Author: Aaron Olson

Episode 133: The Challenge of Unity

In this episode we take you to a conversation New Life Midtown’s Jayde Duncan and New Life Friday Night’s Jordan Victoria Lewis recently had with our ministry staff on the challenge of cultivating unity in the church in a culture that is very often divided over issues of race. (This conversation is based in part on a chapter in Glenn Packiam’s new book The Resilient Pastor. Order here.)

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Unity is important because God is essentially unity… our concept of unity must be rooted in the ontological nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…

John 17 tells us that there is an unanswered prayer that Jesus prayed [on unity]… our posture towards one another is a nonnegotiable, it is critical to the validation of our entire message…

Unity reinforces or qualifies our witness, and division disqualifies our witness… division is the way of the world… 

I’ve had a lot of difficult and shameful experiences… I’ve sorted through a lot of that with the Lord and have sensed that this is a kingdom issue… thinking that way has enabled me to take a bird’s eye view of what’s going on… 

For me this is not just a call, but an act of spiritual warfare… if I leave, the spirit of division will think that it has won… 

The early church was radical and revolutionary in its unity because it believed that Jesus is Lord… Jesus was a new King who brought a new Kingdom… 

We need to recover the sense that King Jesus has exclusive right to ask us whatever he wants to ask us… and what he is asking us is to lay down our own perspectives for the sake of listening to the stories of brothers and sisters who are in pain…

Distance is fatal to empathy… I wish I was making up the humiliating things that have happened to me… I wish it wasn’t all true… it is a real shame when someone tells you about their experience and you tell them that it is fabricated or exaggerated… 

Over the course of many conversations, what I have come to discover is that for many black Christians, white Christians seem to want to have statistical conversations rather than lament-type conversations, which exacerbates the pain…

I can’t tell you how healing it has been to be able to call a white friend—and there are a few that I call—to carry the burden with me so that I can carry my black friends… 

Episode 132: The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb? – An Interview with Kyle Strobel

In this episode we sit down with Dr. Kyle Strobel to talk about the nature of power via his book (co-authored with Jamin Goggin), The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb? Grab it here.

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There’s a power system assumed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and you see it when Jesus rebukes Peter: he’s set his mind on the things of man…

Another way to talk about the way of the dragon is the way of power in strength for the sake of control and domination; whereas the way of the lamb is the way of power in weakness for the sake of love…

One error is to see power as bad… those who are left-leaning have a tendency to demonize power… those who are right-leaning tend to worry less about power but are almost willing to embrace ANY power as long as it leads to the right ends…

Many of us simply accept the world’s definitions of power and then assume that Jesus is doing something else (not power-related)… but that’s not right… Jesus is redefining power entirely and is calling us to faith…

When we started this project, we knew it was an important issue… it influences everything… how you pray, how you worship, how you engage or don’t engage in politics—it all presupposes power… but the church is refusing to talk about it…

If you assume a vision of worldly power, the way of Jesus just won’t make sense…

Even a lot of the ways we understand spiritual gifts—it tends to be about actualizing strength, which is ironic, because Paul’s correspondence to the Corinthians is all about power being realized in weakness…

For folks in fulltime vocational ministry, the temptation is to construct a self… and if true power is love, if we really internalize that, it will help us realize that our value is received and not generated… 

The central temptation for leaders is to use their natural ability to get things done… that’s the way of the dragon… if you’re a natural speaker, for instance, you’ll be tempted to use that gift to “win”… your strength is a place of wild temptation… 

We need to constantly ask, “Lord, how am I tempted not to trust you? How am I tempted not to have to have faith…?” 

Episode 131: “Where the Light Fell” with Philip Yancey

In this episode we sit down with one of the most prolific authors of the last hundred years, Philip Yancey, to talk with him about his new memoir Where the Light Fell.

