The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 058 – Beth Marshall on How Pastoral Care Grows and Kills Churches and Leaders
[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 58 of the podcast. My name is Carey Newhoff, and I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And I kind of think it will, because we got a great guest her name is Beth Marshall. And she's going to help us think through an issue that I'm convinced is one of the primary reasons 80 to 90% of all churches never make it past 200 in attendance. And the reason is we don't know how to scale pastoral care. And Beth is the former director of care for New Spring Church. So New Spring Church has like a lot of people, like over 30,000 people attend there every weekend. And she had to be the leader in their crazy days when they were growing like crazy. And they had to figure out how to scale pastoral care. And I'm just so passionate about this issue, because I think, you know, I started in very small churches. As some of you know, the very smallest church I ever served had six people in it. That was 20 years ago in 1995 when I was a student. And I came up to where I currently am and started there. I mean, with six people, come on. You're doing the pastoral care. But then once your church starts to grow, and now we've got like over 1,000 in attendance and 2,300 people who call our church home, you just cannot be the person who does pastoral care. So I had to figure that out. It was a tough journey. But Beth is going to help us on that today. So whether you're a large church pastor, a mid-sized church pastor, or a small church pastor, I hope this is going to be helpful. We're also going to dive in a little bit into self care, because that's like a big issue for leaders. So we're definitely going to go there. But before we do, I just want to say thank you. You guys, unbelievable. Thank you so much for an incredible launch. To my brand new book, my latest book is called Lasting Impact, Seven Powerful Conversations that will help your church grow. Man, it has spent a ton of time at number one on Amazon in the church leadership, church growth, pastoral resources categories. You guys have made it the number one Amazon bestseller in church leadership. Just thank you. It's just is completely blown me and the team away. So thank you for your generosity. Thank you for not only getting the book yourself, but telling your friends about it. Man, that's great. I wrote it and this is why I think most people write books. You write it because you want to help people. And so I designed this book to basically broker conversations between you and your team. There's a chapter on key issues and actually care and scaling pastoral care shows up in the book more than once. And there's a whole chapter on creating healthy churches with healthy leaders. So I wrote that because I really want to help you guys and just thank you for your incredible response. So to all of you who picked up a copy of the book, that's awesome. If you haven't yet, you can. It is available on Amazon. If you just go to lastingimpactbook.com, you'll find the links to Amazon to orange books, which by the way, if you want to get copies for your team, offers the greatest discounts when you buy in quantity. And also it's available on iBooks for your iPad and so on. So you can get all the links right off of lastingimpactbook.com. And hey, if thousands of you already have the book, which is incredible, if it's encouraged you, here's a favor I would love for you to do. Would you take a moment, maybe even today, to leave a review on Amazon? That would be incredible because I don't know about you, but I don't buy anything online without reading customer reviews. I mean, I know what people say about their products, but then always dig down and see what actual customers had to say. So when you do that, you just help people make a decision about whether the book is right for them or not. And if you would leave a review on Amazon, that would be great. You guys have been unbelievable in leaving reviews on this podcast. I mean, we launched it just over a year ago. There's like over 270 reviews in the US iTunes store, many in Canada and around the world. So just thank you so much for that. And that just helps leaders go, oh, you know what? This is worth subscribing to. So if you want to leave a review on my new book lasting impact, that would be amazing. And again, you can just go to lastingimpactbook.com and all the purchase information is there. And again, if you're picking up some copies for your team, for study, maybe next year you're going to dive into the book, make sure you visit the orange books link because they've got the best discounts for that sort of thing. Also, thanks to all of you who have made it to the orange tour so far. You can get information on that at orangetour.org, but it was sure fun hanging out in LA and then hanging out in DC. And then last week in Indianapolis, I'm going to be in Texas at the Austin tour stop at the beginning of November and also in Dallas. And then we're going to wrap up in Nashville. So if you live in one of those cities and you want to come hang out for the day, there are some incredible speakers. John Acuff is there. Reggie Joyner is there and a bunch of other leaders. We're going to help you equip your church, really, for the next generation. That's what we're trying to do. And you can get all the information on orangetour.org. So Austin, Dallas, and Nashville coming your way real soon. So that's going to be a lot of fun. Hey, let's jump right into episode 58 with Beth Marshall. And you can get all the links we talk about and more in background, in the show notes. Just go to karaenohoff.com/episode58. Now, here's my conversation with Beth Marshall. I am really excited to have Beth Marshall with me today. Beth, welcome. Hello, Gary. Hey, Beth was the care ministry coordinator at New Spring Church for a number of years with Perry Noble. And now, full-time is an author, speaker, and freelance journalist. So Beth, we're so glad you're here. Tell us a little bit about your background. This is sort of the first episode we've ever done on pastoral care in a congregational setting. And you've got a history in that. And I want all of you A-type leaders. I think I just feel prompted to say this. Because I know for years and years, if I heard a podcast on pastoral care, just with my personality, I would totally just like tune it out. So don't, because Beth is going to show you how it kills the growth of your church if you don't get this right. Can I say that? Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Okay, great. So A-types, hang in there. Just hang in there. All you insensitive people like me, hang in there. Okay? I'm married to one of those. Oh, are you real? There's some people you don't want serving care ministry. And if you're one of those, just take a step back. Yeah, that would be me. Right? Okay. You know your place. Right, but you are passionate about this. And obviously we all need care, including me. So tell us your story and how you ended up doing this. Well, my story started actually in Atlanta, Georgia. And then after finishing up at the University of Georgia, I would go to my dream job, which was teaching little tiny children. And that lasted about 30 seconds that I thought that was going to be a great idea. Here we returned from lunch one day at what, 11, 15, right? And I look out at 25 little faces looking at me like, "Okay, lady, what now?" And all I could think in my head was, "Oh my gosh, they're still here." And seriously, that was my first indication that teaching might not be my thing. But living in Atlanta, we had a couple of options. There was either Delta Airlines or Coca-Cola or the Atlanta Braves. Right on. Right, exactly. So for me, it seemed like Delta might be an option. And thankfully that worked out. They were doing some hiring. And so I was hired to start a new career and ended up flying trips to in the domestic US and as well as Europe. And it was one of the most fun, coolest jobs I've ever had. Oh, that's neat. Yeah, that little season I thought would, you know, try it a couple of years. Actually went on for 25 years. Wow. So you were a flight attendant for 25 years? Or you could say, "Sky goddess," whichever, right, yeah, exactly. I've never heard that and I fly a lot. That's good. Correct, take call somebody that they'll probably slap you. I don't know. But it was during that time toward the end of that 25 years that my family