Spirit-Led Strategy: Smarter Church Decisions Without Losing Your Soul with Yolanda Stewart

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest Yolanda comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights she shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation!

Do you ever feel like your church’s decisions are more emotional than intentional? Is your church struggling with inconsistent processes or reactive planning? In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we’re joined by Yolanda Stewart, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Church in Tennessee—one of the fastest-growing churches in America. Tune in as Yolanda shares a practical, Spirit-led decision-making framework that’s helping Mosaic Church thrive at every level.

• Emotional leadership to strategic clarity. // It’s not uncommon for churches to make decisions based on emotion and urgency rather than shared understanding and strategy. Drawing on her military experience, Yolanda began equipping the team at Mosaic Church with tools for clarity—helping them work smarter, not harder. But instead of demanding change, she approached the team with humility, offering help and building trust.
• Define, Discern, and Decide. // Yolanda created a framework that her church has used that is called Define, Discern, and Decide. It is inspired the military decision-making model from an infantry handbook and was modified into three steps.
• Define. // The first step is to clearly define your problem or objective as well as your non-negotiables. Without clarity on what you’re solving for, teams risk wasting resources or solving the wrong problem. What is the ministry culture in your church? What has the pastor established as the non-negotiables? The collaborations should be within the boundaries that the pastor has set or culture has established.
• Discern. // Involve the Holy Spirit throughout the entire process. Leadership isn’t just practical—it’s deeply spiritual. Discernment guides when and how decisions get made.
• Decide. // Rather than defaulting to one idea, generate multiple potential solutions. Yolanda encourages at least three courses of action, but underscores it is critical to at least have more than one. Discuss pros, cons, and alignment with the vision before choosing the best course—or blending the best parts of each.
• Collaboration over command. // One of Mosaic’s core values is “we refuse to do it alone.” Yolanda emphasizes the importance of inviting the right people to the table—including those on the ground level—when making decisions. Collaboration leads to buy-in, richer insights, and stronger execution. Whether you’re the lead pastor or on the executive team, humble leadership and inclusive dialogue are key to implementing transformational change.
• Spirit-led strategy. // While structure and tools are important, they must be anchored in spiritual discernment. Yolanda emphasizes that “your spirituality is your greatest asset.” Church leaders must integrate spiritual maturity with leadership excellence to avoid importing secular strategies that don’t reflect the heart of the Kingdom. Even hard conversations should be framed with grace, humility, and the fruit of the Spirit.
• Download the framework. // Yolanda has created a free PDF outlining her Define, Discern, Decide framework, offering guiding questions and practical steps for church leaders. Whether you’re facing a big decision or looking to shift your church culture, this resource can help bring clarity and alignment to your leadership process.

Learn more about Mosaic Church by visiting mymosaic.ch.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich Birch here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. Today, we are talking about something that I know is going to be super applicable to all of us. We are often faced, how do we make decisions? How do we move forward? How do we push our ministries to what we believe God’s calling to us next and today’s conversation is going to help us think through those yeah those kinds of conversations. It’s going to be great. We’ve got Yolanda Stewart with us. She’s the executive church pastor at a church called Mosaic Church. It’s led by pastors Anthony and Julia Daly, it’s a multi-site church with locations in Tennessee as well as church online, it’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Yolanda, so glad to have you here – welcome!

Yolanda Stewart — Rich, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Rich Birch — This is an honor. Thank you for taking time. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the church and tell us about your role, maybe a little bit of the background, ah help us understand a little bit about Mosaic.

Yolanda Stewart — It’d be my pleasure. So Mosaic, you mentioned it earlier, is a multi-site church, and we are mission-focused. Many of the things that we get to do for the kingdom happened outside of the United States, outside the walls of of our church.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Yolanda Stewart — So we have ministry in Africa. We have ministry in Honduras, ministry in China. And of the things that is near and dear to us is reaching people who are ah the underserved, if you will, those who are, there’s not a lot of people in mind to help those types of people.

Rich Birch — Love that.

