The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP012 - Strategic Leadership Lessons From Disney - An Interview with Steven Barr
Well hello everybody and welcome to episode 12 of the podcast. My name is Kerry Newhoff. I'm so glad to be with you again this week. And if you're a new listener, welcome. So glad you're here. The goal in this time we've got together today is to help you lead like never before. Now, if you're listening in the US, you just came off of a great Thanksgiving. I hope it was a great Thanksgiving for you. If you're listening from Canada, which is where I'm from or anywhere else in the world, it was just normal week. But I hope you're thankful and I hope this really does help you lead better. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know, we've had a lot of names you would recognize and we'll have a lot more in the future. I mean, we kicked things off a few months ago with Andy Stanley, you've heard from Perry Noble, people like Cara Powell, Casey Graham, Tony Morgan. We've had a lot of guests that are just quite well known in their area of expertise. We've heard from John Acuff last week, we had Pete Wilson from Crosspoint Church. But you'll know if you've been with us from the start that this podcast is about letting you into the lives of people like that, but also very ordinary people you might never have heard about. And you'll be hearing a lot of those episodes moving forward too, as well as some names that you recognize quite easily. So today, I want to introduce you to a guy you might never have heard of, but are going to be so glad that you spent some time with today. His name is Stephen Barr. And he is the executive director of cast member church, a really cool ministry in Orlando, Florida designed to do one thing. And that is to be a church for Disney cast members. Now, a cast member at Disney is basically an employee, but that's not what they call them. And there are like 67,000 Disney employees. And Stephen started a church a few years ago to reach out to them. So this is going to be cool from a number of different things. I love the time I spent with Stephen. Number one, Disney's just great. And you're going to learn some really great leadership lessons from Disney because I think Disney's got a few things to teach those of us who lead churches or lead organizations. I mean, they are some of the very best in the world at what they do. And Stephen shares some of those insights also for all of us. I mean, wherever you happen to be, there's probably a niche or niche ministry that you could do some work with. Maybe you've got a big factory in your town or maybe you know, you're a tourism kind of community or something like that. What if you were just to focus on how do we help this particular community? I'll give you an example. I was at a church in Seattle a couple of months ago and literally to drive to the church, you went by this gigantic Boeing factory. I mean, this factory was so huge it took up city block after city block. I don't know how many square feet but to say a million square feet probably would not have been an exaggeration. And the church was right next door. Well, you've just got a huge constituency of Boeing employees. I bet they've got unique issues and unique needs. And so Stephen does a really good job of taking us into niche or niche ministry. I said I was going to make up my mind about how to pronounce it. I don't know how to pronounce it. I've never heard it really done one way or the other. So you can choose. How does that sound? That sounds good. Okay. So maybe you've got a particular segment of the community that you'd love to be able to connect with. Stephen's got some great advice there. And then he's just a really fun, passionate guy who is doing something that literally nobody else is doing to the best of my knowledge. They've got a really cool website too. If you go to castmemberchurch.com, you're going to see some great stuff. It's not just like a stock church website. It's really innovative and they're doing some neat things and a great Facebook group that you could join as well. So I think you're going to learn a lot. The other thing that really struck me in this interview and then we'll jump right into it is the average age like the demographic of Disney employees tends to be the millennial generation, basically 18 to 30. And Stephen talks an awful lot about some of the unique struggles and challenges. And I know if you're a little bit like me and I know a lot of the leaders, I know you've got a heart for that generation. And so Stephen's really going to help us with that. So without much further ado, here is Stephen Barr, the executive director of castmember church on today's podcast. Well, it's a thrill to have Stephen Barr here today. And Stephen is not quite the pastor, although you are the pastor of castmember church in Orlando, Florida. You're the executive director of castmember church. Now, when I was on your website doing prep for this interview, I kept looking for the pastor. And finally, I came to the conclusion that you were the pastor, which is exactly it. Welcome, Stephen. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here. Hey, tell us a little bit about why that is. Why don't you call yourself pastor? This is so cool for those of us who love to create churches that unchurch people love to attend. Tell us why. Well, the mission field that we serve in has two perceptions of the word pastor, either they don't understand what that means, or if they do, they run. They are not. They want to get away as quickly as possible because they have a misconception of someone who's going to be beating them over the head with a Bible or something. And so in the culture that we operate in, the term executive director, which means leader makes them a lot more sense to them. Oh, that's great. And tell us a little bit about castmember church. Now, this is a church specifically for cast members at Disney. Now, I know there's a lot of Disney fans listening in all of that. And who isn't a Disney fan? I mean, who doesn't love them? Mickey Mouse and all that stuff. But it's really for the employees, although they would never call that employees, right? Right. That's correct. Every person that works for Disney is called a cast member. It could be the president of the company, or it could be the custodian who works Main Street and Magic Kingdom. They're all called cast members because Walt Disney's vision was they're all part of the show. Every single person has a role. They don't have job descriptions. They have a role. And so each one contributes to that show that goes on every single day, 365 days a year. Not only here in Orlando, but also in Anaheim, California. You also have Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and soon Shanghai. So every one of those is a cast member. And we just felt that there was a need for a church that could actually minister to those people that are a part of the Disney culture because it is a unique culture in and of itself. Oh, absolutely it is. So I had never, and this is what prompted the conversation. I had just never heard of a church that was specifically designed for a company, let alone Disney, and for its cast members or employees. Let's refer to them moving forward as cast members. But it's just a fascinating story to me, Stephen. So tell us the story. How did this get started? Obviously you must have thought of it. Where did this come from? This is really cool. You know, it actually, I think it started back in the early 90s. I was a cast member at Disney for a little while. And I remember thinking to myself, there should be a church that ministers to all these people. And little did I know that I was planting seeds in my own head that would come to pass years later. But I was a worship pastor for quite a few years, 20 some years, and never really thought about being a church planter or anything like that. But as I matured in my ministry, God was expanding my desire to reach people. And eventually I became a church planter. And we started with the church in San Antonio, Texas. And from there, really could never get Disney out of my system. I understood cast members. I'm a musician. I understand that artsy mentality. And the burden just grew and grew and grew to the point where it was like, you know what, we have to try this. You know, even if we fail, at least I'll know that we tried. And but we didn't fail. Yeah. So when did cast member church start? A couple of years ago, you said? Yeah, almost three years ago, almost three years ago came here and didn't really know anybody had to inject ourselves into the Disney culture. My wife is actually a cast member at Disney. I can't be a cast member because I'm also pastoring a church. And that could be a little bit of a conflict of interest. But for her, she's able to be on the inside. And I'm able to work it from the outside. But we've been there for three years, almost three years now, and have slowly been embracing the culture, understanding the little idiosyncrasies of the culture. And getting to the point now where cast members know us, they recognize who we are and why we're there. Yeah. So get this as part of your job description, you're actually in the park every day, pretty much. Yes, I'm on Disney property. Disney property is 47 square miles. People don't realize it's huge. It's a city. And part of part of my responsibility is just to say hi to cast members and to connect with them and come back and visit them again. And so I'm always trying to engage in conversation, not with an agenda of trying to reach them, but more along the lines of just building a relationship so that they know that they're cared for. And so yeah, I find myself in the park quite often. Who's that interesting? So if you're a kid or teen listening, just know that if you want to go into ministry, you can create it so that that actually means you have to go to Walt Disney World every day. Yeah. How cool is that? I think my kids are the only two kids in the country that go, oh, dad, do we have to go to Disney again? Yeah, no kidding. But I mean, what do you call people? Because I looked this up online briefly, getting ready for this. And there doesn't seem to be like, you know, Star Trek people are Trekkies. But what do you call Disney Disney files, Disney fans? I don't know. Yeah, Disney files. Okay. Yeah, there are. There are so many websites, you know, Disney fans, Disney fanatics, mice fiends. I mean, they're they're all over the place. Yeah. And and a whole study of the culture of Disney and the business practices of Disney. So it's just it's a fascinating learning environment, not to mention the rides and all that stuff. Okay. No, in fact, that's kind of my, but the attractions and the shows are almost secondary to my personal love for Disney. I mean, they've so much of what they've done going all the way back to Walt's vision for a theme park had just how they've, how they built the build it all and even how they train their people. It's fascinating stuff. Yeah. So tell us, like give, give us because that's fascinating. I'm not like I'm a big fan of Disney, but I wouldn't be a Disney file. So for those of us who aren't, tell us some things that you find most fascinating about their culture and and some parallels you might see to how the church could get better at what we do. Oh, that's a great question. Disney never stops training their people. They are constantly given opportunities to improve to the point where I've even thought to myself, Disney's figured out the discipleship better than the church in a lot of cases because yeah, so much of what they do is having about mentoring and about really building people up so that they can succeed. Even when a cast member gets in trouble, the idea is