What do you do when everyone in your church is in conflict? In this episode, Andy Stanley continues our seven-part series on Pastoring in a Partisan Age.
He discusses why picking sides sidelines the church and how to handle when we disagree politically, culturally, and theologically. Andy also talks about how he handles his critics inside and outside the church.
Show Notes
Ultimate Guide to Healthy Church Conflict
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Preaching Cheat Sheet
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Hey leaders, it's Kerry Newhoff. I'm on the road this week and we decided to do something to serve you as podcast listeners. A few months ago I did a series on pastoring in a partisan age and with the election right around the corner we are re-issuing those episodes. I really hope you enjoy, I hope it's helpful and I hope it's just in time as you lead your congregation and the people you care about through a very, very critical time. The art of leadership network. What we care about most is winning at all cost at the cost of our character, our Christ likeness, at the cost of our influence and at the cost of evangelism. Welcome to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry here and I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. Well, it's a difficult time, isn't it? And that's why we're doing this series. We dive into the very first of a series of interviews and this podcast series pastoring in a partisan age and oh my goodness are we in a partisan age and you're heading into the fall. Everybody dreaded and if you're looking for guidance we got it for you. I wanted to start off the interview part of this series with Andy Stanley. This is the most I've known Andy for almost 20 years. This is one of the most transparent interviews I've ever heard. I think you're in for a treat Andy and I talk about why picking aside sidelines, the church, how to disagree politically and what to do when people criticize you. So many of you got beat up in previous election years. Well, Andy tells us what happened to him and gives us some really good advice on how to handle it. Hey, today's episode is brought to you by my brand new ultimate guide to healthy church conflict. You can start leading a more united church today. I give you some strategies very practical over at churchconflictguy.com and by Glue Plus. The new Glue Plus membership from Glue offers your church free texting, time-saving resources, a new mover program and discounts on all kinds of resources you're probably already buying at full price. Go to glue.us/plus use the code carry 20 you'll get 20% off. So Andy Stanley as you know is a communicator author and pastor. He founded Atlanta based North Point Ministries in 1995. Today North Point consists of eight churches in the Atlanta area and a network of 180 churches around the globe that collectively serve over 200,000 people weekly. As the host of your move with Andy Stanley which reaches millions of people each month through TV digital platforms and podcasts and as the author more than 20 books Andy is considered one of the most influential pastors in America and today we sit down for a very transparent conversation. Hey thank you so much for joining us. I know how precious your time is the fact that you would invest time in today's conversation and this series means the world to me. I want to bring you the very best value I can and as you may know this is part two of a seven part podcast series on pastoring and a partisan age and with this podcast I've got a couple of new resources you can use to go deeper. First is a brand new free guide you can download that helps you have healthier conflict as a church and as a leader and this guide I turn the key insights and concepts you hear in this podcast and in my previous episode into actionable steps that make it way easier and less awkward to deal with conflict and divisiveness in your church. You can download the guide now at churchconflictguide.com or click the link in the description of this episode wherever you're listening. The second resource I've got is a brand new course I'll be releasing as this series wraps up it's called the art of navigating church conflict and you guessed it it has everything you need to know and do to navigate conflict as a church leader it's so practical the resources the videos everything we put with it will help you unite your people around a shared vision and mission and deal with all the pushback you're probably going to get if you're on my email list you'll be the first to know when it's released what bonuses we're offering during launch week and a whole lot more and today's episode is brought to you by glue plus I recently sat down with Brad Hill here's an excerpt from that conversation we're so excited about glue plus a lot of us use a familiar marketplace shopping environment that I won't name but we all know what it is and we have a membership on top of it that makes it better right called prime and so glue plus you would think of it that way glue already serves more than 70,000 churches with a range of free tools capabilities and resources glue plus comes along and takes all that up to the next level so this is this is a membership that pays for itself normally in the first month listeners on your podcast or even going to get a discount beyond that but glue plus is going to help you reach more people it's tools to help you engage every person you have and expand your ministry every person on your staff will find value in glue plus it's a membership you can share throughout the whole team so we'd invite your listeners to jump in and take advantage of everything from texting to direct mail to resources for worship kids and more it's all available on glue plus don't miss this opportunity go to glue.us/plus and use the code C-A-R-E-Y 20 that's carry 20 and you'll get 20 percent off and now a very transparent conversation with Andy Stanley. Andy great to have you back on the podcast and thanks for helping us kick off this series. Yeah well something near and dear to my heart and it's fun to it's just interesting to me Carrie that you're so interested in this being a Canadian I mean not that you shouldn't care but you're you're so dialed into this whole crazy conversation so anyway thanks for having me back. Oh you're welcome well most of our audience is American like 80 percent of podcast listeners are US and then you know Mark Sayers and I have talked about it Mark will be on this but I think sometimes it's helpful to have that like slightly out of country viewpoint you know where you're kind of on the outside looking in and then talking to people like you who obviously have done rounds of this and really grateful that you would kick us off in this series so no secret almost every leader is nervous about what's coming down the pipe in the next few months. Yeah in 2020 you argue and I really appreciated your contribution on this that we discovered what most evangelicals value most so so far in the culture wars and the partisanship and the ideologies what is it that we apparently seem to value most. Well it appears and again we're talking in broad generalities and I mean just and you know this but I'll just say it and your podcast listeners are smart they know this too. The people who are allowed us get all the attention and it's next thing you know it's like all the evangelicals just like all the Democrats all the Republicans so of course there's not all doesn't apply to anybody but in terms of the quote supposed leaders among evangelicals it certainly appeared a few years ago that what we supposedly cared most about was winning we just we just felt like we needed to win and when I saw your questions I actually added I said if I were writing that again I would add that we would want to win what we care about most is winning at all cost at the cost of our character our Christ likeness at the cost of our influence and at the cost of evangelism just all those things out the window we just we just got to win and it appears again from the outside looking in and again even some of my friends it appears that we're more committed to a kingdom of our own making than we are the kingdom of Christ for which the church and you and I as individuals we're supposed to be like a commercial announcement of things to come that we're supposed to be walking talking representatives of another kingdom um I mean how many times did Jesus say the kingdom of God is like the kingdom of heaven is like I mean he was as well so we've allowed some secondary issues to become primary issues and at the end of the day we've a slip slided away and um it's heart breaking and it's not better than it was a few years ago when we started talking about this it's worse at least from my estimation so anyway what do you think makes us so gullible in this area so susceptible to want to win to wade into the culture wars the the partisanship etc etc yeah okay again you're interviewing me so this these are my opinions I feel like there's somewhat educated opinions been through several rounds of this I really think it boils down to maybe a fundamental misunderstanding about the difference between being biblical and being Christ-like and whenever I talk about this I get in trouble because people say Andy doesn't believe the Bible well anybody that knows me or