lost actually three close family members. Oh, wow. And through, you know, going through that kind of the wrong way, maybe we'll talk about that later. But I realized how intense grief can be. And, you know, through that, we ended up visiting New Spring Church. This is hilarious. It was in 2001. New Spring was a baby, just one year old. And there were maybe 150 people coming. Okay. And someone invited us. This was our first deal with a load-in, load-out, kind of a portable church. Right, right on. And someone has played with me. Yeah. So on Wednesday the week before I'd drive by and there's no church. And I thought, okay, what's with this? This guy's crazy. Why is he telling me there's a church? When actually he said, no, no, no, on Sunday, all these trailers pull up and all this sound equipment and all of the children's stuff is all unloaded. So I'm thinking, okay, there's a church here in South Carolina on every single corner, as you know, if you've traveled this direction, why would you need another church? But Paul and I, I'm married to Paul Marshall and he is actually the chief financial officer with New Spring. Oh, cool. And so, but here, Carrie, we were coming from an intense season of church-ness. Both of us had served in ministry and in leadership for years. And we were just kind of over it. And before we visited, Paul and I looked at each other and our three teenagers. And here was our plan. Okay, we're gonna sit on the back row, don't talk to anybody and wear beige. (laughing) Yeah, our only family. I've had that plan before, yeah. Right. It doesn't last long if you have a hard-furred church, but that lasted about maybe 20 seconds, I guess. Sure. But once we drove up and on a Sunday, there were all the banners and signs and friendly people. It was ridiculous, but once we heard that first note of the music, and it was music like we'd never heard before in a church, but at the same time, the preaching was so fill full of life. And you know, you've heard Perry unplugged. Oh yeah, it's a great way to hear. That's a great way to describe Perry. Yes, yes, and I think what you see on stage is exactly what is the truth, but we knew immediately that we were home. It just was this feeling like, okay, we're home now. And so, I remember in the car, our three teens looking at us, kind of like, oh, that was way too awesome for our parents, kind of thing, but yeah, we never left. We never left, and we weren't too slow getting involved, but I was invited pretty soon by two college students. This was such a cool story. These girls were sophomores. They had prayed for a year about a ministry that guided kind of whispered in their ears, and it was about ministering to people and encouraging them. And they, after a full year of praying, they invited three people to serve with them in this brand new church. It was Perry's wife, Lucretia, me, and then one gentleman. So there were five of us, and we were the Barnabas team. Right, so for anybody that doesn't know, Barnabas was an encourager. Right, and so that was gonna be our role. Just to not be a PhD in counseling, it was none of that. It was just to be available. - And so that was the genesis of like the care ministry at New Spring. - It was, it was. Those five people, and that was the beginning of what has become this massive, way better organized ministry than I ever organized. But it was exciting in those early days, is we had Billy Graham's Christian training book that we would use. It was a flip book, all topical. You know, that book is out of date now, but it's online, they've made it available. But just any topic that might come your way, you can kind of get the scripture references. - Oh, that's cool. - So yeah, it was, and it was-- - Let's see if we can find that and link to it in the show notes. - Yeah, I could send you a picture of it too, but it's a great-- - That'd be great. - Yeah, it's a terrific resource, and it was in 2005. I had just barely, I mean, days decided to make a change from the Delta thing, because our kids were growing, it was just too much going on, had dinner with Perry, Noble our pastor, and Lucretia, and he dropped a bomb on me and asked if I would consider serving in care ministry on staff. And it was one of those deals where I was like, "Let me pray about it, yes." But yeah, there was no time, it was just right, and I knew it. And it kind of was a little overwhelming from the very beginning, but it was probably one of the best steps that I ever took as far as ministry goes. - And that's interesting, okay. So you get on as the coordinator of care ministry for New Spring in a period of explosive growth, and we wanna spend some time on that in the podcast. So it's one thing when you have a church of 150, probably five people can do all the pastoral care, right? It's like, not everybody's down all the time, and so there might be 20 or 30 people in a week who need a touch of some kind of visit, an encouragement, a card, a note. Five people can do that. But New Spring isn't five people anymore. So tell us about that journey. 'Cause just so people know, I think last time Perry told me, it was like over 35,000 people attend there on the weekend now over multiple, multiple campuses. - Do you say really? That makes me so nervous. I wish you hadn't had told me that. - Yeah. - Yeah, okay, but no, it was kind of an exponential growth thing. That there was really nothing anyone could explain how it was happening. But all we knew, and Perry knows the numbers, when we started coming, we were in a new auditorium, and I remember this, people wanted to sit near the back, and there were volunteers who would keep these artificial plants to keep you, and you'd have to sit in front of the plants. So it would feel kind of like a crowd. And in about three weeks, the plants were gone, and the whole place was filled up. And we were just looking around like, what in the world do we do with this? And I think more people were coming, wanting to tell us their stories. - Sure. - From the very beginning, it was kind of a culture of, don't just invite the people that are just like you. If you meet someone at a restaurant, or you meet the guy with the cardboard sign on the side of the road, invite that person. And so along with that person, comes the U-Haul trailer full of baggage. - Yeah. - Right? You don't carry that baggage on your back, or in a backpack. And so we were starting to realize we needed some professional training. We were way beyond our handbook. - Right, the little Barnabas Circle was no longer adequate. - Yeah, we were beyond that. But realize what we were doing was very important. And that it was essential that we got some professional counselors to come in, and just to train us up on things like suicide. Things that are terribly serious, and you definitely need to know what you're doing. And so that was kind of a gigantic learning curve mountain that we were on, and are still on. - So walk us through that. Like tell us how you began to respond to that, because this is a really cool story because you were there from the beginning when I think 90% or 80% of all churches in the U.S. and in Canada are under, what is it 200 to 10 days on the weekend? So I mean, New Spring fit that category when you started this thing, and then it blew up to become one of the largest churches in America. And you've been there for the entire journey and had to figure out how to do care when you were small, when you were a mid-sized church. And now that you're a, what do they call them now? Giga churches, there's under 100 giga churches, over 10,000 attenders. You had to figure that all out. So just walk us through what scaling that was like. - Okay, well, I think we were trying to do ministry just in our own strength. The weekday was just actually my boss, Jake Beatty, was the care pastor and me. And I think we figured carry that if that's our title, if we were the care staff that we should do all of the care. - Well, that sounds very reasonable. - Right, and well, I think what happens with lead pastors and with care staffs is that you believe that lie. And you maybe for pride's sake or for whatever reason, try to hold on to too much. And that's sort of where we were. And the Lord of all, in all his goodness, took us to Exodus 18, which was a lifesaver. It was one of those moments where God, I love it when you back me up with what I'm already thinking. And it was one of those moments where it's the story for those that are familiar with, it was Moses. And he was hearing all of the stories and