The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 046 – Why Children's Ministry Might be the Most Important Position on Your Team–An Interview with Gina McClain
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhof 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 Newhof. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 46 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhof, and I hope our time together today really helps you lead like never before. My guest today is Gina McLean, and I'm really excited to have this conversation with her today. I've known Gina for a few years, and for a long time, she was at Life Church in Oklahoma with Craig Grishel, and was there in the early days when like it wasn't the Life Church that we kind of mostly all know about today, when it was small before they had opened dozens and dozens of campuses and exploded in growth. And she was in charge of their children's ministry, and then their family ministry, and tells us the story of how they scaled all that, and how she grew it as a leader, how she selects team members. And then recently she moved over to Knoxville, Tennessee to be part of Faith Promise Church, where she's in charge of all family ministry there, and does just a fantastic job explaining some of the challenges with growth that they've had. And one of the things I really appreciate about Gina is, and you'll find this with church positions too, sometimes as lead pastor, you know, that's what I do. We kind of relegate kids' ministry over to the side, but I really think you need to have your best leaders in family ministry. And when you listen to what Gina has to say, I mean, my goodness, she's just a leader on steroids. And I think you're really gonna see what you need in a position of family ministry to see this thing soar, to be everything it could be. I always say to senior pastors all the time, it's like, if you ignore family ministry, just understand you're ignoring about 70% of the people that you're speaking to on a Sunday morning, and the majority of people in your community. So having a great family ministry, kids ministry, student ministry person on your team or people or an entire team in that area, I think is indispensable to doing effective ministry. And Gina is just a case in point. She is a brilliant leader that any leader would want around their leadership table. So I think you're really gonna enjoy that interview today. Hey, before we jump in, just a couple of things I wanna do, first of all, thanks again for listening. And I thought today, I would share some podcasts that I'm listening to. I get that question all the time. I've been doing some live Periscopes over the last few months. If you're not, by the way, on Periscope, you should jump on Periscope. If you're on Twitter, it's a pretty easy link. I think Twitter bought Periscope a few months ago. And it's just like live video, like you sort of do a video on Periscope and then people interact and ask you questions. And I'm having a lot of fun doing those. I don't do them all the time, but maybe once every week or every two weeks, I'll do a live Q&A. And people ask me like, what books are you reading? What podcast are you listening to? So I'm just gonna scroll through my phone and tell you some of my favorite podcasts lately that I'm listening to. So a few that I'm listening to, and this is a mix of like Christian leadership podcasts and just other podcasts. So Andy Stanley leadership podcast, by the way, great. Just fantastic. Once a month, he and Lane Jones do about 15 minutes where they just talk about one of Andy's key leadership principles. It's fantastic. There's a new podcast that came out a few months ago. My friend Brian Orm over at Church Leaders put it together. It's called the Church Leaders podcast. Oh my goodness. On my vacation recently, like I just binge listened through all, I think it was 10 or 12 episodes they had released by that point. Could not put it down. It's so good. You gotta, if you haven't subscribed to that, listen to the Church Leaders podcast. We'll link to all of these, by the way, in the show notes. It's just carrynewhop.com/episode46. Another one I listened to, Joshua Gagnon Leadership Podcast. Josh is a friend of mine. He was on episode 17. And probably my favorite episode he'd done is the episodes with Gordon McDonald. He does this fantastic interview with Gordon McDonald, who's been a hero of mine for years. I also listen to the Perry Noble Leadership Podcast. It's great. When you get Perry unscripted, I don't know whether you ever get Perry scripted, but when you get him unscripted and he just starts going down rabbit trails, it is so much fun to listen to. And then other podcasts I listened to fairly regularly, free economics, radio, just fascinating. And then I'll just warn you about this one. Okay, the language is not always clean, but my goodness, Tim Ferriss just might be the best interviewer out there today. His podcasts are super long. He interviews a wide variety of people, but the Tim Ferriss Show, that's double R, double S, F-E-R-R-I-S-S, I just think he's brilliant at it. Again, I don't swear, but if you're sensitive to language and don't want to listen to it, don't listen to his podcast. But I mean, my goodness, if you can get past that, the questions, the subjects are just gorgeous. He does a great job. And then Michael Hyatt's podcast. I really like the new interview format that Michael is doing. I also listen from time to time to the School of Greatness with Lewis Howes, which is great. And then Pat Flynn is my hero. So if you listen to the Smart Passive Income podcast, you'll realize I completely ripped the format of my podcast off of Pat. So thank you, Pat, for that. I don't think Pat listens, but I mean, my goodness, what a great podcast he has. And he also does a short one called Ask Pat, which I was going to do a second podcast, just like Q&A, but I think Periscope kind of covers that for me. So I'll do those live Q&As on Periscope. Anyway, I digress. That was just to let you know what I'm listening to. And if you want to expand your podcast horizons, those are some that I would recommend. We'll link to them in the show notes. And in the meantime, let us jump into episode 46 in my conversation with Gina McLean. Really excited to have Gina McLean today. On the podcast, Gina, welcome. - Thank you, thank you, thanks for coming. - You've had a really fascinating background in ministry. So tell us sort of where you are now and how you got started. And congratulations, you're the first kidsman person on the podcast. And one of the reasons I'm really excited about having you is I know we have a lot of, you know, student, children, next-gen people who listen, but we also have a lot of senior executive campus pastors who listen and volunteers at churches. And I think so often the children's ministry role is misunderstood and we're gonna go to that. So I think this is gonna be helpful for all of us who are not kidsman leaders and all of us who are. So welcome. - Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. - That was a long introduction. - It was perfect. - Tell us a little bit about your background in ministry too. 