Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - The Accessibility of a Leader
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome to the Andy Stan Lead Leadership Podcast from the Vault.
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- 0:25Speaker 1: large or small, requires time, your valuable time, and your energy.
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- 0:31Speaker 1: intentional with setting a work routine and finding our productivity rhythm,
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- 1:37Speaker 3: Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, The conversation designed
- 1:41Speaker 3: to help leaders go further faster. On today's podcast, we're
- 1:45Speaker 3: going to explore how to respond to the increased demands
- 1:48Speaker 3: on a leader's time. Andy, we first talked about this
- 1:51Speaker 3: topic on the podcast a little over a year ago,
- 1:53Speaker 3: but it's so important we felt like it warranted more discussion.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure we could ever talk about this
- 1:59Speaker 1: too much. The harsh reality of leadership is that the
- 2:01Speaker 1: more successful we are, the less accessible we become. The
- 2:05Speaker 1: more successful we are, the less accessible we become. And
- 2:08Speaker 1: the truth is from more most leaders we want to
- 2:11Speaker 1: be more accessible because there are more people to be
- 2:13Speaker 1: accessible to. But it just it doesn't work that way.
- 2:16Speaker 3: So any accessibility really is a casualty of a growing
- 2:19Speaker 3: ministry or organization.
- 2:21Speaker 1: Yeah, And the truth is it should be. As things
- 2:23Speaker 1: grow and as more people are involved, a leader can't
- 2:26Speaker 1: be equally accessible to all people. And so then we're
- 2:29Speaker 1: faced with the dilemma of who gets my time and
- 2:32Speaker 1: who doesn't, When do they get it, and how much
- 2:33Speaker 1: of it do they get?
- 2:34Speaker 3: So it's kind of like having engine trouble in a Ferrari.
- 2:37Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's a successful person's problem. It's only the
- 2:40Speaker 1: person in a growing organization, whether it's ministry or a business,
- 2:44Speaker 1: that has the problem of why there are too many
- 2:45Speaker 1: people I need to be with. There's too many people
- 2:47Speaker 1: I need to give my time to.
- 2:49Speaker 3: Well what are the I guess common reactions you see
- 2:52Speaker 3: when a leader faces this for the first time.
- 2:54Speaker 2: Well, there's two things. I think.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Initially, we all try to be all things to all people,
- 2:58Speaker 1: and we all try to continued to be as accessible to.
- 3:02Speaker 2: Everyone as we always have been.
- 3:04Speaker 1: And I one of the most difficult transitions I made
- 3:06Speaker 1: in our organization was several years ago when I had
- 3:09Speaker 1: to reorg our entire leadership team. And again, I, like
- 3:13Speaker 1: most leaders, I thought, oh, I can figure this out.
- 3:15Speaker 1: I'm constantly giving advice in this area. So I just
- 3:18Speaker 1: sat down with my list and I decided I would
- 3:19Speaker 1: figure out the reorg and I couldn't do it.
- 3:22Speaker 2: I just couldn't do it.
- 3:22Speaker 1: And the reason I couldn't do it I did not
- 3:25Speaker 1: want to become less accessible to people I had been
- 3:28Speaker 1: very accessible to in some cases for years and in
- 3:31Speaker 1: some cases from the beginning. And so I, you know,
- 3:33Speaker 1: I had five or six people, you being one of them,
- 3:35Speaker 1: who had been here from the beginning. I didn't want
- 3:37Speaker 1: to become less accessible. At the same time, I had
- 3:39Speaker 1: new members of the management team that I needed to
- 3:42Speaker 1: be accessible to. And I finally gave up and hired
- 3:45Speaker 1: a consultant and brought them in and said, I can't
- 3:47Speaker 1: figure this out. And the bottom line was the exercise
- 3:50Speaker 1: was too emotional for me. And so, you know, that's
- 3:53Speaker 1: not unique to me. I think a lot of leaders
- 3:56Speaker 1: faced that. So actually he came in and took me
- 3:58Speaker 1: through several exercises that helped me bring some objectivity to
- 4:02Speaker 1: the you know, to the process. But then I had
- 4:06Speaker 1: to sit down with people i'd been very accessible to
- 4:09Speaker 1: and say, well, you're no longer going to be a
- 4:11Speaker 1: direct report, which means I'm not going to be as
- 4:14Speaker 1: accessible to you. But that was the only way to
- 4:17Speaker 1: grow this organization. So this is a constant struggle. There's
- 4:20Speaker 1: a lot of angst around this. So again, you know,
- 4:22Speaker 1: one of the ways people respond to this is they
- 4:24Speaker 1: refuse to deal with the reality I can't be as accessible.
