5 Leadership Questions Podcast on Church Leadership with Todd Adkins and Dan Iten

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Dan Iten are joined by Rusty George who serves as the Lead Pastor at Real Life Church in Southern California, a multi-site church with campuses in Canyon Country, Lancaster, Simi Valley, Valencia, and a large online community. In this episode, they discuss who Rusty is learning from currently, where his leadership emphasis is focused, how Rusty deals with crisis within his church community, and how to stick with a long-term strategy for church leadership. BEST QUOTES “It's mind blowing the value of putting constraints on your brainstorming because we've all been taught to think of hypotheticals like, ‘what could you do if you had no budget?’ But that doesn't help you.” – Rusty George “There's always a new strategy out there and there's always a new idea out there. So just stick with one for at least maybe six weeks to three months, 90 days or so. And if it's not working for you, then try something else. But you got to give it a go in order to see if it's if it's going to work. Strategies only work if you if you put the effort in.” – Rusty George “I spent so many years reading books, going to conferences, interviewing pastors, looking for the one thing that makes churches grow. And it really is about context. It's about gifting. It's about right person, right place, right time, and it's different for everybody. So, I would spend years in Kentucky trying to adopt models from Seattle and that didn't work. Or I would spend years in California trying to adopt models from Kentucky and that didn't work. The notion that there's a silver bullet that works for everybody is just ridiculous.” – Rusty George “Have a clear finish line to the day. When am I done? When's my finish line? Then what I'll do is drive to a gym, exercise and listen to a sports podcast that has nothing to do with church, or my soul or anything like that. But it feeds my soul because it's disconnecting. And then when I get home, I feel like I'm relaxed, ready for my family and for whatever my wife has planned for me.” – Rusty George “As my kids have gotten older, parenting has become more like coaching. It's a lot more question asking like, ‘what do you think about that? Is that a wise thing to do? Where's that going to take you?’ I think a lot of it is just helping them process stuff rather than giving them a hard yes or no.” – Rusty George RECOMMENDED RESOURCES The Beautiful Restraint by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden Leading Through Crisis (Digital Course) by Rusty George

