The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 079 – Mars Hill 2 Years Later: An Insider's Account of What Happened with Justin Dean
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Carey 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, Carey Newhoff. Well, hey, everybody. And welcome to episode 79 of the podcast. My name is Carey Newhoff. I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. Today, I'm going to sit down with Justin Dean. And we're going to talk about something that my guess is if you're a church leader or even if churches were remotely on your radar screen, you talked about this two years ago and probably since. And that is what went down at Mars Hill Church in Seattle in 2014. And Justin and I actually met a few months ago, a mutual friend, introduced us. And I got talking to him actually just about online world and social media and what he was doing now. Only to discover he was the communications director at Mars Hill, not only in 2014 but in the years leading up to it. And what happened was Mars Hill Church kind of collapsed. It imploded. It shut down in 2014. And there was a lot of conversation about it. Without giving much away, Justin and I talk about that. Last year, we talked about actually the good things that happened, but then also start to break down one or two things that maybe didn't go very well. To me, you know, why I wanted to have this conversation is I am such a believer in the local church. And sometimes you and I can tend to just focus on the negative. And I wanted to see what God actually accomplished there as well as to reflect on some of the things that obviously could have gone better. So I hope you're really gonna appreciate this episode. I so appreciate Justin and everything good that happened out of Mars Hill. And obviously, there are some lessons for everybody. But again, books are gonna be written on this. So less than two years out, we're gonna talk about it today on the podcast. In the meantime, I wanna bring you up today and on a couple of things. First of all, just thank you so much for listening. Thanks so much for leaving awesome reviews on iTunes and for sharing the love about this podcast. If episodes like today's are interesting and helpful to you, then by all means, share them with your friends and we love to get the word out. We are closing in on a milestone in terms of downloads soon. And we'll say more about that when we hit that. But that is super exciting. Also wanna let you know about a couple of things. First of all, if you have not yet registered for rethink leadership, make sure you do that. Just head on over to rethinkleadership.com. And we've got some world class speakers and a really intimate setting and space is going quickly. The VIP reception is sold out, but you can still get advanced rates and you are gonna want to be there on the ground floor of a brand new leadership experience, April 27th through 29th in Atlanta. I'll be hosting a lot of the event and I would love to connect with you personally there. A few things make me happier than connecting with you guys, live and in person. So join us in Atlanta, April 27th through 29th. Just go to rethinkleadership.com. And also I wanna talk to you about a brand new film that is out. It's called the Young Messiah. And if you haven't heard about it, make sure you go to youngmessiahresources.com and you can find out a lot more. You can watch the trailer. It's actually the story based on an Anne Rice novel from a decade ago about Jesus as a seven year old. And this is something, I mean, every once in a while, I mean, we all read our Bible. I've read my Bible my entire life. But sometimes when you see it, it just adds nuance and detail and depth to a story that's really powerful. This isn't just for you. It's something for your church as well. So we wanna make sure that you know about it and you let the people in your congregation know about it. Just go to youngmessiahresources.com to get all kinds of information. And it's in theaters now, just in time for Easter. So make sure you check those things out and the links to those two special things, the movie and rethink leadership are gonna be in the show notes. So all you have to do is go to carreynewhough.com/episodes79 and I'll spell that for you today just before we jump into the interview. It's C-A-R-E-Y-N-I-E-U-W-H-O-F. Got that? Of course you don't. I've spent my entire life spelling my name. But the nice part about having a name that's hard to spell is you can pretty much get any website y'all want with your name on it. That's cool, very few people claim that. So anyway, if you've got a unique spelling to your name or unique name, you know what I'm talking about. So let's sit down and jump into what I hope will be a very refreshing, very encouraging and I think you'll agree with me on this conversation about the events two years ago at Mars Hill. Here's my time with Justin Dean. Well, I'm here with Justin Dean. Justin, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Kerry, thanks for having me. We're going to go into some fun territory. You and I connected it a couple of months ago. Just, I don't know, someone introduced us. I don't know how that worked. Do you remember? You know, I forget who it might have been. Was that Dave Adamson, maybe a North Point? Oh, it was Dave at Adamson. Yeah, Dave at North Point, David Adamson. No, Dave Adamson. Ozzy Dave. Yeah. Yeah, Dave introduced us. And so it was great just connecting with you and hearing about your story. And while we were chatting, we kind of came up with this idea to do this interview because you worked at Mars Hill a few years ago. And I was giving you sort of my take on it and you were giving me your take. And we're like, we should just have a longer conversation about that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It should be interesting. So give us a thumbnail. Okay, tell us about your role at Mars Hill and then what you've done since 2014 when obviously most of the staff left and you start over again. Yeah, I was there until really the end, December 31st, 2014 was my last day. I had been there on staff for about four years. So I started out in a marketing role, just a marketing manager. And that quickly evolved into communications director role where I oversaw all PR, social media, our editorial team. So putting out content on both of our blogs on Mars Hill and the resurgence. And for a while there until the end was the spokesperson for the church. Wow, that would have been a fascinating job in the final months of Mars Hill. My goodness, Justin. Yeah, fascinating for sure. I mean, I loved it, I loved everything about it, but it was definitely that last year was pretty tough, particularly our family and relationships. But we learned a lot and I'm so glad I was a part of it. Yeah, and that's what we want to talk about. We want to take a bit of the contrarian view right in this. We want to find the positive in the story. And then we're going to talk honestly as well about some of the cracks and what to do. But I think I wrote a blog post that you and I talked about when Mars Hill had sort of announced that things were over and Mark was stepping back and the campus started to wind down. And there was so much negativism at the time. And I just, I wrote a post, we'll link to it in the show notes, that was just like five early lessons from the dissolution of Mars Hill. But like, I still think it's pretty amazing that a major mega church emerged in Seattle of all places. Sure. Yeah, no, Seattle is definitely, people don't understand unless you've lived there for a while as a Christian. That it's a pretty hostile place. I mean, you know, the statistics around a lot of things are just crazy, there's more dogs than children. I mean, we would walk into restaurants, not even bars or anything, but a restaurant that children were banned and they turned us away when we, you know, roll in there with a stroller. I didn't know that. I'm going to see it all a few times. It's crazy. It is crazy. It's just very, very liberal. Why are you very liberal? They don't like children? You know, they're just, particularly in the downtown area, they just are kind of opposed to children. You know, we have four kids now. We had three when we lived out there. And whenever you have big families, people do kind of ask you questions and kind of stare at you. Like what's wrong with you? Have you never heard of birth control? Oh, exactly, exactly. Really? Yeah, we have some close friends. They have four kids. And when we'd all go out to restaurants, we would just get stared at it. It was really, really weird. Yeah, so for a whole like large church to emerge in Seattle is pretty remarkable. And tell us, just catch us up real quick. What have you been doing for the last year and a half since you were at