The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP029 – Next Generation MegaChurch—How Transparency and Seeking God Reaches Millennials. An Interview with John Stickl
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody. And welcome to episode 29 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff. I'm so glad that you're here. And I really hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. I am really excited about today's guest. His name is John Stickle. And at age 29, he became the lead pastor of a church of about 1,500 people. Now think about that. If you're 29 years old, that's a pretty big responsibility. And he wasn't necessarily anticipating it. It happened fairly quickly. And four years later, at 33, is leading a church of 4,500 people in two locations, just outside of Dallas, Texas. It's called Valley Creek Church. And John is one of the youngest mega church pastors in North America. In fact, I think I've had them both on the podcast so far. If you go way back to episode 17, you will meet Josh Gagnon, who pastors next level church. I think he's a year older than John maybe, up in New England, which again, is an incredible story, a place where churches don't grow, that's episode 17. So John and Josh have both been guests on the podcast. And my conversation today with John, I think is fascinating on a number of different levels. Number one, it's just like, okay, how do you become the pastor of something that big, that young? Secondly, he is really doing a great job. And their whole team is of actually reaching under 30s. And it is a very interesting approach to leadership. In fact, John describes it as trying to listen for God's voice and follow the cloud. And my question is, how do you do that as a team? It's just a very different way of leading, really interesting approach to leadership. And I think you're gonna love it at least. I loved it. So I think you're really gonna have a great time on episode 29. Hey, just to make sure you don't miss an episode, like the nuggets with Josh and John, you can subscribe. And the easiest way to do that is just hit the big old subscribe button on iTunes or Stitcher or TuneInRadio, wherever you happen to listen to this. And that way it'll be delivered every Tuesday into your inbox absolutely free. How's that for a deal? So, and for all of you who continue to leave ratings, thank you so much. And I just wanna let you know a little bit about what's going on. We are just a couple of weeks away from the Orange Conference. And I'm super excited about it this year. It's almost sold out. So I don't know by the time this airs, whether you're gonna be able to get tickets or not. But if you go to the orangeconference.com/seniorleader, that is a track that I lead. And I gotta let you know, here's what I'm really excited about every week. Sometimes it seems like every day I get emails or requests from people. It's like, hey, can you mentor me? And listen, I love mentoring leaders, but as you can imagine, here's a reality. We all only have so much time. And often I end up saying no, just because, you know, I can sort of take one or two people on at a time, but that's about all the bandwidth I've got with everything else going on in my life. And that's why I'm really excited about the Orange Conference this year, because we're gonna be doing these like many consultations. So, Jeff Henderson, Jenny Katrin, Josh Gagnon, who I just talked about myself, in between sessions, I'm gonna do these like little five-minute consultations one-on-one. So just, you know, come, bring your question, and you will get, at least from them, world-class answers, I think. And I'll do my little part, too. So that's gonna be a lot of fun. It's lots of connection time, so that's awesome. So if you wanna connect, that's a great place to do it. And I'll be speaking in the fall on the Orange Tour in different places like that as well. And then another way, I kind of see this podcast as a way of doing that, as a way of, you know, sharing at least what I'm learning on the journey with as many people as possible. So, you know, that's another way to do it. And then the other way, because we are getting this request more and more, is simply this. I write a blog, if you go to karaenuhoff.com, just my name, C-A-R-E-Y, N-I-E-U-W-H-O-F.com, and subscribe to the blog. It's different than the podcast, but you'll see the subscribe, subscribe, I can't talk today. Subscribe boxes right there. So, there you go. Subscribe boxes, you can subscribe to the blog, and about anywhere between once a week and once a month, I'll send out, like, a note with some stuff that I'm not talking about elsewhere, as well as all the latest from the blog. And that's a great way of staying in touch, and sometimes people hit me up, ask a question, and I can try to sneak something in. So, it's a great way of connecting, and I just gotta let you know, you guys make it all worthwhile. It is so much fun connecting with you, and whether that's on a speaking tour, or in comments on the blog, or a reply to an email or something like that, it's just awesome. And if you're gonna be at Orange Conference, make sure you hang out, it's gonna be so much fun. So, anyway, with that in mind, why don't we head right on over into the interview with John Stickel, who I think will be at Orange Conference, too. He's gonna hang out. He's gonna be one of the guests on the lead pastor track. So, here's John. Well, hey, everybody. I'm so excited to have John Stickel here today. John, welcome. - Hey, thanks for having me, Karri. I really honored to be a part of this with you. - Well, it's a thrill to have you. I'll tell you that. So, John, you and I met a few months ago. We were in Dallas, and we had the opportunity through a mutual friend to have lunch, and sort of connected, and I was just fascinated to hear your story. So, tell the listeners, leaders, a little bit about yourself, you know? How did you end up doing what you're doing now, which is basically pastoring a mega church at a fairly young age? - Yeah, so, that's always the long story, right? - Yeah, yeah. - We'll condense it here, but basically, we're in the Northern DFW area, Valley Creek Church, and I've been here for about nine years, and if you kind of back the train up, I grew up in Buffalo, New York. So, I'm an upstate guy. I appreciate you, my Tim Horton's friend, close to the Canadian border there. And man, just kind of was living my life, doing my thing, I played college lacrosse, and didn't really, didn't know God wasn't walking with God, and right when I graduated college, God kind of just wrecked my life, grabbed, not wrecked my life, it wrecked my heart through a whole bunch of things in my life that just kind of fell out. So, I really kind of grew up in a Christian home, knew about the Lord, my parents loved God, but it wasn't for me. So, I kind of just gave God this ultimatum, which isn't always a good thing to do, but basically, I'm gonna seek you for the next six months. And if you're real, you can have the rest of my life, and if you're not, I'm kind of done with all, just the going to church for Christmas, and praying for all that