Ep.06 | Cultivate a Thriving Church Culture | Keith Minier

Well, Keith Minear, thanks so much for joining me on the Revitalize My Church podcast. always appreciate getting to hang out with you. 00;00;20;02 - 00;00;37;17 Unknown I don't get to do it nearly as often as I would probably like to. but thanks for taking the time today. Thanks, Bart. Appreciate you having me, man, and looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. So, you were just sharing with me before we started recording that you just come back from a mission trip to Germany. have you been home long enough to be over the jet lag, or are you still lagging a little bit? 00;00;37;18 - 00;01;00;26 Unknown I think all in all, I'm over it. anything at this point, I'm probably just blame shifting. Okay. I think in general, I'm over it. All right. I bet your email box was pretty full when you got back. What are the things to do when I returned? That's probably an probably an understatement. Well, I'm going to guess that, a lot of the people that are listening or watching the podcast, don't know you. 00;01;00;26 - 00;01;18;10 Unknown They don't necessarily know your story. and I'd love to dig into that today, because I think that you've you've had a lot of experiences in ministry that I think a lot of us can, can learn from. And, so let's start like, just rewind the clock. Tell us a little bit about, Grace Fellowship Church, the church that you pastor today. 00;01;18;13 - 00;01;38;14 Unknown and how you actually got there? Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot to the story, but it'll actually have been 20 years in July, which is crazy. So, kind of the short version, and then we can pick out whatever we want to pick out was, it was a church that had started. It had grown and had been planted. 00;01;38;14 - 00;02;03;03 Unknown Move forward. Reach about 200. And then they were having some problems and they were shrinking pretty quickly. And they came to a place where, as they were shrinking, their pastor had decided to resign and move on, and they found themselves in a pastoral search. And they reached out to some churches in the area that were connected to them, and the church I was attending at the time was one of those, and they had reached out for someone to come. 00;02;03;03 - 00;02;22;11 Unknown So the, the, the pulpit, the platform. And so, the ministry I was connected to said, we'll send Keith over. I went, I preach once, I preach a second time. And then as they were doing their pastoral search, they said, would you be interested in going through this process? And again, long story. I had a couple other things I was doing in life. 00;02;22;11 - 00;02;43;08 Unknown I was actually working in chemistry in the marketplace, had another job in chemistry that was pursuing me, but I came, I preached, did the times I preached well, they thought I preached well. Went through the process, took the job. And, I think my very first week, there were 52 people that that were at the church service, probably about 65, that called the church home. 00;02;43;10 - 00;03;02;19 Unknown And, and then from there, we've just been off and running since. And so it was near where I lived about 15, 20 minutes away. and last in the marketplace is a chemist, took over this church, had never been in full time vocational ministry before, hadn't done seminary yet, had a Bible degree and had done a lot of leadership, but stepped into it. 00;03;02;19 - 00;03;21;18 Unknown And I've been on the journey ever since. Okay, I, I'm going to, assume that, one of the things that will not resonate with most pastors is that most pastors have not started out as chemists and ended up in pastoral ministry. That's probably for sure your story. but so paint a picture for us of what Grace fellowship looks like today. 00;03;21;20 - 00;03;48;06 Unknown Yeah. So today again, almost 20 years later, we're a multi-site megachurch. We, over 4000 people on the weekends. Five campuses. 75 to 80 staff at any given time. you know, substantial budget ministry partners all around the world helped with a lot of different things. And, so big church gone through all the phases of different types of multi-site. 00;03;48;09 - 00;04;06;28 Unknown we're a video venue, but we also still do some live preaching at locations. And so it's a big it's a big church. It is a big church. It's a good church. And I know a number of the people on your staff, and you've got some awesome, awesome people that you get to to work with. And, the team that makes, makes things happen. 00;04;07;01 - 00;04;29;06 Unknown when you started out 20 ish years ago, did you envision that this church that you were leading would grow to be what it is today? Not at all. And it was never, never a desire, so to speak. Never a want, never a goal. our attitude was very much do the next right thing that is in front of us. 00;04;29;06 - 00;04;50;17 Unknown Pursue Jesus well, individually and corporately. And whatever happens, happens. to be honest, I tell people that, the the larger your church is, to be honest, the more complicated and difficult it can be. I heard a pastor say one time that about 350 people is the perfect size, enough money to pay the bills and enough time to play golf. 00;04;50;20 - 00;05;12;22 Unknown And, there's some parts of that that I resonate with when I look back, the job I have now is certainly not the job I started with and not the job I've had along the way. So it was never a goal, was never desire. but at the same time, very, very, blessed and fortunate to be able to lead grace and get to be a part of what I get to be a part of. 00;05;12;24 - 00;05;37;09 Unknown One of the things that, I'm always enamored with, with with churches like yours and stories like yours is the culture that you have crafted over the time that you've been there. Because I think the culture of churches is one thing that is often, it's really underestimated in terms of what it actually does as a church is trying to make an impact in its community and trying to make an impact in the lives of the individual people that are part of it. 00;05;37;12 - 00;05;55;11 Unknown Talk to us a little bit about the culture at Grace fellowship. What would you consider to be the defining characteristics of your church, and how did that come to be like? Yeah, tell us a little bit of the journey of getting it where it is today. Yeah, I think, I think what I think a culture I agree with you wholeheartedly. 