The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 086 – Josh Whitehead on Why Senior Pastors, Executive Pastors and Business Leaders Don't Trust Each Other, and How to Fix it
[music] Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 86 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff, and I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. Really excited to have Josh Whitehead on the podcast today. He is the executive pastor at Faith Promise Church, and I love his story. He's one of the many people who developed a lot of skills in the marketplace and then decided to move them all on over into ministry, which if you listen to this podcast regularly, you know I love. I just love it when people take their God-given gifts and throw them full time into the kingdom. And so for about 11 years, he served as the executive pastor at Faith Promise Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it's one of, it's very large church, multiple campuses. And we're gonna talk about executive pastors and leadership and team dynamics, and I think you're gonna find it to be a fascinating conversation. So I wanna share with you a couple of things. First of all, this is a launch season for my brand new resource. It's the Lasting Impact Team Edition. So I get a lot of requests like, "Hey, can you come and like talk to our team "or talk to our board or go to this conference?" And it's kind of cool 'cause now the answer is yes. And at a fraction of the cost of actually flying anybody in, the Lasting Impact Team Edition is now available. So I shot eight videos that really cover some of the highlights and some extra stuff around what I think are seven pivotal conversations that your church needs to have. Conversations like, "Why are we not growing faster?" Or, "How come people who attend church "are attending less often?" Or, "Why aren't we engaging high capacity volunteers?" I mean, conversations like that that can really help your church grow. So I recorded eight videos and you're like, "Wait, seven conversations." Yeah, I also did a bonus one on like, how to have difficult conversations or important conversations without blowing your team apart. So you're gonna get all of that. And yeah, I'm real excited about that. So what you can do, if you want more information, if you wanna get those videos, maybe you've read the book and you're like, "Okay, now it's time to take it to the team," and just not read this myself, but actually dive into these issues. That's what this resource is designed to do. And if you've never read the book, it's a good opportunity to dive in. So you can find all kinds of information at lastingimpactbook.com. And you can also order bulk discounts. You can get five copies, 10 copies, or 20 copies of the book, plus the videos at discounted rates. So you can go right now and find all that stuff out at lastingimpact.com. Of course, you can also check the show notes. And if you order now, as in before May 31st, you will get access to a private Facebook group that we're putting together for people who are reading and using a lasting impact team edition. So you'll get a lot of support from other people who are having the same conversations. And I'm gonna jump in in the conversation, even answering some of your questions live in June. So make sure you do that and order now before you no longer get access to the private Facebook group that I think is gonna be a fantastic community. So one more exciting thing to let you know about today. When you hear this, when this episode goes live, I'm gonna be on a plane with my wife, flying somewhere over the Pacific on my way to Australia. We are taking a one year overdue 25th wedding anniversary trip. It's kind of like a second honeymoon. We're gonna spend just over two weeks on the Gold Coast and then head all the way up to the Great Barrier Reef. It's gonna be gorgeous. We are so excited. And so we have a little bit of personal vacation time coming up, which is fun. But then in the second half of May, I'm gonna be speaking in five cities in Australia. It all kicks off in Melbourne, and you can get all the information at thinkorange.org.au. That's thinkorange.org.au. So I'm gonna be in Melbourne, Australia, preaching at a couple of churches and also speaking at the Just a Phase conference in Melbourne. I'll also be in Sydney, in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and a few other places. So I would love to hear from you those dates. That's all happening between Thursday, May 19th and the very end of the month. I think it all wraps up around Sunday the 29th. So I'm really excited for that. If you're anywhere near Australia, make sure you check it out. You can go to thinkorange.org.au and just click on events and you'll see all the places I'll be. So I know we have a lot of listeners in Oz and it's gonna be fun to be with you. I was there four or five years ago, absolutely fell in love with the place and the people. It's good to be heading back and fun to get a break, as well as building into some leaders. Anyway, that's what's going on in my life. Make sure you check out lastingimpactbook.com. Grab your copy of the team edition. And if you're anywhere down under, come see me. That was a really bad impersonation. Maybe I'll have an accent when I come back. Anyway, here's my conversation with Josh Whitehead. Well, Josh, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to have you. Thanks so much for being here today. Kerry, it is so exciting to get to be apart today and I'm also grateful. Thank you so much for your investment in church leaders. This podcast has meant a ton to me personally. Well, thanks. It's 100% selfish because I just get to learn once a week from people I admire and a bunch of people get to listen in. So it's all great from where I sit. Yeah, well, the rest of us are doing the same thing, man. We're dragging on your coattails right behind you doing that. Well, this is fun to connect because you and I have connected online through social media for a few years now. And it's great to actually almost sit down, you know, face to face eyeball to eyeball, courtesy of video conferencing. And it's great to see that. So you're an exec pastor at Faith Promise Church, which you joined back in 2003 and have been in the exec role since '05. And Faith Promise is just one of those interesting churches. It was plateaued for a while. You came on board, there was a change in leadership and a bunch of times now in the last decade, it's hit the fastest 100 growing churches in America. It's thousands and thousands of people on multiple campuses now. Trace out a little bit about the turnaround for us and how that happened because that's just a good news story. Yeah, well, in 2003, I came on board as a young adult pastor and candidly, I was running a little bit in ministry. If I would just be honest, we'll do it. And a few other people who'll hear this right as well. But I was really struggling because I wanted to be a leader and I wasn't able to do that in ministry and the churches that I had been a part of. And so I came here and decided if I can learn how to preach, then one day I can be a senior pastor and I can be a leader. And so I came here with that in mind. And six months in, it was the worst thing that could have ever happened. Our senior pastor came to me and said, "Hey, I want you to be the executive pastor "at Faith Promise." And seriously, we started looking to leave. Like I told my wife, okay, we've missed it. Some things, we obviously-- Did you think you got demoted or what happened? No, I was scared to death because