The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 001 – An Interview With Andy Stanley
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everyone, welcome to episode one of the podcast. I am so honored that you would actually take some time to join us today for this podcast. I want you to know my goal is very, very simple. In this episode and all the episodes that are gonna follow, it's very simple. I just wanna help you as much as I can to lead like never before. And if I can help you lead like never before and maybe even your team in some way lead like never before, I will be incredibly grateful. And I'm so excited about today's guest. I'll tell you who it is in just a few minutes, but I gotta let you know. I've been thinking about doing this podcast as some of you might know if you follow me on my blog, CarrieNewhoff.com. I've been thinking about doing it for about a year and a half. And earlier this year, when the condition seemed right, I sat down with a group of friends and we started brainstorming about guests for the podcast. And we asked the question, okay, if we could get anybody to be the first guest on the podcast, who would it be? And the answer in the room was unanimous. The answer was, well, it would be Andy Stanley. Now, I know how busy Andy is and I know how hard it is for him to be able to commit time to do things like this. So it was with fear and trembling that I sent off an email and said, hey, Andy, would you be willing to be a guest? And he blew me away when he said, absolutely, I'd love to help. And so that's who you're gonna hear from today. If you don't know Andy, I promise you you're in for a treat. And if you do, you know you're in for a treat. Andy is a lead and founding pastor of North Point Community Church in Alfreda, Georgia, started as a church plant almost 20 years ago and now has exploded to six campuses in the Atlanta area and over 20 strategic partnerships in North America and in places around the world. I have the privilege of leading a North Point strategic partnership church, a great church, North of Toronto, called Canexas Church. I love you, Canexas, thanks for the privilege of being able to lead here, lead you. And I'll tell you, it is such a privilege to be able to watch Andy lead and see that up close and personal. So, I'm so excited to have Andy as a guest on the podcast. You probably listen to some of his messages and certainly a lot of you have probably read his books. He's written dozens of books, including what really became an instant classic. Couple of years ago, Andy released deep and wide, creating churches that unchurch people love to attend. And if you don't have that book, I would recommend you pick it up right now. But today in the interview, Andy and I are gonna talk about how he continues to grow his leadership as a leader. We're gonna talk about communication. Andy is one of the most gifted communicators in the church today and how does he come up with his content and where does he find it and how does he stay fresh. So, think you're in for a treat. Now, if you're like most people, like me, for example, when I listen to a podcast, I'm usually on my bike or maybe you're running at the gym or doing yard work or something like that or on your commute and Andy'll say some things and you're gonna go, oh, I want that link or I wanna be able to write that down. That's why I'm excited to say we're doing show notes. So, at the end of the show, I'll tell you where to find the show notes and we'll get those to you. But they'll have all the links that we talk about in this interview, so you can just go to carrynewhop.com and you'll find it there and just click on episode one, my interview with Andy Stanley, this podcast and you'll find everything there. So, with all that in mind, the only other thing I wanna say before we jump right into the interview, which I so enjoyed with Andy, is we had a few technical issues that we had to get through. I don't know why, but the call quality, we recorded it via Skype, it just was challenging on that particular day and so we managed to change our settings and it got better as it went in. But at the beginning in particular, you might find it cut out from time to time. You'll still be able to catch the gist of what Andy's saying, but it does get better as time goes on and the content is gold throughout. So, with that, let us jump into what I am so excited to share as the first podcast episode, my interview with Andy Stanley. - Well, I am so incredibly excited to have Andy Stanley as the very first guest on the Leadership Podcast, Andy. I don't know whether you really like my title or not, the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast is a creative enough for you. - It sounds eerily familiar. - It does. Well, Andy Stanley's Leadership Podcast was taken, so I came up with my own version. Hey, it is a thrill to have you here. Thank you so much for that. - Yeah, it's a thrill to be your first contestant or your guinea pig, however you decide to use this. - Well, I'm sure it's gonna work out great, so we'll look for the prize at the end. Andy, I mean, you've, I don't know whether there's a more sought-after communicator leader in the church world today, and I put out to a few of the people who were in on this podcast from the beginning. If you could ask Andy anything, what would you ask him? And people had some great, great questions, and you and