"I've been able to delegate better to the team secondarily. Instead of having to go to a person on my team and tell them what I want done, I can tell Tiffany and she can tell them. Tiffany brings a lot of good writing skills to the equation, too. She has a good eye for graphics, but she also has good language skills."
— Stephen Cutchins, Senior Pastor
The Challenge
Stephen Cutchins serves as Senior Pastor of First Baptist North Augusta, overseeing a $4.4 million organization with thousands of members and the largest weekday education program in South Carolina. The demands of leading a multi-site, multi-generational church left him constantly pulled in competing directions — and that pressure came to a head when his longtime executive assistant announced her retirement.
Stephen had first heard about BELAY at a Michael Hyatt event in Nashville, Tennessee, and his ongoing relationship with Hyatt had planted the seed of considering virtual support. But it was the sudden gap in his executive function that turned consideration into urgency. Searching on his own, he knew, would yield only a narrow pool of candidates.
The pandemic, while disruptive, ultimately opened a door.
"COVID really allowed me to pivot our organization pretty dramatically. Our threshold of ability to communicate in a digital environment determined our effectiveness of having [a virtual team member]."That shift in mindset made Stephen ready — and willing — to partner with BELAY.
The Solution
BELAY matched Stephen with Virtual Assistant Tiffany Vaughan, who approached the role with both precision and patience. She quickly recognized Stephen's leadership style and built her support around it.
"Stephen's very intentional. He has this idea of the end goal, and then he has these steps he implements slowly so that people can get on board."
Six months into the engagement, once a foundation of trust had been built, they established a "Tiffany-first" rule: all inbound communication would be filtered through Tiffany before reaching Stephen. This single boundary changed everything — it protected his focus and gave him back the space to lead rather than react.
From there, Tiffany expanded her scope to include calendar management, sermon drafting, coordination with the graphics team, and organizational communications. She helped elevate First Baptist's social media presence in both quantity and quality, and produced original content on a weekly basis — aligning the church's voice and outreach in ways that hadn't been possible before.
"For me, [this engagement] has extended the longevity of my ministry at the church, and made it a little bit more fun."
— Stephen Cutchins, Senior PastorThe Impact
The results of the BELAY engagement have rippled across every dimension of Stephen's leadership. With Tiffany managing his calendar and communications, he has gained meaningful time for hospital visits, welcoming new families, and investing in key leaders.
"The fact that my calendar is being managed appropriately now has allowed me to be more available to my team."
Beyond the professional wins, Tiffany helped Stephen protect something even more personal. "He has blocked off more time with his family," Tiffany notes. "We block off date nights with his daughters and his wife. He's getting time back to reinvest it into his family, which for a pastor is hard sometimes."
One of the most concrete outcomes was Stephen's ability to take a month-long sabbatical — made possible only because Tiffany was fully onboarded and capable of running operations in his absence. Delegation also improved throughout the broader team.
"I've been able to delegate better to the team secondarily. Instead of having to go to a person on my team and tell them what I want done, I can tell Tiffany and she can tell them."
After a year-long engagement, the partnership proved so valuable that First Baptist North Augusta plans to bring Tiffany on full time — and to return to BELAY for a bookkeeper or virtual assistant with bookkeeping capabilities.