kind of stuff. And so, I went on this six month journey, and found the Lord, and he just grabbed my heart, and at the end of that, I felt like he was just inviting me to follow him, to step into ministry. So, I had no idea what to do, and so, I thought, man, well, I guess you got to go to seminary, that's all I knew, I didn't know anything else. So, applied to three different seminaries, thought, there's no way I'm gonna get in them as I'm filling out the applications, they're saying things like, where are you currently serving? No, no where. What was the last volunteer role you had? None, you know, you're going through all this something. I'm not gonna get in any of these things, and send it in, and ended up getting into all three of the seminaries, which was just shocking. And so, really fell like that was from the Lord, went to Denver, went to Denver Seminary, got involved at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, served there for a season, and then God brought us to Valley Creek Church in 2006. It was 24, and it came as the Connections Pastor, and here we are today. Yeah, and when did you become Lead Pastor at Valley Creek? So, in 2010, so it's been a little more than four years for us. You've been cruising it five years as a senior pastor of a large church. Really interesting, you know. I had the same deal going on with God when I was in my early 20s. It was like, yeah, I'm either gonna follow you or forget about it. And I gave him a six month thing, and I said, "Dum, do you give God all tomatoes?" Of course not. But it was like, okay, I'm gonna explore you for six months, and I'm either gonna jump in, or I'm done with you. And, you know, here we are. So, I don't recommend that. I don't know whether that's a good idea or not, but it worked for me, it worked for you, didn't it? Yeah. All right, well, that's a really cool background, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. Actually, on episode 17, Josh Gagnon, who's also a very young leader of a mega church up in New England, talked about the same thing that he got his call to ministry when he wasn't even a Christian. Like, God just got ahold of him, wrecked his heart, and he rededicated his life to Christ and started figuring out what it meant to become a pastor. So, that's really interesting. You know, it reminds me of God is gonna build his church, right? At the end of the day, you have your plans. God has his, and he has a way of trumping things. So, you became lead pastor of Valley Creek Church in 2010. How old were you when you took over that responsibility? Yeah, so I was 29. Wow. 29. So, you're 34 now? 33. 33. 33. 33. Wow, and you've been leading this church. So, when we say mega church, like, how big is Valley Creek these days? So, at 29, when we started, we were about 1,500, and right now we're running about 4,500 on a weekend. Wow, that's massive growth for anybody. I mean, you tripled in size in the last three and a half, four years, under your leadership, and you got a young family, right? You're married? Yeah, you got a young family, you're navigating all of that. So, what kind of leadership challenges did you run into, or have you run into, or are you running into, as you learn to lead at that level in your 30s? Oh, man, it's been a crazy journey. You know, I think at 29, you get this opportunity, and I think, you know, you're too young and too naive to know what you don't know. Like, you're like, man, okay, we can do this, and you just have passion, and you have excitement, and we're gonna make it happen, and you kind of get into it, and, man, it got so crazy for us, it just felt like we started growing like 100 people a month. And when you do that for a couple years, it literally just felt like for us a runaway train, where you were just trying to hold on, and just trying to survive, and just trying to get enough track in front of you to keep the train on the track without it tipping over, and losing everybody that's on it. And then, not only that, but then you're dealing with transition. You know, following the founding pastor, who is well-liked and loved, and so you're trying to deal with that as well. And so, man, it just was a journey, and with two young kids and a new marriage, and I think one of the jokes that we always have is, I think I had preached all of 10 sermons in my entire life before I became the lead pastor. So I was never a student pastor, so I never had the learning how to speak every week. So the first challenge I had the first Sunday, it's like, okay, this is the first series I've ever preached. I gotta learn how to preach series. I gotta learn how to preach every week and lead. And so, man, it was just kind of, let's go and jump in the deep end, and here we go. - Okay, so everybody's asking at this point, great. So you're learning on the job, you get on the job training. I mean, obviously it's supernatural, to some extent. You know, I remember asking Andy Stanley, this question, episode one, like other than the grace of God, why has North Point grown so big? And he said, I'm so glad you started there, 'cause it's the grace of God. But there are principles as well. So if there are principles, like why do you think, you know, people don't just get attracted to a church at 100 people a month, month after month after month after month. What were some of the factors that went into that kind of growth job? - Yeah, I mean, totally the grace of God, for sure. Just his goodness and faithfulness on us. And I think we just had this thing when we started. We just thought, you know what? We got to transition the culture, we've got to deal with some challenges and some obstacles. And so we started working through that. And I think at the end of the day, this, you and I tied this conversation at lunch. I think one of the things that God really showed us is we just have this term, we call it follow the cloud. Like the Israelites in the Old Testament. You know, the pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, which represented the presence of God. It was their cover, it was their protection. It, when it moved, they would move. And when it stopped, they would stop. And so we just kind of had this thing right from the beginning, we said, man, let's just hear from God. And whatever he says, no matter how crazy it seems, let's just go for it. And so we kind of had this team and our group of elders that we said, man, that's going to be the strategy of how we're going to lead our church. We weren't like, like our team is a bunch of just ragtag regular people, which I love. It's just regular people that say, where's God leading? What's he saying? Let's stay in tune with that and follow it. And I think every time we followed him where he's asked us to go, he showed up and he's done amazing things. - Okay, so that's fascinating, 'cause I do remember that conversation, but there's lots of people who say, hey, I'm listening to God. And there's enough of a reform theologian in me to say, but how do you know it's God? How do you know that you're not hearing a competing voice, your own voice, like how have you discerned that in community? - And that's the key right