The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 075 – Insights on Millennials From a Millennial Leader. An Interview with Jonathan Pearson
[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 75 of the podcast. My name is Carey Newhoff. I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And I know, I love hearing from you. I absolutely love hearing from you. And I know we have a ton of young leaders listening to this podcast. Why? Because you talked to me regularly on social media, in the comments, on my blog, and in some of the email I get. And I just want to say thank you for that. And one of the big questions in business and its question in church leadership is basically, what are some of the generational differences that are out there? Now, last week in episode 74, Brad Lominek, Jeff Sarat, and I talked about that a little bit from our experience way back on episode 69 to kick off this year. I sat down with Hayden Shaw. That turned out to be a wildly popular episode. So if you haven't listened to that, listen in. But today, I'm going to bring you Jonathan Pearson. And Jonathan is a millennial who's written about millennials and actually has a lot of leadership responsibility at the age of 29. He's campus pastor for a large church and leads a campus of about 1,400 people. So that's a lot of responsibility. And Jonathan's my guest today. I think you're really going to enjoy that. And hey, for the record, I know if you're a regular listener and you're a subscriber, you know this. But I'm a big fan of millennials. I really do. We have a lot of them at Connects' Church, where I serve. Obviously, my kids fit into that bracket. And I know a lot of people my age kind of complain a lot about millennials. I just, you know, there are a few tension points for sure. But I mean, there's tension points with Gen Xers, which is what I am, and with baby boomers and with every generation. So I'm a fan, but Jonathan gives us some great insight today on what it's like to be a millennial and has some honest conversation about his generation and maybe what, in his view, millennials could do better. So I hope you're really going to enjoy this. And I hope it's going to help you lead like never before. And if you are a millennial leader or any kind of leader, you know that one of the greatest challenges for leadership is isolation. That maybe in your community, you've got nobody who really understands sort of the kind of challenges that you face, or even if you're part of a denomination. You're part of a denomination where you've got lots of churches in your region. But none of them are really trying to do ministry your way. Or you try to have a conversation with people, but maybe they're a little more traditional because I know a lot of progressive leaders, a lot of you who listen to this podcast, are progressive leaders. And you feel isolated or alone. And I have had that challenge over the last 20 years. In fact, that's one of the reasons I started this podcast was because I was having conversations that really connected with me. And I thought, hey, it would be great to actually have everybody like hear them. But sometimes it's fun just to have your own conversation. And that's why if you haven't yet registered for rethink leadership, you need to do it today. It's a conference that I'm hosting along with Brad Lomannick and with John A. Kuff and Reggie Joyner. We've got Andy Stanley there. We've got Leon's Crump, Cara Powell, and a number of other leaders. Jeff Henderson is going to be there. It is space limited. And until Thursday, the 18th, you can still get the best rates. So if you haven't yet registered, go to rethinkleadership.com and make sure you register today. It's a conference that's happening April 27th through 29th at the John Maxwell Leadership Center in Atlanta, Georgia. We have a cap on registration. And like I say, it's going to be way more intimate than most big conferences. I mean, usually Andy Stanley speaks to big rooms. He's going to speak to a much smaller room. And there'll be lots of time to interact with some of the speakers and with me and with some of the other people who are going to be there. You're going to have incredible table hosts who often speak at other conferences. They're just going to host you. And you're going to make some friends. You're going to connect. You're going to have a chance to process real leadership issues and get better as a leader. And so if you haven't yet registered for rethink leadership, do so today by going to rethinkleadership.com. And if you've got team from your church that's going to the Orange Conference, we're syncing up with Orange Conference. So your ticket to rethinkleadership gets you into a couple of evening sessions at Orange Conference and then all day Friday so you can sync up with your team. Or maybe your team hasn't heard about Orange Conference and like you want to register there too. So you can do that. Anyway, it's a great team thing. We think leadership is just for senior leaders because we know that sometimes we have different conversations that we kind of just need someone to understand. So I hope that if you haven't registered, you do that today. And thanks so much for rethink leadership for being our sponsor for this episode. And now let's jump in to my conversation with Jonathan Pearson. And just a reminder, if you want anything that Jonathan and I talk about, you can go to the show notes. Just carry new hop.com/episode75 and you'll find everything there. Here's my conversation with Jonathan. Well, Jonathan Pearson is my guest. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. Glad you're here. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Yeah, that's cool. You do your own podcast and so now you're a guest. I do, I do. Not my first rodeo but first time on your podcast. I appreciate that. Well, it's great. What's your podcast called? Just so listen. It's called the Next Up Podcast. It's a podcast for young leaders. Just me and a friend of mine kind of sit down and talk very organically about leadership and young leadership specifically. That's great. Well, I know we have a growing number of young leaders. Lots of whom maybe are in student ministry or they're bi-vocational right now. They're in kids ministry. They're associate. They're executive. They're campus pastors. I hear from you all the time. And I thought it'd be really fun to have Jonathan on the podcast and just talk millennials. Not just for millennials but for all of us who aren't millennials, you guys, you're not in school anymore. You've been in the workforce for a decade. If you look at the demographic breakdown, most people in 2016 are using roughly 18 to 35. Categories can be a little bit different. So I mean, at this point, kids, house, SUV, minivan, the whole deal, a lot of people in the workforce. And so I'm really glad to have you on the show. So give our listeners a little bit of a background as to who you are and what you do. Well, I guess the short version is I'm a husband and a dad and a pastor. Like a lot of people