Tag: church leadership

Episode 148: When Narcissism Comes to Church with Chuck DeGroat (Pt. 2)

In this episode we sit down with therapist and educator Chuck DeGroat to talk about the phenomenon of narcissism; what it is, how to spot it, and how to address it in our communities. Chuck is the author of When Narcissism Comes to Church. This is part 2 of 2.

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An emotionally intelligent leader is able to differentiate himself from you and doesn’t need to draw from you for his own ego… 

We base our idea of narcissism on appearance sometimes… people use the word irresponsibly… confidence is not narcissism… 

We need to understand the many faces of narcissism… sometimes narcissism can look like humility… for instance, an Enneagram 9 can be a narcissist… if you’ve ever experienced the quiet rage of a 9, you’ve felt it… 

One of the things that happens to leaders is that we cut ourselves off from feedback… every pastor needs people in their life who can answer the question, “How do you experience me?” and do it without threat of retribution…

The higher up in the food chain you go, the more insulated you become and the more anxious you’ll feel… leaders often think that the higher you climb, the less anxious you’ll be… the more defended you become, the greater possibility there is that narcissism will evolve… 

One of the big things we need to wrestle with is, “What is my shame wound?” A lot of people don’t think they have one—especially if they’ve been successful… 

Our pain when we’re wounded by narcissists is often externalized by outing or naming people publicly… when it happened to me, I dreamed of ways to hurt the person who hurt me… we need the presence of a compassionate witness… 

Oftentimes the way that people think they should heal from trauma is actually retraumatizing (e.g., confronting your abuser on social media)… that’s the wrong approach… you need to go to a good therapist to process what’s happening within you… 

I want people to engage the work in an unhurried way… you need someone looking out for you who cares for you and who can help you step back from your unhealthy strategies for coping with the pain…

Metabolizing shame means going back into your story… people don’t want to do this work… 

Episode 147: When Narcissism Comes to Church with Chuck DeGroat (Pt. 1)

In this episode we sit down with therapist and educator Chuck DeGroat to talk about the phenomenon of narcissism; what it is, how to spot it, and how to address it in our communities. Chuck is the author of When Narcissism Comes to Church. This is part 1 of 2.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with us throughout the week!

When we’re talking about narcissistic personality disorder, one of the things you see is an incapacity to empathize with others… 

Some people say that narcissism is born in self-love… but that’s not true… narcissism is really born in self-contempt… they’re compensating with a grandiose part of themselves that has learned live life shielded and defended… 

A narcissist fails to empathize with themselves first… 

Some people will say that narcissists are evil through and through… that they’re born evil… but I think that there’s always a story behind a narcissist… if you’re well-loved when you’re young, you won’t need the narcissistic exterior later in your life… 

The earliest warning sign that you’re in the orbit of a narcissist is your gut… there’s a stirring in your gut that something feels off… I can’t tell you how many people I know who have ignored their gut…  

Narcissistic systems can often breed a sense of loyalty where the leader can’t be questioned… the leader needs to be large and in charge and is protecting their space and power at all costs… 

Many of these leaders also have a sense of entitlement to success…

If you don’t metabolize shame in relational ways, you’ll find ways to protect yourself that will be harmful to yourself and others…

Metabolizing shame means going back into your story… people don’t want to do this work… 

Episode 144: A Conversation with Sharon & Ike Miller

In this episode we sit down with Sharon and Ike Miller, co-pastors of Bright City Church in Raleigh-Durham, Carolina to talk about life, ministry, and what they’re learning about leading well together.

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I didn’t think I was going to be a pastor… but Ike kept saying to me, “I think God wants us to do something together…”

Leading together is a constant learning process… when we launched, we were so driven by adrenaline and were ultimately running at a pace that wasn’t sustainable… 

We’re learning a lot by making mistakes, because there aren’t a lot of couples that are doing quite what we’re doing… and even where they have, if their personalities are different than ours, it won’t work the same way for us… 

It was really important for us as copastors to figure out what our lanes are… we broke that down by giftings and passions… 

Even though we’re in the Bible Belt, we’re in a very progressive area… it’s a weird demographic… lots of people have church baggage and are very cynical… we have realized that a big part of our call is to be a sensitive, safe, and healing place for people… 