there. It's one of the things with our culture that worked out so well was really, when I started as the lead pastor, I was the youngest person on the staff. So you're dealing with a totally different dynamic right out of the gate. And so I think for us, what we said is, and we're gonna talk a little bit about millennials in a minute, but I think some of the differences, like I think the boomers, it was a little bit more like Moses. I'm gonna go up on the mountain. I'm gonna hear from God and come back and tell you where we're going or what it is that we're gonna do. And what we kind of said is, let's be a little bit more like Acts two, where everybody hears the voice of God in a language they can understand. And if we're all seeking God together, God only has one thing to say about any particular issue. So he's not gonna tell you something and then tell me something different and tell this person something else and that person something else. It's like, if we're all seeking God together, he only has one thing to say about any particular issue. And so what it did is it forced us to really unify and it forced us as a team to seek God to the get to this point where we learn to trust each other and say, man, if we're all not in unity and not in alignment that this is God, then somebody's hearing something different. So let's stop and wait. So one of the things that we were willing to do was, even though it was a runaway train, is just pause sometimes when we say, we're hearing different things. So let's just wait and see what God is really saying. - Okay, so walk me through that. Give some specifics to this. So give us as an example of like one or two things that the community, your collective group of, and is this like everybody, it's not 4,500 people. It's your staff or, so put some parameters around it and then be specific. So what did you hear? Give us an example. - Yeah, this would be like, and this would be defined as kind of our top tier leadership team and our elders. So what I love about our elder group is we don't have like, our elder system basically runs like this is we have total authority together as a group. No authority is individual. - Okay, that's interesting. - An elder, when he shows up on the weekend, is just a regular person like everybody else. He can't walk into the children's ministry and say, "I don't like this," or say, "Change that worship song." But when we hear God together and make a decision, it's the ultimate authority together as a group, which takes a lot of awkwardness out of a lot of daily. - And how many elders do you have for a true sense? - Six. - Yeah. - Okay. - Kind of like us. We have five elders and I like it, keep it small. - Yeah. - And if you're seeking God together, you kind of have to. So it's our elders, then it'll be our lead team. And we make sure all of that's in open. - Which again is how big, how big is your team? - Our lead team would probably be around that set, six or seven. - Okay, so you basically got a dozen people who are in this together, or at least parallel. - Okay, great, great, great. Okay, no, that gives us some parameters and definitions. So I've known people who've like, until everybody agrees, we're not going anywhere to which I'll often say, then you're not going anywhere. - Right, and totally, and that makes it, that's where you get paralyzed. But what works out great is, is when you start creating credibility and consistency over time of, here's what we feel like God's inviting us to. Let me explain to you, like our whole church understands the fall of the cloud principle, 'cause I'll explain it to them and say, "Here's what we feel like God's doing." And then when we fall of God into that space, and he moves, it builds trust and credibility in people's hearts to say, "Man, I want to keep trusting and following where we're going." So an example, you said an example. Let me give you, I think this is a good one, 'cause I'm the negative voice, and this one is. As we were growing so fast, our elders really felt like we were hearing from God that we needed to expand our worship center, to build and double kind of basically our seating capacity at our original campus. Man, I was the one that was saying, "I don't think we should do this." And so, it's usually is the opposite, right? Usually it's the lead pastor that's pushing and saying, "We need to do this." Well, I was saying, "Man, I don't think we should do this. I really want to go multi-site. I think we want to raise up leaders." So on and so forth. - So what was your reasoning behind that? You thought multi-site was a better strategy or? - No, here's the beauty of it. At the end of the day, I was afraid. I was afraid, if we built a bigger room, that I wasn't gonna be good enough to fill it. - Wow. - So fear in my heart was making me hear something that God wasn't saying. When all the rest of the elders and all the rest of our lead team were hearing God and they were saying, "Man, God is inviting us to do this." They come because of him, not because of you. And I think I was this one voice that was so afraid of, man, at the time, I think I was 30. I said, "Man, I'm 30 years old. We're in Dallas. We have every- - We're teaching a year. - Yeah, exactly. - We have every amazing mega church pastor right around us that everybody knows. I'm not like them. I can't compete with them. All of those things, it was fear in my heart. And so that to me was one of those great moments where I remember sitting in an elders meeting and elders looked at me and they said, "Well, here's the opportunity for you to choose to believe what everything that you've been telling us is, do you believe this is the voice of God and God's counsel in your life that we're all in unity and you're the one hearing something different? Could it be something in your heart?" And I remember it just hit me and it was like, "It's my own fear that's making me hear wrong." And so freedom for me, trust with the team, God spoke, he had one thing to say. And as soon as I was able to get past that fear, I heard it too, that that's what we were supposed to do. So I don't know if that makes sense. - No, that does make a lot of sense. You mind if we drill down a little bit more on that? - Sure. - 'Cause I think this is fascinating, John. So, okay, so some people would say, well, that's a strategy conversation, right? One site versus multi-site. And you read a few articles, you listen to a few podcasts, go to a conference, make a decision. Obviously, pray about it. But so how do you actually hear God's voice? What's the process in that? Do you set up like a prayer schedule for your elders? Do you just pray about it collectively, individually? How do you know you're hearing from God and not from people's preconceived ideas or just, you know, somebody who read a book and thought, "Oh, this is the best strategy." - Sure. 