The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP Bonus 001 The Best of Year One
(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. (upbeat music) - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to the very first bonus episode of the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff. I'm so glad you're here, and I really hope our time together today helps you lead like never before, but also helps you celebrate. Man, I'm really excited, incredibly grateful. It was one year ago this week that this podcast launched with episode one with Andy Stanley, who you're gonna hear from in just a few minutes time. And we have so much to celebrate. And I say we because I really think this is an all skate. Probably my favorite thing about this podcast in the first year is you. You guys have made this so encouraging, so rewarding. I've absolutely loved our guests, but best of all, I've really loved the interaction with you. So many of you take time to tweet at me, to email me just to say thank you, to let me know how this is really making an impact on you, and also more recently on Periscope, getting so much live real time feedback from you on what's helping you lead like never before. It's just, it's been great, and I just wanna say thank you so much. So for all your encouragement, for all the ratings and reviews you've left, for all the kind words you've said, for all the times we've met when I've been speaking in different places, and you've told me specific stories, and for the notes and for the emails that you've sent, I just wanna say thank you. You guys have made it awesome. And so we were wondering how to mark this, and so this is the very first year best of the podcast. And this was a really difficult episode to put together, and I'll tell you why it was difficult, 'cause I think if I was gonna do the best of, I would have included all 52 first-year episodes. There is a nugget in every single one of them that I just love, but what I've done is the hard work of picking out what I think are some of the best of the best, and you may have a different view, or you might say, "Hey, how come this wasn't in there?" I totally get that, but these are pieces that really stuck out to me, and it's just a sampling of some of the amazing interviews that I had the privilege of having in this first year. So you're gonna hear anywhere from 30 second to maybe three or four minute clips from some great moments in the podcast. And if you haven't had a chance to dig through the entire archive yet, this can be a primer and can motivate you to go back and go, "Oh, yeah, okay, I wanna go back and listen to that," because that's what I hope this podcast is. I really hope it's like a library, just like I have a library in my office, in my home, and then in my home office. I hope this podcast is just something that you can come back to again and again, for free, for years to come. We're gonna build a new volume every single week, and I just hope it serves as a great resource for you and your team. So this can be a little bit of a celebration point for those of you who say, "Yes, I remember that," and then for those of you who are new, this can be a little bit of an intro to the podcast. So a lot's going on. By the way, you can find more about the podcast on my blog at carrynewhough.com. You'll see the podcast has a tab of its own, and it's a really exciting week. We've got these bonus episodes coming up every Thursday, in September. It's gonna be great. Next week, I'll be back with an Ask Carry, and then the week after that, with another Ask Carry episode. So a little bit different. So if you want to ask me a question that I can answer, here on the podcast, just use the hashtag #AskCarry, A-S-K-C-A-R-E-Y on Twitter, or just go to my blog, carrynewhough.com. You'll see a little button on the side that says, "Got a question." Just click on that, and then record me a voicemail, and I might even play it back on this podcast while I answer your questions. So that's what we're gonna do. And in the meantime, every Tuesday, there's gonna be the usual episodes. In fact, next Tuesday, it's Ravi Zacharias, and a few other of his associates on the podcast, all about the new apologetics, and how things are changing. And then I have Judd Wilhite and Brad Lomannick coming up this week. So if you haven't subscribed, you can do that. But right now, let's get into the highlights of the first year. So I'm gonna narrate a little bit, and then we'll jump right into a clip and back and forth and back and forth until we're done a little ways from now. But why don't we go all the way back to start to episode number one with Andy Stanley? I was so amazed when Andy said, "Yep, I'm happy to do that, Kerry, happy to help out." That was just awesome. So I had a dream guest for episode one, and that was Andy. And he says, "I'll help." And so I asked him a wide variety of questions, but the one that really stuck with me was something I'd been dying to ask him for a long time. And we get a chance to spend a bit of time together every year, but I just hadn't really asked him this. And I think Andy is probably the most imitated preacher in America. And some of you probably have used his bottom lines or maybe even taken whole messages and retaught them. And I also have the privilege of following him at Kinexis all the time, because we're a North Point strategic partner where I serve. And so I preach about half the time, and then we use Andy's videos the other half of the time. So I am well aware of what it is to be under the spell of one Andy Stanley, or name any other communicator you really admire. And so I got a chance to ask him. I said, "Andy, what do you really think "when other preachers take your stuff and just use it?" Not just once or twice, but like over and over and over again. This is what he had to say. - And if you're not studying, you're not learning, and if you're not learning, it is going to impact your leadership, it just is. And you will be tempted to lie, you will be tempted, you will always be tempted. Even if you don't give in, you will always be tempted to be just a little bit dishonest about exactly where this came from. So what happens is somebody decides to re-preach somebody else's message, and they don't want to say, "Hey, all this content came from someone else." So they re-preach the message, and then they say, "Now so-and-so said," and then they'll quote that person thinking, "Well, see, I kind of at least gave them credit." - For 10 lines. - Yeah, exactly. At least I let the world know that person exists. I know that person exists, and they've said some important things. And that eases a person's conscience, but I just think there's something about studying and the pressure, and I'm telling you this, Carrie, it's a terrible pressure. Now the good news is because, in church world at least, we have grown accustomed to video teaching, it really should give the men and women who don't feel like they can do this week after week after week. Now there's actually more time to study, more time to prepare. And I think preachers and teachers should find a rhythm where they can actually do their own stuff, and if it's not weekly, find that rhythm, and then use other communicators, show videos, or just get up and say, "You know what? "I'm Craig Rochelle, one of my best friends," re-preach the series I did, that the "How to Be Rich" book came from, and he just got out and told his congregation, Andy did these four messages. I thought they were fantastic. I'm gonna, I wanna re-preach them to use so I can contextualize them, and off he went, and I sent in my outline. So, you know, it was his church and his application for his church, but instead of just quoting, he just got up and said, "Hey, you know, "I got these ideas from somebody else. "People are fine with that. "They're way more fine with that "than finding out a year later that their pastors "been ripping people off of their steeling." Yeah, that's... - No, that's true, and you know, I mean, for our context here at Kinexis, we use your teaching about 50% of the time on video, and then I'm live with, you know, 98% of my own content. And there's been a couple times where I've tried to re-teach something you've done because it was all, you know, North Point specific or Buckhead specific. And those are much harder for me because I think there's something in your own voice, and I would never say, you know, it's hard to follow you, Andy, to be really transparent, but for me to try to be you is just really difficult. - Well, you should, yeah, and you shouldn't. - It's like, let Andy be Andy, and I'll do my little bit, and it just seems to work out really well. So, no, that was very, very helpful, and