00;05;55;11 - 00;06;19;06 Unknown It's it's incredibly important. And, you know, there's there's your culture for what your church is and the way that the church feels to people that visit it, participate in it and what it is. But then there's also the culture of the staff and the culture of what it means to work at the church. And there certainly is some interplay and some connection to those two things, but they're different. 00;06;19;09 - 00;06;40;13 Unknown in terms of the way that they, you know, the terms that we would use to describe things on the staff are not necessarily the same words and concepts. We would say to the people that are, that attend. So I'll start with the staff for a second. I think one of the three words that we use to define our culture are healthy, hungry, and humble. 00;06;40;15 - 00;07;03;22 Unknown And we talk about being hungry. This idea for more and better disciples, both quantitative and qualitative in the way that we pursue things. we talked about this idea of healthy that, we really are pursuing God, engaging God in our own personal health, but also in the health of the team and the staff and and the reality is, we end up loving the team that we're a part of as a result of that. 00;07;03;24 - 00;07;25;07 Unknown And then we talk about humble, this idea of teachable and growing and that, we're others focused. And so we're always seeing what God's doing in us and in other people. And those values, while they've had different words and terms and behavior descriptions over the years, which I think is a really important part of culture. coming to the right words, the right phrases, the right way. 00;07;25;07 - 00;07;47;02 Unknown You're going to talk about those, teach those, hold people accountable to them. Those have evolved. But conceptually they've been there all along. And so one of the ways that that shows up, this is just an example, is you can't work at Grace fellowship and not be forced forward movement. and that doesn't mean that we're numbers hungry, but it means that we are mission hungry to keep moving forward. 00;07;47;04 - 00;08;05;08 Unknown And so that's one way where I would say, that from the beginning, when we were a small church to where we are now has always been just been true. It's been consistent about who we are. And then when you start to think about the culture of grace as a church, what makes grace a church? There's a variety of things. 00;08;05;14 - 00;08;22;05 Unknown I'll give a couple things that I think are really, really specific. one of them is we we relentlessly fight for and which is a lot of churches want to on the side of evangelism or the side of discipleship. They almost want to put those at odds. And we cite as best we can to do both of those. 00;08;22;05 - 00;08;44;02 Unknown And to be honest, that can make us feel schizophrenic, that can make us feel, not focused. It's very difficult. It creates a lot of challenges for staff and even the way that people perceive it. But from the beginning, we didn't always have, again, that terminology. But we've just thought from both of those, we refuse to believe that we have to be a church that is only attraction or missional. 00;08;44;05 - 00;09;01;22 Unknown We refuse to believe that we have to be a church that only is for new people or for it's consistent people, and we fight for both of those, and we always have. And that's I think is a really specific thing to us. We we talk as though and we live as though unbelievers are going to be amidst us. 00;09;01;24 - 00;09;20;16 Unknown And, and that manifests itself in a lot of different ways. But, that's always been who we are, that it's a safe place to bring non-Christian people to, while at the same time, it's a very clear place that we want you to meet and follow Jesus. And you know what that means? it's a place where we've had a high bar of excellence on the way that we go after things. 00;09;20;16 - 00;09;38;04 Unknown We don't just do things, we try to do things. Well, that doesn't mean corporate. That doesn't mean, you know, performance. But it does mean we try to do everything, well, in terms of the way we go after things. We've tried to be very engaged in our community, not just in our community, but for our community. So I could keep going. 00;09;38;04 - 00;09;58;26 Unknown But these are ways, I think, that culturally, both as a staff and as a church, these things have manifested themselves. The church that you took leadership of, 20 years ago, would you say that when you walked in and took the leadership roles and responsibilities there are these things that you're describing today? Were they true about the church when you came? 00;09;58;27 - 00;10;20;02 Unknown No no no no no no no no I tell I tell every leader particularly in, in any organization but in a church certainly like a restart that you come in or you come into, you take a new you become the lead, the senior leader of a new a new church. I think that there's four things you always have to ask yourselves, which is what do you need to create? 