'Cause you've worked at some really cool places. - Yeah, yeah, I started out actually. I always say I grew up in ministry at life church in Oklahoma, started out at lifechurch.tv. I was there for 10 years. - And that's Craig Grishell? - Yeah, Christchurch. And I was there during the time when we were a standalone single location church and the vision of multi-site came out and Craig brought that to the team. And so this is the direction that we're gonna go. So I had the benefit of watching us grow from a single independent church or individual church into multiple locations. And that was such a birthing process. - Can I ask you about that? - So like life church started what, '96, '95? - '95, '96, yes. - '95, '96, were you there at the very beginning? - I was not, no. - Okay. - Came in, my husband and I came in right about '98. - Okay. - Just before our first son was born and we were those soakers. We were good soakers. - Oh yeah, sat at the back and just like absorbed in. - Came in late, left a little bit early to beat the traffic. You know, back when life church was in a meeting in a bicycle shop. - Really? So like how many people were attending back in the day? - Well at the time they were packing the room out at 200 and just cranking out as many worship services as they could in order to accommodate the numbers. I don't know how many services they were doing at the time because we were just attendees. We didn't even, we had no kids. So we didn't even go down that ominous hallway in the back that we had to take back there. - That you would end up running one day. - We thought if we step back there they're gonna suck us into the vortex and we would never see the light a day again. So we steered clear of it. - So you remember like before life church was what we know as church today and Craig anybody even knew his name. You were there attending the church. And so then what happened? Did you like see job opening or did they tap you on the shoulder? How did you get involved in kidsmen when you had no kids? - Good question. Well we had our first. - Okay. - We had our first a year later and it was right about the time that we as a church moved into our first location, our first building that we built on our own. And so that's really when my husband and I started attending more consistently and really getting involved. And they, I think like a lot of churches, life churches just started doing a lot of different things because we suddenly had a building that could accommodate it. And one of the things they did is they started a Mother's Day Out program. - Okay. - And I had quit my job. I didn't want my rainy baby to be in daycare for 12 hours a day and so I had quit my full-time job and come home but found that after just a few weeks that I've, I dusted the window sills of my house more times than I ever cared to do it. (laughing) And I was bored. So life church had this Mother's Day Out program. They needed more teachers. And so I started working part-time in their Mother's Day Out program as an assistant teacher. - Wow. And what did you do? Like what was your job in the marketplace before you, you quit too? - I was in international banking. - Really, seriously? - Very much so, yeah. - International banking, that's so interesting. So what do you do in international banking? - You know, I did a whole lot and it's not as glamorous as you think it's-- - Oh, okay. - A lot of wire transfers, a lot of talking to Canadians and-- - Hey, that's a good thing. - It's a good thing, yeah. They sent the best gifts, by the way. - Oh, really? - Yeah, absolutely. - It's cool. - So it was, you know, it was a banking job. I sat at a desk and I pushed paper and it was fun. It was enjoyable, but I knew, ultimately, it wasn't something that I was gonna do long term. It's just what I was doing at the time. - It sounds a lot like an international espionage to me. I think that's why it sounds so interesting. It's like, really, you did that? Okay, so you went from banking to being a stay-at-home mom till your windowsills were clean and then you started working part-time at this program, this mom's program at Life Church and where did it go from there? - You know, within a year, the Mother's Day Up program needed new leadership and so I stepped into directing the Mother's Day Out program. A year after that is when we shifted, I mean, that was when I joined staff and we were going, weathering has shifted the time. As I mentioned, once we had this new building, we started doing a lot of different programs and we realized very quickly that I say we, the leadership at Life Church, realized very quickly that we were really spread. - So basically, Gina, what you're telling me is you, you worked yourself out of a job, which is awesome. What did you do? What did you do right after that? - You know, after that, I spent the year helping to launch one of the early campus launches in Stillwater, which is about 45 minutes away from the original location. So I was the campus administrator, which just meant that I was the one responsible for dotting the eyes and crossing the teas. - Okay. - Which anybody that knows me knows that that's really comical. - You're not administrative? - I'm not highly administrative at all, no, no. I'm very much an A to Z kind of chick. I'm not of a B to Y. (laughs) So the steps in between, no matter how necessary, I'm not gonna get it coming up with them. So yeah, after a year of launching that campus, I transitioned off of that team and joined the staff team at the Oklahoma City Campus, which was the original location there for Life Church and began leading the kids ministry team there. And that's really where was my longest tenure at Life Church. For years I spent leading kids ministry at that location. - So you were there and you were in charge of the original location, Kids Men. And then five years ago, you moved on to do Kids Men at Faith Promise Church. - We did, we did. The law transitioned us out of Life Church and we joined the staff at Faith Promise in February of 2010. - And where's Faith Promise again? - In Knoxville, Tennessee. - Okay, so you're in Tennessee and you've been doing that for five years. And your job there was to get the Kids Men area ready for multi-site because it was a single campus and how many campuses are there now at Faith Promise? - We currently have five locations. - Wow. - Six including our online campus. So yeah, five years ago, there was one stand alone in the original location that had been here for 15 years at the time. And my task was in nine months we're opening the doors of our first multi-site location, get us ready. - Hmm, that's huge, man. That's a big responsibility. And let me, 'cause we're gonna break this down a couple of ways. We're gonna talk about Kids Men and then we're also gonna talk about the whole scale thing and getting ready for multi-site and growing things. But you say you're not administrative. So what is like the skill set that you bring that's made you effective as a Kids Men director? Because a lot of the times it's like making sure the schedule's there and coordinating curriculum but that's not your basic wiring. - No, it's not. Really, I think the thing that I bring to the table that is of value as a leader is just the ability to figure out what's the most important thing to focus on right now. - Okay. - You know, just getting down to the point. There are so many things in Kids Ministry that can be distracting because when you, when you lead in Kids Ministry, there are so many aspects that you have to pay attention to. - Mm-hmm. - And if you don't pay attention to them, they land you on the front page of the newspaper or on the nightly news, you know? - Yeah. - When it comes to the care for kids, providing a safe environment for them physically and emotionally as well as spiritually is a critical aspect of the job. And all of those things, those eyes that you have to dot and those teas that you have to cross are critically important to the success of Kids Ministry. - Mm-hmm, which is interesting because you're not administrative by nature, which is fascinating. And I think for leaders like senior leaders who are listening or people who are in a hiring position or a recruiting position, if you're working with