hearing all of the cases and his father-in-law walks in and calls him out. And it was just such a cool thing that you could tell they had a great relationship. So it wasn't awkward, but he said, hey, so what's the plan here? So all these people are standing in line and then they're gonna come, you're the end of the line. And Moses said, yeah, that's what we're doing. And his father-in-law lovingly said, hey, what you're doing here is not working. And so I can remember in our Monday care meeting, which Monday is the Holy Hangover Day when we're just sobering up from all the ministry. And Jake and me looking at each other and a couple other people in the room and saying, hey, what we're doing here is not working. But the great thing with that scripture that I loved was he goes on to break it down and he says, here's what will work. So break these people up into groups, into thousands, I think he said thousands and hundreds and fifties and tens. The thing I love about this model right here is that A, it saved our lives, our marriages, and our families, but it's scalable. And any church of any size, whether you have 150, 200 or 300, this is the beginning step where I think we can take that heavy load off of the one or two people that are trying to carry it. - It's such a great insight, you know, and I so appreciate that. I think this is application too. Very small churches, mid-sized churches, large churches and mega churches. And one of the lines I love in that story is, I think Moses' father-in-law, Jethro says to him, you will wear yourself out. And then the people too. In other words, everyone's gonna burn out. The people are gonna be sick and tired because they didn't get good service. You're gonna be exhausted, you're not gonna make it for the long haul. So you started to scale because I think another approach I've seen in a lot of churches is like, okay, there's two of you on staff now, so we need 20 new staff. - Is that the route you went? - No, no, no, that was, my husband oversees the financial aspect. - So you weren't allowed to go down that route? - Right, yeah, yeah. Paul's one who is not ever going to give up the pennies freely. He takes his role as stewarding the financial part very, very seriously. And so if I ever mentioned, hey, I'm burning out. Anyway, we could get some new people. It was like, you guys need to figure it out. You need to ask the Lord to send some people. And that's pretty much what we did. What was so amazing once we started asking the Lord, who are those people? Who could we, we had the teams we had in the beginning were a hospital ministry. There were people that made meals. It was just a lot of those things, a people that could do a funeral wedding. Pre-marriage was gigantic. When you're in a church where the average age is 30, you can count on a wedding just about every weekend. - Yeah, you could. And Perry can't do all those. I mean, Perry and I have talked about that before. He was my guest on episode two. And I mean, I think the overwhelming sense of responsibility was at least a little part of his initial burnout a number of years ago, you know, because there's so much care to be done and you just feel like everybody wants a piece of you. - Exactly. And I think there was that expectation. And I don't know in Canada, it might be a little different, but where we are in the country, there's still a pretty strong expectation from church people that our church has always been run this way. It's actually stronger in Canada, believe it or not. - Really? And that if something happens in my family, even if you're on vacation with your family, that I certainly hope you'll come back. - Yeah, that is huge. And I don't know of a single pastor who doesn't face that pressure as we've grown from a handful of people to over a thousand people today. A big part of that journey over the years for me has been retraining the congregation to stop looking to me. I can't do it. We had 22, 2300 people who call our church home. I mean, you're on 24 hours standby if you're the pastoral care person and I'm not good at it. - That's the thing at a conference we hosted at New Spring, I met a pastor who was a church of 5,000 people and he showed me his cell phone and he said, "This is our church's pastoral care." And I looked at this poor guy, I said, "They're going to kill you." And I met it. You could tell the guy was strung out and barely hanging on. And I think the great thing with these conferences is you can see what other churches are doing. You know, maybe we've tried to learn from churches bigger and smaller than anybody that would have some insight. But Carrie, I'll tell you the team that literally transformed our lives as leaders. - Okay, tell me. - And it's called, we call it the weekend care pastors. - Okay. - And at the moment, when I was on staff from 2005 to 2011, there were four of these people. Now I think they're eight in Anderson, South Carolina. Their entire role when the office is closed after hours and Friday our offices are closed. How are we? - Yeah. - So wonderful. Yeah, but 'cause most every emergency we found was happening Thursday night about 11 o'clock. - Yeah, it only happens when you're off. I know that. And on the first and second day of your vacation happened to me again this year. No, that's what all the emergencies happen. - I hope you weren't called. - Well, I was, but we worked to work around it. - Okay, well, I think that was our situation, but once we were able to identify, and I mean key leaders. I'm talking about, we were so blessed to have retired pastors. There was one guy that served that was a hospice chaplain and people that were just completely gifted to do this work. And once we put them into place, we were able at night instead of Jake or my phone ringing, or if they couldn't get through my phone, they would call Paul's phone because everybody had his number. If your grandma's having her toe operated on in two weeks, somebody's got to know it now. That, sorry, that was not the right. - No, no, no, that's awesome. Everybody, you just cracked a lot of leaders up. We can all, this is like therapy guys. That's what this is. - Okay, so keep going. - Keep going, keep going, yep. - But that particular team was a game changer for us. And it's been, I mean, we were in the early stages of formulating these teams, but now the progress that's been made to, as far as breaking the systems are in place now. Here, last week I was thinking about this interview and talking to some of my friends that are serving in Anderson, South Carolina care now. This is the broadcast campus. And there are nine to 10,000 people that attend normally on a Sunday. - That's crazy. - Seriously. And so I got these two guys in a room and I said, oh, I need, 'cause I was looking at myself when I was in their position. And I thought they're not gonna have 20 minutes. And so we sat down and they relaxed and they sat back and their phones weren't going off. I said, you guys seem to have this under control a little bit better than we did. I said, do you not get called all day, every day? And they both looked at me and they said, no. No, our leaders do that. That's not our role. Now, big gigantic things, there are some things that will absolutely come to us. - Sure. - In a certain funeral or a wedding, there's some things that will absolutely go to the two top leaders. But for the most part, the all day, every day, part of what we tried, we're doing was financial counseling. - Okay. - If you spoke to my husband, you would know that I am the opposite of a financial counselor. So you don't want me doing your financial counseling. But they've got these people have coaches in areas of pre-marriage, in financial areas, coaches in these areas that take care of that ministry rather than the top staff members. - So most of these coaches, they're not staff positions. Is that what you're saying, or volunteers? - I think none of them are. - Wow. - They're trained by super top high level staff people or a group just in fact came back from Dave Ramsey. It's been some time with him, training up to teach our staff financial piece. - Right on. - And so that's starting in it's sort of a mandatory thing. - Gotcha. - But to get staff members out of a financial predicament, it's gonna free them up to do the ministry that they're called to do. - Sure. So this is the really important thing. This is scalable care. And I think one of the things that I think, some leaders will resonate with anyway, pastoral care is not your gifting. And