00;10;20;02 - 00;10;33;17 Unknown What do you need to feel? What do you need to kill, and what do you need to ignore? What do you need to create? What do you need to fuel? What do you need to ignore, and what do you need to kill? And so early on that I mean, we still ask those questions, but early on that was really, really important. 00;10;33;24 - 00;10;49;19 Unknown So there were a bunch of things that I said, these don't exist and they need to exist, and we've got to create them. There were other things where I'm like, okay, that's got a pretty good vibe to it. Let's, let's give that some oxygen and feel that there were some other things where I said, this will just die on its own. 00;10;49;19 - 00;11;08;03 Unknown Don't give it money, don't give it airtime. Just ignore it and it'll go away. And then there were other things that we said, this is counterproductive and it's actually hurting us from going forward. And we actually had to kill that. And what I always tell people is when you kill something, bury it with dignity. There's a reason someone started it when they started it, and no one's wrong on purpose. 00;11;08;05 - 00;11;25;29 Unknown So honor that in the way that you go about getting rid of it. So early on. When I look back like excellence wasn't anywhere near the equation, they didn't understand the language of and and how to be both of those things. They were like, we want to be a church that doesn't die. You know, they weren't even asking those kinds of conversations. 00;11;26;01 - 00;11;42;16 Unknown of the of the 3 or 4 that I named, I would say the one they were probably on the right path with the most was community involvement. They understood the value of that and had taken some really good steps with that. And so that was one where I would say we just we gave fuel to it and, and we started to say, we can do this better. 00;11;42;18 - 00;12;01;13 Unknown But no, definitely those things were not true. And then again, there was no staff, you know, there was like a a stipend, a bookkeeper and, and a person that cleaned the building. But as the staff came on, came on and we started hiring staff, then it was, how do you how do you make sure they understand the culture that you're trying to propagate? 00;12;01;13 - 00;12;22;25 Unknown And there's a bunch of things today, even with a big staff, that I still feel like the chief cultural operator and officer that I protect. So there's some things in onboarding that I still do. I lead to all staff meetings every month just to protect and lead the culture in the in those areas. I appreciate you saying that when when we're coaching churches, particularly in our boot camps. 00;12;22;25 - 00;12;48;07 Unknown And one of the things that I try to emphasize with the pastors and the church leaders is that you've never been taught this, but one of your primary responsibilities as the senior leader of the church is to be an architect of the culture, because what the culture breeds is what you reproduce, right? So if you have a culture that is, healthy and focused on both making disciples and discipling disciples, you're going to produce new disciples who are going to grow in their faith. 00;12;48;09 - 00;13;17;10 Unknown If your culture is one that, tends to, cultivate, gossip and, negativity, that's all you're going to do is produce a lot more gossip and a lot more negativity. And so it is really, really important for the leader to be able to assess his current culture and also to assess the culture that he's trying to reach, and then make sure that those two things are going to work well together in order to reach the culture that God's calling you to reach, you're going to have to evaluate your own culture and make shifts. 00;13;17;13 - 00;13;38;09 Unknown I want to let's go back to, you know, 2004, 2005, 2006, when you were in the early stages, and this group of people called you to be their pastor. Yeah. probably went out realizing that in your heart there were way more people out in the community that you wanted to also pastor, because you wanted to reach people who are far from God. 00;13;38;11 - 00;14;05;23 Unknown What were some of the things that you felt or needed to do, to move the people that had called you to be their pastor forward, to maybe try new things, to do different things, to adopt a different mindset, of of ministry, evangelism and the whole nine yards. Yeah, there's I think there's a number of things. so I'll, I'll, one, I think is you have to define reality about what kind of church you really, really are. 00;14;05;26 - 00;14;21;29 Unknown And so I always tell people when they go take over a church, you need to find the church historian. you need to find the chief influencer, and you need to get to know those people and hear the stories. But you have to define reality. What are we really like? People are really good at telling themselves a narrative is on a personal level. 00;14;21;29 - 00;14;41;21 Unknown What kind of leader or kind of preacher they are, or what their church is like. And a lot of times it's not accurate. So you've got to do the work to help everybody look in the mirror about reality of of what, what really is. Secondly, I think you have to expose them to what they don't know is even out there regarding models and opportunities. 