The Leadership Balancing Act: Building Trust as a Middle Manager in a Large Church with Diana Rush

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Diana Rush, the Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church, a multisite church with locations in California, Nevada, and Minnesota.

Are you a middle manager in a church trying to balance the pressures from both your senior leadership and your direct reports? It’s not an easy task, but in this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, Diana Rush, Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Church, shares powerful insights that will help you manage these tensions with grace, clarity, and effectiveness.

• Balancing leadership tensions. // Mid-level leadership in churches face unique challenges leading both upward to senior leadership and downward to direct reports. Managers in these roles act as translators between vision and execution, ensuring alignment while maintaining strong relationships.
• Knowing yourself to lead effectively. // Effective leadership starts with self-awareness. Leaders must understand their own strengths and struggles before they can lead others well. If unresolved personal challenges go unchecked, they will inevitably affect team dynamics. Seek spiritual formation and growth, asking Jesus to shape your leadership approach.
• Build Trust. // Trust is a critical component of leadership, both with those above and below you in the organization. Demonstrate reliability and transparency to earn trust, ensuring that your team feels supported while also maintaining alignment with senior leadership. Advocate for your teams while effectively translating the vision and strategy from above you.
• Sell vision. // Diana believes that every leader is a “salesperson”, whether they are advocating for ideas with senior leadership or gaining buy-in from their teams. To do this effectively, leaders need to be fully committed to the church’s vision before presenting ideas. Prepare thoroughly for meetings and presentations in order to address questions and concerns while also remaining flexible and making sure people feel heard.
• Make necessary shifts. // One example of how Eastside’s leadership “sold vision” includes how the church transitioned small groups away from increased on-campus meetings to more home-based settings. Although challenging at first, this shift ultimately strengthened the church’s discipleship model, reduced complexity, and allowed for more organic community growth and campus alignment.
• Never waste a crisis. // Be transparent about metrics, as they tell a story about performance. Investigate declines to understand the underlying reasons. Encourage your team members to take ownership of their areas and conduct their own research to find solutions to problems that arise. Difficult situations are opportunities for creativity and improvement.
• One-on-one meetings. // Consistent one-on-one meetings with your direct reports are crucial for growth and alignment. Diana suggests starting with a personal connection to build trust and open the door for candid dialogue. Next, discuss their goals and any challenges they’re facing. Wrap up by leaving space for them to provide feedback to you as their supervisor.

Visit eastside.com to connect with Diana and to follow along with what Eastside Christian Church is doing.

EXTRA CREDIT // Get Your One-on-One Meeting Guide for Middle Managers

Looking to lead more effective meetings and build stronger relationships with your team? The One-on-One Meeting Guide for Middle Managers is designed to help you foster trust, improve communication, and stay aligned with your staff. Based on the insights from this episode with Diana Rush, this practical resource offers a proven structure you can use right away.

Download the guide now: Click here to access it!

This is just one of many helpful tools available through unSeminary Extra Credit—created to make your leadership easier and more effective!

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so excited that you are here today. Listen, friends, I’m excited you’re here for a couple reasons. First of all, we’re talking to a church that we’ve had multiple leaders on and who I think is is a church that all of us should be learning from. And so that’s one reason why you should lean in. But then also, we’re 800 plus episodes in and we’ve talked about a lot of different things in in leadership and local church, and I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this.

Rich Birch — When we’re today, we’ve got a real expert in this area who’s going to illuminate this for us and really help us think through these issues, particularly if you’re like an executive pastor type person, lead pastor, you’re like a manager of people, ah today is going to be super helpful for you. So lean in. We’re excited to have Diana Rush with us. She is the senior director of Build Community at Eastside Church. They’ve got, if I’m counting correctly, six campuses, four in California, one in Nevada, one in Minnesota, plus Church Online. Founded in 1962, currently pastored by ah Gene Appel. We’ve had Greg Curtis on in the past. This is a fantastic church. Diana, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Diana Rush — So glad to be with you all today.

Rich Birch — Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit more about Eastside. That’s just the kind of boilerplate stuff. Give us the kind of, you know, and tell us a little bit about your role as the Senior Director of Build Community. Tell us about that.

Diana Rush — Yeah, Eastside is just an active church on the move. Gene Appel started here about 15 years ago and it had been a thriving church for years. But when Gene came, he prayed for a fresh wind. And really, God really has delivered upon that. And each season, no matter in the pandemic or anything else, we’ve just seen God moving in miraculous ways in our church. And so in this past season, um I’ve been here about 10 years, on staff for nine. But God definitely blew my family in. And we were just just captured by the vision of this church.