Yolanda Stewart — And and which we feel a mandate for us to to to do that. And so we are we are entrenched in missions and we love it. Also, Mosaic is very busy making an effort to impact our community. And so we have several nonprofits that we are are the pioneers for, and in they are in partnership with the city of Clarksville.

Yolanda Stewart — Our there is that if the doors of our church close that the mayor would be beating on the doors asking what can he do to open our doors again? And so we we are busy doing that. We have a transitional home for ah foster care children. We do senior accessibility modifications so that they can age in place…

Rich Birch — So good.

Yolanda Stewart — …and we also have ah developed a community housing development organization where we’re building affordable homes, and I get the privilege to be the executive director of those three programs.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Yolanda Stewart — And so at the church, my role also includes executive oversight of discipleship, military support, pastoral care, um outreach. And yeah, so that’s what I’m busy doing.

Rich Birch — That’s everything. Well, you’re busy. You’re not sitting around looking for stuff to do. That’s for sure.

Yolanda Stewart — It’s an adventure.

Rich Birch — Tell us. Yeah. Tell us that’s great. That’s so good. Love hearing about all the stuff that Mosaic is engaged in and the real difference, tangible difference you’re making in both here locally and internationally. It’s really great.

Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about your background. What what was your kind of life journey that brought you to Mosaic?

Yolanda Stewart — Sure. Well, Rich, I’m a 29-year veteran. I served in the United States Army.

Rich Birch — Thank you.

Yolanda Stewart — And my last duty station was Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which is just right up the road from Mosaic. I was invited to Mosaic by a a friend that that I’ve I’ve been friends over 30 years now. Our children ah grew up together. But um My time in the military really cultivated leadership qualities that I didn’t know that I possessed, but um you know that was a a training ground for me. And it’s really cool how Uncle Sam prepared me, and leveraged the Holy Spirit ah to, excuse me, leverage my military experience. And then ah coupled that with the Holy Spirit, um I’ve been able to ah bring many of the things that I’ve learned, tools and disciplines, if you will, ah into into ministry. So from the from the military to the marketplace to ministry. And so I retired just a few years ago. I started as an enlisted soldier and went through ROTC, Wright State University graduate…

Rich Birch — Very cool.

Yolanda Stewart — …and um retired as a lieutenant colonel 2015.

Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, you know, I’ve said in other contexts that I really do believe the U.S. military is the the greatest leadership development organization in the world, maybe outside of the church, but like doing amazing work, developing leaders. And it’s a, you know, it’s a real just incredible, you know, just a fertile leadership development kind of engine. And so I’d love to explore that a little bit today and, and talk about how, you know, and learn a little bit about how that journey from, um you know, the military to the marketplace, ultimately to ministry, how you brought some of those decisions along, maybe take us back to when you first joined the team and you were, you know, in that at Mosaic. When you compared the the kind of decisions that were being made, maybe in the military versus the decisions you were making at the church, how did they compare? How were they similar, different? You know, how did they, you know, how did that all fit together?

Yolanda Stewart — It’s very different. I will tell you.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I can imagine.

Yolanda Stewart — The thing that stood out, and and our church was, the staff was very young and very small, was very small ah staff when I came on board. But it was very different in terms of how decisions were made. And what what stood out to me was that there was no ah real framework. It was, it was emotional. It was ah perhaps, um ah you know, opportunistic maybe. You know, and ah it it just, it it made for a very frustrating process for me, having come from an organization that is very structured in how we make decisions.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Yolanda Stewart — And and so that really stood out to me that, hey, this is an emotional decision. It’s not a well thought-out decision. It’s spontaneous. Fly by the seat of the pants, last minute, you know?

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Yolanda Stewart — And it resulted in a lot of of frustration…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — …wasted resources, missing the objective, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. And so, yeah, that stood out to me. Very, very different than what I come from.

Rich Birch — Yeah, well, that I think you’ve described, and this is why I’m excited that you’re on the podcast today. You’ve described a lot of churches. That’s where a lot of us are at. We’re in this kind of, like you’re saying, you know emotional, opportunistic. We just kind of, um there’s like a “ready, fire, aim” you know, kind of mentality. Let’s just go.