00;14;41;24 - 00;15;01;05 Unknown You know, sometimes when leaders come in and they make they want to make changes. people just think you're a crazy person who came up with this on your own. And sometimes if you can show people and know there's a track record, other people have done these things, these exist. Let me expose you to models and all of that kind of stuff. 00;15;01;07 - 00;15;19;01 Unknown So I think you you've got to define reality. You've got to expose people to what's out there so that they can start to to deal with that. And then thirdly, you've got to help them exit the context that they are in so that they can really understand the strategies and language and things that has to be going on. 00;15;19;03 - 00;15;37;10 Unknown some people just think, you know, it's a little bit of build that they will come have a church service. Everybody be nice. And they're they're not really understanding what it takes to really look at what makes this context different from a previous context, or what makes these five years different from the previous five years or whatever it is. 00;15;37;10 - 00;16;07;23 Unknown And so I think helping people understand how to do that. And then with that being willing. So those three, those three skills, but as the leader, being willing to go through the painstaking process of having a lot of the same conversation over and over and over and over and over, being patient with it, saying it, and then, approach really and incrementally as the frog is boiling, do the changes that you you can get that start to show that it's working. 00;16;07;25 - 00;16;27;17 Unknown And then as those things work, tell those stories so you get credibility chips. And then every once in a while you got to spend a bunch of those chips at once. But, a lot of people want to spend chips, before they have them. And so you gotta you got to do those things to earn those chips and part of earning your own chips. 00;16;27;20 - 00;16;49;10 Unknown And I think a lot of leaders don't understand this is, if you're not out of the ballpark, the stuff that you're supposed to do as the senior leader. So if you're a preacher, be a great preacher. You're leading meetings, lead great meetings. If you're supposed to be shepherding people, shepherd people. Well, if you do those things well, those put chips in your pocket that are even independent from the decisions you make. 00;16;49;12 - 00;17;21;17 Unknown and so perform well to build the credibility. So I would come back to those three things, though, define reality, execute the culture, and then expose people to models. Those were things that had to happen right off the jump and and be willing to wait on changes. I know for me, I knew right off the jump where we were musically was not where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, but it took three years of exposure and time and patience for finally the the key leaders that needed to get it to get it. 00;17;21;22 - 00;17;39;05 Unknown And I can remember where I was sitting when they said they did. And then I was like, okay, they're ready, we can move. And we were able to move. But it it took it took some time to wait for that to happen. I know that, you know, your your staff and your staff culture is has has really been a big part of what you built there at Grace fellowship. 00;17;39;07 - 00;17;56;13 Unknown Talking about some of your early hires when you were a smaller church and you were finally reaching a place where you realized, number one, you needed partners to support you in what you were doing. And number two, you had the budget to do it. What were some of the early hires that you made, and do you think you managed those hires well? 00;17;56;13 - 00;18;19;07 Unknown Do you hire the right people? Did you build your team right out of the out of the get go, or were there things that if you could go back and do it again, you would do differently? Yeah. I think overall, for the most part, we did get it right. we certainly got some things wrong. Hiring is not an exact science by any means, and it's a tough reality to to go. 00;18;19;09 - 00;18;49;04 Unknown a lot of people have asked this question over the years, and a lot of people, they want to know what position to hire, you know, like what what should the first position be? And I'm I'm less about prescribing the exact position and more about prescribing the type of person. And so I think a couple things are when you're early on and you're trying to, level up with another leader that's going to come along, you have to hire someone who can represent you well in the spaces you can't be in. 00;18;49;07 - 00;19;02;18 Unknown So they need to be able to do whatever the main part of their job description is. But you need to know that if they've got a lead, a meeting of leaders, they're going to lead that meeting. Well, then if they're the second face in the lobby, they're going to do that. Well, they have to be a builder. 00;19;02;18 - 00;19;23;03 Unknown So they can't just be a contributor. They've got to be someone who is willing to be neck deep in going after that. they've got to be someone who agrees, almost irrationally, with the direction and vision of what you're doing so that they're just committed. You know, it's like they've drank the Kool-Aid and everybody can kind of sense that. 00;19;23;05 - 00;19;37;18 Unknown And then the other thing is they've got to be a generalist, in my opinion. They've got to be able to do more than just one thing. I talked to a lot of people that are like, I'm just going to hire a worship leader, and all that person can do is strum guitar and lead songs and they can't do anything else. 00;19;37;18 - 00;19;58;24 Unknown I'm like, that's a bad hire. You just paid a bunch of money for a couple hours a week and that's not good, you know? Or I'm just going to hire a children's person only. And so I know that that requires a little bit more effort to figure that out. But I think generalist builders who buy into the culture, who are all in, who can be good second faces. 