Diana Rush — I did not start at Eastside with the ah the plan of working here. I just was like looking for a place to serve and a place just for God to work in my life in that season.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Diana Rush — And I actually started working or serving with the church’s social media. And in that season, I had been at a law firm for about 14 years as an office manager. So coming from more of the business side, working in the field of labor and employment law. So got to see a lot about management and when it goes bad.

Rich Birch — Nice.

Diana Rush — Right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — But then I found myself here and really feeling this call to maybe take a step out of what I had been doing and into something different. And so a door opened up and I took the first position I took here was actually the Director of Communications. So I was leading a team of creatives, definitely different than leading a team of attorneys. But I definitely have a creative bent to me. And honestly, I will just say for most things in reality, everything’s transferable from business to you know different types of teams that you lead. And especially in the realm of middle management, if you can lead people, you can lead people no matter what kind of area that you’re overseeing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — You just have to be a student of kind of the content that you’re doing. So I stepped into that role. But after a couple of years in that role, and I really felt God leading me to something different. And so I, uh, a position opened up actually working for Greg Curtis. So everybody knows if you’ve experienced this podcast, Greg is amazing. And, um…

Rich Birch — He’s fantastic. He’s great leader.

Diana Rush — Yes. And so getting to work in a season where ah Greg really became the person developing me um was just such a gift. I had never had really any public speaking experience. And so Greg kind of took me through a journey of of instructing me and really helping me develop some skills that I didn’t have. But of course, I went from a management position to non-managerial position.

Diana Rush — And then over the last several years, I’ve actually changed roles so many times. So I was the Director of Assimilation. Then I was the Director of Pastoral Care. and And then I stepped into this role, which just recently became ah was added to our senior leadership team here at Eastside. And so now I oversee several different department leads here Eastside, everything from guest services, assimilation, small groups, care and recovery, pastoral care, and our volunteer systems.

Diana Rush — And I would say i get to serve alongside some amazing folks and they do amazing work. And I just really get to be their cheerleader, the one that gets to advocate for them and just serve them and see, hey, how how does what God’s calling you and your vision for your area fit into the overall vision of Eastside?

Rich Birch — Love it.

Diana Rush — So it’s been a wild ride and um And I am at a church where I’ve been allowed to grow and step into different roles. And so I’m definitely a product of a leadership development program that is here at Eastside um that are our executive pastor really oversees. But yeah I’ve been allowed to grow and explore and do different things, which is great for me.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Diana Rush — I know a lot of people love what they do, but I’ve just really found my sweet spot. I was saying this last season of, again, stepping into that more managerial position, leading others and helping to champion them.

Rich Birch — Love it. So good. And when we were preparing for the the podcast, I loved kind of seeing your journey in so many different roles at Eastside. You’ve really seen this from a bunch of different angles. And obviously Eastside is a unique church because of its size, because of the, like it’s unique in a lot of different realms, the size that your approach to multisite, there’s lots of different ways to kind of look at this. And one of these things that we’re going we’re going to really dig in today is this whole idea of mid-level management in uh, large churches. And this, this brings some really unique complexities. And we want to unpack those for folks today.

Rich Birch — Talk to me about the tension between managing, both upwards—so like executive pastors, senior pastor—but then also downward—direct reports, campus teams. Why are there, and again, I’m sure you never have any struggles at Eastside, but why are, why do other churches struggle with that? What, why is that? Why is this a common thing that we see that’s a it’s it’s struggle? It’s hard to do that, to manage those tensions.

Diana Rush — I think some of the tension, it first starts with self. Like I always say, you have to start with you know the source material, your own person. And um before you can lead others, you have to really understand yourself and be able to lead yourself well. And so it’s really getting to know who you are, who you’re made of. You know I love the illustration of you know you have like an orange, and if an orange is squeezed from the top and bottom, it’s eventually going to burst, and what’s going to come out is orange juice. It’s the same on the outside as the inside. And oftentimes, in management roles, we are going to be squeezed from the top. We’ve got the top coming down on us. Like we’ve got goals; we’ve got things to achieve.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — We’ve got expectations. But then we’ve got the expectations of those beneath us, people that, you know, maybe they’re struggling in their own journey or whatever it is. They everyone’s wanting something from you. You’re going to get squeezed in management. And if you are presenting this like, I am perfectly okay on the outside, but I’m not letting God form me on the inside, what’s going to come out is going to be really obvious.

