I Should Have Listened with Jason Campbell

### Podcast Episode Summary: "I Should Have Listened" with Jason Campbell

In this insightful episode, the host sits down with Jason Campbell, a seasoned minister and HR professional serving as the senior pastor at The Sanctuary of Lincoln in Arkansas. The conversation delves into Jason's journey in ministry, his leadership experiences, and the valuable lessons learned from past mistakes. The episode is centered around the theme of growth through failure, the importance of intentional leadership, and the significance of continuous learning and self-improvement in both spiritual and secular life.

### Key Insights:
1. **Learning from Mistakes**: Jason shares how he initially approached ministry with a passive mindset, expecting growth and success to come automatically. He emphasizes the importance of active personal development through prayer, study, and self-reflection.

2. **Osmosis is Not Enough**: Leadership and ministry require more than just proximity to great leaders or immersion in a spiritual environment. True growth comes from intentional effort, study, and the application of learned principles.

3. **Intentional Leadership**: Jason discusses the critical role of clear communication and setting expectations in leadership. He argues that many failures in ministry stem from a lack of clear direction and accountability rather than a lack of passion or ability.

4. **Importance of Feedback and Accountability**: Regular evaluations and honest feedback are essential for growth. Jason highlights the need for both leaders and followers to be open to constructive criticism, which fosters an environment of continuous improvement.

5. **Broader Education for Ministry**: Jason stresses the importance of reading widely, including on topics like leadership, human behavior, and management, to become more effective in ministry. He shares how his own growth was facilitated by stepping outside of purely spiritual studies to learn from secular disciplines as well.

6. **Motivation Through Success and Failure**: Both successes and failures should be viewed as learning opportunities. Jason encourages leaders to reward positive behaviors and outcomes while also being transparent about mistakes to foster a culture of growth and accountability.

### Actionable Takeaways:
- **Engage in Continuous Learning**: Whether through books, workshops, or personal mentorship, make learning a lifelong habit to enhance your ministry and leadership skills.
- **Develop Clear Job Descriptions**: For every role in your ministry, from youth leaders to administrative staff, ensure there is a clear job description that sets expectations and guides performance.
- **Practice Intentional Communication**: Clearly articulate what is expected from your team members, and provide specific feedback on their performance to help them grow.
- **Listen Actively and Reflect**: Make it a habit to listen to others, reflect on their advice, and be open to learning from both your own and others' mistakes.

### Episode SEO Keywords:
- Ministry leadership
- Learning from mistakes
- Intentional leadership
- Continuous improvement
- Pastoral growth
- Effective communication
- Church leadership training

This episode is a rich resource for anyone in ministry or leadership, offering practical advice on how to cultivate growth, both personally and within your team. Jason Campbell's insights provide a blueprint for intentional, reflective leadership that is grounded in continuous learning and self-improvement.

Transcript

 Today's episode. Is it a good one? I've got my new friend, brother, Jason Campbell on and it's titled, I should have listened. 

The Arkansas district uses him to help train the new licensed ministers. He's currently serving as senior pastor at the sanctuary of Lincoln in Lincoln, Arkansas. He has a miraculous. Secular career, highly educated, but he's a HR business, but I want to focus on the ministry side. He has done all kinds of things for the section between new secretary, working with the men's district, men's committee, and currently serving as section 10 secretary. 

And most importantly, again, I want to reference the help that he does for the district and training young ministers, new licensees, obviously. That is a passion of mine,  Jason. I appreciate having you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.  Oh, thank you so much. And I appreciate the invitation. I apologize.

It took us so long to get this together. I know you reached back several months ago and schedules are busy. Just didn't work out, but I'm glad we had an opportunity to do that. And so it should be fun.  Yeah. Something you mentioned early when we first started talking and it just kind of stuck with me and I don't even know if you said the word mistakes, but that's just what I heard and I began to think, you know, really, I've learned so much more from my mistakes than I ever have from my successes  and it's taken me a while to embrace that.

But that's just kind of what resonated with me. So literally what I did after we, we first talked, and I know it's several months in the making this happen, but after we first talked, I just started writing down all my mistakes and failures. And, and there was a lot of those and, but I, I just tried to focus on the three that I thought had the broadest  relevance.

Potentially to the, to the people that we're talking to today. And so if that's all right, that's just kind of want to focus on just the top three and kind of the sub points for them. Does that sound good to you? That sounds perfect. And I was not going to tell nobody how long it took.  That was going to be our secret.

I do love the idea of talking about our mistakes and I, I. I don't have enough hours on my subscriptions to Descript and Buzzsprout to talk about all my mistakes. But I liked it. You narrowed yours down to three start us off with point number one.

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, the first one, and I, I don't know why this.  this way. Hopefully I can explain it. But this is the, this is the thought that came to me. Osmosis is not the mostest. And I don't know if that's from my eighties or nineties kind of education school thing. I don't know where that came from.

But if you remember in your science stuff, osmosis is just the flow of higher concentration solutions through some sort of membrane to a lower concentration. And so there's an automatic natural flow from higher concentration. To lower. Right. And  I guess that's to a certain way. That's kind of how I entered ministry.

But the reality is, if you talk about leadership ability, Pull put ability, human relations, leadership ability. Unfortunately, none of that flows just naturally automatic down.  And I'm, I'm going to enter kind of some unscientific, unvetted made up statistic right here. Okay. So I'm just full disclosure made up, but I would guess that the majority of us that feel called to ministry  felt it in some sort of season where we were aggressively after the things of God.