I think you're right, you missed the joy and the pain of stuff. - Struggling, yeah, I mean, there's so many... There's so many Saturday mornings that I'm sitting at my kitchen counter going, "Lord, you know, I got two hours, "and I have done my part, I have worked hard, "I've done all I know to do." And, you know, this outline just looks dead to me. You know, you gotta do something. I think that tension is so helpful. And, you know, the man or woman who takes a shortcut and misses that, I think they're robbing themselves, and I think they're certainly robbing their congregation. So, just my opinion. - Andy, that was just so good. I think you're right. I think you lose the tension, you lose the struggle, and I love, you know, we're all influenced by people, but I love writing my own content, and I think it makes me a better leader, I really do. And, if you're in the habit of using other people's sermons, sort of, I don't know, is this the term, Holis Bullis? I would just encourage you to, you know, not do that. I think you're better off, and your people are better off if they hear you, because God called you, and if you wanted to Andy Stanley's, he would have made two or 12, or whatever, so. And, that's what Andy thinks, so there you go. Now, on episode 33, which actually is the most downloaded episode in your one of the podcast, I Talked to Caleb Coltonback. And Caleb has a unique story. In fact, his book is coming out next month, in October of 2015, it's called Messy Grace, and it's all about his relationship with his parents. He grew up in a divorced home. His parents divorced when he was very, very young, but they both pursued gay relationships, and that left Caleb really confused, because as a teenager, he became a Christian, he became convinced that, in his view, sexuality should be expressed between a man and a woman within the covenant of marriage, and now he's got a dad in a gay relationship, and a mom in a gay relationship, and how does he as a Christian love his gay parents when he disagrees with their lifestyle choices? So, from episode 33, Caleb Coltonback. - Yeah, so, when my parents went through a period where they were mad at me, and so on me, that kind of thing, I really feel like they were upset, because they thought that I would not accept them. They felt like I would reject them like a lot of other Christians had, or that if I did want to be in a relationship with them, I would unleash all of my fancy evangelistic moves on them, and they would become a pet project, which, absolutely, we should be sharing Christ with people, but it's best done in the context of a personal relationship, not in the context of blindly calling out morality on people that we don't even know, but really living Christ out as an example. And so, I felt like they said, "Hey, you're not gonna accept me," but I tried to do everything I could to let them know, I do accept you, that there's nothing that has changed about our relationship, nothing. You're always my mom, you're always my dad, you're always welcome in my house, you are always part of my family. I love you maybe even more now than I did before, because I'm not just loving you in my own accord, I'm loving you on Christ's accord as well, out of the overflow of His grace. And so, I think that we have to understand that when somebody we love comes out to us, that doesn't mean that we change our relationship, that doesn't mean that we try to throw a Bible versus at them, 'cause they probably already know it, that doesn't mean that we get mad, that doesn't mean that we look disappointed, that we say, "Hey, thank you so much "for allowing me to be a part of this season of your life. "Thank you so much for letting me in "on what's happening in your life, "for having a front row seat, "for trusting me enough to come out to me." I mean, I think that's acceptance. Now, that doesn't mean that we approve of everything that happens. We don't, we don't approve of everything that happens. We don't approve of the behavior. We do believe that sexuality is between a man and a woman, but that's where I think we have to draw the line and we have to walk the line and that's attention, Carrie. Hey, I love the person, nothing changes, but that doesn't mean that I approve of what happens. - You will definitely want to go back and listen to that entire episode. It's episode 33 and of course you can get Caleb's book next month called "Messy Grace." So I just think it's a powerful story God's gonna use and I learned a ton talking to Caleb. Perry Noble and I also had a really great conversation. One of the things that has surprised me, I think, is just how open and honest the leaders that I've been able to talk to have been. And Perry was episode two. I mean, we were early and on the podcast. What I love about Perry is how honest and how authentic he is and we talked about something that we had both been through, which is burnout. And so if you are burnt out or even close to being burnt out, I want you to go right now to karaenuhoff.com/episode2 because Perry and I put a huge resource sheet together for you, for free, to help you. And then listen into Perry's story and then tell a friend and then go get some help. But here's just a highlight of Perry and his episode of burnout. And don't you just love his authenticity as he talks about this? - The biggest thing that helped me was finally admitting to people that I was struggling with it. I told him my best friend about it. I didn't, my wife didn't even know. And we talked about that afterwards. And I was like, well, I just didn't know how to tell you I wanted to end my life. I don't know how to have that conversation over dinner. And so it was something I was ashamed of. It was something I felt guilty about, but it was something I didn't know how to get past. I'll be honest with you, Kerry, when I was, I received Christ in 1990. I didn't, but I had a pornography addiction. I did not break the pornography addiction until 1999. It took me nine years. And the guilt and the shame that I felt was so immense and so terrible, but I finally broke that addiction in 1999. The guilt and the shame I felt for this depression and anxiety was a hundred times worse than the guilt and shame that I'd felt with the pornography addiction. - Really? - Yeah, 'cause I just didn't want people to know. And so I remember the very first conversation I had with anybody, one of my best friends, he's been one of my best friends since high school. And I told him I wanted to kill myself. And from that moment, that feeling lost its grip in my life. Because when you actually confess out loud that you're struggling with something, and that's what James, the brother, Jesus said, in James 516, if we confess our sins to each other. - To each other. - Yeah, to each other. And pray for each other, we'll be healed. A lot of people have been forgiven for their sin, but they've never been healed because they've never confessed it. And there's a big difference between being forgiven and being healed. And I learned the power of being healed by confessing that out loud and just telling somebody, hey, I'm wrestling. And because I told him I was able to tell my leadership team, I was able to find a good Christian counselor who was able to walk me through some things and navigate me through some things. And I just say, one week of counseling, our two sessions of counseling is not going to fix a screwed up life. - No. - What you reap is what you sow. And so all that stuff that I sowed into my life, I had to reap that. And now, even now, I'm in the process of trying to sow really good seed into my life. So five, 10, 15 years from now, I can reap that really good seed. - Once again, if you're struggling with burnout, man, oh man, I just want to encourage you, check out the show notes for episode two. It's just carrynewhop.com/episode2. Perry and I spent a lot of time putting some helpful resources together for pastors and leaders who are just plain tired and who feel done. And we just want to help you. We just want to encourage you. Now, the podcast is an eclectic mix. If you've been with us for even a season, you know that the guests can vary as to whether they are famous or not famous, whether they are talking about their personal burnout or about the church or about leadership or millennials or whatever. I love the variety in this. And Rich Birch has been a friend and in fact, we work together for a season at Kinexis Church where I am. He's been a friend for a while. And Rich is one of the most progressive thinkers I know. And if you haven't checked out his blog on seminary.com, you should. But I love what Rich has to say about contemporary music and in church and whether in fact, what we think