it's okay if it's not. I mean, I find often people who are willing to risk change and willing to put things on the line, maybe don't have as much of the mercy gift as other people do, that would be my wiring. - That's a very gentle way to put that in your eyes. - Yeah. And there are other people who love to do it. I mean, I mean, when I get a pastoral care call, I shudder and wince and my heart sinks. I just, unless it's for an elder, like a key staff member or staff member, that sort of thing, it's just not the way I'm wired. But the thing that we don't like to do, other people love to do it. I'm a little bit like you, like spreadsheets. I'm not a big fan of, but there are people who just love to do spreadsheets. And it's like, thank goodness for the body of Christ. - Aren't we happy for them? And what we realized once we started designating a hospital care team, is that there was a pediatric surgeon who wanted to serve on that team. So when he had free time, he could take off his doctor jacket, walk to the emergency room wherever a crisis was and to pray with a family. And people that do not geek out and freak out and pass out at the smell of antiseptic. Some of us, if we go into a medical emergency, it's gonna be two emergencies instead of just one. - Right, right. - And so we're not much of the solution when we're needing medical attention when we're passing out. - Yeah, so let's think about that for a moment. How does that, you guys, do you have care groups at New Spring Church, like small groups? - I think that's the other key component to people getting great care is the home groups. And new sessions are about to start this fall. When this airs, there will be new groups in place. But I think they're leaning more now toward interest groups. And there are gonna be some grief-related groups. I think there'll be some motorcycle riders. I'm sure there'll be some cyclists. So if you ever come visit South Carolina, we'll have you all plugged in, people that might like crafts. But to try to match you up with people that are either in your same season of life, but people that make sense for you instead of just a random collection of people, I think those kinds of groups are more likely to stick. But the beautiful, I think the most excellent care that ever takes place is when you're in a home group or a small group that you're connected with. And when a crisis happens, instead of the immediate default of the old school of let me call the church, the group calls each other. And the home group probably already knows the situations going on. So I think the more healthy groups that are set up, the stronger that's gonna be. And so the care ministry, the volunteers will just be caring for those who are not connected, either in a group or in a service teams also. I bet Connects is like that the guest services people, some tight groups, they know each other's story, they know each other's children. Those are the people that are gonna bring your dinner, that are gonna be there when you have a death in the family. - I agree with that. And that's how we do it. We do it primarily through small groups. And I always say to people who are not in small groups, man, you're missing out on so much, because about 90 to 95% of all pastoral care is done in our small groups. - Is it really? - Yeah, mostly people just need someone to care for them. So for example, tonight, after we're done taping this, this will air months from now, but my wife and I are going to a barbecue for a woman who actually almost died of a heart attack three years ago this week. And she is part and was part of that time of our small group. And I'm not going there because I'm the pastor of the church. I'm going there because we're friends from small group. And the small group rallied around and she was in the hospital for like, I don't know, 15 days or so. And we weren't sure whether she was gonna make it or not. And like people did shifts in the hospital. Well, the staff weren't involved and the reason I went was because I was a friend from small group, not because I was the lead pastor of Kinexis church. And that becomes scalable, right? All of a sudden, if you have hundreds of groups or dozens of groups, then you can have hundreds or thousands of people who are cared for and cared for far more deeply and more effectively than random pastor who doesn't know your name showing up at the hospital. - Well, that is a real goal. I think we need to come up and study Kinexis. And one of the major sources that we've had, not only in the multi-site movement, but also in groups, the focus on importance of groups has been North Point. And just to hear that passion. And as we talk to their care ministers, and it's communicated just like you're saying to me, the majority of our care comes straight through groups. And if there's a perfect world that I know we're not quite in yet, maybe in heaven there'll be that perfect world. - I have a theory that most of pastoral care is just having somebody who cares. I just think that's what it is. It's just most people, nobody who cares. And nobody who they can really talk to about it. And a lot of people, they don't talk to their brother or their parents or live out of town or something. And so just to have somebody who says, hey, I pray for you regularly. We get together once a week or once every other week. And yeah, you're in the hospital, I'm gonna be there. And so the people who are in small groups at Kinexis are incredibly well cared for. Where our gap is, as we actually don't have any staff in the care area. So people who are not in small groups, I always use that as bait to get people into small groups. It's like, if you want Carrie, better get there. But there are other things we use outside counselors as well. Because sometimes I'm a bad marriage counselor. It's just like, I've got 15 seconds for it and two answers. And if they don't fit, then, not too bad. But we have some very gifted people that we refer people to. And often the need, a person has exceeds the ability to the group to care for them. And that's when it's time to go to counseling. But we should have that intermediate step. We're just not there yet. - In between, I think when someone is at that level of needing care, it's more than a group can really handle. - I think so too. Yeah, you need a professional. You said that at the very beginning, right? You need someone with a toolkit. I don't have a degree in counseling. I really don't. We got a guy in town who has two PhDs in counseling. I send people to him every week. - I think identifying those excellent counselors in your community has helped us a lot to know there are lots of things that are outside of our scope of care, but that's one of them. - Well, so this is really good. You've got care happening at the group level and then care happening not necessarily at the staff level, but at the level where the staff equip an army of volunteers, probably hundreds at this point to do some of those things. And that's another thing too. We don't do a lot of weddings and we don't do a lot of funerals because we're not staff for it. We have all these people. We have more weddings and funerals given the age of our church, but we got to figure that out because I'm busy enough as it is. I don't like to give up every Saturday, which is the time when my wife isn't working and if my kids are in town, when they come home, I don't want to be spending every Saturday doing weddings. Maybe that sounds selfish, but you got to look after self care. We're going to talk about that. - Yeah, I think that's something that we finally realized it does not have to be a lead pastor doing those things. There have been a home group friends that have done a funeral. There's no reason that someone else cannot do those things. It's just, again, trying to get away from that old mindset of thinking, okay, this is one of these life events. I need Carrie to be here for this. - So let's go there for a second, Beth. So, I mean, because you were there at the very beginning, how did you get people used to the fact that Perry just wasn't going to be at every wedding, every funeral, every grandma's having toe surgery moment in their lives? - There are people that are still not used to that. - And they can't look around them and see 30,000 other people and go maybe, maybe it's just not possible? - Well, this was kind of a tough thing for us to swallow, for, and there are times when someone neglects to call the church and to tell if they wanted a visitor from the church, maybe