how do we help them avoid this instead of getting them, you know, punishing them. The goal is to coach them so that they can learn to do better next time. The desire for Disney is for every single one of their cast members to be a success. And so they invest in those cast members and they care for those cast members. And it's a it's a beautiful thing. Now it doesn't, it's not a perfect system by any means, but it's the idea is we want you to be a success in this company. So how can we best do that for you? Well, who doesn't want to work for a company like that or be part of a church like that? Right? That's fascinating. So what does that look like? Like, how do you see that played out if you're the custodian or, you know, if you're flipping burgers for the day? How does that actually happen? Well, Disney has a whole process that when you start working for Disney, you go through about a week's worth of training that has nothing to do with your job. It has to do with you understanding where the company came from, what the company's desire is to do, the goals, the vision. And so the idea is by the time you go through your, what they call traditions, and that's where you learn about the company and everything, you just cannot, you are not just, it's no longer a job, but it's a role and it's a privilege to be able to work for such an organization. And so when they move you into the role that you're going to be, whether it's a custodian or selling merchandise or operating an attraction, they are going to continually invest in you, watching you, helping you improve in the areas that you're struggling in, but not by making you feel bad. Again, it's coming from this place of we want you to be successful. And I think for a church, it's easy sometimes to give up on somebody when they struggle and to kind of back off and go, well, they're just not called to that. And I think we can learn from that where it's like, no, every person is worth the investment. Every person is worth the coaching. And so when, especially when you have somebody in Disney's case, somebody who's over you, a superior or a leader or a coordinator, someone that believes in you and says, you can do this, I believe in you, you have the desire to want to improve. And I think it's definitely transfers to the church that we all as leaders are coaches. And every person is coached differently. I mean, I can tell you all the people in Cas number church, every single one of them is unique. And they require a different language, a different way to approach them. And once you understand that, and once they understand that you care about them, really, there's no limit as to what God can do through them. But that's really fascinating. So I think I read, is it right? How many employees are there? Is it 68,000 cast members? 67,000. But in absolute flows, it's probably about 7,000 right now during the summertime. You have full timers, you have part timers, and then they have a seasonals, which are people that work only 150 hours a year. Then you have a college program, which are kids coming in that are interning. I mean, it's, it is huge. But yeah, 67,000. So I just want to go back to what you said based on that, because, you know, if you've got a team of 10 or whatever, you can be really selective and pick the best. But I mean, if you've got 68,000, 67,000 people working for you, my goodness, you're, you're getting the law of average is going to hit. You can't hand pick. I mean, I'm sure they have a very careful selection process, but you're going to get people going through life crises, people who've had problems before, people who are just going through about a depression. And you're definitely going to get your share of what many employers or churches might call underperforming people or extra grace required people in the mix. The law of average is just says that has to be true, no matter how good your selection process is. So how do you see that actually play out in individuals lives? Like, I think that's just fascinating. And I think you're right, like my notebooks open as a pastor, I've got to learn how to care for people better. You know, in our case, that's a couple thousand people. In many people's cases, it might be a couple hundred people. It might be 20,000 people you're caring for, if you're part of a large, large church. But like that, that's just super challenging for all of us. So how do you see them do that? What do they do? Well, there's a lot, there's only so much they can do from a legal standpoint. So you have the lawyers saying, well, we can't get involved in certain things out. Obviously they care about their cast members and they don't want to see any harm come to them, whether it's self-inflicted or all. And I think it's what happens is they localize the care. I mean, what happens is if the cast member is struggling, the leader is going to know about it. And when the leader knows about it, they have some leeway on how to care for that cast member. Again, they want to see that cast member succeed, not just in the Disney company, but succeed in life. And so there's a lot of empowering that goes on to the local leaders in each department, in each location even. My wife is a coordinator. And so she has certain cast members that she sees every single day. She cares about their personal lives. And so she's aware of what's going on. And it's a pretty amazing thing. We had a cast member, for example, oh, many months ago, that was in a serious car accident, a very serious car accident. She was left in a coma. And she was from the country of Italy. And so there was no family support when when the accident first happened. And so we were able to, including some Disney people, were able to go to the hospital and make sure she had all that she needed. And those are extreme circumstances. But the company is there when it needs to be in those kinds of situations. So Steven, that's