00;19;58;24 - 00;20;29;06 Unknown So when I look back, I would say we hired committed generalists who had job descriptions, but they were builders of what we were believing and believing. And so, there's a book that, I've been recently reading, talking. It's called Canoeing the Mountains and it's excellent read. And in the book he talks about, you know, Lewis and Clark, and when they come to the mountains and they realize it's not water, one of the reasons they were able to be successful is because they weren't first and foremost, water people. 00;20;29;06 - 00;20;54;00 Unknown They were first and foremost explorers. And I think when you hire people early, you should you should think about their job description secondarily. And the type of person on the front side. And so hire explorers, not water people. If they're explorers, they'll figure out how to do water. All they'll figure out how to do land. and so I think in hindsight, I didn't even know that's what I was looking for in doing. 00;20;54;00 - 00;21;20;18 Unknown But that's what happened. And they had, again, they had job descriptions so different, different contexts would demand different people having a different job description at that church in that space. But I think it's more about the type of person than the actual role. And in general, we got it right. But, I've been doing this long enough that we've gotten a lot wrong, and we've made plenty of mistakes and skinned our knee along the way. 00;21;20;20 - 00;21;36;21 Unknown outstanding book. I'm actually reading Canoeing the Mountains for the second time this year. I read it a few years ago and realized as far as change management in the church is concerned, it's about the best book out there, so I will make sure to link to that. yeah. Really good. and I've always had this. 00;21;36;24 - 00;21;52;24 Unknown I don't know why. A very strange fascination with the Lewis and Clark story. Right. Sure. I love the story. And then when Todd Holsinger, I think that's the author, when he, you know, wrote it and kind of combined it with church stuff, I'm like, yeah, this is this is right up my alley. I love Lewis and Clark and I love the church. 00;21;52;24 - 00;22;16;06 Unknown And, and I love change management. So it's, it's a, it's a home run. as we kind of wind down our time together, knowing that the, the majority of the people that are probably, you know, tuning in to this episode of this podcast are church leaders that are in a church that needs to go in a new direction, you know, and it could be a church that's actually struggling, has been in decline for a while. 00;22;16;06 - 00;22;34;06 Unknown Or it could be a church that just kind of stuck in the doldrums and looking for new and different ways, to make an impact and reach their community. let's talk a little bit about some of the things that you're doing today. obviously on the scale of ministry, it's going to be difficult for a lot of people. 00;22;34;06 - 00;22;49;08 Unknown I think, especially in smaller churches, to say, well, we can't do what Pastor Keith does because his church is bigger, his budget's bigger, he's got more human resources to put it, things. But let's talk a little bit about some of the principles behind why you do what you do in the community to reach the people that God is calling you to reach. 00;22;49;08 - 00;23;27;15 Unknown Because I know you're reaching people. You campuses are growing. You're reaching people for Jesus. People are getting saved. They're getting baptized. Principally. What's what are the things that you're trying to do making up, maybe not necessarily the technical aspect of it, but principally, what's important to you as a church to reach people in your community? yeah. There's a there's a lot of things, I think, I think one of the things that is interesting and, you know, you've been around the ministry pond a long, a long enough time to know this man that like, sometimes, we overcomplicate some of this stuff, and we need to remember that people are people and, you know, so 00;23;27;15 - 00;23;54;17 Unknown relationship, relationship, relationship relationship. And that's always been true and it's still true. And it's very true. Now the methodology to get to that changes. But like it is relationship you know. So I think sometimes it's just us going what are the ways that we've, we've stopped paying attention to relationship, that we need to get back to. 00;23;54;17 - 00;24;23;16 Unknown So here's an example. You know, for, for a while, some of our in the early days, a lot of our community stuff was, way more blitz, personal, gritty, and it required a level of, like, awkwardness of you one on one, probably giving something to someone or talking to someone. And then we got enough resources and we got enough cash that we could do really cool stuff at our buildings or rent stuff. 00;24;23;18 - 00;24;46;24 Unknown And to be honest, the scale of them was more significant in terms of the polish in the splash and all that kind of stuff. But the impact of our people and actually the influence on the community lessened. And so one of the things we've gone back to is like way more gritty old school. What feel like Cheap Blitz is in terms of serving and loving our community. 