It was our heartbeat. Now I know some people, they were, they were called in a life of sin and God called them out to ministry, but most of us, I feel like we're called, we were after the things of God. So I was reflecting back.  Fall of 97 into my sophomore, junior year of college could tell things were changing.

I didn't know what it was. Spring of 98 praying more than usual, fasting more than usual. And then in April of 98 and an altar call, I felt God called me to pulpit ministry. It was very obvious to me, visited with the pastor that I that I was sitting under while I was in college and told him that we had some good conversations.

And that made  summer of 98 complete chaos for me. And I was wildlife biology major. Love that sort of stuff. Love being outdoors, but knew that there was probably going to have to be a change. So if I was fasting a lot in fall of 97, spring of 98, summer of 98 was even more so. God, what am I supposed to do with this? 

Do I have to change schools? Do I got to change majors? And, and so I was just pouring it out to him and I felt very clear direction. And so by fall of 98, after I finished that summer, I'd moved to Northwest Arkansas, transferred universities, lost all of my full ride scholarships that I had at the previous university, changed majors, changed my career direction transferred churches as a part of that.

And also by fall of 97 started school that fall and stepped into my first ministry position.  And then it's like, now what?  Right. This is everything that God called me to do. And so I'm just waiting for it to all fall into place.  And, and it's, it's, it's tragic. And perhaps you've been in the same place. 

You just wait for it to happen, right? I know that I was studying more, fasting more, praying more, but it got me to be where God wanted me to be. Now I'm just waiting for God to do it. Right. Waiting for that osmosis to have and, and it's probably, I mean, I'm sure you probably have similar stories where you're just sitting and waiting for it to happen.

And it's embarrassing really, when I think back and it, you know, to disclose that I was just kind of going through the motions waiting till one day it was my spiritual turn, you know waiting for one day that I suddenly sounded like brother Gaddy behind the pulpit. That I could teach like brother Raymond Woodward, it's just automatically going to happen, right?

I'm going to be able to exhort like brother Stan Gleeson. I'm going to be able to pray like sister Vesta Mangan. All of those things are going to happen. I'm going to give tongues and interpretation just like my pastor does. I'm going to be recognized and promoted and surely there'll be that next level of anointing up there at the top somewhere.

I've just got to wait for it to happen.  And tragically, you suddenly realize. It's not automatically going to happen. You know, if I was to be honest and reflect back, like where was my prayer life at that season? My first position where, where was my Bible study? My personal Bible study? Where was my fasting? 

What books was I reading? In my first early days of of ministry and ministry position. The answer is none. I mean, it was full disclosure. There was none osmosis. It's eventually going to happen. I'm doing what God asked me to do. It's automatically going to happen. And then I reflect back when, you know, I used to spend time at the church and alone in prayer.

When was the last time I was alone in prayer? And tragically, in those early days, it was never, it was not healthy. When was the last time I listened to myself on tape? And that's reflecting back on, on my age, right? You have to put in the cassette tape, you know the tape ministry, you know? And I didn't like the way my voice sounded on tape.

So I didn't listen to myself to see what I sounded like.  All of these things. And, and again, it's embarrassing to admit, but I was not pouring into myself to make myself any better. I just assumed it would automatically come. You know, carry the same type of Bible my pastor carries. Surely I'm going to sound like my pastor, you know, it's the technical side of things and that that's not how it works now.

I get that. God's a sovereign God.  God can do whatever he wants. If we go back to Genesis, he can make something out of nothing. We go back to the times of Elijah and, and after, you know praying and loosen things over the widow and her son, every time they open the cruise of oil that they thought they had just emptied, suddenly there's something there, right?

He, God can make something out of nothing,  but as a general rule. He follows the principles of his creation and you cannot pour out something that you have not put in. That's right.  And it's so basic. But I, I saw myself doing that. And I see sometimes other young ministers doing the same, just waiting for something to happen.

You go back to acts three. And you see Peter and John and the lame man there at the gate. And they say, you know, he's asking silver and gold. He's asking money from them. And they say, you know, the scripture silver and gold, have I none such as I have give I unto thee. And he's not just being selfish.

They don't have the money to give. Right. But they do have something and they're able to pour out of the abundance of what was born in Acts chapter two. And, and so we have to have some of these things for ourself if we want them to flow out of us and change environments that we are in. Right. You can go to Acts 19 and we see someone, the exorcist, in fact, that had saw Paul use the name of Jesus, saw how powerful it was, but they did not have it.

For themselves.  And the end result of that is that they were injured because of that. The demon said, Paul, I know Jesus, I know, but who are you? Right? And so I  will just say it really practical like this. When you try to pour out. By mimicking somebody else or somebody else's anointing, you will be spiritually injured or emotionally injured and or physically injured if you're trying to pour out something that you don't have. 

And so again, doesn't automatically flow. I got a couple more points, but I'll just pause there. I mean, does that resonate with you? Do you see that happens? It does it. I see it happen all the time. And thank you for giving me a moment. I thought of a reason why and actually two reasons why one is kind of a natural  because, because they're not taught how to read the Bible. 

Sure.  We're not taught to read between the verses. Mm hmm. All they see are the few sentences that Peter says when he's walking with Jesus. And this thing, you know, he's preaching on X two 38,  but they don't read all the training, all the prayers and everything that went, that's not written. So, and they don't do, they don't know to study and understand the customs and traditions of sitting on their rabbi and all the training that went into that, they, they don't understand that they don't.