a volunteer church, you know? I don't know whether you find this or not, Gina, you're probably way more connected to Children's Ministry pastors than I am, but I know a fair cross-section. And your story is very typical, where it was, you know, a person in the congregation who started as a volunteer or very part-time who ends up running the whole ball of wax. And often we think, you know, we need somebody from the outside to come save us, but we've never done an outside, kids men hire. I don't think in my time in leadership. And often somebody who's got, you know, who got their feet planted in business can bring those skills over. You know, something is interesting is international business or banking. You know, can bring that over and do that. Have you seen that pattern at all? - I have. It seems like some of the more successful hires when it comes to Kids Ministry, usually is a hire from within. But so many times it seems what's pivotal to the success, is that senior leadership willing to invest in a very significant level in that Kids Ministry leader. - Okay. - Because we, you know, a lot of times we want to find somebody that has a strong, has a strong knowledge of how kids learn. And so you're, you can pull in. There are so many professionals that are very knowledgeable and skillful in that area. How do kids learn? How do they grasp concepts? How do we teach them in a way that engages them? Just within your church body, you have teachers and childcare workers and people that run daycare centers and people with a lot of skill in working with kids and a lot of knowledge in working with kids. And that's a value when it comes to Kids Ministry. But I found that that's just the basis. - Yeah. - What really makes that, what really is going to make that leader successful isn't necessarily the knowledge of how a kid learns. What makes them successful is the skill set and their ability to raise up voluntary leaders. Because they typically are not always in the position of teaching the kids. - Right. - You know, their position of shepherding the ones who teach the kids. - No, that's really true. And I'm glad you say that because I mean, that's knowledge that honestly you can read and anybody can learn. It's a rentable skill set, right? How do kids develop? And I mean, they're great organizations. You and I both are big fans of Orange. And I mean, Orange does a fantastic job of walking through all the phases of a child's life. And I mean, there's ready-made curriculum, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're not administratively inclined then, how did you become great at recruiting volunteers? Because scale has been a huge part of what you've done both at Life Church and at Faith Promise Church. - I think it's, as I said before, it's getting down to the greatest point or what's most important. And if I am good at creating an environment that volunteers want to be a part of, then I create a winning team. - Okay. - And so a lot of times that means that I've got to put myself in the position of, and I have to ask myself hard questions sometimes, what is it like to volunteer my ministry? - Yeah, would you work for you? - Yeah, look, what I want to do this, you know? And if I wouldn't, then I've got to figure out what needs to change for me to want to do this. I don't think I'm much different from most people out there. I'm not going to suggest I'm inherently lazy, but if you're going to ask me to do something, I don't want it to be overly complicated, you know? And that's been a valuable thing for me to learn as a kids ministry leader in particular. I have recruited some pretty talented, pretty highly intelligent people onto my volunteer staff. I mean, people who are that are, you know, run staffs in hospitals, and yet they're volunteering as a small group leader in my ministry. You know, I could put something in front of them and say, hey, figure it out, but at the end of the day, they don't want to have to invest their time there. They're giving me their time. And the two questions they're asking me almost every time, whether they verbalize it or not, is what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it? And so if I can answer those questions for them, then I set them up for success. And if they feel like they're winning, then they want to come back and win again. - Yeah, I mean, that sounds so basic, but it's so true, and it's so rare. So one of the questions I get asked a lot, and, you know, I always send questions ahead of time to the guests, so this isn't on the menu, but I hope it's okay to go down this rabbit trail. It's like, what is the ideal job description for a kids' men or a next-gen person? And I think you just kind of outlined it. Like, I think you're right. You want to create a great environment for volunteers. You want to make sure that you would work for you. You definitely want to do that. What are the skill sets that you think a great kids' men leader brings to the table to accomplish that? Like, if you were looking for qualities and characteristics, like, obviously, you're in a multi-campus site now, so you're not running the whole thing over all the sites. So what skill set do you look for in the children's ministry next-gen position? When you hire or you recruit? - They've got to be able to lead people. - Okay. - They've got to have that, that I don't hire anybody into a stacked position, unless I feel like, unless I know that they can lead people. - Okay, and what's involved in that? Like, obviously being organized, you've hinted at that. They've got to be, or they have to be able to create an organized organization, so that when you come in, it's simple, it's not confusing, it's not chaos, it's not any of those things. What else? What are some other qualities? 'Cause this is like the million dollar question out there in church world, because if you can crack the kids' code, all of a sudden you're reaching families. If you do a terrible job with children's ministry, you're never gonna win with families. You're never gonna win with a community you're trying to reach. - So, okay, what are some other characteristics you're looking for? - Well, I think there needs to be, I want somebody who has a candy attitude. I can't work with an E-or type individual. - Yes. - It doesn't, I don't work with them. Yeah, very much so. So they've got to have a candy attitude. They've got to be able to look at something and say, this can be done, and we can figure this out. They've got to have just the base assumption that everybody around them wants to be better. - Hmm. - And if I approach everybody with the attitude that they wanna be better, then that means that I'm more willing to lean into a conversation that's gonna help them to be better, you know? So, when you have that attitude, you're more willing to step into harder conversations because you assume that, hey, they wanna know this because that's gonna help them to grow. So, when I'm looking at potential staff hires, I'm looking for that person that's got a candy attitude. I'm looking for that person that just, at the base level assumes those around them want to improve and they wanna grow. And I'm looking for somebody who's approachable, you know? I need somebody that other people are willing to approach that individual that I'm looking at, they're just inherently comfortable to be around because I've had people that I've hired before that have been, maybe they're relatively stoic and that stoicism doesn't help you. - Yeah. - So, when you're working with volunteers, in fact, what I learned is as I'm considering somebody, I will actually picture them in my mind, standing in the middle of the lobby of our church and just ask myself if I were in trouble