is contemporary is or isn't. Here's Rich. Well, you know, we haven't licked it yet, but I would say there's a couple of questions we're asking. We're thinking about, first of all, I don't think U2 is the preeminent example of what worship music should sound like. You know, I think for a long time, I think that's been our, you know, I think as 40-something guys leading, we've said, man, if our worship could just be like Bono, that would be amazing. Where I just don't think that's the case anymore. I don't think that's the music that people are listening to. It's not the music that my kids are listening to. I've got teenagers. And it's not the music that our, you know, the kind of broader culture is necessarily living to. So I think there's a music thing. We've got to figure out how to bring in some beats that sound a bit more like what's being played on the radio. For us, we've tried to wrestle with specifically with the Spanish thing. We've been doing Spanish translation of our services now for a couple of years. And that's been an interesting process because it's not like all of a sudden, it's changed, you know, sea change in our culture. But what we found is that our second and third generation Spanish folks that attend our church, who by the way, are the kind of millennials, 20s, 30s, those folks, they've super appreciated that. They've said, hey, we really want the service in English because that's their primary language. But we love the fact that when our parents come, who are more comfortable in Spanish, they love that we're going out of the way to try to make that available for them. So again, that's been kind of one of those, you know, small things. We do a video announcements, you know, similar like North points 10 before or, you know, a lot of churches do video announcements. We've started over this year. We actually mix in a, one of our host, Kaira is her name and she'll do a part of the announcement every morning. She'll do it in Spanish. And so she doesn't do a direct translation, but let's say like in the welcome portion, she'll not only welcome people in English, but then also welcome them in Spanish. Again, it's a small thing, but we're trying to at least acknowledge, hey, the culture is bigger than just honky land, you know, it's bigger than just white bald guys in their 40s like that. And so again, I think we're asking questions. We haven't necessarily figured it out yet, but that's, you know, that's a part of it. - Always bends my mind. Thanks so much for that, Rich. One of the guys I've had the privilege of getting over the last couple of years is John Acuff. And he's had an exceptional year. I mean, Doover has just exploded to be a New York Times Wall Street Journal, da, da, da, da, da, bestseller. And John is an amazing guy. And I love his honesty. We've had lots of opportunity to chat just sort of when we're backstage in an event or that sort of thing. And John is just so honest about the struggle that's in his life and in all of our lives. And I got a chance to sit down and interview him last year. And John just talked very openly about narcissism and insecurity as a leader. Here's John. - I just wrote a post about confessing. I don't read blogs. And the reason I don't read blogs is that I compare their blog to my blog. And it just makes me feel so inadequate. And so I just stopped reading blogs, which isn't the solution. The solution is to be honest about, you know, the inadequacy and also the reality of the narcissism. Like for me, what I'm saying is that I can't read all blogs because of the commentary they offer on my life. - Wow. - Like that is the definition of narcissism. Like every blog is written about me. They're not about me. Like that, you know, like Michael Hyatt's blog isn't well designed as an insult to me. You know, like... - He didn't do this. - I got John A. Cuff in there. - Yeah, holy cow. So yeah, I think for me, that's a big part of it is comparing and recognizing when you're doing that. And also, you know, having some boundaries and going, okay, I don't get to a healthy place if I spend too much time spinning out on this idea. And if you're not funny, if that's not what flows out of you, like, that's okay. Does that mean you can't work harder, you know, work hard to get better at a certain thing? - Oh yeah. - Sure. And then a million writers have said this. The only way to find your voice is to write or the only way to find your voice is to speak. And it's going to be different. And then, so like, I think a lot of people do struggle with that. And I think you end up, but it's miserable because you end up playing a role and it just empties you out. - It does. And I think at the heart of it, at least for me, and it's been a journey over, you know, 20 years of leadership, it's just security. It's an insecurity that says, I can't have smarter people around the table. I can't have really clever people around me because it makes me look bad. - Yeah, well, it just ruins every, like, what a miserable way to go through life, right? - It is. - 'Cause you could take my, don't re-boggs thing and apply it to anything. Don't re-boggs, don't sit with smarter people. Don't, you know. - Don't listen to other preachers. - Yeah, don't listen to other preachers. Don't listen to other podcasts, don't. And all of a sudden, you're this isolated, miserable, narcissistic, demigod who is like, ah! And so, I think you just have to be upfront about that and have people in your life that will tell you when you're doing that. Like spouses and friends and relationships. And so, what I'm trying to do is be more honest about it online. And I guess why I wrote that post. Like, I don't like sometimes the character I play when I feel, you know, I've written a book so I should have it all figured out. Like, or I know I've written a book about career so I should have a perfect career and I can't admit mistakes. Like, no, that's, I'm gonna say that stuff because it's true. - Sometimes you just think, you know, that people who seem to have it all together never struggle and that's just not true, everybody struggles. And John, I just so appreciate your honesty in that. - In talking about it. And Pete Wilson is another leader who's just extremely honest about his ups and his downs and I got a chance to talk to Pete just about the incredible journey at Crosspoint Church in Nashville. I mean, they've grown to multiple campuses and over 5,000 people. And you would think you would be very, very satisfied as a leader if that was your story. But in episode 11, Pete said that even he, like most of us, still struggles with dissatisfaction in ministry, no matter how successful their ministry has been. Here's Pete. - Yeah, and I think that is one of the just innate problems of being a leader is generally you're not satisfied. You know, it can make you a great leader. It can be kind of what motivates you, but you just have to be careful with that. And on our retreat, what we talked about was, we just looked at 1 Kings 19 and it's a story of Elijah and it's just an interesting season in his leadership because he is coming off of what looked like it was going to be a spiritual high. You know, this is 1 Kings 19 is where he's, you know, just come away from Mount Carmel and he went up against the 450 prophets of Baal. And, you know, they beg Baal to, you know, light their sacrifice on fire and it doesn't happen. And, you know, he prays to God and God sends fire down. It's just this huge, dramatic moment. And it's one where he thought this would be the kind of event that would bring about revival and turn everyone towards God. But that's not what happens. In fact, you know, what happens is Jezebel says that she's going to kill him. And so now he's on the run. And I identify with that and I think a lot of our staff identify with that because in ministry, we're always making plans. We're, you know, creating events. We're tweaking service times. We're launching new ministries. And along with every new initiative that we launch, we have expectations, you know. We believe it's going to turn out one way, you know. And if we didn't believe that, we probably wouldn't be making the changes or the tweaks that we're making along the way. And often know in life and in ministry things, don't work out the way you thought they were going to work out. You know, you thought if you tweaked your service times or you thought if you, you know, added this new staff position, you know, that this was going to happen and things were going to grow and it was going to be amazing and the church would be full and people would be accepting Christ and, you know, incredible things would happen. And then often it just doesn't turn out that way. And I think that we're