The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 020 - How to Get Volunteers to Own Your Mission LIke Staff Do—An Interview With Elevation Church's Frank Bealer
(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 hello everybody and welcome to episode 20 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff. I am so glad that you've joined us for this episode. And I think you're gonna be really glad you tuned in if you have ever struggled with this issue. Have you ever felt like you're the only person in your organization who's really passionate about the mission or like there's just too few of you. Maybe there's five of you or 10 of you or a dozen of you. I think most of us have struggled with that at one point or another. Whether you lead a church like I do or you run a knot for profit, you work with a lot of volunteers. Or even if you're an owner or manager in a company, a corporation in the marketplace, sometimes it can be really, really hard to motivate employees. I mean, you're giving them a paycheck, but you just love to see some more passion. That's why I think you're gonna be really, really glad that you tuned in today. Because we're gonna meet Frank Bueller. Frank is the family campus pastor over in charge of all family ministry at all locations of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you haven't heard of Elevation Church, it is an explosively growing ministry. I think they're at 13 campuses right now. And all over the Charlotte area, the Metro Charlotte area and also one near to where I live in Toronto in the Greater Toronto area. And they're only about seven or eight years old. So I mean, it's been an incredible story. And what's so cool about Elevation, one of the things that's really awesome is they have like, not just a couple dozen volunteers or a hundred volunteers. They have like thousands of volunteers who are as passionate and as dedicated to the mission as their paid staff are. And the question we're gonna struggle with today or ask is how do you get that way? And Frank's got some incredible answers. So I think you're really in for a treat today. And today's podcast is actually brought to you by the Orange Conference. If you have never been to the Orange Conference in Atlanta, it's coming up the last week of April this year, April the 29th to May the 1st. And it is gathering of over 6,000 leaders, including senior leaders. And we've got an incredible speaking lineup this year. Donald Miller is gonna join us, John Acuff, Reggie Joiner, Doug Fields. And I also lead the senior leader track of the Orange Conference. And on the senior leader track this year, you're gonna hear from Jeff Henderson, Judd Wilhite from Central Church in Las Vegas. Perry Noble is gonna be there. So is Josh Gagnon. He was a guest on episode 17 of this podcast, leading a rapidly growing church in New England of all places, gonna share some of his secret sauce about how to get the church to grow and places it doesn't normally grow. Jenny Catrin, who served for a while as executive pastor at Crosspoint Church in Nashville, and now is with John Ortberg's church in Menlo Park, California is gonna join us and talk about character and leadership. And then I'm gonna be there as well, doing some teaching. So it's a very exciting lineup. And I think that's one of the reasons so many senior leaders gather at the Orange Conference is just because it's got an incredible array of really top leaders who come together, both in the audience and also on the platform. And we just love to have you there. And if you want more information, just go to the orangeconference.com, that's the orangeconference.com, and make sure you register today. So we're gonna jump into the podcast in just a few minutes, but I gotta tell you, Frank's been a great friend for the last couple of years, and also been in senior leadership now at Elevation Church for a few years. Before that, he was in the marketplace. He was the CEO of an insurance company, and he is a great friend, and I think you'll agree, an incredible communicator. And so we're gonna get right into the whole question of how it is you motivate your team to really step up at a passion level that normally you just don't see an organization. So I think it's gonna be great. Now, just before we jump into the interview, you're gonna look at this, we're releasing this in January of 2015, and Elevation Church has more campuses than when this interview was done, and you're gonna go, this wasn't done very recently. No, it wasn't, it was done about six months ago, but when I was launching the podcast, I stacked a whole bunch of interviews up just because I was really nervous. I wasn't gonna be able to keep up and deliver, and so Frank has been waiting in the queue for a few months, but he is so worth the wait. So if you're one of those people who notices details like that, like I am, that's what's going on, but man, from a few months ago, my interview with Frank Bieler, which will be, I think in many ways, timeless. Here we go. I'm so excited to have Frank here. Frank, welcome to the podcast. - Well, thanks so much, Kerry. You know, I love your blog, and excited about this podcast, and just learning from all the leaders you're gonna have on. - Well, Frank, thanks so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Frank actually just got back from Hillsong Conference, didn't you in Australia? - Yeah, I had an amazing time. So my wife, we got to have a little fun while we were there, and they put us to work. We ended up getting to teach five times while we were there, so we had a great time. - Yeah, you were part of the speaking team, part of the teaching team at Hillsong, and that was a lot of fun. I've been to Australia before, and I'll tell you what a fantastic country. Love it. - Yeah, we got to travel around, we got to go to the Blue Mountains, see the bay, and enjoy Sydney for a little bit of the time, and then obviously an amazing conference with Pastor Brian and the team. They did a great job. - Fantastic. So tell us a little bit about your background, because you haven't been in ministry for a long time, but tell us what you do, how long you've been involved at Elevation Church, and then what you did before that, too. - Sure, so graduated from the University of Tennessee, married my beautiful wife, Jessica, as soon as we graduated, and got to work in the marketplace. I worked in insurance, and did that for a couple of years, so I eventually became the president of an insurance firm, and did that for a total of nine years, serving in the local church, volunteering on the weekend, doing whatever I could, while