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I knew that the version of Christianity I had been given—racist, angry, legalistic—couldn’t be right, and yet I also knew there was something worth salvaging…

I’ll often tell people that I grew up thinking that God was a scowling super-cop in the sky… it took me a long time to realize that the heart of the universe is not a scowl but a smile… the story of history is the story of God’s love…

Many “exvangelicals” have wistful memories of their youth… I wrote this book because I wanted to reach those people… my reasons for becoming an “ex” were stronger than most of theirs… and yet I emerged having discovered the love and grace of God…

My father was a victim of polio… he was 23 and he and my mother had planned to go on the mission field… after he died, my mother made a vow to God that me and my brother would replace him as missionaries to Africa… when we didn’t fit the script, the vow became a kind of curse… it was a theological error… 

My brother and I took different paths in relating to our upbringing… he became one of Atlanta’s original hippies… I saw what that did to him… it was a living illustration of what happens to us when we have nothing to go toward… 

Pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed… often, it’s the hardest things we go through that are most important as we look back… 

We are at a hinge time for the future of the evangelical church in the United States… we need to adjust to the fact that we’re not the home team anymore… this is new, and a lot of people don’t like it…

We are always called to live both in the city of God and in the city of humanity… we don’t take our marching order from political parties but from God… but there’s such an atmosphere of partisanship that it can be hard for people to know what to do…

The dialogue has gotten so crass and adversarial… Christians need to stand up against that… I want pastors, whatever they believe, to show the style of Jesus… our country needs this…

Episode 130: The Art of Healthy Conflict

In this episode, we share six rules for the art of having healthy conflict.

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I wish leadership was just sitting around reading your Bible, praying for a few people, and going home… but the reality is that we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world there will be conflict… 

Leadership is managing the differences of opinion among our people… people feel and think differently and when they come together in an organization, there will be conflict… leadership is stepping into that, knowing that the best things are often born out of conflict…

In a fallen world, any peace that is not conflictual is not true peace… we are living in a world that is not yet as it should be, and if we’re not willing to name the brokenness and deal with it, we have abdicated our responsibility as leaders…

What’s your motivation for leaning into conflict? For me, I’m not looking for a fight… I’m looking for the Holy Spirit… I’m looking for ways to build up and not tear down…

The first step is to confront in a timely manner… if something bothers me, I try to sleep on it and pray over it… if it is still bothering me after that, I need to go talk to that person… 

The second step is to begin the conversation with affirmation… that affirmation is born out of prayer… we need to lead with what we love about the other person…

The third step is to not accuse but share your feelings… we don’t need to question people’s motives… we just need to speak honestly, without accusation…

The fourth step is to learn to listen… not every conversation needs to be argued… what I’ve found is that if I can just get people to start talking, I’ll learn everything I need to know… 

The Bible calls the devil the accuser of the brethren… one of the primary functions of the enemy is that he accuses us one to another… the voice of accusation in our ears about each other is not the voice of the Spirit…

The fifth step is to be honest… oftentimes people lose courage in the face of the need to be honest… we need to learn to tell the truth and say it to the strength that we feel it… truth needs to be the benchmark of our organizations…

The sixth step is to be gracious… come into the meeting willing to entertain the possibility that you are wrong… both parties in the conversation need grace: you and them… if you pour out grace, that’s what you’ll get in the long run…

Episode 129: Good Study Habits

In this episode Glenn and Andrew sit down with Dr. Michelle Anthony to talk about the why, what, and how of developing good study habits.

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I was fortunate to have lifelong learners around me growing up… my parents were voracious readers and learners, and a lot of my mentors were like that as well… I grew up loving that learning process…

At some point in ministry, I realized that my output would always be a lesser quality than my input… that if I wanted to preach like Tim Keller, it wouldn’t be enough to listen to Tim Keller, but rather to read who Tim Keller was reading…

For me the love of learning ignited watching the senior pastor of our church preach… it was clear he was drinking from wells that were outside of the norm for our tribe… I saw a pastor whose mind was working…

My study habits have changed over the years… when my kids were young, I studied late at night or in carpool… right now, early in the morning before I come into work is my best space… when I do it in the morning, I find that it comes back to me during the day…

What has helped me is having time goals rather than quantity goals… what I’m trying to do is see if I can sit down for 30 minutes five days a week to read, trusting the cumulative effect of study…

I want to see younger leaders stretch… the brain is a muscle, and with the amount of podcasts and audiobooks, there are lots of reasons now NOT to study… you need to exercise the muscle when you’re young…

The difference between listening to a podcast and reading a book is that a podcast is primarily passive… it’s better than nothing… but the activity of studying requires so much more of me, which means that the output is greater…

You need a balanced diet of reading… I make it a matter of prayer… I like reading things that are more technical, and also things on the leadership side… I also like to read something that’s more narrative in nature… 

I have “buckets”: for my own personal development, for my areas of ministry and expertise, and then I also try to read one book a year by someone I completely disagree with or about something that is going on in pop culture…

For me, poetry and fiction have recently become important… as preachers, we are storytellers, and fiction will help give you a good eye and ear for story… 

Episode 128: Attracting Strong and Capable Leaders Pt. 2

In this episode we pick up the conversation on attracting strong and capable leaders by talking about just what we mean by “strong and capable”.