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 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 saying, 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 here in 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. - Wow, that's interesting. So there's no prescribed, like everybody read these five chapters and we'll talk about it next month. It's just you, so your criteria, one of the criteria I would assume then for eldership and I mean, the sounds, yeah, almost trivial 'cause it should be the case of all of us who lead churches, but you're looking for people who have great character, who listen to God, who pray, who read their Bible and who seek him and then you gather together and you share what you've learned. - And who have no agenda. - Okay, explain. - Because if you can take the agenda out of the equation, then it's we can trust each other. When nobody has this personal ambition to get something or to play politics or to posture or position for something, it's we can learn to trust each other that you hear God and I hear God, what is he saying together? 'Cause he only has one thing to say about should we expand this campus or not? Should we do this initiative or not? You know, so on and so forth. And so it really creates this trust with each other that I think is one of the reasons that we've had such incredible unity as a team because when you're seeking God together, you can't help but be unified 'cause you gotta keep short accounts and you gotta deal with the garbage in your own heart. - So I know you're dealing with a real church in real time, but I mean, not everybody, and so I realize this is kind of a sensitive question what's coming next. Not everybody qualifies. There are definitely people in churches who have agendas, personal agendas, hidden agendas, ideological agendas, so on. How do you vet for that? And do you have to do some of that? Do you have to vet for that and make sure that somebody doesn't come in with an agenda? And then how do you make sure you get those kinds of people in and the wrong kind of people out? - Yeah, I think that's a culture, right? You gotta, it's that sense. I think one of the things that we've in these four years for us too is this belief that culture is often more important than vision. There's a lot of people that have great vision, but their culture will never enable them to get there. But if we can build the right culture, the culture should be a guardrail that will always help us achieve the very vision that we're trying to obtain. Kind of like the why versus the how or so on and so forth. So for us, it was building this culture and this is how we're gonna do things. This is what we're gonna value. This is what it means to have shared leadership, to do it together, to hear God's voice. So we spent a lot, man. I feel like the whole first two and a half years, that's all I did was try to, from a team standpoint, build culture, so that now any elders meeting we get in, any leadership team meeting we jump in, we're not sitting there having to like remind ourselves, like, okay, here's the three agenda points. And here's how we seek God. And here's how we make decisions. The culture has shaped it to a point where now it just happens. So anybody that's counter-cultural is exposed so fast that everyone else picks up on it, that I don't even have to be the one to say, hey, come out, you're going, you're breaking our cultural guardrails, everyone else calls it out. - So was that a departure? Is this sort of a new culture you were creating then when you became the lead pastor? - Yeah, we couldn't be any more different than we were four years ago. - Wow. - So one of the things that we say is that we're, I think we're like a church plant that had building people and resources because we changed the vision, the values, the culture, everything was completely different. And it was primed for it, you know, and different transitions look different. The founding pastor was well loved, but at the last season of his time, there was no vision. So people were craving vision. So as we came in and started dropping vision and shaping culture, people were so hungry for it that they kind of went on this journey with us. And that's kind of where we got to where we are today, I think. - How did you know, and I mean, this is interesting. I mean, I don't know, Texas really well, but I've been there a bunch of times. And it seems a little countercultural what you're doing to the style of leadership in a lot of mega churches. How did you know that this is how you wanted to lead? Or did you figure that out as you went along? - Yeah, I think again, when you start, you know, at 29, you don't know anything. You're just trying to survive. And I think it's one of those just, man, hear God and take that step. And so I don't think I started off thinking this is what we were gonna do. But what I think happened was the biggest challenges we faced in that first year have become our biggest strengths. - Okay. - So what I mean by that is, you know, lack of vision was the biggest, a big challenge. Well, now that's become super clear to us and it's become a great strength. No team leadership was a huge challenge that now has become a huge strength. And so I think for us, it was some of the challenges we had to face with some of it being my age, you know, not having to learn how to teach. Well, man, I had to start getting other people to teach with me. So creating a shared leadership team that teaches together, you know, those kinds of things. I think they just kind of were the perfect set of circumstances that we just kind of followed God and it navigated us to this point. - No, that's a really interesting paradigm for leadership. And we'll get into it, like you said, a little bit later in the interview, but probably, you know, not a boomer style, maybe not a buster or a Gen X style, but definitely more millennial style of leadership. But while we're doing sort of the chronology, did you get pushback? I mean, when you're changing everything and it sounds like you changed everything and everything is changing, when you're growing that fast, did you have people like, this isn't the same church? 'Cause arguably it's not the same church and how did you guys handle that? - Yeah, I got really good at starving cows. So is that. - Okay, tell me more about that. - You got to get rid of the sacred cows. And so what we learned as if you are the guy that shoots the cow, everybody hates you and remembers you as the guy that shoots the cow. But if you starve the cow, you just stop feeding it. Nobody remembers who forgot to feed the cow. And then it dies over time on its own, you know? - That's brilliant, I have not heard that. So you starved a few cows. - So we starved some cows and we had some good barbecues. And we just, you know, kind of celebrated together and nobody remembers who ended up forgetting to feed the cow. And so, you know, we kind of journeyed through some stuff like that, so, and because God was moving, because people, you know, what was amazing is that whole first season for us, it was, this is how we would find it. We say we had unchurched people inviting unchurched people to church. They would come up after service and introduce themselves, you know, and the joke I have is always this, you know, they're up there, they're snot bubbling, they're crying. They're like, I don't even know why I'm crying, just something in this