listens to me preach consistently knows that's absurd but there's a big difference between being biblical and Christ-like and here's what I would just suggest you know the audience listen for listen for how many times even gelicals in particular but conservative Christians and fundamentalists specifically when they make their case about infusing politics into the church and politics and we represent the kingdom of God and the kingdom you know the world's coming to an end listen for how many times you hear the word biblical versus listen to how many times you hear the word Christ-like and as I argue in not in a two-minute we are partisans of a king that's what the word Christian means when they the Christians and Jesus followers in Antioch and you know this when they were first the first the first time the term Christian was used it was a derogatory term it was a political term it wasn't religious it's like they were if you were a Herodian it was your follower of her Herod Caesarean the Caesarean the followers of Caesar and Christiani was a follower of this invisible crucified king Christ so as far we're supposed to be Christ-like and and there is a difference between trying to be biblical and Christ-like so just listen to that terminology because the reason this gets confusing and I think the reason so many so much of it's gone off the rails is we have raised generation after generation after generation of Christians who feel like oh I'm supposed to live out something that's biblical versus being like Christ and and to be Christ-like narrows our options significantly and being Christ-like is prescribed to us it's not suggested to us it is prescribed as when Jesus said all authority and heaven and on earth belongs to me I mean there's no wiggle room he's he's the king so again if you lose sight of that and then last thing it's so interesting to carry in every Christian knows this every pastor's priests this passage what the the last temptation that Jesus faced in Matthew chapter four was Satan takes him to this high mountain and says I want you to look at all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor I will I have the authority to give this to you and Jesus said no thanks it's not why I've come and what have we done as conservative Christians suddenly we've decided no we'll take that we'll take the kingdoms of this world we'll take the kingdom of the United States and the UK and we're you know we want to infuse create some sort of theocracy I mean it's right there in in the Bible that the one of the temptations was to opt for power over Christ likeness and the moment we do that we've lost sight of the script and you know here we are so long answer your question I'm sorry I'll try to be shorter yeah to the question but you know you've you've this isn't your first row to you you've been through a few elections as a lead pastor in north points what 20 29 come on yeah wow and then you know growing up you had a front row seat with your dad you know dr. Charles Stanley watching this I would love your reflection on how you have seen the position of Christians change over the course of your lifetime or even the course of your leadership because it feels to me and feel free to disagree that the posturing that Christians have done continues to intensify or was it always this bad and we just have a romantic view of the past well um I think this this the red has been here it's been here as long as I can remember and you brought up a point I probably wouldn't have brought it up but you know my dad was part of played it's a pretty major part of the resurgence in the southern Baptist convention way back on the 90s and I remember I got to sit in on meetings got invited to things just because I was his son and there was something about it even though I it was sort of the it was the battle for the Bible and I'm all for hey let's battle for the Bible you know the Bible's preeminent but the way things were done and the things that were said and the posture that was taken as I have matured honestly in my own faith and honestly in my own understanding of the gospels just my personal Bible study um so much of that even though the the end seemed like the right end um it certainly didn't justify the means because and this the means was simply we picked up the tactics and the approach and the tools of the kingdoms of this world and we went to war on behalf of Jesus a little bit a little bit like the crusaders you know criticism undermining not always telling the truth powering up taking over all those things again follow Jesus to the gospels you see not only do you see none of that you see him resisting that my favorite is they're on their way to Jerusalem and to end that they send Jesus into disciples ahead to a village in Samaria we need to spend the night somewhere go for you know ask them if we expend the night in their village the Samaritans say no and two of the disciples are like Jesus do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn up burn the whole place down in other words how dare they not let the son of man spend the night in their village do you want us to destroy them all this is at the end of three years of Jesus and he looks at them all sink in didn't know it's like what are you talking about but to the answer your question it is in us it is was in them there is gonna probably always be this thread that not just through evangelical Christianity but all of Christianity um and there's again soon as we do that we've already lost even if we get our bill passed even if we get our candidate elected we've already lost because we have dipped down into a world that Jesus standing on the mountain however that works seeing the kingdoms of the world said don't want it don't want what you're offering don't want the way you're offering it i've come for something completely different i have come to as the savior of the world my news is going to be good news of great joy for every person who is born on planet earth and what you're offering me the way that i would have to get to what you're offering me i would abandon all that so i'm not suggesting this is simple i don't want to be simplistic but so much of what we're seeing and seeing Christians use the language they're using and because again the the uh the end justifies the means it's it's a little heartbreaking yeah so the two dominant approaches that we see a lot of church leaders take in a season like this or an era like this is yeah put your head in the sand hope it goes away and i gotta be honest with you that's probably my inclination it's like i'm going to put my head i don't think that's your inclination you you you you have you have found a way to keep speaking up on issues that you're passionate about sometimes at great personal cost and we'll go there uh later but the other approach then i want to suggest this is your approach because it's not but it's put your head in the sand it's probably me which is one of the reasons i'm doing this series or pick a partisan candidate and tell everyone to vote for them yeah right this is how we take back washington this is how we take back the governorship this is how we take back the supreme court yeah take back the nation what is wrong with both approaches or either approach well again if my ultimate authority as a christian is a follower of jesus then he has prescribed my tone my posture and my approach to all things all things in my home in my community the way i approach politics it has been prescribed to us we we get to choose whether or not we follow jesus we don't get to choose what following jesus looks like it's it's you know it's written on the bottle the direction is written on the bottle so neither of those approaches reflect jesus um if if we stick our hand in the head in the sand jesus didn't do that again he found him he offended both the temple and the empire both of them wanted him on their side he said no not come to take sides as tony evan said years ago i've come to take over and so he faces down injustice regardless of which side is coming from um he faces down people who are in groups who were taking advantage of of people who were easy to take advantage of he elevated the status of women in other words he had a kingdom agenda and he stuck with his a kingdom agenda and meanwhile you know the political forces are swirling around what was happening in jerusalem during that time was extraordinarily political yet zealot you had the priest who'd kind of sold out the Sadducees who definitely sold out the Romans who were just trying to keep things keep the taxes i mean so political jesus just threads the needle and refuses to take sides and just sticks with his agenda sticks with his kingdom and of course as i say all the time and today you know the roman form is a tourist attraction there's there's no temple and here we are third of the world's population celebrates jesus so sticking our head in the sand is certainly not the approach but here's the thing when a church or a group of churches decides to push a candidate in that moment even if it's the godliest candidate they have undermined the purpose of the church because we are called to make disciples and the moment i advocate for a candidate i have decided not to make disciples of half the nation right yeah i mean suddenly i've decided i'm not only going to make republican