I flew around during the week, and got to see God move in a great way, and business grew, and myself as a leader really understood a lot, but along the way, we acquired a couple of companies in Charlotte, North Carolina, and so my wife and I moved with our three kids to Charlotte, and we found this church called Elevation Church, that was growing at that time, it had four locations, and was really experiencing some great momentum, fell in love with Pastor Stephen, and the vision of the church, volunteered and served, and after being around about a year, they asked me to come on staff, but I never considered vocational ministry as an option, so I turned them down, and I guess a little over a year later, after some poking and prodding, we made the shift from that role in insurance, to coming on full time to be a campus pastor, for a new location that was opening, just six weeks after I came on staff, and maybe a year after that, Pastor Stephen asked me to make the switch to the role that we have now called Family Pastor, which means I oversee birth through fifth grade, at all 11 of our locations, and all the curriculum that we create, as well as that key transition from fifth grade into sixth grade, to make sure that that goes well, 'cause it's a transition and a handoff in the way we do ministry. - Yeah, it doesn't always go well, does it, that transition? And I gotta say too, by the way, I love the way you say insurance. Insurance, I know that's a difference between the south and those of us in the north, or even a different country, but it's just really cool. So you actually said no to joining a church staff, which is kind of fascinating, and here you are. Elevation, tell us a little bit about the history of how God's moved at Elevation Church to just catch us up with that, 'cause it's, I mean, there just are not a lot of stories like that. - Sure, so Pastor Stephen and the team of seven other families start Elevation Church about eight and a half years ago, with a big vision, they all moved to Charlotte, North Carolina from other places to start the church. And so they literally started from scratch, no friends, no relationships in the area, just inviting and sharing what God replaced on their heart. And it began to grow under Pastor Stephen's great leadership. We've seen exponential growth year over year over year. And now, like I mentioned, we're at 11 locations, and we are overwhelmed about what God has done and thankful for it. And honestly, just trying to steward it well and make good decisions for ministry and for all the people that He's blessed us with. - So 11 locations, and what would a typical weekend attendance be at Elevation Church these days? - Yeah, so this past weekend, we had just over 18,000 in attendance across those 11 locations. Honestly, our smallest location has, let's say, 225 people, total attendance, you know, a new campus just got started, a little further out for us. We're learning what that looks like, and then our largest campus on that given weekend, last weekend had 5,000 in attendance. - Yeah, that's just a crazy story. But Frank, you and I have known each other for just over a year now. We've kind of become friends. We talk all the time. But one of the things that I am amazed at, every time I talk to you, you're doing something, going somewhere, opening a new campus. And I mean, I've caught you vacuuming the carpet hours before a campus opens before while we're talking on your phone or whatever. So it's a pretty cool story, but you are big on ownership. I mean, you've been the president of a company. You've acquired companies. Now you work on a church staff. And I mean, that is a massive, just think about it, okay? Even if I know the numbers are unrelatable for a lot of listeners, but think about it, if your church were to go from 100 to 300 people in the next year, or from 50 to 200. I mean, that's a big growth curve, to go from zero to 18,000 in eight years is crazy. That's challenging for everybody. But you and I have talked about this, like I just see a high level of ownership and a high level of drivenness in you, but also across your team. I know some of the Toronto people at Elevation GTA, just outside of Toronto where I live. And I mean, it just seems to be in the bloodstream, I guess you could say of Elevation Church. So talk about that. How do you guys get this way? Why are you so driven? What kind of ownership do you exhibit? And how do you get people to own the mission the way people at Elevation Church seem to own the mission? - Wow, Kerry, that was a lot of questions. - Yeah, it's already, sorry. - So let's start. - That's an editorial, that's what that is. Take it however you want, little by little. - So to start with our leader, Pastor Stephen, he loves our church. And there is no question about his heart and the amount of time, energy, effort, passion, and blood and sweat he has poured into this church. And so that's a big factor for us. It starts there. And so there's no question, nobody's walking around wondering what Pastor Stephen wants to do next. He is here forever and sold out that unless God clearly tells him to do something else, he loves what he gets to be a part of. And so from the very beginning, he's got that level of ownership. And he's never been afraid to make the ask of somebody, whether it be those core families that he asked every single one of them to leave their jobs and move to a city to start the church. From the very beginning, there's been this, hey, why wouldn't we give up something, whether it be our time, energy, resources, whatever, to be a part of what God wants to do in our city and in our world. And so he starts with this real big language and keeps the vision in front of us all along the way. - Okay, so let's just pause there for a second 'cause you shared two good things I don't want anyone to miss. So one, the passion of the leader is critical. I think that's key. You see a lot of leaders who are just kind of like, well, you know, and I know I've been through seasons where I'm kind of, well, you know, that leaks, man. Your passion, your lack of passion, it leaks. And I love one of my favorite quotes is from John Wesley who says, "Light a man on fire and people will come from miles to watch and burn." It's just true. And then the second thing is not afraid to make the big ask. I mean, to say to you, 'cause I'm sure you probably made a little more money in corporate than you're making in ministry and Frank's nodding in case you're wondering, he is. To make that kind of ask, a lot of us are pretty timid about that, but do you guys are learning that that's a key to