The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 074 – The Future Church, Reaching Millennials and Our Biggest Mistakes in Leadership. A Candid Conversation with Geoff Surratt, Brad Lomenick and Carey Nieuwhof
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 74 of the podcast. I'm so glad to have you along. My name is Carrie Newhoff, and I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. Hey, today, a different kind of day. I actually sit down backstage with a couple of my good friends, Jeff Sarat and Brad Lominek. Jeff Sarat has led for years at Seacoast Church, currently at a church in Colorado. Probably one of the best multi-site experts in the world today has done a ton of research, also doing a really cool project, which he should finish soon, on Millennials. And then Brad Lominek for a decade led catalyst. Have you ever been to a catalyst one day or the catalyst conference in Atlanta? You know Brad, he's the guy behind it, has grown it from a very small thing to a very huge global impact type thing. And recently stepped aside, and is now the president of Blink Consulting. So Brad and Jeff and I sat down, and we did something that I absolutely love to do. In fact, it's the very thing that gave birth to this podcast, because I've spoken at conferences for a number of years and had an opportunity. And you know, you always get behind the scenes and you just sit down and you talk. And you know, sometimes you chit chat, but sometimes you just have great leadership conversations. And so Jeff Brad and I were at an event that Orange hosted, and it was called Next, and it was for about a hundred leaders. And I was speaking, Jeff was speaking, Brad was there. And we just sat down, put some microphones out, and had a conversation about the future, about the church, about Millennials, about what's changing, about how things we did well in leadership. Well, mostly actually not that, things we did poorly in leadership and some things that we learned from along the way. And what we think some of the keys to future churches are. Like if you're gonna be effective in the future, what's it gonna take? And I love having conversations like that. And so we actually just got one, we captured one for you, and I thought you would really enjoy that. And that was the heartbeat behind this podcast. Actually earlier today, I talked to Perry Noble, who's coming up on the podcast, and he said, "Man, it's just like you're having conversations "with people backstage." I said, "Yep, Perry, that was the vision. "That was the hope. "Perry'll be up with us in a couple of weeks "on a future episode, by the way." So if you're enjoying this podcast and you're enjoying conversations like this, and sometimes you feel a little bit lonely or a little bit isolated or you're like, "Well, that's fun for you 'cause you know those people, "but I can never have conversations like that." Stop. Because Brad, Jeff, and I are actually organizing an event just for you. It's called the Rethink Leadership Conference, and it's happening in Atlanta, April 27th and 29th, right across the road from where the Orange Conference will be happening at the same time in Gwynette. And it's designed specifically for senior leaders. So if you're a senior leader, perk your ears up right now. If you're a campus pastor, executive pastor, senior pastor, this conference is designed for you. And in a much smaller forum than at the Orange Conference, we're bringing in some pretty heavy hitting talent. We're gonna bring in Andy Stanley. He's gonna be there. John Acuff, Leon's Crump, Reggie Joyner, Jeff Henderson, Brad Lomannick, Pete Wilson, and Jimmy Otto, and others to be added. And in a number of guests that's gonna number in the hundreds, not the thousands, you're gonna be in a room around tables where you will have some amazing conversation leaders. And you'll have a chance to have a real dialogue, like conversations like the one that Jeff and Brad, you know that question you're always asking, and nobody in your domination can answer it, or nobody in your city can answer it. You get to ask it from world-class leaders. It's gonna be very interactive, TED style talks, Q&A, two days together. We're actually three days together, April 27th to 29th, where you get to interact with other senior leaders. And I know for me in leadership, this has been an oasis. Conversations like this have just been incredible, and I'm so thankful for those opportunities. So we wanted to create a leadership event, unlike any other leadership event that I think you've ever been to, that can provide you with that kind of format. So if you're a senior leader and you haven't checked out rethink leadership, I'd love for you right now to go to rethinkleadership.com. It's two days exclusively in this forum, and then the third day, we'll move you right over to the Orange Conference with everybody else where you can hear some of the keynotes that day. So it's gonna be incredible. I'm gonna be hosting the event. I'm so excited for you to be there. And if you want some more information, just go to rethinkleadership.com. That's rethinkleadership.com. The link's in the show notes. And we've got some early bird pricing that's still in effect. So if you're listening to this close to release date, until February 18th, 2016, you can still get the early bird rate. Then after that, if you're listening after, you're like, "Shoot, I missed it." You can still get the advance rate. So you can do that after February 18th, but I would love for you to go there right now. And if you know another senior leader that you'd love to do this with, invite them along and send them the link. It's rethinkleadership.com. Anyway, at that event, we're gonna have conversations just like this. So here's Brad, Jeff, and I, Backstage, talking about the future church, about what we've learned, about what we do differently. And we're looking forward to including you in this conversation in April. - Well, I'm sitting here in Atlanta with Brad Lominek and Jeff Sarat. Hey guys. - Hey, Carrie. - Hey, Carrie. - Yeah. And so Brad, you've been involved for a decade with Catalyst and now our president, chief architect, CEO, creative and visionary behind Blink. Correct? - Yes, which sounds really, really, really like a big deal, but it's basically an inflated balloon with nothing in it. - Okay. - But you. - But me. - Yes, I am insulting. - I'm in that balloon. - You've been consulting and it stands for Brad Lominek Inc. - It does. You just ruined it, Carrie. - I'm sorry. - All these people out there were thinking, Blink, that's so cool. - Well, what I love is you personally co-opted a body movement that everyone has and it's your personal thing now. - Absolutely. - Trademarked it. - Yeah. - Don't blink, T.M. - Yeah, don't blink. - I'm glad we're all. - Everybody thinks that I'm glad we'll really, you know, sort of define the word Blink. I feel like I am. 'Cause mine has a C instead of a K. - Good, nice. - And I'm with Jeff Sarat. One of the, Sarat, Sarat, Sarat. - Sarat, like Royal Rodent, yeah. - Royal Rodent, yeah. - So it's not like, I think in Canada, we'd say Sarat. - You probably would. - Yeah, we probably would. We say process, we say. - You say Sarat, I say Sarat. - Mm-hmm. - Let's call the whole thing off. - That's all the old thing off. - I love it. - And both of you have been guests on my podcast before, but we've done that via Skype, so it's nice. - Who was a better guest? - Oh, come on. - No, seriously. - No, really. - Go ahead. - You're both. - Let us say it on the secret. - That's kind of cool. - Oh, that's nice. - Well, you, yeah, that's the Canadian answer. All I'll have to say is you had to come back twice. - Yeah, so we got Jeff in one take. - I was so good, I wasn't invited right, so yeah. That's awesome. - But Jeff, tell us what you've been up to lately. You're involved in a church in Colorado and-- - Yeah, I work with a church called Southeast Christian Church in Colorado, oversea kind of their weekend stuff, and then Chell around talking about church planting, multi-site, working with church planners around the country and kind of coaching through that. - And he just recently, like in the last hour and a half, he did a pretty awesome job of talking about trends that are happening in the church. - Yeah, it was a highlight for me today. We're at the next event here for Next Gen Pastors in Atlanta with Rethink with Orange. And actually, because we're doing the Rethink Leadership Conference in Atlanta, April 27th, three of us are behind it. We're all gonna be participating in it. But we wanted to create a form like this. What's awesome about this? We just came from dinner with John Acuff and Reggie Joyner, and I mean, it's very interactive. It's very low-key. And we wanna create something slightly bigger, but still very intimate and interactive. At the Rethink Leadership event with like Andy Stanley, let's go through Leonts, Crump. Three of us are gonna be there. - People, too. - John Acuff, Pete Wilson, Jeff Henderson. It's gonna be an incredible lineup. And it's gonna be more like TED style talks, and then some Q&A, and then lots of interaction, lots of collaboration, lots of chance to chat. Because I don't know about you guys, but for me, whenever I get together with other senior pastors, I'll talk about someone's working for you, or how are things going, and you get through all of that. But every once in a while, you get to really good like 30,000 foot level, where as in your talk earlier today, was about six trends for the future church, which something I'm passionate about. I thought it was great. And you don't often get a chance to discuss those leadership issues. It's like, well, here's some sermon tips, or buy the sound board, or hey, we found that this program really worked. But what I think rethink leadership is gonna do is really give us an opportunity to get some practical tips, but to go a lot deeper. Is that sort of the design in your mind behind the conference? - Well, one, it's peer to peer, in the sense that it's senior leaders, lead pastors, those running organizations, or at the top of organizations, who will be hanging out with each other. 