disciples because democrats are going to come to my church or vice versa because i've i've taken the stand for uh for a candidate and here's the other thing and again everybody knows this it's like political candidates and i'm these are wonderful men and women i'm so great men and women step up to spend their lives serving our country and passing bills and sitting through the long board i'm so grateful so this is not a knock but they're here today and they're gone tomorrow our king is forever and many christian um political leaders understand that there are many many many fine christian men and women who totally get this and they are as dismayed at what's going on as as some of us are so jesus refused to come down to the level of delving into which party he was going to support and as the church we should be the conscience of the nation we should be the conscience of the nation to be able to call out people on the left right and in the middle when other people are injured or harmed so we reduce our position and we do reduce our influence when we stick our head in the sand or when we go all in on a candidate because again you're you've just said to half the country hey you were we're not interested in ministering to you because you know you're not going to because we've already fended you before we begin the conversation anyway you get get the point and now a quick word from one of our partners today's episode is brought to you by preaching cheat sheet a recent study showed that 46 percent of pastors say one of their biggest struggles is feeling like 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want to be more confident on sunday mornings visit preaching cheat sheet calm that's preaching cheat sheet calm to download your copy for free and now back to the conversation so this is interesting i never know where these conversations are going to go and surprise surprise we often record the interviews out of the order that they are broadcast so you're the first in the series for the interviews but i've i've done some of the other ones already that are coming up and what's interesting because i didn't know what people were going to say is pretty much everyone and i haven't done all the interviews yet but you know Ed Stitzer and T Wright Michael Ware have all said sticking your head in the sand is not a godly option and would agree that neither is endorsing a particular slate or candidate or picking a side in the culture or platform etc and they're all but they're saying there's there's another way and they all have their own particular take on it but you have another way as well and i would love for you if it's not sticking your head in the sand or picking a slate or deciding on whatever someone else says the agenda is and then you actually just stamp it what what should we do then well i because i've talked about this so much in our churches i have a phrase that i go back to over and over again so i'll tease it out just a little bit since you asked this important question the way forward is to disagree politically disagree culturally disagree theology uh to the theologically and love each other unconditionally that's the way forward is we disagree politically we disagree culturally we can even disagree theologically but i can still love you unconditionally and that's not weak that is mature and here's the thing you know news flash this is exactly what jesus did on how many issues do you think the people jesus minster to how many issues did they line up with him perfectly when he showed up i would say exactly zero zero so he shows up in a world where everybody is wrong about most things think about that everybody he encounters is wrong about most things and he loves them unconditionally and invites them to follow that is the posture of the church and a diverse group of men and ultimately women came together who normally would have not given each other at the time of day they hated each other or at least or offended by each other um and here's why this is effective care and this is why it is the way forward um this is effective because we're all wrong about something and as long as i'm surrounded by and only listening to my tribe i will continue to be confirmed in my error which means i spend the rest of my life being wrong about something i want to know where i'm wrong i love what adam grant says he says you know when you find out you're wrong you should celebrate huh i'm not i'm not wrong anymore i for years i've believed this for years i've thought this way and i've just discovered i'm not wrong i've been wrong and now i'm not wrong anymore so discovering where i have it wrong along with others assume that who assumed that same posture is the best way to get things right and do the right things and we'll say that again the if i can surround myself with other people who don't necessarily see the world the same way i do but who recognize hey i have something to learn and i have things where i need to grow and change as well when those kinds of people come together with that same posture it is the best way to get things right and to then to do the things that make the biggest difference this is why most people in our country and in canada we actually live and shop and go to school and work in the middle we don't live in the extremes that we get dragged to during an election cycle we live in the middle where we discover where we're wrong make things right and then do the right thing so it's simple it's exactly what jesus said we disagree politically we can disagree culturally we can disagree theologically but because we choose to love each other unconditionally we can talk and we can have nuance and we can go oh and we can enter into each other's life experiences and the and where people disagree most vehemently are where they've not taken the time to experience or to dip into other people's life experiences again as i tell our churches all the time the further away you are from a problem the simpler the solution appears to be the further away you are from a problem the simpler the solution appears to be so if you are far away from a group of people's lived experience then you are confident you know the solution to their problem and you're wrong and they are equally as wrong about solving the problems they think i've created in my lived experience but when we come together we all say oh oh i didn't know and now we've learned and now we're making progress and um when and here's the thing just lots of channels conversations i've had behind the scenes with people there are so many extraordinary republicans and democrats in this country that would hear what i just said and say that is exactly my posture i care about the people in my community i care about the people in my state i care about the people in this nation and i'm looking for a group of people that will say hey we disagree culturally politically and maybe even theologically but we can we can we can respect and honor each other and we can talk about these things so that is the way forward but interestingly enough that was jesus way forward and as christians we should we should be able to lead the way unfortunately in some cases we're creating the division so thanks for asking hey but here's what i need to ask you though i just want to make sure that my answer to that question lined up with nt rights and ed stetzer's because i love those guys so if my answer was different just go with their answer i think those guys are smarter than me but anyway you know andy i've i've seen because we've known each other for 20 years i think now almost um i've watched you go through different rounds where people who are very disagreeable decide that they're going to disagree with you and i also know more than the headlines that you'll often call those people you'll often you know DM them and say hey can we jump on a conversation if they're local you'll go to coffee with people can you explain that a little bit because i think you've got scars and you have paid a very high price for doing exactly what you say it's like all right i'm gonna go and have a conversation with my critic yeah do you want to explain what that looks like i i would and i i really wish i could say publicly talk publicly about the last conversation i i had with somebody who got on multiple stages and trashed me basically i mean like i just sat there watching this thinking i don't even they're not exaggerating something i said or did they're just making stuff up in front of several thousand people and then i went to this person's podcast and because somebody sent me i mean horrible misleading things so i did what i do found a friend who had a friend who had contact information and i finally um i texted him and then i called him and i said hey let's what what are you talking about where did you well and very very defensive they're always very defensive because they've already gone public with but you know interestingly oh absolutely you know this one the statement was that he i don't even tell you what he said anyway so um very defensive and then calms down then i ask about his family and then you know suddenly suddenly i'm a person suddenly we oh yeah we have different lived experience oh i'm not just a a square person on x a square picture on x i'm like a human being and now um it's about two weeks later this person texted me and said i did