00;24;46;27 - 00;25;29;17 Unknown And the spirit of why we were doing that stuff was always the same, but we realized coming back and having it feel a little bit more earthy has actually been good for our people and good for the people that we're connecting to. we're recognizing that we've got to continue to create great third spaces for relational building, as people have less and less trust and credibility with the church intuitively, particularly a big church, a bunch of stuff around Bible illiteracy and what that means for weekends and families and your culture, and you just can't assume things that you used to be able to assume and a and a strategy perspective. 00;25;29;20 - 00;25;49;06 Unknown several things around funding. we're doing some really different, different things and trying to think about funding our ministry beyond tithes and offerings. And, and sometimes when people hear that small church people, they say, we can't do that. We're not a big church. And to be honest, it's like anything is scalable. You can you can get after it. 00;25;49;09 - 00;26;20;26 Unknown so, a strong emphasis on, on the next generation and how we're really seeing that and thinking about that, our weekend services, our last, what would have worked from a gimmick perspective, maybe 15 years ago? There's way less of that. It's it's still done well and excellently, but it's just it's more straightforward. we feel like people are sensing an otherness that they want in church, and so we're trying to figure that out. 00;26;20;26 - 00;26;38;12 Unknown So I don't I think that's answering some of the stuff, but those are some things that I would I would say we're we're trying to. Yeah. For sure. I, I think that the, you hit on something that's really interesting to me because I think one of the things that as churches grow, the idea is the bigger we get, the bigger events are that we need to put on. 00;26;38;12 - 00;26;59;20 Unknown And what ends up happening so often is that the bigger the event gets, the more comp, the more pressure is put on the staff to actually pull those things off. The fewer people that you have from the congregation who are actually invested and pulling the plow. And therefore there is a lot less relational connection in the community because people have more. 00;26;59;20 - 00;27;20;23 Unknown They show up and participate rather than a let's all be a part of making this thing happen. And I'm sure that you've probably seen that or been through seasons of that, along the way where it's like, hey, wait a minute, if the staff is doing all of this, we're not really doing this for the congregation. We want the church family as a whole to be doing this so that we can help them reach their neighbors right. 00;27;20;23 - 00;27;42;03 Unknown And that's it's a different difference perspective. So yeah, that does hit on that. a couple more questions and then we wrap things up in, in the season that you've been there a Grace fellowship. can you pinpoint a time where things just got really hard, where it, you know, especially in the early days as you were trying to to, to to set the course for the church? 00;27;42;05 - 00;27;57;18 Unknown Were there any particular times and seasons where you to start? And this, this is really hard. you've got, you know, maybe some pushback from people or resistance, things were not going the way that you wanted to do, or maybe they were going to exactly the way you thought they should go, but you weren't getting the results that you thought you should get. 00;27;57;18 - 00;28;17;26 Unknown I could speak to that all day. yeah. But any, any, any unique seasons or stories that you can talk about. Yeah. I mean, I guess a couple things I would say, a principal and then I'll maybe go to a couple specifics. My mentor one time told me, he said, no matter how big or small your church is, your two greatest stress points are going to be your family and your staff, no matter what. 00;28;17;29 - 00;28;38;21 Unknown And I would say, having pastored a really small church to a really big church, that's just always been true. And so some of the most difficult realities have been family challenges and things that are going on in our own home with my wife Kelly, and our four kids and the things that we're navigating or staff stuffs and staff stuff is really hard in a church. 00;28;38;21 - 00;29;05;28 Unknown You know, people work in a place that is their social circle, their church. It's their job. And, and as things change, particularly if your church is growing the way, sometimes the church outgrows their gifts, that sometimes their roles change and all that stuff. And so staffs, that's been really hard. sometimes you realize over the, the scope of your, of the ministry, like, you realize a lot of things about yourself that are good or bad, that has to change. 00;29;05;28 - 00;29;25;05 Unknown You have to address. And God granted me a pretty good memory. And so I would like, preach and be able to do attendance while I was preaching and not led me to be able to like, Shepherd well, after services. But I remember one time we had gotten to a size where, like I, I literally I found myself going, I can't do that anymore. 00;29;25;05 - 00;29;48;14 Unknown Like, I can't do that anymore. So I went to the elders and I said, like, I gotta quit, guys, I can't do it anymore. And it was like the first time where I thought, I can't get my arms around all this. And it felt very overwhelming and discouraging. And so I was able, by my capacity and who I am, that that took a little bit longer than for some other people, but it happens to everybody. 