often left with thinking, wow, you know what, I'm disappointed, I'm discouraged that ministry isn't turning up the way I thought. I see them in some church planners all the time. You know, they launch a church and, you know, they've heard the two or three just superstar stories, you know, these movements where God has done miraculous things. And those are great stories, not that we need to tell those stories, we need to celebrate those stories. But if that's the only stories you have, you know, then you go and you launch your church and it doesn't match up with that, you know, spectacular story. I think people start feeling like they're just discouraged and they feel like, you know, they're a loser. And you do what Elijah does, which Elijah goes away and he basically says that, you know, he's incapable. He keeps it personally and says this is because of me. It's my lack of leadership, it's my lack of giftedness and he internalizes that failure. And I think that's a real temptation for all of us. I think that's one of the things that just makes a leader worth following is when a leader is so open and so transparent and so honest about what they struggle with. It just makes me want to follow them more, not less. So Pete, thanks so much for your transparency and speaking of successful churches, Elevation Church has got an incredible story going. And in episode 20, I talked to Frank Bueller. Now Frank at the time was their director of family ministry. He's now in charge of all of student ministry and all of family ministry. And if you listen to five minutes of Frank, you understand why he keeps getting promoted and keeps getting handed more responsibility. And Frank didn't actually start as a staff member at Elevation Church. He started as a volunteer. He was actually, he owned a state farm agency or branch or whatever. And he talks about his involvement and how he now leads thousands of volunteers and gets them to get the same level of buy-in as staff. This is from episode 20, Frank Bueller of Elevation Church. - I think it starts with us realizing as leaders that it's not our job to say no for people. So many people, there's a handful of people in my life that I feel like if I don't say no for them, they're gonna burn out, their family's gonna be wrecked and everything's gonna fall apart. But really I can count that on one hand. Most of volunteers and leaders I work with, I'm called to cast vision, challenged them to be a part of this. And so I think too many times we run it through this filter. Can you imagine if I came to Elevation Church, CEO of an insurance company, a leader that loves to lead, loves leadership books, I was ready to serve in the church. I loved the church, fell in love with Elevation Church for them to ask me to volunteer every other week in a real basic role. I would be so bored so quickly, even though that seems like an easy ask and they don't wanna ask too much of me, but it didn't take long before they slowly started asking me to take on a little more responsibility 'cause they saw I'm wired to lead, I wanna lead, I want somebody to invest in me and help see the potential that God's placed inside of me. And as soon as I saw that they wanted to help me see that come to fruition, I was with them. So if they asked me to run as they did, a five AM setup team before our four worship experiences at an affordable location that we were having, I considered that an honor. - On your day off. - Yeah. - Yeah, on my day off, my only day off, 'cause I was traveling back on Saturdays most of the time. So we would literally come set up, I would, and then I would leave set up, go get my family and we would attend worship together and then serve where the kids could serve as well in the afternoon. And so we did this together and I loved it, but I genuinely would have been miserable if they would have just left me and some basic volunteer role and not been willing to invest in me and call out what's in me because they thought, well, he's really busy and he travels a lot during the week. I don't wanna ask any more of him. No, I'm called to lead. And I think that we are learning and we miss it too often because we get so focused on the people we do have and the leaders that we do have and the way we invest in them. But we gotta keep our radar open and realize, all right, how can I help a person take the next step? I don't have to take a leap into leadership in the church effect. A lot of times that's not wise, right? But we wanna disciple them and lead them in such a way that they take that next step of ownership. Hey, Frank's gonna be back on episode two and I'm gonna deconstruct how he gets everything done. Every time I talk to Frank, it's like, wow, you got more responsibility and you're doing more things. I don't know how you do it. I'm gonna deconstruct him a little bit in season two. So hang on for that. If you're always looking for productivity tips, our house and people seem to get it all done. Another guy who seems to get it all done from episode 33 is Mark Batterson. You may know him as the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. or you might just know the books he's written because he's written some New York Times bestsellers, including Circle Maker. And Mark was gracious enough to give me an interview. And we spent a lot of time actually just talking about how he writes. And as a writer, I've got a new book called Lasting Impact Out. As a writer, I'm just fascinated in how other writers write, both as preachers and as like writers for books. And so Mark talked about that and he talks about how he captures his thoughts. It's a very endearing interview. And here's just a snippet from Mark Batterson. - I would really push right here on 2nd Corinthians 10-5, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. The way that I do that is by journaling every day. I don't know any other way to take thoughts captive because I'm incredibly forgetful. And so the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. And so you gotta write it down, you know, Habakkuk, write down the vision. And so just a word of exhortation. I think when you think about a book as like a 40, 50, 70,000 word book, like that can be overwhelming. But Kerry, I know that most people are capable of writing a thousand words today. - Oh yeah, absolutely. - And no, I'm not saying that those wouldn't need to be edited, that you wouldn't need to, you know, work on that. But if you write a thousand words for 40 days, well, you've got a 40,000 word book on your hand. So you gotta break it down and try not to be too overwhelmed by the overarching project and just cultivate that discipline of writing day in and day out. - Well, communication is something we all do. And I have to communicate every weekend at my church. I communicate on this podcast. I communicate on this blog. And basically, as Jeff Anderson says, leadership comes with a microphone. So in episode 16, I sat down with Jeff, who has also become a very, very good friend over the last few years. And I asked him, you know, how can anybody become a better communicator? And Jeff, who is also the guy behind preaching rocket, has some fantastic ideas. Here's just a sampling of some of the tips he's got for communicators. - Well, it's not being prepared and not understanding what preparation is. And I tell people that they should say their message out loud before they get up in front of you. In other words, the first time this should come out of your mouth, it should not be in front of an audience. And, but that, I get pushed back on that. Awkward, I want to do that. Even I got a stand in the room, I'll buy myself with a few people and do that and it's awkward. And I totally agree with them. It's totally awkward. There's something more awkward than that though. That's standing up and bombing in front of a lot of people. So I have delivered some amazingly bad sermons and some terrible presentations. Unfortunately, nobody was in the air. And it helps me to get these words out and it helps me also edit. As Nancy Duarte says, who wrote an incredible book about presentations, she called Resonate. She said, "You have to kill your darlings." In other words, these things that you want to add in to the talk and add in to the talk that ultimately might not take you in your audience where you want to go. You have to add it and get shorter and shorter and concise and concise and concise. So preparing and adequately prepared, both in the content and the delivery, and then having some memorable phrasing. It takes a lot of work to do memorable phrasing in what we call sticky statements. An example of a sticky statement is Steve Jobs saying, "What's an iPod? An iPod is like having 1,000 songs in