place changed me and I feel this. - And you smile and you're like, man, that's God moving in your heart. And then the next week they come up with their other friend who's snot bubbling and crying. And so I think there was so much, you know, where people could see the fruit of what we were doing, that there was, you know, you're always going to have some resistance, but it was hard to argue with how God was moving, you know? And so I think again, and unity, because we had such a level of unity, those that wanted to argue, they couldn't find a crack to get in and get a toehold because our leadership team was so on the same page that it was like, man, there's, you know, and you have anytime you start having a transition, this is what I've learned is with, you have three types of people, those that will follow you no matter what, those that are going to sit until and wait until they, they're going to watch you and decide whether or not they're going to trust you. And then there's a group of people that they're not going to follow no matter what. And so learning, you know, and it's sad at first when you have people that leave and you think, man, are you leaving because you don't like me and all that stuff you've got to learn as a, you know, young kid, but not catering the church to that third group 'cause they're not going to follow no matter what. - Right. - So we can let the cow live forever and they're still going to go, you know? - Yeah, that's true. What percentage would you say, just rough estimate 'cause nobody has stats on this stuff, but what percentage of people were in that third group who are just not going to follow no matter what who ended up leaving? - I would guess over that first year, there was probably, I don't know, 20%, you know, of people that probably just disappeared. - And so did you go through a dip before you hit the spike? - We didn't 'cause we started growing so fast. - You grew right away. - Yeah, it was within like the first three months that it just started clipping like 100 people a month. And so, you know, people we knew were for fading out, but others were jumping in that you didn't, that was the positive for us. I don't think everybody has this experience. The positive for us is we didn't get caught up in the heart carnage of the people leaving because we were so overwhelmed by all the broken people that were coming. So it was kind of a different reality for us. - So you're following the cloud, you've got Unity at the top, which is super important. I think people look for Unity throughout the body. One of the things I've learned over time is if you've got Unity at the top, you're probably going to have it throughout the organization or the congregation. If you have a crack at the top, it's, yeah, good luck. You'll never get it anywhere else. So you had those two things, Unity, but you're growing as well. So in terms of the model shift, walk us through some of the shifts, the changes that you made in those first couple of years that you think may be, in addition to the grace of God, were some of the reasons that so many people started to show up all at once. - In terms of the leadership style or what we'll do? - Yeah, some of the changes, like then and now. So what were some of the shifts you made in terms of the type of church? - Some of the big stuff was really getting away from the programming aspect that everything. Dallas is really good at programming. So the church is in general, but Dallas is like exceptional. So a program for everything and starting to phase that out and trying to add things that were more principle-based and more presence-based. So if us, if as a church, we're going to say we're about following the cloud, we then have to teach people, what does it mean to come to church to encounter God, to spend time with God, to experience God in their life? So I would say, if you say, from a stylistic methodological reality, that was probably the biggest change, is that what you win them with, you have to keep them with, in a sense, a lot of ways sometimes. And so moving away from this, we're winning people with programs and we've got to keep them with those programs too. Let's win people with the presence of God and then we can keep them with the presence of God. So that would be when I'm saying these people were coming in and just being impacted by God being in church with us. It's like in Genesis 28 when Jacob wakes up and says, "Surely God was in this place and I knew it not." I think the presence of God is the greatest evangelistic tool we have. It's the thing that wakens people's hearts that just rocks them. And so man, that meant we started really spending more time learning how to worship and creating a worshiping culture and some different kinds of things like that. But it was a lot more about elimination, I think, than it was anything else and then getting really clear on culture and values. - So you starved a bunch of cows and they died fairly quickly within a year or two. How do you, it's interesting, because I think a lot of listeners would say, well, maybe I've been to church for years, but I don't think I've ever experienced the presence of God. What does that mean? Like how do you cultivate that as a leader? How do you usher people into the presence of God? - Yeah, well, God, right, that's always the question. God can't be manipulated or controlled in it. And I think we've overcomplicated the presence of God. I think the presence of God is our awareness that he is with us and that he's revealing himself to us. I think we've made it this, it's gotta be this either emotional experience or it's reserved for the spiritual elite or it only happens in the private prayer closet or at like a, you know, a passion conference. It's like, you know, man, the presence of God is our awareness that he's with us and revealing himself to us. And when you look through the scriptures, you'll find, I mean, Colossians 117, he holds all things together. So his presence is literally holding your molecules together in the moment. And then, you know, Acts two, his presence is now in us as the spirit of the living God or Matthew 1820, we're two or three are gathered, Jesus as he shows up for Psalm 22, three, he inhabits the praises of his people. So there's a throne that gets built by our worship and the spiritual realm and he comes and he takes authority and sits, you know, as Lord over our circumstances and fear and brokenness in those moments. So a lot of it was just making people aware. - Yeah. - He's really here and he wants to meet with you. And that started to change things in people's mindset. So they started coming to our gatherings in their small groups and things we would have events with a different level of faith and expectation. And then that faith level would rise. So new people that don't know the Lord are coming in and it's like, surely God is in this place and I knew not because the presence of God is people around them are aware of it and he's revealing himself to them. - Hmm, that's well said. No, I see that it's as much a shifting of expectations and an opening of, I guess, people's sight to say, you know what, like he