'Cause what I've found, and I think what you all would agree with is that we learn the most when we're around those who have similar roles as we do. - And similar-sized churches, too. I find often denominational lines break down and even geographic. So if you're leading a church of 400, but all the other churches in town are 200, I mean, it's great to get together, but you've got unique problems and challenges. When you do an event like re-think leadership, you get other people at your age and stage, or I mean, if you got a church of 1,000 or 2,000, you're definitely in a different lay league, or you've got a church of 50, but you're different than the other people in your denomination. You're looking to find a like-minded person with a church of 50. That's what this is designed to do. So I thought what we do today is just have a conversation about some of the things that we often talk about when we get together, and some of the things that puzzle us, just some of the bigger 30,000 foot view questions. So I wanna ask you, maybe Jeff, I'll start with you. This actually surfs off your talk today, the day we're recording this, but what's changing in the church that you think maybe a lot of leaders aren't seeing that we might be missing. There's some changes happening that might be under the radar. - Yeah, I think I would jump onto one of them, and it's not something that people aren't thinking about, but I think it's changed significantly in the last 10 or 15 years, the idea of collaboration. It's kind of a buzzword a little bit. We need to collaborate, but what I've found is collaboration for my generation meant, I wanna know what decisions were made so that I'll know how I can participate in that decision. When I was younger, that was kind of the thing. I wanna know, you're in the room, you're making, the leaders are in a room making decisions, tell me what those decisions were, communicate with me. And then I think a generation younger than me would say, well, I wanna voice at that table, I don't need to make the decision, but I wanna voice at the table. What I'm finding with young, particularly young leaders is they don't want to just be at the table, but they want to know not that their voice is just heard, but they're actually a part of making the decision. They're shaping the vision of where we're going. And so I think what I see in the churches is emerging is a tension between the visionary leader, I know where we're going, just follow me. And the younger leaders saying, well, I think we probably should be going in this direction a little bit. So that's a trend I see as much more younger leaders wanting to collaborate in a way that they feel like and truly are helping shape where are we going and what are we gonna do? - Yeah, that's a big trend. And I think depending on your generation or stage, that can feel weird or it can feel like a real threat. I mean, if you're used to being the top down guy who's sort of like, hey, I prayed about it, here's where we're going, here's what we're gonna do. What does that do to younger leaders? Does that disenfranchise them? I mean, Brad, you've worked in a millennial organization, catalyst, lots of young leaders, Jeff. I mean, how does a millennial hear that? - Well, I was just, Jeff, when you were saying that, I was just picturing many times on, I don't watch C-SPAN on a regular basis. For those of you who do watch C-SPAN, Lord bless you. - No judgment. - No judgment. - No judgment. - But the times I've seen political things in action, many times in DC, this is no judgment on our political system, but I'm picturing your word description as the opposite of many times what you will see today, which is these powerful leaders sitting at a conference table or at the hearings or whatever. And they've got all these interns or young leaders behind them who are kind of like in the back row or second row or third row or fourth row, all sort of taking notes. But none of them are at the table, having the conversation and actually part of the decision, which is to me a totally different picture in terms of what its collaboration really looked like, which is now you're creating a conference room table that you're inviting young leaders to set at the table with you as well as then be part of the decision. 'Cause it's one thing to set behind the table or on the side of the table, like you said, it's one thing to set at the table, whole another thing to set at the table and actually be part of the conversation. And I would say if you're one of those leaders who is leading and you may be older or younger, part of your role is to give, not only bring those young leaders to the table and let them talk, but then actually let their decisions be part of the process going forward. 'Cause many of us will go all the way to the edge and say, oh, it's great, young Jimmy, that you said something now at our staff meeting, but at the end of the day, your opinion really doesn't matter or your idea really doesn't matter. And part of our job as leaders is to actually lean in and give them permission to not only speak what they wanna say and to have ideas they bring to the table, but actually implement their ideas. And that's really hard for a lot of leaders because we think our ideas are always the best every single time. - Well, they are. - But that's not consultation, you what you're saying. It's collaboration. - Yes, exactly. - And I think sometimes it's easy as a senior leader to think I consulted. - Yes. - So they're forcing you. I heard their opinion. - I heard some of you guys. - But here's my decision. You're talking about something totally different. - Yeah, where I get a phrase I get frustrated with, I hear it once in a while in a church world is failures, not an option. And I think that phrase has gotta go away. I think the reverse is failure is always an option. So if you have a 25-year-old sitting at the table that's as sharp as can be, they wanna run with the ball in a direction that you're not sure is gonna work. I think where we had is we don't let them do foolish things, but at the same time, we're there if they do fail to say, "You know, let's learn from this, let's grow." That's, failure's great, we love it. I think in this collaborative thing, we have to allow very young, less qualified leaders to fail, and it's not the end of the world. It's just pick it up and let's keep going. - So let me drill down a little bit further on this, 'cause I think this gets to the heart of a lot of people's fear and reservations. I mean, how much authority and responsibility to give a young leader, you know, particularly because they are gonna make mistakes. I mean, do you throw them the whole ball? Do you let them fail on the side? I mean, do you give them a little bit, or do you like not hear some major responsibility and if it goes wrong, we'll talk about it. Like, what would you say? - I would add, I would say as much as possible. - Wow. - Like, if you're leaning that way, if your default is as much as possible in terms of responsibility and authority, positional responsibility, positional authority, but also non-positional responsibility and authority. And what I mean by that is, like, if you're only letting them have responsibility because of the title they carry, that's a dysfunctional organization and environment. Because a lot of those young leaders are gonna say, well, I don't have the title. So does that mean I don't have any influence? And that that's not true. So you've gotta be willing to push at every point and say as much as possible. And it creates schizophrenia, it creates a lot of messiness, but if you want young leaders to hang around you, that's what you