I, from time to time, have an opportunity to talk, and I'm just excited about some of those conversations, sort of seeing some daylight. So, man, this is a thrill, thank you so much. What an honor. Okay, so here's the first question, Andy. I mean, North Point, incredible story. I have the privilege of leading a strategic partnership in the North Point family of churches. And so other than the grace and the power of God, what do you think has contributed to the phenomenal growth and impact that you've just seen at North Point over the last two decades? - Well, I'm glad you set it up by saying what you did, because, of course, it's not just the Christian answer, it's the true answer, it really is all about opportunity and God's grace and 10,000 or 10 million variables over which I had no control. Anybody who's ever accomplished anything knows, there are so many variables. Anybody to take credit is crazy. I don't understand arrogance. I just, when I meet arrogant people, I wanna say, do you not think you're going to die? Did you somehow bring yourself into this world, talent yourself, skill yourself, and then control? - So, absolutely. But beyond that, the practical answer is extraordinarily competent, relationally connected people who we didn't just start with a blank page. I love the way Reggie says this. We really, this Reggie was part of that group. Reggie, we started on the same page. So, competent people, we were already relationally connected. We're on the same page. And out of the five of us, three of us, me not included, three of them are doers. That is, you point in the direction and Julie and Bill specifically and Reggie, they're just doers, they just go get things done. So, I think we had a unique blend of people. Then we had a unique blend, a unique opportunity in our city. There were no churches like the church we were gonna create. And as you heard me say before, if you have the only hot dog stand in town, your hot dogs don't have to be that good. And we had the only hot dog stand in town. We had the only evangelistically driven, contemporary, scaled down, unchurched, really in our city. And so, anybody who wanted that kind of church, we were your only option. So, I think a lot of that had to do with our success. And we really were committed to creating a church, unchurched people love to attend. That wasn't just a tagline. We really wanted to do whatever it took to attract church people who were concerned about unchurched people and who would allow us, who would give us some leeway in terms of experimenting with things that may not feel comfortable in a traditional church environment. And then consequently, things just took off. So, I'm extremely grateful. I'm the most surprised of anyone by our success, to be honest. And if it ended today, I just feel like we're so far down the road, so far ahead of what we ever dreamed about that I just don't have any complaints. - That's kind of cool, you know, because there is no silver bullet, really. It's not like, well, you just do this one thing. Or if you get this one person on your team, it's going to turn things around. - Yeah. - Andy, you mentioned you got a number of people on your team who are doers. What would you say your critical role is? If you're not a doer. (laughing) - I'm a thinker. - You're a thinker. - Yeah, sure. - Well, my critical role in terms of the gifts that is clearly communicating. You know, I can keep people engaged for 35 minutes in a row. That's important to end church, you know, because churches are generally speaking, preaching driven. And I grew up with an incredible father who's a great communicator. And so that kind of came easy for me. That's my skill set. But the four people I had around me, and then five, and then six, and the more really helped me create environments where my skill set, you know, was able to be leveraged in an effective way. And I tell our production people every Sunday when I walk in. Every Sunday, as I walk by our volunteers, especially our production team, I say to them, I say, look, 'cause they always say, good morning. Thanks for doing this. I'm like, no, thank you. If it's not for you, I would be sitting on my front porch, preaching to as many people as I could gather in my yard, because this is not a single person thing, and it is not a single skill set thing. This is the body of Christ, multiple people coming together, the hands and the feet, the eyes and ears. It just so happens in church world. If you talk well, they let you be in charge. So I just feel like I was surrounded with people who understood the beauty and the value of environment and creating environments that were engaging and ultimately irresistible. - Well, on a wonder of that, I mean, North Point started big, and you've talked about that before. I mean, it didn't start with 20 people. It started as a result of it, as you talked about in deep and wide. But I wonder if that's something, sort of from a transferable standpoint, a lot of leaders need to gather is that we're not good at everything. And I know, starting in a very small church, you are the doer at the very beginning, but some of us never graduate from that role. So great insight there. Well, leaders change, and leaders often struggle to reinvent themselves as their organization grows. What are some of the tensions or struggles? You've encountered personally as a leader, as North Point's grown. - I think my biggest