such a good principle there. And I love how you phrased it, localized care. Because when there's 67,000 people, I mean, you can be the CEO. I mean, that's just overwhelming. You can be a manager of a department of 5,000. That can be overwhelming. But I think even on the church principle, you know, for even a church our size, we've gone to a group space model. And I know different churches have different things. But like my goodness, I had breakfast this morning with somebody who was in a place where they needed pastoral care, but they were in my relational circle. It was localized. And I'm going to see them again in a couple of days. But I can't do that for all those people. I can't. But when you have a small groups model and hundreds or thousands or dozens of people are cared for by other people, it's very, very scalable. And that's good to know. And I agree with you. Shouldn't that be the church? Really? Shouldn't we be like that? Well, the idea is empowering people, giving people the permission to be those hands and feet of Jesus. And Disney doesn't. You're the hands and feet of Disney, so to speak, when for cast members there. But for us, it's the idea is to empower people to be Jesus. Some of our people that we've worked with have never realized that they have that access to Christ and to represent Him and actually care for other people, especially new believers. I mean, people that are going, you mean, I'm representing Jesus here? Absolutely. You don't need me. You are representing Jesus. And they are always, especially new believers, come to this place where they're surprised that they said the right thing or they did the right thing and they had no idea what they were doing at the time. And that's where you're able to coach them and say, see, when you're dependent upon the Holy Spirit, He will lead you and you'll do exactly what He wants you to do. I love that. That's such a great attitude. Before we jump on to other things, any other business principle or two or best practice you see at Disney that you think, hey, church leaders, we should sharpen our pencils like take some notes. Sure. Vision. I mean, they always keep the vision in front of people. You're reminded they, everything lines up, everything lines up their strategy, their vision. They're always sharpening it. They're making sure there's four keys that Disney teaches to every cast member. They're called the four keys. It's safety, courtesy, show efficiency. And it's in that order, meaning when a cast member is faced with any kind of decision, they know that that's the order to think. Safety first, courtesy second, show third and efficiency last. And so they are really, they teach that over and over and over again. Even if you're a cast member that's been there 10, 15 years, you are always going to be challenged to, okay, what would you do in this situation? And so they really don't even have to think about it. They're able to connect with the vision of the company and the purpose and the strategy and everything. And so they just never stop, never stop communicating vision. I've been in leadership for a while as you have been in ministry. And that principle always surprises me. I think I probably first heard Bill Haival say it years ago, right? But when you feel like you're going to throw up, if you say the vision again, you're just getting started. And I have amazed, I mean, for six, seven years, our mission and vision have been to create a church on church. People love to attend and to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus. I don't know how many thousand times I've said that. And sometimes I'm saying it, I almost expect people to stand up and go, whoa, stop, stop. You know, we've heard this before, but you honestly, like you just can't say it enough because people forget. And I forget, and we forget. I think that's a great lesson, Stephen. So tell us a little bit. What are some of the things you're doing? So you're not actually on site. It's not a church inside the grounds of Disney. You're on site personally. Oh, you are. I'm sorry. I was wrong on that. Okay. When we came to Disney, we realized that there was no model out there for the church that would work at Disney. We couldn't plant a church that would meet on a Sunday, let alone one service, because imagine trying to plant a church when 95% of the people can't attend on any given day. There was just no way to do it. And so what I did is I went back to the book of Acts, and I just started looking at, okay, what did they do? Obviously, let's see what they did. And there was this idea of meeting together and eating together. And I thought, well, you know, what if we, you know, I came from a church background that has small groups and all of that. But I thought, what if we flip it upside down? What if we put the focus on the small groups and then the weekend celebration or whatever that's going to be would grow out of that. Let's not start a worship service. Let's start a small group community. And so we developed these things called communities, D for Disney. And the idea is let's these, they meet on property in different locations, usually in the hotels, because a lot of customers don't have transportation. They don't have, they don't own cars. So, but they can catch a Disney has an incredible transportation system. So they can hop a bus to a hotel without any problem. So what we do is these communities meet in hotels, you know, cup of coffee, that kind of a thing. And we do, we really don't draw attention to ourselves. But right there in the middle of a dining hall where there's, oh my goodness, a thousand guests, you'll see a group of eight 12 people meeting with, you know, talking about scripture and wrestling with the things of life. And most customers will refer to that as their church. That's, that's my church, the eight, the eight to 10 people. Now, we're not ruling out a