great leadership as you ask for high levels of commitment? - Well, when you believe in something and we've seen God do great things. And so now it's probably easier to ask than obviously eight years ago in Pastor Stevens, like we're gonna go do something great, but there's nobody here and there's no money and there's no resources. - And we're sitting in my living room. - Yeah, that feels different. And many people I'm sure that are listening to this, that's where they're at. They're making that initial ask. So it's a little easier now, you know, we would say, but also there's this picture now of where we're going and what could happen. And what's next? We feel like we truly are just building the foundation of what God's doing in the church and believe that Jesus has given us the church. It's his model to invest and reach people. And we love that. And so why not be willing to give up for that and do whatever it takes? And so from the very beginning, we make that ask and they weren't afraid to say, Frank, let's talk about you coming on staff. They saw my tithe dollars so they could back into that if they wanted to and go, "Well, the bath isn't going to add up." But it wasn't about the math. It was about the ask and the calling and what they saw me able to do in serve the church. And we try to do that across the board. - Any other keys that you see in terms of getting people, 'cause this is not just you and Pastor Stephen and the staff. This goes layers into the organization. When you meet somebody from Elevation Church, this ownership happens at the volunteer level, the staff level, and it's thousands of people, not hundreds. So what are some other keys? - I think it's a good, healthy structure and layer of leadership where we give people permission to cast that vision and empower them to actually lead. That's one thing that I feel is great in my role, is that Pastor Stephen didn't just ask me to oversee family ministry and just manage it. He's given me the opportunity to do something with it and take it somewhere. And I believe that that is woven throughout the organization. So when I have the privilege of hosting a church that's coming to visit, which is obviously so humbling for us every time it happens for a church to come say, "We just want to learn from you." And we're still trying to figure it out, but we want to show them what we are learning and where we made some mistakes. But one of the things they notice is that some of the people running around on the campus on a given weekend, they perceive that they're staff because they're leading and they're lead with such authority and we've given them permission to do so and they'll communicate vision. And yet they're volunteer with a very full-time job during the week and kids and soccer practice and all this, but they bought in at such a high level of ownership that it really does get blurry on the weekend of who's staff and who are great volunteers that just own what we're doing. - Yeah, and that's really fascinating because I think a lot of leaders are hesitant to ask for that high a level of commitment. Number one from staff, but especially from volunteers. You hear that all the time, well, they're just a volunteer. They're just a volunteer. You can't ask volunteers to do that. You can't hold volunteers accountable. So let's drill down on that a little bit. How do you instill that in literally thousands of volunteers or hundreds of volunteers or dozens of volunteers? How does that happen? High sense of ownership, what else? - Sure, I think it starts with us realizing as leaders that it's not our job to say no for people. So many people, there's a handful of people in my life that I feel like if I don't say no for them, they're going to burn out, their family's going to be wrecked and everything's going to fall apart. But really I can count that on one hand. Most of volunteers and leaders I work with, I'm called to cast vision, challenged them to be a part of this. And so I think too many times we run it through this filter. Can you imagine if I came to Elevation Church, CEO of an insurance company, a leader that loves to lead, loves leadership books, I was ready to serve in the church. I loved the church, fell in love with Elevation Church for them to ask me to volunteer every other week in a real basic role. I would be so bored so quickly, even though that seems like an easy ask and they don't want to ask too much of me, but it didn't take long before they slowly started asking me to take on a little more responsibility 'cause they saw I'm wired to lead, I want to lead, I want somebody to invest in me and help see the potential that God's placed inside of me. And as soon as I saw that they wanted to help me see that come to fruition, I was with them. So if they asked me to run as they did a 5 a.m. setup team before our four worship experiences at affordable location that we were having, I considered that an honor 'cause of your day off. Yeah. Yeah, on my day off, my only day off 'cause I was traveling back on Saturdays most of the time. So we would literally come set up, I would, and then I would leave set up, go get my family and we would attend worship together and then serve where the kids could serve as well in the afternoon. And so we did this together and I loved it, but I genuinely would have been miserable if they would have just left me in some basic volunteer role and not been willing to invest in me and call out what's in me because they thought, well, he's really busy and he travels a lot during the week. I don't want to ask any more of him. No, I'm called to lead. And I think that we are learning and we miss it too often because we get so focused on the people we do have and the leaders that we do have and the way we invest in them. But we've got to keep our radar open and realize, all right, how can I help a person take the next step? They don't have to take a leap into leadership in the church effect. A lot of times that's not wise, right? But we want to disciple them and lead them in such a way that they take that next step of ownership. Boy, that's huge, you know, I'm going to write that down. It is not my job to say no for people. That's so, so well done. And we do that, right? Like, that's what we do, it's like, oh, you know, if we ask Frank, it's his only day off, it's 5 a.m., you know, it's a lot of responsibility. He's going crazy, he's got a young family. He'll probably say no. Do you know how many people get left out of the game? And then secondly, under challenging people. I think high capacity people need high challenges. And you're right, at a certain level, if it was