Yolanda Stewart — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And, you know, we could, we might understand at a theoretical level, yeah, we need to have some sort of framework. Help me think through when you kind of started thinking about, hey, we’ve got to bring a framework here to make these decisions. How did those conversations go? What did were some of those initial kind of conversations to say, hey, we’re going to try to build a framework here for making decisions? Take us through that.

Yolanda Stewart — And that’s a great question. Yes, it makes sense. um I will tell you just just a little insert in here. Coming from the military, going to the marketplace, and then coming to ministry, boy, each of those were were culture cultural differences that really, really stretched me as a leader.

Yolanda Stewart — And so in in ministry, um because of just the mindset of ministry, it was it was a challenge for me to remind myself, these are not soldiers. And, you know, they’ve come from so many different backgrounds that I needed to take my time. I needed to throttle myself, if you will, and change my perspective and my approach.

Yolanda Stewart — So I didn’t do it right the first time, you know, first you know because in my mind, I was the I just that it was the wrong approach. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, and I’m just telling you, the Holy Spirit is underrated. But with the Holy Spirit, it’s like, it’s not what you say, Yolanda. And it’s not that what you bring to the table isn’t valuable and meaningful and and suitable for this organization. You have to you have to deliver it better.

Yolanda Stewart — And so once I worked through that leadership lesson, they were very receptive when I offered…offer. Not, let me tell you what you need to do to be better. It was like, hey, this is a tool that I’ve used in the marketplace. They were amazed. They thought, does everybody in the military make decisions like this? Well no, but listen I got wind of this tool many many years ago and I thought, hey, this works. And so I used it in the marketplace. And so I offered. And, um, pastor was very receptive, very receptive. The staff was very receptive. And to this day, and that was several years ago, Rich, to this day, I smile on the inside when I hear a staff member refer to a course of action, which is, you know, elements of the decision-making model that we’ll talk about.

Rich Birch — So good.

Yolanda Stewart — But so they were very receptive. And, I was able to do a presentation to the entire staff and and all the pastors came as well. And yeah, that’s how we navigated it. I offered it, and then they accepted my offer.

Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Well, that that’s great coaching there even um and um I want to make sure we dive into the the actual framework here for a second, but I think it’s good to pause and even just talk about how how you ended up kind of rolling this out. That’s a great insight for us, kind of regardless of what we’re trying to come with as from the second seat or executive pastor, you know we’re not necessarily the lead or not the lead pastor. And so we’re trying to, to offer help and assistance in a way that, you know, that is seen as help, not like, Hey, we’re trying to come down on you and, and clip your wings or whatever.

Rich Birch — Well, talk us through the framework, help us understand ah what what is this framework that you’ve, you’ve installed that has been so helpful?

Yolanda Stewart — Yes, it’s my privilege. And I did prepare a PDF…

Rich Birch — Perfect.

Yolanda Stewart — …that you’ll be able to make available to to your listeners.

Rich Birch — Yeah, we’ll link to that in the show notes for sure.

Yolanda Stewart — One hundred percent. So, so I call it, and this is, this is something that is so ingrained in me. It’s not like I, I pull my sheet out, you know…

Rich Birch — Right.

Yolanda Stewart — …but I did my best to capture it on paper because this is just what I do. I just, you know, it’s second nature to me now. But I call it Define, Discern, and Decide.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Yolanda Stewart — And and I what I did was I, um this tool is inspired by ah the military decision-making model that I adopted from an infantry handbook, mind you.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Yolanda Stewart — I was a medical service corps officer and so they we heal them. That’s kind of just what we say in the army. But I got wind of this and and what I did was I modified it into three steps.

Yolanda Stewart — Essentially, the first step is to clearly define your your problem or your objective. And you can’t sleep on this step, Rich, because it’s anchor for the whole ah process of making a good decision. And if you’re not clear on your objective, then you risk wasting resources, missing you know the the intent of the whole conversation, if you will, hold the whole collaboration, if your objective is not clear. So you’ve got to ah do the work to, take your time, not rush through it.

Rich Birch — So good.