challenge was as a pastor, I'm a customer and pastor are accustomed to leading people. They see people they can gather in a room. So early on, I realized I was gonna be leading people. I didn't even know and I would never even meet because of the size. And then as we planted churches, I found myself in a position where I'm leading leaders who are leading churches. Churches I never visit with a whole bunch of leaders I'll never meet. So I had to learn to be very dependent upon systems and people. And as I got used to that and as I really, I had to learn to trust the systems and just trust the systems. Run the plan, run the game plan, do your part, don't try to be all things to all be focused on what you do well and allow the people around you to do what they do well. And that's essentially what creates great systems. So if you have great people and great systems, that's great. I had to learn to trust those great people in those systems. Otherwise, I found myself reaching into things I had no business getting involved in worrying about things that ultimately communicated to my leaders. I don't trust you. And it wasn't that I didn't trust them. But when you start asking too many questions, not simply to get information, but to make sure they're doing things right, you can accidentally communicate, hey, I'm not sure I really trust that you have the ability to do this. I think the biggest learning curve for me was realizing it's okay, I can lead people I never meet and places I never visit. As long as I'm releasing leaders who can lead people, learn to trust the systems. And that took a while for me. And honestly, every once in a while, I still find myself wanting to get involved in things I need to just let the people around me manage because they're actually, they're better than me anyway. I think one of the things every leader learns is when people are in their sweet spot doing what they're created to do and you leave them alone, things just go better. But that was a little challenging for me because I think I brought a very traditional pastor's mindset, not a traditional approach to church, but a traditional pastor's leader mindset to a growing organization. And so I had to just learn to relax into the systems we created and the people that were coming. - Yeah, that's a tough one, Andy. I know in some of the conversations we've had in group settings before as pastors, you've talked about giving your leaders the benefit of the doubt. So is that what you're talking about to that point where I remember once you told me, I just have to assume that intelligent people who made this decision, is that the kind of thing you're talking about? - Well, yeah, even if I don't understand it, that doesn't mean it's not good. Even if it's not what I would do, that doesn't mean it's not good. And giving people a latitude to make mistakes. Leaders, you know, and we're all this way, leaders don't mind being told what to do, but just don't stand over for me to tell me how to do it. You know, let me, you know, find my own rhythm in terms as long as we've all decided this is the direction we're going in and this is the part of the journey I'm responsible for, and let me own it. And ultimately you've got to do that. I have a friend named Frank Blake, Frank just transitioned off as the CEO of Home Depot, like the entire thing. They have 350,000 employees and associates. I imagine that. 350,000 people, well, when I get with Frank, I always say, "Frank, what do you do?" I mean, 350,000 people and stores all over the world and supply chain management from China, what, you know, what do you do? And he said, "You know, I just really do two or three things." And again, here's a guy who has had to trust on a much, much, much smaller scale. All of us have to learn to do the same thing. We find out what we're great at. We find out where we make our greatest contribution and to be and empower the leaders around us to do the very same thing. And that's, I mean, if you've any great organization, church or non-chirts, that's what you're going to find. For some of us, that's easier than it is for others. And for me, again, because that whole pastor thing is gather everybody, get in front of them, talk to them. I have to realize that I can't lead like it. If I do, I become a leader to the organization. - That's great. So Andy, I talked to a couple of people about this interview and the question that seemed to come up again and again was, "Hey, if Andy was doing this over, "would he do anything differently?" So for example, a lot of young leaders I know are on the blog and hopefully on this podcast. You wrote next generation leader a few years ago now. If you were writing it again today, anything you'd say differently in light of how culture is shifted or is culture really shifted that much? - Well, when I saw you sent me these questions ahead of time and I looked at that question, I went back and looked at the book 'cause that's a good question. I thought, maybe I need to add a chapter, subtract a chapter. But you know what, the next generation leader is built around five words, competence, courage, character, clarity and coaching. And as I thought about that, I thought that really is the blocking and tackling of leadership. You have to be competent, have competent people. You have to be a somewhat of a risk taker. I mean, leaders do things no one's done before. They do things in a different