just, can you stand there and hand out pieces of paper? And I'm not criticizing anybody who hands out pieces of paper, but eventually you would go, I'm bored. And I think sometimes you get a call people to the level of commitment that they're capable of. So, great insights. Okay, let's move forward a little bit, 'cause I think you've hit on some keys there. So, how do you spot the people who are capable of that? How do you recruit with ownership in mind? I think one of the phrases that describes what you and I have been talking about so far in the interview is own the mission, Pastor Steven owns the mission. You ask volunteers to own the mission, your whole team owns the mission. So, how do you recruit with ownership in mind? Or do you teach it? Is it something that just people have and don't have? And you found all the people who can own mission in Charlotte in the greater area, a greater Charlotte area. And now there's no people left who have that level of ownership. Or is that part of the culture? Is that something you teach? How does that work? - So, definitely part of the culture. But I think it's something that's taught from the standpoint of people define ownership differently. And so, one of the things that we'll spend time doing is we give people opportunities to step up and serve, is to help them define what ownership really means in the local church. And so, that comes for us from communicating what we expect of them and what they can expect from us. And so, as we begin to do that, we can begin to press in on them a little bit more and paint a picture of what ownership really looks like. 'Cause based on their church background, whether they had a church background or didn't, they have a perception of what it looks like to step up and own the organization and own their part to play. And so, what they may think ownership is, is I do a lot, but I also get everybody to hear what I have to say when it comes to personal preferences. Well, no, that's not ownership in Elevation Church. Personal preferences go out the window. And so, how do we shape that? Well, we give people permission to lead at a certain level incrementally over time. And we identify real quickly, are they ready to leap past that step onto the next step? Or do we need to live there for a minute and address those issues? And so, one thing I love about our church, that's in our culture, so go back to that, the teaching and raising up of ownership is in our culture from this standpoint of, if somebody is way off and I observe it, I'm visiting one of our non-permanent locations and I see something that's broken. If it's way off, I will probably do what I can to kind of put a band-aid on it in the moment and make sure I find the person that has some relational equity with that person or that leader to correct that behavior and help paint a picture of what that looks like. Now, at the same level, if I'm at another location, let's say I'm at one of our permanent locations and I'm walking by and as I told you, I'm over family ministry, but as I'm walking in the door, I see some greeters and they've gotten a couple of door jams and propped the doors open and they're standing there waving. Well, I would take that as an opportunity, even though I'm the family pastor, I have nothing to do with those greeters, technically, we own the church and we have to cast vision to explain why propping a door open doesn't show any level of honor at all or show that we actually want these people to feel welcome. And I'll probably say, hey, when you walk into Walmart and the doors automatically open, do you feel honored? Are you like, wow, what a blessing. They open the doors for me. Of course not, right? The same is true with propped open doors. So the best thing they can do is stand there with the door closed and open it a thousand times that day because that communicates, we are glad you're here. I'm going out of my way for you. And so we have that permission to speak in at the appropriate level to figure out, is this something that needs to be addressed with someone that has some high relational equity? Or is this something I can address right now as a leader and an owner of the church and just want to do my part to help somebody understand a little bit more about their role? - So let's back up because I think you're surfacing a principle that often doesn't get talked about enough. And that is, I would call it maybe you got a better name for it, but clarity. You guys have thought through the strategy of the church to the level of whether a door is propped open or whether it's closed. So I think one of the things that frightens a lot of people is well, if people have ownership, they'll start taking our church or our organization or our business off in 15 different directions, you know? This person's going to make it about what they want it. And you said, well, personal preferences get checked at the door. There's a way to greet people in a way not to greet people. You've thought through that at a very deep level. And I think often as leaders, we're saying, well, we want you to own this and then we freak out because people own it in a way we don't want them to own it. But we never gave them clarity. Organizations go in 15 different directions and you must have spent a lot of time at Elevation Church trying to figure out how you do kids ministry, how you prop open doors. Tell me about that. - So we spend a ton of time talking about that as a staff for sure and getting the right volunteers together to have those conversations. Now, where we struggle is how well are we rolling that out? And so sometimes we would say in particular areas, we do a better job than others and we kind of ebb and flow. And so for us to have that permission to make the corrections on the fly helps us identify that we need to go back and probably do a bigger teaching or rally that team together to re-center everybody. So when we see something that seems to be a little out of focus or a little off point, that's a correction in the moment, but that's also a conversation that happens later to say if this is happening in, let's say our greeter team, do we need to do an updated training and just remind everyone. And so I don't know that we stay on it all the time, but when we see the gap or see where it starts to get a little out of line from what we've wrestled with and planned and prepared and believe God wants us to do, we aren't afraid to then possibly overcorrect or bring together an entire meeting of the entire greeter team at a campus to recast vision around why we open doors instead of propping doors, even though it was just that