have to create. - I'm so glad you mentioned that. And that's almost another trend in and of itself, like the disappearance of titles, right? - No question. - And I think that's part of the shift to millennial leadership, sort of the next generation, what's next? But I think that's part of collaboration as well, right? You don't just get the executive vice presidents or the executive pastors or the senior leadership team or the management team around the table. You're talking about actually maybe even asking an intern what they think and giving them serious responsibility. That's one piece of feedback that connects this church we've had from our interns is, they'll often come in at 18, 19, 20 years old. And they're like, oh my goodness, if I don't do my job, like something really serious goes wrong. And it's the first time they've ever been in a situation where like the weekend service can go off the rails because you weren't paying attention on Thursday. And I think that's a wonderful wake up call. That means sometimes you're in scramble mode Sunday morning as the guests are pulling the parking lot too though. - One of the things I love is you look at, guys look back, of course is Jesus. So Jesus at the end of his ministry looks at a bunch of basically young guys and they were from zero to where they were in three years. So they had had three years at best, at best three years of training. He looks at him and says, "Here's the deal guys, go make disciples, "not gonna tell you how, all right, it's yours, I'm out." And when I look at that, I think if Jesus would risk the most important mission the world has ever seen on three people, he spent three years with developing and three young or 12, 11 really at that point, young leaders. - Like none of them is over 40. - Exactly, all the way down to we believe John may have been a teenager and Jesus just handed it to him. I think sometimes, I don't think we should be reckless, but I think we hang on too hard, too long, worried what'll happen. I think honestly, I'm in my fifties. I honestly think my job right now is to cheer younger leaders on and then be there to help them clean up the mask 'cause it's inevitably gonna come. I think that's what my role is, not to just be, here's what you gotta do, here's how you do it. My role is, I don't know how do you think you gotta do it, all right, and then come help 'em learn from the mask. - Yeah, and don't sit and pontificate either, or tell them exactly what to do. That could be another mistaken collaboration too, right? Like telling them, okay, Brad, glad you're around the table. Here's exactly what you should do. Hear the 15 steps, go do it. - 'Cause that's Grochill's thing of you're giving them lots of responsibility in that case, but no authority, you're giving them task to complete, you're not giving them the authority to figure out how they complete those tasks best, and that's, you're basically cutting the legs out from someone to be able to do it. Not necessarily the way they wanna do it because they're the cowboy and they're the rebel, but it's harder to lead that way, but it's more effective if you want young leaders hanging around you. - This is good, we're gonna come back to millennials and leading younger leaders, and we'll talk about that a little bit. Any other trends you see in each other-- - Raise your hand if you're a millennial, here at the table. - Yeah, you know, nobody. - Nobody, uh-oh, apparently we have failed. I know we have a ton of millennial leaders, though, like a lot of under 35s who listen to this podcast. - Raise your hand if you're a millennial listening to the podcast. - Lots of hands went up. - But the challenge for us, I mean, sometimes as a millennial, you need to lead up. Like you need to help somebody in their 40s or 50s who is raised in a different generation understand your generation, and that could, in part, actually I talked to a guy today who told me about episode 29 and it's like this, he's got this young leader in her 20s that started as some kind of ministry assistant in a large mega church. You know, I don't know, 2,500 people, it's not huge, but I mean, that's a big church. And now three years later, she's almost in an executive position and she handed off the episode, the interview I did with John Stickle, episode 29 of this podcast to their leadership team who sent it to the elders and they're going on retreat to discuss how to collaborate even on the vision level with millennials. That's an example of what you can do. You know, even as a young influencer in your organization to help, obviously, you know, the board is not gonna be composed of 22-year-olds for the most part and most churches. So, you know, it's leading up and learning how to do that. - It's good. - All right. What else you see in the church that you think leaders might be missing? - You know, one thing I'm seeing and I would be curious to see if you all would agree with this is more and more mergers and acquisitions. - Yeah. - And I remember having a conversation with Dave Travis from Leadership Network like four years ago and he was saying, hey, you know, I see this coming and I kind of thought, interesting. Like, let's watch the landscape but you're starting to see more and more of it. At first, it was because of like-mindedness, it was friends, it was key like partners that, you know, were really tightly aligned. Now you're seeing a lot of small churches who are saying, hey, will you come and basically acquire us and help us do what we do better? Which, you know, I'd love to hear from you guys if you think that's good or bad, but I know this. They're, you know, even in the UK, this is happening significantly across a lot of the UK and of Europe, especially in the UK where you've got a lot of 100 to 200 to 300 to 400 year old churches and properties, locations, that now have, you know, 10 people showing up at most. And they're saying to the churches in the UK that are thriving, hey, will you come in and basically take us over? And so that, I just, I see that as a really, and it's not denominational driven, it's not built around the premise that you have to be in this hierarchy or silo in order to participate. It's across lots of different streams and friendship circles. - And you're right, it's bottom up not top down. - Yeah, that's a good way to say it. I know a guy in Canada, Graham Singh, and I mean, now he's starting to work with denominational headquarters to say, "Hey, you're shuttering like 1,000 across the country. "Can we talk?" But that takes an awful lot of sophistication and diplomatic skills and so on. But I definitely see that as a trend. Jeff, you've done a ton of work in multi-site. I mean, one of the leading experts today on it is are you seeing more and more mergers and acquisitions? - Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I used to work at a church called Seacoast Church and we had three mergers, acquisitions, and then we walked away or they walked away from five to 10 more possibilities. And since that time, I've seen a huge trend of that. And I think there's some real positive things to that. I think a couple of things though that worry me a little bit. One is sometimes we can fall in love with the possibility. We can fall in love with the opportunity. I had a mentor tell me one time, opportunity is often temptation in disguise. And so, look at this building and look at these people. Well, does that community, is it look at all like your original community? Is there health there in that church and to really be cautious about why are we doing this? What is the why behind the acquisition? And it can't just be great opportunity. And then the other side that I see sometimes is sometimes we wouldn't lie, we're church leaders, right? So we would never lie. Never. But we'll make the truth look as pretty as it can. We may exaggerate. Because we've fallen in love with this acquisition. And so, when they start saying things like, can we keep this leader? Can we continue our service? Can we, what about our worship leader that we just love? He's 104, but oh, we love him to death. I think it's really important. It was literally. Yeah, I think it's really important that if your church starts walking down this acquisition direction, you gotta have really hard conversations. One of the things that I'm not recommending that churches do this, but I said that several walked away when they came to us to be acquired. One of the questions I asked is, okay, you become a part of our church. A year from now, leadership at our church makes the decision to sell your building and use those assets in another part of the country. How does that go? And I always say, we're not doing that. That's not our plan. But by the way, if we're one church that has to be okay, people often walk away from the table at that point, but that kind of gets to the, are we really, really gonna become one? Or are you just looking