- 4:27Speaker 1: The other extreme is to decide, well, since I can't
- 4:31Speaker 1: be accessible to everyone, I will be inaccessible to everyone.
- 4:35Speaker 2: I won't be accessible to anyone.
- 4:37Speaker 1: And as time goes by and as people become more
- 4:39Speaker 1: and more successful, the temptation, I think, probably among men
- 4:44Speaker 1: more than women, is to become so autonomous that I
- 4:48Speaker 1: don't want to commit my time to anyone. And that's
- 4:51Speaker 1: a problem as well. So on one extreme, you're a
- 4:53Speaker 1: person is so thin they can't get things done. On
- 4:57Speaker 1: the other hand, they become so inaccessible because they can't
- 4:59Speaker 1: be as accessible as they used to be. That it
- 5:01Speaker 1: creates a different kind of problems. So somewhere in the middle,
- 5:05Speaker 1: leaders have to manage through this constant tension. It does
- 5:07Speaker 1: not go away. This is one of those problems that
- 5:09Speaker 1: is never solved. It is attention to manage, trying to
- 5:12Speaker 1: decide who gets my time and how much of the
- 5:14Speaker 1: time do.
- 5:15Speaker 3: They get, Andy, When I've heard you talk about this,
- 5:18Speaker 3: I've heard you address that part of this is really
- 5:20Speaker 3: an awareness issue.
- 5:21Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, especially for those of us in ministry.
- 5:24Speaker 1: You know, in the old days, we just weren't aware
- 5:26Speaker 1: of what was happening in every country in the world.
- 5:29Speaker 1: Every natural disaster, every heart attack, every person who you
- 5:33Speaker 1: know finds out they have cancer, every family crisis. For
- 5:36Speaker 1: people in ministry who are listening, I mean, we are
- 5:39Speaker 1: so bombarded with tragedy and so bombarded with her Then we,
- 5:43Speaker 1: you know, open up our web browsers and read CNN
- 5:47Speaker 1: or Fox News or whatever about every abused child. You know,
- 5:50Speaker 1: it just goes on and on and on, and so
- 5:52Speaker 1: we're so bombarded with information, we're so bombarded with need,
- 5:57Speaker 1: and there's something in all of us or most of us,
- 5:59Speaker 1: that wants to fix the wants to meet all those needs,
- 6:01Speaker 1: and it's absolutely impossible. So again, I'm either going to
- 6:04Speaker 1: be stretched so thin that I'm no use to anyone,
- 6:06Speaker 1: or I'm just going to retreat and say, well, since
- 6:07Speaker 1: I can't fix all of it, I'm not even going
- 6:09Speaker 1: to try to be involved in any of it.
- 6:11Speaker 3: Well, Andy, that's obviously true in our case, but that's
- 6:13Speaker 3: true in the marketplace as well.
- 6:15Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 6:15Speaker 1: I mean marketplace leaders that think about it is they're
- 6:18Speaker 1: aware of what's going on in every market all over
- 6:20Speaker 1: the world twenty four to seven, how it impacts their industry,
- 6:23Speaker 1: how it might impact their industry. Suddenly you have to
- 6:27Speaker 1: give your attention to not three or four things, but
- 6:29Speaker 1: to a dozen things. You know, what's going on with
- 6:32Speaker 1: your competitors, which you know that's helpful information, but it
- 6:35Speaker 1: also brings complexity to the decision making model.
- 6:38Speaker 2: And again we.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Get stretched so thin that at some point we have
- 6:41Speaker 1: to back up and ask ourselves not only the question
- 6:43Speaker 1: of who am I going to be accessible to, but
- 6:46Speaker 1: what sources of information do I want to remain accessible to? Otherwise,
- 6:50Speaker 1: you know, again, we'll just retreat and hibernate, or we'll
- 6:53Speaker 1: be stretched so thin that we're really of very little
- 6:55Speaker 1: use to anyone.
- 6:56Speaker 3: So Andy, as I hear you talking about this, it
- 6:59Speaker 3: seems that we're with one of two extremes. You can
- 7:02Speaker 3: either shut it all out or we can just take
- 7:04Speaker 3: it all on.
- 7:05Speaker 1: Yeah, and neither one of those works. If you take
- 7:07Speaker 1: it all on again, you're going to be very little
- 7:09Speaker 1: use to anyone. But at the same time, if you
- 7:11Speaker 1: were going to stay engaged in our organizations, stay engaged
- 7:14Speaker 1: in decision making, we can't afford to shut it all out.