At the same time, we want to help restore people to the capital ‘C’ Church, not just Bright City Church… the Church is God’s Plan A for people… 

Consumerism is also shaping us in profound ways… every week people are coming to church with their list of demands… consumerism is bad for the consumers, but it’s also chewing up and spitting out pastors… it’s commodifying the pastorate…

We’ve discovered that it’s critical for us as leaders to be vulnerable with our struggles… it communicates a sense that it’s okay for us to come in and not have it all together… 

Listening well is critical as leaders… so much of the hurt that people carry into church was that they never had spaces where they could be heard… 

You can be in control or you can be in community but you can’t be both… to be in the Body is to be interdependent with others… when a desire for absolute autonomy and control leads the way, it severs us from the Body…

Episode 139: The New Landscape of Church Leadership with Sean Morgan

In this conversation we sit down with Sean Morgan, founder of The Ascent Leader, to talk with him about some shifts he’s seeing in the landscape of church leadership over the last few years. You can check out Sean’s work with The Ascent Leader HERE.

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A lot of leadership energy is being spent right now dealing with disgruntled staff… it seems we are losing the ability to disagree in a healthy way…

The question isn’t whether we agree all the time or not, but how we disagree, and Scripture has a lot to say about unity…

This is especially challenging for churches that have campuses… it’s really difficult to have alignment when we’re not in physical proximity to one another…

Even when you have a campus that’s close, if you don’t take advantage of that proximity, you might as well be on the other side of the country… you have to be intentional…

The campuses I’m talking about are the ones that have live preaching… an arrogance can creep in that creates a toxicity which is ultimately unrecoverable…

We need to ask whether we are building churches at the speed that GOD has ordained for us, or are we putting growth hormones into the system to get what WE want…? Some of this is the bitter fruit of speeding things up to our pace, not God’s…

The higher the trust, the fewer the rules… when the trust level is high, you need fewer rules, and I think senior pastors are sending people out to lead churches WAY too early…

Most young leaders are not willing to sit in the hidden places… they see hiddenness as a punishment rather than a place where the Lord can do his best work in us… 

The leaders that are thriving are the leaders who are willing to evaluate what is and is not “today”… are we willing to accurately look at what’s working and what’s not working…?

When you do identify what’s not working, are you willing to stop it or change it…? And can your team speak into that process…? 

Every five years there needs to be serious renewal in vision and strategy… the leaders that are doing this well are leaning into their teams to evaluate vision and strategy and then are taking risks towards what they see needs to be done…

Episode 134: 10 Keys to Finishing Well

In this episode we celebrate Pastor Brady and Pam’s 15 year anniversary at New Life Church by reflecting on some keys to finishing well. You can download the full list HERE. You can also purchase Brady and Pam’s devotional Oceans of Grace HERE.

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I’m sobered by how quickly people can rise and fall… the enemy hates the church and so he targets those who lead it…

I’m not thinking about finishing in five years… I’m thinking about finishing today… I want to go bed tonight with a clean heart… the micro decisions are really important…

We need to pray all the time… the common thread among men and women who have moral failures is that somewhere along the line they lost their private devotion with the Lord…

You also need to surround yourself with honest friends… with people who like you but are not impressed with you… I’m not looking for constant critics… if something that I’m doing is bad, friends will tell me without harming me…  

Remember, we’re all interim pastors… New Life Church will be around after my funeral… it’s not built around me… pastors, we need to learn to hold our congregations loosely… we go from dust to dust, and need to remind ourselves of that…

The reason most pastors don’t transition well is they have nothing else to do… ending well is hard for pastors for whom ministry has become an unhealthy identity…

When I die, what I want on my tombstone is this: Here lies Brady Boyd: A Faithful Husband and a Good Dad… if my wife and kids can say that about me, that’s enough for me…

We need to forgive quickly and hold no grudges… the only way to become a gentle, tender old shepherd is to learn to give away those offenses and hurts that inevitably come our way in ministry…

Learn to share the credit… the mark of a spiritual mom and dad is the ability to walk away from the spotlight and watching others succeed… 

Keep Jesus at the center of it all… if people are walking out of your church talking about you rather than talking about Jesus, you have had a terrible Sunday… 

Laugh at yourself—you’re not that important… 

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 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 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 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… 

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