has been here all along. We might have been missing it. - Yeah. Yeah, like, you know, for me, it's this funny thing 'cause I am such a leadership person. I love leading, in fact, it's, you know, a lot of lead pastors, they lead so they can teach. I teach so I can lead. Like I could teach 15 times a year on the weekends and be fine with it. Like it's-- - Right. - So it's leadership and I'm a leadership junkie and love all that stuff, but at the end of the day, I think for us, there was so much about this decision to say, we just really wanna meet with God. And if we can lead other people towards that, that's what's gonna draw them back to this place 'cause I can only preach so well and we can only, you know, lead so far and we can only create so many things. - Talk about some of the leadership shifts you made in these first four years. If you're a leadership junkie, John, which I know you are, what are some of the strategic things you had to do? - Yeah, you know, I think it was, for us, it was really helping the team understand, here's what our culture is gonna be. And then defining that and then spending loads of time helping everybody understand the why. I think we are all really good at the how and we know the how, but what I've discovered is you're not really a kingdom leader if you don't know the why. Because I can have a whole leadership team full of people that know how to do the how, but at some point they're gonna run into an obstacle or a challenge that that how doesn't work for. So if they don't know the why, they can't get over that obstacle or challenge, but if you know the why, you'll figure out the how. So we've spent, man, I would say over these four years, I've spent hundreds of hours with our team, our school staff, our key volunteer leaders discussing the why of everything that we're doing and the decisions that we're making and the approach that we have. And I think that has so shifted and shaped their engagement and understanding that it's this shared leadership thing that we can do it together. I think that's probably one of the primary things that we did different. It's an interesting question, 'cause you asked me it. We're just, we are a weird church and by that is like, there's not, hey, we started this initiative or program. We changed to this method or we did this. It really was about defining identity. In the Metroplex culture, we have the most amazing mega church, mega churches, mega church pastors, world-renowned communicators. And so at 29, you have these people that walk in and they tell you, well, so and so down the road does this. So and so over there, they speak like that and this church is doing that and you can get so swayed that I think for us it was, okay, who is God inviting us to be? That needs to be our identity and we need to be totally okay with just being us and running the race that God has marked out for us. 'Cause that's the grace we have. We have the grace for our lane, not for this awesome church down the road lane and they're doing amazing things. We bless them, we partner with them, but this is who we are and what God's invited us to do. - Yeah, and I can see that. That makes a lot of sense, John, because I think sometimes we look for the model to save us. We look for a new program to save us. And at the end of the day, there's a person who saves us, his name is Jesus. But you can really lead at a whole other level when what you do is actually a reflection of who you are, as opposed to something you're trying to strap on or fit on it, it doesn't quite work. So how has this journey been for you? You say it's been a fasten your seat belts kind of ride. I mean, we talked a little bit about not feeling equipped really at that point to lead a church, but what have been your big learning points as a leader personally is you've had to navigate, I mean, a 300% rise in attendance, a growing family, you've got a couple of kids, you're married, you're 34, 33, 33. And man, oh man, what's that been like for you? - Yeah, it's been amazing and it's been really hard. I think sometimes we wanna just talk about the amazing things, but it's been hard. You and me have talked a little bit about my daughter is high needs. So when you have two little kids, I got married two months before we moved to Texas to come to Valley Creek the first time. So our whole married life is kind of tied up in this whole journey together. And so you go through this journey where I think at 29 at 30 at 30, I feel like I'm just barely starting to learn this now where you don't allow the ministry success or failures to define your identity. And so for me, it was learning to not strive, to not to get, and we all know it, that people don't come because of us and they don't stay because we're so great, but how many times do we really not believe that? In our heart, we think like, I have to preach like this or they won't come back next week. And so I think the whole thing for me was perfectly designed to expose the insecurities in my own life. I think it was the perfect set of environmental circumstances and realities that exposed the things that I struggled believe. I mean, I think insecurity is chronic self-consciousness. Or it's insecurity is misplaced trust. And so getting put in that place, it's like, wow, we'll say in church, God won't give you more than you can handle. I think God always gives us more than we can handle to expose the misplaced trust within us that we choose Him. And I think for me, it was a little bit, you know, like when God comes to Moses and says, I want you to go and set 2 million people free. And Moses is like, who am I? And God's response is, I will be with you. So Moses asks, who am I? And it almost seems like God doesn't answer the question 'cause his very next thing is I will be with you. In other words, hey, Moses, you are the one that I am with. And that's enough. And so for me, I think, man, it was a lot of insecurity that God exposed a lot of my own striving and struggling and trying to do things in my own flesh that God exposed. And when you get to moments of brokenness, a sick kid that you can't heal, a situation, you don't know how to get through feeling exhausted 'cause of the growth, it really brings you to this place where you can get harder or you can get freer. And I think that was the journey for me, is that the Lord has used all of this to bring me to a new level of freedom in my own life. - So how have you discerned that? 