worship, a weekly worship service. In fact, that's probably going to come at some point, but it will look different than what most churches do because we want to keep the emphasis on that community. That's where a Casumber can sit there and go, you know, I'm not sure I believe that or I'm having a hard time understanding it. And so they're able to wrestle with the things of life and the things of scripture in a very loving environment and be able to get an immediate response. And it's a beautiful thing. Wow. So you adopted the whole form of the church to really meet the community. That's what you did. Yeah, which is interesting because so often, you know, as a church planner myself, we just, you know, put up our tent and hey, come on out. And then we wonder, where are all the people? Where'd they come from? But that that's really brilliant. That's very missional of you. And you've got a variety of those communities that meet in any given time over the course of a week. And so how do you let people know about it? How does word get out? You know, the beautiful thing, Carrie, is it's been word of mouth. Because everybody, every cast member has a circle of influence. Right. And the idea is we really pour into them that your mission field is right in front of you. It's right there. The people that trust you, the people that have that you have credibility with, those are the first people that God is going to lead you to. And so what happens is these cast members invite their friends into a community or better yet feel led to start their own. And so the idea is the multiplication factor has really grown by word of mouth. Now, on top of that, we have never purchased advertising, never had to advertise because to be fair, Disney is a very compact community. It's big. But the communication circles are pretty tight. And so Facebook has been our best friend. Really? Do you have like just a Facebook page that you use or private group in on Facebook? Or what do you do? It's an open group. It's cast member church. It's right there on Facebook. And we have cast members. And we have people that like Disney. I mean, it's kind of we've realized that we've picked up kind of another congregation, so to speak, that follows what we do. And so we realize that we want to encourage them as well. But Facebook communication is has been our great, one of our greatest blessings. So should I link to that in the show notes when when this goes live, like you don't mind if people kind of watch what's going on? Not in fact, they can feel free to like it. I mean, it's great. Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a great place for them to kind of see cast member conversations, especially if they love Disney, they'll get a little bit of that behind the scenes kind of thing. But it also gives them something to pray for. It gets a look at cast member church. They can they can set thinking of Walt Disney World as the vacation capital of the world. They can think of it as a mission field to pray for. Wow. It's such a great vision. I mean, this is just such an encouraging conversation. And okay, so you went in, you adapted the form of church to really meet meet the community, which is very, very first century. Without revealing any confidence, is there anything like that? What are some of the unique needs you see among the cast members? Oh, well, you know, most of our cast members are millennials. And so we're looking at 20 to 30. Now that doesn't mean that all cast members are millennials, right, that are retired and all but it seems to us for some reason, God is connecting us with a millennial generation. So when you work at Disney, it's minimum wage. And so you have, oh, you have a lot of people that are barely making ends meet if that they are skipping meals to be able to pay their bills. They are, you know, and then of course, all the stuff that comes with the millennial generation. But I think some of the some of the biggest struggles they have that we certainly are trying to meet are financial. And, and it's a lot of these kids are, it's the first time away from home, you know, it's kind of like college. They are, they've always wanted to work for Disney. And so they get there, they find out that it's not, you know, it's like Disney is show business. I mean, there's no doubt about it. It's show business. So there's an on stage life and there's a backstage life. And it's not pretty. And so a lot of these kids discover freedom for the first time and so you have a lot of, oh, just think about what goes on on a college campus. And you have kids that are struggling with identity issues. You have kids that are struggling with baggage that they brought from home. One of the biggest things that we've discovered Carrie is, and I'm not revealing any, or not any confidence here, but huge amount of sexual abuse. Huge. Are you are you never there? Yeah, it is. In fact, we are every, we're not shocked anymore, which is sad. But it seems like every time we start a new community, that comes up in somebody, somebody has revealed it for the first time that they're struggling with that. And it's heartbreaking. That's like stuff from childhood or more recent or all of the above. I think it's all of the above. I mean, you see, and I'm, and I'm not just talking women. I mean, men who have been raped. And it's, it's, it's heartbreaking. And I don't know if it's because we're in the entertainment. I don't know if, I don't know what the connection is yet, but it's certainly a heartbreaking. And I'm so thankful, one of our leaders, this was a God thing, the first round of leaders that we had was a young woman who had been sexually abused, horribly, all her childhood, and is now a sexual abuse counselor. And so God, God even brought somebody in before all of this happened. So we were somewhat prepared. So somebody who could really speak into that is able to speak into that. And