way than people have done them in the past. That's just what leaders do. Leaders wanna make things better. And when you make things better, that means you abandon the way it has been done in the past. So it requires risk taking and courage. And then in terms of character, it goes back to what you said a minute ago. Character is what makes me trustworthy. And if you wanna have a great culture, you have to have an organization with people that trust each other and choose to trust even when there's a gap. So that's the whole character issue or part of that. And then clarity. Clarity might be the most significant part of leading people to do things they don't necessarily want to do or don't necessarily think they can do. Clarity is where the focus is so extremely narrow and the terminology is so extremely clear that everybody shows up knowing exactly what we're doing, why we're doing it and how we do it here. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How do we do it here? Clarity, it impacts resourcing, clarity, it impacts speed. So again, the clarity piece is absolutely critical. And then the last word, there's competence, courage, character, clarity. The last one is coaching. And coaching essentially means that there's somebody who can do this better than me and I need to learn everything I can from them or there are people who can't necessarily do what I do better than me, but they can help me do better than I'm currently doing. And every leader at every level, regardless of what they've accomplished, need people around them that can help them be better at what they're doing. And that's what a coach does. I mean, when you think about sports, the coaches generally cannot play like the players, but the coaches can sure coach the players to be better players. So it's competence, courage, character, clarity, coaching. I don't think I would add anything to that. The nuance and the application certainly change with culture, but in terms of just nuts and bolts, boots on the ground leadership, I really think it comes back to those five things. - I appreciate that. I mean, we still use that with our leadership team and any interns or LDPs as we call them, we bring on. I mean, that's one of the go-to reads for sure. - Yeah, good stuff. Well, Andy, you never stop developing and being stretched as a leader. So what are some ways that you're trying to grow your leadership now? - Well, one of the things I've always done and continue to do, and I feel like personally this I think challenges me and helps me more than anything else. From day one, I have brought great literature, whether they're books or articles, and it's usually books or articles from magazines, to our leadership team. And we read and we process together. And the thing that has been so helpful to us and to me about this is it brings an author and an author's idea into our context, but instead of bringing the author in, we bring his content or her content, and we get to look at it through the filter, or filter it through the context of our organization. And I think every time we do this, I feel like I grow as a leader. I feel like I have fresher insights in terms of how to make our organization better, and it communicates to the leaders around me that I still want to grow as a leader. It's one thing for me to grow. It's another thing for the leaders around me to see me growing or to see me stretching. And I think one of the things that leaders often don't take, take advantage of is essentially growing or processing out loud in front of the leaders that they're leading. We just did, we spent almost a year in Patrick Lindsay, on his book, "The Advantage." More recently, I bought everybody a copy of a book that's been out about a year and a half, now I call "The Power of Habit." And it's a big book, and it's not a leadership book, but there was one section in there about keystone habits. Keystone habits as it relates to organizations. And so we had about a three or four week discussion about what are our keystone habits as an organization, what should they be, and is there one keystone habit that if everybody in this organization embraced it, it would help us go further faster. Well, it was just an extraordinary conversation that stretched me personally, it stretched our leadership team, but it wasn't an entire book, it was just one concept from one book. So I'm always looking for things that I can bring in, and again, discuss with my team, and that helps me, the other thing real quick, I won't take as much time on it. - That's good. - Is, I learned a long time ago, you can learn something from everyone. I mean, you can learn something from everyone, so I've learned to ask lots of questions. And I'm a firm believer that every, and this is, I think, really important, everybody is convinced they are right for a reason. I mean, even the people we disagree with theologically or politically, everybody's convinced they're right for a reason. I wanna know the reason. I mean, when I meet people who see the world differently than me, I think, okay, there's no point in arguing, they really see the world this way. And if I don't see the world this way, then there's something they see that I don't see. And I just have an insatiable desire to understand people's worldviews. And I think that has helped me stay very, very neutral in terms of relationships. I think I've learned so much. Steven Covey said it this way a long time ago. He said, seek to understand before seeking to be understood. Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. And I think this has impacted me personally, but I think it's really impacted me as a leader because I think I've learned so much from people that I would not necessarily agree with at every level. And again, anyone who's accomplished something, they've got something on the ball. There's something to be learned. And the only way to learn is to ask questions and to allow our own worldviews to be bumped up against and challenged from time to time. And personally, I enjoy that probably to a fault. Sometimes I can become so gray and so open-handed and so open-ended that it makes the people around me a little bit nervous. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I haven't changed anything. And just let's keep our hands wide open. That's the only way to receive and it's the only way to learn. So I think they're sort of the practical and kind of the more intangible part of it. But those are the kind of the worlds I stay in that I think challenge me and help me grow as a leader. - See, I love hearing that from you, Andy, because I think, you know, a lot of us think, well, maybe there'll be a day where I just kind of arrive, but I love the curiosity and I love the idea, the drive behind that that says, you know, still don't know it all, still haven't got it nearly figured out. And let's keep working, let's keep growing together. That's great. - And again, to try to figure out a context in which your leaders, the leaders around you, see you growing and see you being stretched. Because what you said is so important, Kerry, the perception is, well, Andy's got to figure it out or he's got to figure it out or Kerry's got to figure it out. And I'm still figuring it out, but they've got it figured out. When my leaders see me going, I don't know, and let's talk about it and let's rethink it. I know we decided last week, but I've got some more questions. It gives them permission to do the same thing because nobody's got it all figured out, nobody. And the minute we pretend like we do, we stop learning, we stop growing, and we create a culture of cover-up because then everybody else has to pretend like they've got it all figured out. So there's not enough time for that. And so there's no point in doing that. - There's a ton of gold there. Thanks, Andy, for that. Okay, we're going to switch a little bit and talk about communication. It would be a mistake to have you on the podcast and not talk about communication. So, I mean, I've been preaching in the same context for almost 20 years. You've been preaching in the same context for a couple of decades. Let's talk about how do you keep finding fresh material for your talks and messages? And where do your ideas come from these days? - You know, I get asked that question a lot and I do not have a good answer. And I think it's because I don't really know. I know what I do. And it seems like every message, whether it's leadership talk or something for a company or for the church, it seems like I get there a different way every time, which I don't think is true. I'm sure there's some pattern, but I really don't know what it is. But I'll tell you what I enjoy. I really enjoy when I am asked to speak on a specific topic and there's a deadline. I think this has pushed me more. And that's what we do with catalyst or with leader cast or some of the other environments. I mean, they know I'm the go to person to say, okay, here's our theme. We need to talk on this theme to open the conference or to introduce this topic. And I really enjoy that challenge because in most cases, they're asking me to talk about something I would never have thought to talk about. And then when I get up and talk about it, people say, wow, how'd you think of that? I'm like, I didn't, you know, this was a homework assignment. I had, you know, and sometimes the topics are so, you know, sometimes they're strange, you know, sometimes, again, there are things I would never choose. So I think, again, just being open to taking on assignments, I think in terms of the creative process, it drives me to do things. And then the other part of it is as a pastor, just as a pastor, sometimes I have to stop and remind myself, Andy, you have not been called to be creative. You've not been called to say things no one's has ever said before. You've not been called to be unique. You've been called to take the scriptures and explain them in a way that people can walk away in love with your savior, not in love with your communication style. And so for me, I think on the pastoral side, I just have to retreat back to that central calling that my goal as a communicator is to make the scriptures clear and let the scriptures speak for themselves. And when I can remember that, I tell you I, the pressure just comes off because I can, you know, I can be my own worst enemy. I think anybody who loves what they do, you know, especially if they put a microphone on their head, you know, once a week or once a month, the pressure is on. I mean, you know, there's a perform side to what we do. So, you know, the leadership side, I love new questions and new challenges. On the pastoral side, I just have to remind myself, just make the scriptures clear, be transparent. And then in the process of all that, you know, the creative ideas often happen. - Yeah, you