Diana Rush — So if you’re struggling with anger, it’s going to come out when you get squeezed. If you’re struggling with a multitude of issues, those will all reveal themselves. And so it starts really with like being good about making sure that you’re pursuing Christlikeness in your own life, that you’re actually asking, okay, Jesus, I want to lead like you led others. And I want to shepherd my teams. So I think that’s where it starts.

Diana Rush — And then ah secondly, I would say it’s about building trust, both with those above you and those below you. You know If you are known for success, people will expect success. But if you are constantly making mistakes or going outside the lines, going rogue, then you’re never going to build that trust and you’re not going to be handed, you know, things to to further your path, or even you’re just gonna feel that upward tension of being micromanaged, right? No one likes to be micromanaged…

Rich Birch — True.

Diana Rush — …but how do you get out of being micromanaged? You build trust.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — And then you have honest conversations with those above you. And so that, you know, it’s a little bit of boldness as well. You have to not be afraid to ask hard questions.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — But again, when you have a trust in a relationship, I know for myself, I can talk to my executive pastor, who I report to, about nearly anything because we have this trust that we’ve built. Even before I started in this role reporting to him, I had already had an existing relationship with him where I felt like I could go to him if I had questions, concerns.

Diana Rush — So I’ve been building that trust even before I stepped into this role. And then the same thing with the staff below you. You know, my team trusts that I’m going to advocate for them, that I’m not going to overstep them, that I’m going to let them lead and them shine. And so we can work together to make something great, you know, make their plans into realities because I’m going to sell it. I look at myself, male management, I’m a salesperson. I’m going to take their ideas And then I’m going to sell it upwards, you know, and I’m going to craft it into something so that I can, you know, convince everybody else that this is a great idea and we should try it out.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Diana Rush — So…

Rich Birch — Let’s let’s double click on that idea of the salesperson, because you you captured their attention that I’ve seen, I’ve been in, I have felt as a leader in this kind of middle management, is like my senior pastor, the folks the person that’s leading the organization, they um they’re getting filtered information and its frank frankly, it’s being filtered by me. I’m you know I’m telling them, this is what we see happening. Here’s what’s going on.

Rich Birch — Now, vice versa, the people who report to me, I’m filtering what my senior my senior pastor would like them to do. And I’m helping kind of translate the the vision of the church. I’m leading at the vision at the intersection of vision and execution. So like I’m trying to translate that. If I’m just selling, there’s ah there’s an opportunity there to to break trust because it could be like, I’m gonna just send, it’s all rainbows going up, rainbows and unicorns, everything’s amazing, everything’s going great. I tell my senior leader that.

Rich Birch — And then vice versa, I am you know can just report all good news to buy my direct reports. How do I avoid that tension and make sure that the true information, that good feedback’s building, that we’re building trust, and that it’s built on, yeah, actually care for each other and reality, not just kind of what everybody wants to hear, which I think is a tension in these middle mid-level roles.

Diana Rush — Yeah. So I’m just going to say: unpopular opinion, but we’re all in sales.

Rich Birch — Yes. I love it.

Diana Rush — And that’s just reality.

Rich Birch — Yes. True. That’s true.

Diana Rush — We’re all selling something, whether you’re selling an idea or yourself. But I think, A, you have to be 100% sold out for the vision.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — So we’ve got the best product on earth, right? We are, you know, we we’re representing Jesus. We’re representing eternal life and transformation and the hope that you can only find in Christ. And so right there, as long as your heart is connected to the vision of your senior pastor, it’s like, that’s not that difficult. Now, when you are presenting ideas, whether it’s a vision that your senior pastor is saying, hey, I have this idea of something I want to do. You have to first wrap your mind around it. You have to get in with the vision. But it’s okay, in my opinion, no matter which way you’re going, to plant a naysayer. You have to think through all the all the complaints that might come or all the that people will, but what about this?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — And so you have to be willing to prepare. And so honestly, I prepare for any presentation or any conversation, probably a little too much.

Rich Birch — Good.

Diana Rush — I would say one of my my top strength finder is communication. And so for me, it’s just a natural thing that I talk my way through any scenario and any conversation. But it does allow me to walk into any situation prepared to explain.