that's huge. So that's what you're seeing. So they're struggling, sexual abuse, pastor, ongoing, identity issues, freedom issues, which, which I think to some extent is probably in all millennials. That was one of my questions was, what are you do work with a lot of young leaders, like a disproportionate number of young leaders? What are some other things you're seeing in millennials? You know, often you'll hear, oh, they're lazy or, or they're, they're too selfish. And that hasn't been my experience in working with millennials. What about you? They are smart. Yeah. Millennials are smarter. Remember, they, you know, this is the first generation that's grown up with the internet, all their lives. And so they've been able to, they know how to research things. They are very perceptive. They spot inauthenticity like that. I mean, they are. So, and they're also very open about their searching, about their quest. You know, they're, they're very, a lot of millennials are distrust. They don't trust that the church, if they've heard, if whatever they've heard about church is usually a misconception, although we do have some de-church people that we've encountered where, you know, over, you know, they've had experiences in childhood or early teens, but they've left it that, you know, they've, they're on their own quest to find, you know, discover their own spirituality. But I think personally, for me, it is probably one of the greatest opportunities for the gospel right now is the millennial generation, because they're searching and they admit it. And they, they come are the millennials that come to Disney, come because they want to belong to something greater than themselves. They want to belong to something that they know has an impact. And if that isn't a beautiful metaphor for the church, I don't know why it is. Yeah. And, and do you find like, it, it tends to be a lot of dialogue rather than quick answers. It's not like a 10 minute conversation. Oh, now I'm convinced or, you know, a month down the road. Oh, yeah. Now I see the light. Like, it's kind of an ongoing dialogue, isn't it? Yeah. In fact, the best thing, one of the most effective tools, I shouldn't say tool, that's not fair. One of the most effective, effective things that can happen is when you, when a cast member asks you a question about a spiritual thing or something about the Bible, and you say, you know what, I don't know, but I will do my best to find out to be able to not have the answers and be able to say, you know, that's a really good question. And I really want to help with that. So let's, let's explore that together, because I don't want to just tell you what I think. I want to make sure that what we're talking about is true. And so when you are willing to say as a Christian, I don't have all the answers. But if we, if we look at the scripture together, would you be willing to work through that? They love that. They love that because you're inviting them into a relationship. And you're also being very real with them. And they don't trust anyone that has all the answers. And I used to be that way. I used to be that person who thought he had an answer for everything. And, you know, for, for better or worse, millennial saw right through that. So I've learned my lesson. Yeah, I've just lived too long to think that I do have an answer to anything anymore. So those are great insights. And I think they're almost, you know, they're universally applicable. Anything else you're learning about the needs of the people you're working with or the trends and generations that you're seeing? Well, yeah, I mean, it's, they're searching. I mean, they're they actively admit that they're searching for truth. They want to, this generation wants to make a difference in the world. This generation really wants to, that's why you see, in the millennial generation, they're not pursuing the big income. They're not pursuing security. They're pursuing their mark on the world. They, you know, you see a lot of people, you know, working in foreign countries or in third world countries because they want to make a difference. And so I think that's a, that's a beautiful trend that feeds right, that feeds flows right into what Jesus' mission is for us. And Jesus wants us to make a difference. So we try to connect that, you know, it's like, there's, there's a reason you want to make a difference because you were created to make a difference. And so I see that as a trend that's not going to go away. I agree. I would say that's something I've definitely seen in millennials. And you're right off and with a whole social justice movement, the what is there and the intentions are great. It's just sometimes a daughter too needs to be connected about the why. You know, why does this really have meaning? Why is this significant? Why is this in your heart? I think that's, that's cool. Now, not all of us are right near Disney world or Disneyland. But most of us probably can relate to, okay, there's probably some niche or niche. I don't know exactly how to pronounce it depends where you're from. But let's say niche, some niche communities near us. So for example, you might be in a, even a small town with a major employer. I know there are towns near where I live where there's an auto plant that employs 10,000 people or, you know, maybe there's a big factory or there's school or your tourism based place. What are you learning about ministering or working with niche communities? I think it's, I have an affinity for Disney. I, I, I love it. I love, I mean, I don't love everything about it. But I mean, but I love, I love Walt Disney. I mean, I, I've read every book on the man. And I think it's out there. I love studying the company's principal business principles, but I love cast members. And so the niches there, the niches there. The question is, is who do you connect with? Who is, because I, I've discovered Kerry