for a lifeline? Are you just looking for someone to say? Are you gonna give us life? Are you gonna give the mission life? That's great. That's perfect. That's a great question. I definitely see that. And I see it bubbling up. And I'm excited that more and more churches are thinking that way, you know, always from what I see, you know, the leaders, the churches with the money and the, sorry, with the people tend not to have the money or the building. And the churches with the money or the building tend not to have the people. And it would be great if there would be a swap, I think. I know one of the changes I see in the church for sure is pace of change. I think, I think instant communication, social media, hyper-connectivity. I mean, even, you know, you look at where smartphones have come. It wasn't even 10 years ago, we didn't have the iPhone. And I mean, the internet on all your phones was fake, right? Like, you ever try to access a webpage in 2006 on a blackberry? - Right, it took like an hour. - It did take an hour and you got a quarter of the webpage. Like, that wasn't really connectivity. But now we're all connected. Trends are faster. Fashion changes faster. And I think ideas change faster. And I think sometimes we can think we're really relevant and we're really contemporary, but we're actually surfing off of ideas and methods that were more effective a decade ago than they are now. And so one of the things I look forward to when we, you know, open the doors at the end of April at rethink leadership is you actually get a chance to sit down in real time with a couple hundred other people and probably a dozen around your table or whatever who are actually making change, actually looking at what's happening and you get to discuss real issues in real time. And I think those, because the trends can be deceiving and you can become a bad implementer of what you thought you read at some online conference that lasted, you know, 30 minutes or some blog post you read that you said, "Oh, we're gonna try this or that." And so I think the actual dissection of ideas and digestion of ideas is in danger of becoming a lost art. - What was yours? You said something today that I wrote down and I don't have my notebook in front of me, but some of the medium and the message. - Yeah. - Is that right? - Did I? - Yeah. - Oh, that's good. Well, I was probably quoting Marshall McLuhan. But yeah, the medium changes, but the message stay the same. The methods and the mission. - Sorry, that's in the mission, yes. - That we often confuse methods with mission. And what happens is we fall in love with a method. It's like, oh, look at all these lights, you know, or hey, I need-- - Which is trend and which is-- - Which is trend. - Changing now at a speed that is really hard to keep up with. - Right, or take this podcast, you know, I need to do a podcast or whatever. Podcasting is pretty hot right now. All I'm doing is, you know, with my podcast, people are like, well, why do people listen to it? All that, it's like I'm taking all the backstage conversations I used to have and that we would, you know, we were all at dinner a few minutes ago. The stuff we talk about at dinner and just putting a microphone in front of it. And because these conversations rarely got aired, they rarely came into public. So it's a new method, it's an old mission, which is really just trying to help church leaders, trying to help people. - I would just, I don't know if we're still on trends. - Okay, go ahead. - We may want to move on to another topic. - No, no, no. - You know, the friend circle, the denomination has now become a circular table in the sense that you watch what's happening with ditches and with younger leaders, especially. They're not anti-denominational. They're not anti-big event. They're not anti-thousands. What they are is they're pro-conversation and they're pro, put me in a table, literally and figuratively with the people I want to do life with. And so all these little niches that you see with, you know, the, they're like these little gangs of church leaders that you see. And then you see them on Instagram and on social media and they're kind of always with the same people. That's not because they're arrogantly connected only to a certain circle of folks and they want to be anti-everybody else. It's just, that's the way that people are now doing life. - It's affinity. - It is. - So in other words, you might all be Methodist, you might all be Presbyterian, you might all be Baptist, you know, in your area, your denomination, but actually your tribe, if I understand what you're saying, is like, okay, there's a Pentecostal in it, there's an independent, there's a non-denominational. - It's across the board. - It's affinity. - And there is a huge, I don't know if it's an attraction to, I want to be involved with people who are different than me, but when you start looking at these circles of churches who have friendships, there's no lines like there used to be. And I think that's a really healthy thing. I think it's, and you see it across a number of different arenas and outlets. - I agree, I think what's fascinating is, you know, I grew up in a hierarchical type of thing and then I'm sorry, hierarchical. - He just broke his phone. - Sorry, hierarchical, hierarchical, our denomination and then we knew who our bishop was and we knew who all of those things and that's where we related. What I've seen is exactly what you're describing as the hub and there's a commonality, but they're connected, but here's what I'm seeing now, especially among church planters. There's a church planter is a part of five of those or 10 of those or 15 of those. It drives me crazy. - It's not even one net. - No, just arc. - So they'll come to me and they'll say, "Hey, Jeff, I'm thinking about doing this." So when I think in my head, "Oh, they're part of my hub, so I'll tell them what to do." So I tell them what to do. And then they say, "Well, I already talked to Greg "and I already talked to Steven "and here's what they said." And I'm like, "Dude, just do what I tell you to do." But that doesn't happen anymore. And I think that's part of this change thing that we're seeing is the connectedness is going, I mean, more than just across the nomination lines, it's multiple levels of connection. - Yeah, your personal ocean is fed by multiple streams. There's a really bad metaphor. - Wow, no. - I'm tweeting it as we speak. - Personal ocean fed by multiple streams. - I'm Brad's phone man. - I'm strong, right? - I'm using Brad's phone. - Tweet that folks. - Brad's phone. - As I like to do now, verbal response. That's it, that's it. That would be my way. If you were preaching that. - Oh, that would be that's it. - I would have been in your congregation and that's-- - Come on. - Come on, come on. - No, it can't be. - Come on. - Because we haven't taken up the offering. That can't be it. - Bring it. - All right. - Retreat. Hashtag that thing. - There you go. - If I were to rescue this with a question, we've all worked with some pretty exceptional leaders over the years and had a chance to hang out with them. And, you know, we're gonna have some at the conference of the event. Of all the top leaders you've worked with or seen or, you know, had the chance to meet, what are some of the common characteristics you see? I've just like, wow. - I'll throw out one to start with and we can round table it or whatever. I am so attracted to people and leaders, especially at the highest levels that take interest in the lowest levels of people. And this has been, you know, in the circles of power, you start to see where people are looking for the next person to look over their shoulder. Compared to like, no, I'm connecting to you, whoever's in front of me. And the leaders I admire, the most, the ones who they dial it in with whoever's in front of them. - No social climbing, no like, you had a chance. I mean, a decade behind the scenes a catalyst. You've had everybody walk through that green room. - Yeah, well, and you start to notice the people who are truly authentic in their approach to conversations and relationships, but you also notice the people who are everyone who's put in front of them, they honor. And it's a real temptation that the higher you go up, the latter of power and influence, the more likely you are to only want to associate with those who are peers of yours. Compared to the, you know, the young 22 year old who is annoyingly emailing you multiple times or hitting you on social media, and you start to look at them and think, I don't have time for you. - Yeah. - And my, you know, the thing I was told by John Maxwell, when I was young and stupid, still am, I'm just older and stupid now, is he said the way you treat those who are young when you're old will all be based on the way you were treated by those who are old when you're young. And I've found it to be so true. Like the people that