- 7:17Speaker 3: And Andy, finding a way to manage that tension led
- 7:20Speaker 3: you to a phrase that's become part of our culture
- 7:22Speaker 3: here at North Point, and that's do for one what
- 7:24Speaker 3: you wish you could do for everyone.
- 7:26Speaker 1: Yeah, we say that around here all the time. I
- 7:28Speaker 1: can't afford to disengage, but I can't afford to be
- 7:30Speaker 1: engaged with everyone. So do for one when you can
- 7:33Speaker 1: what you wish you could do for everyone. It's symbolic leadership,
- 7:37Speaker 1: and it's very, very powerful, and as we've seen, and
- 7:38Speaker 1: as we've talked about a year ago, it trickles down
- 7:40Speaker 1: through the whole organization.
- 7:42Speaker 3: Andy, one of the reasons you say that so many
- 7:45Speaker 3: of us avoid this as leaders is this tension we
- 7:47Speaker 3: feel to be fair.
- 7:49Speaker 1: Yeah, fairness is such a difficult thing. I don't even
- 7:52Speaker 1: try to be fair anymore. And that may sound terrible
- 7:55Speaker 1: coming from a pastor, but you know, we tell our
- 7:56Speaker 1: kids all the time, life isn't fair. And I've found
- 7:58Speaker 1: not only is life not fair, trying to be fair
- 8:01Speaker 1: generally leads to me to be disengaged. You know, growing up,
- 8:05Speaker 1: we heard this all the time. You know, if I
- 8:06Speaker 1: do this for you, I'll have to do it for everyone.
- 8:07Speaker 1: And I think we've adopted that into our adult world
- 8:10Speaker 1: and so consequently, if we can't do for everyone, we
- 8:12Speaker 1: do for no one. But even as kids, we knew
- 8:15Speaker 1: that there was a fallacy because if adults or parents
- 8:17Speaker 1: would say, well, if I give you a cookie, I
- 8:19Speaker 1: have to give everybody a cookie, and we were thinking, no,
- 8:21Speaker 1: you don't.
- 8:21Speaker 2: You can just give me a cookie. I won't tell,
- 8:23Speaker 2: you won't tell. You know, everything's good.
- 8:25Speaker 1: So I think we should just abandon that whole way
- 8:27Speaker 1: of thinking that it should never be well, since I
- 8:29Speaker 1: can't do for everyone, I'm going to do for no one.
- 8:31Speaker 1: We should actually turn it around and say, well, I'm
- 8:33Speaker 1: going to do for one what I wish I could
- 8:35Speaker 1: do for everyone.
- 8:36Speaker 2: And is that fair?
- 8:37Speaker 1: No, it's not fair, But it forces me and it
- 8:40Speaker 1: allows me to stay engaged with someone even if I
- 8:43Speaker 1: can't be engaged with everyone. So it keeps us from
- 8:47Speaker 1: retreating to that I'm not going to do anything, and
- 8:49Speaker 1: it keeps us from feeling like we have to do
- 8:51Speaker 1: for everyone. Since we did for one, so it's due
- 8:53Speaker 1: for one what you wish you could do for everyone.
- 8:55Speaker 1: Don't try to be fair. Just make sure you're engaged.
- 8:58Speaker 3: So Andie, how does that look in your world?
- 9:00Speaker 1: Yeah, this is hard for pastors, especially because as you know,
- 9:04Speaker 1: as pastors, we're supposed to be all things to all people,
- 9:06Speaker 1: and we don't like to tell people know, and we
- 9:08Speaker 1: don't like to tell people we can't meet with you ever,
- 9:10Speaker 1: you know, and so you know, when it comes to
- 9:13Speaker 1: the typical pastoral responsibilities, I can't do every wedding, I
- 9:16Speaker 1: can't do every funeral. I can't baptize everyone's child. I
- 9:19Speaker 1: can't baptize everybody that wants to be baptized. So I
- 9:22Speaker 1: can decide, well, I'm not going to baptize anybody. I'm
- 9:24Speaker 1: not gonna do any weddings. I'm not gonna do any funerals. Well,
- 9:27Speaker 1: that's to totally disengage. So I tell our staff all
- 9:30Speaker 1: the time. Just make sure you're engaged in ministry. Don't
- 9:33Speaker 1: feel like you have to do all the premarital counseling.
