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 Daniel Im discuss and share a talk from Bob Russell, author of After 50 Years of Ministry, from Pipeline 2017 in which Russell shares the lessons he learned from the mistakes he made in ministry. BEST QUOTES “I feel like I have done some things the way God would have me do them, but I’ve also made some serious mistakes along the way and I’ve learned some valuable lessons from those mistakes.” “Sometimes we learn our best lessons from our worst mistakes.” “The worst single mistake I ever made in ministry was I forgot a wedding.” “I acknowledged that this was an area where I was weak and I need to surround myself with people who have strengths in administration and let them do it.” “A lot of our problems we have in ministry and in leadership come from ego.” “Delegate even if it hurts your ego.” “The reason people burn out in ministry isn’t because they work too hard, the reason they burn out in ministry is they work too hard in areas they are not gifted.” “I learned to give my family priority even when the church needs attention.” “Long after the elders and deacons in your church forget your name, your wife is going to be there.” “The best thing a preacher can do for his church is to model marriage in front of them.” “I learned to be content in ministry regardless of statistics.” “Why we are discontent in this ministry is because we compare all the time.” “God does not value your worth in ministry by your statistics.” “Seventy-five years from now when somebody looks at a picture of your church, what are they going to say about your influence?” “Don’t grow weary in doing good in ministry, in due season you reap a harvest if you just don’t give up.” RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference When God Builds a Church by Bob Russell The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren Watch this video and all the talks from Pipeline 2017 at MinistryGrid.com

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Daniel Im are joined by Carey Nieuwhof, author of Didn't See It Coming: Overcoming the 7 Greatest Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Experiences. During their conversation, they continue their discussion on the challenges that everyone faces. Will you give us an overview of irrelevance? How do we keep from sliding into pride and narcissism as we continue to grow? What will only humility get you out of that pride got you into? Let's move on to the next challenge no one expects to face: emptiness. How do we see burnout coming? BEST QUOTES “It’s inevitable that you become irrelevant unless you decide not to.” “You think you are cutting edge because you used to be cool, you used to be great, and nobody 15 years younger than you believes that anymore, but you are the last guy to know.” “The antidote to irrelevance is change.” “Relevance simply gains you permission to speak into the culture.” “I think you can communicate understanding without communicating agreement.” “If I can understand their world I have a better chance of speaking into it.” “Our crisis is not a crisis of information it’s a crisis of meaning.” “The gap between how quickly you change and how quickly the culture changes is called irrelevance.” “You want to make sure you are imparting meaning to a culture that is changing rapidly in a way that that culture can understand.” “Most leaders pride comes not from narcissism, but from insecurity.” “Push other people into the spotlight.” “I think as you get older, your job is not to hog the spotlight, it is to push younger leaders into the spotlight. It’s to give them the opportunity.” “Only humility will get you out of what pride got you into.” “Humiliation is involuntary humility.” “When you have to confess it, you have to address it.” “There is a whole in the middle of your heart that really only Christ can fill.” “I’ve got to live in a way today, that will help me thrive tomorrow.” RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference Didn't See It Coming: Overcoming the 7 Greatest Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Experiences by Carey Nieuwhof

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Eric Geiger discuss Eric's transition from Senior Vice President at Lifeway Christian Resources to senior pastor at Mariners Church in Irvine, California. BEST QUOTES “The Lord has made it clear that He wants me back in the local church. I’m grateful for the clarity and I’m really grateful that He made it clear where He wants me. I’m going to be the senior pastor at Mariners Church in Irvine, California.” “Part of me thought the Lord wasn’t even giving me an answer because He loved how much time I was spending with Him.” “I asked the Lord to give my children a desire as He was giving me a desire for the place that He wanted us to be.” “Holding two emotions together at the same time has been really challenging. In my right hand is a deep excitement for going to Mariners. … In the left hand, I’ve held a sense of loss. The death of a dream of a team that I’ve worked alongside for a long time.” “To me that’s ending well, affirming great people on the way out.” “Because I love this team so much and I love what we do, I didn’t have the temptation to coast.” “What’s our family impact going to be for the Kingdom?” “Do not jet for a list of pushes, because you will go to another context and there will be a new list of pushes. You only go if there is a super strong pull.” RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference Leadership Pipeline Ministry Grid Mariners Church