I was most impacted by, I think built into me a premise that said, Brad, when you arrive, whatever, and I'm quoting in, you know, in the air, when you arrive, make sure you stoop down and reach down, you know, the mountain that you're on and pull people up to your level. - Yeah. - And so that's a huge one for me that I really found in people that I admire. - I love that you said that. I'll use one from just an example, not from the US. I was at a church in India, pastor, influential pastor, church of 40, 50,000 people, and eight services on the weekend, and people just come in and come in and come in. And I saw an older lady, Hindu background, and she tugged a little bit on his shirt and wanted to talk to him. And in the middle of these thousands and thousands of people, a leader recognized across India, I saw him stop, I saw him stoop down, I saw him listen, actually listen, and then pray for her. Now he didn't divert for an hour, but he told that woman, in that moment, you are important. And I've seen, I know exactly what you're saying, the leaders that do that to me are amazing. And I think people would be surprised how many of the highly known leaders do have that spirit. There are those who don't, but there are many who. - Yeah, and maybe that's one of the reasons God has given them influence or they have influence. And I wonder, sometimes you think, oh, I wish I was more like that. But for me, it's a discipline. If I do that well, it's because I'm paying attention. It's because I'm reminding myself in the moment. Another trend I've seen is these leaders, and I mean, whether it's a podcast guest or whatever, I'm surprised at the number of times they'll say your name. You know, that really impacts me. - Yeah, that's good. - Or they've done a little bit of research on you. So even though you may be cold calling them, by the time you actually get to the interview, they're like, "Hey, Carrie, appreciate your reading." Or, you know, in the middle of an answer, they'll be like, "Well, Carrie." And I'm kind of like, "Whoa." Like there is a power in hearing someone say your name. And particularly someone you respect or admire or think, "You know, I'm a bug on your windshield." Like, I don't matter, you know? And if they take time to remember your name, know your name, and care about you, last summer I met Ravi Zacharias. Had all the time in the world for me and my wife remembered her name at the end of the interview when we were done this thing we were doing for TV. And, you know, he was just so, so kind. And you think, man, this is a guy who's spoken to like tens of millions of people and has met hundreds of thousands of people personally. But, I was the only person in the room that day, me and my wife, and so gracious and knew our names. - Yeah, that's good. - That's great, Casey. I really appreciate it. - No, thanks a lot. - Thanks a lot, Ken. - No problem, Greg. Yeah, so. - Have you ever been confused for your brother? - Every single week, sometimes daily. - Every day, every day. - Not that I'm sensitive about it. My brother's name is Greg. And I get called Greg. - Greg Serad, Jeff Serad. - And he takes credit for books I've written. - Are you older or younger? - Oh, that's ugly. (laughing) - Oh, I was gonna say you're younger. - All right, friends in your juncture, sarcasm, joking. Any other, any other characteristics you've seen in top leaders? - Well, I mean, we could go through tons of them. I mean, there's the obvious ones that top leaders are willing to risk. Another one that I just have always found is that they're learners and they're curious. And going back to your point of that, there's a sense that they know your name, there's the curious leaders that they have an insatiable appetite to want to learn from you, regardless, again, of who they're standing in front of. - Right, so they've got, they're leading something 10 or 100 times the size you are. And they're like, tell me how you do your weekend services. - Exactly. - Tell me how you got started. What? And you're like, why would you even care, man? I'm here with my notebook open, but they do. They ask you questions. - Yeah, I remember, there was a Chick-fil-A executive that several years ago, I was traveling to Atlanta a lot and I would go and try to spend time with them. And I sort of prided myself on being able to ask really good questions and make the other person the center of the conversation. And I met my match, John Featherston. And I don't know if John listens, but John, if you're listening, I love you. But we were like, it was like a, the duel at the okay corral of who could ask more questions and who could be more inquisitive and more curious in the conversation. And at the end of it, I don't think either one of us gave any answers. We just like continued to ask questions, but it was that sense of, no, I really do want to learn from you and the power in a conversation. And especially if you're young, this is like a Brad recommends, if you're young, the greatest way for you to get credibility in a conversation is to ask a good question. Don't feel like you have to give a good answer 'cause that's really hard to do. - Yeah, and I've seen these leaders who they take power in any conversation or any relationship because they're such good question-askers. - That's such a good point. - Anything else that comes to your mind? - Something I see a lot is a, it's just a quiet confidence and not to pander, but I'm here with Carrie and with Brad, both what I would call some of the best leaders in the country. And I see that in both of you. There's not a need to prove what you know. There's not a, there's not an arrogance there. But at under that, you guys don't shy away from the fact that you are leaders and you understand leadership and you're very confident in that. And I think that line, I see that a lot in top leaders, that line between arrogance and proving myself and that line that says, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not gonna be falsely humble. I know I can lead, but I don't have to, I don't have to put that out there in front of everybody all the time. - Yeah, you, I have seen that and I mean, I won't comment on myself other than to say, hey, a 20 year battle within security, you just keep wrestling it down and maybe eventually God wrestles that out of you or whatever. But yeah, I've seen that. It's not a pride, but it's not a false modesty either. It's like, oh, I really don't know anything. And I'm, yeah, I know you're joking when you said you're stupid, but like, the leaders that don't go around, I don't know anything. I'm under, like there's a certain point at which, come on, you do know something and it's just being comfortable and realizing, hey, okay, maybe I've got some expertise. Maybe God has helped me with this, but how can I use that to serve you? You know, there's, I think there's a way of using your expertise or there's a way, and I think a counselor told me this years ago, he says, you know, you can use knowledge as a weapon and you really, really can. You can use knowledge as a weapon. I was trained as a lawyer. I mean, that's basically what you do is you go into court and use your knowledge or what you think you know as a weapon. And not every lawyer does, but I mean, that's, if you're gonna be good in court, that's what you do. But you can use your knowledge to serve people. And in the very best leaders I've seen, it's like, wow, they know a lot, but they're very interested in you, it's very personal. And you can tell that the goal in that conversation is to help you make progress. And I've always admired that when I see it. And you know, the other thing I'll say whenever this subject comes up is, you know, I haven't met everybody, but I met a few leaders, you know, backstage and what is delightfully refreshing for me is most of them aren't like different than what they seem to be. They're just honestly like real people, they're authentic, they're not like, you know, they don't have a whole entourage and they didn't come with the private jet, you know, and can't have any bread M&M's. - Not that there's anything wrong with that, right? - Not that there's anything wrong with that. - Jesse's parked out in the, yeah, I was gonna say Brad, I saw Brad's on the way over, so. - Well, one day when I have one, there'll be nothing wrong with it. - I just wanna drone, I don't even wanna jet, I just wanna drone. - So you can drone, watch people. - You know, hey, if you weigh under five pounds, if you keep losing weight, like you have been even taking such good care of yourself, under five pounds, Amazon can deliver you on their, on their drones. - How'd Brad get to this conference? Well, he was delivered by Amazon. - It was dropped from my drone. - He was released. So anyway, now let's look back because we've all had, you know, Brad, you've just passed 40, I'm around 50 and Jeff is just, you know, barely passed. - Significantly older than two of us. - Significantly older than two of us put together. - Exactly. - Not, not at all. Looking back on a couple of decades or a decade of leadership for each of us, what would you advise yourself to do as a younger leader? 