and I needed help, is this somebody I would look to for help? - Oh, that's great. - You know, and if I couldn't see them in that position, then I don't think they're the person that I want because I need that sense of approachability, I need that to be inherent. You know, I just need it to be all about them. - See, this is interesting 'cause it sounds to me like you're just hiring leaders who happen to work in kids ministry. - Yeah, I mean, I can give them, I can give them the tools that are gonna happen to manage a volunteer calendar. I can give them the tools and you can teach those things that teach people how to schedule, how to equip them with great activities that you're gonna teach kids. All of those things, as you mentioned before, those are, you can learn those things. It's the pieces that you can't learn. It's those things, those qualities about a person that are either there or they're not. I want the person that has them. - Wow, and you know, I think often in a lot of churches, maybe one of the hiring mistakes or recruiting mistakes we make is, well, we just find people who love children. Well, they will make incredible small group leaders, I'm sure, they'll make incredible volunteers, but they don't always make incredible staff. - They don't, yeah, they don't, they don't lead leaders. And I know somebody that can lead leaders. - That is great advice, that's great advice. I mean, well, as you go through the characteristics, I mean, that makes a great executive pastor, that makes a great small groups director, that makes a great lead pastor. I mean, that's just it. And I think that's one of the reasons life church has done so well and faith promise church has done so well is you recruit leaders at the end of the day. And leaders work for leaders. They don't work for non leaders, right? - Isn't that true? That has been a hard lesson for me to learn. Leaders will follow somebody that's winning. - Yes. - They will follow somebody that is a high producer. They won't follow somebody that's a low producer. No, and they won't be bad about it, they'll just move on. - No, they'll just move on. - Yeah. - Just like, thanks, I'm not here anymore. - Absolutely. - Right, okay, that's good. So I've got a confession for you just as a lead pastor. So the only thing I've ever done in the church, I started that 20 years ago, they haven't fired me yet, so I'm still the lead pastor. But many senior leaders I know, and I did fit into this category once, and then I met a guy named Reggie Joyner, but think of kids ministry as something that needs to be done, but not a key priority. And I mean, a lot of lead pastors who are dads or moms fall into that category, it's just like, well, that's something that happens over there. Like just do that over there, and then we're gonna lead the church. - Right, right. - Why is that a mistake? - I think, you know, just initially the mistake in that perspective is just, the truth is, I don't think it's a secret, kids ministry can really help grow a church. And I don't know of a senior pastor out there that wakes up in the morning and says, "And I really hope my church does not grow this year." You know? - Yes. - That person doesn't exist, you know? They every senior pastor I know wants their church to grow, and I've learned some things from parents over the years. Parents will drag their kids to school, because there's a very practical benefit when you do so, and a very practical penalty, obviously, when you don't, you know, the truancy police. - Yeah, they find out where you live. - Yes, they do, but they won't drag them to church. You know, in fact, even your most committed families, even your most committed parents who are, they love Jesus and they want to grow in their relationship with Christ, when their child struggles and wanting to come to church, their response to that is, "I don't want them to hate this. "I want them to love this." You know, so parents won't drag their kids to church, but what's interesting is on the flip side, I've found that kids will drag their parents. - Mm-hmm. - You know, when kids have a church they love to go to. Parents will take them there. Even if that church is not their parents' first choice, if it's their kid's first choice, they'll take them. - That's true. - You know? - By the way, you raised a really important issue, and again, rabbit trail number two. But do you have a theory on what you should do when your kid doesn't want to go to church? I mean, there's parents listening and you probably struck a wound. And you know, any thoughts, any advice you give to parents in a situation like that, do you drag them to church, or do you say, "No, I want them to love it." - Yeah, you know, I do have a theory on that. - Okay, go ahead, I'd just love to know it. I'd love to know it. - I think that there's so many varying reasons that a kid might say, "I don't want to go to church," and it could be anything from one bad experience that they were scared and they didn't know what to do, and so they're uncomfortable and they don't want to go back. I think you have to dig into it and find out why. I think one of the best things that parents can do is to go with their child, down that road with them, and explore the why, you know, why was it scary? Let me go with you. Let's see, let me experience that with you, and not with the intention of doing the whole bait and switch, like I'm going to walk in this room with you and then I'm going to disappear, you know, I'm going to slip out the back and you're going to turn around and find that I'm not there. I don't know that that's always the best solution, but I think you need to unpack why. Why is that? For my kids, you know, we have very open conversations with my kids, I have three kids, and they range from almost 16. It's like weeks away from 16 years old down to nine. And with all of them, well, particularly with our teenagers, we're talking very openly right now about, you know, one day you're going to be driving and it becomes more of your choice as to whether or not you want to go to church. And here's what we want you to know. And we just talk openly about how the church is not something that we do, but it's part of who we are. And, you know, I don't know that I have all the answers there, but I think many times for parents, if we just have an open conversation about why the church exists, why is it important to us? And sometimes it is uncomfortable, and sometimes it's not the first thing on our priority list, but we're going to do it anyway, because it's something that we're committed to being a part of, you know. - That's really good advice. That's super good advice. Maybe one of the best answers I've heard on that subject. Thank you. That was good. Okay, and I think you're right, what senior leader is, it's like kids men can't be at the side because I always think 70% of the people I speak to on a Sunday morning are parents with children at home. If I ignore that, I ignore that to everyone's peril, including mine. - Yeah, that is very true. - As a leader. What have been your biggest challenges would you say as a children's ministry director over the last decade or so? - Oh, you know, by and large, my biggest challenges is just figuring out and learning how to lead leaders, and how to develop leaders from within my ministry. - Okay. - You know, as I mentioned, there's so many eyes to dot and so many teeth to cross, just within a worship service from beginning to end, the safety aspect, the equipping aspect, just making sure you have enough key tips and cotton balls. - Mm-hmm. - Oh my gosh. And on Easter Sunday, when you're making sheep and glee cotton balls to paper, there's never enough cotton balls to be had. - So that's the