some i look i did some a little more background checking i looked into what you told me and you're right and i misrepresented you and i'm gonna i'm gonna go to try to go to these same platforms and make this right i said hey i appreciate it and i didn't even ask you to do that i just said hey before you talk about me talk to me now you have my cell phone number and hey you can quote anything i said and trash it tear it apart but the character assassination that's that's middle school okay christian this is a christian this is a guy who who his the banner over everything he doesn't says is because he's a christian i'm like this is this is christianity 101 so when i have an opportunity to do that i do that it's why i'm never critical of anybody by name i'm just not going to do that i don't want to undermine a potential relationship before it begins and so that's just what i do but hey don't don't say oh it nandy great no this is i mean this is this is 101 christianity right this is how we're supposed to be and if everybody would at least make an effort and here's what i always get well we try to reach out i'm like they just lie it's just so funny we try to contact your office i'm like are you kidding everybody everybody i mean i'm so easy anyway so i've just decided track people down and it is amazing carry who i who's the telephone cell numbers i've been able to get and the conversations i've been able to have and i'm grateful and but i'm like this is what we do so anyway so i want to a bit of an excuses here you know i won't talk about that a little more in depth because the posturing the platform and you know you were kind enough to be guest number one on this podcast almost ten years ago when it started and gave me a huge boost and i'm so grateful for that continue to be grateful for that to this day and you know here i am still in my basement but to say it's just a handy that this has been a little more successful than i thought it would be is an understatement and well you've worked hard and you're really good at this so let's you know well thank you but it's it's way exceeded and people ask me how to grow it how do you grow it one of the things i figured out along the way maybe starting eight or ten years ago was there's a fast way to grow traffic and the way i could have done it is i could have said why Andy Stanley is a better i'm going to pick another good friend here of both of ours why Andy Stanley is a better communicator than Craig Rochelle or why Craig Rochelle can beat Andy Stanley in the gym which i know isn't true Andy but you know theoretically we just play along with me you know if you start doing trash talk headlines i can get 10x the traffic yeah i would never do that number one i respect and love both of you as leaders and secondly if you and i had a disagreement we'd talk about it we we we would talk about that does not belong online but it's a super fast way to grow traffic it's a way to grab headlines i just love your thoughts on that because i also hear from a lot of young leaders who are starting platforms and you know that's that's a very dark way to get traffic yeah any any thoughts on that well it works it works it works i mean i i don't nobody cares how many planes landed safely today we want to know about the one that didn't you know nobody i mean again it's this you know currently we don't name names because everybody knows but currently we've had three or four major evangelical leaders who've had some sort of moral failing or step back or whatever yeah and so of course you know x or i keep calling it twitter you know x is all about and it's not so much instagram but other social media it's like the evangelical church mega churches they're all full of this and full of that they should be shut down you know because of these examples well they're like 2,500 mega churches in the united states most people couldn't name 10 mega church pastors but the bad news is so much more interesting than the what happens in the middle and people live in the middle and so yes you're right if you want to if you know the further left or right you go to pick up followers you get more advertising you know you know all all the chickens kind of run to one side of the you know in house or the other so yeah and so way to go for not doing that um it's a it's a lot harder but you've you've got more but the problem with the people who do that they they have to get more and more and more extreme because that's what people are accustomed to and they're kind of some of them are sort of running out of juice and i don't know what's going to happen when you know this current wave of dysfunction goes away and there's another one i guess they just pick up on that but but and here's the thing and before we change subject that's that's fine i mean we're you know you know i'm an american so i won't say we're all americans but in the united states you can do that you have the freedom to do that i love the fact it's the freedom to do that i just want to say to the christians who are doing that wait a minute you're a christian you don't get a pass you know there's not a you're a follower of Jesus so if you want to do that do that but please don't mix it up with christianity and put your cross out there and refer to the bible and jesus said and god to blend those two things i mean if james is correct and james brother jesus i think he was correct everything he wrote you're gonna have to you have to give an account for the fact that you leveraged you leveraged your king in order to criticize another group of people it's like what so go 100 secular and then scream and yell and cuss and criticize but goodness gracious don't try to blend that with the teaching of jesus i i just don't understand that maybe i'm i mean i guess i'm somewhat naive but that just seems really clear to me but anyway i agree i agree you know one of the criticism like out of my writing is have them there's no bible in it like you're a christian and i'm like well because i'm giving you my opinion about leadership i don't want it to use john a cuss raise i don't want to jesus juke you i don't want to say this is a pronouncing from on hi everybody listen you know if i'm clear about something i might use the scripture once in a while if i'm preaching whole other story but i i yeah well said so andy you've had hundreds of i don't think i'm exaggerating hundreds of one-on-one conversations with critics both outside and inside your church right and those are those are people who threaten to leave people who did leave right people that don't like teaching anymore it's to this it's to water down it's to whatever you know just they left pastors hate that stuff i'm sure you don't wake up excited about it in the morning when that's on your agenda what are some tips that you have on how to have those conversations for people when the person you're meeting with and for most of us it's not going to be headlines it's not going to be i got criticized in front of thousands of people for most of us it's going to be so-and-so's leaving the church they're mad and they're taking 20 people with them you better have coffee with them what is what is your advice on how to handle a conversation like that well first i've not been successful in those conversations if success means when we're finished they're like oh wow well nevermind i'm back i'm back i i just needed more information most of those conversations and i have i don't know that you're exaggerating between covid and the current situation because i've i've gone met with small groups who are all up and i'm like i'll just come to your small group you know you don't have to report back just invite me um so i've not been i've not been successful at that in terms of i probably have a eight to ten i mean a you know eight out of ten of those conversations i don't change anybody's mind but i am a pastor first and foremost most my primary audience is not a podcast audience or television audience my primary audience is our local church that's that's who i love that's what i love to do so when i would find out somebody's leaving first thing is how involved are they how long have they been here because you know the more the longer they've been here the more they've served gosh i i don't want them to just disappear without a conversation and i always call i always meet myself available um and i'm busy like every pastor's busy and i get tired of having the same conversation over and over and over but these two crisis points coming out of covid and then the current political situation and then the conference that we had last year um those those were legit i mean people had legitimate questions and because of all the misinformation in our case of course they did so i'm like hey i you know i'm sort of to blame i guess for this because i'm the leader so let's have the conversation so to to to answer your question to pastors um calling people back making yourself available hey i'd love to come over head left for you to come over your whole group's mad what if i just come to your home to your small group and in most cases people won't necessarily want to have the conversation but i think the best thing we can do is to make ourselves available and listen listen listen listen listen not because you're going to change a lot of minds you might for sure you'll learn some things