know what? I really appreciate you saying getting an assignment because I think for a lot of communicators, the longer you're at it, the less that happens naturally because you get to call the shots, right? It's like, well, I'm not going to talk about that. I don't want to talk about that. - Yeah, I guess, the most I've already kind of halfway got put together, that's what I'm going to talk about. - I'm taking notes. That's a really good word. Now, a lot of leaders these days are doing what we might call content borrowing from people like yourself, Andy. You know, they see your messages, they re-teach them, they buy the package from North Point Resources or whatever. And they do that with you and with other well-known preachers. Do you think, like in your view, do you think that's helping the church or is there a downside to it? - You know, that's another great question because it is somewhat of a, we think it's a new phenomenon. Maybe it's just in the old days because there was no social media. Nobody knew people were stealing other people's content. There were no cameras, nothing was being recorded. I don't know where borrowing ends and plagiarism begins. Lang Jones, who you know, on our staff, he said, "Andy, you should do a series on plagiarism "and see if anybody copies it." (laughing) - That's funny. - That's an idea. - That's great. - I think the downside to me of re-preaching other people's messages or re-giving other people's talks, even if they're tweaked a bit, the downside is it's a leader or a pastor isn't studying. And if you're not studying, you're not learning, and if you're not learning, it is going to impact your leadership, it just is. And you will be tempted to lie, you will be tempted, you will always be tempted, even if you don't give in, you will always be tempted to be just a little bit dishonest about exactly where this came from. So what happens is somebody decides to re-preach somebody else's message, and they don't wanna say, "Hey, all of this content came from someone else." So they re-preach the message, and then they say, "Now, so-and-so said," and then they'll quote that person, thinking, "Well, see, I kind of at least gave them credit." - For two lines. - Yeah, exactly. At least I let the world know that person exists. I know that person exists, and they've said some important things. And you know, that is as a person's conscience, but I just think, you know, there's something about studying and the pressure, and I'm telling you know this, Gary, it's a terrible pressure. Now the good news is, because in church world at least, we have grown accustomed to video teaching, it really should give, you know, the men and women who don't feel like they can do this week after week after week. Now there's actually more time to study, more time to prepare, and I think, you know, preachers and teachers should find a rhythm where they can actually do their own stuff, and if it's not weekly, find that rhythm, and then, you know, use other communicators, you know, show videos, or just get up and say, you know what? Like, I, Craig Rochelle, one of my best friends, you know, re-preach the series I did, that the "How to Be Rich" book came from, and he just got out and told his congregation, Andy did these four messages. I thought they were fantastic. I'm gonna, I wanna re-preach them to use so I can contextualize them, and off he went, and I sent in my outline. So, you know, it was his church and his application for his church, but instead of just quoting, he just got up and said, hey, you know, I got these ideas from somebody else. People are fine with that. They're way more fine with that than finding out a year later their pastor's been, you know, ripping people off. You're stealing, yeah, that's it. - No, that's true, and you know, I mean, for our context here at Kinexis, we use your teaching about 50% of the time on video, and then I'm live with, you know, 98% of my own content. And there's been a couple times where I've tried to re-teach something you've done because it was all, you know, North Point specific or Buckhead specific. And those are much harder for me because I think there's something in your own voice, and I would never say, you know, it's hard to follow you, Andy, to be really transparent. But for me to try to be you is, it's just really difficult. - Well, you should, yeah, and you shouldn't. - It's like, let Andy be Andy, and I'll do my little bit, and it just seems to work out really well. So, no, that was very, very helpful, and I think you're right, you miss the joy and the pain of stuff. - Yeah, I mean, there's so many Saturday mornings that I'm sitting at my kitchen counter going, "Lord, I got two hours, and I have done my part. "I have worked hard, I've done all I know to do." And, you know, this outline just looks dead to me. You know, you gotta do something. I think that tension is so helpful. And, you know, the man or woman who takes a shortcut and misses that, I think they're robbing themselves, but I think they're certainly robbing their congregation. So, just my opinion. - That's great. Well, Andy, I wanna be mindful of the time, and there's so much we could talk about, but one of the things that is just an issue that's coming up publicly, more and more, in church circles is around the whole question of family and culture, I mean, when you look at blended families, marriage, parenting styles, all of