'Cause we have older and younger leaders listening. So it's like, you can talk to 25-year-old Brad, Jeff, or Carrie. - Gosh, how long do we have? - Yes, it's long-form podcasting. So this could be like a three-hour episode, Brad. - I mean, I've got a really long list of stuff that I was not great at. And this is like, as recent as a few months ago. You know, maybe it's not like-- - Oh, when you were young. - Yeah, it's not like-- - Back then. - The way back machine, it's potentially, you know, yesterday. But one thing I would say is, I wish I would have celebrated more. And, you know, as an ambitious type A, Heidi, the mountain was always in front of me that felt like it had to be climbed. And I wish I would have stopped much more often. And it's not that I would have lowered the bar at all. Or I would have mitigated any kind of intensity, but more of that sense that you create a rhythm of celebration. And, you know, I just, I always felt like celebration was sideways energy. - Me too. Or like maybe if you celebrated, you wouldn't take the next step. Did you ever feel that way? - Yeah, I felt like maybe that was the end of the journey. - A jinx or a curve. - Yeah, we just basically created our own false sense of the finish line compared to, no, we still look guys like there's another mountain. And we have to climb that one. And I think a lot of that was insecurity, Carrie. I mean, you said it and I, now looking back, I would say that a lot of that was my own immaturity as a leader to feel like that I had to create this environment that everybody had to live by the same rules I did, which was that I couldn't stop and celebrate. And everybody on the team was going, we're not gonna get lazy on you all of a sudden because we had a party. - Yeah. - In fact, we're gonna work harder. - Yeah, you know, that, I'm glad you said that because I was trying to isolate it as you were going through that I'm not very good at celebrating. But I think there's that fear that we're gonna stop working and everyone's gonna get lazy. What the heck is that? - Right. - That you've created a culture now that is just party central. - Right, right. - I'm gonna be a slacker. - Right, right. - Everybody is all the slackers. - Everybody else is saying, I will work harder for you and for this vision and mission and alongside you because of the fact that you're self-aware enough of our team that we need to stop and have some benchmark moments of fun and celebration and enjoying the journey. - Yeah, that's a really good lesson. - You know, a freeing thing along that line brought for me and I'm keep going back to the, to the gospels 'cause I am the most holy of the three. - You really are, I mean, you keep bringing up scripture. Jesus looked a long time. - I looked one time when Jesus went to Sidon and the Syrophoenician woman and all of that, I didn't realize on a map, I looked at a map. That's a long ways away from the rest of his ministry and it's on the beach. And I don't know if this is theologically correct, but it seems like Jesus took a beach trip 'cause he was over it. - Come on. - And then the Syrophoenician woman came to him in his vacation and as I read that, I thought not that Jesus sinned in any way, but at the same time, Jesus went, I gotta have some time off. I gotta go celebrate, I gotta go get away. And so that was very freeing for me. I'm not a celebration kind of guy. - You're not either. - So you're breathing on-- - Either any, neither. - Well, there's no time to celebrate 'cause that's great, we did that, but we need to move on to what's next. And so you celebrate, oh, hey, have a cupcake, that's awesome. - Right. - But we need to-- - Yeah, here's a gift card. - Keep it up. - Exactly. - Here's a gift card, spend it on your spare time. Let's go back to work. - Yeah, I think if I could go back, maybe go back to something Brad said while ago, I wasn't a good question-asker person when I was in my 20s. I always felt like I needed to prove myself, I always needed to make sure my ideas were pushed out there. And when I was, I was thinking when did that kind of start to shift for me, eventually I was partnered in ministry with a guy who had led Fortune 500 companies and just, he was so far in leadership and business and everything else, so far above, anything I was ever going to achieve, that I was able to step back and go, I'm not bringing anything to the table. And so I just asked, I just constantly asked, we flew around the country and while we're flying, I felt like I got an MBA on the back row of Southwest Jets going around the country. And it was that time when I realized what I wish that in my 20s, I could have been comfortable enough with myself to learn from everybody and I wasn't. I was competing with everybody. - Wow. - That's really good. - That's a good word, I can resonate with that. I don't think I ask great questions in my 20s or even early 30s and I'm trying to compensate for that. The one thing I would say to me at 25 is study trust. I didn't get trust right. I'm a naturally very trusting person. I guess I didn't have horrible scars in my childhood or whatever, that took that away. And I think I trusted everybody. And I think that I always choose trust, not suspicion, but I think I over trusted people that probably weren't worthy. Maybe they were worth like, here's my wallet, here's a key to my house, whatever. That kind of trust, but we're not the right people in leadership. And trust is confidence, at its heart, trust is confidence. And I put confidence in people in an undisserning way. In other words, I'll let people who probably shouldn't be in leadership, be in leadership. I wasn't discerning enough, I didn't know how to say no. Then, of course, pendulum always swings. I spent a chunk in my 30s where I didn't want to trust anybody because obviously I'd made some mistake. I trusted too much, you overcompensate. I got to a season in my life where I didn't want to trust anybody anymore and it was kind of my way. And now I realize, oh, trust has to be exercised judiciously. And everybody's trust worthy at some level and somebody's less somebody's completely toxic, at which point I agree with Henry Cloud, when he talks about necessary endings, it's like, okay, you call the police or you do whatever. But most people can be trusted in some area. It's just you really have to have wisdom and discernment to figure out who can be trusted in leadership, who can be trusted with certain levels of information or confidence. And I think I've got a much better, not a perfect sense by any stretch, but a much better sense of that today. But it was a real pendulum swing from everybody to nobody to hopefully closer to a good sense of who to trust, how and when, so. - That's good. And is that for you, was that a people-pleasing thing as well? Would you say or was it? - I think it was like naivete. Some of that was people-pleasing. Some of it is A-type. Like when I got into the don't trust anybody, then it's like, well, I'll just do it, you know, I'll do it myself. And then you realize, well, that doesn't scale, you know, or it'll stall out. So yeah, trust is one that just took me a lot of lab work to figure out and counseling and leadership coaching. And I think I would have been a better leader earlier if I'd figured that out sooner. - Yeah, that's awesome. - Okay. Well, a few failures you've learned from the most. Let's like- - You know, I wish I could chime in, I haven't failed. - Amen. - We're hoping you will soon, Jeff, just so you can- - Or you keep bringing the Jesus stories to the table. - Right, Sherry's in town. - We can get your wife. - Let's get Sherry out on the podcast. - How was Jeff? - How was Jeff failed today? - You mean like in the last hour? - We ran out of hard drive space. - I'll jump in on the failure side. I, again, the list is long. You know, the people pleaser, going back to you, Kerry, what you said, the people pleaser in me, although very ambitious, I also have a high degree of connectedness and empathy. And I want people to like me. And I tended to, over the course of my career, in many places, I would say yes to things that, you know, I kind of do in my gut. - Yeah. - We're not necessarily a good decision. You know, one of those especially with catalysts was there was a certain year when we lost our compass. - Yeah. - And we said yes to a lot of things that were based on sponsors and based on a lot of reasons that should have been the deciding factor. - Right, right. - It's not mission or reasons, not purpose reasons. - Yeah. And it was a huge like failure, a leadership on my part. 