Yolanda Stewart — You’ve got to clearly define the objective. And the the second step that that I lay out there in the in the document that I prepared for your listeners is to clearly define the non-negotiables. Because sometimes, and this is from experience, too often, one, if you don’t clearly define the objective, and if you don’t, secondly, clearly outline the non-negotiables, then you run the risk of, you know, collaborating and getting all excited about things that your pastor is like, we’re not doing that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Yolanda Stewart — We’re we’re not doing that.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Yolanda Stewart — Now you’re frustrated because you didn’t consider what we call, and and they’ve adopted this term in in ministry at Mosaic, but we call it the commander’s intent. That’s what we call it in the military. So so you’ve got to know your pastor. You’ve got to know what has your pastor established ah that are non-negotiables or what is the ministry culture that should function as guardrails or boundaries, if you will, so that your collaboration is within the confines of the boundary that either your pastor has set or the culture has established. Does that make sense?

Rich Birch — Oh, that makes that makes total sense. I’m familiar with the commander’s intent idea, but I think that’s really good to early on, why is that immediately after the kind of the problem? So clearly understanding the problem and then next clearly identifying non-negotiables. Why what’s the interplay between those two? Why is that so important right up front?

Yolanda Stewart — Right up front, it’s important because it sets the the the the restrictions, the guardrails, the boundaries.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — If you start outside of the boundaries, you’re never…

Rich Birch — Right.

Yolanda Stewart — …going to make the the type of decisions efficiently without going back and and redoing and going back and redoing, if you don’t start with those two keys. If you don’t start with clearly defining the objective or defining the problem…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …and if you don’t, um then establish what those or identify, because they’re already established, but identify those non-negotiables, you’ve already started on the wrong foot.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — Does it make sense?

Rich Birch — Makes sense. Total sense. Yep, absolutely. For sure.

Yolanda Stewart — Yeah, and so then from there, and let me just go back just for one micro moment to talk about the non-negotiables and talk about the importance of knowing your leader. Discernment is important at all three steps. And also just, you know, discernment, not just from the standpoint of your experience, what the pastor has said, um what the culture dictates, but what is Holy Spirit saying?

Rich Birch — Very good. Very good.

Yolanda Stewart — And and and I am I am sold on the necessity of the Holy Spirit.

Rich Birch — Yeah that, which is good. That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — I’m entrenched. It’s too late to change my mind now, you know.

Rich Birch — Well, and this this, I’d love to double click on this because this will actually, you’re pre-thinking a question that’s bubbling in the back of my head, which is, I think that there can be a really beautiful coexistence of a fairly defined process, not rigid, but defined process, while at the same time, a high value on pursuing what the Holy Spirit wants to do and holding those two in harmony. I think sometimes we think, or there may be leaders who think that those are in opposed to each other.

Rich Birch — Maybe talk to a leader who who is saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m all in on the Holy Spirit, but why do if I’m all in on the Holy Spirit, why do I need to do all this other stuff? Why do I need to have this? You know, how do those two kind of coexist together?

Yolanda Stewart — That’s so that’s such a great question. It it made me think, immediately, when you began to elaborate on that question, I thought about a physician. Okay, a physician at spirit field. He still needed to go to school.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — And he had to garner the knowledge, the education that was necessary for him to perform that function. And so don’t negate the the the education that a physician and the continuing education necessary for that physician to achieve the objective.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — What the Holy Spirit does is he’s able to ah be the governor how that education is applied, how, what you do, how you do it, and leverage all that you have experienced by way of education, by way of practice and, and, and, and so on and so forth to achieve something far more than just the, the, the tangible, the, you know, the physical, you understand?

Yolanda Stewart — And so for me, I am, I am a spirit-filled Christ follower that have been called to leadership. They’re not I’m not two different people. And for me to think that I can function in excellence and please the Lord in a place where I have to choose whether I’m going to apply the Holy Spirit, give Holy Spirit access, give Holy Spirit influence, it makes absolutely, I can’t even make sense of it. It’s like, I need the Holy Spirit and I want, and I invite him to, to, to partner with me. I bring something to the table. I bring education. I bring my due diligence. I bring my experience.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And what I’m asking Holy Spirit to do is to leverage, do what only you can do…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …you know, that is bigger than me.

Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.

Yolanda Stewart — But i’m not, and so what we do, Rich, sometimes is we idolize our intelligence so much so that we diminish the necessity of the Holy Spirit.

Rich Birch — So good. So good.

Yolanda Stewart — You understand?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So good.

Yolanda Stewart — I don’t know if I answered your question.

Rich Birch — No, you did. Absolutely. No, that was super helpful. That’s that’s great. Okay. So I understand kind of commander’s intent, clearly identify the non-negotiables. Then what’s the next step in in the process? Then I want to ask a couple kind of follow-up questions.

Yolanda Stewart — Sure. And then the the final step is to begin developing the courses of action.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Yolanda Stewart — And so I do go into um more detail on the document that the tool I’ll refer to. There’s some key identifying, um excuse me, key considerations and and ah ah guiding questions that serve as just, you know, some good insight for a person that is new to this process.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — I kind of do them in my head and sometimes I will capture them on the agenda and the in the the tool that I’m using when I’m leading a meeting or leading a collaboration, but it’s develop the courses of action. And my encouragement is always, and I’ve learned this from the process, is having more than one course of action is crucial.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And so I always encourage three, but always more than two, more than one, excuse me.

Rich Birch — More than one.

Yolanda Stewart — Three ideally, but more than one, because it’ll stretch you. It’ll cause you to, it’ll force you to think outside of the box, be innovative, not get caught in this rut of this is what we’ve always done. So you, you know, you’re afraid to do new things. And that collaboration of, ah that takes place when you’re developing the courses of action. When you invite key people to the table, In collaboration, one of our core values at Mosaic is collaboration.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — The tagline to that is we refuse to do it alone.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — When you collaborate, you get access to people’s experience, you get their buy-in, and you get to leverage their insight and their innovation to help you make a good decision. But developing that course, the three courses of action, ideally three, more than one always, is is going to give you the opportunity to stretch, give you the opportunity to weigh the the pros and the cons and help you go to this through this, excuse me, critical thinking process. So when it’s all done, you’re able to identify, hey, we thought that was a good idea or a great course of action until we developed or identified the pros and the cons. And do they ah speak well to the non-negotiables? Do they marry with the commander’s intent? So now you’re able to go through these processes of of elimination. And when it’s all said and done, you’re able to land on either one course of action…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …or an amalgamation of the three to make a decision.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And man, I think that that right there is gold. I think so many times we get caught in binary thinking as church leaders. It’s like, well, we’re either going to do this or that. I love the idea of let’s force to three, or maybe more even, to try to get us to think outside the box, even if it’s at the front end seems like that’s a ridiculous, that third option is ridiculous, but let’s actually go down the course, figure it out, pull it apart. And and we might you might find some gold there that we can then apply ah you know, even to some of the others. That’s that’s fantastic.

Rich Birch — So as you’ve run this process multiple times and helped you make some decisions, could you give me an example of how this process helped you make a clearer decision that that felt like hey, we’re we’re not just reacting, we’re we’re making a better kind of long-term, you know not emotional, not necessarily opportunistic, although it it may have emotions and opportunity involved in it. But how do, give me an example of of something that you feel like, hey, this process helped make better at Mosaic.

Yolanda Stewart — Oh, that’s so good. Well, I’m in it right now.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Yolanda Stewart — And this is the the second iteration, by the way. And so so Mosaic, I’ll just preface my my example with this: Mosaic grew exponentially over the last few years.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — And when I ah ah came to Mosaic, I want to tell you that we were about 150 people.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Yolanda Stewart — We have since grown to, I think we’re around about 2,300 regular average weekly attenders.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Yolanda Stewart — That that include…

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s huge growth.

Yolanda Stewart — Yeah. And that includes around 600 or so children.

Rich Birch — Yep.

And oh there there were um areas where it’s like we we crafted, I say we, but it predated me, but we’ve crafted these narratives that we weren’t quite achieving them. So let me say say use this as an example. So our our vision mission statement, if you will, was we make disciples and we release ministers. And so here I come along and I say, well, how? How are we making disciples?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And um the answer was inadequate because the answer was we do it through connect groups. And so then here I am with myself, you know, coming along and being the challenge to to just provoke us, right?