Diana Rush — So whether it’s, you know, Gene Appel, my senior pastor has an idea for an all churchwide initiative that we’re going to be doing. We’re actually doing it right now. And I’m going to be leading teams for this. I have to think, okay, well, what are all the pitfalls? What are the things that are going to cost us time?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — What are the the but the negotiating tactics I need to have? So if I need my entire staff to now show up on a Wednesday night, what am I going to have to give them in return? And, you know, where can I give them space in their schedule so that they’re excited to be here and they don’t feel like it’s a burden?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — And so, you know, it’s that way I’m selling it. But then, you know, maybe Greg Curtis has an idea. He wants to get rid of our four week next steps program and move to one one week.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Diana Rush — First step. And so he’s going to change our entire assimilation program. Well, I I mean, for something like that, you have to really get prepared because I know I’m about to take a group of people on a journey who aren’t there with us already.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — I’m going to have to help some people who have long held, um you know, sacred cows, “well, we’ve always done this way”…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — …and release it. And so honestly, it’s in your prep work, but it’s in your constant communication.

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

Diana Rush — You have to, again, you have to be sold out and believe in what the person wants and have those those questions. I mean, Greg and I, we would sit in my office and talk over and over and over again about what changes he was going to make because I have to be prepared for any questions…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — …from the executive pastor, senior pastor, even you know our director of you know ah finance. All these roles, I have to be able to go in and say, you know that’s a really good question and let’s process that together. And it’s never, and you as a salesperson or just anyone in leadership, you never want to have a hard no, and you never want to be unbending. You want to be flexible.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.

Diana Rush — And be able to receive the feedback and then say, okay, that’s you know that’s a really good thought. And you want to make the person feel heard at all times because that’s part of the process. It’s it’s never a hard line. It’s never, you have to do this. It’s let’s talk about this. Let’s make it a conversation.

Diana Rush — Because I want I want senior leadership, but I also want those reporting to me to have ownership over any idea…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — …and any direction that we go, which means I have to let them speak into the plan and speak into that the idea so that they do feel that sense of like, okay, I can be a part of this. I can do this. And I think this is going to be a success.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So can we talk, this is slightly different direction now. So one of the things that’s interesting about your, about Eastside is just very different size of campuses, ah different locations, different time zones. How are you developing systems communication approaches within your area that can scale and build trust, you know, yeah, across the different, all the variety of locations that you’ve got. What does that look like for you at Eastside?

Diana Rush —Yeah. You know, scalable ministry is difficult when you’re thinking about, I’ve got a congregation of 300 and I’ve got a congregation of 8,000.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — How do I make it work across the board? And for Eastside, we would say that we’re more of a franchise model. So we’re going to do the same thing everywhere. We follow the same message series. If we’re doing a small group in our Anaheim campus, we’re doing it in our Minnesota campus.

Diana Rush — And so we have to create systems and processes around that. So it starts with, you know, really simplifying things. I think that is key for us.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — It’s we don’t want to do too much. We don’t want to overcomplicate things. So we don’t have a women’s and men’s ministry. We don’t have all these extra things. We do small groups. That is our ministry as, you know, as it happens.

Rich Birch —That’s good.

Diana Rush — And we do, you know, you can have small groups, for about just anything. So we really put that in the hands of our leaders, which makes it easy and transferable for any campus size. But we also do larger on-campus experiences that we we come together and we all do the same thing.

Diana Rush — And I mean, we go as far as, okay, everyone’s gonna do this. We’re all going to do it on Wednesday night at 6.30 p.m. And we’re all having childcare. Because if we align every campus on something, then our senior pastor, or whoever’s on the stage, can talk about it centrally. Then that really simplifies our communication to the congregation, but also to the staff.

Diana Rush — It also saves a central team, which is what I lead, um from having to create lots of versions of the same thing, because we’re saying, okay, we’re all going to do the same thing. But again, it comes back to this trust. I have to be working with campus pastors and campus teams to making sure that we understand their needs at the campus. And so that for the congregation of 300, that’s going to have 50 people in a small group, um that they can run the same play as we’re going to have, you know, 600 people in a small group over here. And so what does that look like and making sure that it’s easy. And so technology is a big part of this for us.

Rich Birch — It helps for sure.

Diana Rush — And so it’s really being on the forefront of what is out there that can simplify this…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — …that can deliver content in real time to campuses. And so, you know, our our creative teams are working on this constantly, but even in the area of discipleship, we’re working on this as well.

Diana Rush — And so we’re creating, you know, I’m going to create a script that everyone’s going to use. I’m going to create a slide deck that is simplified that a volunteer can use it, but also an expert communicator can use it as well. That just really lays out for them.