that when you love your niche or you love the mission field, you don't have to try. I actually get energized when I hang out with cast members. I actually get, I don't wear out. No, I, I'm smart. I'm smart about taking rests and things like that. But there's a fire that being with them feeds. And so, you know, there is, for example, some of the employers, I'm thinking of where I came from in San Antonio, USA, a government insurance company has an office building that's a mile long from one into another. A person that works there could easily start something because they're part of the company. They know the vocabulary. They know the values and the vision. And they can, they, it's, there's automatically a connection that they have, especially if they love working for that company. It's, it's not hard. In fact, I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe everyone has a niche of some sort. Yeah, that there's something that they connect with. Maybe it's bicycling, maybe they, you know, they love to bike and they, they, they're a part of a bike club or something like that. Well, what a, what a great way to start building. It could be anything. You know, women who love to bake or men love to bake. But there is, there are these things that God has given each one of us that we love to do. And there are other people out there just like that. And that could be the connecting thing that allows us to find that niche and be able to begin planting the seeds of whatever it is he wants us to do. I think that's really good. And I think you're right, it doesn't always have to be a ministry of the church. Sometimes we sit around and go, you know what, the church should do something about this. Well, you are the church. So do something about it. I mean, what are you doing at your lunch hour? Why don't you take a couple of employees out for lunch or brown bag it and have a discussion or just build a relationship? It always scared me because I mean, I used to be a lawyer. That's what I did. And you know, ministry was such a big change for me. And I always thought, what do you talk to people about? Like, how do you have these conversations in the early days when our church was really, really like tiny? What do you do when you serve a church of six people? You know, well, it's hard to fill 40 hours sometimes. So you go visit people and I would visit people and I'd be scared walking in the door going, okay, what do I say? And I learned very quickly, you don't have to say anything. You say hello. And then you sit down and you listen. And an hour goes by, an hour and a half goes by and your time is up. And I think we forget that. I was reminded of that again this week, you know, I had breakfast with a guy and it was about some issue. But it was pretty clear by the end that he was processing some stuff. And I thought, you know, this is everywhere. And we just, we miss it on Sunday morning sometimes. And then listen, I'm a big believer in Sunday morning and what what God does there. But you know, it's just such a good reminder that all of us have a ministry and probably all of our ministries are going to be niche. And I'm a cyclist. And I know lots of people who are cyclists in this area. And yeah, we really kind of have no excuse. So I think that's a great call. Hey, in the last few minutes, we've got just on the fun side again, because this is Disney and oh my goodness, isn't that isn't that great? Any like surprising things or cool trivia points for the Disney fans, the Disney files out there, or just those of us who love the park that you can share with us. Well, you know, I'm trying to think of something that where they wouldn't have to kill me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't want that you're doing a good work. So stick around for a bit, Stephen. Well, I think it's not as much secrets as much as it is that I don't think most people realize how big Disney is. And it's it never closes. Now it closes to guests. But it is a 24 hour park. The lights are always on. And the music is always playing. And it is a it is a city and it is it has its own electric company. In fact, when I when I go into the parks, we live just a few minutes behind Cinderella's castle. And so I go in the back way of the non guest way, I guess you could say, into Disney, they have their own electric plant. They have their own believe it or not, they have their own government. I mean, it literally it's it's called, I think it's the Reedy Creek Corporation. But 47 square miles, you have to be governed. So Disney has its own government. A mayor of Disney. That's cool. Yeah, you find a job, you know, and so, so but it's up. They have their own electric plant. They have their own sewage plant. They have their own and it's a it's it's constantly filled with activity. And so when you think of Walt Disney World, it doesn't shut down at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. It it actually becomes even more active because that's when all the, you know, all of the, they'll, for example, they paint every night. There's a little surprise, you know, there's yeah, there's a scratch on a on a pole or something like that. They inspect it and it's painted before the next day. And so it always looks fresh, always looks. We've been there a couple times. And I mean, even I'm pretty sure they wind axed the garbage cans. Like you could eat off the garbage cans. It's crazy. And everybody has ownership of that, right? Like, even if you're not a custodian, if you're a cast member, you see garbage, you pick it up, you you take care of the place. There's an ownership there, those values. Absolutely. You know, it's one of the questions is how many custodians does Disney have? And people try to guess the answer 67,000 every single every single one of you is a custodian. And I love that because here's Carrie, here's something very interesting. You'll even see guests