administrative part. Let's go back to leading leaders. What were some of the early challenges of that? - Well, it was, first you can create a structure on paper and you can say, well, I know I have to have leaders, meaning I've got to have a volunteer leader who leads other volunteers, because my span of care is limited, which basically means I can only love and know so many people. - Yep, and what is that for you? Like, what's the number? It's an interesting leadership discussion, but some people think I can know everybody, others say you know three people. - Gosh, no, I really limit myself to six to eight. - Really? So six to eight key leaders, and again, you're now leading thousands of kids. - Yes. - Right, and so six to eight key leaders is your immediate span of care. - Yeah, and the reason why is that we base that off of our small group numbers. Our goal is to have an eight to one ratio in our small groups, particularly. And we really, really bear down on that in elementary, because if, when we sit down and we say, if we really want to make a great small group environment, or create a great small group environment, or connection environment for kids, then eight kids is our goal, because eight allows for friends to be brought and the numbers don't get too big. - Mm-hmm. - But a good healthy number that still allows for some fun and the activities that you're gonna do. - Right. - So, and when I think of that small group leader, they've got eight kids. Eight kids that I want them to know. I wanted them to know their birthday. I wanted them to know their dog's name. I want them to know what they did last week, you know, at school, what's their favorite sport. I wanted them to know those things. Well, truth be told, I'm kind of in the same boat. I, you know, I could say that I could know that many people, I could, that I could know 15 people that well. - Mm-hmm. - But I can't. - But you can't. - No. - So, I stick with eight, and that's the general breakdown for our volunteer leader team. - How do you determine who gets in that circle? What kind of people are you looking for? So, you're talking at this point, staff, but I mean, back in the day you started with eight volunteers, probably, who are in that circle. So, how do you determine like, this is the kind of person I want in that circle? - Anybody I would hire. - Okay, and who would you hire? What are the criteria around that? People who can lead leaders, I guess we kind of covered that already? - Yeah, people with strong relational ability. - Yeah. - People willing to step into and lean into hard or uncomfortable conversations. People that seem to have the ability to discern or recognize when something isn't lining up or when something isn't running smoothly, and yet they come and they have a solution that could resolve it. They're not always right, but they're ready with a solution. And I need that person. There are a lot of people that I'm blessed to serve with on a weekly basis who come and they present the problem. And I see the problem too, but I don't have a solution for it. In fact, it would be great if somebody came and said, have got the solution. - Yeah, yeah. - So, those are the people that I like to invite into those volunteer leader roles. Again, it's looking for that person that seems to be approachable, that seems to have influence. - Yep. - You know, I want those influential people, but this has been key for me, the key learning for me in the past couple of years. I want an individual who's highly influential. - Okay. - I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. - Sure. - I have people on my team that are highly influential. I have some that most of their influence, everybody that I have on my volunteer team that's highly influential, most of the time they're influential because they're very adept at what they do. They're just very skilled at it, right? - They're good, they got a track record. They've left awake. - Other people look and say, I want to be that good, I want to be able to do that well. And so they watch them. But the difference is some of my, some of the influencers on my team have, they are, they have an influence that I really have to manage because they are relatively inflexible, meaning they don't embrace an idea immediately. In fact, that kind of you, they can be almost like the insurance company. They're going to say no the first time. - Yeah. - You gotta go back the second time and ask again and you might get a yes the next time, you know. With those leaders, they, I really have to manage their influence on others because they're not going to be the first to adopt a new idea or to embrace a new vision or direction. - But they're on your team. - But they're on my team and I want them because they're really good. But it just means that I have to create a space specifically with them so I can help lead them through a change very strategically. But then I have other leaders who are just as adept, just as competent in what they do as a volunteer. And as a result, they get a following and they have influence with other volunteers. But they have influence that I want to leverage because they have that can-do attitude. They have that perspective that when they see something and when they see an idea that's going to move them further towards the vision and the mission, then they embrace it and they want to run with it. That's usually the person I have my eye on and the person that I want to tag as a potential future hire because they've got the qualities I'm looking for. - See, that's so smart. I mean, this has as much to do with any form of leadership as it does with kidsmen. - Sure. - It's so true. And that's why you need really top talent on your team, even in kidsmen, you need it everywhere. That's cool. So how, okay, you had to learn that the hard way, right? You mean, that's like a decade of like, okay, not this person, right? - Absolutely. - What are some other lessons along the way? - When I don't clarify expectations very well, especially as it relates to the leading leaders or developing leaders, when I don't clarify expectations very well and I leave the slate blank. - Yeah. - Which that tends to be my mode of operation because I don't want somebody handing me the how. Hand me the why, hand me the goal and I want to figure out the how. There's something about getting in the nitty-gritty that I enjoy, but what I've learned is most people don't want that and most people want it laid out. And I understand that now. - So you've had to be clear, more organized, more succinct. - Yes, clarifying expectations has been very significant for us and our ministry. You know, I can put somebody in a leadership role in our volunteer team, but if I don't clarify expectations for them, then they're just a name on paper. - Okay. - You know, but when I clarify expectations, in fact, gosh, last year, we read a book called results that last. And it's a business book. It's probably one of the best leadership books that I've read in a while. But one of the big takeaways that I'm still working on and I'm still harping about because it's been so valuable is the idea that when you sit down and you tell somebody, "Hey, here's five behaviors." But if you do these five behaviors, it's gonna make you a great team member, right? It's just like your book parenting beyond your capacity. When I tell parents, hey, if you just adopt these five values, just these five, if you're in a happy kind of relationship, you wanna have with your kids. - Well, that's our hope, right? - Yeah. And so it's, I've learned that, gosh, if I just tell these leaders, if you'll just do these five things, it's gonna make you a great team leader. - So what's that book called again? And do