'Cause I think that's really well said, John, in an incredible journey, but not everybody chooses that path. Like, who do you process this with? Can you talk about it with your team, obviously with your wife? Do you sit down with a counselor from time to time or mentors, how have you processed all this? - Yeah, I mean, all of that, I think is important. So like, you know, for our team culture, I'm super transparent with our team. It's where we put it together. My wife is a counselor. - Oh, great. - So there you go, you and you're married to a counselor. She's very good at telling you all the things that where you, you know, how do you feel about this, Johnny? You know, those kinds of comments is like, okay, so. So I think it's, I think it's all of it. And I think this is the, a little bit of the seat that I sit in kind of in that millennial thing is I can look ahead and, you know, the church that I came from before Valley Creek was 15,000 people and had a super high profile pastor fall. And so in your early 30s, when you can look at the mega church leadership of the boomer generation or whatever, you know, that's ahead of us, it's really easy to look at a lot of the different guys that I've met or lifestyles that they have to look at and say, I don't want that. I don't want to be 50 years old and look like that, live like that, feel like that. And so I think it brought a level of revelation that it's like, okay, if me and Colleen can deal with this stuff in our early 30s, we can be free of it and live a different way for this journey in the days ahead wherever God takes us. - Right, so. - So you kind of, you kind of got a picture, I guess, to some extent of what you didn't want to be at 50. And then reverse engineered that, then that makes sense. And you know, the openness, the transparency, the vulnerability, I think is huge. It's also, I think, something that millennials themselves are looking for in leadership. At least that's been my experience. So you have had a fair bit of success in reaching out to millennials and introducing them into a relationship with God through Christ. Tell us a little bit about what you're learning about the large church of millennials because some literature would say, millennials don't really like mega churches. They like small. But you've got a different experience going on. So tell us about that. - I think it's easy to take any group of people and write an article based on one sample population of wherever we as that leader see it to be, you know? So I think it's, you got to look at the scope and the context. And for me, I think the millennials right now are really excited about the church. They're really excited about Jesus. They come with this level of passion and they want to follow Jesus in a lot of ways. I think the millennials that are passionate about Jesus are really leading the church even if they don't have leadership roles. And what I mean by that is when our millennials gather, their passion for God is pulling the older generations along with them of this excitement of God is alive. He's here, he's moving. And so I think it's less about the mega church or the micro church or whatever it is. I think at the end of the day, there's certain things they're looking for. And if we're able to provide those for them, that's what they're interested in. - So without becoming the formulaic, like, okay, here are the two things millennials are looking for. What are some of the characteristics or hallmarks that you've seen that are important in actually being able to connect with millennials? - Sure. So sticking on my kind of topic, and I guess sharing with you, I think they're more interested in God's presence than in programming. I've never met a millennial that wants to leave the church because there wasn't a certain program. Or because a program changed. Lots of 40s and 50s that leave the churches because programs are changing. So for them, it's not about a program. It's about is God here? Is God moving? Is there something in this place that's bigger than us? I think the millennials have got to a point where the sermon is not the main event. I think for the 40s and 50s, the sermon is the main event. We come and we'll weather some worship songs, we feel like are too long and we repeat it over and over again. Or video or a skit or some announcements. But the sermon is the main event. I don't think that for the millennials. I think they feel like the presence of the God, the being together in community, that that is the main event to them. And so it's a different perspective. And so for us, I feel like we see this thing where millennials, they want spiritual parents. They want community with their own generation and they want to make a difference like today. They don't want to be told, hey, when you're 40, you can do something great for the kingdom. They're like, man, I want to do something great for the kingdom now. And I want to be with people that are in my generation, but I need spiritual parents. I want people that can invest in my life. - I would say that's very true of the millennials. I know at our church as well. That's a very succinct summary. So how do you usher them into the presence of God or how do you not get in the way of them being in the presence of God? Like describe what that looks like at your church. - Yeah, I think again, it's just going back to the Acts chapter two church. Like the description of what it was, but also a prescription of what it can be. And so by not over programming it, by not, this is like one of those things that, so as we started growing, we're learning from all the good mega churches and programming everything and getting down to the minute and all that stuff. And what we learned is that's really good. And it's really helpful when you're running campuses and we've got multiple services and video venues and all those things, you need that structure. But at the end of the day, I think the millennials are looking for the space in between, looking for us to say we do have an order and we're gonna be good stewards of that. But at the same time, we're gonna create space in between and let you engage with each other. Let this worship song hang a little bit longer if it feels like God's moving. Take a detour in the sermon that may be not in our three points of notes, but where it seems to be like, man, God's got something to say. I feel like that has been, when I sit down with them and dialogue with them, the thing they always say back is we're interested in self-discovery. Don't tell us, here's how we need to live. Tell us a story and ask us questions. And so I think in that story telling through a whole like worship gathering and we're just kind of focused on the gathering here, you know, what we were talking about. But tell us a story through it and ask us questions and give us space to discover God for ourselves. And I think that again, and then making them aware that God's here, it starts to change something in them. - So it's not necessarily like a huge extended time of worship, I mean, how long are your services? - No, I mean, that's why I'm laughing 'cause I can hear somebody listening to this being like, man, they have like two hour worship services, you know? Hour and five minutes. - Really? It's 25 to 28 minutes, usually around worship. Man, about a 35 minute message. I mean, it's your standard simple service. I think the bigger deal is what you, what we are pursuing for the win underneath it, I think resonates through it all. - That's true, you know, you can feel really hurried in a 65 minute service or you can feel like you've just been in an oasis, that you've just actually been in something that's bigger than yourself. And when you talk about connecting millennials, how does that happen on Sunday? How does that happen during the week? - Yeah, so I think it's creating on ramps and