received the kind of raised in church, received the call to ministry to a full-time ministry at it at a pretty young age. And so I just kind of jumped down with both feet, started doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And actually right out of college, met my wife in college, right out of college. I went to seminary for a little while, didn't quite finish. So I'm a seminary dropout, I'll admit it. Maybe one day. Yeah, other people listening now who wish they were seminary dropouts, but they actually finished. So yeah. Well, and that was part of my thing, those loans started to pile up. But anyway, and so my wife and I, we moved to a very, very small town in South Carolina, called Norway, South Carolina, which most people think of Norway and they think it's a little more exciting than that was. So we were there about a year and a half and just kind of felt a call to go to church that I felt I was doing a lot of things right. So we actually just quit our jobs completely without any paycheck or anything. It said, you know, I'm here. We're gonna, I'm gonna be full-time here. And thankfully God was faithful and they were faithful. So I just kind of started doing whatever they'd let me do. And so now I'm the campus pastor, get to speak some, get to work with an organization we do call the Styx, which is for small towns, leaders in small towns. And do this kind of this millennial thing because I am one and because I think we have a great future ahead of us if we're willing to take the mantle like we should. And you actually came to where you are now without having promised of a church job, right? You started as a volunteer, is that right? I did, I had a church job. And I just kind of, one day God told me to go. I remember reading the story of Abraham and God told me to go and he had given me my destination but didn't tell me how he was gonna get there. And so we did what a little bit of savings we had in our two years of marriage. We cashed them in and we went. So it was a good ride. Luckily I have a great wife who's willing to do stuff like that. - And how many years ago was that, Jonathan? - It's been about six years ago. - Wow. So you were like early 20s, mid 20s. - Yeah, I mean, it was 22, 23. - Yeah, it's early 20s. - So yeah, I didn't even tell anybody that that's what I was doing 'cause I didn't want them to think I was a nut. (laughing) - So you did that and here you are. And your church is a good size too specifically for a small town. So your campus pastor at a church of how many? - About 1400, we're a city of about 15,000 in city limits. And so, you know, a larger county land area wise. But yeah, I mean, we do some great things. We're multi-ethnic, we're about 50% white, 50% black, even a few Hispanic, which is basically what our area is made up of. So it's a great place to be. I remember the first time we walked in, I looked at my wife and there was a black person sitting in my left and a white person sitting to her right. And I looked at her and I thought, this is, I told her, I said, this is awesome. We've made the right decision. - And that's in South Carolina too. - It is, it is. - What's your church's website, just so we know? - It's mycornerstone.me. There's a million cornerstone churches out there. - Stop me, really? - It's hard to come by. - Yeah. So, Jonathan, you've made it a passion of yours, a hobby of yours, to speak right in talk to millennial leaders. And what's doubly interesting, of course, is that you are one. You're not somebody my age talking about millennials, but you are a millennial. So what stereotypes about millennials are true and which are not? Start us there. Well, like any stereotypes, stereotypes usually come for a reason. They're broadly true oftentimes, not all the way across the board, ever. But I think the biggest one that I do think is true, that has kind of come about is the entitled generation. You've heard, even heard the millennial generation called the entitled generation. - Right on. - And I think that's absolutely legitimate. We grew up in a time where a lot of our parents were saying, I don't want them to grow up like I did. I want them to have more than I did. And it was came from a good place. But I think that led to some of our entitlement, not that I'm trying to push it off on my mom and daddy, but I think that kind of led to some of that. And so, as we've gotten older. - So give me an example of what that looked like in say a typical childhood or your childhood. Again, not to pick on anybody's mom or dad, but what does that mean? It means you get in allowance, but you don't have to do any work, or what's the genesis of that? - Well, actually, I actually talked about, in a book I wrote a couple of years ago about the first time, I was probably, I don't know, 12, 13 the first time. I remember my mom telling me no when we went to Walmart, and I wanted to tool it. And I pitched a fit, because I had never heard this word now. - 12 or 13, you had your three-year-old temper tantrum? - Yeah, I mean, pretty much. I mean, it was crazy. And I think that's transferred to getting a job. It's going to, when we were filling out college applications, stuff like that, we weren't used to hearing the word no. And so, we've kind of got this entitled in mind, and the unfortunate thing is that from that comes a point of, well, I don't have to do anything to get anything. And so, we're having to overcome that a little bit. And I think that's a legitimate stereotype. Of course, not all the way across the board. There's a lot of millennials out there that who had nothing growing up and had to fight for everything. But, and another one is the impatient thing. Of course, I consider myself fairly impatient. I'm not a-- - Well, me too, and I'm not a millennial. - Yeah. - Yeah. But there are generational characteristics. I mean, you guys didn't invent impatience, but tell me about impatience. Why is your generation impatient? - Well, I mean, actually, you know, if you think about the time period we were growing up in, I mean, I turned on my TV just a few minutes ago, and I had, I watched a documentary about the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. And I didn't have to go to the video sort of get that. I didn't have to wait on anything. I turned my TV on, flipped on a split-by-switch, and I immediately had it. And it's been like that much of our lives when it comes to even things like microwaves. And I know those were a couple of generations ahead of me, but we've never known necessarily having to wait for a whole lot. Even when it comes to travel a lot of times, we don't have to wait very much. And so, that's kind of caused this impatience. And unfortunately, for those of us that have aspirations of being leaders, and our leaders, patience is a key, key ingredient to that, especially when it comes to patience with people. So, you know, that's one of those that I think is legitimate, but I also think that as we get older and get more responsibility, we're gonna learn how to be patient with the right things. - You know, that's really interesting. You mentioned travel. We did not travel much. - I'm a Gen Xer, barely. I'm like on the old age, the old side of the Gen Xers. And I remember I was on an airplane once when I was 12. And the next time I flew anywhere was for my honeymoon. Like that was the second time in my life on an airplane. And now, you know, so many kids are like, I think I have frequent flyer or miles at like eight or whatever. - Yeah, even if you think about things like shipping, I mean, you know, we don't have to wait on anything anymore. I have prime, I get it in two days, I don't have to pay for anything. - Yep, me too. - I have to pay any extra for it. So, you know, stuff like that's kind of contributed to that. - Okay. So that's good. So instant entitlement, what are some other characteristics that you would say? Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's us. - You know, one of them that I think is a positive thing or can be a positive thing is I think there's this characteristic that we like to come together and support causes. I mean, if you think about to, you know, a natural disaster hits a lot of times, it's the millennial community that's coming together to fix things. We like to, we enjoy serving in community. I think, widely, we are looking for community. I think, you know, social networking kind of proves that. And I do believe community can happen in that aspect. I think that's absolutely legitimate. I think there's more to it than that, but I think that's a great place to start. And so we're kind of community-minded people. And so, you know, I think that's a legitimate stereotype. And I think it can actually be used for good and good for the church, by the way. - Absolutely. I mean, that's very consistent with the commission for the Christian church, but do you trace that to like daycare and being raised communally or do you have like a theory behind that personally? I've heard different theories behind it. - You know, I don't, I don't necessarily, I couldn't necessarily pinpoint where that, where that necessarily comes from. You know, I think the daycare thing probably does have some, have some truth to it. You know, a lot of us were putting daycare earlier because both of our parents started working and that was something that a generation before that didn't necessarily happen. And so maybe that is a starting point. That's a good point. - I don't know, I have a theory. It's always interesting. All right, any other characteristics that you'd say are true or like, nope, not true at all? - I think this, one of the things that I'm big on and I'm sure that we'll come up again is, the millennial generation can be very dishonoring, I think, to previous generations. And by that, I mean, you know, sometimes we don't accept correction very well. And so, and sometimes we almost look down on someone because they're, because of their life's experience when, you know, when we should honor them. And I think that's something that's close to God's heart and that's something that's close to my heart as I talk to young leaders is I want us to, I want us to be a generation of honor, even though a lot of times we're not considered that. - Right. So, you know, that's interesting because I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but like, I am surprised. When I was 25 or 29, I didn't have a lot of time for anybody over 40. It was like, don't tell me a life story, don't tell me that. So, I would say I was probably more dishonoring than honoring. And even if I was honoring publicly, I was probably dishonoring privately. But what surprised me is how many 20-somethings or early 30s are genuinely open to being in community with people my age. And so, for example, last night, our community group had its third meeting. And it's my wife and I, both of whom are in our early 50s, and we are around our community group and they're all like between 20, actually, it's funny. One couple was both of them were born in '93. And, or 92, 92. - Wow. - And so it's kind of like, wow, you really could be our kids, but like they want to be in community with us. Is that typical or is that abnormal? - I don't think that's necessarily abnormal for that community. Really, what the honor that I'm talking about is more of a superior kind of honor. - Like, we're better, we've figured that out. - Well, well, if you're my superior, so if you're my boss or something like that, I think a lot of times in that area, we can tend to be dishonoring. But yeah, I mean, dishonoring is something that's popped up in the millennial generation. I mean, that's been around for a long time. - But it's characteristic. Anything else that comes to mind when you think about stereotypes? - No, I think, I think those are the big ones that I think as a generation, we really need to work on or capitalize on an aspect of the community thing. - In a previous episode of this podcast episode 69, Hayden Shaw argued that your generation millennials, he's not a millennial, is behaving like it is because adulthood is delayed now almost until age 30. And then once you're 30, his argument goes, you'll become much more like other generations, previous generations. Any thoughts on that? I mean, you're almost 30, right? You'll be pretty soon. - Yeah, yeah, you know, I think there's, I think there's some truth to that. I wouldn't completely disagree with that. I mean, no matter what study you look at, pretty much across the board, they're talking about how millennials are getting married later and kind of starting life later. And so I think that's true. They're moving out of their parents later. It's not extremely untypical to find a 25, 26 year olds living with their parents because they're trying to save money, especially in the generation that we kind of got our career starts in with the recession and stuff. So we're trying to save money, trying to get ahead a little bit so they're moving out later. And so I mean, I think there's a lot of truth to that. If you only consider the financial and the family aspects of it. - Well, I mean, there's things that are in our generation that are completely different from the previous generations. - For example. - Well, I mean, technology has changed. And so, I mean, I think the lives that we kind of have built around technology, that's gonna be a change that's gonna happen well beyond our 30s. The way we consume information is gonna continue to last on a matter, you know, if we're 35 or 45, or, you know, we're gonna continue to consume information differently than previous generations which kind of changes how what we do with that information. - Yeah, that's a good point. So even if you end up in the suburban home with a minivan at some point, because you now have three kids or whatever, yeah, you're still gonna have a different world view, perhaps, than somebody who's 10 years your senior. - Sure, and I mean, you know, and if you get back to our origination, our parents, I mean, our parents still raised us differently than their parents raised them. - Right. - You know, we talked about a little bit