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Regardless of if you’re pastoring a small rural church or a large urban church, we all need the same kinds of leaders… 

The first thing is, I am looking for leaders who will help me expand the vision… the senior pastor shouldn’t be the sole vision-carrier for the church… I want people with ideas…

I get so frustrated when leaders come to me simply to tell me that something is broken… I want leaders who see not only problems but also solutions…

I want people who are creative and innovative, and if I want that I know that I can’t make fun of bad ideas… I always tell leaders, if we shoot one messenger, we won’t get another one… 

The second thing is, I am looking for leaders who can coach others around them… many are good at their craft, but the question is, “Can you coach people in your craft?”

Coaching doesn’t mean always been punitive and corrective… it’s about helping people grow…

If I came into your area, would it be clear and organized and would everyone on your team know what it means to win…?

Lastly, I am looking for people who can carry the weight of the organization… can they take responsibility and deal with problems without involving me all the time?

This a question for all leaders… have you actually empowered your staff to lead?

If you as the senior leader have to be involved in every issue and conflict that’s happening in your church, it will wear you out… it can happen in small churches as much as in large churches…

The key to longevity and your organization growing is making sure your team feels equipped and empowered deal with issues with very little input from you…

Recently I took a trip to Central America and took a number of staff with me… I didn’t need that many folks with me, but I did it to get purposeful time with some of my staff whom I’ve empowered to carry the work with me…

Episode 127: Attracting Strong and Capable Leaders Pt. 1

In this episode we sit down to talk about the kind of environment that allows leaders to flourish.

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These principles apply not only to the church but also to the corporate world…

We often want strong leaders but we want to do the work required… money and resources are not enough… it can take years to cultivate the right conditions to attract capable leaders…

It is God’s will for churches to have strong leaders… if your church was God’s idea, then God’s idea is that you will have strong leaders in your church…

One of the first questions I ask leaders is, “Are you a healthy leader?” … if I will judge myself, other people won’t have to judge me…

Right now we’re coming out of two years of pandemic and chaos… a lot of leaders’ emotional lives are a mess… now might not be the best time to add to your team if you’re not well and whole…

I don’t get my needs met from church ministry… it sounds so simple, but really, Jesus should be enough… if I am depending on church to refuel me and give me my identity, I am going to fail…

The other thing I ask leaders is, “Are you living a life of good rhythm?” I believe in working hard, but I also rest well… a lot of pastors have mastered the art of working hard but they haven’t mastered the art of resting…

If you don’t know how to rest well, ultimately you won’t work well… by not resting well you won’t get your work done…

The final thing I ask leaders is, “Is your church or organization a place where healthy conflict can happen…?” Leadership is conflict… if you can’t do conflict, you can’t lead… 

A lot of pastors are great at study but when they walk out of their office door, they don’t know how to deal with conflict… your sermon prep won’t matter if you don’t do this well… your church will fail…

There need to be places in our organization where we can emote… where we can speak to the strength that we feel it without penalty… this will allow God to trust you with other leaders… 

Lastly, we need to ask whether everyone has a seat at the table in our organization… the church was asking it in the first century, and it needs to be asking it now…

Episode 126: All Things Beautiful with Dr. Chris Green

In this episode we sit down with Dr. Chris Green to talk about how Jesus reveals himself to us through the arts. This conversation is an engagement with Chris’s book All Things Beautiful. Grab a copy here.

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My encounter with literature and the arts is what led to my becoming a theologian… I grew up in a Pentecostal church, but didn’t read the Bible with any artfulness… but after my encounter with the arts, the Bible became something entirely different…

Too often, we read the Bible for the way it affirms and confirms our ideas… we need to learn to give it the kind of attention Jesus gives to us… not looking for confirmation of our ideas, but receiving it for what it is, and marveling at it…

Proverbs, for instance, opens with a call to the young to learn wisdom… but to do that, you have to attend to “the dark sayings of the wise”… 

This is striking to me because the churches I grew up in put pressure on the preacher to make the truth plain… we didn’t want to do the difficult work of interpretation… but I think what Israel knew and what Jesus embodies is that we need to do the difficult work of interpretation…