00;29;48;14 - 00;30;07;04 Unknown And you have to be willing to embrace it and understand it and come to grips with it. I think of mistakes where I felt pressure one time. I brought an elder on the board early in the early days that I shouldn't have because the church is growing fast and people said we needed a bigger elder board and I really didn't have anybody, but I did it anyways, and I regretted it. 00;30;07;04 - 00;30;38;19 Unknown And the person ended up self-selecting not long after it. But you know, that was a place where I let the fear of man win the day and I should have just done what I knew was right. And I, I skinned my knee and had to deal with the scars, you know, from that, I think of times where we've made really significant changes and then you drive home from the meeting or the experience, you think, this is when I blew up the church, we had two very successful Saturday night services that we had done for years. 00;30;38;21 - 00;30;59;15 Unknown and we chose to shut those down to go to a Thursday night service and then add another service on Sunday. And, the my, my inbox didn't say a lot of favorable things around. Some of that was some people and it cost us people and all that kind of stuff. And so those are like specific things where you, you know, you make the decision. 00;30;59;15 - 00;31;20;01 Unknown And I had I've had people look at me and say, they just don't like the way I do certain things, you know, from preach to dress, to fill in the blank and, and and it's the whole have a, have a tender heart but thick skin, you know, how do you maintain that over the course of ministry? so those those are some examples, I think. 00;31;20;03 - 00;31;42;10 Unknown I think sometimes there's this idea, you know, that if we're if the Lord's in it, it's not going to be hard or it's the Lord's in it, you're not going to have mistakes and pain. And, and that's just crazy. Like, that's nowhere in the text of Scripture and it's nowhere in our human experience. And so, I get nervous sometimes when it feels too easy. 00;31;42;12 - 00;32;04;11 Unknown I get nervous when it feels like everything's going according to plan. because there's probably some reasons to be concerned that that's the case. So those would be some examples. Those would be a principle or two that I would, I would look at in this. Yeah, I, I really resonate with the when you said, people said we should have a bigger board because the church is growing. 00;32;04;11 - 00;32;25;04 Unknown And whenever we follow what people said, I would say my absolute I'm not going to get into the details on this podcast episode, but my absolute biggest ministry mistake was people said and I listened to people and they weren't the right people. And, and I just made a mistake listening to the wrong voices, moving too quickly on a decision that shouldn't have been made in the season. 00;32;25;04 - 00;32;42;21 Unknown And it was, and it cost our ministry a lot. And, you know, I own that. And I own the decision. I had elders that, you know, agreed with me, but I also realized that they agreed with me because they trusted me. And I was again listening to listening to the people. So that's not a bad thing to listen to people. 00;32;42;21 - 00;33;03;10 Unknown I think, you know, there there's great, great wisdom in listening to a multitude of advisors and good counsel. but yeah, I, I resonate a lot when you said that, last question, who I mean, you as a chemist man for, for, for for a guy that was, you know, I don't know, mics and stuff in test tubes. 00;33;03;10 - 00;33;18;26 Unknown I don't know what you were doing. I have no idea what you were doing 20 plus years ago. you you have I clearly, you know, I've said this about you before, and I'll say it again. You've got very, very, strong leadership. Yes. God has has wired you, to be a leader. You lead people. You lead people well. 00;33;18;27 - 00;33;38;20 Unknown But every leader has to learn and grow in their leadership. I'm sure that you're a different leader today than you were 20 plus years ago. Yep. Who do you listen to? Who have you listened to? What do you read? What are some of the, influences that you have in your life as a leader, as a pastor, that other people might be able to have access to you? 00;33;38;20 - 00;33;58;02 Unknown I'm sure you have personal mentors that nobody else is going to have access to. But maybe there's some some other things that you can share, some resources. Yeah. I think, again, maybe principally, I would say I think one of the most important things is particularly if you're a good leader, is you need you need people who aren't impressed with you and people who will tell you the truth. 00;33;58;02 - 00;34;20;23 Unknown And so for me, one of those people has been my wife, who knew me before all of this. And, and while she saw a unique anointing in my life, I have to go home and she tells me I don't know how to unload the load, the dishwasher. Right. You know, and so there's a level where, have you surrounded yourself with people that aren't impressed with you, who will tell you the truth. 