Diana Rush — We do a lot of video content because then the content is provided. You’re not asking too much of a campus team. And then ultimately the feedback loop is so big in our organization. We have regular meetings where we have our central team and our campus teams coming together to run the play. But we also, you know and like I said, we keep it simple. So you’re not going to come to Eastside and be like, oh, this weekend they did this and next weekend and it was very different.

Rich Birch — Good.

Diana Rush — No, we’re running the same play over and over and over again. And we’ll do that until, you know, it kind of doesn’t work anymore. Like I said, we changed our assimilation program. It wasn’t working for us anymore. And so we went through about a year long process in strategizing what it was going to look like, laying out the plans, communicating to campus teams, equipping our volunteers until that was ultimately unveiled.

Diana Rush — Because we want our changemakers—and we have a small staff—and so our volunteers, which we call changemakers, we have to make sure that they’re bought in. It’s not just about the staff for us, it’s about bringing in ah volunteers as well.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — So we have a strategic planning process that we do twice a year where we plan six months in advance. And it essentially starts with ah you know coming together, senior leadership team and campus pastors, presenting plans, getting feedback, having plans challenged, being okay with your plans being challenged.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — And then once those plans are solidified, we then kind of unveil the six months to the staff.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Diana Rush — And then after it’s unveiled to the staff, then it starts trickling down into our volunteer teams. But then it really creates this okay everyone knows the plan. We create kind of how that plan’s going to work, how it’s going to play out everywhere. We stick to the plan and we run the play. And so centrally we’re coming up with executable plans so that the campuses can execute it. We try to never over complicate it but again it is all about simplification. How can I make it simple enough that I can have it scaled no matter what the size?

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I want to double click on this idea of simplicity and alignment because that, for friends that are listening in, like man, this is so critical. As a church grows, we it can naturally drift towards complexity. If we and and here you have a senior leader the top, you know, at top of a very large organization who’s, who’s driving towards simplicity and alignment.

Rich Birch — Can you give us a real world example of maybe an area that has naturally drifted towards complexity, that as an organization, you’ve had to push back towards, no, actually we’re going to do it more simply and to to ultimately to try to drive towards more alignment across our locations. Because what we’re seeing with multi-site church is exactly what you’re describing, those churches that are more aligned, this model is working better for them. The more that we can get alignment, the more that we see these churches succeeding and reaching more people. So what’s an area that you’ve seen, it’s kind of naturally wanted to become more complex, but you’ve had to make it more simple.

Diana Rush — Yeah, I have an immediate one that comes to mind, and that really is our small groups model.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — Like I said, we try to keep it pretty simple…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — …but over time, ah we had seen that our campuses were adding all these additional groups on campus. We’ve got a people of the word group that meets on Thursday mornings. And then we’ve got this group on Thursday nights. We’ve got, you know, oh, this was a nice to have. And so it’s like all all of a sudden we’re creating ministries where we don’t normally do that. And and we’re having all this additional activity on a campus.

Diana Rush — So for us, a campus staff is maybe four people, six people, and they have a small staff. So you you can imagine they’re doing their normal daily work to prepare for the weekend. Then now they’ve got all this campus activity happening in the evenings.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — We’ve got to do set up, tear down. There’s a lot of costs, not just financial costs, but also, you know, person cost when it comes to all these additional things. And so we had seen that we’d kind of grown into all these extra activities happening on campus.

Diana Rush — And we sat down in one of those six-month planning meetings and had a really honest discussion of, okay, we’ve drifted away from our small group model and we’ve added all of these things, which has kind of chained us to not being able to develop something that we think strategically would work better at campuses. And so we decided that we were going to have all of these on-campus groups go away.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Diana Rush — We the only thing that we kept was a couple of our Friday night care groups. We do regeneration. We also do divorce care, grief share. So we were gonna keep those, but we were gonna go through a six month period of slowly having conversations with these group leaders, reminding them of the vision of Eastside. And our vision is for our small groups to meet in homes and to be out in the community and not have Eastsiders have to come here on campus, but to really establish these small groups in homes where they can invite their friends, their neighbors.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — Again, it’s part of ah an evangelistic view of small groups. And so ah we spent weeks having very difficult conversations at multiple of our campuses that had drifted. And they, some of them were hard conversations. But honestly, most of them, and this is the reality of God going before you. Most of them were great conversations where you were just recapturing the vision.

Rich Birch — Good.