early, we talked about entitlement. You know, that stuff is still gonna be with me even when I'm past 30. I'm still gonna have been raised in a certain manner. A lot of parents wanted their kids to have more choices. And so I'm gonna continue to kind of attack life or live life with that mindset and that worldview. - Yeah, that's a good point. So when you look, and I know it's dangerous, every generation is more complex than just, you know, one stereotype or one characteristic. But, you know, as best you can, there are meaningful differences between boomers and Gen Xers and millennials. So what would you say some of the main challenges you see because you lead millennials? I mean, you're interacting with more than just yourself. - Sure. - But what are some of the challenges you would say if you're 20, 30, 32, are facing your generation right now? When you look at it at the world, how do you see it? - Well, I mean, you know, of course there's the obvious ones, kind of the world, as we know it now, the happenings that are going on in the world. And of course, as the church and as a church leader and as a pastor, that stuff certainly concerns me and I certainly look at that. But I think one of the things that, I think we as a generation are really good at talking. And keep in mind though, that every generation that comes along, somebody says, this is either the worst generation yet or this is the best generation yet. I mean, that always happens, but we as a generation, I feel like we're really good at talking. We're really good at dreaming, but a lot of times we're not very good at doing. And I think a lot of that goes back to that entitlement mindset. And so even when it comes to our willingness to serve and community, a lot of times we like the idea of serving in community better than actually serving in community. And so I see that as that could be a serious thing. If we as leaders, especially church leaders, no matter what we're leading, but if we never take those steps after we've made the commitment, then that could be an issue. I have plenty of friends who are really good at talking about organizing things. But when it comes to organizing them, it never really gets done. Now, some of that could be my type A personality and so that's just the way I view it. But I really think we have to become more than just thinkers and talkers, but we have to become doers. - Okay, so you wrote a book a couple of years ago where you kind of challenged millennials. Didn't you and you called millennials out? So walk us through that. What did you call them out on? - Well, I certainly made the point from the beginning that millennials have a world of potential inside of them and a world of potential outside of them, world of potential change that they can make outside of them. And so I kind of set it up like the fact that we're going to be transitioning a lot of organizations, especially churches over the next 10 years, the modern contemporary church boom that happened many years ago at this point. A lot of those senior leaders are going to be retiring. They're going to be stepping out. They're going to be making transitions. And we as a generation, we have to be willing to step up because we're going to be the only choice. And so I just kind of call it out eight specific things that I thought that we as a generation kind of got a bad rap for and how we can overcome those. - And they're deserved, a deserved bad rap in your view. To some extent. - Yeah, to some extent at least. And so basically I kind of outlined why we have an like say entitlement mindset, why we have an entitlement mindset, what that means and how we can move to an honoring mindset. One of the biggest ones that I personally enjoyed writing in the book is unreliable to consistent. And that's kind of goes along with that doing kind of thing. - So let's talk about unreliable to consistent because I mean, I sit down, I'm a defender of millennials. We have a lot of millennials on our team and I just think they're great. But sometimes I go out with business people or church leaders my age. And it can easily become a gripe fest about people under 30 who can't type, don't spell check, they're unreliable, they don't show up when they said they're going to their alarm, slept through their alarm and they're just frustrated and they don't get them. I said, yeah, but sometimes you get your best ideas and a lot of that stuff's coachable. Like go through some of the frustration points that you see with your own generation. So how do you deal with like unreliable? How do you get out of being unreliable? - Well, I mean, I think you have to kind of put some guardrails in your life. One of the things that I love and I guess this may be kind of something a little nerdy, but I love productivity. And so that's one of those things that you have to set up a system, anything that's broken needs a better system. And so you had to kind of set up a system. And one of the things I make in one of the arguments I make in the book is that we can all do things once. If I want to lose weight, I can eat a salad once. I can go to the gym once. But what really separates the people that get their job done is the consistency in their productivity, whether it's getting something done or their consistency and their exercise routine or their diet. It's consistency over a period of time that really causes change. And if we're going to be the millennial leaders that we need to be, we're going to have to be able to do things consistently. And let's take the vision that I would have for a business. If I don't attack that vision consistently from basically the same angle day after day after day, then I'm never going to reach that. I'm never going to get there. I'm never going to be pushing it in different directions. And it's never going to go to the vision that I wanted it to get to. And so we have to become people that are consistent in their behavior and their work ethic and in the things that they do. We don't need to start and stop when it gets a little difficult or stop when we've decided we wanted to do something else. - So is that like self-discipline? Is that what you're trying to describe to some extent? - Yeah, yeah, a little bit, just to some extent. And that may be one of those stereotypes too that we need to overcome. - No, that's good. And I mean, at 29, you're 29, right? You're in charge of a campus of 1,400 people. That's a lot of responsibility. - Sure. - Leaders, and I trust your senior pastor is not a millennial at this point. - No, he's not. No, he's not. - But he saw a millennial and said, okay, this guy can handle it, this guy can take it. - He did. - And that's great, that's great. So you would say you're an A-type. Are A-types underrepresented in millennials? - I would think so. - Really? - If I had to talk. And at the same time, I mean, I'm not someone that is completely devoid of all creativity either. I can think in those terms as well. But yeah, I certainly consider myself a dominant A-type. - So help me understand this then. When you talk to