your pocket." That was a transferable and sticky statement to people who understood what an MP3 player was and people who still to this day don't understand exactly what it is, but still have one. I understand what all that is. - When I was done interviewing Jeff, I thought, "Man, I gotta write some of this stuff down," which is one of the reasons, of course, why we do show notes on the podcast. So the way you can easily find the show note is just note the episode number and then it's just kerrynuhoff.com/episode whatever. So that was kerrynuhoff.com/episode16. And then the very next week I sat down with Josh Gagnon. One of the things I love about this podcast is it's a mix of people I've known for a while and then some new people. And Josh came across my radar after I launched the podcast. I forget exactly how we first hung out, but I interviewed him for the podcast and he is actually the lead pastor of Next Level Church, the fastest growing church in the history of New England and the fifth fastest growing church this year in America. Isn't that crazy? Josh and I've actually struck up a friendship since then who in fact, when you listen to this episode, we'll have just hung out for a couple of days here at my home in Berry, Ontario, Canada. So we've gotten to know each other quite well, but Josh just has an incredible attitude. And this is Josh on doing whatever it takes to reach unchurched people. - No, I think the key is change because the moment that we feel like we need to head in a more contemporary way or in a more traditional way, we're willing to head that direction. I think, when is your Greek area? I think fruit or growth or health is the primary goal. And so if you're saying I won't change and you're not reaching anyone, then maybe you're not reaching anyone 'cause you won't change. But if you're willing to change and continuously changing and your reach is just expanding and growing, then I think you're on the right path. Your change is leading to growth. And so I think there's a heartbeat there. There's a heart issue. If someone would say, well, I'm not changing 'cause I am traditional and well, is there food? Is there growth? Is it working? And if not, well, maybe, maybe it's 'cause you're not willing to change. - So your filter really then is effectiveness or effectiveness and accomplishing your mission. The filter is the mission. And if like a cross helps connect people better to Jesus and two years later, they're walking more authentically with him, we're all in. And if it's helping more people, throwing him in helps, if taking him out helps, then we're gonna do it. Is that sort of the filter you've got? - That's absolutely the filter. And if I were starting a church in Charlotte, North Carolina today, where we have friends or any other part of the country, I might not add a hymn because the church is in that culture. Many of them rarely may sing hymns. And so I wouldn't add a hymn in that culture because I'd be going back, back in culture, back in time. But in our culture, just not doing all hymns is a step forward. And so we're asking people to take just a step forward in their contemporary view, not run a mile. I don't want to excel at church to ever leave culture trying to reach culture. - You know the other thing I love about Josh is he has a no excuses mentality. He just does. And I think it helps you connect the dots to figure out why in a region where almost no church is growing, Josh has got such a rapidly growing church and seeing so many people come to Jesus. And it's just encouraging. The other thing that's true about Josh is he's a young leader, like this next guy you're going to hear from, from episode 35 when I sat down with Clay Scroggins. And Clay's 34 years old. He is a lead pastor of North Point Community Church in Alfreda, Georgia. And some of you are saying, wait a minute. Andy Stanley is a lead pastor of North Point Church in Alfreda, Georgia. Well, no, Andy is now the lead pastor of North Point Ministries, but Clay is a lead pastor of North Point Church. Andy asked him to lead it. And he was a very young leader when he got tapped on the shoulder to do this and lead at other campuses in North Point. One of the things I've loved about the first year is we've had a chance to sit down with a lot of next generation leaders. And as I've watched the leadership podcast grow and my blog audience grow over the last year, the vast majority of people who are jumping on are young leaders, leaders under 40, even a lot in their 20s. And I just want to say, if that's you, hey, I'm just so committed to helping you lead better. And thanks so much for all your encouragement and everything you're doing in the kingdom. And one of the hallmark characteristics of this next generation is authenticity. So Clay Scroggins talks about learning how to be himself in a very intimidating environment surrounded by older leaders. Here's Clay. - Two things that come to mind. And number one, I was so intimidated to lead people that were older than me. And I think I just thought that there's some kind of secret wisdom that comes with age. And since I didn't have the age, I must have been missing the wisdom. And there is some truth to that. I mean, certainly age does bring you experience and experience should bring you wisdom, but that's not always true. - It can, but it doesn't automatically. - Exactly, but there's plenty of immature 60 year olds. And then there's plenty of super mature 16 year olds. - Very true. - Yeah, that was just, that was an unnecessary intimidation. And looking back, I wish I would have cared less about it. And I wish I would have spoken it more to the people that I was leading in a honoring way of just saying, hey, I recognize that I'm younger than you. And that doesn't mean it really anything to me other than you have a lot of experience that I have to learn from. And so I wish I would have handled that better. I think I was just so, I think in some ways I tried to be, I think it's one of my least favorite times of my life when I was trying to be someone that I really am not because I felt like I needed to act older or try to be someone other than myself ultimately. So that's a regret that I had as a leader. Another thing I think I learned in that stage was the temptation to make it seem like you have all the answers is such a strong temptation as a leader. And I wish I would have asked for more help. I am more comfortable asking for help now five years later than I was then. And maybe, I think a lot of that is just, maybe comfortably with myself, but I wish I would have asked for more help. And I think I just thought, okay, well, I'm young and people may be thinking, oh, I don't know if you can do this. And so I need to act like I've got it together or I've got to put on the perception that I know what I'm doing. And I wish I would have been quicker to ask. - So, so true from clay, isn't it? And I think clay and this next guy you're gonna hear from would get along well. I don't know whether they know each other or not. I should probably introduce some of that. It's John Stickle that you're gonna hear from next. John at 29 became the lead pastor of a very large church and grew it from about 1500 to 4,500 people. That's a lot of leadership for a young leader. Now, one of the other things about millennial leaders is they approach leadership differently, less top down, more collaboratively. And John had a fascinating way of collective leadership at his church. And I asked him how that worked on a mega church model. Like he said, their metaphor for leadership is following the cloud and he asks all the leaders to privately discern what God's will is and then bring it back to the table. Here's what he had to say about that style leadership. - Man, I think it's really it's when you, John 10, my sheep know my voice. And so creating this belief that God, every, you know, man does not live on bread alone, but every word that comes proceeds current, present tense from the mouth of God. And so it's the sense of what I love about our approach of following the cloud is everybody has to seek God on their own. So it's not we get together and say, okay, let's open up the Bible and find a verse that God's saying. It's like, man, we're all seeking God. And then when we gather back together, it's what are you hearing and what, where are you seeing him move and what is that? What are specifics of that? And so we just go around together and start sharing. And it's amazing how every time you just find these threads of how it's like somebody say, man, that's how God's been speaking to me. Or he said that same thing to me from this passage that he said to you from that passage. Or I'm hearing God, you know, in this