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Carey Nieuwhof, author of Didn't See It Coming: Overcoming the 7 Greatest Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Experiences. During their conversation, they discuss some of the challenges that everyone faces. What are the types of cynicism that we often face and how do we address those? How does compromise play a role? How do leaders often disconnect? What does that look like and what is the result? BEST QUOTES "I didn't feel my heart grow bigger in ministry, I felt it grow smaller. And that's how cynicism starts." "Most cynics are made not because they don't care, but because they did care." "If you close your heart to people, you close your heart to God." "The curious are never cynical, and the cynical are never curious." "There is social research that suggests that the average person tells about 200 lies a day." "If you let yourself get away with the little things, will you let yourself get away with more?" "If you find yourself in that, humble your public talk and accelerate your private walk." "You cannot be intimate in a hurry." "I have a tendency to disconnect from human relationships, which kind of goes back to the book of Genesis. That we have a tendency to disconnect from God." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference Didn't See It Coming: Overcoming the 7 Greatest Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Experiences by Carey Nieuwhof

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Johnny Baker, pastor of Celebrate Recovery at Saddleback and author of The Road to Freedom. During their conversation, they discuss helping people remove barriers and general leadership principles. BEST QUOTES "Celebrate Recovery is not just for drug addicts and alcoholics. It's for anybody with what we say is a hurt, a hang-up, or a habit." "What we've found over the years is that pain is universal." "Admitting you have a problem doesn't make you weak, and covering up a problem always makes things worse." "The higher up in leadership you go, the more temptation there is to say, 'I have to have it all together.'" "People want a one-size-fits-all this is how we handle this situation. And what I'm learning is that you can't always do that." "If I hang out with a certain group of people, I become more like them. That's just how it goes." "Everything that happens to you now is going to determine how you lead later - both good and bad." "Figure out who you are, and just be that person. It's so tempting to chameleon yourself and become different around different people." "Stop trying to be cool. Being cool is such a waste of time." "When you show up to Celebrate Recovery, every person there is going through Celebrate Recovery - including the leaders. We are in it with you." "We've all hurt people, and people have hurt us, which means we all qualify for Celebrate Recovery." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference Celebrate Recovery The Road to Freedom: Healing From Your Hurts, Hang-Ups, and Habits by Johnny Baker The Bait of Satan by John Bevere Tim Ferriss podcast

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Bryan Rose, Lead Navigator for Auxano. During their conversation, they discuss the following questions: How is multisite biblical? What are the most common reasons to go multisite? What are the best strategies for multisite? How long does it take to launch a new campus? How do you staff for multisite? BEST QUOTES "As we read Paul's letters, we can see the church was one church in multiple locations." "Yes, it's biblical. How is it biblical? Well, the church is always called to respond to its local context." "Every church is unique, and part of that uniqueness is the context." "Multisite is a replication of systems and processes that improves efficiency and in some statistical studies raises the chances of success higher than church planting because of the connection." "Most people go to multisite for practical reasons: they run out of space, they don't want to add a third or a fourth service." "You can't commute to community." "We've got people who are already engaged in their community where they live, work, and play. Why are we asking the to commute in for service?" "Or we tell people in those settings, you need to invite your neighbors and friends. And they are looking at us saying our neighbors would have to commute 45 minutes to an hour to come to this service. Are you kidding me?" "Our context around us has changed. We still want to reach where we are, but we also know we need to reach who we are, not just where we are." "They are reaching towns of 130 people with what is essentially a house church multisite movement." "Contextually speaking, you have to look at you community and look at your church and see what is best for you." "There are plenty of people who have done it, they've done it all different ways, and all of them have made mistakes." "The 90 days leading up to launch and 90 days post launch are where everybody is a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10." "Be sure that you announce: Hey, don't go to this campus unless you are going to lead or serve because we need your seat for lost people. Don't come because it's closer to you home and you think you are going got sit and soak and get all the amenities of the current location." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline Conference  Multisite Launch Boot Camp Choiceology with Dan Heath Akimbo: A Podcast by Seth Godin

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Daniel Im are joined by Aaron Coe. He serves Passion City Church in Strategic Initiatives. During their conversation, they discuss the importance of connecting with people and how the church needs to consider the urban age. BEST QUOTES "Anytime you face conflict, it's designed to sharpen you and to help you become a better leader." "Whether you are associated with something like Passion that has a global reach, or you are a brand new church planter just getting started, you really aren't immune to the handwork of having to get out there and connect with people right where they are." "The hinge cities of the world are on our radar, and we are just praying where and when next." "I want my leadership legacy to be that I spent my life helping to build Jesus' church." "I really want to help the evangelical church in America think about the urban age. Because in 2007 we crossed over into the urban age, so we are all city people now. As I think about the church in America in particular, we are really not urban-minded, we tend to be suburban-minded or rural-minded." "The best advice I've ever been given is to not fear. A lot of times we have this fear of man that holds us back from potential." "If you take anything day by day and set your mind to it, there's pretty much not anything you can't accomplish." "Probably gone are the days when you can afford to just have a building and use it a day and a half a week and it sits empty the other five or six days." "We have lived in an era where you can separate out the uses for property. You can have your entertainment district over here and your business district over here and your residential over here. And I think what we are going to find is it's probably healthier if all those things are mixed anyway. I think the church is going to benefit from being right in the heart of the places where people want to be." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 conference Passion City Church Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright The End of Jobs by Taylor Pearson The Dip by Seth Godin When by Daniel Pink The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle @aaronbcoe on Instagram