you know who wrote it? - Results that last. - Okay. - The, I don't remember the answer. - We'll link to it in the show notes. We'll link to it in the show notes. So it'll be right there. We'll figure that out. So, cool. Okay, so that's another thing. Anything else, like because challenges, I mean, 'cause man, this is great leadership when you've got to scale stuff, that's hard. - You know, scaling stuff, especially when it comes to multi-site ministry. - Yeah. - We learned along the way that what we thought was of high value to us as a ministry. We learned down the road wasn't as high values we thought it was. - Okay, so give me an example. That's fascinating. So you thought, and this goes back to the life church days or faith promise or both. - Well, I mean, just to take an example from faith promise because it's so recent, this was so valuable for us. When I came on five years ago, if we sat down as a ministry team, we didn't actually do this exercise, but when you sit down with a team and you observe for a little bit, you see really quickly what is highly valued. And at faith promise in that season of ministry, we would have said that one of the greatest things we brought to the table as a kids ministry was our very creative, live teaching, live storytelling. - Okay. - We had a very creative way of doing live storytelling in such a way that really engaged an audience, really engaged kids. And it was something that when we sit down and say, "Okay, what aspects of FP kids of faith promise kids "do we want to make sure it's replicated "at every campus that we launched?" Then live storytelling is one of those, you know? Live drama, more, actually more specifically, live drama is what would have hit that list. And we really still relieved that after campus launch number one, campus launch number two came along and it was portable, and portable changed things. - Yeah, it does. - Yeah, so the ability to do live drama was significantly diminished. We didn't have the space, we didn't have the resources that were available at our other locations in order to pull that off. And suddenly we were faced with some questions. Is this what we should continue doing? We had to figure out that answer. So we adjusted and made some changes. And then the bigger adjustment occurred when we launched campus' number four and five. - Okay. - And what happened there was probably the most valuable thing that could have happened to us in our multi-side journeys of our faith promise. Because campus number four and five are significantly smaller than our other locations. - Sure. - And so because they're significantly smaller, it wasn't so much the space that made it challenging. It wasn't the resources or I'm sorry, the budget that made it challenging. - Yeah, 'cause that's centrally funded, right? To some extent. - Yeah, we can figure that out. We have creative solutions to that. Where the challenge came in is we have, I always say in any ministry, it doesn't matter what ministry you're in, you always have limited resources. And resources really come down to time, space, budget, and volunteers. - Yep. - We could have figured out the time, we could have figured out the space, could have figured out the budget. But volunteers is where we really hit a wall. - And how big are these campuses four and five? Are they like a couple hundred people each or? - Yes, the biggest of the two is 180, smallest of those two, 120, 130 people. - Yeah, so then how are you gonna get live teachers and live? - Exactly. - Actors and the whole deal, and a lot of small church leaders can identify with that. It's like, yeah, we've only got like 10 people who are gonna volunteer for kids, men. How do we do a great job across age brackets with 10 people? So how did you straddle that? What did you change? - It forced us to go back to the drawing board and say what is most important? Really at the end of the day, what's the win? And it took us back to that value of clarifying the win. And when we did that, what we landed on was, you know, at the end of the day, the greatest win, the greatest value that we can add to a kid's life is giving them a place to belong. And so, and that lands in the small group. So that means that all of our resources, when we have two values, we had small group, the relational aspect that's a value, we have live drama, which is, you know, amplifying that message, which is a value, but these two values were competing for the same resources. So we had to then determine which of these two values is most important. - And you pick community. So did you go to video teaching then? Or what did you do? - Yeah, shifted all large groups of video teaching. - Wow. - Yeah. - Did the ministry suffer as a result? - No, no, gosh, no. It allowed us to take all of our available resources and put it towards small groups. And so now it's, you know, it just made things so much simpler and clearer. And not just simpler and clearer to us as staff members, but simpler and clearer to the volunteer. - Yeah. - Because when the volunteer has multiple opportunities in front of them, they're confused as to what's most important. And we just said, you know what? Let's just clear this away. I'm putting in front of you what is the most important thing that we have to do. We've got to create a safe place for a kid to belong when they come on Sunday morning. They've got to know this is where I belong. And that's in small group. So this is where we're going to funnel our resources. And as the ministry grows and more resources become available, then we can start introducing some of these other aspects. - So is that a hard conversation? - Very much so, very much so. But you know, it was not hard for the volunteers at the end of the day. - No. - They were relieved and they were excited about the clarification. It was hard for our long-term staff members who have valued that aspect of our ministry for so long. - Some of whom wrote scripts and some of whom were actors and some of whom, right? All of that. - Well, invested in that and that's difficult. - But it resulted in you reaching more people. - Absolutely. And they understood that was the win. Is everybody understood? This has to happen 'cause this is what's going to set us up to win. - So let me ask you, you get a chance to see the wider church as well. What are some things that churches are getting right in family ministry these days? What are some best practices you're seeing out there? Like, and I think a lot of church leaders, you know, they're like, "Hey, we're like that campus number 520 people." You know, actually that would be our dream day. - Right. - We'd love 120 people. - And then you got obviously some very large and multi-site churches, church leaders listening to, but as you look across the spectrum, what do you see that you're going, man? When they do that, that's amazing. - I think the thing that strikes me the most, the commonalities that I see in some of these ministry leaders that are really just seem to strike, they seem to be hitting the mark consistently is, you know, it's really two things. One is that they begin with the base assumption that every parent wants to be a better parent. You know, and whether that parent attends their church or not, whether that parent, can parent comes once every four to six weeks or shows up every single week or is never walked through the doors of their church. They just start with that assumption that every parent wants to be a better parent. You know, and that I think sets any kids ministry or family ministry up to win. - It's such a good reminder. - Didn't it? - Yeah, because I know a lot of kids pastors and actually a lot of student pastors who really see the family as the enemy or like, hey, if