So we, we, that's why they expect it to happen. Cause it just. According to what we read in black and white, that's how it happened. It just one day they were called, you know, they're hopping up and  gates of hell are being worn down. Secondly, there's an old quote and I've mentioned this before. So if my listeners are getting tired of me repeating myself, I'm sorry, but it's, it's a nice quote, but it really needs to be qualified when you use it.

God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies the called. Have you ever heard that? Yeah,  it's not true. As  Not as it's presented. No,  it's not true as it is presented now. Oh, general with a broad brush. Yes, that's true. But when it's said just like that to a bunch of new converts, it gives the impression that just anyone can walk up to an altar, receive a company and they're in right. 

Yeah.  And even if you know that's not true, I think that's kind of how I enter ministry. And I was in a, a master classroom for the Stan Gleason over his book, the unflawed leader and, and he quoted a statistic and it's, it's what I've wanted to know, like, where am I now? But he talked about his early days of ministry.

He would spend no less than  20 hours  per 45 minute teaching or preaching segment. Yeah.  And you think it just comes natural to him. It just becomes natural to somebody like Brother Tim Gaddy. These individuals  pour into their lives through reading, through study. Yes, they make it look like it just flows out of them, but that's from an abundance of pouring through and studying and pouring into them.

Brother, Brother Benar. You know, our Bishop, Bishop Bernard you probably see at the end of the year, if you follow him on social media, at the end of the year, he'll post how many books he read that year. Yeah, I think the last one I remember seeing was in, I think it was 2023 he said he read 123 books in one year. 

And I remember back in 2019, I had to go look this back up to make sure I remembered it right at that point. He said, and I know it's more now, but in 2019,  he said he had 3, 500 books in his personal library and he had read all of those except for 310  that he was currently working on.  So  again, the idea that stuff automatically flows down and is going to automatically flow through us with no effort on our part is complete nonsense.

Absolutely. You must pour in before it can ever pull out. So obviously spiritual disciplines of, of prayer and, and, and fasting, all of those things, work hard, show up, participate, you know, in section and district, all of those are healthy things,  but I will go one further. Go ahead. I'm so, I'm so sorry, brother.

I was just thinking,  I wonder how many of them.  Take advantage of their  natural ability, their natural talent and confuse that with anointing and confuse that with giftings, you know, someone may have the, the natural potential for leadership or persuasion.  So it's kind of like,  forgive me for being carnal and using a sports metaphor, but you've got a lot of kids that can be an all a high school all star without a lot of practice because they just, they're just naturally gifted. 

You get weeded out in college, but by the kids who really work at it, right.  And I,  yeah, and I had that in my notes and I took it out, but I think that is what really sabotaged me in my early walk in ministry is if I'm completely honest in my undergraduate degree, I never read a single chapter. And I don't mean that to brag.

It's just, I didn't have to, I could listen, I could retain. I went through a master's degree. I think I literally read one chapter in my graduate degree  out of all that stuff. And you got to go through written comps and you got to do the oral test at times. And  it was easy for me to a certain degree, but when we talk about ministry things, you may be gifted when speaking, but that doesn't mean you say anything worth listening to unless you have poured in.

You have to do that. Right. So we're, and I will go.  Yep. Go ahead brother. No, I was saying we're on the same page. I was just amening you so you would go, yeah, go ahead.  Yeah. So I really had to learn and, and, and make myself read, which I never liked to do Then I don't like it now. I.  But I make myself do it because if I'm going to lead people, there's got to be something halfway intelligent come out of my mouth on occasion.

And, and I can't depend on the spirit to do all of that. And so I'll even say one step further, especially when you talk about leading people, you need to be reading also stuff like leadership.  Management, human behavior, marriage, change management, biographies of historical figures. I would love to say that every time I sit across the table, maybe doing pastoral counseling with somebody that God miraculously places things in my thinking that I know what's going on in that individual, that couple's life.

And I can speak to that. And absolutely, sometimes he does. But  absolutely, more often than not,  God has given me the purpose to study and understand how people behave and relationships and be able to pour that stuff into them. That's also helpful. Not everything is a spiritual battle. And, and so you have to study those things as well. 

Amen.  Good stuff. Good stuff. Keep going. Yeah. All right. Next point or what? Or continue that one. Yeah. What to do.  I will just say this and then we'll go on to the next point. People sometimes often say, well, what do I do first? What do I read first? What do I study first? And if we're not careful, some the perfectionist among us, which I'm not one, I try to be better.

Is this whole paralysis of analysis?  You know, you should be doing something.  But you do nothing because you can't figure out the first step. So if somebody was to ask me, well, what book changed it all for you? I want to start with that book. There is no book that has changed at all for me, but I can say across all my study and education, it has changed everything for me.

So be, even if you can't, you may say, well, I want to go to Bible college. I want to do this, but I can't yet. So I'll do nothing. No, that's not acceptable. If you have a call of God on your life. Begin where you are, ask your pastor if you can borrow a book, ask if the two of you can meet and do study that book together, join a purpose institute, do something where you are. 

And I think that God honors that times and maybe God wants you to go to Bible college. Maybe God wants you to do something else, but if you can't have the purpose to start right where you are, I  hate to sound rude, but you may not be worth the effort. So start where you are, start where you are.  No, that's good stuff.