circumstance or whatever that may look like. And then we just kind of dialogue it together. And then it's that you just trust that this is the Lord. - It's a really interesting season for the church because as much as we hear from a lot of churches that are growing on podcasts like this, we also know that a lot of churches are not growing. And what do you do about that? So I sat down and I had a couple of episodes with a few leaders you're gonna meet in just a second, Will Mancini and David Kineman. And I talked to Will and David all about why the church is changing and why people are attending church less often. So this is Will Mancini about what to do when people who used to attend church don't attend as often and whether you should run defense. In other words, try to get everybody back in the building or run offense and look for new ways to connect with people. Will Mancini from Episode 23. - You know, what are the horizons of possibility? And the horizons of possibility are under explored right now for technology in the church. We, you know, there's a lot of chatter in social media but we haven't really deeply thought about our disciple making results and how apps, how connectivity, how the internet can help us engage those results. And it's a knee-jerk response 'cause we're naturally so, worried about, you know, eroding the connection to our local church and body of believers. I just look at it the opposite way, the definition and meaning of locality has changed. It has shifted. - Okay. - And so we can have, we can play offense with this or we can play defense with this. And 95% of all conversations in the church are playing defense and we're coming from a fear posture. Naturally so, we got to get that. I have the luxury being out, step back and have the time to think a little bit more from the offensive posture. How can we use tools? And, you know, let me get really crass. We can talk about sexting. Is sexting less of an emotional? Is sexting less than real? Why would we say, why do we hammer against the fact that this isn't real? Yeah, I'm not condoning. Sexting, it's the idea, it's people experience intimacy at a deep level through technology. And that's a human reality. That's not a bad thing. So why aren't we looking at how do we leverage all the opportunities for disciple making results with the same technology? - Will's episode was one of the most talked about and downloaded episodes of the year and just fascinating. You can listen to the whole thing. It's just episode 23 of the podcast. The next week I came back and I interviewed David Kinemann, president of the Barna Research Group. And we talked about the trend of a post-Christian mindset developing in many millennials. These are millennials who just no longer fit any of the traditional Christian categories according to worldview or spiritual disciplines or anything. And David had a really good point. He said, you know, a lot of us have success stories at our church. Well, look at that 18 year old. She follows Jesus more than anybody I know. And that's true, but he says, noting the exceptions to the rule can be dangerous. So here's David Kinemann from episode 24. - Yeah. And I think what makes it a particularly dangerous carry is that, you know, there's still a really good chunk of very, very committed, faithful Christians who aren't post-Christian, who are very committed. In fact, a lot of our research here in North America is showing that young millennials who are staying committed to evangelical Christianity are even more committed to biblical orthodoxy. Now, there are fewer of them than there are among the boom or evangelicals, but among those who are staying committed, they're very, very committed to, you know, thinking theologically and orthodoxy. And, you know, there's sort of a, their light is shining brighter in the midst of a generation of their generation who is even less, less committed to Christianity. So what I think is tough is that a lot of us as leaders, we see young people in our church communities who seem to embody, you know, the very best. And, you know, I constantly remind church leaders just because, you know, we have a tribe of very loyal, you know, faithful followers of Christ doesn't mean that that defines the generation. In fact, all the best metrics that we can see are suggesting that that group of post-Christian young adults is growing. - It's such a good point. And I mean, that's not to say you shouldn't celebrate what's going on in the lives of the people in your church, but you just can't let that to cause you to forget that the people are outside your church who really are drifting further and further away from Christ. Such a good reminder. Now, speaking of millennials, had a conversation with Jeff Sarrat, who is not a millennial. He's actually a boomer, but had a fascinating episode on churches that are reaching millennials. I just love it. One of my favorites, Jeff is writing a book on churches that are reaching millennials. And one of the surprise discoveries is they do not share a similar model. But then I asked him this question about, hey, Jeff, so leaders who are older, like Gen Xers or Boomers or even older than that, can they interact with millennials and how so? And he had a fascinating answer. So from episode 40, here's Jeff Sarrat on how older leaders can lead millennials. - I think that just get out of the way is not very helpful. - Okay, sure. - I mean, I'm not coming at you. I don't mean that at all. But I think the biggest thing we have to do, honestly, as an older leader, the biggest thing I have to do is I have to have relationships with millennials. I have to hang out with them. Just reading research, just listening to some podcasts is really important. But if I'm not hanging out with millennials, getting to know them, constantly asking them questions, learning from them as much as they're learning from me, I think that is how we can lead millennials and mentor millennials and be handing off this baton. I mean, one of the things I love is I get to hang around a lot of church planters and by the very nature of the beast, it's mostly millennials. And so they come and they have all kinds of questions, but that's my opportunity to just constantly ask them questions. And I think that's the deal. I think, Terry, I think the thing is, is that yes, we can lead millennials if we're students of millennials. - At the very lower demographic of millennials are a whole group of people who are leaving the church. And that is something that I want to talk to Cara Powell about. Why are kids who grew up in church leaving the church? And what can we do about it? And Cara Powell shared one of the insights that probably will go up there as one of my biggest insights over the last 12 months. And she talked about the role of doubt in someone's faith journey. This is so worth the listen and so worth going back to listening to all of episode four to hear what Cara has to say about young adults who stick and don't stick in the church. - The first thing that comes to mind is the role of doubt in a young person's faith journey. And so often we think of doubt as something that's detrimental or sabotages faith or is toxic to faith. And that's not what we saw in our research. Our research shows that it's not doubt that is toxic to faith, it's unexpressed doubt. That is toxic to young people's faith. - That's huge. - Yeah, we've got data that shows that when young people feel the opportunity to express and explore their doubts, that that's actually related to greater faith maturity both in high school and college. And yet the vast majority of students don't feel like they can express or explore their doubts. So for church leaders who are listening to this, to ask the hard question, do young people feel like they can ask big and tough questions about God in our community? And if not, how can we create more safe places so that they can? - Wow, and that's got to be high on the freak out meter for parents too when your 14 year old says, "I'm not sure I really believe this." Or, "How do we even know the Bible is true? "Are they looking for objective answers "or are they just looking for a place "where they know that they can be loved "and still ask questions that kick against orthodoxy?" - Yeah, I would say the answer is yes. You just gave me two options and it's both. They are somewhat interested in the answer, but I think they're also interested in knowing that God and the faith community is big enough to handle those questions. So, you know, one story that haunts me, Carrie, is of a 13 year old who went to a senior pastor one day, and this was a very curious inquisitive 13 year old boy, and he went to a senior pastor and said, "You