forgot to call because I've heard this. Well, we knew it was sort of a small town. I didn't think I needed to do that. - Are you kidding me? - Oh, we thought everybody knew that. The greatest part when that did happen among in one family was that we heard someone was disappointed that they had not gotten a staff visitor. And as it turned out, no one had been called, but the person who had called to complain is actually, actually became a member of the team that visits hospitals. - Oh, okay. - Hey, Lord, we're going to redeem this, but we're going to take it another step and let this guy see how intense this hospital ministry is and how many calls there are every single week. - My goodness. - Yeah. - So some people didn't get over it. Didn't most people eventually get to the place where they kind of, and what was the stage? Was it like when there were 200, when there were 1,000, when there were 10,000 people finally gave up or it's just a battle you fight every day? - It's always. - Really? - I mean, I think there will always be people that have that expectation. And Paris, very clear from the stage. If I come and see you in the hospital, you better know it's bad. Because he was 12 when his mom died. He was in hospitals and it's not his thing. We had to kind of, excuse me, get comfortable with the fact that we can't be there for everyone and that there are people that are not going to love your church. That was a big deal. That's hard when someone sneaks out the back door because they're used to a smaller feeling of a church. - Sure. - And I think personally, I just had to come to terms with what we're doing here is not for everybody. - Right. - And it would be arrogant to think we had it all figured out and that we offer, even though New Spring, what's so funny with New Spring is that I know at one point there was an 80 year old greeter. And they're also staff members like you talked about who are, the Beatles songs are twice as old as the fan. - I said that on Sunday. - You did. - Or church. - I'm like, yeah, what did I say? I said something that we opened with help and I said, so we played a song that's twice as old as most of the members of our band. It's just true. - Right. So when you're minister, when you have that kind of a span, there are gonna be some people that are not comfortable that it's going to be too loud or too soft or whatever it is. There are gonna be people who for some reason or another decide that maybe this is not their place. And while it's always hard when somebody leaves, it was something that I personally had to just come to terms with. - Yeah. - And just to ask the Lord, just get us through this. And I think when you're so busy in ministry, we had too much to look forward to to start looking back for very long. - I love that. That's so well said. We had too much to look forward to to start looking back. That's awesome. - Instead of trying to convince someone who just wasn't a good fit, keep moving forward and minister into the people that are all excited in or coming and are having life change. - Well, some people are unpleasable at the end of the day. You show up and they're still not happier. You didn't pray just right or whatever that is. You mentioned the pastor that you met a few minutes ago who had the cell phone. He said, this is the pastoral care at our church. What about boundaries and guardrails? Like clearly, people at New Spring do not all have perinoble cell number. People at our church do not have my cell number unless you need it. And then you can have it. It's something I've guarded. Maybe it's because of my age. It was just like, people find me somewhere else on my office phone or email or whatever. But I guard my cell pretty carefully because I carry it with me everywhere including vacation. - Right. - Is that a good guardrails or is that just being insensitive? - No, no, no. When I'll tell you a confession with you and a couple of your friends on this podcast that I actually changed my cell phone number at one point. - Okay. Many people had it and I found that even on days off or vacation, we go to North Carolina a lot, just two hours away, but it was never peace. It was never the feeling of a real Sabbath or a real day off. And so I think that was just for my own mental health. I think pastors have to do that. And at first it sounds, I don't know, snobbish or whatever it seems, but I think the more who I think needs to understand these things carry our deacon boards, elders, what we have as pastor advisory team, depending on the set up of your church, for those people to understand and to listen to your podcast and to read about breaking 200 barrier. But for that crowd, the people that might be putting that pressure on the lead pastor, I think when that crowd is aware what this does and how it can lead to flaming out, it can lead to sin, it can lead to all manners of trouble. When our private time with our family is not protected. I think the one thing that I've learned and have absorbed since the beginning was God first, marriage second, kids next, and then everything else, including ministry. - Great priority. - But when that gets for even a minute out of order, that's when a wife or a husband can start to feel like the church has become your mistress. - Yep, you know what, I think that's a really good point. I'm so glad you brought up changing your cell phone number. I think in the show notes, I'm gonna put that down as action step number one, if too many people have, no, seriously, if too many people have your cell phone number, change it. Because here's the, I haven't changed mine in years and I have a really guard who gets it and who doesn't know all that stuff, which is maybe bad to some people. But the problem is if a lot of people have it and you even say, well, you know, my cell phone's shut down after dinner. If too many people who have it, who don't need it, call you, you still have to return those texts. You still have to answer that voicemail. Otherwise, you become the insensitive person and I think it might just be easier to change your number. And, you know, I did that with my email a couple years ago where I just couldn't keep up anymore. And so I have a public account and a private account and the people who actually need to speak to me, not to an assistant, not to someone else in the church, have that private email. And I know there's a big debate about it. But it keeps my life manageable. And right now, my assistant is on vacation. Nobody's answered my public account for two weeks. There will be hundreds of emails in there when she gets back. But like, if that was my life, I couldn't teach on weekends properly. I, you know, I'd be burnt out, I'd be toast. - Well, and I will just speak to anyone that doesn't receive your new email address or your new phone number. That was intentional. I can remember some people saying, "Hey, hey, I didn't get your new cell phone number." And I would just sit quietly. - Right. - As if to say, this is really for my family and for my friends. And it's tough because I think church friends, there's so many, but people tend to think that my emergency is the exception. - Yeah. - That you'll wanna know about my emergency tonight, even though you're trying to sleep or have a date night with your wife or your husband. - Another way I've heard it described is that, you know, my emergency all of a sudden becomes your emergency. - Right. - And often, often when you really do, hey, sometimes there's a car accident, there's blood all over the road and people are being rushed to ER, that's an emergency for somebody. Even if it's not for you, it's an emergency that, you know, maybe a small group responds to or volunteers respond to or staff member responds to. But a lot of the time, it's like, "Oh, my marriage is in crisis. "You know, you gotta come right now." And it's like, "Man, it's been falling apart for 10 years." Why all of a sudden on a Friday afternoon, is it an emergency? Can we make an appointment next Wednesday at two? And we'll talk about it. - Exactly. I think once the mindset starts to shift and people know now that after hours, if you call the new spring office, and I think this is the case at a lot of churches, you will get a very quick thing to listen to and if there is an emergency, you have an option. And there is someone that will get back to you. And so I think once that shifts and it is not the lead pastor that needs to be that person all the time. Even in a small church, it shouldn't be. - Especially not, what scares me about the church that is struggling right there at 200, is so, "Okay, you're carrying all this." Well, what happens when you're at 201? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Then do you crash and burn? What are you set up for that? Or do you just put your children up for adoption and send your wife away? What happens at that point? - Well, and the idea, I know you and I are talking about something that we talked about beforehand. I have a blog post I'll link to in the show notes. One of the most red ones I've ever done called eight reasons churches never break the 200 barrier. And I talked specifically about scale of pastoral care in that, that really it doesn't scale well beyond 200 people. Because once you have 400, you can't make all the hospital visits and people get mad at you or you end up burning out. You're just fried 'cause you've gone seven days a week, 18 hours a day and your body isn't built for that. You can't take it. And so you either get fired because they don't like you anymore because you miss too many people in the hospital. Grammar's toenail surgery. - Right. - Or you just burn out and you quit or you become ineffective. There's another book we'll link to in the show notes by Warren Bird and Carl George called How to Break Church Growth Barriers. If you really wanna drill down, you need to read that book. We'll link to it in the show notes. So let's talk a little bit about boundaries in self care. 'Cause you've said a few things lately about, you know, I changed my cell phone number just because somebody needs to respond to it. I don't need to respond to it. Our clergy bad at self care, our church leaders bad at self care. - Terrible and what's so interesting is that here we're the ones kind of leading spiritually, but for some reason, we think if we took that Saturday or Friday off, 'cause I know our Sabbaths sometimes have to be a different day, but that somehow God just can't handle it. And it's just so hilarious to me. - Pastors aren't very good at pastoral boundaries and caring for themselves at self care, are they? - No, I think even though you might be the spiritual leader of your church, your community, for some reason, the Sabbath seems like a luxury. And yeah, I don't really have time for that this week. I've gotta take care of the yard or I don't have time for that, I need to do all of these tasks or work. Work, I mean church work. - Yeah, it's almost like God can't handle it, you know, as you've hinted at, that God can't handle me taking a day off, so I'm too important. - Is that so funny? Can you see him and the angels all in heaven looking down going, are you kidding me? You cannot be real. But for some reason, on the other hand, let's flip it. When I think of the times we take a genuine, intentional Sabbath, whatever day, it might be a Friday or a Saturday, but it's like off limits that your leadership team knows it's off limits, you know, unless they're riding around on the boat with you and getting dropped off a jet ski. - Yeah. - That's cool, but if it's someone calling you with an emergency, that doesn't need to be happening. - Right. - That that's your day. The thing is it's kind of commanded in scripture. It's not really a suggestion. Sometimes we think that top 10 were suggestions really instead of, but that's the one, you know, it's easy for me to not kill somebody most days, it is. But the whole Sabbath thing is different 'cause it's kind of subtle. - Yeah. Maybe if I just work a little bit in the morning, then I can Sabbath for like eight hours. - That's a good point. - But when you think about the times when you've been intentional and in a regular, excellent habit of that is the day for the Lord and how energized and how much more productive you are the next week. Have you noticed that happening? - I've been experimenting even with sleep for the last two weeks, trying to make sure I get eight hours every night. And I just can't believe how my productivity has gone up. Oh man, I need to write that one down. That's excellent. Sleep is another one. Slip naps. - Yes. - But with our good family friend Clayton King this morning to ask him about, you know, flame out burnout questions in the one thing he said when he was grieving, he lost both parents all in a pretty short length of time. I said, Clayton, how did you do it? How did you keep on ministering and speaking to huge groups of people while you just lost your dad? And he said, you know, I had to be real on purpose. I had to be intentional to set aside an hour in the afternoon and try to rest, to go in a dark room and just be still and be alone. But he had to make time for it. - So what are some critical components of self-care for leaders, for church leaders in particular? - I think some, you cover a good bit on your podcast but being serious about exercising and taking care of yourself. But do something that you like. If it's cycling for me, I love swimming, kayaking, those things to me are fun. When you try to, here's what I think a lot of us do and I see the people at the gym. You're on the elliptical, you're CNN on your left and there's Fox News on your right and there's all about the bass playing in the sound system. And you're plugged into your podcast door, your Beth Moore Bible study in my case. And I'm thinking, I guess I won't be able to check this off of my list today because we're trying to do it all at once. But I think when we find a kind of exercise workout that we enjoy, something that's fun, maybe with a friend that we're more likely to stick with it. But it kind of, it heals our soul. I know you said some of your most creative thoughts come when you're out in the country just writing. - Totally does. I wish I could write better messages and even blog posts behind a computer screen. But like I was trying to solve a series, I'm gonna start preaching in two weeks yesterday and I spent five hours behind the computer, did a one hour bike ride. And like all the missing pieces came into place. I wasn't even trying, I just had my earbuds in some of my favorite songs in the background. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go ride for an hour before the evening. And like it all just sorted into place. I came home sat right behind the keyboard, fixed it all and it was done. And it's like, wow, yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits. And I mean, 10 years ago, I was not an exerciser. So this is fairly new for me and it's still disciplined. So exercise is really important. We've identified sleep time off. We've talked about already like a pause day, a Sabbath day. Any other best practices for self-care for leaders? - Spending time with people that make you laugh. I came last weekend to a conference. It was a women's conference thing and was with two of the most fun human beings I've ever been around and we laugh so hard. We almost got thrown out of the place. But Carrie, how often do we do that? I mean, the deep down belly laugh. And to me, I think we underestimate that. Or on your day off, go see a media movie or something that is completely different than what you're doing all the time. When you read a book, don't read a church leadership book every single minute. When you're on vacation with your family, I bet you read church. No, I loved your vacation tips. Those were fantastic. Oh, yeah. Okay, we'll link to that blog post too in the show notes. - But to do what refreshes you. - Yeah. - Don't let somebody tell you, "Oh, you have to get away from all forms of technology," whatever. If that would cause you stress, that's not what you need to do on your vacation. - That's what I found. I need a Wi-Fi connection to really, believe it or not, recharge and a lot of people that would just be horrible. You know, if I go camping, then I do want to kill somebody. I'm gonna break all the commandments, so. - Oh, do you go camping? - No, I don't. - But my wife will do that when I go camping. - Oh, no, I hate camping. - I think it's un-Christian. But. - Perry says it's pretending like you're homeless when you're not. - See, I agree with Perry. That's why I like him so much. So, those are really, really good tips. And I mean, I don't know whether there is anything else, anything else in terms of self-care. - I think just surrounding yourself with people that are energizing. - Yes. - Maybe not the funny crowd, but if there's a Debbie Downer want want person, I try to limit my contact. - You know, I think a lot of times with leaders, there are people that might want to be in a mentoring