one high schooler that was doing that, we assume that it's probably a bigger problem and more pervasive than that. So we'll address it in a moment, but then over-create and over-react a lot to make sure that training is fixed. And so I don't know that we stay on top of it all the time, but we do respond quickly when we do see it out of line a little bit. - So I think there's maybe a little bit of a paradox because I can imagine some people thinking, okay, well, that's great. So you guys have thought through door props as a great example, you know, how you prop open a door or open a door, isn't that a little bit controlling and wouldn't high capacity leaders go like, look, you've made all the decisions, what input do you need? Now, I don't believe that, but I hear that an awful lot. So can you drill down, why is that attractive to high capacity leaders when I think there's a part of most of us who would say, well, that just sounds like a controlling environment. And where do I really have freedom? You got drawn into an environment like that. So how does that work when you're a high capacity person? - So as a leader, I want to lead others. As a leader, I don't necessarily want to create systems. That's not my thing. And so you find a handful of people in your church. I mean, even in our very big church, there's only a handful of people that are great at creating systems. And so that's not necessarily this high capacity leader role that we're looking for. Let's plug those into the people that help us put together documents and communicate that. That's great. But what we want is the greeter team leader to understand the vision and direction of why we open that door. Because as a high capacity leader, I want to be able to communicate vision and rally a team. And so what I want to do is use that as a point to talk about how we want to honor and welcome every guest. So it's not about the door propping open. Yes, we've thought about that. But it's a way bigger conversation of how do I empower this high capacity leader to cast vision, right? That's true high capacity. Can they communicate vision to where someone may agree or disagree with something, but they'll buy in because they feel like it's better overall. And so to empower leaders and give them permission to do that, it's what we want to allow leaders to do. And there are high capacity leaders that we can raise up that are good at relationships that can communicate well. That's what we're giving permission and opening up slots for. For that to happen. Less slots for, let's figure out the system of how we stack these cards or whatever it may be. Even though if someone has a great idea, we have a method where literally they can write down every week and communicate ideas back to their campus pastor of things that may streamline systems and things like that, they just write those down. But ultimately as a leader, that's, hey, thanks for the feedback, but we really want you leading your team and pastoring and investing in those people as best you can. - Well, I think that's a really good answer. And I wonder, Frank, if the other thing that happens, and I mean reflect on your own experience, but I think high capacity people are attracted to clarity and that's clarity. And they're also attracted to excellence. They're attracted to systems that are thought through. If you had walked into chaos at Elevation Church and some doors were open, other doors were locked, things were always late, the service didn't start on time, the band wasn't rehearsed, the communicator clearly pulled a Saturday night special off and it had jumbled thoughts on Sunday morning. If the tap ever came, you probably would have said, no thanks, I'm pretty good in insurance here. We might come or you probably wouldn't have even come. I think there's something about that that's really attractive to high capacity people. Would you agree? - Definitely. And for those that are in the workplace, many people aren't witnessing that or seeing that where they're at. And so when we can do that in the church, it puts a new weight, not only on them being drawn to lead and to serve but into the value that we're placing on our relationship with Jesus, right? To see that, yeah, I do this to make a dollar and we do all these things and we organize these widgets or whatever and we try really hard to do a good job and do it with excellence. But when the church just seems to be going so overboard with the efforts to make it excellent, people begin to ask why. And they begin to ask why, how can I be a part of this? How do you do this and why do you work so hard? And it gives us a great opportunity to give credit to Jesus where credit is due. - Yeah, and I think you're right. There's a sense in which, and I've seen this at Elevation, I've seen this in other churches too, the church can be better run and better led than many businesses and many community organizations and why wouldn't we have the best leadership in the world? If you create a healthy culture, sometimes that's the best culture that people have ever been a part of. It's healthier maybe than their family, it's healthier maybe than the business they work in or the place they find themselves in the marketplace. And doesn't that really bring honor to Jesus when the church is functioning as we should? - Yeah, no doubt. - Cool. Okay, well, let's get practical here. So not that this hasn't been practical, but you know, okay, how do we drive this home? If somebody is sort of starting from scratch and they're going, okay, diagnosed, there's not really a whole lot of ownership. Let's start with the person. How do you say, okay, I'm gonna own this as a leader? What do you think some changes are that you can make as an individual? Because I think, I mean, you're a high ownership person, Frank, I think I know you well enough to know that, I don't know there's anything you really don't own, but I'm sure you've run into situations like I do where it's kind of like, yeah, I'm just not passionate about that. If it's something you need to be passionate about, how do you find that sense of ownership in you as a person? Or is that just something that's natural? - I don't think it's natural 'cause there are certain things that I just don't get or understand why we do them and I have to have another conversation. But I do think throughout our organization here at Elevation Church, there's always a place that I can go to to ask why? Not from a critical spirit, but from a spirit where I just want to understand and there's a great book out there, Start With Why. I think Simon-- - Simon Sinek. - Yeah, we'll link to the show