again, I want to be a leader and now I'm hearing my senior leaders say, you need to be an executive pastor. Well, you know what, they're in every role, Gary, you know this, there are some really great executive pastors. There might be some executive pastors that aren't as great. We know that. Same with lead pastor. I'm familiar with that space. Well, you know, I only know great lead pastors. There you go. But nonetheless, you know, I really was struggling to say, this is going to be my identity and ministry. I'm going to be an executive pastor. I want to delete. I want to be a person who got to lead. And our senior pastor said what every senior pastor says, it'll be different here. Right, of course it's going to be different here. And that scared me more candidly. And so we worked for about eight months to transition me from being a young adult pastor. I was 30 years old when I auditioned. And our church had plateaued, just as you mentioned. And that really is what pushed our lead pastor to say, hey, I need to make a change. Because he is a guy who is a great friend of mine. And he would tell you the same. He's not a strategy person. He's not really looking to create a plan. He is a person who is a great leader who loves to empower people, but he doesn't see things through to completion. And so the church that we went through the season, this was amazing. We were probably averaging 900 or so just to, you know, just for that thought it doesn't matter. But what happened is the church grew from 900 to 1500 in like eight. In what eight months? Yeah, like 900 to 1500. Was that around the time of your transition or after your transition or what? It was right before. And we started doing some things in our that I know John Burke, you know him and his no pick people. And so we really embraced this. Any person is going to be welcome. And our church already had that culture, but we took it to another level. And in that same season, we started doing a Saturday night service in our context, which back in that day, in our community, only Catholic churches had Saturday night services. And everyone said, there's no way in Knoxville that will work. Well, we started just kind of again, just tinkering with our ministry. And it just explodes and all these people come and everything's broken. As you can only imagine, right? You know, all these people are coming and we don't have anywhere to put them. We don't have a place for them to park. So all your systems fell apart, basically. Everything fell apart and our lead pastor comes to me saying, hey, you're the person who can really help us move through this. And again, for me, we had kind of started this conversation before that season, but this all happens in that season that we're talking. And I just told him, hey, I need you to do some things to show me that you're going to actually allow me to be empowered to lead. And so we had this cool deal where we walked through that and he did some amazing things and then really, he made the biggest mistake I think he ever would do and that he actually, as a, I was a 30 year old who had never, you know, really, I didn't let a church, I hadn't let a staff team. I had no experience, a business experience from a family business, but it was a small context and he puts me in charge of everything. And it allows me to start leading this church of 1500. And, you know, I'm proud to say that after the first year, the church was averaging a few smaller in attendance than I took over. >> Under your great leadership, right? >> Yeah, but, you know, we laughed today because we were just so broken from the growth. And I know that so many of the people who are listening to this have experienced that same thing where you just, you know, so many church, you know, leaders thing. Man, if that happened to my church, you know, that would be the greatest thing ever. And I have to tell you that those were some of the most difficult days in ministry, just because it's such a challenge when everything's broken. What do you fix first, right? >> Yeah, well, that's it, like your system is designed for a certain number. And it doesn't have to be 900 to 1500, that could be like 50. You're actually created for 50, that's how your board manages, that's how your pastoral care happens, that's how your systems run, and 100 will break your system or you're set up for 200 and 400 will break your system. I mean, it's just true. I always think of it in terms of, you know, the mom and pop store versus the supermarket, right? If you're set up as a mom and pop store, you know, you are not set up to handle 5,000 customers a day through multiple departments and cash windows or cashiers and so on. Like you're just, you're not set up for that and your system will break if you get more customers. >> Yeah, and that's where we were, we were broken. And so I've had the privilege candidly for the past 11 and a half years or so to lead us beyond that to a place today where we have five physical locations and people worshiping across our area and we have a partnership in Costa Rica with a church called Faith Promise that we helped launch there. And just really seeing God do some really cool things. But it wasn't, you know, and it still isn't, as you know, and as each church leader knows, every day is a new challenge and another great opportunity as a leader, right? To recognize we're still not there. And I've realized now after 11 years and I'm not, I'm probably a little bit slower than most people, but you never get there. You know, I think even in spiritual life, I used to think, you know, oh, it's a scale of one to 10. When I get to 10, you know, it'll be heaven and I'll know Jesus like I never have. And then you get to 10 and you realize the scale was 20 and then you get to 20, you realize it's 100 and you get to 100 and it's 1000 and you start going, right? That's this process of sanctification where it never ends until you get to heaven. You know, and one day God kind of spoke to me like, hey, unless you want to come to heaven right now, you know, the scale just keeps going. >> Yeah, there are days where I'm like, you can take me now. It's okay, it's all right, it's all right. >> So tell me, but set the context then. So over the last 11 years, you've grown from 1500 or back down to 1300 and where do you sit today over five locations and partnerships? >> Today we have 6,800 people in our Tennessee campuses and surrounding Knoxville. >> That's incredible. Wow. So that's a lot of growth and you come from a business background too. You and I were chatting a little bit beforehand and you hinted at it already, that you were just primed to lead, but you didn't know whether that kind of leadership could happen in a church context, right? The kind of leadership that you had in mind, and I know we got a lot of business leaders who listen as well. You know, there are a lot of our leaders are on church staff, but a lot of people work in the marketplace, they just care about the church. And so you were one of those people who worked in the marketplace, loved the church, loved the ministry, but thought, hmm, I don't really know whether my gifts fit. I remember talking to David McDaniel about that back in episode 49, a really, really good friend, highly successful business person who left to work on staff at North Point for a decade. He had the same question, like, I don't think my gifts can be used. Walk us through that. What was that like for you? >> Well, I think it was a challenge because most people, as you know, don't see the church as a business. And, you know, again, we could