know, pastor, if I raise my pinky finger, "will God know what's happening? "Does God know which finger I'm going to raise?" And the well-intentioned senior pastor said, "Yes, God knows what finger you're going to raise "before you raise it." So then the same boy pulled out a copy of a time magazine that showed starving children in Africa, and he said, "Well, then pastor, "does God know what's happening "with these starving children in Africa?" And the pastor said, "Yes, God knows what's happening, "and we just need to trust God." Well, that 13 year old boy is someone I'm sure you've heard of, and in fact, I'm actually using technology that he helped create. That 13 year old boy was Steve Jobs. - Wow. - Yeah, and the biography by Isaacson, Steve had that question, went to a senior pastor, "Does God know what's happening with these children in Africa?" And the pastor gave a well-intentioned answer, but Steve ended up walking out of that Christian church and never again going back to worship. - Wow. - So she urged parents and leaders, when young people come to them with questions, four great words are to say, "I don't know, but," you know, there are a lot, I have a PhD in practical theology. There's a lot about God I don't understand. I mean, if I could understand about everything about God, he wouldn't be God. So, you know, for that senior pastor to have said to Steve, "I don't know, but, Steve, how about if you and I meet "with your mom and this woman who loves questions "about science and the four of us can have coffee together?" Or, "I don't know, Steve, but what if me, you and your dad, "get together for lunch after church next week "and we can talk about it?" You know, to have, to create that kind of space for those kind of tough questions, could have made a real difference in Steve's life and every one of us know young people. If we stop and ask them, this is amazing with my own kids. I stop and ask them, even just through this last night with a small group, I lead with boys and their moms. - Yeah, I've read about that group fascinating. - Yeah, it's called BAM for boys and moms. Boys came up with a name, so. - Sounds like it. - Yeah, you could tell, right? But, you know, we talked about last night, if you could ask God any question, what would it be? - Isn't that powerful? I mean, just think about that. Just think about the people you know who have doubts. Whose doubts won't necessarily be fatal to their faith if they can express them. That's just a gem that I just, I got so excited when Cara started talking about that. So, that's from episode four. The episode before that was episode three, and again, this is a very eclectic podcast and will remain so. And so, I talked to a guy who is a great friend of mine, his name is Casey Graham, and Casey was in church world, and now sort of works alongside the church world as founder and CEO of The Rocket Company. He has some fascinating things to say about how leaders are missing opportunities to connect with people by something as simple as sending them an email on a Tuesday. Here's Casey Graham from episode three. - Well, let's go internal first. We spend so much time focusing on the Sunday morning experience, which is only one hour, but I think there's just as much power in reaching somebody on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. that is sitting at their desk with their email open, that it comes from pastor, Cara, and email comes out with a really good headline, not church newsletter that nobody wants to read. Nobody reads your church newsletters. You won't even read your church newsletters. - That's very true. - So, it's a really good headline that says, a note from pastor, Cara, check this out or whatever, and then there's just a video in there, to imagine this. Just a small video and say, "Hey, this is a two minute video, "and I want to talk to you just for a second." And they click over, they watch a two minute video, and on the video, you just share a story about somebody that got baptized this weekend, and you just talk to them right there, and you say, "I know it's Tuesday morning, "I know it's 10 a.m., "but what you're doing in your office today matters," and there's more stories that you can connect with. So, I want you to think about who in your office or who around can be the next story today. That is so simple. You can shoot it on an iPhone, you can have it on a landing, a webpage, and you can send an email out and cast vision for outreach on a Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock. I could go through every ministry area of the church. I could go through volunteer inspiration. I can go through getting people to give online a Wednesday night at 9 o'clock while they're watching a TV show and click the link to give online for that week. I can go on and on and on, that we have 24/7 access for inspiration, discipleship, motivation, and all of that. We can't just live in the Sunday morning environment anymore. We've got to understand that we live in a digital world. - The business angle is something you'll hear from time to time on the podcast, because I think we can grab some of the best business practices from the marketplace and put them to work in the church. And similarly, when the church is well led, sometimes you can grow your business using the same principles, because as the next guest you're going to hear from, taught us, all truth is from God. Like if it's applied in the business world, there's no such thing as just secular principles that are true and godly principles that are true. If truth is truly from God and God is grace and truth, then we can adopt truth wherever we find it as it resonates with scripture. And that's one of the things I love about David McDaniel. He was my guest on episode 49, and David was a business person working in the marketplace who went to church but was largely bored at church until he met a certain group of leaders. So I wanted to include this to encourage those of you who are church leaders who take leadership seriously, look at the impact of what you taking leadership seriously can do on the business people in your community. It changed David McDaniel's life, and David is a Harvard MBA. So here's David on when he first met the leaders at North Point. - Yeah, and with all due respect, it was empirically demonstrated for me. I had that view of the universe, and I'd probably spent some time around churches that had their fair share of, I'll just say not effective leaders. Now, trust me, I'm not saying that about all churches, but I think what changed that for me was meeting the North Point guys. I had never, ever been around anyone that thought of leadership in those same ways that Andy and his team did, and that's what changed everything for me. - Taking the spiritual gift of leadership seriously, sounds like it's got some good implications, doesn't it? And that's what I loved about my next guest. In episode 39, I sat down with Chris Lemma, and Chris is a business leader, software entrepreneur. He's just done everything in his 40-some-odd young years and loves to serve in the church as well. But he talks about how to build a high-performing team from scratch. Fascinating episode. It's like going to a conference for free. He talks all about Saturday Night Live as a metaphor or really a model for how to develop a whole bunch of high-capacity people. And he talks about the importance of team. So here's Chris Lemma from episode 39. - Now, think about what that means if we were thinking about an organization that was trying to build out a leadership team. And think about that leadership team as, I'm building a team, not I'm building a superstar. I'm building a team for this context that could handle just about any situation, any topic, but I'm going to build them together. It's going to take time. It's going to take different kinds of people. It's going to take forcing them to work together. There's a lot of work to this thing, right? And that's why high-performing teams don't happen naturally. You have to have a Lauren Michaels who says, I'm going to commit to this endeavor every week of every year for 40 years. And then someone's going to say, oh yeah, he's just lucky because he just gets all the great people, right? So the other note, right, is that when you work in high-performing teams and when you build them and you spend time investing in them, right? Just be clear that you're never going to get any of the credibility or respect from it because people will just assume you got lucky, right? Those soon you ended up with high performers. And so of course you always have high performers because that's just, I don't know why you always get the great people, but you're so lucky. And then you