and what i learned is that and this isn't a shock to any pastor out there what i learned the presenting issue is never the issue ever ever ever ever and the other thing i discovered that i was reiterated for me is most people are unaware and and i'm probably the same way most people are unaware of the real issue because we live in the world of presenting issues because it's easy the presenting issue i'm right i know i'm right i've got energy once you diffuse my initial energy and we get down to the real issues now now it's complicated it's not as clear and i don't have as much energy i can't argue as hard because yes true i've never met these people yes true i've never had that life experience no it's you know it just gets more complicated and um so i would in these conversations i would try to gently get past the presenting issue to the core issues and then i would just sit back and decide okay do they want to go there great i will if not you know my work my work here is done and off we go let's let's go deeper on that the presenting issue is never the real issue rarely rarely rarely what do you mean by that um oh here's an example yeah three generation family so there's parents their kids and their grandkids all everybody's leaving the church so the parents the older couple let's say older they're you know my age they come in and they're and i and i vitamin i've known them for years they've done they've been involved they raised their kids and other grandkids so this is you know and they we what they went on and on and on and i listen i ask questions and then and here's what there's another little tip for pastors or anybody listen for emotion i mean there's lots of information but you watch what a person gets most amped up about and you look for the thing that creates deep emotion like tears and during this conversation as we were talking i realized what what their real issue is is i have embarrassed them in front of their friends oh now that's not why they came in in fact i don't think it ever dawned on them but as they talked and they were so angry and why would we do this and dah dah dah dah dah dah but every once in a while they would talk about you know their friends and then i noticed um this particular little wife um when she started talking about her bible study the women in her bible says she got very emotional so i let them finish and then i even said i said hey because i've known him for a long time i said hey can i just make an observation i said i think what's behind your anger is i embarrassed you and i want to apologize for that and of course i didn't do it on purpose but i totally get how what was out there in the media and what we did as a church you weren't able to defend your own church and your own pastor and i embarrassed you and i'm so sorry and they both started weeping now they left the church and their kids and grandkids um you know everybody's gone as far as i know they haven't come back but you know what we're it was so friendly at the end and there was just uh but again presenting issue real issue and i'm not a counselor and i i don't think we have to try to get people there necessarily but i just want to encourage pastors and say this um try not to take offense at the presenting issue there's generally more going on behind the scenes either that has nothing to do with your church nothing to do with your preaching but they bring that energy with them because hey i've got something i can kind of pack it all around i can't believe you said this breach this wouldn't do this pastor why don't you take a stand to which you know i always say i have taken a stand i just didn't take your stand because you know you don't really want me to just take a stand you want me to take your stand and i have taken a stand i am a follower of a king and if it ain't good news it's not the right version of you know the message of Jesus so anyway i don't know if that's helpful but that is extremely helpful so i don't know whether you'd be familiar with this work or not but there's a professor a writer a negotiator named William Yuri and i've been studying him from law school on it's almost mandated at law school that you read him and roger fissure and i had the privilege of having him on the podcast and he's negotiated everything from middle east peace to remember when it was trump and north korea about nuclear arms gonna blow up the world he was involved in that and basically he de-escalates conflict and uh William William was brilliant gave was very generous with his time and i tested a theory i had with him you know could have gone down in smoke but i've said it for years to leaders when i've been counseling them it's like 95 of the problems in the church have nothing to go to do with the church and he agreed and when you said when you can get to the emotion underneath that when you listen for that language this is a this is a business dispute two billionaires fighting for a decade it was destroying their lives right just really a contest of one against the other and he listened for something and he said he's trying to get past positions to interest and he hears uh you know the guy spoke portuguese and he said something i'm gonna get it wrong like libradado but he said it was such force and it was like liberty liberty that's what your after freedom freedom tell me about that and as he dug down he found out that he was held hostage as a young man and he felt hemmed in by this and then he broke down in tears you know this 80 year old billionaire executive breaks down in tears and the next thing you know they agreed on terms and settled to deal but that was i don't think he knew that was driving him and i found you know in my experience andy i've had people so mad at me uh because i was changing the church but you really drilled down and they were mad because their kids weren't coming or their their kids liked it more than they did or that you know their wife was terminally ill or uh that they had a child who was really struggling with an addiction and on the verge of going to rehab or those other life issues has that ever presented in all your years of pastoring absolutely i mean people are afraid of things people are insecure about things everybody has a past everybody has parents everybody has some dysfunction and and not i'm not saying those people out there all of us carry that stuff me too into every relationship right every single one and as you get older i mean i know for me i i hopefully you know you develop some some self-awareness and for me i've just learned when i'm angry i i'm like okay andy i just assume i just assume the target of my anger is not my issue i just assumed that i'm like okay you want to go in there and say this you want to go in there okay andy what's really going on here you know what's what are you mad about really and generally if i just sit back you i finally get there i mean even on a sunday morning i'll i'll get in and i'm we're doing warm up and music and all stuff and i'll i'll be so frustrated about something frustrated and i know if i'm not careful i'm going to take it out on the people around me i'm just going to be a little short and snippy i'm like okay okay andy what's wrong with you this is are you kidding you have everything in the world to be grateful for what's wrong with you well you know i wasn't always that way i was certainly what in that way in my 20s i don't think in my 30s so but if if we can all just have a little version of that then you can pretty much get along with anybody and solve just about anything so yeah the presenting problem and again you know where this manifests itself and evangelicalism right now and i don't want to get i don't want to get too specific because it'll take people's minds off what we're talking about there are two or three really hot bed issues two in particular that are soon as you put those out there everybody's amen and we're ready to take you know hell with a water pistol because these issues are so clear i'm telling you i've had so many conversations with people who come in those are front burner issues they know more really care about those issues than the man of the moon they've never met anybody that struggles with whatever it is they've never met a person who's been through that they those again is something so far away that i can get amped up about it because it's crystal clear what those people need to do and when they come in with that kind of energy and anger it's like okay seriously that you know that's generally a telltale sign that somebody really hasn't dealt with their own stuff but they found something else to hang it on and that's part of just the role of being a pastor helping people sort through all that but i think there is a ton of that a ton of that and what's happening in politics in america because i can say this since i'm an old white guy the old white guys feel like they i don't feel this way that they're losing control they're losing the country they're losing respect and now we have a candidate that's going to represent us oh yeah by the way i go to church every sunday i'm sure jesus must feel the same way and we all wrap our ideology with a little bit of theology and now god is on our side um and against the other people and jesus is just like oh my gosh they still want to torch the samaritans i mean they're they are are