your friends, when you talk to your peers, people you grow up with, people you connect with through your website, your podcast, that sort of thing, other millennials. You look at A-types in the previous generation. What's your critique of older A-types? - Personally? - Yeah, go ahead. - Personally, when working with millennials, one of the biggest things that I see, and I even see it from people that I'm really close to, one of the things that frustrates them, especially the A-types, is a time schedule. I think that's, even my A-typeness doesn't adhere to the time schedule as much as theirs does. And I think that's one of the things we're seeing more and more in the business world too, are bosses and organizations given more freedom with a time schedule. - Okay, so when you say time schedule, help me drill down, 'cause I would be an A-type that's not a millennial. So I'm just asking you, help me look in the mirror. What do you see? - Well, if you want me to, if you have a job for me to get done, and you think it's best that I get there at eight o'clock to do it, but my time schedule and the way that I think does it best in the evenings, let me do it in the evenings, does that make sense? - Yeah, yeah. - And so I think it's really easy, especially in the church that doesn't have to have a time schedule. It's really easy for us to put everybody in the same box and say, these are your office hours, or this is when it has to get done, or this is when we have to have these meetings. But as millennials, we want more freedom than that. - Gotcha. - And it's different than running a store, right? If you're running a store, if it opens at 8 a.m. or 10 a.m., you have to be there at 8 a.m. or 10 a.m. to open it. But you're saying where there's freedom, give us freedom. Am I hearing you right? - Yes, absolutely. - Okay, and so when an A-type person says, look, I'm the first guy in the office, 7 a.m. every day, I just want everyone to be here by nine sharp. Blah, blah, blah, nobody leaves till five, that drives you crazy. - Yes, yes. - Maybe I'm a millennial, that drives me crazy too. I've always been like, - Give me as much freedom as possible. I just don't want to be bound down. - Exactly, and maybe that does sound like I'm like, we're talking about our both sides of our mouth 'cause I'm saying you got to be consistent, but also give us some freedom. But a lot of that's leading myself when it comes to consistency. But give me some freedom in how I get it done. - One of the conversations we've had with younger leaders at Connectsus Church is process versus outcome too. So this isn't in the notes, but I thought this could be a fun thing. So I didn't have a language for this at first, but I'd be like, okay, we need to get X done and have you got an appointment with, let's just pick scheduling. Have you got me a time with Jason down the road? It's like, well, I called him three times. No, no, no. Have you got me an appointment with Jason down the road yet sometime in the next month? It's like, well, you know, I called him and he hasn't gotten back to me. And I'm kind of like, okay, but the outcome I need is I need an appointment with him. So if you need to email him, if you need to go to his office, if you need to get his cell phone number, like whatever you need to do, just do it to get there. Or it's like, did you see all these typos in the worship graphics for the weekend? And the answer would be, well, I proof them. No, no, no, did you see all the typos in the worship? You see what I mean? All the outcome versus process, process versus outcome. And it seems to me like millennials are like, I did what I was supposed to do. I called them three times. I proofed it, you know, but the outcome is still I don't have the meeting or the worship graphics are still a mess. Any comment on that? Is that typical of your generation or? I think that's interesting because as a millennial, I would rather you care about the end result rather than the process. Oh, that's good to know. 'Cause that's what I care about. I'm like, hey, dude, if you can get this done in three minutes as opposed to three hours, more power to you. Yeah, in my experience, those are the people that really lead millennials well, are the ones that care about the outcome. I mean, that's a little bit what I was talking about with the schedule. I mean, as long as I get the outcome, let me do it the way I want to do it. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I think that's a little unique that that's your situation. What are some other things that drive you nuts about the way Gen Xers or boomers lead? You said the A type that insists on a process rather than the outcome, you know, time scheduling, anything else that springs to mind? Authority versus influence. I think it is a big thing. The best leaders have influence before they have authority, I think, a lot of times. And so they kind of build, they build an influence with a group of people before they get the authority to do a lot with it. As a leader of millennials, the worst thing you can do is let us build influence and never give us any authority to do it. There has to be that authority place that comes in a place because once we have the influence, those that are higher caliber, I believe, that unless they have the authority to make a change, they're eventually gonna go somewhere else and influence people where they'll eventually get the authority. And in other words, they don't want to have the influence and that you're of a lot of people and then not be able to do anything with it, not be able to initiate any kind of change because you can only go so far on influence before you butt up heads or with a system or with a rule that you can't get passed unless you have the authority. So don't just give millennials projects but give them the authority to actually capitalize on those projects. - No, that's a good word. Don't just get them around the table but actually give them decision-making ability. - Yeah, and they see through that so often, especially the ones that are actually the ones that you want on your team in the future the most. They're gonna see through that. And the thing that we both know about leaders is if you don't give them a place to lead, they'll find somewhere to do it. And so, yeah, I mean, give them the authority to do what they need to do. Don't just how them around the table because you feel like you need a younger voice, because you feel like you need to say that you listen to the young people. - Right, right. That's good. Now, is there, can you give too much authority at two young age? - Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, you can out authority that influence, I think. But yeah, let them build the influence first but then give them the authority which you're gonna have to be smart enough to know how much to give them and when to give it. - That's a decent rule of thumb, you know, that authority and influence should sort of do a dance together. And if this person has more and more influence and a greater and greater track record, they get greater and greater authority as opposed to saying, you're 22, you're in charge of everything, don't blow it. Which can be a big mistake. On the other hand, I think probably there are leaders who, you know, and I don't know what Hayden Shaw would say about this or what you would say about this, but, you know, I turned 50 under a year ago and, you know, I still think of myself as young. I'm sure not other people do, but, you know, there was a day when, you know, you were 50, your hair was white, you know, you walked with a walker and that was sort of it. I feel better than when I was 30. And so I think there's this sort of false sense of youth in our culture that says, yeah, I'm 45, but I'm still young, but you realize that some of the 25 year olds around the table, you can almost be their father. And so, you know, it's time to give them authority. It's time to give them responsibility and not hang on to it until, you know, you really are behind a walker and can't lead anymore. - Exactly. And, you know, if you don't, if you don't start, at my estimation, at least be in the young guy, but if you don't start to hand it off when you still feel a little young, by the time you're old enough to realize that you needed to hand it off, you don't have a lie to give them. - No, and all the good leaders are gone by then too. - Invest in them early, because we are a loyal generation for the most part, and so, you know, invest early. - Yeah, say more about that. You are a loyal generation. If you see something worth following, you follow? - Yeah, yeah, I think so. Especially, at least personally, you know, when someone invests in me, and that does go back to, we need to be more, we need to be honoring. But once somebody invests in me, I want to invest in them back, you know, I think, even take it to Facebook. If you like my photo, I'm gonna like yours back, and I'm just gonna, but yeah, I think we overall, our loyalty, a loyal generation, look at restaurants we go to, we'll freak 'em with them for a long time, because I think we're loyal. - No, that's good to know, and I've actually experienced that too. I've experienced a lot of personal loyalty from millennials, which is great, which is great. Okay, what do you admire most? We talked about critiques and tension points, but what do you admire most in your elders, Gen Xers and boomers? - For me personally, and once again, it's hard to speak for the entire generation. - Of course, yeah. - But for me personally, the thing that I'm most admired, especially the more experienced that I get, is the hard knock experience that the previous generations have. The intelligence and the wisdom that comes from just doing it is the thing that I admire the most. And I feel like a lot of times in my day-to-day leadership capability or my capacity, that's the thing that I'm most often missing is just this work before, or this didn't work before, just kind of just the spool of hard knocks a little bit. And so that's what I admire, and of course, those things only come through scars and scars only come through battle. And so we kind of have to go through those. But for me, that's what I admire the most, just the experience of wiser and older people. - That's cool, you know, Jonathan, I would say reflecting on a few years now, blogging in a year and a half of this podcast. When I talk to younger leaders, that's probably one of the greatest paybacks for me personally. It's like, gosh, if I could save you five years here, here's the shortcut. Here's the, like, you know, you can do it the hard way if you want to, but I did it the hard way. And so here's what I learned. And I find a really eager audience in younger leaders who actually rather than like, ah, you don't know what you're talking about, or like, wow, thank you so much. And that makes me feel really good. Like I'm really grateful for that. - Yeah, and I think that's a worthwhile investment, of course. And the quicker we can get those things out of the way, the more that we can learn the other things as well. Let's shift gears a little bit in the time that we've got left and talk about the church. So, you know, you lead a large and influential church in your region. I mean, I think it's large by pretty much any standard, 1400 people is a lot of people. How do you see the church differently as a millennial? You personally, you for your generation, what are some of the characteristics? So much has been written about it. And, you know, David Kinemann has done a ton of great research on it. I had him on in episode 24. I'd just love to hear from you, what you see as some differences in the church. - I have the church more as a family, as a community. I think, and I think that's probably pretty much a standard across the board for millennials. I think there was this idea about 20 years ago or so that something needed to change. And it got bigger and it got more showy. It got more, let's come together in a big crowd. But I feel like my generation's pulling that back a little bit. I think we still have to be, we still enjoy being wowed by the show a little bit, but we want there to be authenticity and community in there. And so I think, you know, as we move forward, I think we're gonna see church, at least not, if it doesn't, if the local church doesn't get smaller, it's gonna feel smaller. - Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. - You know, I think we have to have that. Like I said, the community aspect is something that our generation so values. You know, I think we have to provide people with more own ramps for that. I think as church leaders, we have to provide more own ramps for people to create, to get into community. To kind of, you know, to shut that back door, so to speak, the more we can tie them into smaller crowds, especially being larger churches, the more we're gonna hold those people in community. So we have to create more community opportunities. One of the things that I believe is gonna pop up is we have this great small group mentality and environment within the church, especially within our church context. A lot of times, I think we're gonna see small groups move more to a serving kind of group. People that serve together are going to, that's where we're gonna get a bulk of our community as the church, rather than just sitting around studying the Bible. There's gonna be that, but the basis of it, the backbone of it, it's gonna be more service-minded. - Gosh, you know, it's as though you've been sitting around our leadership table at Kinex's church for the last year or two, because that's exactly some of the things we're talking about for the future of our church. It's like, we have gotten bigger, but we need to get smaller, we need to be more community-oriented. And although it's almost heresy in some circles, I would say if people are saying, look, should I serve, or should I get into a group? I'm almost at the point in my leadership where I'm like, you know what, just serve. And if you only have room for one, just serve. I think you will go further faster, I think you will grow in your faith more, I think you will connect with other people even organically. And it's not that we don't value community groups, we incredibly value community groups, we want everyone to be in there, but I think there is something right now, I don't know, in the water supply and our culture just about serving, that really, really makes a difference. And I love seeing, you know, people of all generations serve, but there's something about serving and connecting with millennials that just go hand in hand. - Yeah, and I think as a church, we're gonna have to kind of take a step back and reevaluate and even redefine what community looks like within the local church. - Okay, say more about that. How do you think it would change? - Well, a lot of us are just counting small group numbers for community groups and for how many people are in community. And I think we're gonna have to start, we're gonna have to start counting people that are serving, we're gonna have to try to figure out, I think there's a lot of people in our churches that are doing things with people from our churches, but we don't know about it. And so we're gonna have to try to put some handles on that so that we can get more people plugged into that and so that, not so that we can control it, but so that we can know it and we can help those people and we can invest in groups. - And celebrate groups. - Exactly. - Yeah, we have a half a dozen people who run charitable not-for-profits out of our church that are not connected to our church. And a long time ago, we gave up the thing of let's kind of have a connect a stamp on it or, you know, it's not real if it doesn't come from us and, you know, hopefully we become a community of like micro entrepreneurs and microservice people and micro global missions people who are doing their own thing who happen to worship under one roof and be part of a community that's on mission to make an impact in our community as well. - Yeah, absolutely. - Is that sort of thing you're thinking of? - Yes, yes, yes, yes, exactly. - Okay, that's cool. How else do you see the church differently? What about, let me ask you specifically about music and about the weekend service and the weekend experience, what's your pulse on that? - Well, the cliche word is one that I threw out earlier, authenticity. - Yeah. - You know, that's, I don't even know how much meaning that word has anymore. We've thrown it around so much. But I do think- - It's authentic authenticity, I'm sure it's funny. - That's right. We're just gonna add the word authentic in front of authenticity and it might get even better, but I do think there's some legitimacy to that. I think we have to, we have to authenticate the gospel through our lives and through our Sunday morning services. I think us as millennials, we've grown up with YouTube. We've grown up with the one click of a button, we can hear great music or we can see a great concert that's almost like we're there. And so we've kind of gone from this mentality of come, let us impress you. We have to go from this mentality of come, let us impress you to come look at what God can do even in our Sunday morning services. And so, you know, I really feel like that's, like that's part of it. As far as worship music goes, one of the things I've noticed and I'm sure that I'm not the only one that's talked about this, I actually had a conversation with a millennial friend yesterday. One of the things that I've noticed is I think worship music as a whole is getting more theological. And it's kind of gone from I would wanna use the word deeper and shallow, but it seems to be making this turn to more theological, to more theological, which, you know, if we go back to hymns and those sort of things, those were a huge part of the theological training of the church. And I think we're seeing a shift back to that a little bit and just in a new generation. - I agree, I mean, I think Dan Kimball years ago called an ancient future, that sort of thing. There's more of that for sure. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, that's cool. Anything else you see in the church? We're just all taking notes, Jonathan. - Nothing that I can pinpoint in a podcast. - Okay. - You know, I mean, I think it's obviously gonna change. I mean, we see, you know, we see house churches, you see that sort of thing. I don't know that that's ever gonna necessarily be the norm in our lifetime. I don't know, I mean, you know, I guess it depends on where the rest of our world goes and what's accepted and what's even legal, depending on where you are. I mean, you know, I mean, and so I think we could see some of that. We could see that really take off. I think it has in some places, but it hasn't at least not in the South where I am. And so, you know, some of that stuff could certainly happen, but those are the two really big ones that I think about that question that they come to mind. - When you look ahead in your 39, not 29, and some of your predecessors now millennials would be in their mid 40s at this point, and you guys and women are running the church. How's it gonna be different? Like, when you look at a couple of broad watermarks or stamps that you would go, you know, hey, it's still gonna be the gospel. It's still gonna be Jesus. We're still gonna gather in some way. But what would you say could be different? What would be a couple of hallmarks that you would go? Yeah, it's gonna, this is how I think it's gonna feel different. - Yeah, once again, it's hard to say I keep coming back to the authenticity idea and the community. - For the record? - I think it's huge. I've written about it a lot. We talk to our team all the time about it. Like, people have amazing fake detectors, and if they detect any insincerity in you at all, you're just done. Like, I agree. - Yeah, I agree. - So I'm with you, I'm with you. - One of the things that I particularly see is the expression of worship. I feel like, and maybe it's just, maybe it's just my view as a white Southern Baptist boy who is in a multi-ethnic church now, but I see my generation is being a little more expressive in their faith. - Okay. - You know, not that every church is gonna be a charismatic church in 10 years, but I think there's gonna be new ways to express that. And that goes back to that authenticity thing. I mean, you know, they can see right through fake worship, but they wanna be able to express themselves the way they express themselves. And so I think we're gonna see some of that change and I think we're gonna have even more opportunity for a community moving forward. - Okay, cool. That's helpful. So if you're a millennial looking to make an impact, what are two or three things you can focus on right now to make progress? - Well, that was really the idea of the book. It's funny, you asked that. - Yeah. - You know-- - Go ahead. Tell us a title too. - And then next up, H-shifts great, or H-shifts great young leaders make. And, you know, I keep coming back to that consistency idea. Become a person, become a discipline, become a self-discipline