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Collin Hansen who serves as the vice president for content and editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition. They discuss his new autobiography on Pastor Timothy Keller which focused on his intellectual and spiritual formation. Collin shares about Keller's early years, the influential relationships that made him who is he today, the church where he learned to care for souls, and the city that lifted him to the international fame he never wanted. BEST QUOTES “When you're learning from Tim Keller, you're actually learning from dozens of other people. You're learning from all of those who have influenced him.” – Collin Hansen “Everything Tim writes about the power transformative power of grace, that's based on his experience with Jesus.” – Collin Hansen Tim often says, “When we preach what Jesus preached, we should be seeing a response from the people who responded to Jesus. But if our churches are not and they don't have anybody like those people who are attracted to Jesus, maybe we're not preaching the same message that he did.” – Collin Hansen “The clear testimony from every single one of their family and friends is that really you're just not understanding Tim Keller unless you understand his biggest influence, which is certainly his wife, Kathy.” – Collin Hansen “One of the things that I took away from this book was how Tim continued to grow and develop and continues to this day to develop as like rings on a tree. A lot of people seem to develop their belief system, their theological perspective, or their businesses, like fads. It's like a lily pad theology where they are jumping from one thing to another and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of coherence to it. While Keller’s is like rings on a tree starting from that essential conversion experience, he has through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship in 1970. That never changes the theological beliefs. He develops as a student especially in seminary, but it doesn’t really change for his whole life. But he continues to grow.” – Collin Hansen “Tim is an excellent leader in terms of casting a compelling vision that that people will get excited about, they'll understand, and they'll want to follow.” – Collin Hansen “I have spent my career 20 plus years working with a lot of the most effective leaders in the church, and not one single one of them or anybody I've met is good at everything. So, we shouldn't pretend otherwise.” – Collin Hansen “Tim has always overworked. It's been one of his besetting sins. The cancer freed him up for the first time in 50 years, essentially to do what he wanted to do and not what he didn't have to do.” – Collin Hansen RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Dave Milam who serves as the Vice President of Strategic Design at Visioneering Studios. With over 20 years of experience serving churches as well as non-profits, Dave brings a vast level of experience when it comes to helping people create places that not only look visually appealing design-wise but also educates on how your building can communicate your unique vision and story. They also discuss the unique challenges facing churches today when it comes to utilizing their meeting spaces and Dave shares how church leaders can take their space from where they are to where they want to be. BEST QUOTES “You should be able to look at a church and tell what they value. But you can also look at the building and know what they’re trying to value.” – Dave Milam “I think the things that the American church values right now is very different than what we valued 20 years ago. The buildings we’re living in right now were created 20 years ago. There is this tension that we’re wrestling with where 20 years ago, we valued the Sunday morning experience where everybody came in and the building was designed to flip services so seats would be opened back up and parking spaces would free up as well.” – Dave Milam “We're great at saying stuff. But eventually you have to deliver on the dream that you just presented. It's great to say this is our value, but how does that value live itself out in the environment and the hallways?” – Dave Milam “A lot of churches are being very intentional about meeting places for conversation to take place. They usually have space for kids, they have the space for seating in the auditorium, but where are the people going to pause and have a 15-minute conversation? We want those to happen because if they can have those conversations, they are more likely to connect to a small group or go grab lunch with somebody. At that point, they are engaging with the church.” – Dave Milam “If you look at the most engaging environments in your community, a lot of times they have great engaging outdoor spaces. Whether it’s the restaurants with the outdoor porch or the coffee shop, they are intentional about what’s happening between the parking lot and the building. Those spaces, believe it or not, per square foot amount of money it takes to build those spaces are super small compared to the cost of building a new building. Double your lobby by being intentional about outdoor spaces.” – Dave Milam “One of the critical mistakes that we see lots of churches across the country making is that they have their building, and they're like, there's no possible way that this building could be cool or functional. So, their initial gut reaction is to build new, start over, and trash the whole thing. My favorite projects are the ones where we have limitations, and we get to create great space out of current constraints. Those end up being the coolest and most unique places.” – Dave Milam RECOMMENDED RESOURCES A Beautiful Constraint by Mark Barden and Adam Morgan Visioneering Studios

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Jason Thacker who serves as the Chair of Research in Technology Ethics and is also the Director of the Research Institute at ERLC (The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission) of the Southern Baptist Convention. They discuss how technology is shaping our walk with Christ and how we as church leaders can navigate the most difficult aspects of our digital culture including the rise of misinformation, conspiracy theories, social media, and polarization. BEST QUOTES “One of the primary disciplers of your people is actually their smartphone.” – Jason Thacker “While we think we can disconnect, we really can't in some sense. A lot of it doesn't come down to is it just bad or good because I think both of those options fail to describe what technology really is. It is a good gift from God that we can use it in good and bad ways. However, it is something that is shaping and forming us so it’s not as neutral as we’d like to think that it is.” – Jason Thacker “While we want a quick fix or a checklist of 5 things that we can do to write off our relationship with technology, we need to start thinking from a biblical and ethical perspective. We need to realize that these bad habits didn’t form overnight. Likewise, good habits aren't going to be formed overnight either. It's going to take time, wisdom, discernment, and intentionality.” – Jason Thacker “Technology is causing us to go faster, faster, faster. We find that everything has to be more efficient, more convenient, more and more and more. Sometimes stepping back and slowing down is what causes us to build better habits and patterns in our life that can help us see wisely and discerningly about what technology is, but also how it's forming and shaping us. Particularly, how it's forming and shaping our people.” – Jason Thacker “Technology is not merely a tool, it's actually something much larger than that that is shaping and forming us as people.” – Jason Thacker “A lot of things we see online are being shaped, formed, and curated just for us. They’re personalized to us and so I think we need to recognize that every time we go online. These things may or may not be true but they’re often fed or shown to us for a particular purpose and a particular reason.” – Jason Thacker “One of the ways we are conformed to this world today in our digital age is through the use of technology. What we need to do as Christians is to be seek to be transformed by the renewal of our mind by the renewal of the Holy Spirit as we seek to walk with wisdom and discernment in our digital age.” – Jason Thacker RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Following Jesus in a Digital Age by Jason Thacker The Life We’re Looking For by Andy Crouch God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by former co-host Barnabas Piper who is an author, speaker, and an assistant pastor at Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. During the conversation, they discuss how to decide if and when you should go to seminary, how to facilitate community in your church, and how wisdom comes through time and intentional learning.  BEST QUOTES “The decision whether to go to seminary is a case-by-case decision.”  “When it comes to the decision about seminary, look for a setting that will help you in your ministry context.”  “When you go to seminary, go to get. Don’t just go to look around.”  “People are stickier than your preaching.”  “They would send 20-year olds to war, but you had to be 30-year olds to care for the holy items in the tabernacle. ”  “Wisdom comes with time and intentional learning.”  RECOMMENDED RESOURCES The Happy Rant Book  Belong by Barnabas Piper