Yolanda Stewart — I said, okay, if if if there’s if there’s a very low expectation for connect group leaders. If anyone can be a connect group leader, if you’ve been saved 20 minutes, you can be a connect group leader. Then tell me how a baby Christian who is just motivated to lead a group can be called a disciple-maker, when we have no way of of certainty that they’ve been, well, we do, but when they’ve not been discipled.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And so I said, we need to do better. So let’s come to the table and let’s talk about what we can do to raise the level of expectation, rather raise the standard for what it looks like to be a group leader. And then let’s build what I call a transformational leadership pipeline.

Rich Birch —That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — Let’s build a real process, a framework that at the end of it, we’ve got to make sure it’s simple because that’s our pastor. He’s like, look, don’t complicate stuff to where now it’s a deterrent, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — But I’m okay with it being robust enough to be effective, but it can’t be too too robust to be a deterrent for people. But I said, let’s build framework that’s simple, measurable, and meaningful so that at the end of the day, we can stand back and say, okay, we truly do…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …make disciples and release ministers. Here’s the framework that we do that. Here’s the process. It’s measurable. There’s accountability in there.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — There is benchmarks, if you will. It’s simple and achievable and effective. And so anyway, I’m in the process. And and this, I said, it’s the second iteration. We’ve already made some progress, but we’re not done yet.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Yolanda Stewart — But the culture that we’re in, I had to give my pastor time to to digest where I had already gotten us to.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And so now he’s at the place where because of my approach and you’ve got to be humble, Rich, when you’re bringing ideas that is going to shift the whole paradigm of a ministry.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Yolanda Stewart — If you come in—I learned this the hard way—if you come in with the wrong approach, it could take years for you to achieve a good momentum…

Rich Birch — that’s good

Yolanda Stewart — …you know, unnecessary delay because your approach your approach was wrong. And so I’m in the middle of taking a team of leaders that I invited to the table and we have identified our objective. Our objective is to establish a transformational leadership pipeline…

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Yolanda Stewart — …that we can roll out to group leaders and group coaches that when they are gone through this process, it’s not a transactional process, it’s a transformational process. It can’t be classroom setting.

Rich Birch — Right.

Yolanda Stewart — So we we are identifying, we identified the objective and you’ve got to do one at a time, but we identified the objective. Now we’re putting the meat on the bones…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Yolanda Stewart — …and and what I call building the gooey center…

Rich Birch — [laughs]

Yolanda Stewart — …building the gooey center…

Rich Birch — So good.

Yolanda Stewart — …so at the end of it all, we will have a framework that we have gone through this process of different courses of action and we will land on what we know is is effective, simple, measurable, and transformational.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, when you think about these steps, is there one of them that seems to be the place that things get stuck? Is it that it’s like, or or is there a common pothole with one of them that, man, we want to make sure we avoid as we think about ah these these three steps?

Yolanda Stewart — It’s step number one.

Rich Birch — Right, okay. Not being clear on what the problem is we’re trying to solve.

Yolanda Stewart — It’s not being clear on what…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Yolanda Stewart — …because it becomes emotional.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Yolanda Stewart — And you you’ve got to focus on the objective that you are trying to achieve or the problem that you’re aiming to solve, not what you feel or what you’re experiencing.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, I can see that.

Yolanda Stewart — So so that seems to be a common pothole where people get stuck.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s…

Yolanda Stewart — I’ve been stuck there before.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I can see that. Or you get it’s that whole, know, you’ve you’ve climbed up the ladder and realized the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. It’s like we’re solving a problem and get halfway there and you realize, oh, this isn’t actually the right problem to be solving. That, you know, that makes that makes a lot of sense.

Rich Birch — Well, when you think, let’s, you know, let’s think I’m maybe an executive pastor or a lead pastor that’s leading it, that’s listening in today. And they’re thinking about, Ooo there’s a decision coming up. What advice would you give them for some initial steps to try to help build a stronger alignment around maybe even understanding what that problem is? If the first if step one is the critical piece of the puzzle, how can what what advice would you give to us on defining the problems that we should even push through a process like this? How how do you how do you help us help us think through what that could look like for us?