notes, by the way. That's great. - Yeah, such a great book. We gotta start there, right? Start with why we're doing something and then it all makes sense. And so we may do a song or a creative element that's just not for me at all. It doesn't appeal to me, it doesn't connect. I don't understand it, but it's gonna help somebody. And the reality is I will pull an all-nighter to help blow up balloons or whatever it takes, build something because I know it's part of something bigger and the people that have made that decision generally want to reach people for Christ. And so I know that it goes back to that vision. And so as long as I'm confident in that and I feel like when I go to that person for a why, I can get that. Now, if I ever go to a person and I have a problem with our choice or I don't understand or I want to do better and I need to embrace it more fully and I go to them and they can't give me a reason why. They just think it's something we should do. That's where things are gonna start to break down in any organization. And so I think there's a real high sense of why here. Hey, that's something that will tweet right there. A high sense of why. - A sense of why. - There's a high sense of why here at Elevation Church. And so I know I can go get those answers. And so sometimes I may not really want to do something or may not understand it, but there are many times I'll just go, there's a great reason why I don't need to know. And then there are other times I just want to know when somebody's patient enough to sit down with me and explain and hopefully I do the same for our volunteers and throughout our levels of leadership. - You know, I think you're really close to the heart of it there. I think why is the trigger? Doing this podcast, for example, when I started it, it's like, well, it's just a podcast, right? But the why for me is helping leaders lead better than ever before. That's what I want to do. And that makes me excited about conversations like this at the church. It's the thought of reaching more people. It's helping people grow in their relationship with Jesus. When you get the why, and I think Simon Soneck is right, what did he say? He said something like, people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. It's just powerful. So that's great. Now, some people might have, some leaders listening, might have the sinking feeling in their stomach right now. And they're saying to themselves, I don't think anybody owns it. I own it, I own it. Okay, I got that. I understand the why. Nobody else owns this. Where do they start? What would you recommend for them to do? - It's got to go back to communicating clearly the why. And so if there's people on their team, they've got to be willing to have those conversations to say, where am I missing it? Where am I not connecting with people? How am I making a leap? I believe Andy Stanley did a teaching. Man, it's been a long time ago, but he did this teaching around steps with vision, right? And you can't just make a leap. And a lot of times in our mind as leaders, we make that leap and we don't give them the next natural step in the process. - Was that making vision stick? - Yeah, that's exactly right. - Okay, we'll link to that in the show notes as well. So yeah, I remember that. And it's a brilliant talk about how do you actually make a vision stick? I think that's true. And so again, it goes to why, right? Communicating why you do what you do. - And assume that it's on us, right? If people aren't following us, you know, you're not a leader if no one's following you, right? And I think over my very long 35 years, Carrie, I just had a birthday. I'm 35 years old and I'm just very wise. - Got it all figured out as a veteran leader now, as a seasoned mature leader. - Well, as 34 and a half years, I spent time assuming that there was something wrong with someone else if they weren't following me or jumping on board. And honestly, I've had some wise leaders in my life, like yourself and a few others, help me make sure that the first thing that I've got to do, if other people aren't getting on board, is try to figure out where am I missing it? What is it? I may have the heart. I may exactly know where I want to go, but how am I not communicating that well? Or what's the missing link and me sharing that with others and casting that vision? And so it's got to start with assuming that you're not doing a good job. It's not their fault that they're not buying in. It's my fault for not helping them buy in because I'm not communicating well. - Yeah. I've been around in leadership in life long enough 'cause I'm a little bit older than you, where I realize every single problem in the universe can be traced back to me. If there's a problem in the organization, in my family, in my friendship circle, I probably had something to do with it. But that's cool. It's taking responsibility and you're right. I think that's a good insight. We hadn't talked about that before we started recording, but you got to stop the blame cycle. You can't just say, well, if I had a different church, making excuses and justifications and laying blame somewhere else, no, as a leader, you take responsibility. And if somebody didn't get the message on a Sunday, guess whose fault that is? That's the communicator's responsibility. It's not their fault. It's my responsibility. So sometimes at Canexas, where I serve Frank, as you know, we talk about, I call it a why sandwich. You start with why, then you talk about the what and the how and you finish with why. And sometimes you even put a little bit of why in between the what and the how to. So you can never communicate why enough. And it rallies and unites everybody, doesn't it? And sometimes it's so simple. I mean, we're a North Point strategic partner. So our refrain almost every time I open my mouth is, our vision is to create a church that unchurch people love to attend, our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus. And you would think after saying that thousands of times, over six years, people would go, would you be quiet? That's enough. And people never get tired of hearing it. Sometimes I get tired of saying it, but people never get tired of hearing it, but we believe it. Have you found a similar thing to be true with vision? - Definitely, keeping it in front of them is so important. And we do something unique. Well, I say it's unique. I think it is. We do a six month recommit policy, our process with every volunteer. So every six months, they re-sign up, or they can stop serving. We want to give people a permission, you know, 'cause there's something about volunteering in church. Like there's no out, like it's just letting people down. I can't ever leave. - It's the hotel in California, man. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. - That's right. So we have this process that we walk through twice a year at every location. It's a slow process for us. It takes some time 'cause it's conversations with every single volunteer, which is just a lot of people. And so when we do that, we found that some people stop serving. And it gives us an opportunity to have a conversation around that because it's not just some online form. There's an actual conversation that happens and find out that there's something that is drifted. They've lost some of the vision, or maybe they missed that key vision night that would have re-centered them on some things that we were changing. They weren't there for that. So they heard a second and third hand information and it felt like a departure for maybe what we've done in the past or something like that. And we can have a conversation right then and everything is fine again. And so what we found is that when we go through this recommit process, it requires us to figure out how well are we keeping vision in front of the people to where they get to a point where they think they're burning out or they just need some time off quotation marks. And so what are we doing wrong? And I think in our businesses, if we would do a better job with that and throughout our organization with our staff and our volunteers, if we're willing to have that conversation to say where are you at? And are you still with us? Are you still feel good about this? Or do you feel like you're stuck to us? You're married to us now and you don't know what to do? Well, why would you feel that way? Because when you started volunteering, all you could think about was serving Jesus and this is the best place on earth to do that. And they're so passionate. Well, what's happened? Obviously, it's on us. We didn't communicate something well, but what was it? And so I think starting that conversation, allowing people to share where they're at and how they're feeling and where there may be a gap. Now, I'll tell you most of our staff kind of cringes a little bit when it comes time for the six month renewal 'cause it's like, all right, I'm gonna lose some volunteers here. This is gonna be a tough process. I wanna have some awkward conversations. Most of them go great, by the way. There's enough that-- It's a 5% to 3% never. Yeah, yeah, they cringe factor and some, maybe it's time to remove somebody from leadership, but more often than not, it's just we need to have a good conversation that should have been over coffee over the last few months, but no one made it a priority. And now we're having this awkward conversation on a Sunday morning between worship experiences when we're filling out a form that leads to a conversation that we need to meet later. You know what? I think that's brilliant. And I think that's something we might borrow. Does that work for you on the front end as well? Because I think you're right. We talk about it all the time. There is no end date when you serve at most churches or a lot of volunteer organizations. When you sign up, you sign up forever. And I'm not sure that's wise, because we found particularly high capacity leaders will commit for a season. Hey, I need you for three months. Hey, I need you for six months. In fact, one of our recent staff hires was a guy that super high capacity guy. I said, I just need you for four months. From January till Easter, will you serve? He was so taken by serving, he's joining our staff. But I know if I said, hey, can you do this forever? He would have said no. Do you find that that works on the front end as well and sort of making it easier to sign up, knowing that there's a six month review? - Definitely, and actually we do a three month review on the front end. So we ask people to serve for three months and then they start the six month renewal process after that. And so we're literally asking people 90 days, let us help you find your sweet spot to serve. And along the way, we might move you because you want to do something else or you thought it was something else. But a lot of times what we find is that people have a certain perception of what the volunteer role is. And they get into it and it's way better than what they thought it was or it wasn't exactly what they thought it was. And we need to be willing to have that conversation no matter which way it goes. Hopefully it's way better than what they thought it was. It's more fulfilling, it's more life giving, it doesn't feel like a lot for them. Or maybe they discover those three months, it's easier to serve than what they thought. I mean, think about a portable location for us. We have volunteers that arrive at six a.m. and they may leave at two p.m. - Yes. - Wow, that sounds like a lot, especially if I've got kids. I'm there for two worship experiences, but set up is long and then I gotta tear down and that's long. And so they're kind of hesitant to sign up and volunteer and it makes for a really long day. But then they find out, listen, all you gotta do is get close on your kids and get them to church and we're gonna take care of breakfast. And then we're gonna have some fun with them. We're gonna hang out with them, let them just lounge around, kind of slowly wake up and lay on some bean bags. And then we'll get them in the class. And then after class, we're gonna take them. We're gonna feed them lunch. So when you leave it two o'clock, you as a volunteer has had time to eat and literally you can just go home and lay down on the couch. You don't have to cook any food. You don't have to worry about going out to eat and spending money. We just want you to go kind of have a holy hangover, laugh as a family about what's happened and fall asleep on the couch on a Sunday afternoon. And that sounds super easy to do once you get in the thick of it and you're like, wow, they're really doing everything they can for me. It's not so bad serving eight hours. In fact, many of them would be surprised if you told them how long they're actually at church on a Sunday morning, because we take care of all that for them. We've made it easy for them. But if I said, I need you eight hours every weekend, indefinitely, that's a tough sale. - Well, and you're serving people, right? That's the other thing you do extremely well is you honor your volunteers. It's not like, what can you do for me? It's how can we help you succeed? And I think that's huge. Well, Frank, we've got only a couple of minutes left. This has been fascinating