that, how is any of that changing how you do ministry? Like, when you look back 10 years ago and today, you know, one of the mistakes that we made is that because our original leadership team was very homogeneous, we like every, everything every leadership team in any organization makes this mistake, you tend to think everybody's like the people in your room. And so, we made assumptions about family and schedules that were, that again, assumed every family was like the family's represented around the table. And so, several years ago, it's probably been seven or eight years ago, one of the discussions I led us through was, what are our assumptions? And we made a list of about a hundred assumptions. By assumption, I mean, what are some things that we assume when we make programming decisions? What do we assume when we make scheduling decisions? What do we assume when we decide how much we're gonna charge for camp or for an event? And as we looked at our assumptions, a bunch of them were false. And again, we'd fall into the trap of assuming the families in our church were pretty much like the families around the table, and they are not, and they were not. So that was a wake-up call for us. And so, where we have shifted is in terms of blended family. We realize now that a regular church at Tender is someone who goes to church about 12 times a year, not every week. In my world, you go every week, and everybody's a world around that table, you go every week. But we've discovered as we poked around and looked at our children's attendance patterns, the truth is people, a regular Tender, somebody says, "Oh, that's my church, I love Kerry, I love, you know, I love Andy, I love their churches." You know, they're gonna go about 12 to 15 times a year, and they consider themselves, you know, church. Well, they haven't left, right? They haven't left, they're still there. That impacts messaging, how much you repeat things. Suddenly, social media becomes very important, online church becomes very important, what you send home with kids becomes very important. You know, if they're there every week, you do it one way, if they're there, you know, 12, 15 times a year, you have to make some changes. So we were, I think we were slow because of those false assumptions, once we finally got a realistic picture of the culture that we lived in, we were able to make some of those changes. But that's a constant conversation for us, as it should be for anybody in ministry. - Well, Andy, this has been so, so rich. And I mean, you're right, we could talk about this stuff for hours and hours and hours, but thank you so much. And what's the best way for people to access your writings, get your resources if people want to know more. What's the best way? - Well, they can go to AndyStanley.com and AndyStanley.com is essentially all my leadership stuff as it relates to business stuff, countless conferences. They can subscribe to my monthly leadership podcast that you have now ripped off and copied, but I'm sure you will make it vastly better than much, much better than that. - No, no, it's sort of yours now because you're a guest, right? So see, I've co-opted you. - I've hijacked your podcast. - Yeah, as they get down, I mean, subscribe to our monthly leadership podcast. The other things, follow me on Twitter. I'm constantly pointing to other people's resources, other people's messages, and things that we're doing at our church, and I think between those two things. Or if you want to tell you, if you follow my wife's blog, it's AndyStanley.com, she's doing a great job. And again, it kind of interfaces from the family side of things as it relates to what we're doing as a family and the things that we're learning as a family. So that kind of covers the business side, the ministry side and the family side. - Yeah, if you miss that, it's SandraStanley.com for Andy's wife. And it's a great blog, I read it too. We will link to all of those in the show notes. So if you just go to carrynewhoff.com or lead like never before.com, we'll have all that stuff for you in the podcast show notes. Andy, thank you so much. It's been so, so great. - Well, honestly, I'm honored to be your first guest on your podcast, and I'm sure it will be incredibly successful. I read your blog, your leadership content is fantastic. I love it because you give us lists, and us leaders, we like lists. Just give us the five best, the three best, or the 10 fastest things, and we're good to go. So I love your approach, and if you're listening to this podcast and if not, it really carries blog, honestly, it's fantastic, not just for church leadership, but leadership in general. So thank you. - Andy, thank you. Really appreciate it. Well, that is a conversation that could have gone on for a couple of hours, but I don't know about you, but in the time I had with Andy, I just learned so much, and that's the way it always is when you hear Andy speak or you have an opportunity to have a conversation with them, my notebooks always open. And if you're like me, you probably want more, you wanna go back and say, hey, I wanna make sure I captured that insight, and we've kind of helped you with that, with the show notes for this episode, and you can find them at kerrynuhoff.com/episode1. So if you head over there, you'll see all the links that Andy mentioned in the show, the people, the resources, how to find him online and more. I've also shared