picking up trash. Isn't that something because it's because even the guests take ownership because they know how important that is. So you see somebody throw down, you know, whether it's a napkin or something like that, it is it's gone in seconds because if a cast member hasn't gotten there and usually they're there very quickly, a guest will pick it up because they that quote unquote magic has even taken them. They take ownership of where they're at. It's a proof of a powerful culture, isn't it? And just how powerful culture can be. And you catch it. Nobody said pick up the trash, but you just know you're in an environment where that needs to be done. So Steven, listen, this has been a great conversation. Fascinating. What's your vision for cast member church? As you think about where it's going in the next two or three years, what sort of your hope for your church? Well, obviously we want to grow, but our vision is is we want to reach 15% of Walt Disney World, which comes out to a little over 10,000 cast members. We want to see 10,000 cast members in some way, shape or form in a deciphering relationship, because if we know if we can reach 15% of that population, things can shift. And our desire is actually to empower cast members that wherever they go, whether it's Los Angeles, Nashville, Austin, wherever other entertainment mechas may be, they can make disciples wherever they go. Our big desire is to change the entertainment industry and to really fill it with disciple makers. And so Disney is one of the best places to start. Man, that is a huge vision. And I just want you to know, you've probably got lots and lots of people who suddenly are behind you on this vision. So if they want to touch base with you, what's the easiest way to find you and to find cast member church? Well, cast member church.com is right there. That's how you can look at what we're doing. You can reach me personally, Stephen, with a V, Stephen at cast memberchurch.com. Great. And then also Facebook. Just look us up on Facebook and not just check us out, but like us so that you can actually follow what God is doing. And hopefully it'll be an encouragement to whoever becomes a part. Well, I'm going to do that right now. As soon as we hang up, I'm going to like cast member church. That's so cool. Hey, Stephen, thank you so much. Sure, Carrie. It was my honor. Really appreciate it. I'm so thankful that Stephen would be generous enough to share time with us to help us lead like never before. And I pulled a couple of things out of that interview. I mean, there's a bunch you can find a lot in the show notes. Just go to carrynewhough.com/episode12. And you will see all kinds of principles and a summary of the article as well as some things you can share on social media that Stephen said that are helpful to leaders. So just go to carrynewhough.com/episode12. But here are a couple of my takeaways. One of them is simply this. I love the fact that 67,000 employees act like owners. I mean, they're picking up trash and it even affects the guests. I think that's so cool. I'm a little bit of a neat freak disclosure. I do not deal well with messes. So that part really got to me. But I think that speaks about a passion and an engagement for your environment that's really important. I just think that's important as a leader. Second thing, and this is probably even bigger. I love the fact that when Stephen talked about Disney, he really talked about the fact that they were a massive organization. They have their own government, for goodness sake. But they were a caring organization. And I think a lot of the times in leadership, we see those to his opposite. You can't be big and be caring. Or in order to be caring, you have to be small. Now, if you're a church leader, that's really convicting. And that's also really challenging. I've talked to a lot of small church leaders who say, if we ever got beyond 100 to 200 people, we would lose our heart for caring. And I can understand that, but I don't necessarily think that's true. Now, we've all been to large churches or large organizations that really don't care. And they're very impersonal. That's not great either. But Disney, like a lot of other organizations have figured out a way to make caring scale. And so I think as your church or your organization grows, that's one of the tensions you've got to manage as a leader is how do we become large without becoming cold? How do we become bigger and reach more people without really becoming detached or uncompassionate? And I think the way you do that is you have a really clear set of values that you share with your company and you scale care into smaller units. So, you know, like we said in the interview, if you're a CEO, you can't deal with 67,000 issues. But if you deal with it to the point where you've got managers and leaders and division heads who are really caring for the people that they're directly in contact with, you can create a very, very caring organization. And I think that's a challenge for the church. I think that's a challenge for a lot of leaders. So those were a couple of my takeaways. I'd love to hear yours. Just jump onto the show notes at karaenuhoff.com/episode12 and tell us what you pulled out of today's interview and let's start a discussion. In the meantime, we're going to be back on episode 13 next week. Derwin Gray, the author of Limitless Life and the lead pastor of Transformation Church and former NFL player is going to be with us. Derwin's a great guy, great friend. You're going to love him and we will be back next week with episode 12. In the meantime, subscribe if you haven't. We are on Stitcher, iTunes, TuneIn Radio and you can leave a review there as well. You've been listening to the Carry New Off Leadership Podcast. So thanks so much for talking next week and I really hope this helps you. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. You