and ever so helpful. So if somebody's ready to start today, you would say, 'cause we talked about this a little bit, start with why? Why am I doing this? Why do I want people to do that and just start at the communication level? Anything else you would say to encourage somebody in a small setting, mid-size setting or a large setting about how to transfer that sense of ownership to their whole team beyond themselves? - You know, we use the example of the people that are sitting there and they're like, I'm the only one that owns it. I think most people have a few other people that own it with them. They may not have a huge team, but they've got a few other families that just, they seem to serve so faithfully and they're there with them or they're the ones that work, they're coworkers, they're the ones that just seem to get it. Well, I think I would be having conversations with them to figure out what is it that they get, what is it that they understand, why did they buy in to begin with? What is it about this that draws them in and connects them to your organization or to your ministry and leveraged that to have those conversations? So if this isn't just a reflective, I'm not doing well at communicating why, how do I get better at saying why? Well, you've got a few people that have already bought in, why in the world did they buy in? Let's understand that and get them to join with us and have the conversations and are they able to communicate the why? So it's not just you communicating the why, but as soon as you get a small core group of people around you, the goal is get them to the place where they can communicate the why. Now you can build something exponential, but if the why stays with you and literally two steps removed, everybody's confused unless it's come directly from you, we're not building something of worth and something that's gonna last and grow. And so it's getting those people around you not only to buy into the why and connect, but also to be willing to communicate and do a good job of sharing the why from their vantage point. - Wow, that is so insightful. The story that came to mind, First Kings, for those of you who read the Bible, First Kings, chapter 19, Elijah finishes this amazing moment. And then he kind of goes into this depression and goes, "I'm the only one left." And God says, "Actually, you're not." You thought you were, but you're not. There's lots of people who are with you. And I think we sometimes convince ourselves that we're the only ones who have it. Frank, this has been so encouraging and so practical. If people wanna connect with you, what's the best way to do that? To find you online, you write a great blog. - That blog is Lead E3, the number three. So LeadE3.com. There you can find links to our church and our family ministry and the resources that we give away. And it's just a great resource where we've pulled together other leaders that are sharing thoughts that specifically about family ministry and leadership of volunteers, resources that will help you grow your volunteers and invest in them all in one place. - That's cool. And you're also on Twitter and social media will link to all of that in the show notes. Frank, I can't thank you enough. I think you've encouraged a lot of people today. - I've had a lot of fun, Carrie. You know, I'll do this anytime and I'm always learning from you. - Likewise, thanks so much, Frank. - Thanks, Carrie. - Well, how cool was that? - I mean, was that not just inspiring? I finished up that interview just so stoked. And you're probably going to want to get more and you can do that just by going to the show notes and you'll find them there forever at carrynewhough.com/episode20. Today I will spell that out for you. It is C-A-R-E-Y-N-I-E-U-W-H-O-F.com/episode20, an easy name to say, hard name to spell. Trust me, I learned that back in kindergarten. But we got all the show notes for you and would love to have you share some of the things that Frank had to say too. And there's some easy tweets to share as well. If you just go to carrynewhough.com/episode20 and you're going to want to check out Frank's blog as well and all the links again are in the show notes. So once again, thank you so much to the Orange Conference for its incredible sponsorship of this podcast. And if you have never been to the Orange Conference, Brian Dodd, who writes a very influential blog on leadership calls it the best conference he goes to every year, hands down. And he loves the senior leader track. And that's what I'm going to be on. Want to invite you to that. Even if you're a business person, I think you're going to learn something there. If you're in ministry, a senior leader or an executive leader, by all means register at the orangeconference.com. And of course, if you're a student pastor, family pastor, children's pastor, any kind of church staff or volunteer, make sure you get on over to the Orange Conference. About 6,000 of your best friends gather for a few days, April the 29th to May the 1st, this year in Atlanta and it wouldn't be the same without you. So orangeconference.com. Next week, we're going to come back. We got a really exciting guest lined up. And we're going to do some fun things on the podcast too. Next week, you're going to hear from Brian Dodd. You're going to say, "Wait a minute. "Didn't I just hear that name?" You did, but Brian's going to be a guest on the podcast. And Brian's got a fascinating story. He went back to a company that was stuck and plateaued. And he had to help them find momentum. And he's got a 10-step plan. If you know Brian, you know that he's pretty great at this stuff. He's got a 10-step plan on how to recapture momentum in 90 days. So if you've ever struggled with momentum, you don't want to miss. Next week's episode releases every Tuesday. You can subscribe on iTunes, on Stitcher, and on TuneInRadio. You can do it for free. And if you would be so kind, if this has really helped you lead, could you leave a review and a rating? Because when you do, people pay attention to that. I don't know, the algorithm people pay attention to that. And for some reason, it just gets this podcast in front of other leaders. So if it's helped you, I hope you can help share it by leaving a review and a rating in iTunes, or for that matter, on Stitcher or on TuneInRadio. And we just love to have you do that. And to everybody who's already done that, thank you so much. And can't wait to talk next week. In the meantime, hope this helps you lead like never before. (upbeat music) - You've been listening to the "Carry Newhoff Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)