discover, no, that's not really how that works. - Now sometimes you can be highly successful at work, but it can be very challenging at home. Now anybody who was raised in a preacher's home or any preacher or church leader who has kids knows about the P.K. phenomena. I mean, some of them actually end up really sold out for Jesus, but a lot of them walk away from their faith. And I got to talk to Barnabas Piper in episode 50. And yeah, that's Piper as in John Piper. Barnabas is John's son. And Barnabas wrote a book a few years ago growing up as a P.K. And talks all about how difficult it was to actually grow up in a preacher's home, but then also have your dad be a very famous preacher, so appreciated his authenticity and his faith. He actually has a faith as an adult, but it wasn't easy. So this is what Barnabas Piper remembers about his dad and the best things his dad did when he was growing up. - Yeah, and that point is really helpful. I think that's true for any pastor's kid. I think the more prominent the pastor, maybe the more concentrated it is. But that idea that none of us are terribly impressed with our parents' position, you know? It doesn't matter if they're a professional athlete or a musician or a pastor or, you know, a CEO, we just don't care that much about what they do. We really only care about how we relate to them. And so the things that stand out to me in terms of memories that are cherished that I enjoy the most are the ones of backyard soccer games or my dad cheering really loud at my little league games or walking to and from church with him on a Sunday morning or just the time that we spent doing really normal things. And that always holds court in my heart and my memories as the things that define our relationship. The pastor piece of it created an environment that kind of encroached on those things to a degree. But that's not the thing that I appreciated most or that mattered to me most. - Isn't that convicting? I mean, that's episode 50 with Barnabas Piper. Couple more episodes before we go. Hey, this one was just fun. Episode 48 introduced us all to a guy named Jeff Price. He's leading a church in Canada, has been at it for about two years and has changed everything. Kind of broke all the rule books very, very quickly. And he just talked about the traction that they've seen when they've introduced rapid, massive change in their church. And that also meant losing people. So here he talks very candidly and very refreshingly about the people who left his church because they were upset. - And that was a big wake up call for me. I had one of those moments where I sat back and I actually wrote the numbers down, right? - Good for you. You didn't end up like, well, that's what I said. It's a, wow, this is a such a small segment. And then I started doing the history of going, you know what, these people haven't been happy for years. - It's not just you. - Right, so what am I fighting for? So, you know, and I know that they're loud. And again, I don't wanna paint this picture 'cause the 95% of my church was like, this is the most amazing thing in the world. My board never wavered for a second. Never wavered for a second. You know, so I was blessed in that sense. You know, not everybody maybe has that, but I was blessed in that sense. And it literally, yeah, it came to a spot where I said, you know what, I gotta stop losing sleep over people who are such a small because, you know, you're never going to win. I read your book. There's another book I really wish I could remember the name about basically the same idea of churches that are, you know, guys will hold on to visions and it dwindles. And then after five, 10 years, it's explosive. And it's they're happy they push through those difficult times. I mean, do you see it through the Bible so often? So just like, you know what, this is who we are. And I had to have that kind of, it doesn't mean it still doesn't, you know, when you get the email from somebody where, but at the end of the day, our board, our staff, my heartbeat, we're so driven by the fact that there are people literally who we may be the only church for because we have the style. And that matters. And so there's really good churches in my community. So let's bless them. - Yeah. A healthy dose of honesty can be good sometimes, can't it? I mean, it really can. So thanks for that, Jeff. And then this last one, this last clip, man, I wish we had time for more, but this has already been more than long enough. A good retrospective of the first year. This last clip came out just two days ago. My one year anniversary guest was Craig Grishel. And the very first question I asked him is Craig, have you been at this 20 years? How do you keep your passion? White hot. And the reason I asked that question is that's kind of my goal. I want to keep your passion as a leader. White hot over the years. And I know I can't do that, but maybe, you know, together we can just play a little role in that. And Craig answered it beautifully. Here's his answer. - The advantage of being a guy that grew up going to church that didn't know Christ. And I was a church goer, but I was not a disciple of Jesus. And so I have a massive passion to present the gospel within the church. So, you know, evangelism is the driving force of, you know, value in my life. And I respect people who are great, disciples are respect people who have a heart for worship or prayer. And I value those things, but above all else, put me in a room full of lost people and I come to life. And so for me, quite honestly, it's staying in connection in relationships with people that are not followers of Jesus. Going to the gym is kind of like my heroine, honestly, is I go in and, you know, I go to the same place and it just develop relationships. Meet people, meet people, meet people. And I'm kind of, you know, in almost a sense, like the pastors of the gym where I've got a lot of people that will talk to me about the problems that have never come to church. And I see that as much as ministry time as I do workout time. - Yeah. - And that really keeps me going. If I didn't have that, I would very quickly become, I'd be thinking more about church problems, church people. And I'd lose that passion for the lost and that keeps me fresh. And so, you know, that's my idea. I'd say to everyone, you just got to find whatever that thing is that breaks your heart and moves you to action and makes you righteously angry and righteously excited. And then whatever that is, just stay close to that long enough to, and if you lose that, find something else that just really creates a divine hunger and passion inside of your heart and find that and fuel it. - Well, I do hope that that is your story, that your passion for God, your passion for people, your passion for your family just stays white hot, decade after decade, after decade, after decade. And if this podcast plays a little part in that, I'm so glad. Thank you so much for year one. Man, you guys are just exceptional. Thank you. We're gonna do some more bonus episodes this month and I would love for you to listen to those, the easiest way to make sure you don't miss a thing is to subscribe. We are back next Tuesday with Ravi Zacharias on the new apologetics and the next Thursday with the very first Ask Carry episode. If you have a question on Twitter, #AskCarry or just go to my blog and that is carrynewhop.com and you can click on the got a question button on the right and just leave me a voicemail and we'll be back next Thursday with more. So some fun bonus episodes for the anniversary month and don't forget, my new book, Lasting Impact, seven powerful conversations that can help your church grow is available for pre-order right now. That's right, it comes out October six, but if you order it now, you're gonna get some bonuses that will go away after October the six. You will get a free audio book. You'll get the free e-version of your book. You'll also get access to an exclusive webinar with me all about how to have a meaningful conversation with your team about the issues that matter most, the conversations in fact that we have in the book. Plus this just added, the first thousand people to order the book will get a limited edition, Lasting Impact print that is gonna be awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. You can get all this at lastingimpactbook.com and all the instructions are there. Can't wait for you to get this in your hands and thank you so much for being the awesome people you are and we'll talk to you next Tuesday and again next Thursday, how about that? I hope this helps you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the "Carry Newhoff Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]