person that can do things consistently, not that you're boring, but I think the more that I read scripture and the more that I look at the character of God, the more that I see that he honors the faithful and the consistent, he longs for our faithfulness. And so, you know, be faithful, be consistent, and be honoring. That's one of those things that just keeps ringing in my head, is be honoring because honor comes back around. I mean, I think if we all talk about the story of Saul and David when it comes to honor, but be an honoring person, honor those above you 'cause I really do believe that comes back around. - That's a good word. And consistency really makes a difference. I have two sons. I'm by no means a perfect parent by any stretch, but, you know, as they finish up university and move into the workforce, I'm amazed to hear from their employers. Like, they just do what they said they were gonna do and they said they were gonna do it. They don't miss deadlines, you know, all that stuff. And they're just like, wow, these kids actually deliver. And that as a boss, as a leader, oh my goodness. Like, I'm craving that. For anybody, I don't care whether you're 60 years old or whether you're 21, you just, you know, do what you said. I always tell my kids, do what you said you're gonna do when you said you were gonna do it and you'll be ahead of 99% of the population. - Yeah, well, we have a 21 month old and one of the things that he loves to do is throw stuff. And so, you know, I'm always telling him, son, you can't throw anything unless it's a ball. All you can, or you can throw as a ball. The other day, I was sitting at the table and I tried to throw something in the trash or something and he looked right at me. And that word consistency just rang through my head. - Oh, man. - You know, that's when you know you've missed the mark. - Owned, owned. - Okay, if you're an older leader, a non-millennial, what are a couple of things you could focus on to make a bigger difference in how you lead millennials? - First of all, I would say is know that your way isn't the only way, you know, and I think that's just a leadership principle overall, is there's the way that you do things and it isn't necessarily the right way. It's not the wrong way 'cause it gets the job done, but know that there's other ways to get it done. And millennials are often fine the other way if there is one, 'cause they kind of paved their own path. Another one is give choices. I think as a millennial generation, we're one that likes choices. We like to be able to pick and choose how we do things, what we do, we like to have input, the authority thing. Don't be afraid to relinquish some authority to those that you believe that deserve it. And one of the biggest things that I see a lot of millennial leaders, or a lot of leaders that are leading millennials not do is trust them. There's a principle at work there that we need to trust until they give us a reason not to. And now it's so often, even those that we've put it in a position of some authority, leaders just don't trust them. And so, you know, give them the opportunity to prove that they can't be trusted. Trust them, let them prove what they can do, or let them disprove who they are. And so trust them, and also don't be afraid to discipline them. If they need it, don't be afraid to. Like I said, that goes back to that authenticity thing. I would much rather hear the truth from you than you try to do some sort of something to correct me in a kind of a passive aggressive way. Just tell me if I did something wrong. So those are some things that I would definitely recommend as you lead young leaders, but believe in us. I mean, we're the future, whether you like it or not. Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna have to put some trust in us. Believe in us, don't let us run wild. Don't give us that too much authority. Don't give it to us all at once. But believe in us, trust us, and let us prove what we can do. - This has been so great, Jonathan, thank you. People are gonna wanna connect with you online. Tell us about where we can find you. - JonathanPierson.net, I'm @ JonathanPierson on Twitter. I was an early adopter, so I got my own name. - How about that? - Awesome. - Yeah, I got mine. Well, actually, there's a fake carrying new Hoff out there, but yeah, I didn't think you'd see new Hoff. Isn't that weird? Yeah. So anyway, and do you still blog at millennialleaders.com? - Well, it's just a reposting site, but there's a lot of leadership articles out there. - Excellent. - And yeah, it's continually updated. - Okay, yeah, 'cause it looked pretty current to me. So that's good. - Absolutely. - Jonathan, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. - Thank you, man. - Man, that was a great conversation. If you want more, you can go to the show notes at carrynewhoff.com/episodes75 and don't forget to register while you can still get the best rates for rethink leadership. It's a premier conference. It's the first time we've ever done this, happening in Atlanta, April 27th through 29th. I would love for you to be there because Andy Stanley's gonna be there, John Acuff, Reggie Joyner, Brad Lomannick, myself, Jeff Henderson, and many, many others, Pete Wilson. He's gonna be there. It's TED style talks, and I think you're really gonna enjoy it. Lots of time for conversation and you're gonna meet people who are trying to do what you're trying to do and you'll have some great conversations with them. So make sure you go to rethinkleadership.com today to get the best rates and hurry before it's sold out. So I'd love for you to be there and love to meet you in Atlanta at the end of April. In the meantime, we are back next week with a brand new episode. Episode 75 is gonna be a lot of fun. I sit down and I have a conversation with Brian Wangler and he has done the amazing job of taking four churches from near-death experiences to vibrant growth. And he's gonna tell us all about it. It's gonna be a fascinating episode in conversation. Couple weeks from now, we got John Burke on the podcast. He wrote one of my all-time favorite books came out last year called Imagine Heaven. We have a fascinating conversation about the afterlife and near-death experiences. Perry Noble is on, and then I'm gonna do an episode soon with Justin Dean. He was a leader at Mars Hill and we're gonna talk about what happened two years after the sort of dissolution of Mars Hill. So fascinating, the way you make sure you never miss an episode is to subscribe. And you can do that for free on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn Radio. So just go there and hit the subscribe button. And if you would be so kind, leave a review. Man, over like 335 of you have left review so far on the US iTunes store and that's amazing. I read every one of them. They're incredible encouragement and fuel. So just thank you. Hey, we'll talk to you next week. Thanks so much, and I hope our time together today has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (gentle music) (gentle music)