guys are helping to host that and be a big part of that. We appreciate the partnership, we really do. Yeah, uh, it's key that we all work together to advance the kingdom that's what we're about. So we we we value the role that the association plays for us. Well, we appreciate that, and thank you for your friendship and leadership. Yeah, and folks, we hope that uh as you uh listen have listened to this podcast today, the Leader Connect, uh, that'll help you connect with Charles and with Calvary a little bit and their new church plant, uh, and be praying for that, that that continues to be uh a kingdom thing for God's kingdom to grow and reach folks in Ozark. So thank you, Charles. Appreciate it. Yeah, you're welcome. We'll see you on the next episode.