What's It like to Be General Superintendent?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--whats-it-like-to-be-general-superintendent
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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all right if you really want to know I'll do my best let me first describe what the role is so the general superintendent is the general overseer of all aspects of the work that we have a constitution for the upci and one of the things it says is the general manager of all the divisions so all the various divisions Ministries report to the general superintendent directly indirectly General Seward is the chair of the General Conference chair of the general board so the general conference is the highest governing body the Gerald board acts in between the general conference and then the executive board so the General Store is a chair of those boards and that conference the general superintendent can't personally go to all district conference but either he or his designated uh executive representative is supposed to conduct the elections of all the district conferences and then the general Superman is the chair of the global Council which is our international governing body coordinating body so you might say the CEO you know in in American terms we think of as the like the president of the United States it'd be a very similar role in many ways no what it doesn't mean the general stupid is not the pastor of pastors not the pastor of District superintendents each local church is self-governing so the general superintendent doesn't have the right to go in the local church and tell them to do anything likewise each district has its own operation so the general superintendent May guide and advise and he does preside over the elections of District conferences but the district superintendent presides over the rest of the business and over the sectional conferences so really the district is a self-governing unit in some ways again those who are familiar with U.S law it's like federalism you have a state government that's not directly and accountable to or controlled by the federal government their interactions certainly and then around the world each as uh you know we have uh churches in almost every nation of the world and some of them are organized with their own leadership when they come to maturity they get their own Constitution their own um organization and they're completely self-governing but they're connected through the global council with ties of Doctrine and fellowship and coordination of international efforts those that are not self-governing are LED typically by missionaries from North America which of course global missions would report to the general superintendent so I would be directly supervising all those uh I say directly it's obviously delegated but I would have responsibility over all those works that are operated from North America I wouldn't really have responsibility for self-governing works except as the chair of the global Council in that regard is kind of like the king of England uh and the Commonwealth so while their self-governing Nations they're they're still Bound in in ties of friendship and uh trade agreements and special status and so the king kind of symbolically when he goes to those countries at least in theory and in the past it's had less today that he kind of is a symbolic symbol of the the unity of the British Commonwealth and so in a way even though it might be a self-governing country in some way I'm representing the example the influence and the guidance of the International Church okay so hopefully that gives some description of what I do so on a practical level every week is different but of course our headquarters is in St Louis actually the suburb Weldon Spring Missouri U.S say I have Offices here so I'm usually in office a portion of three out of four weeks and I'm usually traveling every week to various conferences or ministerial events men or Ministry events ministering sometimes in local churches so although I'm not required to minister in local churches frequently I'm asked to do special occasions anniversaries dedications installations or just ministering in a church to represent the upci so almost every weekend I'm preaching in a local church somewhere now I do block off time for vacations for holidays and so I'm you know I'll take a couple weeks at Christmas or a week at Thanksgiving and maybe some of those days I'll be working from home or working on the road through you know with the internet email text and phone you can do almost everything but just as a general rule then I try to be in the office physically three out of four weeks not always the whole week because many of those weeks I'm going to a conference or something but having a physical presence because throughout the year there are meetings so there are various in-house meetings like the senior leadership team the all Executives meeting or there are also various committees and boards that come to St Louis to meet and usually I will meet with them for a time even if I'm not chairing that meeting or I'm not on that board they want me to come give Vision Direction answer questions work on a particular issue that they may be working on a problem or proposal they may have so I need to be physically available for meetings with individual Leaders with employees with boards with committees as well as just doing office work of trying to keep up with letters emails texts phone calls um and and so just to do all that I need to be physically in office I feel like and so that's the goal I've set but every week except for the times I blocked off for vacation or holidays or rest I am traveling somewhere to a conference a ministerial event or preaching in a local church I still try to preach in the church that I established in Austin which is pastored by Rodney Shaw but approximately I I am my wife's parents are still living so for for things like Mother's Day and Father's Day we try to be there with them and they use them ask to preach in a New Life Austin approximately six times a year and then there 21 works that came out of that original work either as daughter works or Minister sent from that church in the Austin area so I usually try to preach for those as they ask and I can usually get around to them about once every two years so perhaps one third of the Sundays I'm going to be preaching in Austin or in Central Texas for a daughter former daughter work or maybe even a neighboring church that I've had close relationshipsSign overin the years uh so it's it's a lot of travel I usually before I was general superintendent I was taking three overseas missions trips a year for preaching and teaching uh I've expanded that typically to five and again for some they want and need specific teaching preaching but for many um it's uh part of maintaining a close relationship with the International Church sometimes seeking guidance or Direction I think it's very important as we get more and more National churches we have about 60 churches with their uh 16 nations with their own self-governance so they could just be totally independent if they wanted so I feel like it's part of my job to keep them connected through vision through Fellowship through support and even though some are self-governing they're relatively new so they still want and need guidance uh if they're problems they want support they want help they want advice and so I try to be strategic in fact I've visited every nation where we have at least 25 000 constituents and in Europe the Middle East the churches aren't that big I visited every National Church we've we've had at least 2 000 constituents and we have 58 districts in the U.S and Canada which is our home base so I made a point when I became General to try to visit every one of those for a district conference a ministerial seminar a camp or some big event so it took me five or six years to visit the first round just because of scheduling so many conferences are at the same time and I can't travel all the time and so I've pretty much I think done the second round of all of that and I try to be strategic of the districts that ask for my help or want me to be there the largest Districts The Districts that have the greatest need of growth based on the population so I can go there and be strategic and encouraging them planning with them or or inspiring them if I can from my position so every week is different there is no typical week I do try to take off one day a week so if I'm back in Texas preaching on the weekend A lot of times I'll take Saturday off or Monday off if I have to go a couple of weeks of solid trips I'll try to take two days off three days off sometimes I'll take a week at home in our permanent home in Austin uh but I'll be working intermittently so I may work two or three of those days uh through zoom and email and calls and you know some many of those are full work days but it's working from a home where I can concentrate on certain projects uh so it's it's a great variety we're very busy but um I'm trying to guide each division in Ministry try to be available to each district try to be available to each Nation try to cast vision for the whole organization try to work with policies procedures structure a big part of it is financial oversight but we have teams that do all that you know we have a general secretary treasurer we have a chief administrative officer we have a finance committee internally we have a budget Committee of the general board externally uh we have a general board meetings twice a year and I give a report to them we have a general conference one year I give a report to the general conference so I think it's very important for me to be accountable even though I'm the CEO I have to be accountable to um the the general board and the general conference and I have to work with leaders who are elected in their own right so it's not just me a matter of telling them Sign to in do things it's a matter of working together uh I cast vision for the whole organization but they have vision for their own area and I'm trying to support them in what they and their boards want so it's a collaborative effort uh I hope a team leadership where no one person could do it all and no one person could be the answer for everything but together we can have an effective team that can accomplish the will of God financially we have we have various structures and legally we have urson college ocean Graduate School of Theology uh uh urson support organization we have the United Pentecostal Foundation the United Pentecostal long fund ministers retirement fund insurance company and so I'm on all those boards in one way or the other uh so to get the work done we have many different entities but we all flow into the umbrella of the United Pentecostal Church International so it's my job to be the managerial leader and hopefully um the the spiritual leader uh in a general sense of helping all of us to move forward in the will of God