I had your kids, I'd do a better job, promise you I would. And that's a killer right there, isn't it? That attitude. - Very quickly. And I had that perspective for a long time. And I found that eventually it became this mallet that I would beat parents up over the head with. And even as I was doing it, I realized this is not helpful. This is not helpful. And in one day, I had that revelation. You know, God so faithfully just brought that to my attention. You know, I don't know a parent yet. I say this often. I've never met a parent that wakes up in the morning and says, I hope I screw my kids life up. - Yeah. - They don't say that. They don't say that at all. They may not wake up and say, how can I be a better parent? But they do want to deep down. They love their kids. They love their kids very much. And they may lack the skill set to make the best decisions for them. - Sure. - But it doesn't mean they don't love their child and want to do what's best for them. - So family or churches that are doing a great job on family, it sort of starts with that idea that every parent, unchurched, church, you know, engaged, sits in the back row with their arms crossed, they want to be better parents and we want to help them. - Yeah, yeah. And the other big thing that's right behind that that I think is really critical is when you change the way that you do ministry in next gen ministry, you change the way that you do it. You change your approach when your only goal is to set up the family to win, you know? When we make decisions as a ministry and our only goal is to help mom and dad win, it changes the way we talk to them, it changes the way that we do our programming, it changes a lot about what we do. So industries that I see that seem to take that approach, that we want to help families win, a lot of times it means that they're willing to do more in those transition seasons when parents are shifting from, when kids actually are shifting from maybe preschool into elementary, they take that extra step to really put their arm around mom and dad to say, hey, here's what you can look ahead towards, here's what's coming up, here's what needs to be on your radar. - Well, and there's something inherently selfish, I think in a lot of church leaders that are like, no, I want my church to win, I want our ministry to win, but at the end of the day, when you want parents to win, you have a way of winning, right? - Yes you do. - And, but if you put the focus on yourself, it often ends up in you losing. And I mean, that's the whole thing, you and I talk about that a lot, 'cause we both worked with Reggie Joyner, but the whole idea of just partnering with parents, that's so, so, so important. And that somehow, that's one of the churches, I believe, Deuteronomy 6, God's given mandates, so. That's good. How are churches getting it wrong, Gina, when you see it? I mean, we're not throwing anyone out of the bus in particular here, but I mean, they're good practices and bad practices. What are some mistakes churches are still making? - I think two, but two that are closely related. The first one is, is when you think more about the families that come in the doors of your church and less about the families that will never enter the doors of your church. If you never think through that, then you are hindered in your ability to reach into the community. - So you gotta start thinking about the people who aren't there. - Yeah. - Okay, it's good. - And I wish that I were better at that as a leader. That's an area that I'm really seeking to improve in, is to think beyond those who come. The other piece though, is I think we do, right now churches are doing a disservice to families who don't look like what we define as the right family. And there are so many parents out there that, and you get into a very dangerous topic, and maybe I feel permission given the latest podcast that you guys, that you released. - Oh, the one with the, let me guess, let me guess Caleb Colton back. - Yes. - Yeah. Episode 33, there will be a few episodes now, but yeah, it just aired shortly after we recorded this, but yeah. - Excellent, excellent podcast that I think everybody should listen to, because there are parents right now that come, that are, they are, they're taking a risk, you know, they're taking a risk right now, and they're courageous enough to walk through the doors of our church. And they're, they're parenting with the same sex partner, and yet their desire is the same as a heterosexual couple. They want their child in their Christ. They want their child to enter into a growing relationship with Christ. They wanna be a better parent, and they love their kid. And when we don't figure out how to love them, where they are, when we don't figure out how to equip them to be great parents, to have the kind of relationship they wanna have with their kids, then we do them a great disservice. - That's such a good point. We'll link to Caleb's episode, episode 33 in the show notes as well. But I think that's true. If you're waiting on the first marriage white couple to come through the doors with their 2.2 kids, there's not many left in the community. I mean, you're dealing with a lot of blended families, a lot of single parents, you know, same-sex parents, same-sex attraction parents, you know, all of that in your church. And it's just, it's a very different reality, and that is the community to which Christ has called us. It really is. Okay, that's good. Man, we've talked a lot, but I got a couple other questions for you. What would you say, like, what is one thing you would say to a senior leader that could really help their kids' men's staff? Let me rephrase that a little bit. But if there's one thing that lots of senior leaders are listening, if there's one thing you would say, "Hey, senior leaders, do this for your kids' men's staff," what would that be? - I would say, listen, hear their voice. A lot of times, if you're not close to the fire, you don't know how hot it is. - So true. - And so when you get close to the fire, you feel that heat a little bit more. Step in a little bit closer with them. And this is key, I think, for senior leaders, but for kids' ministry leaders as well. Senior leaders would help their kids' ministry leaders tremendously if they would communicate to their kids' ministry leaders and tell them how do they want information brought to them? - Hmm. - What picture do you want to be able to see as a senior leader that's gonna help you to help them? - Wow. - And on the flip side, a kids' ministry leader has got to learn how to communicate with their senior leader. If they feel like they're hitting their head against a wall, when they're talking to their senior leadership and they're just not getting what they need, and they need to change the way that they're approaching them. They need to change the type of information or details or data they're bringing. - Yep. - Because there's a clear disconnect. If you're not getting what you need out of your kids' ministry leader, if your kids' ministry leader isn't getting what they need out of you, there's a disconnect. And so you've got to become students of each other and learn how do I communicate better? I know that with my XP, I set him up to help me best when I bring data to him, you know? And it has to be very specific data. - So what, like numbers and trends or what? - Numbers and trends. We have a campus right now that is growing dramatically and everybody knows that nobody is oblivious to the fact that this campus right now is growing very, very quickly. The kids' ministry leader at that campus is under a lot of pressure right now. And we're seeing some of that pressure that's evident sometimes in maybe some