relationship. And I'll tell you what, I am hardcore about vetting someone like that. To be sure, first of all, they're not gonna go posting every word you say on social media. - Yes. - But you can have a safe place of just conversation. And so to me, that's a big deal. To commit to spending time to either be mentored by someone or to spend time mentoring someone. It's a giant big deal and it's a huge commitment. But selecting, you know, agree with those people that you feel like you would have a real common ground. Someone that you'd want to hang out with anyway, like for coffee. - That's so good. My wife and I become much more tuned to that in the last 10 years where we're just saying, okay, who, and this, you know, when you say it, you even feel like you're sinning, but it's like ministry often can be draining. I mean, you're dealing with people who are high needs and or there's big problems to solve at work that, you know, kind of leave you dragging your knuckles by the end of the day. And then if you go for dinner with, I hate to say it, but like a needy couple or even needy friends, you just, you know, you can barely keep your eyes open before dinner and we'll say, hey, who is it that we had this conversation recently? Like, who is it that's filling our cup that when we get together, and it's not that you don't have bad times, but just, you know, you leave going, wow, where'd the time go? Like that was five hours? How did that happen? And you leave energized and you had fun and it was reciprocal. I mean, it's give and take. - Everybody, yeah, it wasn't work. I know we've all been in conversations where you feel like, I need a nap. - Oh yeah, totally. - When that's over and. - And listen, I'm sure people feel that way after they're done with me too. You know, it goes both ways. - No, they do me. - Yeah, oh, certainly. Like, can she not please just move along? But I think that's just a real important thing to surround yourself with people that just give you energy. - Yeah, maybe have similar beliefs. - Yeah. - I think it just gives, you know, keeps us strong and can kind of fight off that whole edge, that urge to kind of lean toward up, getting burned out. - Yeah. And then, you know, that will give you the energy to go into those draining conversations, which actually you're called to go into from time to time. I mean, ministry is about giving, but there also needs to be some reciprocal, some filling of your tank as much as it's emptied. - Wow, do you think, one last question for you, just to pick on me because this is, I've found this to be a little more therapy than I thought it would be. This has been super helpful. So, do you think A-type-driven leaders like me just make it worse for pastoral care in the church? What would you say? - Yes. Okay, you said I can be honest, right? - You can be honest, yeah. What about us A-types? - We have a doubt, I think, yeah, definitely. A-types for some reason, and there's strong, those are the leaders. Those are the smart people. - We often end up in that church. - A-types, you'll probably work for them one day. Yeah, they'll be your boss, but yeah. It's what's harder to unwind. It's harder to shift into, gee, I'm on vacation two weeks and it takes you maybe four days to really come down. - Not a good vacation, that's about right. - So only four? - Only four, yeah, and on a good day, a good week, yeah. But we make it worse, don't we, us A-types? - I do, I think it's harder, and I'm thankful for the A-types. I love them, our leadership team is mostly all A-types, and I adore these people, but I'm thankful that there's a balance in the church and that there are a lot of people that are a little more laid back. It's easy for that crowd to shift into the relaxing mode. - Yeah. - But I think whatever it takes though, I think I love the way that you talk about taking two weeks off at a time. So you can really seriously come back refreshed. I took a week off before my vacation with my family, so that deceleration zone would happen not at the expense of my family. So that by the time I actually got there, I was still glad because on day eight of my 14-day vacation, my kids came, and by that point, I was relaxed, and they were only there for 24 hours. So the 24 hours I had with them, rather than me being edgy and like, "Oh, do you wanna do this?" Or, "No, I just need a nap." I was relaxed, I was present, I really had a great time. But I know myself, I'm married to a very gracious woman, who knows, you need to go into a cell, buy yourself for a few days, and just in the rubber room detox, and then you can come out and be civil. - A lot of you men that are like you, and my husband need fabulous women like your wife. - Yes, you do. - And myself, I'm just being the kind-- - Yes, you should, he needs you. - But right, just to balance things out, but I love the pre-vacation idea. - We have a vacation coming up, I better start now to prepare for it, right? - Yep, yep, and you know it's funny, because we go to this place, and one of my friends at this place that we frequently go to, is a VP for a major company in Pittsburgh, and he comes up to Canada at a vacation. And I saw him there, and I said, "Yeah, I took a vacation before my vacation "to be ready for the vacation." He laughed, he goes, "You know what, I did too?" 'Cause he says it always takes me 'til Wednesday, and I said, "Well, you know, his name's Kevin." I said, "Hey, Kevin, for years." I've said, "I'm gonna do this, "and I've never done it." And now I finally did it. He said, "I did the same thing." He said, "I just wanted to be fair to my family." And like, he's a VP at a large company, and you know, travels all over the world, and but he was relaxed. - Hmm, somebody needs to tweet that. Leaders, take a vacation before your vacation. - To be fair to your family. - Right, that could be a bumper sticker. - Yeah, and then one of the other things I've learned is an A-type, is I just have to be careful not to impose my expectations on the entire team. That it takes different strokes, and just because I like getting up at 5 a.m. And I like writing books in my spare time, and I like blogging and podcasting when I'm not working. Doesn't mean everybody should. - Yeah, I think that's a tough thing to learn, and to come to terms with. I remember in the very early days of load-in, load-out, campuses, we still have lots of those with new spring, but in the broadcast campus, and getting a feeling from some of the four o'clock in the morning crowd, everyone should love this. And I feel like, but they were not going to be down in the deep dark care room with the person talking about being a cutter, or all the craziness that we would be dealing with in a couple hours. - When you show up at 8 a.m. and then they're kind of looking down on you going, well, where were you? You got the easy shift. - Yeah, well, you come with me in some of these meetings and we will hang out, and I bet you won't trade. - Beth, I said one more question. One more question, then we're going to talk about where people can find you because, but leaders who aren't taking care of themselves, because we've been talking about the church, but I know there's some leaders who are going, okay, I am in a burnout position, or I'm that pastor who's trying to care for 400 people by myself, and I need to throw my cell phone in the toilet right now and start over again. I mean, where's a good place for them to start? If self-care has not been a priority or they realize I'm close to that edge, what are a couple of things they could do this week? - I think just to start with baby steps, to try one thing, either eating healthier, or if it's exercising for the first time doing that, but to tell somebody to not deal with this by yourself. I think that ministry can, especially the upper levels, can be a very lonely place. And especially people that have a governing board or someone who they feel is watching over them all the time, but the more that governing board has the privilege to read some of the articles like you post, the 200 barrier, to share those documents, share those things so that for the lead pastor to read those things is wonderful, but for the people that are making decisions for them to also be aware that I think can be a game changer. - Wow, that's good advice. I think tell somebody and then share the problem. I had to go to our board and say, hey, I'm doing a lot of pastoral care right now 'cause we're small churches, like 50 people total, but one day we're gonna be 200, maybe we'll be