And I hope the guys who that listened to me and I helped teach, I hope they listen to that. I'm not the only one that pushes books,  right? Yeah.  I actually have required reading for, I had required reading for the staff at the church at least two books a year. I, I would require, if you want to be on the staff, you want to be on the platform.

You've got to read this book and then this book, whatever. Cause I, I agree with you.  Yep.  Again, it one book is not the solution, but that spirit of studying and education developing overall over a lifetime. It's, it's a huge difference. I agree.  Reflecting back to, I think, and I'm going to  call it this but hopefully everything I say kind of makes sense, but hearing is not the same as listening.

Sure. And Listening.  If you can truly listen, it will change your actions. It will change your behaviors. But  we don't always listen. And let's put it this way. Sometimes we get together as ministers ministry, whether we're new in the ministry or not, we're having coffee. We're at a conference. We're getting together.

We're talking about things. And We, we often just focus on the things that we are doing. Well, our successes, it's almost,  I mean, I hate to say it this way. It's almost like we're kind of bragging a little bit and we're talking about things we deflect our mistakes. We don't want to talk about the and none of us want to sit in the, in the audience of a Debbie Downer, right?

No one wants that, but  we just act like everything we do is a success and that there's no need for change. And as a consequence, a lot of times we're not even listening to other people when they talk, Proverbs 12, 15 says that this way, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes.  But a wise one listens to advice. 

Also same book, 18 to a full takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his or her opinion.  And so again, we're, we're, we're getting close here. I have heard, I I've, I've learned to be a watcher of people. I've learned to listen a little bit better. I've not always been good at that.

And I'll, I'll disclose some of that here in a minute. But, but I have watched those ministers and others. Who have serious ministry issues going on, maybe family issues going on, drama, financial problems going on. They know they need help. They know something is out of control, out of balance. They need answers.

And I have been an audience and get to sit down and realize that on one side is the person who has issues in their life. Cause we can be in ministry and have issues. We're not immune to that.  And then on the other side of the table, it's like God orchestrated it is the retired minister, the Bishop, the one who just has all of the answers. 

And,  and one of two things tend to happen. And as I've watched in it, my heart breaks for this individual who has true issues going on in their life. Either they talk incessantly  and don't let this sage, this  elder talk into their life. Or two, even if they do give him a moment,  all they can do is talk about, well, why that won't work here, or I've already tried that, right?

You've probably advised people and you've seen that happen before, right?  And it breaks your heart, right? I, and my heart breaks here. I am an audience to this, watching somebody who has serious  need of advice. And this.  Elder who has good experience is trying to pour into them. And if they're always deflecting or just always talking about how they've always tried this, guess what happens?

This elder, you watch them suddenly get quiet and they just let this person talk on and ramble on. They close the door  to pouring into them. And  I'm sure you've seen this too, right? You've probably experienced somebody doing this. And I don't know that I've ever been exactly that person, but I would guess  that I've probably been somewhat near to that at least.

And, and, and where the revelation came to me is actually in my secular career.  And God just kind of convicted me to listen and to just own up to my mistakes.  And so, you know, as a rising person in the corporate ladder, so to speak, I mean, that could be kind of a death sentence, right? We're all sharing in whatever's going on.

It's easy to deflect blame on somebody else and to say, well, you know, I assigned this to so and so, and they just kind of dropped the ball. It's easy to push it on somebody else,  but it was definitely God spoke to me, say none of that anymore. You're just going to own up to your mistakes and you're just going to listen to what people say. 

I'm like, okay, God, either you're going to kill my career and move me on, or I don't know what's going on, but if that's what you want.  And so it's amazing that being in people and supervisors and people above me, and they're asking what's going on and why this isn't done yet, I just have to say, you know what, I'm not sure.

You know, I, I think we've kind of dropped the ball here. Let me check on that and see if we can't get this back on track. And I was just really honest.  Instead of killing my career, it actually, I began to be elevated people, multiple levels above me suddenly would come into my office and say, Hey, Jason, I just want to know about this.

And sometimes it was professional, sometimes it was personal.  And I think that God was one helping me to own up to mistakes, but two causing me at the same time to just be able to listen and  people like a listener,  people will pour into the listener and And, and that, that was really changing my career for me in the secular career.

But I think it also bled over and changed how I did ministry and how I listen to people. Cause if we're not careful, we're always just looking for the solution and we don't hear people. And but if you can realize you don't have all the answers and just pause.  Listen to somebody. It's amazing that you hear them differently.

 So I think  through  my mistakes, I've learned to seek input from, from trusted peers, don't go in. Like I've got all the answers and everything I've always done has been successes.

It's not but to the people that I can trust and especially my pastor, I need to be open and honest, right? I don't want to always deflect. It's so easy. Even in the church, if pastor comes to you and says, Hey, have you had a chance to, you know, fix that door closer on the front door? Oh. You know, I, yeah, I didn't know what to count to a charge it too.

So I haven't done anything yet, or I've just been so busy and it's just easy  to deflect when we drop the ball. Why can't we just say, you know what?  I, I didn't, I'm going to, I'm going to get on that and then get on it. Yeah.  So just owning your mistakes and pausing and letting people speak into your life.

It, the conversation that you can have. With your pastor or peers or mentors when you can be honest with them, it's completely different and it will change you. It will absolutely change you.  Do you ever work in student ministry? About 15, 16 years. I was a youth pastor. Okay. I don't know if you ever did this.

Did you ever do evaluations?  Like you sent like a written evaluation so they could evaluate what worked and what wasn't working and what activities that I liked and didn't like not with my youth. I did with the staff at the wit, but not with the. Yeah. Yeah. We, we did it. Our time, my wife and I, Rachel and I, as in ministry and student ministry, we do it with the.

Adults too, but that's where we first started doing it. And what we found out is if you're going to ask for honest evaluation, you got to be, that is anonymous.  You better pray first, right, right, because they're going to give you the honest truth. I hated that lock in. It was boring. And if you are not, if you can't own up to some mistakes and have an open ear to honestly listen, you're like, well, that kid never likes anything.

Right. Well, you know, that was awesome.  But I think if you can own mistakes and pause and say. Well, why would somebody say that exactly? What, what, what could I have done? Because I think even in the harshest of criticism, there's a measure of truth.  That's so important to understand. You're absolutely right.

And they weren't saying it to be ugly. You asked. No, they weren't. Now as youth, I think sometimes they were, but there was still some truth, you know, in that. You know, 12 year olds can be some very harsh, right? Right. Yeah. But there, there's some measure of truth. And, and I, I believe as it's shaped me. And so a lot of times I look internal before I look anywhere else.

Okay. Maybe I'm not a good teacher. Why not? What, why, why, why wasn't that lesson? Why wasn't that series good? Why do, didn't that event work well? What could I have done differently to make it work well? And it, if you learn to own those mistakes and listen to people, it changes everything.  Man, I like that.

And then it's hard to do because that's not just a ministry thing. That's a mature thing. Being, being able to  accept that and move on, but your wording in the notes, I really liked it was to not overstate your successes. And you, you mentioned it in this podcast, but you just brushed over it, but man, we do this much.

We just want to overstate. This way has always been done. It's always worked, but what if God wants to do something different?  And if all we're doing is, is making, if, if all we ever sound like to anyone else is all we have is successes.  One, no one ever can advise us about our mistakes. But two, I, I, it's just, it's not conducive to any learning, any development.

Again, for me, at least personally, I learned better from my state, my mistakes than my successes.

I do too I guess maybe because I've had more mistakes and successes. Yeah, it's true. It's true. I know it's true for all of us. If, if we're honest, if we're honest, but I wanted to add something, what I did with my staff I did this, I gave every one of them an evaluation, but I did create, I went to survey monkey and I created the reverse.

And now we're talking about evaluation. I'm talking about personal evaluations. I gave them. Job description, you know, I listed what, you know, what their title was and what their job description was. Cause I'm really big on expectations. You cannot hold someone accountable. If I express what you expect from them, I'm really big on that anyway.

And then I would give them a couple of positives  and a couple of negatives. No more. I didn't, this was not a time, not a military evaluation where, you know,  just a couple of things are doing well and a couple of things they could work on. And I loved having it in writing. This is not trying to pitch it, but in case someone thinks this is weird, because a lot of times they think you may be harsh on them, but come next year,  if they still haven't worked on it, now you've got a history, Hey, you've got a problem here.

And they tend, Oh,  you're right. I didn't work on that now. Anyway, it helps. I did that. I then created a  survey, went to SurveyMonkey and I created an anonymous survey for me. Cause if you're going to give  feedback, you need to be able to receive feedback. A lot of ministers think they're too good for that.

They think they're, they're, they think their opinion only comes down and they don't want to receive it coming up.  So now you've got to be able to take it. And it was hard on me the first time, cause somebody said some things that I thought was joking and you know, and I tried to,  I thought it was a joke and my wife said, you made it anonymous.

Let it go. Oh yeah. You're right.  I gotta go, but I,  'cause it was silly, but, you know, I gotta be able to take that.  Yeah. Yeah. I, I'll never forget one at the end of one of those messages was before I was even pastoring. But I, I, I, I was preaching and finished what I knew was phenomenal. I knew this was my best work yet.

And, I met an elder at, at the back, and she shook my hand and she looked me right in the face. She goes, you know, that, that was pretty good. One of these days, you're gonna be a really good preacher,  . And,  and, and, you know, what do you do with that? If you think, well, that's my best work yet you know, then you, you get offended.

But if you like, yep, I'm still growing and developing and I can take feedback, then, then, you know, you're right. One of these days I, I plan to be better than I am today. Lord willing, and that's what I'm working on, you know, to, to be better, to be better. I have one of those and man, we loved her. We went right past the pastor because the pastor would always blow smoke.

Oh, you did great. And I don't want to hear from you from sister Rosetta Watson. She will tell you if you stunk it up, but when you did good, she would tell you it meant something, you know, like, yeah.  Yeah, what you got? What's next? Yeah. And so really what you're on really just leads into kind of my last kind of point and kind of my area of failure, failure or development.

And I kind of started this way and we'll probably go down a rabbit trail and then hopefully get back on track and make the point here. But if I could borrow kind of a Ramsey ism, if you want to, somebody follows Dave Ramsey this is not the financial side. So don't get uptight, but he often says this to be unclear is to be unkind. 

And when we talk about leadership, it's not just about being in charge. It's the, it's the ability to organize groups or people around a central task. It's a central mission. And when we talk about church things, we can go to Ephesians chapter four. We talk about the five fold ministry and, and which Is we're stepping into ministry, you know, a pulpit ministry.

Hopefully we're finding our footing as God directs along one of those lines. But the fivefold ministry is to lead or train saints for the work of ministry.  So when, when we're being called into ministry, that's what we're being asked to do is lead people. Now I get,  when we talk about leadership, that's a multi year study, which we're not doing.

So I'm just carving out just a tiny sliver of that.  It's also been said that if you want to go fast, go alone. Yeah. If you want to go far, take somebody with you. Yes.  And that's what we're doing. When we talk about ministry is we're trying to reach the whole world.  We're trying to reach the whole world knowing that our time is short and and we're trying to go far We're trying to go fast, but we're trying to go far and and as long as he tarries We we want to be engaged in that ministry.

We're not doing it alone, right? Paul talks about a whole body of all these different members, but they're fitly joined together There's something directing it and causing it to be effective in this ministry and it's not just talking about ministry of ministers, but we're talking about the whole body, every single spirit filled individual within the church, we're trying to lead and, and direct. 

So in ministry, whether it's, you know, events or revival services or outreach activities,  As ministers, we're gathering people around some common mission. Maybe it's, it's a limited time mission more or more global, a longer term mission, but we're trying to lead them.  And  people do not always know what to do  or how to do it. 

And you have to tell them what needs to be done or even how to get started. And so  that that could be that whole thought could be it's it's a whole evening,  but I'm trying to use it, I guess, to lead into this when leading people, we can get stuck focusing on the wrong things, especially when we perceive that they have failed.

They failed us, right? We brought him in as a part of a team or to help us do something try to lead them. And it just flops. And you're thinking to yourself  now, hopefully we don't say this out loud. Maybe we do say it out loud, but they don't care about the church  or they are not ministry minded. They don't have what it takes.

They'll never be a leader in, in this.  And this has happened to me a lot. And it's probably happened to all of us have been in ministry for a while, but you ask somebody to, to join you, to help you do something. And then they just sit on you, right? You jump in and start working and like. You're thinking to yourself, what are they doing?

I asked them to help me and we can, we can immediately draw the conclusions that well, I just don't care about the church. They'll never be youth pastor quality, or they will never be a leader in the church and maybe even praying God send me some quality people. And then. Whether you realize or not, suddenly you isolate yourself and it's you're a crusade of one.

You're doing it all by yourself. It's all on me. And we know none of that is scriptural, right? We're supposed to be leading people, training them, developing them for for ministry. But we have already made an assessment that they're not profitable for ministry.  And the truth is that our assessment may not be correct because we've heard it tossed around.

Correlation does not equal causation, right? Or at least not always  behaviors. Do not always equate to motives. I'll back it up to the secular side.  And because I sat in that HR space and I'm working with managers for so many years and I'm coaching them, especially evaluation season, and they are getting, preparing evaluations.

And they know, you know, the, the above average folks, even the average folks, it's easy, but they come meet with me like. The below average person, like I need to visit with the HR director and I need some coaching on this and I would look at some of the things that they would write. The language sometimes was so harsh.

They, there would be words like this. You are lazy. This is what the director to the subordinate,  you need to grow up and focus on what is important.  You need to get a clue. Right. The and these are almost verbatim of some of the things I have read. You are not about the mission of this department or this organization. 

And that's what the supervisor has written about an evaluation that they're going to be going over with the subordinate here very long and very soon.  And all of those are focusing on a perceived personality or a perceived motive.  And all of those could be wrong. Right? Right. Because they have already written this person off.

They're not about the mission. They're lazy. I don't want a lazy person on my team. And so what I would cause them to do is back up and say, well, what would cause you to say that?  And then I would start digging down into stuff like this. Well, they're always 15 minutes late. Every day, they always call in sick the day after a holiday.

Doesn't that gripe you to they always have their office door closed and the rest of the department keeps theirs open and it's all of these things that are behaviors that if we address those, somebody could actually learn from grow from and develop.  And that doesn't mean that they're lazy, right?

You don't have to write them off. And what I love is. Not every time because some of them just were lazy, but many times a supervisor would focus on correctable behaviors  and they would find out after they tell them, Hey, I need you here on time because you know, we serve internal clients and a lot of them are here by eight and before.

And so they're going to have questions into the it desk and you need to be, we need here to be able to start filling tickets. And so I need you here no later than eight.  And, and, and hey, do you need other training? Is there something more I can provide to you as this is the supervisor to the subordinate and working on improvable behaviors. 

And suddenly a lot of times it gets better because it's things that can, someone can actually work on.  If I bring it, if I bring it back to the church and I threw in some IT stuff, cause I know you work in an IT space. But I remember even in the church setting, this is before I was pastoring, but as part of the leadership team and We, there was an individual, they wanted to be using ministry.

We put them in an area of ministry. They didn't do very good. We put them in another area of ministry. They didn't do very good. We put them in another area of industry. They didn't do very good. And now it's in a leadership meeting and we're having this discussion and somebody poses the question, what are we going to do about so and so?

They're just never going to catch on. I don't know that they have what it takes.  Hmm.  And it's all of those things kind of coming together that kind of give me just it was a wake up call for me and and I realized it and then I expressed it as tactfully as as as I could and I said, you know, I don't know that they failed us. 

I think we may have failed them.  Did we explain what success looks like?  Did we tell them what works and what doesn't work?  Did we give them a job description, position description? Did we hold them accountable when we saw that they weren't meeting our expectations?  And when the answer to almost all of those is no,  then we failed.

As leaders, we have failed. I'll just fill this in for what it's worth. It might not, might need this. But responsibility without accountability. Reads a sense of entitlement.  Entitlement is, is destructive to any organization. So what are, what are you saying? All that for, I have to communicate what's needed to people if things are going to get better. 

So if you, if you ever thought or, or, or, or said these things, and I won't make you answer this, Mike, but.  I will never be able to build a youth group, or I will never be able to build a team here. They don't care about the church. They don't have what it takes. They don't care about revival. They don't really care about souls.

They don't have what it takes. They're not passionate like I am. Perhaps  our assessment is incorrect  and we're focusing on the wrong things.  Things that really can't be improved on. I'll pause there because I've got a couple more points that I'll kind of bring us home on, but I I'll pause there just to see if there's anything you want to chime in on that.

Man, I'm just thinking of times and times and times again, where I've experienced the same thing. I can't word it any better than you have, but. Your notes were talking about, don't question, you know, look at their behaviors and not their motives.  You never know why someone's doing it. You know, if someone's late every day,  maybe there's a reason why maybe they're struggling.

I always try to see it from their point of view before you assume something, right? You never know what they're going through and just the effort. And I'm, and I'm speaking from a secular point of view. I really, I try really hard to bring my military training and  skills and Verizon, Verizon's got it down on how to train you know, in corporate world. 

I try to bring all that in and man, just trying to see it from their point of view before you just, well,  you know, if I did that, then I would be slacking. So that doesn't mean they're slacking when they do it. You're not, you're not the standard.  Right.  And it's like you were reading my notes that I didn't give to you in its entirety because I mean, that's, that's like almost word for word because that was my question.

Why is this the case? Why? Why do they not behave? You know, like we want them to, right? We've asked them to serve on this illustrious position with me. And and the reality is everyone doesn't think like we do. All right.  Now, some people could argue there's good qualities to that. There's bad qualities to that.

Right. But, but the reality is literally  everyone doesn't think like you do. They didn't grow up the way you do. They didn't get the education. You did the experience. You did the jobs that you have secular ministry. They didn't grow up in the same type of pastors that you did. Their personality is different.

How they were raised as kids. What all of these things, Make them think very differently because I just assume that if people see me stacking chairs at church, come on now, everybody going to grab a chair and start stacking, right?  That's not necessarily the case.  And there's a lot of things that, that we must do as ministry leaders to focus on the right things to help direct people in a way that, because as the five fold ministry, what is our goal to help create them, make them profitable for ministry.

So I can't just say they're lazy or they I've got to focus on what are the behaviors? How can I help correct them lead them that suddenly they're going to be profitable for ministry? And again, I started with this to be unclear is to be unkind So it's telling people exactly what you need. You can't assume that just because you say hey, can you help me on saturday?

Mow the church yard.  I mean, I know what that means. You know what that means That doesn't mean that we think the same thing, right? But if I can start with, Hey, are you available to help me  on Saturday at eight to mow the church yard? You are great. Are you comfortable on a zero turn? I'll let you mow.

I'll weedy the ditch. I'm going to weed the flower garden. And then Hey, I'm going to pick up trash because we have a back to school service and I just want to make sure everything's looking good.  They know the who, what, when, where, why, what their role is, what success looks like, and why we're doing it.

And so it's those sorts of communication. Again, communication,  we could do a whole night on that stuff.  But if you don't mind, I'll just throw just a few things that you've already mentioned. In fact, some of them that may just get the wheels turning in somebody's mind to help correct behaviors or to help get the outcomes that they want as they're leading a team.

As God gave them. But again, those informal communications, but being more detail oriented, which we don't always do, we assume everyone is like us. You, you mentioned this, Mike, is written job descriptions. I, I mean, I am from an HR background. This is so important to me. Again, this is another whole night just talking about job descriptions, but you gotta have 'em.

Right. If you say, well, hey, we're in a small church, a small youth group, it doesn't matter. Oh, yeah, it matters if you or else you will never be larger because an organization can only  sustain so much unorganization or disorganization. So. Again, from us, whether it's teachers in the nursery all the way through teachers in the adult semi school class on Sunday morning, young ministers that are preaching, worship team, vocalist band, youth worship team, prayer coordinators, men's coordinators, dedicated altar workers, readers, ushers, media, everything  we have a job description for people want to know what success looks like.

What do you want from me? What am I committing to? When I say yes to you as pastor, you.  And so those cool things. Other thing I'll just throw out required trainings and you've already mentioned this. You talked about required reading required trainings. And I do that as well. And, and then even when it's required, think about maybe the 2nd, 3rd shift, 1st person that can't be at that required training on a Tuesday night.

And what are you going to do about that? It's no longer profitable for ministry.  But we got all this technology. We can record something. We can post it as an unlisted link to YouTube and send it to them and then say, Hey, text me after you've watched this and we'll start plugging you in. But you gotta get creative sometimes.

Feedback. You mentioned that as well. Telling people you know, what went well debriefing, you know, in our leadership team, we may have knocked it out of the park. Everyone says we knocked it out of the park, but guess what? When we have our next lead team meeting, we're going to sit down and say, Hey, this event, what went well?

And then we're going to say, what didn't work well, what would it be improved? And then we're going to even answer a question. I think sometimes we overlook is should we ever do this again? Right. Even if we did it well, doesn't mean we should do it again. So having that feedback performance for everybody clear instructions for teams, if you're setting up teams and. 