plates that stop spinning or balls that were dropped, nothing significant, but it's something that kind of raises the flag and you say, okay, there's something to pay attention to there. My senior leader, my XP is not oblivious to that. He knows they're growing very quickly and rapidly. When I sat down last week and I showed him trends and said, okay, let's take a look at just the last six months of this campus. And because I think it gives greater insight into why this leader is challenged right now. - Yeah, and then you're right. A senior leader, your XP or a senior leader, we'll look at that and go, oh, wow. Is that what happened? - It just changes perspective when you see, okay, wait, they've grown by 48% in kid attendance alone in the past three months. Wow. - Wow. - No wonder best leader is only going to have systems in places that support a 20% growth, not a 50% growth. Of course, he's spinning. - Well, and that's such a good point because I think senior leader, I mean, not just senior leaders, but I mean, it's a senior leader's world to sit there and everybody you meet is overwhelmed, right? Everybody's got the worst problem in the world. And it's like, you listen all day, and you're like, "Okay, well, you're overwhelmed and you're overwhelmed." And you know, my mailman's overwhelmed. I mean, what am I gonna do? And then it's like, oh, 48%. Oh, now you have my attention. - That's a really good point. Okay, so that's a great tip for a kidsman or next-gen or student pastor, but any other tips for them as to how to lead their senior leader? Well, how to lead or help or what's one thing they could do? - Here's my biggest one. And I mean, it is that probably that I would rank it as the highest. You've got to be their biggest cheerleader. As a kids ministry leader, you have got to be your senior leader's biggest cheerleader. And it doesn't mean that you are a blind leader. It doesn't mean that you don't disagree. It just means that you set aside time and you get them behind closed doors. And you say in a very loving and respectful way, I don't agree. I wanna talk about it, you know? But when you walk out of that door, you agree that you're behind him 100%. And as far as anyone else is concerned, you are on board. They need to know, your senior leader needs to know that you have their back. And I think that's one of the greatest attributes that we can be as it's kids ministry leaders, next-gen leaders, family ministry leaders, student ministry leaders, you've got to be your senior pastor and senior leaders number one advocate. That's the greatest thing that you can do for them. - Well, Gina, it's pretty evident to me spending this time together why God has used you to impact thousands of families and thousands of kids. I mean, you're just a great leader and I wanna thank you so much for being on the podcast today. And I know a lot of people are gonna wanna know more about you. And you just actually recently released a book, right? So tell us about that. - I did. I just wrote an ebook called The Guts and Glory of Small Groups. And as you mentioned, I'm a big fan of Orange. The strategy that Orange champions, I think is a game changer for churches and communities, not just for churches. It is a game changer for communities. - For us too. - And so I wanna be an advocate for that and taking the concepts of small groups and figuring out how to make small groups win in the midst of the weekend worship service. I think my situation is not uncommon. I am at a church where the most practical way to accommodate the number of people that are coming to our church and to open up seats for more people to come. We don't have a lot of finances to be able to add on square footage to our buildings. So the most practical thing we can do is to add services. But in a culture of options where we live by our options and options aren't a luxury, they're an expectation. And so multiple services are the standard. And when you have families that have a choice of Kevin Saturday night or maybe they hit Sunday morning 8.45 'cause they're gonna get to the lake that day or they're gonna come as late as 11.30 because they were out late the night before. When families have multiple services to choose from, their child will land at different services. - With different small group leaders. - With different small group leaders. - Same for the parent, but a total game changer for the kids because they've got no consistent peers and no consistent group leaders. So you address that in the book? - I do, that's the point of the book is how to create a system that creates consistency in an inconsistent culture. - Cool. - And it doesn't just say, hey, here's something you can do. It actually provides very practical methods on how you can apply the change, how you can introduce the change and lead your team through it. So there's some good leadership stuff in it as well. - Okay, well, we will link to the book and tell us the title again and we're gonna put it in the show notes, the link. - It's called "Guts and Glory of Small Groups." - Awesome, awesome. And where can people find you, Gina? - @genomaclean.com. - Okay, and it's M, Small C, capital C, L-A-I-N. - That's correct. - All right, and we'll link to that again. Gina, thank you so much. - Thank you, I so appreciate the opportunity, it was fun. - Cool, yeah. Gina is just so brilliant, isn't she? What a sharp leader. And that's why I think family ministry really could be, should be, one of the most important positions on your team. I think it was William Vanderblumen in that recent study who said that children's pastors, next-gen pastors are becoming some of the most highly sought after and also some of the most well-paid people on staff at churches. Just because it's such a critical role and you need to juggle so many balls, Shanna Lester does a fantastic job of children's ministry at our church. And I mean, she leads over 200 volunteers, which is just like an exceptional feat to do that. In several locations, multiple services, you just have to be really smart to do this job. Gina shows you that. And if you want more, jump into the show notes, you can find everything at kerrynewhough.com/episode46. And next week, we are back with, my goodness, we're getting long in the tooth, episode 47. And my guest will be a longtime friend, colleague, mentor, David McDaniel, David is an elder at North Point Church. Prior to that, he actually led the whole multi-site movement and strategic partnerships at North Point Church. He is a brilliant business guy, and we talk all about the correlation, I guess, or cross-pollination between business and church leadership and some of the principles that drive North Point. So you're gonna love that with David McDaniel. And thanks so much for listening today. Hey, if you are so inclined to leave a rating or review on iTunes, Stitcher or Tune in Radio, just go there, give it a rating and leave a review. I read every single one of them. I'm so grateful for all of you who have done that. And when you do that, it helps us get noticed in front of other leaders. And this is a season of growth for the podcast. So the more you do that, the more leaders get helped. And we really, I really value the feedback. So thanks so much. By the way, if you haven't subscribed, before you shut things down today, just hit the subscribe button on whatever device you're listening to. And then things are automatically delivered into your inbox every Tuesday before you wake up. So that'll be where episode 47 is next week. When you subscribe, thanks so much for listening. And I really do hope this has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the "Carry Newhof Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)