Yolanda Stewart — That’s such a great question, Rich. Collaboration. Invite the right people to the table.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — That’s my advice. I mentioned that I started my military career as a private. If you know anything about the military, the private is the voiceless person, right? So we’re polishing pipes and doing, you know, police calling, picking up trash and things. But what I learned as a sergeant and what I learned as a cadet and what I learned as a colonel a commander, is that that private is the key to my success.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — I’m the ideator. I am the person, you know, at certain levels of leadership. Sometimes my head is is, you know, at the 30,000 foot perspective. And like I’m not aware that the the the real challenges are, you know, fill in the blank because I’m not at the execution level.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good

Yolanda Stewart — And if you don’t invite the right people to the table, then you risk, you know, the the the you you forfeit the the the beauty of their contribution and the importance of of its influence to the outcome.

Rich Birch — No, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And so my my encouragement to leaders is humble yourself, humble yourself exclamation. And look around. Refuse to do it alone. Leverage the experience, the perspective…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …of the folks who are going to be most impacted by the decision that you’re about to make. Leverage the the insight of the people who are going to be expected to execute, communicate, coordinate, if you will, the decision that you’re about to make. Invite them to the table…

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Yolanda Stewart — …so that they can get buy-in, you can get their buy-in, and you can get the benefit of their experience and their perspective. So that would be my advice.

Rich Birch — Well, Yolanda, this has been great. I can see why God is using your leadership at at Mosaic. This has been a rich conversation today. I really appreciate this. And thank you for this handout. Super helpful for ah for people. As we’re kind of coming to land the plane, anything else you’d ah you’d like to share with us today?

Yolanda Stewart — Yes, and and I want to circle back because I think, you know, what one of the things that we say at Mosaic is your spirituality is your greatest asset. And um sometimes, especially leaders at the level that I’m leading at, sometimes they come from the marketplace and they have been indoctrinated by the culture of of the secular, you know, market, if you will. And I want to just say, as as spiritual leaders, we cannot lose sight…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — …of the importance of our spirituality being the greatest influence in all of the things that we do, especially our leadership. We are being trusted to lead. We have been positioned and assigned to lead. And if we choose to do it independent of, of total dependency on the help of the Holy Spirit and our spirituality, we risk many of the, the, the what I think are counter-kingdom, counter-kingdom consequences ah in church because leaders bring secular culture into the church and and and leverage those types of things to be leaders. And we lose lose sight of servant leadership, what that really looks like.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Yolanda Stewart — And become transactional leaders, you know, disconnected versus transformational leaders.

Rich Birch — So good.

Yolanda Stewart — You know, people are used as tools and we ah we exploit people. And this just mindset from the secular world, my my encouragement would be just be careful as a leader. Don’t forget that your spirituality is your greatest asset. Bring it to the table every time, even when you’re bringing correction. You know, you should bring a basket of fruit. Galatians 2 conversations, the hard ones, you know, bring the basket of fruit and don’t lose sight that you are a disciple-maker.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.

Yolanda Stewart — Even when you’re having the hard conversations to bring corrections. So there’s good insight from the secular market. But we must not allow the secular market to influence our dependency on our spirituality to lead God’s people.

Rich Birch — Well, this has been fantastic. So helpful today. First, just want to honor you for your service. Thank you so much for what you’ve done in the military and then how you’ve brought this with such wisdom and insight and applied that to Mosaic. It’s just been fantastic. If people want to connect with the church or with you, how do how do we do that? Where can we point them online to connect with the church?

Yolanda Stewart — Yes, mosaicchurch.us is how you find us. And we are in the process of of uploading some of these tools that we are developing in-house.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Yolanda Stewart — And um I’m looking forward to the opportunity for those things to be available online as well. But just to hear some messages and just to get some inspiration, that’s how you can find us online.

Rich Birch — Love it. Great. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Thanks so much, Yolanda. I appreciate you being here today.

Yolanda Stewart — Rich, thank you so much. Bye-bye now.