opportunities for them to meet each other in their demographics so they can find, you know, they wanna find other people that are in their season of life talking and wrestling through the things they are. That's pretty easy, you know, different ways you can do that. The harder part is creating the spiritual parenting component. - Okay. - Finding those that are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, whatever it may be, that have this desire to turn around and spend time inviting the millennials. I mean, millennials wanna be invited into your home. They wanna sit at your kitchen table, they wanna ask you questions, they wanna hear about your brokenness, they wanna dialogue about your life, they wanna know what things you would do different if you could do it over again. They don't, what we've found is they don't, I at least our millennials here, they don't wanna sit down and be like, "Okay, here's the three things "you need to do to be pure in your journey. "Here's the three things you need to do "so that you can have God's will for your life." They're like, "Man, dialogue with us. "Let us ask you questions." - And what I've found, which is really different than when I was 25, I mean, I don't know that I was really open to 50-year-old speaking into my life, to be really honest, and what I find is that there's an awful lot of millennials now who are just interested in talking to people, their parents or their grandparents age, and just being in relationship and having a conversation, and they're really open. And I think that's surprising to people who are over 40. - Totally, totally. - Wow. - And they're just, I mean, it's a fatherless generation, which I think in a lot of ways means it's also a motherless generation because the mother has had to try to take on the fathering role, so they really don't have either. So they're craving somebody to just believe in them and speak identity over their life and dialogue about who God is and what He can do. - So I can't believe our time has gone by so quickly, but I know that there are some young leaders, there's a lot of young leaders who listen to this podcast. So if they're in over their heads, maybe not leading a megachurch of 1500 at 29, but maybe, you know, wow, I'm in charge of the student ministry or I'm, you know, the associate or the exec pastor or I'm a lead pastor. I mean, I've only ever in 20 years been a lead pastor. That's it, I came in at 30 and, you know, started out with these small churches, and, you know, here we are all these years later, but what about, what advice would you have for people who are just stepping up into leadership and maybe feel a bit overwhelmed? - Yeah, I think, you know, one of the main things I think is be a person of honor, especially as a young leader, it's really easy to criticize and condemn and try to make ourselves feel better about us by putting down those that have been before us. Honor is the culture of the kingdom and the future always starts with the past. So be a person of honor, and God will honor you in the midst of it. I think pursue your own healing. The more you can heal your own soul, your own insecurities, your own brokenness, the better leader you become. The greatest gift we give to our, the churches that we are a part of leading is the healthiest version of ourselves. You know, the fully alive person that Jesus has made us to be. And then I think the biggest thing, this is the biggest thing I've learned, is let God define your identity. Don't allow your sermons, your growth, your failures, your disappointments. Don't let those things shape who you are or comparing yourself to the great, you know, church leaders that we see in the world around us. It really is, I think how Jesus did it when he starts his ministry and the father says, "This is my beloved son and whom I am well, please." And that declaration of identity, I think was the freedom that Jesus walked in where the love of God in your life frees you from the praise and the rejection of man. And until we let him define who we are, we spend our lives, I think, especially as pastors can be the most guilty of this, is we love with an expectation of getting something in return. And when that expectation isn't met, we get frustrated, hurt, offended, discouraged, whatever it is. But when you know who he says you are, you move to this new level of freedom where it's like, I can love like Jesus did, walk into a room or a situation and love and not expect anything from anybody. And that's true freedom, I think, in leadership and in life. - Wow, that's a wonderful word to conclude on, John. Well said. I can see why you've got hundreds of people joining your church every few months. It's been a real privilege to hang out with you on this episode of the day. John, there's going to be people who want to get in touch with you. So just to spell out your last name, you've got a last name like me that sometimes needs spelling. It's John Stickle, STI, C-K-L, everything will be in the show notes. But where can people find you in your church? - Yeah, easiest thing is just ValleyCreek.org, our church website, and go from there. - Cool. John, thanks so much. - Thanks for having me. Isn't that just a really cool theology of leadership? And I mean, such a great story too. I loved talking to John. And if you're a young leader, just be encouraged. Sometimes I think we doubt ourselves. And we end up in the place where we're like, I can't handle that or I'm too young or whatever. And sometimes God just puts you in a position where you get a lot to lead at a very young age. And I think if you do it humbly and you do it openly and you seek wise counsel around you, it's amazing to see what God will accomplish through you. So I know a lot of young leaders listen to this podcast just being encouraged and don't be intimidated. And I know as a guy who's not in my 30s, I totally appreciate what John had to share and am really anxious to see how millennials as they move into senior leadership positions lead differently than their forebears. I think we all have a lot to learn from that. And that's why it's so much fun having these conversations. If you want to get in contact with John or you want more information about his church, just head on over to the show notes. Go to carrynewhough.com/episode29. You'll find everything right there. And in the meantime, really excited about coming back next week. We do a whole new episode every single Tuesday. And next week is episode 30, tada, new milestone. And Carl Vaders is gonna be my guest. Carl writes newsmallchurch.com. We are gonna have, we're gonna try to settle for once and for all, whether big churches are better than small churches or small churches are better than big churches. 'Cause there's this like huge debate. And so Carl and I have almost an hour long conversation. It's fascinating. Again, if you hit the free subscribe button, then you're never gonna miss it. So you can do that. And we will see you next Tuesday. Really do hope that this has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the carrynewhough leadership podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)