The artfulness of the artist is to make art difficult in all the right ways… 

Artfulness opens us up to the way that God saves us… Emily Dickenson tells us to “tell the truth slant”… which speaks to the way that God saves us… God is sometimes startlingly direct in the Bible… but most of the time is like the road to Emmaus—God is there, but not obvious…

We need to recognize the good of difficulty… when something is demanding, it summons parts of yourself you didn’t know were there… so God is demanding in a way that summons out of us gifts we didn’t know we had…

Another part of this is our brokenness… the universe seems “riddled” to us because we are the ones who are “riddled”… in our brokenness, God teaches how to become truthful… 

The arts also give us the skills we need to turn to others… when give our attention to the arts and they surprise us, it teaches me that the next time I’m with a person, if I’ll give them my attention, they will surprise us…

Episode 125: An Interview with Lyle Wells – Empire vs. Kingdom Leadership

In this episode we sit down with the president of Integrus Leadership, Lyle Wells, to talk about “empire vs. kingdom” leadership and what it takes to remain resilient as leaders in a challenging environment. You can learn more about Integrus at www.integrus.org and by following @leadwithlyle and @integrusleadership.

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I think there’s a great exhaustion to come… people have been grinding for so long that at some point your body reacts…

For many leaders, their voice changed during the pandemic… we were focused on the crisis, as we needed to be… but my fear is that many leaders haven’t taken their eyes back up to the horizon…

Many organizations have also developed an addiction to adrenaline… and now it has become their identity and their purpose… for many, endurance has become the goal rather than effectiveness… 

This is a season that ought to grow our ability to be resilient… we need to set our faces back towards our purpose and call and march boldly… but we also need to be still and wait for God to move…

We talk about taking “pit stops” that make the workload more manageable, because we know that the people in our organizations are fatigued…

One of the things we implemented is something we call “no meeting Mondays”… we were doing so much on Mondays that by the time 4:00 rolled around, they were already maxed out… 

If there was one thing I could say to leaders, it is that “your tank is your responsibility”… as a leader, you have to develop a working knowledge of two things: 1) What do you look like when your tank runs low? And 2) What fills up your tank?

Kingdoms and empires are really interesting… we start with the basic premise that no one wants to be average… in ministry it is even more pronounced, because it’s not just a job but a calling… 

We’ve noticed that on the journey people get stuck or they get scared… they need guides to help them overcome their challenges… the most pivotal decision we make when we step into leadership is whether we will be heroes or guides… 

Problems accrue in organizations when leaders—who are supposed to be guides—turn into heroes… that’s when churches become empires… often this happens unintentionally… 

The most fun you can have as a leader is investing in somebody and seeing them thrive in what God’s called them to do… but this is a fundamental shift for a lot of people… 

Episode 124: Intentional Rhythms

In this episode Sarah Jackson sits down with Glenn and Holly Packiam to talk about having intentional rhythms as a family. (Watch for the book Glenn and Holly are writing on this subject—releases next year!)

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Early on in our marriage, I would say yes to certain things, and then realize that our spring break or summer went out the window… we started wondering why we were making plans that way…

We can have good ideas, but without intentions, those ideas never take shape… without intentionality, autopilot kicks in and life just kind of passes you by…

The pandemic really destabilized us… we’re not used to that… one thing that’s interesting to notice is that the monastic movement—with its intentional rhythms—happened during a destabilized time… we need to reclaim that… 

If we only live with a rhythm or order that is imposed from the outside, that may not be a godly rhythm… and it may not be producing the kind of flourishing life that God invites us into… 

Identity is a key part of this—who we are becoming… habits that are built around identity stick… we need to ask what kind of a person our habits are leading us to become…

Years ago, an older couple told us about how they would get away once a year to review their rhythms as a family… we started doing that… 

It’s evolved over the years… now, we start with a dinner, and then the next day is an exercise in looking back over the past year, both to give thanks and also to repent… 

The other thing we do is listen for a word, phrase, or scripture verse for the coming year, and then think through the rhythms we need to have to make that possible… 

For me, if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t have any built-in times for friends… I was good at planning time for work and spiritual disciplines, but I didn’t have time for friends… 

When we started doing this, I became more aware at how reactive I had been with my schedule… giving space to reflect on my schedule helped me be more proactive with things like prayer… 

It’s like a ship out in the ocean—if you don’t set a course, you won’t get anywhere… 

I’m going to guess that for many pastors and leaders, the area they lack is that there is no intentional rhythm for friendship… you need to make time for friends… 

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