they not paying attention you know they got four versions of my life and they're you know still trying to torch the samaritans so anyway well you really you really study history in you know uh i i'm certainly a huge fan of america spent a lot of time there uh married an american the whole deal but some would say that this is characteristic of a declining empire that when you look at i mean you've studied room you've studied ancient history i know you read widely in that area any thoughts on that and you know as you look at the global imbalance and you look at you know like britain well my background holland was the superpower of the 16th century nobody knows that nobody remembers that you got a holland this little docile country in northwest europe right it's like you are super power but they own the seas if you own the seas you own trade you own the world that's right hundred percent you know portugal spain for a while england we all kind of have some memory of england if not you know more recent and then the american empire you know but now you look at india you look at china you look at uh other powers and uh the the truth the peace has been broken and the equilibrium dislodged any thoughts about what happens when an empire struggles well let me just respond to what you said i'm not i'm not worried about that for the united states for multiple reasons and i i'm no i'm certainly i'm no profit and i'm not an actual historian i just like history yeah you do read a lot but i'm not concerned about that for multiple reasons one we are see to shining see we are in the perfect climate we're gigantic we are a world into ourselves even though we should not retreat to be a world into ourselves um our country is so healthy right now you would you would know it you know if you listen to half the people in our states you think the world's come into an end but historically i mean what's happening in the united states and and canada is remarkable it's safer than it's ever been even though people don't acknowledge that but because we know everything about everybody every story of tragedy gets escalated and we think oh it's happening all the time everywhere not true so the the the negative narrative is way exaggerated okay that that's one thing and that that's you can that's easy to document so i'm not worried about that and i don't think historically what has happened to empires happens anymore because again we're still a and the the i'm just i gotta summarize this so don't go too long the cry of the human heart is for freedom period period it's freedom i want to be free and i want to be in an environment where i have maximum freedom and i'm willing to govern my freedom so as not to impose on your freedom and any system of government that does the work of maximizing individual freedom and guarding the individual freedom so that when our freedoms bump into each other there's somebody to set up guardrails so we don't just destroy each other that is the evolution of the world politically um um and economically and again there's some holdouts i mean china's bit of a holdout obviously north korea's like a major holdout iran a major holdout but um you know Martin Luther king jr gets credit for this for the quote i don't know who originally said it and i'm going to butcher it but you know the the arc of history or the the what is it's the arc of history bends toward justice bends toward justice when i'm not trying to think of it i can usually quote it yeah the arc of history bends toward justice and and that is true of the human heart as well and that is the gospel when jesus made the statement you should know the truth truth should make you free it is such a gigantic statement but truth requires clarity and anything that fogs my vision robs me of truth which robs me of freedom and this is the other brilliant thing jesus said in this regard this is why he said okay and he would say democrats republicans time out before you attempt to take this back out of your brother and political opponents i first don't leave me here for those of you know this you know this what he says next he says first take the log out of your own i and that's where we generally leave off with our memory and then he says this take the log out of your own i so that you will see clearly to be able to remove the spec from your brother's i this is a 100 percent relational equation and it begins with we all look in the mirror to say i bet i'm wrong about something but i don't know what it is so i'm going to get with a group of people this is the world differently than me and we're going to learn from each other we're going to solve this together so clarity allows us to recognize truth and truth sets us free this is why the church should be leading the charge into the middle ground where problems are actually solved and issues are actually resolved we have the message we have the messenger we have the king who did it and visually did it on the cross where he took upon himself all of our misunderstanding and all of the lies we've believed in all the shrapnel of the sin and the debt we created between us and our heavenly father took all that upon himself said okay i've cleared the decks now let's move forward let's disagree politically disagree culturally disagree theologically but your mandate is to love unconditionally it is and i promise i'll stop after this it is not to be should not be lost on this that jesus final activity before he was arrested and went to the garden to pray was that he washed his disciples feet and it took him a long time and he said now that i've done that for you you do that for each other period i don't care if you agree with each other not get along or not ever come to the same conclusions about but you wash each other's feet and you know what that does washing feet forces me to be close to you and when i'm close to you the temperature comes down in our relationship so we have all the tools we have the model we have a king we should get this right so so what i'm picking up as a theme in this series again as it's coming together is i think everybody so far would agree that clarity is kindness and you know i've heard you talk about clarity and that's one thing you are andy is you are clear such a word smith what should we be clear about like if you're preaching in the next couple of months heading into a very divided fall um what do you think we have the opportunity to be clear about i mean if you're picking a partisan side that's clear but this way so easy so easy easy piece but let's say here's who to hate here's who to vote for exactly so that's one form of clarity you're not advocating that but sticking your head in the sand a lot of people like i'm not going there and then people are like where do we stand it's like not answering that question you know and and then you get into personal conversations where things become more nuanced right so from the front with the microphone where should you or where could you be clear in a season like this well um so your audience knows you sent me these questions ahead of time which i appreciate because i don't know none of them are actually what i i know i know i think this this is great here you know we know each other but i i i like to be prepared as you know i'm just a stickler so one of the questions because i want to read the way you wrote i mean the what you just asked is kind of a version of the question and the question you wrote was andy what are you going to tell what are you going to say as the fall approaches and what's the alternative path so as we get closer to november andy what are you going to say and i wrote in my notes i don't know yet because i only large church pastor who's told me that andy well again we're gonna i'm going to address it you know i i sort of have this thematics message i do kind of different versions of that's called avoiding election infection avoiding election infection because we get infected and then we you know we don't love each other anymore so i i don't i don't know exactly what my message is going to be but i guarantee it's going to come back to this in fact this sunday i'm going to set talk about this is kind of a warm up as we get close to fall i tell our churches all the time our diversity is our strength our racial diversity our cultural diversity our theological diversity our lived experience diversity is our strength as a local church because we are to model with the kingdom of god looks like and it doesn't look just like me and it doesn't look just like you and it doesn't sound just like me so our diversity the fact that we don't agree politically culturally theologically and yet we can love unconditionally we are a picture we are an advertisement of the kingdom of god when at the end of time the new Jerusalem comes and the king comes i love what john says he comes to dwell with men and remember it's not the first time he dwelt with men it's the second time and the first time when he showed up everybody was wrong about just about everything and he stuck around and launched his kingdom anyway and we are to be the diverse people who have different lived experiences who come together around what jesus taught because he is our king so whatever i say in the fall it's going to have it's going to be really close to just reminding our people of that so when you look back on 2020 2016 