a thousand. I'm not gonna be able to do this. Let's get ready for that day now and let's start the transition now. - How did that go? - Went really well. I mean, it was still tough. Oh yeah, like you said, there were people who were like, oh, well, we want the pastor to care for us and they left a long time ago. But I think now we're at the size and we have a couple locations where people kind of realize, I can't know everybody's name and I can't know everybody's story and they're okay with that. We all play our role in the body of Christ and I have one role as the lead pastor. - Well, I think too, the majority of people that I know that are gifted strongly in leadership and in teaching and pastoring are teaching and being a pastor are probably not the same ones that are terribly gifted in mercy, encouragement in those things. It would be maybe sort of the opposite of that. And so I think to realize that, a real turning point for us in care ministry was realizing we can't do this all. And letting go of our tight grip and thinking, hey, if we just do more, it'll all work out. But to release that and to say, Lord, you've got to send those people, send those talented, he gifted them, okay? So we know they're going to be way better than we think they are, but to equip them to do like Jesus did. He showed them how it was done. He put the spirit in them, he equipped them, but then he let them go. He said, go do this and he didn't come back in micromanage. - He trusted, he trusted. If I've equipped people to do this, I'm going to send them to do the work. And I think that's the point we had to get to. Don't come back and check up on someone's work. Trust that the Lord is going to take care of it and make it all happen. I think that was a big, it was freeing for us to finally come to that point. And goodness, we never get it all right, do we? - No, I'm hoping to live to 200. So I might be able to get there, but until then, I continue to struggle. - Exactly. - Beth, this is fantastic. People are going to want to know more. And this is what you do full time. I mean, you're an author, you're a speaker, you publish some books. We'll link to all of what you do in the show notes, but just for listeners right now, it's quickest way, easiest way to find you. - The easiest way is the creative title from my book. It's griefsurvivor.com. - Okay. - And to own that site, I try to address all forms of grief, not just grief from losing a person, but so that, and then I have a, we've got a free resource, Carrie, that I'm gonna, that's gonna be up for your listeners. - Oh, cool. - The fiction of flame out. - Okay. - And just to give someone a resource, if you feel like that's me they're talking about, I am just barely hanging on by a thread and I've never even told anybody, but it's encourage, it's gonna be encouraging and we'll just give somebody somewhere to go, but some practical tools, some things they can even do today. - And where would they be able to get that? Would they be able to get that at your site? - That will be at griefsurvivor, griefsurvivor.com. That's my site. And a couple more quick things. We've got a brand new group study that has just come out. - Cool. - That is available as a free, I love free. Do you love free? - I love free. - You give away so much free. - Try to, this podcast is still free. - Oh, still, you mean that's gonna change? - No, it's not. It'll always be free. - Okay, good. - All right, but it's a group study guide for grief. And so if someone has a grief thing going on in their church, but they don't have any really curriculum for it, it's something that a lay person, anyone could lead. If you have a story, you could lead this group. - Cool. - It was designed for that reason, but those are the main places for people to come. - Okay, well, great. We'll make sure we go there griefsurvivor.com. - com. - All right. - Excellent, we'll link to all that in the show notes. Beth, thank you so much. - Carry, it's been a blast. And I have to ask you one last question. - I'll go ahead. - Are you going to ever have support groups for people that are addicted to your podcast? (laughing) I can see us sitting around in a circle. So, I just listened to three episodes. My name is Beth, and the group says in unison, "Hi Beth." (laughing) - Well, it'll be a small group, but-- - Right now, it'll be a big one. - But we just, I just wanna thank you on behalf of my friends and our New Spring family for what you mean to us. - Well, I have a lot of friends that I've never met at New Spring and a few that I have, so thank you so much. And thanks for really equipping leaders. I really appreciate your time today, Beth. - Well, thanks a million. Talk to you later. - Well, not a fun conversation. And I mean, hopefully so helpful. Man, I'll tell you, if you're leading a small church, if you can figure out pastoral care, that is one of your major, major, major obstacles. Also, if you're, I know a lot of you right now, you're between two and 400. Man, if you don't solve how to scale pastoral care, you will never sustain or surpass your current growth. So I would just encourage you, as a friend, drill down on it. If you want more information, we're gonna include this link in the show notes. By the way, the show notes are karaenohoff.com/episode58. I wrote a blog post a few years ago, one of the most read I've ever written. It's called, "Eight Reasons Churches and Most Churches Never Break the 200 Growth Barrier." There's some other barriers there too that I won't talk about in this podcast, but you can find them there. And again, you can just find that at karaenohoff.com/episode58. Also, one of my very favorite things to do is to talk to you face to face. So if you are in the Austin, Dallas, or Nashville areas, make sure you drop by on our one day orange tour stop. You can get information at orangetour.org. And thanks once again for all the positive encouragement. Man, you guys have been blowing up social media with insights you've got from my new book, "Lasting Impact." And also it's been a lot of fun just seeing you get that and Instagram it or tweet that out. So been a lot of fun. Thanks guys for making this journey. Awesome. Next week, we are back. And my guest is one of the top podcasters on planet Earth. That's right, his name is Lewis Howes. And if you don't know him, you gotta check him out, "School of Greatness." Just look for the "School of Greatness" podcast. Lewis is awesome. He's got a brand new book coming out. He's gonna talk all about what it means to be great as a leader, almost a million people a month download his podcast. It's just crazy. So Lewis is gonna be a guest. We had a great, wide-ranging conversation. And just fascinating. I mean, I loved it from a number of perspectives. One of which is he's not self-declared Christ follower. He's just somebody who just loves to build into people. And so you get a really unique perspective. I think Lewis is just like so many of our neighbors. So we'll talk about that. Lewis Howes, my guest next week. Also coming up, for those of you who subscribe, you'll get this all in your inbox automatically. Sue Miller is a guest. So many of you asked for Sue. She's coming on. We're gonna talk about volunteers. Josh Gagnon from Next Level Church in New England is back. And we actually sat down in person to have this conversation. Powerful, all about the insecure leader. Jerry Gillis from the chapel in Buffalo, New York, all about the attractional or missional church debate. Tim Guptall from New Brunswick, Canada is gonna be a guest. He's gonna talk all about what it's like to step into the senior leader's chair with some great tips for those of you who are doing it. And he had to do it following a guy who was tremendously successful, who had been in that chair for 44 years. Fascinating story. And then a lot of you are getting to know a guy named Chris Brown. He's got Chris Brown's true stewardship podcast, works with Dave Ramsey. He's gonna be on this podcast, so excited. So those are some of the guests coming up. Just wanna thank you guys. Oh yeah. And very soon, if not already by the time you hear this, we'll have another Ask Carry bonus podcast. So lots of stuff happening for all of you who subscribe. You can do that for free anytime at iTunes. Thanks so much. We will be back next week with Lewis House on episode 59. Thanks for tuning in. Hope this helps you lead like never before. (upbeat music) - You've been listening to The Carry New Hough Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)