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Daniel Im and Eric Geiger are joined by Christy Wright, founder of Business Boutique and author of Business Boutique. During their conversation, they discuss discerning how to approach failures and challenges and discussing work commitments with your spouse. BEST QUOTES "What was true about business 30 years ago is definitely not true today." "Get to the root of the issue. What are you actually facing? What is really going on? Look at it as factually and practically as you can. That can help you discern whether or not that's something you should push through or something you should pivot." "If I let that one failure define me, I would have missed out on almost a decade of professional speaking and making an impact to those audiences." "You know what, we are going to fail 99 times and we are still going to try the hundredth time, because on the hundredth time we are going to get it." "I've definitely become a bottleneck for our brand, so we are trying to figure out how to scale that." "In leadership, it can become very easy to become so tactical, so problem-solving driven, deadline driven, bottom-line driven, that you forget to connect with people. That's really a major red flag for leadership failure in the future if you lose your connection with people on the front lines, if you lose your connection with your audience." "It's in our inclination to come up with the answer, to solve the problem, to know it all. Even if we don't know it all, we feel the pressure to know it all." "Sometimes it's OK to ask more questions, to listen. That demonstrates humility." "There are two things you need to know about people if you want to influence them. You need to know what frustrates them and what motivates them." "It's really important when you bring up a subject to your spouse that you let them know where you stand." "When you are fresh out of college, everything needs to happen today. I need to meet my husband today. I need to have my dream job today. I need to have granite countertops and three kids today. And you don't. This is a marathon." "The work you are doing is so important. If you need help, if you need rest, if you need a break, take it. Because we need you." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 conference Business Boutique Business Boutique by Christy Wright Grit by Angela Duckworth DiSC assessment EntreLeadership John Maxwell

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Daniel Im and Eric Geiger are joined by Rachel Cruze, author of Smart Money Smart Kids and Love Your Life, Not Theirs and host of The Rachel Cruze Show. During their conversation, they discuss the importance of scheduling for efficiency and servant leadership in the home. BEST QUOTES "Growing up in Dave Ramsey's household we have quite a few stories around money, so I got to talk about that as the kids perspective." "One thing my parents gave all three of us was confidence. Confidence precedes so many choices you make." "As a company, as Ramsey Solutions, we've harnessed these three words we say, 'Stability. Succession. Scalability.'" "To be able to get up in the morning for me and have some stillness, have coffee, and have conversation with my husband is a must for me." "I have to have a schedule everyday. I am flexible in my day, but I need it scheduled. It's the only way we can be efficient in what we do." "The things that make me most efficient person every day are having a quiet time and scheduling." "One of the best pieces of marriage advice I got from someone was to just serve each other." "I would tell my 20-something year old self to relax. Everything is going to be great. There is no reason to stress about the unknown." "I wish I had taken my influence more seriously around the office. Not that I set a bad example, I just wasn't very intentional about it." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 Conference Smart Money Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze Love Your Life, Not Theirs by Rachel Cruze The Rachel Cruze Show RachelCruze.com

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Daniel Im are joined by Dave Milam, vice president of strategic design at Visioneering Studios. During their conversation, they discuss the following questions: What are the new trends when it comes to churches and their use of space? What are the most common mistakes churches make when they enter into a building program? What research does Visioneering do before a church moves forward with a plan? When revitalizing and replanting, what should churches do to their space before relaunching? What are best practices for making a move, celebrating, and transitioning well? BEST QUOTES “Constantly I am hearing churches say we need more lobby space, we need more community space, places where people can just sit and talk.” “One of the biggest mistakes I see is churches not locking down that number – this is how much money we are going to spend, not a penny over – and really holding the team that they hire to that number.” “What’s the smartest next move for us based on what we can afford?” “If you do a capital campaign, a church typically can raise two to two and a half times their annual giving in a two-year capital campaign, if they use a consultant. If they don’t use a consultant it tends to be one times their annual giving in a two-year campaign.” “For every person in your church, you typically need about 50 square feet in your church building.” “It’s possible that really what the building needs is just the new vision and new leadership.” “The last thing I want is for a church to sacrifice ministry or staffing dollars to build a building or fix carpet.” “If you are a larger church and you have been gifted a building for a campus, then it is worth doing a full on evaluation of the people flow, the space requirements, the carpet, the branding, the whole ball of wax.” “There are so many opportunities to celebrate when the process is happening. It’s super critical to make sure the church is doing that, because when they are celebrating together they notice what God’s doing.” RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Pipeline 2018 conference  Visioneering Studios