i mean you you usually do a series and this goes back a long time what did you get right about some of those past series and what would you say oops stepped over a line didn't realize it wouldn't do that again on this topic you mean yeah on on politics or the culture wars or you know pick your topic um i i don't know that there was any giant mistake or anything i felt like oh i should have i would like to go back and redo that but i'll tell you why it's not because i'm smart it's because 12 to 14 people have my sermon outlines at least three weeks before i preach them so if there are red flags in the outline somebody or some some bodies brings it to my attention whether hey Andy this word doesn't mean what you think it does it used to mean this now it means that or i think this is too harsh or all your examples are about men or you know you've you've um you've talked about this before or i mean so i invite feedback way before i strap on a microphone to preach so that i think keeps me out of some of the ditches that i would have a tendency to go into and i let my emotion take over and when i'm dealing with racial issues i let a diverse i i invite different people into that the the outline not the outline process but say here's the outline you know if if you're sitting in the audience and you hear me say this how's this going to land with you as a woman as a democrat as republican or somebody of you know different ethnic background so um because this is a minefield i mean this the past two sundies i preached to men it was i did i had a father's day message it was too long so i made it two messages so part one and part two we had father's day two sundies in a row but preparing a message for men in this culture not like it used to be right but i thought we got to do it anyway so i had a bunch of people look at it i sat down with our youngest lead pastors went through the whole outline father's day outline you know how does this land is this you know i think this is impactful what do you think so um you got to wait in can't sit back got to love people and again as i always say i realize i'm a i'm older i got a big big church we can lose hundreds of people and the world doesn't come to an end so that's a very unique situation so i can i feel the pain of so many pastors who are trying to get this right and just a few people from the wrong you know demographic that leaves it tanks the church or somebody marches off starts a different church i i understand the fear and i understand the concern so can i can i read another answer i wrote down 100 and then we can i know we probably got to go but the one of the the question 19 was um okay back to where we started you said i think a lot of pastors are afraid of their afraid of their congregations that is so true carry and you're you're a pastor so you get that even though that's kind of hard to say and then you said um if they say anything it'll be wrong if they don't say anything they're not being strong enough and then you said what would you say to pastors what would you say to pastors who are afraid right now so here's what i wrote down and i don't mean to be snarky or sarcastic but this is the first thing that came to my mind when i think about pastors who are afraid of their congregations okay i wrote pastor if you've ever preached a message on daniel david and goliath or shadrach michak and abednego you need to pull out your notes and follow your own direction because we have all stood up in front of our churches and talked about courage and they trusted god and they went through the fire and they stared down the lions and they stared down a goliath and we're just telling these people trust god trust god you know fear not fear not it's our turn it's our turn this is our fire this is our goliath these are our lions fear not let's model what we have preached and taught for years not because it's easy but when you put yourself in that vulnerable position you have placed yourself in a position that maximizes god's opportunity to do something remarkable for you and through you and do not miss that moment in this cultural moment with these this cultural tension that we're leading through and preaching through maybe your moment to discover something about god to discover something about god's faithfulness that you would never be able to learn any other way so fear not not because i told you not to but because our king fear not he's with you that's a great word i also love this format i will just send you the questions you read them and then you answer them that's a lot better than me coming up with spontaneous questions is there any questions all seriousness is there another question you wish we would tackle one or two more no i think what kind of those are those are the stars yeah you talk about the faith of the next generation that the next generation is at stake in this ideological polarized tribalized world the more we play into that the more if i understand your argument correctly we are at risk of losing the next generation and playing into the talk about that andy um well the the when i when we're talking about younger generation let's i mean what's interesting we forget millennials are 40 now okay they're not they're not 18 anymore it's like what when did that happen they're they're all 18 they're 40 right they got kids and i both have kids in our 30s it's like yes right yes yes exactly so what we are unfortunately what i think we're communicating at broad level if we're not careful to the next generation is this they're going to be tempted to walk away from the church not because they don't believe what the church teaches they're going to be tempted to walk away because they're convinced we don't believe what the church teaches because when i go all somebody goes up a christian or pastor goes all in on a culture war issue that younger generation realizes wait a minute i know people like that i know people who've experienced that i know people who are wrestling with that and you've demonized them you've said they're the enemy you said that they're to be defeated and out voted and basically you just wish that that whole group of people would disappear these are my friends and i don't necessarily agree with them either but these aren't these aren't a category this isn't a category for me these are actual people so if you are going to leverage the church and the power of church and the power of the pulpit in order to demonize a group of people that i actually love and i know god loves then i don't i'm not questioning my beliefs i'm questioning the sincerity of your belief and so the whole deconstruction movement is a group of people for the most part who are like no i still believe in god i i'm i just got it i just got to step back because i'm not sure my church leaders actually believe what i actually believe that Jesus came to bring good news of great joy for all people i'm not seeing much good news of great joy for all people at my church so you know i've got to step back so the it's not it's you know it kind of comes back to a little bit of our own hypocrisy in terms of church leaders and what we represent and the moment a pastor goes all in for the republicans or all in for the democrats or begins to demonize a group of people and by demonize they are the enemy you have lost the plot line if as i tell leaders all the time if you have to have an enemy in order to lead you are a poor leader that's why Jesus was the greatest leader he said i don't make enemies and when i find somebody who calls me an enemy i don't return the favor i'm going to figure out how to love my enemies think of this here from the cross if we believe that the gospels are reliable accounts of actual events which i do from the cross Jesus prays father forgive the people that put me here to the very end i am not going to make them my enemies and here's what's behind that father forgive them for what they've done they don't really know what they did because they don't have the truth consequently they aren't free and then he says to me and he followed me and you adopt my tone my approach you adopt my posture and it doesn't matter if it works it doesn't matter if you can't if you measure progress or not because i'm your king and i you know sitting here in a wonderful little studio with a microphone like i've got my act together it's a you know course not it's a daily it's a daily struggle but that's it's prescribed again i get to choose whether or not i follow Jesus but once i decide to follow i don't get to choose what it looks like he's he made that clear any i'll tell you i've loved this conversation so much and we've had a bunch on this podcast but one of the reasons i love it is i feel like we got a little bit of a behind the scenes like you know you you meet with literally hundreds of people probably in the last five or six years for all of the stuff and a lot of a lot of listeners will know you through the headlines through some of the people that love to criticize you etc etc but one thing i know because we've known each other for so long is that there's a lot of behind the scenes that never make the headline a lot of conversations that kind of go nowhere and they leave anyway or you know like i still yelling at you through the headlines or whatever but one of the things you told me i've never mentioned this to you that's