Going to communicate in their setup. There's takedown, there's food, there's decorated, whatever it is, just making sure the whole team knows what they're committing to  ask people if they're available, if they're able to accomplish whatever the needed thing is. And just this last one, I'll throw you to you.

And this has become kind of a thing that I try to do is on an individual level, just again, letting people know if they kind of missed it. You know but then letting people know when they did really well. And I think sometimes I have a hard time doing that because I just expect that everyone's going to do well.

I asked you to do it. Obviously I have confidence in you. I think you should do it well, but letting people know when they do it well, sometimes publicly. Sometimes privately. And this goes all the way back to, you know, focusing on the behaviors, helping people become profitable for ministry. There's a whole study in management.

That's that's talking about this rewarding for a and expecting B. Right. So you get what were you reward. So if, if I'm telling people, man, I love the way you met with that new family on Sunday and took them out to lunch afterwards. I want you to know that is what we are all about here at the sanctuary. 

I'm letting them know. And guess what? People want to please, they want to be beneficial to ministry. And so I've just told them what success looks like. I've congratulated them. And guess what? They want to do more of that.  Okay. I have rambled on so much. Oh, I have skimmed through my notes and just got to the heart of it, but  I love it.

And I just can't believe how I've met someone who  verbatim. We agree.  Wish folks could hear it.  I'm not the only one. No,  they told me I was nuts and running a boot camp.  It just works.  It does. And I'll tell you this, and this is what I tell people, you know, because sometimes people come, Hey, can you come talk to this group about leadership or whatever the topic is?

And, and I'll come and I'll even tell the pastor or whoever leader ahead of time, I'll say, Hey, I will probably say something that you've been harping on for years, but because it's a different voice, they're suddenly going to hear it and think that's the best thing ever. Right? And so sometimes that's the benefit of just having a different voice.

We can be saying the exact same thing, but for whatever reason, it just resonates differently. That's what I'm going to do. So hopefully that's the case. And this all ties back into your very first point of  looking beyond the initial call. These are things that the Bible doesn't tell you that you have to  learn how to do this. 

It tells you to do all things well, do all things for the glory of God. So that should tell you that we need to put forth effort to master it. And that means you got to be a good leader. It means you got to study it and  learn and listen, but you know, like you said, these are things we're all taught. I like your title.

I should have listened.  These are things we're all told I should have listened, but we think we know it, we think it doesn't matter right now or, and we just missed the boat.  And I'd say it's, and it's, it's embarrassing, I guess, to admit, but I, I do it and you know 98 to now was that like 26 years of ministry, but still yet I will, and watching it's worse than listening to it, but I will make myself once a month. 

Listen to either something I have taught and or something that I have preached, and I will listen in its entirety because it's 1 thing to we have faculty. I've worked with some of the best faculty, the best minds.  In the world on certain topics, but that doesn't always mean they're great communicators, right?

So even if I have the truth and I know scripture, if I cannot articulate it in a way that's palatable and easy for somebody to listen,  sometimes that's not very helpful. So again, we're always working. I'm always working, learning, trying to say, what can I do to make it better? Make my church stronger, make my ministry team stronger.

How can Jason improve? Yeah, I wish a certain  how do I put this just because you are the master of it does not mean  How'd up man? How'd I put this where I don't sound rude  Jerry Jones Worded it well on, on the podcast. He said, we ministers have an obligation to not only preach the truth, but to engage our audience. 

Right. So when you were talking, just because you're preaching Acts 2 38, or just because you're the master of it, you still have to be,  we don't like the word entertaining, but you have to engage your audience. Yeah. It's your obligation to learn how to present that. Right. You know, I can be a nerd and geek out about certain things, but if, if I  turn around and pour it out to the audience or to the congregation, I may be hitting less than 1 percent because everyone's maybe not nerdy like me in that particular area.

So I have to say, how can I make it in such a way that people receive it, want to hear more of it, and it changes their life.  I need to send that podcast to certain people. 

All right wrap is up, closes up. I  really don't. I, I this is something that is, is kind of like you, it's been my burden and, and I, I want to help people and I don't talk like I know everything or I'm the best  preacher, pastor, minister, speaker, teacher, trainer. I'm not.  But I have a burden to make myself better and everything.

And I have that same burden in the folks that I worked with here in our church, young ministers, those that are growing and developing  to continue to grow and develop. And yes, the spirit will be there. Right. We're not forsaking the disciplines of prayer, fasting and all of those things and studying the word.

But we're also giving God something else to work with too. And I believe that it can be beneficial to the church and to revival.  Absolutely. I mean, we know that the Bible says God blesses the efforts. You know, we plant in water and God provides increase. So  what effort is he blessing?  The effort of our prayer or the effort of our study, you know, so we need to put the effort  and I've awesome.

I  mean this, I want to see you around the campground. I want us to become friends. I want to text you more often. I want us to gather whatever you, if you could ever.  I don't know. I just want to,  we're too similar to not be friends. Yep. I am not going anywhere. So you've got my number. Call me, text me. I'm here for you, man.

I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on the show. Do you have anything I need to push any special services, any books  I don't know about, I am, I am not that smart. So no, sir.  Well, I've read some dumb books. 

All right. Well, I just wanted to give you a shot. Thank you for coming on.  Thanks, man. Yeah. Brass.