three things you can do with your team this week, just three of the principles that Andy talked about that you can execute this week in your own leadership and in your leadership with your team, and then there's some quotes, some things that Andy said that really stuck out to me, that you can share on social media, share with your team, you'll find those all in the show notes, and all you have to do is go to kerrynuhoff.com/episode1. That's kerrynuhoff.com/episode numeral1, and you'll find everything there. Now, if you've found this podcast helpful, I would love it if you would head on over to iTunes and leave a rating and a review. So you can give it a star rating, you've seen those on iTunes, and that is so, so helpful if you leave a rating and review, 'cause it does two things. Number one, it gives us honest feedback, which we can always grow from, and number two, when you leave a rating and review, iTunes takes note of that, and the more ratings and reviews there are, the more people hear about it. It moves it up on the charts and also gets it out to other potential subscribers. So if you found this podcast helpful, it's a way of making sure it helps other leaders as well. So if you can do that, that would be awesome. Now, today's podcast is sponsored by the Orange Tour. The Orange Tour is an awesome tour. I really enjoy participating in it, and it helps take your family team and your leadership to the next level. So you can join me this fall. I'm gonna be in seven cities on the Orange Tour, and if you want more information, you can go to orangetour.org. There are more than a dozen cities in total, but here's where I'm gonna be. I just got back from Atlanta, and on September 18th and 19th, I'll be in Seattle, and in San Diego, California, on September 22nd and 23rd. And on the main day of the tour stop, I'm gonna be hosting a leaders lunch. So if you wanna get together, meet in person, have a conversation at lunch. I would love to be able to do that with you, and so if you live near Seattle or San Diego, just head on over to Orange Tour, or again, all of this is in the show notes, karaenuhoff.com/episodeone. You can register right off the show notes for that. So thanks to Orange Tour for the sponsorship of this episode. Coming up next, I'm pretty excited about episode two. We're gonna be back in two weeks' time. These episodes will be released on Tuesdays on iTunes. And my guest next time in two weeks is Perry Noble. Perry is the senior pastor of New Spring Church, one of the fastest growing and largest churches in the United States. And Perry, at the height of New Spring's success, really went through a crash. And he talks all about being overwhelmed as a leader, how he almost didn't make it out of a very dark time in his life. And if you've ever been stressed by leadership, and I mean, who hasn't? Perry's got an amazing story, and he's gonna talk about how he recovered, and found the grace of God in the middle of that. So really looking forward to that conversation with Perry Noble. We've got other guests coming up too, in future episodes. Casey Graham, the CEO and founder of the Rocket Company, is gonna be one of our guests. We're gonna hear from Pete Wilson. He is the lead and founding pastor at Crosspoint Church in Nashville. Kara Powell, who works at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, is gonna be with us. And Kara's gonna talk about why so many high school students end up leaving the church when they go to college, and what we can do as leaders to stop that. Jeff Henderson, who's an expert on communication, is gonna help coach us on how to communicate. Whether that's in the boardroom, or your next presentation, or your next message. And he's gonna talk about how to actually connect with people and make sure that your communication is effective. Rich Burch from Unseminary.com is gonna join us, so is Frank Bieler from Elevation Church, Tony Morgan. Diane Grant, Andy Stanley's assistant, is gonna talk all about what her world is like, and what she has learned about leading leaders. Derwin Gray and Craig Jarrow are gonna be future guests. You might've heard of Craig. He's time management ninja online. He's gonna talk all about that. And we're gonna hear from Ryan Russell, among others. Ryan works with Triple X Church, and he's gonna talk about why sexual temptation is such a big issue for leaders. So that's just a small preview of what's coming up in the next few episodes of this podcast. Two weeks from now, we're back with Perry Noble from New Spring Church. Hey, if you haven't subscribed yet, the best way to make sure you don't miss anything, is to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes. So just head on over to iTunes for that. And again, if you're inclined to leave a rating, we would so be grateful for that. I would really appreciate that, and you can do that right on iTunes. And in the meantime, jump on over to carrynewhoff.com. We'll carry on the conversation. I've got lots of posts coming up in the next few weeks, and we have a great conversation with leaders there. And remember, all of this is designed to help you lead like never before. Thanks so much for listening. Can't wait to talk to you again. And I hope all of this really does help you lead like never before. You've been listening to the Carry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. 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