Diana Rush — And these leaders, even though they were sad that their group wasn’t going to be able to meet on campus, that they were going to have to find a solution that they realized, this is the right move. And I understand the decision.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — I trust leadership. That was the thing I heard over and over again. Our small group leaders trusted the leadership. And so they were okay with the move. And I’ll be honest, it was a very, very hard season of working with these groups, helping them define solutions.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — And we did see an immediate decline in our group attendance numbers. But, what it opened the door to is what we’re doing now, which we do now on-campus group launches that are aligned across all campuses at the same time with child care. And it’s providing new people an opportunity to find informed community in a very well-crafted small group and you know way, that we do kind of together around tables.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — And then the goal is that they launch as a table after five weeks or however long we deem the group launch to be, they launch then into an off-campus group. And we’ve had great success with that. And we’ve actually seen, you know, small groups growth in the correct direction. Instead of just saying we’re going to do all sorts of on-campus activity. No, we’re launching groups into home groups, into coffee shop groups, into community groups, into even serving groups, groups that are serving in our community.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Diana Rush — And so that was, you know, it was short-term pain for long-term gain.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.

Diana Rush — That’s what I will say. And, and we are experiencing, honestly, where we just launched our groups last night on campus.

Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Yeah.

Diana Rush — And this is the largest group launch we’ve ever had ah in our history of our church. We’ve had at this point over 1,500 people signing up for groups in this season. That doesn’t even include the people that were already in groups.

Rich Birch — Right, right. Wow. That’s great.

Diana Rush — But because we went through that process of really simplifying, of aligning at every campus, it opened the door for us to be able to do something like this that gets now our whole congregation aligned. And we’re asking our congregation to do one thing – we just want you to sign up for what we’re calling a New Testament challenge group.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — And the path is super clear for people. So they’ve just said, all right, that’s what we’re all doing. We’re going to, we’re going to do it together.

Rich Birch — You’re doing it. Yeah, that’s great.

Rich Birch — So good. Yeah, I think that’s incredibly important, particularly in this kind of mid-level manager role, because I think that is where complexity comes in. It’s like, because we hear everybody everybody’s good ideas and it’s our job to try to compress and say, no, we’ve got to get to more simplicity.

Rich Birch — Kind of embedded in what you were talking about there is there must be times when things don’t go well, where it’s like people in your area, it’s like you’re trying something, it’s not working. This isn’t, you know, this isn’t happening well.

Rich Birch — How do you how do you balance that with the sales? And I agree with you that we’re all in sales. How do you balance that with always being positive, trying to sell things? How do you talk about stuff when it goes sideways? Or maybe the flip side, how do you talk about stuff when things go well in your area? What are some tips you could give us for middle-level managers as we’re you know as we’re publicly kind of interacting about areas or things in our area with other people in the organization?

Diana Rush — So I’m definitely a numbers and spreadsheet person. It’s just natural bend for me. But the reality is for us in church, our metrics, they tell a story.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — They they tell us how we’re doing. And so being able to say “we’re going to measure things” is really important.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — But that’s really my key indicator for how things are going. And it does take a lot of time to track down numbers, to track down trends, to see, okay, how have we performed you know over the last 10 years in this area? What did it look like pre-pandemic? How has it looked post-pandemic? And then you start letting the numbers tell the story.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — Honestly, if you’re like, if your numbers are going great, that’s like a celebratory moment. But if you’re like, gosh, like we wanted to hit this number and we’re seeing a decline in this area, it it immediately opens up the question of, hey, you know, I’m noticing this.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — What’s the story here? Can you start doing research? And so usually what I do, if it’s, you know, a number from one of the ministries that I oversee, I want that leader to go and do the fact finding for me.

Rich Birch — Good.

Diana Rush — I’m not going to start digging into their area. I want them to tell me the story. I want them because I first, I need them to see like, oh yeah, I need to do something different.

Diana Rush — And um I just was thinking about, we were over budget in an area severely. And so I had to put it to the leader and say, hey, I need us to figure out a solution long-term because this is costing us more and more. It was guest leads. We were paying about $10 per guest lead, way over budget.

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — And so I put it out to our director of guest services and she went through a research period. She came up with a solution and, um, and it’s been great. We’re now at $2 per guest. We have more guests than ever. And yet it’s costing us less. So she was able to work through slow work through some problems and get a solution. But ultimately, it was like a tough conversation of saying, like we can’t keep overspending on the budget. We have to be stewards of our finances.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Diana Rush — And honestly, when ah any and time it’s connected to a dollar amount, that’s like some of the hardest conversations.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — Nobody wants to hear, like I need you to trim your budget.

Rich Birch — Yes. Right.

Diana Rush — But, you know, any of those situations, whether it is ministry is not going well, it it opens the door to what I would say, I call it a crisis. And I always tell my team, never waste a crisis because that’s where your creativity is going to come into play.

Rich Birch —Oh, that’s good.

Diana Rush — You’re going to be able to take a fresh look at something and say, this isn’t working. So is it a dial turn or do I need to completely refresh it? And so knowing, but knowing the end goal, and having established goals for where we want every campus and every ministry to perform really does help because that points us towards a target. And if we’re not hitting that target, they know, you know, we don’t hide metrics from anybody. The staff knows where we’re doing. They know where they’re at. And we’re always having key conversations.

Diana Rush — And you know I think those conversations ongoing are really important kind of in the middle management stage because I have one-on-ones with my team members regularly. So we’re constantly dialoguing. We’re constantly looking at where we’re going. We’re looking at not only their ministry goals, but their personal goals. Each one of them has six goals for every six months. And so we’re looking at those, evaluating how they’re doing. And so it’s an open conversation.

Diana Rush — That, you know, it doesn’t feel like I’m pressuring them or I’m putting you know the fire under them because it’s just a dialogue. And I they know that I’m a champion for them, that I want the best for them and their area, that I want them to win and see you know be the successful leader that I know they are. And so when something’s not working, it’s not like I’m not going to come down on them.

Diana Rush — And, you know, I have different types of leaders that serve on our team. And some of them really are perfectionists. And they’ll be like coming into my office. Oh, my gosh. Like, I’m so sorry. And I always I jokingly ask two questions. I say, did somebody die?

Rich Birch — Right.

Diana Rush — Now, I do oversee pastoral care, which is funerals. So sometimes somebody did die.

Rich Birch — Yes, sometimes that does happen.

Diana Rush — But my second question is, is someone going to lose their salvation? No. Okay, let’s work through a creative solution. And so they know, like, we’re not going to like freak out. We’re not going to come down on them. You know, nobody’s losing their job. We’re just going to be talking through, okay, well, what’s the next step that you want to do and get creative?

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good.

Diana Rush — Nothing’s off the table. And let’s brainstorm. Let’s come up with a solution together. And I think, you know, it makes those hard conversations easier because it’s an ongoing conversation. It’s never a surprise.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — I’m really big on, I don’t like surprises. I don’t like to be surprised and I don’t like to surprise my team. And so we’re going to constantly be looking at where we’re at, how we’re doing and how can we make the turn so that we can get where we want to be.

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. So good. Can we double click just even quickly on the one-on-one conversation piece? That’s a key piece of the the puzzle here for middle managers. How often, how long, what’s the cadence look like? Who sets the agenda? What’s your kind of, what happens in ah in an ideal one-on-one? You walk out and you think, okay, that’s gold star. We did exactly what we should do. Talk to us about that a little bit.

Diana Rush — Yeah. So, I mean, it’s a little flexible depending on the person. I have two former senior pastors that report to me, Greg Curtis being one of them.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — And um and so, you know, for those two, ah we do it every other week and we go a little longer. I have I give a little more space for them because we’re not going to meet as often…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — …but we get more into deep discussions. And um and so but then I have a other staff members who are more, you know, we’ve got weekly execution things that are happening, faster moving ministries, or if I’m intentionally seeing someone on my team that I really want, I really want them to be developed. And so they’re more of like an investment. Then it’s going to be every week. And it might be 30 minutes. Sometimes we might go longer. Sometimes they are going to be like, hey, I just need a little more time with you today.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Diana Rush — Or can I pop in again later in the week? Absolutely. I try to also make sure I walk around to their offices and I’m touching base with them during the week as well. But really, a one-on-one, I like to start with more of like care connection. How are you doing?

Rich Birch — Yep. Right.

Diana Rush — Because honestly, we are called first to shepherd and and pastor and love these people. They God has put them in our care to steward their giftings and their call. And so I want to find out where they’re at, what they’re experiencing in their life. And so connection, you know, and sometimes maybe we take too much time with that. Maybe we just start, you know, going on a rabbit trail, talking about life or our kids or whatever’s going on. But I do think that’s like a really important part because if you know a person really at like who they are, their soul…

Rich Birch — 100%. Yeah.

Diana Rush — …then it opens the door to so much more.

Rich Birch — Definitely.

Diana Rush — And so like you go from care connection into more of like coaching. Okay, let’s start looking at where you’re at. Maybe you’re going to look at your goals or what’s going on in their ministry area. What are the challenges they’re facing? What are some things that I’m seeing? That’s when you would have those hard conversations of like, hey, let’s talk about your budget, where you’re at, or I’ve noticed, you know, this campus isn’t hitting the numbers that we were hoping for. Can you maybe work with that that campus team to see what’s going on there? And those kind of conversations.

Diana Rush — And then ultimately, we like to end with time of feedback.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — Okay, what are some feedback that um that you need to give me as a supervisor, right? We don’t want to just be speaking at people, we want them to feel like they’re invited into this conversation. So what’s some feedback you have for me? You know, sometimes you really want to lean into it. How can I be leading you better in this season?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Diana Rush — But then but then also, OK, I have some feedback that I need to give to you. Maybe there was an interaction that didn’t go so well with them and a campus team member. And and you’re hearing about it so you’re like wanting to help them navigate that situation. But ultimately, you know, depending on how it ends, sometimes it’s just like, okay, great meeting. That’s great. Let’s, you know, we continue on with it. We’ve got our action items that we walk away with. Other times it’s, if you’ve had a hard time, let’s let’s just close in prayer…

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Diana Rush — …ah you know, because ah we need to, we need to just like pray over this and see what God’s going to do next. And also, because you want to, ultimately, you are building a relationship in these one-on-ones…

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Diana Rush — …at all times. And so you want to make sure that you’re preserving that relationship. Again, always going back to that trust. You are constantly building trust with team members so they know they can talk to you. They can come to you. They can be honest with you.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s so good. This fantastic. Super helpful. We’ve, there’s a lot we could talk about and um that you’ve been super helpful today as we’ve really tried to wrestle through this issue.I’m I’m thankful that you’ve been here. Just as we’re kind of starting to land the episode, land the plane. What, anything else you’d love to say that we should be thinking about from a mid-level management point of view, any kind of final tips that you’d have us wrestle with?

Diana Rush — You know, I would just say no matter where you’re at on an org chart, I I think that you are you know called to first really be that person that God’s formed you to be.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — But then also stewarding those gifts in in everybody. You know, as church leaders, it’s a unique position that we’ve been put in. And your congregation, but also the staff, you know your staff teams are gonna be looking at you differently because you are in this position of power. And so do not waste that, and do not look at yourself as the boss if you get elevated into that leadership role. But constantly, it’s it’s keeping that heart check ah throughout because we’ve seen so many leaders that have this problem with power, right?

Diana Rush — Every bad church headline, it starts with a leader who moved into management, whether upper, mid, and they started misusing that power that they were given. And so, and they started, they started misusing their position in the organization. And so just remember, like, that’s my best advice is like, be the leader God’s called you to be.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — Try to model what Jesus modeled. And honestly, we just have to go to the source. We just need to look and see how Jesus led his disciples…

Rich Birch — So good.

Diana Rush — …how he could have done, you know, he could have said and done anything he wanted to, but what did he do? He washed his disciples’ feet.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.

Diana Rush — And so that’s the last call.

Rich Birch — So good. Diana, this has been so good. So great. Great conversation today. Super helpful. If we want to send people online to connect with the church or to connect with you, where do we want to send them to to track along with what’s going on?

Diana Rush — Yeah, I I have nothing to sell you. So I’m just here. But you can go to Eastside.com is our church website.

Rich Birch — Yes. Love it. Perfect.

Diana Rush — And if you want to reach out to any of our our leaders here, you can go to hello@eastside.com. That’s a great email address. And our ah team will connect you.

Rich Birch — Perfect.

Diana Rush — We’re very open. Our staff is very empowered to sharing our ideas, our experience with other churches. Gene Appel, our senior pastor, he models that. He’s always out there sharing with other senior leaders. And so we’re also empowered to do the same thing. You could follow me on social media, but I’ll probably be posting about like my kids and my coffee life.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s real good.

Diana Rush — So it’s probably really boring content. I wouldn’t suggest that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Diana, I really appreciate you. Say hi to Greg for us.

Diana Rush — I will.

Rich Birch — And appreciate what you’re doing at Eastside. Love what you guys are up to. So thanks so much. Thanks for being here today.

Diana Rush — Alright. Thank you.