debate that the church definitely has business components and perspectives, you know, we have people, we have systems, we have strategy, and most of us are willing to talk about vision and DNA and things like that, but most of us really struggle to really put that together and say the church is a business. And, you know, that's a challenge, but for me, it was really just saying, okay, I think I have this experience that could make the church better. And, but the question mark was, will people really accept that? Are people willing to, you know, are church leaders willing to, to bring that, that perspective in and make the church better and different? And as an executive pastor, you know, I'd served as an associate pastor before, and it was really some of the same things executive pastors do. And my experience in the church had been, no, church leaders weren't willing to do that. And you would, I would find that, you know, I would, I see things just so differently as kind of that business perspective, because in business, it was about, hey, how do you create revenue? How do you do things differently, you know, to create more revenue? And, and, you know, and, and so we're, we're working, you know, I'm looking from that perspective and, you know, I just always see things. I would look and say, hey, we have 400 parking spots and, you know, low and behold, we can only get 400 people here, you know, what if we created 400 more parking spots? Could we get 800? And some of those things seem so simple, but a lot of church leaders don't think that way. And then church leaders deal with something that I didn't really deal with in the business world. And that's it's faith that church leaders really are driven so often by fear over faith. And so they don't just look at it as, hey, look, we had 400 spots and that creates more revenue, right? And more, more people, more business per se, but they have to look at it and say, what if people don't come? Right. And what if, you know, what if I lead to do this and, and people don't come and then the church is looking to me? And so, you know, I think church leaders live on this kind of precipice of fear and faith and trying to decide, you know, what to do and should they take that next step and business leaders that are more entrepreneurial, you know, they seem to just step out there and say, let's go do it, you know, let's make this happen. And, and I think if you can really get down to the heart of church leaders, that, that even though many of the visionary church leaders have that perspective, right? They say, Hey, let's go do it. Let's, let's take this mountain. I think if you get really inside their heart, that there's a lot of fear there of, yeah, this doesn't happen. Let's talk about that for a minute. And by the way, Dave McDaniel was episode 47. I just checked that. So my math was wrong. Yeah, you know, I can relate to that. I mean, there's a tremendous fear for me as a leader in my two decades. You know, there's a, you build it. What if they don't come? And then there's the fear of what your colleagues say, not always in the church is success greeted with universal applause. People question your motives. People love to attack the guy on top. And so I know I actually sat down with a counselor and talked about fear. And I realized when I rooted through it and we really got to the bottom of it a couple years ago, I wasn't nearly as much afraid of failure as I was of success, which seems really, really weird. Interesting. That idea that, that I, you know, people were going to criticize me because that happened early. We were a fast growing church. I was a young leader, you know, we're still growing. We're still, you know, seen as leaders in some respect. But, man, that criticism comes with the territory. And so I got kind of beaten down internally, but the stuff that hurt more was the external stuff. Yeah. And I think, you know, my perspective on this is really different. The first thing I would, I'd love to say is to the, to the senior leaders, to pastors and those people have led, hey, as a staff person, man, I'm so sorry for the seasons where, where as a staff person, you know, I wasn't supportive where I, where I didn't really support and pour into and, and, and support that vision because for a long time, I really believed that, you know, you have to agree on everything. You have to agree. And on, you know, your values are so important. And I figured out just recently for me that there was a season in ministry where I was trying to live my values and not the values of the organization or the senior leader. And so when I had a unique opportunity here to step into that role, I literally went to our senior leader and just said, Hey, as long as you don't ask me to do anything unethical and moral, you know, what, however you want to define that, I said, I'm going to support you. I feel like God has called me to help walk with you and help you fulfill what God's calling is and what his vision is for the ministry of our church. And I think that was a freeing thing. And I think so many church leaders have experienced hurt that they're stuck in that hurt. And, and for, for staff, I think, and staff at churches who are, who are listening, man, I would just encourage you to, I don't know, this is probably over the top, but we almost have to get over ourselves. And, you know, as, as leaders, we over spiritualize everything. You know, it's say more about that. What do you mean, like, well, I mean, I think we look at our, our senior leaders. And first off, even as staff members, we want them to be perfect. The church wants them to be perfect as well. But as staff members, we want them to be perfect. And then, you know, we make a big deal. I don't, I don't know how you guys see this or how you see this. But one of the things I've realized is that you can put two people who have $100. And one of them, you know, pays $100 for cable television or whatever every month. And the other person spends $100, eating out. And those two people will look at each other and say, I can't believe they spend $100, eating out. And the other will say, who has cable? And I think as church staff members and church leaders that we have looked, you know, look at your senior pastor and he makes a decision. And you think, how could someone make a decision like that? It's like, it's not even a spiritual decision. It's not. And, and again, Kerry, I'm not trying to underplay. Obviously, we all know that there are moments where senior leaders do some of the worst things. I've experienced that personally. I was a church where a pastor had moral failure with, with multiple, multiple, multiple ladies in a, in a, in the church. And so I understand there are seasons where we, right, where we, we have those moments of great hurt. But, but what I also have been a part of more is where church staff people try to over-spiritualize, you know, oh, this happened or this happened. It's like, hey, you know, what if we just got behind this person and or the vision or whatever it is, and we side decided together, we're going to move it forward because man, I can critique, you know, you know, Kerry, I'm sure everyone out there can, can tell you 10 things you should do better on your podcast. Oh, yeah. I'm sure they can tell you 10 things you should better as a leader, 10 things you could do better as a writer. At the end of the day, right, what if they just got behind you and support and said, Hey, we're going to make you better. Yeah. And so I took the perspective and ministry that, Hey, I'm going to support the vision of my senior leader and I'm going to do everything that I can to make him better. And, and so it's been, it's just to me that's been part of that because it creates a relationship with us that allows us to move so much further, you know, and go forward so much more quickly. I think that's a, that's a culture thing for sure. I've had the benefit of working with a team that that really we have each other's back. And I've had that conversation with a guy who served as my executive pastor, you know, that sort of, Hey, my job is to implement your vision and loyalty is really, really important. I want to go back to like over spiritualization. So let's say the church has a little setback, right? Are you talking about the kind of thing where somebody says, Well, maybe God is trying to tell you something. It's like that kind of thing where, you know, everything, you know, the reality is you need more parking spaces. But, but somebody might say, Well, maybe you're just getting too proud. And that's why the church is stuck. Or maybe God is trying to tell you that numbers aren't everything. Like I just get so tired of that kind of false, false reasoning, I think is what it is. Well, I think, you know, Larry Osborne said a few years ago, I heard him say, We have New Testament envy or something like that, where, you know, we look at the New Testament and we think, Oh, it was perfect. And, you know, personally, for me, one of the things that I found comfort in are stories like Acts chapter 15. There's this council at Jerusalem, you know, and they figure out, No, you know, the Gentiles, they don't have to do everything that the Jews did. They don't have to be circumcised to be a part of the church. Right. And then right after that, in this great spiritual moment, Paul and Barnabas come together and they say, Hey, we're going to go out and go back to all the churches we started and strengthen them. Let me go get John Mark. And we can go forward. And Paul says, Hey, he left last time. We're not doing that. We're not going back together. And Barnabas like, hang on a second, Paul, you know, yeah, we're going to take him with us. He says, No, I'm not going if he's going. And Paul grabs Silas and goes one way. And Barnabas grabs John Mark and goes the other way. And you know, in my study, there's really not a place where those guys, those guys ever did ministry together again. And I think again, you know, when we look back at that, you know, we have these moments to where we just don't recognize in ministry that, you know, again, what you went back to is we were so judgmental, like, you know, I've never heard anyone preach a sermon on how Paul, you know, had a hardened heart, he wouldn't listen to Barnabas, you know, humble Paul, wasn't that that's what we do. And but we do that with our leaders. Right. We do that with our leaders when our leader says, Hey, I don't think that's the way we're supposed to go. Well, you know, are you sure you heard from God? Are you sure? And at some season, you know, I think even for us as staff members, we can look at our senior leader and say, Hey, let's try this. But we know that God didn't speak to you directly. Right. I don't carry. I've never heard you say that God's told you, Hey, in an audible voice, this is what you're supposed to do. Nope. But you have this leading within you. And at moments, it's been right. And maybe it's wrong. It's wrong. Yeah, just ask my wife. No, we're not going to do that. But yeah, yeah. No, you're right. Okay. So I think that's really important. You've got on the one hand, I think for an executive pastor and a lead pastor and a senior leadership team to work together, there has to be that kind of, Hey, we're all in this together. I've got your back. My job is to fulfill your vision. Was that hard for you as a business type who maybe saw yourself as a number one leader in an organization to say, I'm going to submit myself to somebody else's vision? Well, what was amazing about my context and my challenge for for senior leaders, no matter what your role senior pastors, I think this is a real struggle. But even in business leaders, I think this is a challenge. My senior leader is phenomenal at really empowering other people to do what their gifting and calling is. And so, it was so amazing as we made the transition and I began to do the work and the role that I was in. My pastor came one day and as we began to make changes, he began to trust more that things that I was good at that he wasn't wasn't able to do as well. It was okay for me to do that. So for instance, my senior leader today, when I started this journey, I think we had 12 people who worked at our church. Today we have 70. And in over 10 years, he's never interviewed a person that works at our church. You've done all that. I've done all that. And most senior leaders would say, no, I've got to do that. I've got to be a part of that process. And what he does is he talks to me about the culture that he wants, the types of people that he wants. He's talking about the vision and the focus of ministry and the direction we're going. And my job is to build a team around those things. And senior leaders, business leaders, struggle to allow other people to do that. And I think the more you can let go, the more you can let go of things, the greater opportunity that things have to grow. They have this opportunity to be released. And we all know that it's the idea to strengthen yourself. If you're a football player, you ever seen that they have those like rubber band things you put around your waist and a person hold it behind you. If you ever noticed, they don't use those in the game. Yeah, that's true. And so for us, as senior leaders, a lot of times what we're doing is we're like, Hey, yeah, go, go after that. And we're holding that. Yeah, bring that back to me. Bring that decision back to me. Let me talk to every person. And candidly, we can't move forward that way. That's not how you play the game. That's how you practice that you've you have you have actually hit on an issue that I think strikes home for a lot of senior leaders. You have the opportunity to see the wider church as well. You're fairly well connected as an exec pastor. Josh, why do you think so many senior leaders? And I speak as somebody who's spent most of my time in leadership as a senior leader. Why do you think so many of us who are senior leaders are afraid to to really trust other people to run with the vision? Well, I think it's because most senior leaders have been hurt. And candidly, I think there's the potential that some senior leaders are even stuck in their hurt. Okay, tell me more about that. Just because one staff member did you wrong, doesn't mean all staff members will probably do you wrong at some point in the future. Through that. And the challenge that we have is in that moment of really trusting and believing and working through the gaps in our relationships to move forward. And so I really think that senior leaders are stuck. I think that a lot of times they're afraid they've been hurt. You know, Kerry, I listened to a good bit of preaching, honestly. I listen to podcasts. I run because I have to, not because I want to honestly. But in those moments when I'm driving, I'm listening. I'm always engaged with something. You know, every Tuesday, I'm going to listen to your podcast in the morning on the treadmill. And it just happens. You can know where I'm at now. Well, thank you. I should listen on the treadmill. Yeah, well, that's right. That's exactly right. But you know, the thing that I started, you know, to realize as I listened to preaching is that a lot of pastors now are transparent. They talk about their hurt. I hear pastors talking about, you know, getting letters, you know, from people or emails, and they always talk about how they don't read them, but they always know what those letters say. Yeah. I don't read anything that's not signed or does that person's name on it? And they said, well, I'm thinking, that's interesting. I didn't think you read those things. You know, people talk about critique, right? Internet, they'll say, you know, I just don't pay attention to that. I don't know why people are saying this about our church. And it's like, I thought you didn't listen to it. And what I think is, I think that senior pastors are stuck. I don't think it's mega church pastors carry. I think it's every leader, every pastor. And the thing is, we have more senior pastors or lead pastors, whatever you want to call it, the person who preaches on the weekend, we have more of those across the church globally than anything else. It's not uncommon to find a church that doesn't have a student pastor, doesn't have a worship pastor, doesn't have a children's pastor. But every church has a person who stands up. Three years it was me solo. We couldn't afford any staff. I mean, you know, when you're starting out, it was real lean. So who gets the hurt? Yep. And then who carries the weight of the organization? That's the other thing too. When you're in that senior leader's chair, I mean, even if you, you know, it's your family ministry person that got criticized or an elder that got it, you feel that in a different way. You just do. Well, that's right. You feel it in a different way as well, because most of the time you are the person who is, who's brought that person to part of the organization. Yeah. And you feel responsible. You feel responsible, man. They made a mistake. And so I, you know, I really do think that as if senior leaders could come to a place to where they say, okay, you know, let's, let's address this for what it is. How long have people complained about their pastor? Forever. Go back to Paul, right? Moses, Moses, Jesus. If Moses and God had ever been mad on the same day, right? The people of Israel would never have survived. I mean, it was like God's counseling Moses. No, we don't need to kill him. You know, Moses counseling God. Hey, we don't, no, don't destroy what your names say, right? We know this, but, but ultimately it's the connectedness. I think more and more as we become more connected through social media and technology that as senior leaders, we've really struggled. We've really struggled to, to be able to move past that criticism and things that are happening. And I think that's, that's, I think that's hurting the church candidly. I really think that it's creating this level of distrust that, you know, you know, it's true. And I know it's true. We both have been a part of it where there's a moment where someone says something we're like, I'm not really sure. I don't know if that's really the right perspective. You know, we struggled to trust. And one of the things that my senior leader has done that's blown me away is he really has this ability to, to trust me and, and actually fill the gaps with trust. Wow. And, and I think if senior leaders can do that, and here's the thing that I work towards and boy, this will be a great one for anyone who's out there listening. I want to be trustable. Yeah. I don't know if that's the right way to say that, but you know, I want to be the person who can be trusted as well. And so have I made a big deal of things that are not spiritual before? Probably so, you know, but you know, over spiritualize something, you know, like we talked about earlier, but ultimately, you know, I want to be that person who can, who can say, hey, let's move forward together. And that's what we need in the church. We need staff members who support and help their senior leader. Right. I want to be our senior leader's biggest cheerleader. I see your point. I mean, I really do that our lack of trust in other people. And I've said this before, like I think my journey in two decades of church leadership has been trying to figure out how to trust. I was over trusting at the beginning. Then I went through a period of wounds where I didn't want to trust anybody and now I've learned, Oh, okay, you can balance it. There are certain people who are absolutely fully trustworthy. There are probably some people you need to stay away with. And I'm going to away from rather, I'm going to err on the side of trust. But that's allowed me to trust my team. That's allowed me to trust elders. That's allowed me to trust leaders. And that really is the basis for a great relationship between a senior pastor and an exact pastor and a senior leadership team. I think you're right is is trust. But you think that's holding back the growth of the church. I really, I really do. I think that that's at least a component. I mean, again, there's there's just not one thing that you all have different context. But I really do believe, you know, Amos 3 3 is a verse we we've used in our ministry, you know, how to two walk together unless they've agreed to do so. And you know, I think there's not a ton of agreement always in teams, sometimes because of poor leadership or trust gaps or all these different things. But I think at the end of the day, who is the one person responsible for that, the senior leader? And as the senior leader grows and and overcomes this desire that that hey, I need to do it in there. And they are able to empower other people and trust other people to do that. I think it releases the church to move forward. And and I think it releases the staff team to move forward. So for me, as I as I think about this, right, they're there really is a challenge because they're also congregants in every church. But at least I hope they we hope they are. That's the goal. Yeah. You know, the weekend's always coming up, but we hope someone's going to show up if we're if we're reaching the church, you know, and and so for us, you know, I think it's that same thing that I think we have to fill those gaps. We have to recognize hurts going to come. I don't know about you and you're probably a little bit better than I am. You mentioned your wife earlier, but I there's been seasons where I've hurt my wife. Oh, definitely. Yeah, she stays she stays with me. She's committed, right? She she's committed to us growing together. And I think in ministry, we have a tendency sometimes because we do over spiritualize that we have this we have this real, you know, just this problem where we can't overcome that to move forward and we have to overcome it, right? Sometimes, just like you do in marriage, it's good analogy. It's like we got to move forward. We can't spend every day not trusting or every day stuck on something that happened a year ago or five years ago or yesterday. And sometimes that may mean separating ways. That's what Paul and Barnabas did. It doesn't mean we can always all be together. Our family are the only ones that we really can't get rid of. Right, right, right. Outside of that, friends. But in leadership, sometimes it's better to separate and then find someone you can trust if that if you can't get past it. But I think you're right. People get stuck. Now, you also have a passion for larger churches and a passion for the mega church. And you you I know we were messaging back and forth. You talked about succession. You just see the succession crisis kind of looming in larger churches. You want to talk about that for a minute, Josh? Yeah, well, I mean, I think again, what's the number one role that we have in every church? It's the senior leader. Yeah. And we know that from research being done, those leaders are getting older. And you know, I think as me not being that person and Kerry, you you are that person. I mean, you you are the person who's leading in your your church and setting that course. There's a real challenge. I watched my dad go through this. My dad worked for Exxon Mobil for 40 years. Wow. Just in the last couple of years, he retired. And after he did that, he kind of realized, I'm not sure I was ready. I was ready to step away. And how much more significant is that in the church where it's spiritual and people, you know, it really has the spiritual component that's so much greater than that. And so many churches now are like you, where you started this church. You've watched this church. You've, you know, again, you know, that God's in control. He's leading you. But you've been a part of this work of God that has created something significant. Now, how do you step away? How do you give it to someone else? And, you know, one of the things that we've been blessed, again, is just to be able to have a context where we can have those conversations and talk about, okay, you know, we have literally, it was so awesome. Last week, I had lunch, the opportunity to have lunch with a business leader who's started coming to our church with our senior pastor. Incredible. This guy was asking questions that no one asked about the church. In the conversation, I loved it. He looks across the table and we're sitting there and he looks across the table and he says, "So, hey, what happens if you get hit by a bus?" He's talking about senior leader. Like, "What happens?" And he said, "I want to know because if I'm going to invest my life here, I want to know that you have a plan that this thing isn't just going on a whim, that if something happens to you, it quits happening." It's like, "If I'm going to invest in this, I want to invest in knowing there's a plan." And so we began to talk about, "Here's the plan. If this were to happen, this is the next step." And what's great is we've had the conversation, we know, but then we've also had the conversation for what happens as our senior leader, Pastor Chris, as he continues to get older, which seems to be inevitable, apparently. Yeah, I hate that as well. You know, I passed 41 this year and it doesn't seem to slow down. It seems to get faster. Yeah, it does. I promise you. And so we just said, "Okay, I spent some time with the, I spent some time with them really as we started that journey." And just said, "Hey, what do you, how do you see yourself exiting?" This is a great realist. He'll say, "You know, most pastors hang on too long." He'll say that. And then so I'll say, "Well, how are you not going to do that, right? How are you going to set yourself up to where you don't hang on too long?" And you know, I think one of the things that's great is the next generation focus that we have right now, be it on the bottom part of Gen X or the millennials, things like that. I really believe that what's happening in a lot of churches that are trying to move forward is that they really are looking at that and developing that next generation, knowing that this day is coming, right? This day is coming where guys like my senior leader, who will have been here 25, 30 years, and is the only lead pastor that the church has ever known, that there will be a transition. But he's created this journey. He's preparing the church for that now. So wise. So you start doing things which most, some of the things aren't new anymore, but churches don't realize they're significant. Most churches have never had another voice. They have one voice. You have to start allowing there to be other voices. No, that's really interesting. I'm going to talk about this on a future episode of this podcast. I'm going to sit down with Jeff Brody, but last year sort of very quietly, publicly with our congregation, but quietly. Otherwise, I stepped out of the role I've held for 20 years as lead pastor of our church, an earlier church prior to that. And then for eight years, it connects us because like you say, I'm the only voice that 2500 people have ever known who call our church home. And we've grown and my voice was synonymous with the place. And we've always had a second voice in Andy Stanley as a North Point partner, but, you know, locally on the ground, it's, it's been me. And so I, the elders and I asked another guy to become the lead pastor, Jeff Brody. And I'm now, and I didn't want to leave my church. That's the other thing. We always set it up so that it's like, well, you got to leave. So I moved into a role as the founding and the teaching pastor. And we've now got a multi year plan to transition this, not only into the second generation of leadership, but the third generation of leadership down the road. And that'll take us a while to get there. But it's this whole idea is the church going to rise or fall with me. And you get into a founder syndrome where you don't even, you can't even as the leader and the founder, imagine your life as your dad would point out without that. And so, you know, we navigated all that and we're not, we're going to go there today, but I totally, that's a very personal conversation for me. And I would say six months into the transition, it's going well, we didn't want to say a lot publicly because, you know, it could all blow up in our face. We had no idea how this was going to go, but so far so good. It's been great. And we'll do a whole episode on that me and Jeff Brody later this year. That's so good. Yeah. And I've had a lot of founding mega church pastors say to me, man, let me know how this goes because we're trying to figure this out, you know, as in real time. Yeah. And I think that most of us are doing that, right? As we move forward in our context, we recognize that we're all getting older and we have to have a strategy and a plan. And I've had the privilege to do some work with Leadership Network in Dallas and they've been such a leader in this area. And I think what I love and what encourages me about the church is that I believe more and more churches really are and church leaders are recognizing, hey, I need to have a plan. I need to talk to my church leadership about this. You know, I don't think most people are talking to their church about this, but they're talking to the leadership around them, to whatever their board or elders. And they're really making great decisions about how to transition their church in the future. Well, and it's not just a mega church issue. I mean, if you're the popular pastor of a church of 75 or 80 or 100 or 200 or 300 and that's the biggest your church has ever been and the best season your church has ever been. Obviously, that's reflective to some extent of your leadership. But then the question is, is that going to stop with your leadership? Is it going to go back to a church of 30 or 100 or 200? Is it? Are the best days behind when you leave or can you build it up so that it's stronger? You know, somebody, somebody says, you know, if you've got a business, a business is bigger than just you. A business is you're working on a problem that a bunch of people can try to solve. Otherwise, you're just a person and sometimes we treat churches like it's really more personal than it needs to be. And it's not the business, it's the kingdom of God. It is. But going back, we even touched on that early on in this episode, just kind of the church as a business and that thought. And it, truly, it models so much that thought that businesses don't plan, boards don't plan. It's only in the church where it seems that everyone ignores the fact that the person who leads may go away one day. It's, you know, in the business community, people don't ignore that. And part of it is because they're invested in that and they're thinking, okay, I don't, you know, I don't think anyone who held Apple shares was thinking, you know, well, if Steve Jobs, you know, dies, then we'll just give up everything, you know, file for bankruptcy just goes down. It doesn't matter. No, they were thinking, hey, how do we transition this to be successful further into the future? And in the corporate world, you've got a board of directors that's insisting that this get cared for. Yeah, just recently, I don't know if you saw this, but Delta Airlines created this transition again. So I didn't see that. No. Yep, their current CEO is transitioning out. And what I love, and I know this isn't always possible in the church, and depending on the size of the church, it's very difficult. But what I love is that they have a process, right? They have a succession plan. So they first say, there's a kind of an age, I believe, an age range where this person has to really start transitioning out, but they take different positions. So the person who was the president is now going to become the CEO, the CEO is going to move into another role, then they're moving someone else in to be the president, right? And they have this plan to say, this is how we do it. And I know that's not always perfect in ministry, but I think if you're thinking that way, it actually has a chance to be more effective than if you're not thinking that way. Well, it does. And you know, for all of us who are senior leaders or point leaders in our organization, hey, the mission is not you. Like the mission isn't me. The mission is about Jesus, and my role is to be as effective in my season of leadership as it possibly can be, and then to hand the church off stronger to the next generation. And hopefully, it grows. Hopefully, it's way more effective under the next guy than it was under me. That's exactly right. And how, I mean, that's just the legacy, man, if you start focusing on your legacy as a leader, then that's what you're hoping for. Man, I don't look at my kids and say, I hope that they never accomplish what I accomplish. Because I am the most awesome person ever, and my kids will never measure up. You kind of hope your kids do better than you. I tell my kids, hey, the plan is for you to stand on our shoulders. Yeah. And so as a church leader, why don't I do the same? Why don't I say, hey, I want the next leader to stand on my shoulders. Man, I want to create such a foundation that they can only move forward. Yeah. But that gets back to wounding, that gets back to security, that gets back to trust, that gets back to all of those things that create a good team. It's interesting, you know, hadn't really put two and two together, Josh. But, you know, the trust that establishes a good team is, and the kind of issues you need to resolve to create a really good relationship between the exact pastor and a senior pastor is exactly the stuff that has to be in place for you to have a good succession plan. That's exactly right. And I think that's a key point. And I do think that one of the things that you can work on, if you're a church leader, you're saying, well, how do I make application of some of these things? And I think one of the great things, Kerry, that we have done in the last three years, that we probably didn't do in the first 10 years, that I was on staff at our church, is we've really focused on culture. And that's been so huge for us to really step in with our team. And it was scary. I'm not going to lie. It was scary because the first time we went into this, and even Bill Hybels has talked so much about the fear of really knowing what your team thinks, you know? And so we went down this road, we're like, okay, we really need to know what our team thinks. And, you know, to our surprise, it was a lot better than we thought, probably just because we expected it to be so bad, just so we would be happy. It wasn't so bad. We would be okay. We're like, okay, it's better than we thought, you know? But it's really amazing if you can make your team better, if you can evaluate your culture, man, even if you're a church of just a few staff people, if you will create a great culture, then you can create this environment where secession is possible, where you can move forward, and where you can see this reality of where your church moves forward into a new generation, a new opportunity of reaching people up. And again, because the values are bigger than you, right? They can outlive you. That's right. That's so good. We just defined our cultural values. I actually spoke did a six-week series beginning of 2016 on it. We'll link to it in the show notes. It's called Doing Time. And man, our church loved it. Just loved that series. Okay. I want to ask you a couple more questions before we wrap up. What would you say to the business or marketplace leaders who are listening right now, who feel underutilized in the church? Well, I would say understand church leaders are very different. If you're a business leader, church leaders are very different, because what we hold to is so different. You know, if you're making widgets out there, you're probably passionate about your widget because it brings in a lot of money. The things that we're as church leaders, church leaders, the things that we deal with, man, they're not widgets. They are people's spiritual identity. And that's different. And scripture even talks about that being different. And so, I would tell a church leader, I mean, a business leader, man, when you go into your church, you know, get to know your senior pastor, get to know your ministry leader, whomever it is that you're connected to, understand the challenges they face, and then help them to recognize a different reality. And I think, you know, business leaders just see things sometimes so differently from such a different perspective that if, and as a church leader, if I'll listen, there's something that I can make application of as well. You know, it's so amazing. I was listening because as your church grows, you're less, you probably have a less political church. It's very hard for you to have a ton of influence in a church of 7,000, right? I'm the key person. Every decision, you know, goes through me. It doesn't have in five locations. It's much harder. But I love what this guy I was having lunch with. I mentioned earlier, he said to us that it was amazing. He does this online business. And he said, you know what, I don't really care who the mayor of Knoxville is. I don't really care that the governor of state of Tennessee is 2% of my business comes from Tennessee. I'm in all 50 states, right? I have a, I have a, I'm looking at this totally differently than most people are who are trying to create a business of selling cakes in Knoxville or something like that. I'm, I'm looking at, no, I'm trying to sell something to the entire US. And he said, you know, it's for church leaders, if we'll keep those, we'll listen to that perspective, because I'm sitting there listening to that saying, okay, you know, even for us, we're trying to actually create our church in different communities in different places. And so I'm listening to him talk about that and I'm saying, now, what really matters in those places? Because we probably, we probably think some things matter that don't really matter. And there's other things we're not evaluating that really do matter. And so as a church, as a business leader, man, step into your church and, and, and really recognize that there's going to be a challenge there. But, but if you'll stay the course, if you'll support, if you'll give insight, you'll likely see some incredible reward and return on investment in what you see God do in the context of that ministry. We talked about it a lot, but any final words of advice for church leaders, particularly senior pastors who may feel a little bit threatened by business leaders are not sure how to engage that skill set. Well, I think all of us, again, are a little bit threatened in any situation where we find ourselves where we're not the, you know, we don't know everything, you know, business leaders most likely understand that church leaders probably don't know how to read a profit and loss sheet like, you know, like they do. I pretend I do. Yeah, I'm pretty good at pretending. That's good. You, at least you can go read a Wikipedia article, right? Exactly, exactly. No, but, but, you know, for, I think for, for church leaders, you know, it's a lot of times I'll hear people say, you know, how do you do that? How do you sit across the table from someone who, you know, owns that or is a, you know, leads at that level? And the reality of it is it's about relationship care. You know, ultimately, I love a while back you had in one of your episodes, Jared Stevens and Jared's book for Small Words. And I love those, I've started reading that. And, you know, the first one is that we're creating the image of God. The, the per that you're sitting across from, they're the same as you. They were created by God to use the potential and, and to achieve the purpose of their life just as you were. And so I, you know, I would just encourage church leaders to remember that, hey, your role is different than their role. And so when you sit down at the table, be who you are, be a spiritual leader, be an authority of, of spiritual things, and let them be who they are, a person of potential, incredible insight into the business. And actually, I think, you know, those two things can come together really, really great. A friend of, of ours, he made this statement one time and he was talking to, he's a pastor and he was talking about his influence. This guy, he's connected with business leaders. I mean, just, you know, he's connected to the people just that are over wealthy. And, and one time, you know, our senior leader was, was talking to him about that. And I was able to be a part of the conversation. And he said, you know, I was talking to this one guy who, who everyone who's listening would actually know who it was. And the guy said, you know, at the end of the day, as a, as a business leader, you know, I need a great Bernie, because I don't have a lot of legal issues. And I need a good cardiologist because of the stress, you know, and he's, he's listing off these things that he truly needs. Right. And he said, and every business leader needs a good pastor, because at some point, their life's going to fall apart. Wow. And if, and if you'll take that as a, as a leader, I had a, an opportunity one time. This is my only opportunity, Kerry. You'll, you'll love this that I've had like this. I had the opportunity to sit down with a person who's a billionaire. Wow. Is crazy. Okay. It's family. It was the wife of this guy. And, and in the conversation, actually, it was never about money or business. Sure. It was about their desire and her desire to grow as a Christ follower. Wow. And how she felt like she was struggling. And I was literally for an hour, I went for another purpose candidly. And I literally for an hour, found myself just saying, Hey, God has a purpose and a plan for you. And you know what, even if you don't feel like you've achieved it right now, God's not done. God's not angry. He's actually waiting. He's saying, look, there's all this potential. All you have to do is engage him and he'll move forward with you. And literally tears, you know, she's crying. And I, and I'm thinking, I didn't come here for this, God. And I came here for what I was come, you know, I was actually trying to give something greater potential in our ministry. And it never got greater potential through this relationship. All I have, I got was a one hour counseling session. But again, business leaders, they're people and they have spiritual issues. And you can be used by God to help them grow in a way they never could have. That's a good word. Josh, this has been great. Thanks so much for your time today. People are going to want to find out more about you and also about faith promise. So where can they find you online? Faithpromise.org. My email is simply Josh@faithpromise.org. And I really try to do a great job of connecting with people. That's a real value to me. And so if I can help, I'm glad to. I really don't blog currently. JoshWhitehead.net is my website that I have, has some old stuff. If you're a church leader, there's probably something you can get there. But there's a lot better stuff if you read Carrie Newhoff's blog. I don't know about that. But Josh, this has been great. Thank you so much for building in the leaders today and really, really appreciate you. It's been a privilege. Thanks, Carrie. Don't you love it when smart people just decide that they're going to pour into the church, man. That was fantastic. Josh, thanks so much. If you want more, you can get it in the show notes. It's just carrynewhoff.com/episode86. One of the ways to make sure you never miss an episode is to subscribe and you can do it for free on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneInRadio. We also got show notes for you every week. A lot of fun stuff happening on the blog all the time. Next week, we are back. I've got a couple of weeks I'm really excited about. We're talking to another Josh next week. This is Josh Pazzold from Rhode Island. He's someone I started mentoring a couple years ago. Then two weeks from now, another guy I've mentored. Actually, for every one of you who's trying to break through the 200 barrier, I have personally coached Martin, and I don't take any credit for it, but he has done a spectacular job of breaking through the 200 barrier in Norway, a nation where almost nobody does it. Martin and I sit down and have a great conversation. Two guys I've mentored personally. I wish I had the bandwidth to do more. We'll talk about that. It's been a lot of fun. They're going to be my guest. Also, three weeks from now, Brian Houston, speaking of Australia, I sat down with Brian when he was in Toronto recently and had a great conversation with him, just riveting conversation. Brian Houston, and then we're going to round out the month with my assistant, Sarah Piercy, who is getting off on maternity leave. She will not be back when I get back. She and her husband, Justin, are going to have their first child. We talk about how to become a rock star executive assistant, fascinating conversation. It's an interesting month. If you don't want to miss it all, just subscribe. Man, thanks for making it so awesome. You guys are great with reviews, just great with encouragement, and just want you to know I read everyone. Thank you so much for being you. Thanks for being awesome. I hope our time together today has helped you lead like never before. You've been listening to the Kerri Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. [BLANK_AUDIO]