00;34;20;23 - 00;34;35;27 Unknown And I think if you're really a good leader, you're going to put other good leaders around you that are going to help you. And so, again, the principle of other good leaders around you and the principle is people who are impressed with you. You know, it's I listen to, you know, the normal podcast, people would listen to you. 00;34;35;27 - 00;35;00;24 Unknown Right. You know, so I'm listening to leadership podcast from a Rochelle or Kerry New Hoff or I'm leaning in and listening to business podcasts and I'm I'm paying attention to all of that. I'm reading the leadership books like we just talked about a few minutes ago and going down all that I think I think what I would say, though, is I know a lot of people who read that, but they don't do the work to curate it. 00;35;00;27 - 00;35;21;13 Unknown I think what I am incredibly disciplined to do that makes all that work is I curate it, I find it to, I find ways to make it useful. I find ways to catalog it. I find ways to remember it. I find ways to apply it. And so there's probably people that listen to more stuff or read more stuff than me. 00;35;21;15 - 00;35;41;07 Unknown but but I find very few people who curated as well as I do. And so I think the art and skill of figuring out how to do that is really important. Living in a, you know, incredibly teachable state. I try to read every day, at least 20 minutes. I'm always listening to 1 or 2 messages from other people every single week. 00;35;41;10 - 00;36;11;14 Unknown I it's all those things. And it's it's the wide variety of authors and the wide variety of preachers and eat the meat, leave the bones and, you know, go after all that stuff, being really in tune with who you are. so, you know, I can give you specific books, but I think it's more those things that I would say, I've found ways to, in the back of books, record the things that I need to take with me in that book. 00;36;11;14 - 00;36;34;01 Unknown I found ways to leverage my phone and my computer to keep sermon illustrations in front of me and all that stuff. I, I think that most leaders actually don't lack getting good ideas. I think most leaders lack a good recording way of keeping those good ideas, and I think that most people need to find a way to keep that stuff in front of them so that they can leverage it. 00;36;34;06 - 00;36;55;21 Unknown And then I would just say at the end of the day, but I've been in so many rooms and so many conversations with church leaders and people and businesses and all this, and, you know, you can read and listen and get the right stuff. But at the end of the day, so many of the problems that people have in churches and in organizations is they just don't lead at you gotta you gotta lead. 00;36;55;21 - 00;37;16;18 Unknown And, leading means you are going to do unpopular things that people don't like. It means you're going to pull people in directions they don't want to go. It means you're going to make changes. And sometimes people will say, how did you know to do that? And I'm like, well, it's just because it's what leading is. And so, I've worked really hard to continue to grow. 00;37;16;18 - 00;37;45;00 Unknown I think. I actually think in some regards, while I'm a better leader and a more sanctified disciple, I would also say I'm still the same person. I've worked really, really, really hard to have the same right values today that I had back then in the way that I've approached the church and approached my job, and I've given some people around me permission to tell me that, you know, that's true. 00;37;45;01 - 00;38;07;17 Unknown So another couple of things, my elders have a regular job review with me. We have a regular check in at a retreat every year where they ask for me for personal and professional goals, check in on my rhythms. I have a couple elders that, are able to ask me the hard questions, check in with my wife, all those kind of things that I think are really the secret to staying healthy. 00;38;07;17 - 00;38;33;14 Unknown As much as the learning is. Yeah, super helpful. I really appreciate that. Really appreciate your insights on that. And I, I agree, I have I've been an avid reader, and set crazy goals for myself to read, you know, like 50, 52 books a year. And I've had years that I have read nearly that much. But I got to the end and realized that I hadn't really processed or curated to use the word that you that you use there in a way that was helpful. 00;38;33;14 - 00;38;57;25 Unknown And so just developing some systems and some processes digitally, electronically, where I can say, okay, I'm reading books that I really see value in, I'm going to spend the time doing it. I want to make sure that I get the most out of it, not just check the box and say that I read the book and that includes reading my Bible and not not reading it in a way that it's just a matter of checking box, but for sure, spending time in God's Word. 00;38;57;25 - 00;39;14;21 Unknown So that I can actually be transformed by it. Because that's really that's really the goal not to check the box, but I've been in those seasons too, where it's really just to check the box. I'm sure that we all have so sure. Well, Keith, I just want to thank you again, for taking time out of your schedule, to record this podcast episode with me. 00;39;14;27 - 00;39;32;29 Unknown I'm going to link to Grace Fellowship Church in our show notes so folks can kind of peeking through the window to see what you guys are doing. And, yeah, I, I'm, I'm confident that, this has been a blessing to some of the folks that are out there listening. Thanks part. I really appreciate the opportunity to, to chat with you, man. 00;39;33;01 - 00;39;51;10 Unknown For those of you who made it all the way to the end of this podcast episode, thanks so much for doing that. if you haven't subscribed, wherever you're listening, make sure that you, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. And if you haven't left us a rating, a review, wherever you listen to your podcast, please do that because it'll feed the algorithms of the podcast world and more people will find the podcast. 00;39;51;13 - 00;39;52;22 Unknown Thanks so much.