Marzil? Sure, really. I mean, I've taken what I've learned at Marzil and I have an advertising and marketing background before that even. And really, I've just been trying to help churches. So we started a conference here in Atlanta called that church conference 'cause we can't think of anything better. But it's a digital communications conference. So we're teaching PR and social media and how to relate and engage online. We're teaching that to churches by doing that. So we have a couple of events that we're doing that. I'm helping run that and really just doing consulting and a lot of other stuff, just trying to help small to medium-sized churches take what we've learned and apply it to them. That's another connection point because I think Van Baird's involved with that, right? Is Chris Dunnegan, is Chris as well? Chris Spoke, last year he was speaking again this year. Yeah, yeah, you guys invited me to speak and I really wanted to do it but it conflicted with something else on my calendar both times. - I know. - It stinks. - I know. - We'll make it happen. - We'll make it happen. Yeah, yeah, just bring it to Canada. Bring it to Toronto. Ooh. All right. So let's go back. Okay, now the press and all the coverage around the collapse or what do you even call that when a church? - Oh man. - Is there any part of Marzil that's left today? Like one campus? - No, not Marzil. So I mean, basically what happened is you know, we had 15 campuses and basically, you know, or they really, there was a small team that stayed to do that but they liquefied everything, sold up all our assets and basically told the churches, if you wanna continue as a new autonomous church, we'll gift you, we'll basically split up the, you know, what's left and you can have it. And so 12 of the 15 chose to do that. The lead pastors of each campus took over, some merged. So they're still alive and many of them growing today and they were able to take over the buildings that they were in, things like that. So it was a real blessing to them that those continue but they're not affiliated with Marzil at all and then they used to be a campus. They all do things a little differently. They, you know, created their own bylaws and beliefs and structure and, you know, they're able to do what they want. And I believe everything is gone now. There might be, you know, some things that they're still trying to sell. I'm not sure I'm not really involved at all but for a while it took 'em, took 'em a long time to sell off all the buildings and all the assets. - Yeah, so basically there's 12 local churches that are still alive and some of them growing which is, which is awesome but clearly not where it was, you know, four years ago or five years ago. - No, I think it's definitely much different. I mean, I don't think from what I could tell from here, at least none of them really have the reach and influence that Marzil had and I, you know, I don't know that they want that or even striving for that. You know, in the Seattle area, I think there's some good churches left other than those 12 too. I mean, the city churches with Judas Smith is a pretty good church. But other than that, there's really no big church they're serving in the way that Marzil did just 'cause I think it's a super hard area, especially after what happened. I mean, it was major, major local news almost every night for a while there on TV, radio, everything. So even, you know, non-Christians were watching intently and I think that's turned a lot of people off to church in the area, at least. - Yeah, it probably played into a lot of people's suspicions and fears and cynicism, right? - Oh, yeah, it gave a lot of people exactly what they were hoping for. - Wow, wow, wow. And sadly, you know, and this is why I wrote the article the way I did and one of the reasons we just do, we're doing this interview, unfortunately, I think it also played into a lot of the cynicism and the fears and not even the fears, but the cynicism and the negativism that I think honestly, a lot of pastors and a lot of church leaders wanted to hear. It played right into their hand because, yeah. - Yeah, it was sad to see that, you know, friends of ours even, you know, big, major pastors with tons of influence would kind of jump on the bandwagon of criticizing us, people who, you know, could have reached out how they wanted to and that was really sad to see. That's really why we appreciated that post that you put out at the time because it was, the timing on that I think was most important because every other article was just, you know, so negative against Marcel and, you know, you put out that post of, hey, you know, I'm not even really involved. I don't even know all the details, but hey, there is some good that came out of this. You know, they built a mega mega church in the middle of Seattle. Obviously, God was involved in that and here's what we can learn from that. I think as Christians, that's what we're called to do is, yeah, we can criticize something in a healthy way. I think there's ways to go about that, but I think we need to always be looking for what is God doing and what is the good that's coming out of this because He does work all things out for good, you know, according to His purpose and that's what we need to be looking out for. And I think that's what you do with that post. And I remember we were sending that around to the staff as just an encouragement to say, hey, you know, the church might be literally dying and closing its doors here in a few days, but the legacy of Marcel, I think we'll continue for a long time, at least in certain ways. You know, that's so encouraging for me to hear that from you almost, you know, year and a half later. And I just want to say that to people who blog, I mean, gosh, I'm fairly new to, I've been blogging for eight years, but for real, for about three and a half. And you always think when you write something, nobody's going to read it, it's not going to help, it's not going to encourage people. And I didn't know at the time that people at Mars Hill would read that post, but I always try to write in a way that, you know, if I mention Andy Stanley, if Andy's reading it, I want to be able to look him in the eye. And I've never met to this day, I've never met Mark Driscoll, maybe we'll meet in the future, maybe we won't, but I've never met him. But like, I thought if he reads this or his kids read this one day, I want there to be integrity and I want to be able to look him in the eye and hopefully in some way be an encouragement to that person, even if, you know, the story obviously has an ending different than everybody wanted it to be. So I just say that to all of you who write number one, you never know who's going to read it. Number two, always try to write in a way that whoever you're writing about, if you were having a real conversation, you're saying the things that you would actually say in real life before God, before that person. - Yeah, I think that's so important. That's such a good word, Karia. I think that should be a no-brainer in anything that we do. I mean, before people post on Twitter, Facebook, before they blog, anything you should be done with integrity. You know, if you're talking about someone, you should be able to meet them face to face and not be ashamed of what you wrote or scared or embarrassed or anything like that. I don't think a lot of bloggers can say that, unfortunately. So. - Well, and you and I talked about that, even about this podcast interview, when we set it up a couple months ago and then you and I were talking before I hit record, it's like, I imagine there may be some Mars Hill staff who listen, or maybe Pastor Mark will listen to this at some point down the road. I want this to have integrity and I want to honor people, even when you talk about the difficult episodes in people's life. And so I just, one of the things I'm gonna get off my soapbox, it's, I think if we have a more civil conversation, if we're able to talk with each other rather than at each other or about each other, I think the church is gonna be built up. And so I really appreciate your willingness, Justin, to talk honestly, but I'm gonna start with a positive because, you know, as a guy who's planted a church and transitioned to church in Canada, where 95% of the people aren't in church on Sunday morning and have seen a lot of unchurched people surrender their life to Jesus and get baptized and invite their friends and grow in faith. I mean, anytime I see a local church that's doing some good, I'd personally get really excited about that. And undoubtedly, you know, there are people who are going to be in heaven because of what happened at Mars Hill. - Oh, absolutely. - So tell us about that. Tell us about some of the good things that happened at Mars Hill. - I mean, you know, the obvious is thousands of people did get saved and baptized almost week after week. I mean, we were really incredible numbers that we looked at and, you know, our friend, Aussie Dave says, you know, numbers matter because people count behind. - You're so right. - Behind every single one of those is a story. And I personally, as a sasserdoodle deacon at Mars Hill was able to baptize, you know, dozens and dozens of people. And just to hear their story to see that conversion in their face, to see them just express their love for Jesus before they get baptized is a wonderful thing. And we'd be able to do that thousands of time each year. And it was incredible. I mean, people got saved. People like me grew in their face because of Mars Hill. I mean, we, you know, me and my wife, my family, we grew tremendously during the four or five years that we were there and I attribute that to just the, not only the wonderful teaching, just the emphasis on the Bible, the culture of the people there, the relationships that we built as well, the community groups that we were a part of were amazing and just life giving. And I think, you know, we talked a little bit earlier, the influence that Mars Hill has had on churches is still lasting today. And I think it's going to last a very long time. It's a really good positive influence. I walk into churches today and I, you know, I hear them singing a Mars Hill song or an arrangement that was inspired by just the incredible music that we were part of at Mars Hill and producing there. I walked into a church the other day, they had a big banner saying sign up for the city. And, you know, not a lot of people realize the city is a, you know, it's a church management software that a lot of churches use, but it was developed at Mars Hill and spun off into its own company and sold off to Zandervin. And there you go. Yeah, the church app, which every, basically every church has, that was started at Mars Hill, you know, people just don't realize all these different tools and ways of doing ministries, the way people do community groups. A lot of that was, was birthed at Mars Hill. And I think that that's, you know, a good positive influence that's gonna last for a long time. I mean, heck, today there's exact duplicates of our website out there that churches are using. - Still today. - Yeah, still today, which is, you know, now it's not so much of a big deal, but. - Yeah, and there was, there was the city, but then you and I were chatting before too, 'cause we're launching an online experience at Kinexis. I'm sure by the time this airs, it will have been launched, but you and I were talking about online strategy and how that works. And I mean, you were kind of over that, and you have tremendous influence online, not only with church leaders, but also with people who you were their church, right? - Yeah, the influence online that Mars Hill had was just crazy. I mean, we, at one point during the last two years, we had calculated it was for every, every one person who came to a Mars Hill campus, physically there were 20 more watching online every Sunday. So. - Wow. - If you do the math, you know, it's 200,000 something people were, you know, tuning in every Sunday to watch online. And that was just really the recording of the sermons. So near the end there, we actually turned that into an online experience where we had worship and an online host of sorts. I mean, we were really careful to not turn that into church for people. We really wanted them to get involved in a local church and a local community and things like that. So we were careful about that. And we were still trying to figure it out really. We, you know, we never had the chance to, you know, do much with it. - See in that conversation, speaking of influence, that conversation you and I had a couple months ago, actually influence, 'cause I'm sort of in charge of the online philosophy and startup days at our church. How we're gonna do church, you know? We really want, yeah, hopefully it works. I just keep telling people, hey, I'm the leader if it doesn't work, it's all my fault, right? Which is, of course, true. But, you know, so you think about that. Let me ask you, in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest, 'cause I have friends in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, it's difficult. Why did it work? Why do you think so many people came to Christ? Other than the move of the Holy Spirit, totally understand. Let's assume God was behind it because people got baptized in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the church, or Mark, or whoever. No. So people got baptized in the name of Jesus, people will be in heaven because of what happened there. Why do you think it connected? Yeah, you know, I mean, we would ask ourselves that all the time. I think God did really work, you know, in spite of us. And I think that, you know, you can say what you wanna say because it did eventually end, I think, because of us. But certainly God was at work there. And I think that that's, you know, a miracle in a way. How many people were changed because of Mars Hill and what we were doing there and what God was doing through us. But, I mean, you know, you can point out practical things. I think the teaching of the Bible was spot on, the emphasis on that teaching was incredible. We didn't have great children's programs and student ministry. We didn't have really any men's ministry or women's ministry, anything. And all we focused on was a really biblically based, strong Sunday experience that was, you know, an hour of preaching the Bible good music that was not just, it didn't just sound good, but it was theologically sound. I mean, you can listen to the lyrics of the songs that we sing and they, you know, they taught you things. It was incredible, the things that they were able to do with the music and restoring old hymns and making them sound modern and things like that was incredible. And I think that that, you know, when you focus on teaching the Bible in a clear way, that that is going to move in the lives of people. And I think that that's, that focus that we had on that was super important and probably what drove many people to the church and ultimately to God. That's why I loved Mars Hill. I mean, we moved out to Seattle. We were living in Atlanta. We moved out to Seattle for six months. I was hoping to sell a cable company that I was working for. And when that was over, we had decided to stay in Seattle and make a home of it because we were in community at Mars Hill and love that church. And we had grown so much in that six months in our knowledge and love and thirst of the Bible in just that short time. And that's why we stuck around and ultimately came on staff. So I think that that was the same for a lot of people. - Yeah. It's a good answer too when you focus on scripture and this is an audio podcast, but you and I are connected via video right behind you on your wall, prominently, #Jesus. - Yeah. - That's so cool, you know? And it really is Jesus who draws people to himself, despite us, sometimes we like to think it's because of us, but often it's despite us. But what's always puzzling to me, Justin, is like Seattle is liberal. I mean, I live in a fairly liberal country, Canada, compared to a lot of places in the US. I mean, it's fairly liberal, eco-friendly, right? Child hostile, apparently. Starbucks loving. We're gonna go to the mountains and to the beach on the weekend, not to church. Highly secular, post-modern, post-Christian. Throw all the adjectives you wanna add it. And this right wing, Bible-centered, we love Jesus, evangelical, mega church, which is in many ways the opposite of that culture. - Right. - Thrives. - Right. - What's with that? - Yeah. You know, I don't know, it's a good question. And it'll be interesting to see what happens in the Seattle area now. And like I said, there's some good churches there, but I don't think any of them are, you know, have that super strong influence, drawing people the way that we were in our prime, I guess, but it'll be interesting to see what happens in that area and what emerges from there and how those churches grow. - Yeah, I know there are some larger churches I've connected with Rob C. Zek over at, I think it's North Shore Church I've been there before and they've got a good presence there, but you're right, you know, it's one of those things where it can be challenging. And I always thought, you know, with Mars Hill, if I was a church strategist, like a consultant, and I looked at sort of Mark's whole approach to ministry, I would say the last place you should plant to Seattle. - Well, yeah, I wouldn't suggest it. I mean, nobody's doing conferences up there, nobody's, you know, nobody's going up there unless they have to. - But Judas Smith has had tremendous success as well. So it just makes me think too, you know, for all of us who live in heavily on church areas if you're in New England, if you're in Canada, in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the West Coast, other parts of the US, you know, it's like never ever use your context as an excuse. That was a great big. - No, so we're about to call on you and stick to that. And I think that he definitely can and will and wants to work through people in all areas. So I commend anybody who does ministry up there in Seattle or even where you're at. - So let's talk about the team a little bit, Justin. What were some of the great things that happened with the staff or the team? - Sure. - Mars Hill. - You know, we had a really, really good team near the end there. I mean, it was really incredible what we had built, just staff-wise. I feel like we were a tight little family. We had gone through so many transitions of people leaving the church and people who just weren't working out on staff. And we were making a lot of changes, trying to change the culture and way that we managed internally. And, you know, most of it, I guess was too little, too late. - But then what was that? Was it like a high burnout environment? - That was certainly a part of it. Yeah, it was a, you know, work hard. We were, you know, required or expected to work, you know, six, seven days a week almost. I mean, we really didn't get a full Sabbath. You know, their kind of philosophy was you can take your Sabbath in chunks and you need to be intentional about your time with your family. But, you know, if you went to a Marshall Campus that had like a Saturday night service, you really didn't get a day off. You know, many churches, if you're working all weekend for services, you get your Friday off. And we were moving towards that. The last six, eight months or something like that. You know, we all got off an extra day if we worked on the weekend, things like that. But we worked all day, Sundays, and we worked hard. And we worked throughout the week, you know, in super long hours, we had a ton going on. And most of us enjoyed it. I mean, for us, this, it wasn't a job. It was, it was ministry. It was, we were building something huge. - Almost a startup field. - It's really, yeah, it completely was a startup field. And that's the history that I've had is working for startups. So it was kind of similar for me. But it certainly took a toll on families. And we were trying to, we were trying to change that while still trying to do the amazing things that we were doing. But the team we ended up with was solid. Everyone was on mission with that. Understood what we were trying to do. Most of them had been going to the church for a while and then came on staff. So they knew the negativity that was being thrown at us and what to deal with, you know, usually families were on board, you know, with that and knew what they were getting into. So it was sad to see that we had finally assembled kind of what we needed. We had new values that we were working through to get up, you know, to communicate to all the staff. And it just, it just all ended in the middle of that, really. So I was like, yeah. - What did you learn most in a positive sense under Mark Driscoll's leadership? - You know, I think the biggest thing that I can really take away from, from learning from Mark is just the love for the Bible. So, you know, he may not have been the best manager. He may not have been, you know, the best person to work for. I personally loved working for him and appreciate him so much. And I still call him a friend of this day. And we, you know, communicate, you know, somewhat often. And so I don't have any real big criticism of him in that way. But I can say he wasn't the best manager. And, but he was a really good pastor and Bible teacher. And I learned so much about the Bible under his leadership and, you know, as someone that he was pastoring. And just the, not only the knowledge of the Bible, but the love for the Bible, just the emphasis on Bible teaching. And that's the way that you reach people. That's the way you spread the gospel. That's the best way to do it. And we were so just zero focused in on that. And, you know, we go, you know, we've moved to Atlanta and we're going to a church here that, you know, is really great children's programs, really great, you know, services and experiences. And we love everything about it. And it's good Bible teaching too. And we love that. But it's nowhere near, you know, the Bible teaching that we had at Mars Hill or sitting Mark. But I can take that and say, okay, we appreciate what we're getting from our church and what we're able to learn from our church. And I can, in my own home, you know, with my wife and my kids go through the Bible and teach them that same kind of emphasis and love for the Bible because of what I've learned from Mark. And honestly, I mean, he's one of the most generous people I've ever met. I know a lot of people don't have that same experience with him. And I think that we, I just, I was fortunate enough to be able to work close with him on a few things. And, you know, he was there when my dad died and helped us to fly my whole family out to get to the funeral because we just couldn't afford it. And, you know, he's always, when we had a long day working on a book launch or something like that or a new sermon series, I'd get home and there would be flowers for my wife that Mark sent. I mean, he was just, you know, he would go out of that way to make sure that he was not only caring for us spiritually and emotionally, but, you know, for our families and our wives as well. And I don't think a lot of people saw that from him. But I, you know, I've learned, I've taken that to heart and I've been able to, you know, do that for others as well too. And I really appreciate that from him. - That's really good to know. Man, thanks for sharing that. Now, there definitely were cracks. - Sure. - And you'd be the first to say it and, you know, Mark, I'm sure I've heard him talk a little bit about that in the 18 months since Mars Hill kind of dissolved. What were two or three things you wished that you had addressed earlier? Like all of us can learn, our notebooks are open. What are a couple of things that you're like, you know, it is, whatever happened happened. But man, I wish I could get this back. Or, hey, two years earlier, we saw this and I wonder what would have happened if we addressed that. - Yeah, you know, in general, I felt that we could have been more open and transparent with things. So we kind of had, our direction was, no, let's just, let's just hole up and focus on what we're doing because we have a mission and we're gonna go, we're gonna go for that mission. And when we were getting criticism and negativity and, you know, attacks at us, some warranted, some not, you know, whatever, but when there was heat, we would just put walls up, focus on what we were doing and double down. And I think there's something to be said for that, but I don't think it was really the best strategy at times. - Did you ever take it to heart? Did you ever get to the point where you looked at what the critics were saying and said, "Hmm, is there 10% truth here or 20% truth?" Or was just kind of, yeah. - Sure, I mean, that was a big part of my job. I mean, so I was head of public relations for that. And my job was to not only read every single thing that was said about us online, but to analyze it, to create a report over every accusation, everything that was said, every criticism, what can we learn from it? What do we need to respond to? What do we, you know, internally or externally? And we spent a lot of time combing through that and we did make a lot of changes because of things that we would hear that people would say about us, but we didn't make a big deal about it. And I think that we didn't respond to a lot of things. You know, someone, even if we did learn something from someone, we didn't acknowledge it or think of more, respond to it in any way. - You didn't send them a note or say, "Hey, that was really helpful." So you kind of publicly ignored? - Yeah. - So you publicly ignored and privately processed? - Yeah, exactly, exactly. - Oh, that's a really good principle, you know, 'cause anytime you take a risk at anything, you criticize. - Yeah, and I understand the reason why we were in, in that kind of mindset. I mean, we were taking big, big attacks. I mean, we were-- - All the time? - Yeah, I mean, all the time, just particularly locally, but I mean-- - Long before the collapse, you were the guys were getting shot. - Oh yeah, we always have, and that's why my job existed was because we had always endured some kind of criticism. And I think that, I think in the end, but really made it all not work out so great is that we started to implode. I think the church really did implode. I think internally, people started to criticize internally. We had pastors writing letters and leaving and taking their followers with them. We had community group leaders leave. And I think that internally, people really started to mistrust us. And again, we made changes too, where internally we had weekly newsletters and then every other day newsletters and we were communicating more and more often with people internally. But I think it was too little, too late. It was basically, to them, it sounded like, no, no, no, trust us. Here's what we want you to know. And they just, at that point, they weren't trusting us. They didn't know that we were telling them everything. And there were decisions not to tell everything just because it would make it worse. And it really was just pulling at straws at some points, trying to figure out what is the best strategy here because we had nowhere to look for what we do. What other church has gone through this? Typically, a church goes through this kind of scrutiny. It's because the pastor slept with someone or embezzled or there's some big, big, glaring incident or event that you can point to that you can certainly create some communications around. But for us, it was just, man, they're accusing us of every little tiny little thing. Everything we say is just scrutinized. Like we can't even do anything or launch anything without it being just torn apart. So how do we... - It was kind of a culture and a character attack, right? That you guys were dealing with. Is that how you would describe it? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was deep into the culture and character of each one of us. I mean, they were, you know, they were attacking me individually, you know, people were dishing up tweets and Facebook posts of mine individually and of my wives and blogging about that. They would do that about Mark. They would do that about anybody on staff that they could really find. We would have internal memos just trying to brainstorm on some of this stuff and those would get leaked out by staff because they, you know, just raw thoughts and notes and meeting notes. You know, we had assistants that would, you know, take notes and meetings and they would leak their notes online and it's just like, man, these are raw unedited thoughts that we're having and it's all just being plastered out there for everyone to see. So it became really, really impossible for us to control any of that message at all. And I think that's important to be able to control your message 'cause you want people to know how you really feel and what conclusions you actually did come to, not the thought process that got you there, you know? - Yeah, 'cause you might end up disagreeing with what you said on Tuesday by Wednesday. - Right, and we often did. - I didn't land there. - Yeah, exactly. - Interesting, so the criticism that started externally eventually because of not processing it in hindsight, effectively became internal criticism and then the implosion kind of started. Wow, that's a huge one, you know? And really good, like, okay, so let's go there for a second. I mean, we all get criticized. It might be the local pastor down the road who criticizes your church or there's someone in your denomination who doesn't like you, who criticizes you or, you know, gosh, there's always church members who don't like things. What's a healthier response? What do you do? - What I cancel churches on now and when pastors are calling me because they're going through something or they got, you know, they're called by a newspaper or something like that. And I'm trying to help them with it is really to just be candid and open. So there's certain things that you can't release information on because it just doesn't make sense. There's legal implications. So say you're in the middle of a church discipline case. I mean, you've signed papers saying that you're going to hold that self-confidential, you know, confidential and internal just because the person who is involved decides to go speak to the press, doesn't open that up and allow the church to speak about those things. And we were in a few of those situations that you can be instead of just holding off and not saying anything, you can be candid and treat people with respect and build relationships where you can say, "Hey, I can't share this with you, but here's why." And at least try to meet them halfway to say, say what you can say. Instead, our position was really just to say nothing at all and, you know, trust us, we know what we're doing and we're doing everything right. And, you know, you can't really say that to someone who's criticizing you 'cause then that's just giving them more ammo and, you know, then that's where things get leaked and then people are getting one side of the story and they're just making their own conclusion. - So it's kind of like a posture as much as it is anything. It's that openness, that transparency and you're totally right. Like if it's a personnel issue or church discipline issue or whatever, you are not at liberty to talk about that. - Or even just something that you know is going to not be able to please everyone. So one thing that was huge was everybody wanted to know Pastor Mark's salary, they wanted to know my salary, they wanted to know, they wanted all that to be open and transparent and they would tell us, oh, world vision posts their salaries and it's like, okay, well, if we were to post anybody's salary for one, that's a privacy issue. Like I didn't personally want anybody knowing what I was making or not making because that's a private security issue for me. I mean, it can be, it certainly was for Mark, but whether Mark was making 50,000 or a million, there would have been criticism on both. Like there's no magical number that's perfect and there's no, this isn't outlined in the Bible how to do it. So it was like, man, no, we're not going to release that kind of information, that's private information. And there's just no good that will come of releasing that. But, you know, we didn't explain that well to people, we didn't show them the respect they deserve to have that conversation with them. - Right, and then if the whole culture is of suspicion, not trust, you know, like if you handle that internally with a group of elders or an independent board or you get third party audits, nobody believes that anyway. - Well, that's the thing, that was our response is, hey, you know, we have an internal board, we have an external board, we have an auditor, we have the ECFA, there are many, many people looking at this and then it was like, oh, okay, well, but they're all your friends and the ECFA uses you in their full-page ads. Of course, they're going to back you up and never, you know, not approve it. It's just like, okay, well, that there's no-- - Then you cut a loss before that question. - Yeah, there's no winning. I mean, we could put out a Twitter poll and say, how much do you think you should make? But that's just, that's no way to govern your church and manage things. So there's just no winning in some of those cases. - No, that's really, really helpful. And, you know, to one extent or another, we've all been there with critics and what do you do? So how you process criticism, great learning, anything else that you look back and go, oh man, I wish we had approached this differently. I mean, obviously there's a ton of people looking for hours. - And a lot has been written. But just highlight a couple for us. And then I want to ask you some more questions. - Yeah, I mean, there's, gosh, I don't know. I mean, there's plenty of things that I wish we had done better or differently. You know, I think, you know, definitely in general communicating things better, more transparently, more openly, not only internally with the church but externally, but, you know, I think that we had this mindset that we need to spread the gospel as far and fast as possible. And I think that that's a really, really good thing. But we certainly, at least at one point, really had no boundaries on that. I mean, we, you know, we certainly had accountability left and right on things. But there were a few situations we got on where it was like, okay, maybe we crossed the line there. Like maybe, maybe, you know, you shouldn't do everything and possible to spread the gospel in that way then. Maybe there's a different way that we could have gone about that. I mean, there's-- - Can you give me an example? - I don't wanna-- - No, I don't wanna-- - I don't wanna get into specific type things, but I mean, you know, one thing would be the book marketing stuff. So real marriage. I mean, that's out there, real marriage. You know, there was a marketing group that buys up books and, you know, the whole idea. I mean, you've got the New York Times-- - You've got books out there. The whole idea is to get as many sales the first week as possible so that you make the list. - My mom bought like five copies of mine. - See? - It was incredible. - There you go, I can. I doubt she read it five times in the first week. So that's, I can't believe you employed those kind of marketing tactics, used your own mother. - Yeah. - Yeah, but lots of other people have done that, right? - Sure, and that doesn't make it right or wrong. - And the idea is that way the book hits the New York Times by seller list, it then gets into more hands, et cetera, et cetera. Which I have not done, by the way. I've not bought multiple copies of my own book. - Sure, sure, sure, and I-- - Nor is my mom. - Yeah, or is your mom. But I think, you know, for us we saw that as no different than spending a ton of money on marketing in other ways. Like it was a marketing expense for us. And actually, you know, and I'm not in any position to speak on the details of that, but I think, you know, it ended up being a lot less than what people think. I mean, it was actually pretty dirt cheap at the end of it because we bought all these books, but then we sold them at full price. - Right, and you buy them at an author discount, et cetera, et cetera. - Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's, you know, a lot that went into it and it ended up being a pretty cheap marketing expense. But at the end of the day, it's like you have to weigh those things and say, okay, perception of our church and what we're doing is a very, very important thing. And whether everything's on the up and up and, you know, nothing was illegal and, you know, even, you know, to most of us, it was morally okay and it was biblically okay. It doesn't matter if the perception of it is negative and it's going to be negative, then maybe that's not the best route to go about it. Now we looked at it as, man, that got us on the view. It got us on Pierce Morgan. It got us on Fox and Friends. It didn't, you know, it doubled our online reach. It put 10,000 more people in our seats or something like that over the next few months. I mean, it was crazy. The, it just brought us all to a new level. And for us, that means, okay, you know, X amount of people got saved because of that. People who weren't going to church were now going to church. Like all those are good things that came out of it. You can look at that and say, okay, yeah, God used something bad for good. And maybe that's what happened. But, you know, looking back, it's like, man, I wish we had just really, really slowed down the thought about those things a little more and cared more about what the perception would be for that. Or at least just been open and honest with it from the beginning and say, hey, this is what we're going to do. And here's how it's going to work. Because if this gets out that we spent 200,000 on books, yeah, that sounds horrible. But we need you to see the full picture. When all said and done, this actually only costs 20,000. And that's not a big deal. And, you know, that's, you know, not even the cost of a billboard, like, you know, people don't see the big picture because we didn't tell them the big picture. - Yeah, you know what, those are really good lessons. And I think great reminders for everybody. And, you know, the purpose of this podcast, honestly, books are going to get written about Mars Hill. Like there will be 27 chapters about what went wrong. - Yeah. - I don't feel like that's the purpose. But I really appreciate this interview. But I really appreciate your honesty. I really appreciate your transparency. And I think what that gives, you know, all of us who lead something, a window into is a complexity of leadership. You know, what we make sound like a really simple, black and white, how could people be so stupid kind of moment? You get in on the inside of a conversation. And I know there are leaders who are listening and you're not trying to sell a book or you're not, you know, trying to create a team culture, that sort of thing. But you're on the cusp of a decision right now that's very complicated. And you're like, well, I just think this is where we need to go and you make a judgment call and it turns out to be the wrong thing. And you're gonna make those calls. I think the key is, you know, what you said in both cases is transparency, humility and honesty. Just upfront. It's like, you know what, we don't have the best culture and we're trying to figure that out. Or thank you so much for that criticism. We're taking it into consideration. Or hey, here's what we're gonna do for book marketing just so you guys know upfront. And it just takes the elephant out of the room, the air out of the blue. - Yeah, you know, we just, we were very, we just did our own thing. And we didn't even speak to many other churches or get advice that way. We were very just in our own bubble, doing what we were doing, moving forward at super fast pace. And I think that that's not the wisest strategy. I think you need to work with other churches, other pastors, other people. You need to be slowly ingesting that criticism and learning from it and responding to it. And just really working with people as you move along and trying to share as much as possible along the way, particularly internally, but as much as you can externally as well. I mean, there's no reason why the church shouldn't know about how you're marketing certain things and why. And you should always be able to have a why. And if you don't, then you need to go back and figure out, okay, if we don't know why we're doing this and everybody who's involved doesn't know why we're doing this, we need to go back to stage one and make sure that this is actually something that's mission critical because chances are it's not if you can't answer why. - That's a really good word. That's a good word. I want to know what it felt like to be on the inside of a mega church that actually had real problems, but to be so almost universally vilified and criticized over and over again. Just walk us through that because those of us who throw stones, right? We're often our houses are a lot smaller or not under the kind of pressure that you were, but what does it feel like to be on the inside of that church and everywhere you look, just get hammered? - Well, you're going for like a Barbara Walters moment here, aren't you? (both laughing) - I don't know. I just, I say that from a place of empathy. - I appreciate that. I mean, it was, to say it was hard would be just a complete understatement. I mean, you should ask my wife that question because we're glad to be in Georgia now and in the Bible Belt and just away from that, but I miss it so much every day just 'cause of the amazing things that we were doing. And that, you know, internally, when you're getting that many rocks thrown at you. And as the person who, you know, I joked that I was the, you know, I'm the punching bag for Mark and the church. I'm the one who's actually being thrown out there to deal with people and respond to them on behalf of the church. And so I did feel like a punching bag, you know, for a while there. - Of course. - That takes a toll. It's something that is hard to switch off when you get home and you need to be there for your family. And that was an incredibly hard thing to do. It's, it's, I'm the type of person who's resilient to that stuff and handles it well. But when it started to affect our friendships and relationships, that's when it really, really just, you know, hit too close to home and became too hard to handle really. 'Cause people with, you know, friends of ours, people in our community group would even say, hey, we just don't know if we can trust you anymore. You know, we're asking for answers and you're giving us the same response you give to New York Times because that's all I can give them. And, you know, people just didn't understand that and they, you know, would just make assumptions and that, that really hurt. I mean, we lost a lot of friends. When we left Seattle, we had barely any friends. And the reason why we stayed there is because we finally had so many friends and so many loving people around us. And that, that hurt quite a bit. I mean, they, they, after day reading the stuff that people say as part of your job is, is incredibly draining emotionally and spiritually. And you really do just need to focus on why, why are we doing this? Why am I in this position? Why does God have me here? And what are we doing? And for me, that's, that was, that was why I was so happy to baptize people. It was so, you know, it's why I would officiate weddings. That's why I would volunteer as a community group leader, volunteer to pray with people after service because I got to see firsthand in those experiences that, hey, even, I mean, the last week of December before we closed the church, there were people coming up for prayer and people getting baptized. Our last service, we baptized a hundred people or something like that. And that was, that was incredible to be a part of that and say, hey, despite everything, real lives are being changed here. And we're a part of that. And God's using me to, to be a part of that. And that's what you focus on. That's what you, you are there for. And that's what makes it all worth it. But it certainly was incredibly hard and draining. So, I can only imagine like, so seeing wins in the ministry, energized, you encouraged. Yeah. What were some things that maybe other people did? And I hope there was somebody who did something encouraging for you at that point, but like, what would have just, what were the moments that put wind back into your sails? You know, I mean. And I take it, there weren't many, Justin. There really weren't. I mean, there were, there were certainly loving people that surrounded us and that were there for our family. I mean, you know, Mark was one. I mean, he, out of anybody he knew, the hits that I was taking personally and how hard it was on us. And I think the compassion that he and Sutton are executive pastor, and they were, they were very pastoral to people that they were working close with, at least. And I think that that was, that was very important and appreciated and that's really what kept us going is knowing that people were praying for us. And really, you know what was, was incredibly, incredibly awesome was when I would get a personal email or a Twitter DM from somebody, I don't even know, it would be someone in the Philippines who says, hey, Justin, you know, call me my name. I read your statement in, you know, the New York Times or saw you on the news last night. And I want you to know my family prayed for you at dinner last night. And it's like, man, this person, I don't know, halfway across the world is not just praying for Marcel and praying for Mark Griskel, but they're praying for me and my family and knowing that they don't know the full picture and they don't know if I'm lying or if I was told to make that statement or what, but they took the higher ground to say, we're gonna pray for this guy and his family 'cause this has gotta be hard. That's what really kept us going. And those would come at pretty opportune times, usually, right, when I'm about to give up and say, why are we doing this? I used to make four times as much money doing something that, you know, brought me home by 4 p.m. Why am I still, why am I still doing this? And then I would, I would get an email or something like that from someone I don't even know. And that would be incredible. And that's the, that's the type of impact that I'm talking about that we were a part of. I don't know many churches that can really say that today. Healthy good churches that are doing great work aren't receiving that kind of impact and influence worldwide. And I think that that's what I really miss. - I say it from a place of empathy. And thanks so much for sharing that. You know, I left it a nomination eight years ago to start over again as a non-denominational church. And it generated quite a bit of controversy to the point where, oh my goodness, we were the fastest growing church in the country for a while and the whole deal. And like there was a national editorial in the denominational magazine. There was a, you know, a, believe it or not, a chat room that just exploded. And it was like, that was, that was one of the times I was just getting to know Andy. Andy actually called me to encourage me, Andy Stanley. Reggie Joyner was in the ditch with me. They were on the chat room going, I can't believe what people are saying, you know. Honestly, those things were lifelines. And I had friends in the community who didn't believe what was being said and who just stood beside me. And eventually, you know, the truth comes out and a lot of that stuff was just hype or whatever. But, you know, one of the sad parts of leadership, you know, I tried to take the high road, you know, there's a couple of things I do differently today. But, you know, my goodness, you just have to believe the truth is gonna come out in the end. And sometimes that's negative, sometimes that's positive. But man, and I just look at the encouragement that came my way that probably made the difference between throwing in the towel and not. And the nice thing about leaders is, you know, we can all encourage somebody. Nobody's ever, I've ever met has been over encouraged. Like they're not like, whoa, stop encouraging me. I've had my lifetime fulfillment. And it's funny how it's a simple things like an email or a DM from somebody or a tax that says, hey man, praying for you today, just hang in there can make all the difference in the world. - No, it really does. I mean, there's, there's still a handful of pastors, well-known pastors even, who will send me a DM of just encouragement knowing that, you know, past scars are always creeping up or, you know, or something comes around the blogs again, even on me personally. And it's super encouraging to know that just people, people care and they're praying for you. And I don't know, I really appreciate it. - How do you see mega churches? 'Cause it's so easy to pick on the big guys. - Sure, people do it all the time. You know, but when you see stuff go down at churches or even, you know, a church that's really growing fast, but everybody's questioning their motives, how do you see that now on the outside looking in? - I certainly have more of a benefit of the doubt for them and know that there's so many complexities going into every little thing. You know, we're part of a North Point church here and it's a big church. I mean, it's arguably one of the largest if, you know, since not everyone reports their numbers. I guess it is the largest, but it's incredible, just the criticism that they get and they're not even doing anything really controversial. - Yeah. - You know, they're pretty-- - There's no scandal, there's no staff, no moral failure. It's just like, oh, you're big. So we hate you. - Right. And that's the thing. You know, when people have just that general criticism of oh, you're big, so, you know, so we hate you. - What'd you do wrong? - Great. It's like, wait, you're criticizing us because we're reaching more people than you. Like, I don't get that. What is your goal to stay small? How is that biblical? I think every church should, their goal should be to reach as many people as possible. And that is really actually the commandment that we each individually have. You know, that's the commission that we each have, the charge that we have to move forward and reach as many people and as many nations as possible. So for a church to say, now we're never gonna get big, we're never gonna be a mega church. It's like, well, then what are you actually doing? Like, I understand having a local mission and starting small and growing from there. Totally get that, but you should never discount someone who, you know, a church who got his blessed to become big and reach more people and understand that with that are incredible complexities. And they're still humans involved. There's humans at the helm who are going to make mistakes who are not gonna make the best decisions sometimes and to give them grace. I mean, that's been incredible for me to see, to be able to give people more grace these days because I know that, hey, whatever you're going through, I know without a doubt I've been through worse. So I can totally give you grace in this situation. - Yeah, you know, I can see that. What do you say, I don't know, I wanna phrase it as like, what do you say to the haters and the trolls? I mean, I've blocked some people from commenting on my blog just because I've checked their profiles and it's like, you spend all day just assassinating other people, you can't speak in my forum. But I've done that a dozen times. It's not that often. - And you got to be on this. - Yeah, I have to, there are some people who are just, you know, they intend to be toxic and they are. So I don't know what you can say to them 'cause they're not gonna listen anyway. But what do you say to the people who take pot shots or, you know, at a conference, they're just talking and it's like, well, you know, if I live in Texas, I'd have a church of 10,000 people or, you know, my dad was Charles Stanley, then I would be blah, blah, blah or, you know, if I was Judas Smith and, you know, or I was Mark Driscoll, you know, what do you say to people who just love to take little pot shots and maybe aren't trolls but love to go on blogs and just kind of like, here's five things that are wrong with Mars Hill or Justin Dean, you know. What do you say to them? You know, I think the best strategy really is to just continue to show them grace. I mean, there's certainly, if it just gets too intense, I mean, you certainly have to block certain people who are just, you know, for sure out there to get you and they're not gonna change in their ways and they're, you know, that's what they're out there for. But for someone who in their mind has a genuine criticism and it might even in their mind be coming from someplace good and you've got to just realize those people have certain experiences and context that are shaping their opinions and they're going to be different experiences and context than what you have. And to appreciate that at whatever value that you can apply to it and just show them grace and say, okay, you know, I understand your viewpoint of this and if you're able to respond in a way to explain more than do that and then just let it go. Don't engage in a back and forth. I mean, you should be able at all times to share why you're doing something and how you're doing it and if you're not, then you need to be looking at their criticism and saying, hey, are we doing this wrong way? You know, can we do this differently? Do we know why we're actually doing this? Is there any truth to what they're saying and make those changes and make them apparent to that person? And then just move on or double down on what you're doing because you've already vetted all of that and you disagree with them and then just move on. But, you know, that's the only way to really shut them up in a way. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know, most of these people are looking for a fight and to give them a fight, it's just never going to end but you need to take what you can, add out of it and then just move on and keep doing what you're doing. - That's good advice, you know, and I think that's helpful. So that's for those of us who are criticized. What do you say to the critics? What do you say to the guys who are not necessarily toxic, they don't spend all day, you know, yelling at other people but they just love to take the odd pot shot. What do you say to the critic? - You know, I think the same thing. I mean, I think you, you know, you reply to them with what you can and you move on and you show them grace and respect but, you know, to a certain point, if it's just criticism after criticism, then you move on from it. You block if you have to but you just let it run. People have different opinions and if you know what you're doing and you know why you're doing it, then you just keep doing what you're doing. But there's always going to be people out there who are going to criticize it. I think a lot of that comes from jealousy and envy and I think that there's a way to, I would say if you have some kind of relationship with that or they're part of your church or something like that, there's a connection with this person or someone you know has a connection with them. I would say feel free to even reach out to them and, you know, call them out on that in a loving way so that you can provide them some pastoral care in that. - Hey, what's motivating? - Yeah, exactly. - What's really underneath this. - Dig deeper into it instead of just ignoring it 'cause you want to be able to help that person not to come to your side but to just, you know, come to a good conclusion about what they believe and what they, you know, feel is wrong with what you're doing. - It's a good word. Well, this has been so helpful and really enlightening. No, it has been. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing now and where people can find you online, Justin. - Yeah, you know, you can go to JustinJDene.com has got everything I'm doing listed on there. Thatchurchconference.com is the big digital communications conference that I co-founded with Bay and Bay Area that we're doing out here in Atlanta. We've got one in Chicago and I think that, you know, we're trying to make a big difference in churches, trying to think through all of this stuff. What we're doing is we built kind of like a workshop style think tank where we can work with other churches. We're bringing in and, you know, people from new spring and cross point and churches from all over the world to come and speak and work with different people on this because these are, this is the type of conversations that churches need to have. You know, Mars Hill with all its resources and everything was not prepared for what we went through. And I get calls every week of churches who are going through small parts of what we went through and they're not prepared at all. They don't have a communications plan or strategy. They've de-emphasized putting any resources towards it. And I think that, you know, we're trying to make a difference to help them be more prepared. And so that's really about demoting most of my time to these days. - Well, Justin, thanks so much. And thanks for an honest inside, but hopefully more constructive look. The good things God has done, some lessons we can all learn 'cause, you know, we're all at some point in need of correction and reflection and confession. And man, you're a huge encouragement to me, Justin. And I know you helped a lot of leaders today. Thank you. - Now, you know, I appreciate this discussion. I certainly hope it's helpful to some at least. And it's good to look back and say, yeah, there's certain things we could have done better and we can learn from them and we should, but let's, you know, praise what God did through Mars Hill as well. And I just appreciate you, Carrie. I mean, we followed your blog and your podcast for a while. Just the topics you cover, the things that you touch on are incredibly helpful to me and I know to others. So you've got a good thing that you're building. Really appreciate that. Thanks for letting me be a part of it today. - Hey, thanks so much, Justin. Appreciate you. Well, I think you can see why when I met Justin Dean a few months ago and we started talking about this, I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, wait. Can we have this conversation in public? And he said, yes, and I am so, so glad we did. And I hope you found it to be refreshing. I did. And absolutely, there are huge lessons to be learned out of Seattle. But sometimes in the process of finding all the bad, 'cause let's just be honest, it's more interesting and that's what makes headlines, we missed the good. And I wanted to make sure that we got a balanced account along the way. And I know there will be volumes written in the future and in the past about what went wrong. And we got to talk about that to some degree, which I think is healthy. But you also need to look at the good that happens. And so maybe you're in a place where things are not going well and there's some things that you need to own. You just need to take responsibility as a leader. But I know sometimes, and obviously, I haven't had anything close to what happened at Mars Hill happen in the time that I've been in leadership. But there have been times where I've been so discouraged or I made a mistake that I wanted to quit. And in those moments, I forget that God actually has done something good, He has an abandoned me. And He may actually do something encouraging in the future. So I just hope that's encouragement to you as well as a way of getting just a fuller perspective, perhaps, on the events that happened two years ago at Mars Hill. And the story continues to unfold. So we'll watch it. You can get everything that we talked about today in the show notes at kerrynuhoff.com/episode79. Don't forget to check out the Young Messiah film, it's in theaters now, and a register for rethink leadership at rethinkleadership.com. So we are back next week, but we got some amazing people coming up. Next week, we're gonna talk about your marriage with Kim Kimberling. David Kineman is gonna be on real soon, and we're gonna talk about his new book with Gabe Lyons, Good Faith. And he says, hey, Christians are being persecuted, Christians are seen as extremists. And we're gonna talk all about that. Another pastor from Seattle, Rob Sizik is with me in a couple of weeks. He's got a fascinating story about change for those of you trying to lead change. And I sat down recently with Ravi Zacharias, and Ravi is back on the podcast, and we're talking about preaching, and actually how you can reach the next generation, and he gave me a nugget that I'm probably gonna hang on to for the rest of my life. So the way you make sure you miss none of that is you subscribe, real easy to do. It's free, just wherever you're listening, just hit subscribe. And then all these episodes show up automatically every Tuesday. And when we do bonuses and we're overdue, you'll get those as well. So thanks so much for listening. Hey, we are back next week with episode 80. It's gonna be fun. Really 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)