not in the notes is you said it might have been an aside you may not even remember it but if you remember it i think it could be helpful you said hey i think you're just talking to a group of us one day and you said you know if it ever gets really big or your church becomes successful don't take the weird pill do you remember that you said don't take the weird pill actually it's something that another famous pastor said he said don't take the strange pill okay yeah and then i've i've quoted that you don't take the don't take the strange pill because guys i mean you've seen it they just i don't know what it's always guys they just get weird they just have an eyes they oh yeah yeah they're water room temperature you know whatever yeah what what and i'm wondering if there's a tie into these culture wars it is bizarre what we find ourselves in this tribalized ideological culture you know the weird thing is to live by the headlines the weird thing the strange thing is to just shoot barbs over social media over x over you know facebook yeah the hard thing the humble thing the difficult thing is to say let's have coffee let's let's chat can you jump on a phone call i've just learned so much for you any thoughts on that like the strange pill as far as this moment we're in culturally it i don't know i mean i i don't i just watch pastors i don't understand them sometimes what they do why they do what they do and i don't i'm not talking about immoral crazy stuff i'm just talking about what what but again i'm but i'm older than a lot of them and i'm willing to chalk it up to personality and and there's guys that are way more charismatic just naturally than me and more on fire and all that so i i get different styles and stuff but you know there's just some basic things accountability and stuff and staying healthy and so i don't know i don't know really talking to people who go to your church well there's that yeah there's that being accessible being accessible yeah and being touchable and being just sitting on the front row without people guarding you and i don't know and and carry i'll tell you again i had a huge advantage huge advantage i grew up with a famous father who was a pastor i mean everywhere we went every restaurant every place you know it was i live my life twice really i feel like i i really do so that's an advantage it is because there's a i saw early on how important my dad was to people in what stopping and speaking to people because of the way they esteemed him and how much they learned from him and i and people in my you know my role or pastors and communities where there's somewhat well-known your words your pause your eye to eye your genuine concern it is it is ministry and um i think growing up and seeing that it's it's more intuitive for me to appreciate the power of that not in a manipulative way but just the power of of presence and remembering a name and um pause and to pray for people in home depot and pray pray and for the guy pray with it cvs he's kind of pouring out his heart i'm like let's pray right now with my hand on his shoulder right there cvs i i'm like i used that kind of thing used to be like i'm not going to do that you know what just got over it's like hey if if god's giving me this opportunity or stewardship of influence it's it's a person to person it's it's one-on-one so well thank you thank you for sharing a little bit about that and thanks for humanizing and normalizing this bizarre cultural moment we're in yeah oh thanks for having the conversation can i i don't know about time and you may cut this oh i just i just wonder i would like to read three verses of scripture that i i think again this is so simple and so on point and this is the apostle Paul Philippians chapter two every pastors preached that most christians could quote some of this but listen to these words i mean imagine this jesus truly inspired paul to write this which we believe and again with paul's experience having been i mean what he went through you know can't imagine and he says this listen to this do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility here it is value others above yourselves what if we just did that and then he says and here it is this is this will change your marriage this will change this would change the country this would change the temperature of our country in your relationships with one another talking christian to christian in your relationship and doesn't qualify which relationships in your relationships with one another have the same mindset as christ jesus whose final activity with his disciples was he washed their feet and then paul says it this way have the same mindset as christ jesus who like what it was the same mindset he goes i'm about to tell you who being in very nature god did not consider equality with god something to be used to his own advantage jesus never leveraged who he was to benefit himself that is amazing it too it takes away all my excuses it takes away all my right to demonize and criticize anybody and it calls me to have to approach every relationship with the mindset of christ jesus who came into this world where everybody had everything wrong and he invited us to follow carry imagine if that was the posture of the local church in america or canada everything would change we don't need more information we just need a heck of a lot more application you know i don't know about you sometimes i read a text like that or roman's 12 i find particularly convicting once you get you know passed renewing your mind i thought if i camped out on these 10 verses for the last my life right i would have stuff to do every single day every day i'm like well not there yet not there yet that's a beautiful place to stop and jesus andi i can't thank you enough the book by the way came out a couple years ago called not in it to win it very applicable for today really really applicable helpful and you you've helped me rethink more issues and become clearer in my communication than anyone else and i just want to thank you so much andi and thanks for this conversation it was very enlightening well thanks for inviting me and um look i look forward to hearing the whole series i who you've lined up is it's fantastic and to get to be a part of this and i'm honored so thank you man i enjoyed that conversation with andi he was so personal so transparent um it felt like we were having lunch doesn't it and that's sort of the vision behind this podcast i want to bring you the conversations that are difficult to have and are rare in leadership and hopefully we delivered on that one for you if you enjoyed today's episode would you leave a rating and review wherever you're listening and we got resources for you in fact we got show notes we've got transcripts you can go to karaenuhoff.com/episodes six seven one to get all of the above and you can also check out the new offers we're bringing you as well i'm very excited to release my ultimate guide to healthy church conflict it's available now at churchconflictguide.com and i'm super pumped for what glue plus is doing they've got a membership that gives you free texting time-saving resources new programs and discounts for stuff you're probably already buying at full price go to glue.us/plus and use the code carry my name c-a-r-e-y 20 carry 20 you'll get 20 percent off next episode add stetzer and ed's never boring it's part three of our series on how to lead in an age of outrage what do you do when your people go crazy we're going to talk about that also coming up in the series nt right mark sarah sherry mcmann michael we're in a lot more and then we're back to our regularly scheduled programming including our tenth anniversary jim collins is joining me mark clark is joining me and we got lisa turkers malcolm gladwell seth goaten and others coming up later this fall man if that's not a good reason to subscribe i don't know what is we are excited to bring you the best guests and i want to thank you so much for honoring us with your time your feedback and for sharing this resource with friends with staff and with so many more and uh hey before we go i got a brand new course i'm going to be releasing as this series wraps up it's called the art of navigating church conflict and my team and i have worked so hard on this it has everything you need to know about how to deal with everything from elder conflict to trolls on the internet to staff within cases of moral failure uh man it's got everything including very practical what exactly to say when scripts if you're on my email list you'll be the first to know when it's released what bonuses we're offering during launch week and a whole lot more we've worked so hard on this i can't wait to get it into your hands so visit link in the podcast to join the email list if you're not already on it by the way you're also going to get a lot of free stuff when you're on that email list thank you so much for listening everybody hey i really hope this series is helpful would love your feedback on it shoot me a note carry it carry newhoff.com or uh hit me up on social i'm carry newhoff on a lot of channels see newhoff on others hey it's a weird spelling you're going to be able to find it and we'll catch you next time on the podcast in the meantime i really hope our conversation today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing