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Dan Iten are joined by Todd Unzicker, executive director of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, where we discuss why churches should partner with networks, conventions, or denominations.  BEST QUOTES You have not because you ask not.  If the churches is God’s plan A, the church is the bride of Christ, North Carolina Baptists, we are like the bridesmaid, and we can just be off the side. We are there to support you in what you’re doing to magnify a coming Jesus. Our measuring stick is not how big our budget with NC Baptists is, our measuring stick is – what are churches doing to replicate themselves, to advance the gospel globally, and to provide help for the hurting locally. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES https://ncbaptist.org/

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Dan Iten are joined by Dr. Warren Bird, author, writer, and researcher of churches. During this conversation, they discuss Dr. Bird’s new research titled “The New Faces of Church Planting and Multisiting” BEST QUOTES 1) The future will be…more evangelistic. 97% said they started their new church to reach people with Jesus’ gospel 2) The future will be…more multiracial. If you want your church, if you believe God wants your church, to look like Revelation 5:9 where every tongue, every tribe, every people, every nation is worshiping together, praising the name of Jesus, then it’s a matter of intentionality at every size church, every race of leader, every different type of neighborhood, is able to develop a multiracial church. 3) The future will have…more mergers and restarts. Of church planters who end up with a building, one in five got their building through a church rebirthing, merging or restarting under them. Of multisite churches, 41% of their campuses came by way of merger. 4) The Future will have…multiplication. 5) The future will have…financial collaboration. Where the vision is - money follows. Where the spiritual fruit is, the money lines up. When people see life changes happen because of their finance, they find ways to give more money because it thrills them. 6) The future will be…more resilient. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES ECFA.org/research Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Dan Iten are joined by Steve Gatena who is an Entrepreneur and the founder of Pray.com, the world's #1 app for daily prayer and faith-based audio content. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pray.com

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Trevin Wax who is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Wheaton College. During this conversation, they discuss how to interact and engage with culture. BEST QUOTES  "You have to figure out what your town and local culture is like.” “Theologians have said you want to read the Bible and the newspaper. We want to see how it relates to our current context.” “If we aren’t having conversations about culture issues, you better believe the world is.” “One of the real temptations is you become a pundit, not a pastor.” “As pastors, you need to know your sheep.” “If you ask, people will tell you the areas that need focus in the community.” “We always tried to have a reputation that this church came here to serve us, not save us.” “Service can be the platform for sharing the gospel.”  RECOMMENDED RESOURCES ArcGIS

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Ron Edmondson who is the Senior Pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, KY. During this conversation, they discuss the role of interim pastor in churches and how they are successful. BEST QUOTES  “Every church is going to face a time where there is an interim pastor, a period between one pastor and the next pastor.” “Every pastor needs to think with the end in mind. Always be asking yourself what is going to happen when you leave?” “Begin by asking a lot of questions and learn the culture.” “Don’t bind the church to something that the next pastor is tied to.”  RECOMMENDED RESOURCES RonEdmondson.com  The Ron Edmondson Leadership Podcast  The Mythical Leader: The Seven Myths of Leadership