'Cause I was willing to let it happen compared to stepping in and not making sure it didn't happen. - Gotcha. - And I guess the failure would be as a leader, I had a lot of those times when I just allowed things to happen compared to actually like making the decision to either not let them happen or to make sure that if they were happening that I was approving it or validating it or putting a stamp on it, compared to well, it's out of my hands, you know, and I'm wiping the slate clean. And that's really, it's really an easy out for leaders but it's really costly a lot of times. - Yeah. - Even though you're in charge and you can look at certain things across the landscape of your leadership journey and say, "Well, I didn't make that decision." That just happened to me. Well, did it happen to you or did you actually allow it to happen to you? - Right. - That's really good. How about you? Have you figured out how you failed now, Jeff? - I failed over and over. - You have one, at least, right? One, you know, when I was in fashion time. - When I was, I think in my 30s, I passed her to a little church in outside of Houston, Texas and I went in with this picture of what this church was gonna be and where it was gonna go. And over a period of two and a half years, I saw some growth in the church. People come to Jesus, but I saw my family unraveling. I saw myself kind of coming apart. I lost confidence in some of my leadership ability and I've looked back for 15 years, 20 years at that and going, "Wow, what a failure." And in the last, really, probably five years, I've really kind of understood some mistakes that I made in that. One mistake was I played into the comparison thing. I just looked at what all my friends were doing or what it was before Twitter, but I wasn't hitting the marks that I thought that everybody else was hitting. And so that went deep inside. And then there were some pretty significant, scary changes that needed to make, we needed to move locations and I was too afraid to make that. And so I leaned into what was comfortable. I leaned into what was easier. And then really the biggest mistake that I've learned from that is instead of growing, instead of working on my marriage, which was unraveling, instead of working on my leadership, I quit. I walked away from the church. I went into doing teaching computer software, which is fine, but that wasn't where God really wanted me. And looking back, I needed to grow as a husband. I needed to grow as a leader, but instead, what I did is I quit and I quit too soon. - Wow, that's good. I got two, I failed twice. - No, I mean, I got lots, but, you know, one was not going to counseling earlier. And speaking, you know, I think leadership is hard on marriage. But one of the things we really ran into was just my wife was said, like, you've got to go to counseling now. And I should've listened to earlier. This was like in my early to mid 30s, I just should've paid attention. And, you know, we're in a, I think, great place now, but like it just, we could've been in a great place earlier when our kids were younger. And those are yours, you can't get back. Another thing, I didn't take advice particularly well. I had a consultant come into our church. It was really a stewardship campaign consultant. And this was like three or four years into my leadership. Our church wasn't even past the 200 barrier yet. It was real small. And he said, Carrie, you need an assistant to take control of your calendar. And I'm like, I don't need that. Like, come on, I'll do it myself. And I'll decide who I'm going to meet and what we're going to do. And oh my gosh. Like, now, I mean, Sarah, my assistant, she runs everything. And, you know, I've had to get to that point, but like it took me 10 years after that to get to that point where I realized I would be a much better leader. And people would be much better served if that happened. And he was right, I wasn't listening. I was young, I knew it all, you know. So yeah, those are mistakes. This is good, man. I don't know how much time has gone by. Usually I have a little timer on my screen, but we have the three hour mark. We have like people walking in for a meeting. 'Cause we're going to have another meeting. I think it's because it's so good. We now have an audience for a podcast studio audience. This is our first live podcast. See you at the audience that are popular. Oh, hey, that's great. All right, so I'll tell you what, let's do a couple of, let's make these rapid fire 'cause there are a couple of other issues I want to get to. I'm ready, here we go. All right, Jeff, you've done some research in this area, but churches that are crushing it with adults under 35, what are some trends you're seeing? I mentioned one while ago collaboration, I think figuring out transparency and what that means. I think churches are, have to figure out what it means to be authentic and real. They have to figure out the diversity piece and I don't want to get into those 'cause we're rapid fire, but the reality is those words are buzz words that the definitions have changed. And so I think the trend is understanding what is that reality today? That's good. When's your book come out, eventually? You know, the only thing between me and the book coming out is actually writing the book. Oh, that's slowing us down right now. Yeah, that's the easy part. But you said "Missional" earlier, which I thought was really, really important. The difference between a mission trip and-- Yeah, so I grew up in a church where missions, man, a missionary came in with a snakeskin and a slideshow and we all finished the service by praying, "Please don't send me to Africa." And then the next iteration is a short-term mission trip, which most of us have been on, which are great. They're fantastic. But I think the next wave is people saying, yeah, I'll go to Haiti or I'll go to Kenya, but how am I living on mission every day? What is this church doing every day, 24/7, to change our community? And I think that question's being asked more and more. Mission field, definitely local and moved home and that's great. Brad, what are you seeing in churches that are doing well with younger adults? I think, Jeff, the hit on most of them, or many of them, that are kind of the factors. I mean, I think I would add that the experience of the community is vitally important in the sense of, am I actually getting community? And it's not fake community. It's not, hey, turn around, this drives me crazy. I'm gonna get on my soapbox. I know we're rapid firing. But when people use the, hey, turn around and say hi to somebody. Oh, yeah. We're a friendly church. No, you're just looking for a transition in the program so you can get your worship leader back on stage. And as an introvert, that is the worst moment of my week. Oh, it's awful. It's awful, yeah. It's awful. But I hate it too. If that's your only version of community building, we might need to have a strategic conversation about creating some community that's real and authentic. But I really do believe that is attracting young 20-some things and 30-some things is when you walk in, you feel like you're part of a family. Yeah. Yeah, there is that communal aspect. And I mean, I've talked about this on this podcast before, but like my wife and I started a small group recently and it's all young adults in their mid-20s to early 30s. And they want to be in relationship with a couple at our stage in life. And they're curious and they're open. And I'm like, well, I was an I like this. But like they really love that community, that mentoring. I love working with millennials. We're trying to be more communal as a church. Even as we get larger, we know we need to get smaller. The other thing I've seen is a white-hot passion. I agree with the research you've done, Jeff, what you've seen Brad, like there's no one size fits all. It's not like install these lights or run this series or get rid of all the stuff you did 10 years ago and it will work. There's no quote work. The mission is the work. And I see a lot of passionate leaders and I think that passion is contagious. And I think there's a generation that wants to give itself to something bigger than itself. And when churches tap into that and it's not some program that some leader downloaded somewhere and is trying to quote implement, but it's an authentic passion that flows from their heart. Goes back to that Wesley quote, I love so much, you know, light a man on fire and people will come from miles to watch him burn. And I see that passion, that heartbeat in young churches. Do you guys see that in young leaders, young churches? - Don't you guys think the worst question to ask is how can our church draw some more millennials? - Yes. - Because we're starting at the wrong point. I think you start with the mission and the passion and... - That will end up drawing. - Exactly. - And you know, as a leader, one of the things that's so important for you to create an authentic environment and an experience that feels like it's community is everything you do, try to think backwards to what I do this in a conversation with this person over lunch or over a meal. And what I mean by that is when you start to make it authentic to the place where it's me setting down in front of you, Carrie, and having a conversation, then a lot of things that might seem like a good idea on paper, they don't make sense in that kind of context. - It feels like spin. - You got it. - It feels like spin, it feels like marketing, it doesn't feel-- - 'Cause you can't hype someone when you're setting in front of them. - Right. - You can hype a crowd. - And there's a difference between passion and hype. - Yes. - They're really, really different. Hype is like you're trying to, what, manufacture something, but passion is something. It's kind of like that line and services between manipulation and evocation. You can evoke an emotion and evoking an emotion is, you know, the tears were already there, you just brought them to the surface. And manipulation is, I made you cry and now I feel bad, like I feel dirty, I feel like I did something that wasn't me and I think too often in church world, we can try to manipulate rather than just evoke the emotions that are actually in the room and authentically there and create a moment where we surface things that honestly need to be surface. - Yep. - Well, this is good. I guess I said it was a rapid fire round, but it was a short round. - We've sort of rapid fired. - We sort of rapid fired. - We talked fast. - Jeff is now on his fourth or fifth mint or mintos. - Life savers mints. - What happens on a podcast stage? - They say it's a podcast. - That's right. - Yeah, we don't, I mean, we thought he might bring something else with him, Carrie, since he lives in Denver, but we'll leave that alone. - Yeah, the reality is, Brad, I'm on my deathbed here. I'm just trying to stay alive. Thank you for mocking me. - Yeah, well I'll tell you what, you know, one of the things I do love about gathering with other leaders, and I did this long before I spoke at conferences, is I just love conversations like this, and it's a more intimate atmosphere, rather than, you know, 12,000 people packed into arena. You know, it's gonna be round tables, world-class leaders, like we talked about, table conversations, and a chance for you to really connect with other leaders, and hopefully talk about, yeah, I hate that moment of greeting too, and maybe, you know, you walk away going, I think I got the courage to kill that thing, or maybe just started if that's the right move for you, or you're thinking about a merger or acquisition, you won't talk to somebody, or you wanna look at trends, or like, yeah, we actually have nobody under 35 at our church. Why don't I sit down and have coffee or lunch with somebody who's doing a good job, and it doesn't have to be, you know, the guy with 5,000 35-year-olds, but it could be a person with a church of 300, and they're actually being very, very effective, and you can go, okay, I don't know whether I could ever be a North Point, but I could be that guy, and you meet that guy, and you actually have a relationship that goes outside of the conference. That's the kind of thing we're hoping to create with rethink leadership, so. Hey, if you want more information, you can just go to rethinkleadership.com, and we would love to host you in Atlanta April 27th to the 29th. It's running at the same time as Orange Conference, so if you have staff that wanna go to Orange, you come across the street to the John Maxwell Leadership Center at 12stone. We'll host you there. We'll sync up for some evening sessions at the Orange Conference, and then all day Friday, your ticket gets you in to the Friday at the Orange Conference. So basically, Wednesday the 27th of April, through the 29th of April and Friday, so you're giving us a couple of days of your time, and I just, I wanna reiterate what you said, Carrie, like the power of conversation at a table, and then, you know, in the lobby, and these conversations that are gonna happen, it's one thing to hear from experts. That's important. It's just as important to process what you've heard with peers, and then it's really, it's equally important for those conversations to turn into friendships, that not just you can talk at the event, but then, you know, a month later, you call that person and say, hey, I remember the conversation we had, I got another question about this, or I got another question about that. - Exactly. - That's what we wanna try to stir up, is things that happen in the three days, but also, these connections that will last you a lifetime. - Yeah, 'cause this happens a lot. Like, I asked, I think, five of my written questions, and there's a lot more, and I think that's what you'll find too. Andy Stanley, you'll say something, or John Acuff will, or, you know, one of you guys will, and it'll be like, oh gosh, I wish I knew more, but then, you can have that conversation after. You'll have a chance to interact with some of the speakers as well, so we would just, we'd love for you to be there. We think leadership.com, April 27th, and 28th, at the John Maxwell Center, and then back at the Infinite Energy Arena on the 29th, with what's happening at Orange Conference. - And Jeff, what will you be wearing those three days? Will you have a certain outfit that you're gonna... - That's a really weird question. - I will have to say that, Brad-- - Trying to model-- - Brad, kind of conversations that are gonna happen at these three days. - Brad has left me-- - Not conversation, I'm-- - Brad has left me speechless, and I'm just gonna say this, but I'm not ready to release my wardrobe for that conference. - That's a strong finish, everybody. - That's good, so you'll have to wait for that. Hey, guys, thank you so much. I'm really excited for that, and I just love, I love talking shop, and I love talking about what God's doing in the wider church, and just thanks for the conversation today. - Thanks for seeing all of you who are listening. - Yeah. - As you think leadership. - Cool. - Well, yeah, and did I mention fun? - Hey, we had a lot of fun in that conversation as you could probably tell, and that's one of the other things you're gonna get when you get together with other people who just kinda understand your world, right? That's probably in the early years of my ministry, that was one of the greatest frustrations. I mean, we had a growing church in a denomination that didn't have a lot of growing churches, and I just found isolation to be a factor, and then you try to have conversations with other leaders, and they just don't get it, and it's not that they're bad people, it's just they're not dealing with the same issues. So that's why we're super pumped about rethink leadership, and that's why we want you to be there. Oh, and what I didn't mention yet, but for all of you who've listened right through to the end here, if you register now, not only will you get the best rate, but you're still eligible for a VIP reception the night before, yeah, just come hang out, it's a small crowd, I'll be there, some of our other keynote speakers will be there, and you can just hang out and sort of pick our brains and we can meet people and hang out and have a good time. So I'd love for you to be at the VIP reception. As of the day I'm recording this, there are still 50 spots left, but they're gonna go fast. So if you register today at rethinkleadership.com, you got a shot at qualifying for the VIP reception, it's first come first serve basis. So that's all at rethinkleadership.com, I would love for you to be there, just because I really want for you all those things that we talked about. I want you to have that kind of community, I want you to listen to some world class speakers, and to get a chance to hang out for a few days in an environment that isn't gonna have thousands and thousands of people there. So does that sound good? Sounds good to me, anyway. Love for you to do that. Again, you can always go to the show notes carrynewhop.com/episode74, and then we are back with episode 75 next week. I'm gonna sit down, we talked a little bit about millennials, but like, are you tired of people our age talking about millennials? So I'm gonna sit down with a millennial and interview him about millennials. Jonathan Pearson is a campus pastor of a large church, he's in his early 30s, and he writes a lot about millennials. So Jonathan and I have a great conversation next week. It's called Insights on Millennials from a Millennial Leader. You're gonna love it. So that's episode 75. And again, if you subscribe, you're not gonna miss it. So just go to iTunes, Stitcher Tune in radio and subscribe. And then we'll be back next week. Thanks so much for listening. I really hope this has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the Carry New Hop Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]