- 9:36Speaker 1: But hey, every once in a while take on a
- 9:37Speaker 1: couple and do their premieral counseling. You can't do every funeral,
- 9:40Speaker 1: but don't disengage from funerals. You can't do every wedding,
- 9:43Speaker 1: so make sure every once in a while you allow
- 9:45Speaker 1: somebody to schedule put us, you know, put a wedding
- 9:47Speaker 1: on you on your calendar. And again, as we've done that,
- 9:50Speaker 1: it basically releases ministry. We continue to model what we
- 9:54Speaker 1: want to model, We continue to practice what we preach,
- 9:56Speaker 1: but it keeps us from becoming so thin that again
- 10:00Speaker 1: we can't give a great deal of ourselves to anyone.
- 10:03Speaker 1: And so that's what I've tried to do. That's what
- 10:04Speaker 1: I've tried to model, and you know, I found that
- 10:06Speaker 1: it works.
- 10:07Speaker 2: As a leader.
- 10:08Speaker 1: Every once in a while, I'll see a young leader
- 10:10Speaker 1: in our organization. I think, while here, she has a
- 10:12Speaker 1: lot of potential. But they're not a direct report. They're
- 10:14Speaker 1: not in my division, in my department. So the temptation
- 10:17Speaker 1: is well, since they don't report directly to me, since
- 10:20Speaker 1: they report to someone else, I hope they get developed
- 10:23Speaker 1: and I hope it all works out. And if I
- 10:25Speaker 1: give them special time and attention, then don't I need
- 10:28Speaker 1: to give a special time and attention to all the
- 10:30Speaker 1: young leaders? And so you know, again you can disengage
- 10:34Speaker 1: even from leadership development because of the same way of thinking.
- 10:37Speaker 1: So I've just ignored all that, and when I, you know,
- 10:40Speaker 1: see a young leader, I've developed a way to get
- 10:42Speaker 1: them involved in a group. I don't try to be fair.
- 10:44Speaker 1: I have hurt people's feelings. I have leaders ask me, hey, Andy,
- 10:48Speaker 1: I would like to be in your group, and I
- 10:49Speaker 1: just tell them, well, you know, this isn't a good
- 10:51Speaker 1: time for that. Or I'll even say well I handpicked
- 10:53Speaker 1: those leaders and I'm sorry. But again, which way do
- 10:57Speaker 1: I go? Do I involve all of them and end
- 10:59Speaker 1: up spending less time, you know, with more people, or
- 11:03Speaker 1: do I spend more time with fewer people. And great
- 11:05Speaker 1: leadership development always happens when you spend more time with
- 11:08Speaker 1: few people, and leaders are generally pretty good at picking
- 11:12Speaker 1: out the leaders in the organization. So again, I would
- 11:15Speaker 1: rather be engaged with the people I need to be
- 11:18Speaker 1: engaged with than disengaged in an attempt to be fair
- 11:21Speaker 1: or engaged with everyone and accomplish you know, virtually very little.
- 11:26Speaker 1: So there are huge ramifications for this principle. Do for one,
- 11:30Speaker 1: what you wish you could do for everyone. Don't try
- 11:32Speaker 1: to be fair, just make sure you stay engaged.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Andy, you have three just very practical tips on what
- 11:39Speaker 3: this looks like.
- 11:40Speaker 1: Yeah, I again, because you know, do for one what
- 11:43Speaker 1: you wish you could do for everyone. You know, what
- 11:45Speaker 1: does that look like? So here's here's three things to
- 11:47Speaker 1: kind of give some direction. Number one, go deep rather
- 11:51Speaker 1: than wide, Go deep rather than wide. And this is
- 11:53Speaker 1: what I was alluding to when I was talking about
- 11:55Speaker 1: leadership development.
- 11:56Speaker 2: Go deep rather than wide, says.
- 11:57Speaker 1: I'm going to pick a handful of people and I'm
- 11:59Speaker 1: going to go deep with them, rather than spread myself
- 12:02Speaker 1: thin and just give a little bit of myself to
- 12:04Speaker 1: a whole lot of people. Now, this has to do
- 12:06Speaker 1: with subsets of leadership team, subsets of management teams. You know,
- 12:09Speaker 1: I have fifteen people on my leadership team, but there's
- 12:12Speaker 1: three or four of those individuals that I you know,
- 12:15Speaker 1: I just go deeper with. I have a group of
- 12:17Speaker 1: young leaders that I meet with every other Thursday morning
- 12:20Speaker 1: that I just handpicked from throughout the organization. You can't
- 12:23Speaker 1: sign up for it. It's not a list I'm working through.
- 12:25Speaker 1: I just hand picked them, and I'm trying to go
- 12:28Speaker 1: deep with these guys. And there are a lot of
- 12:29Speaker 1: people who won't ever be in that group, and it's
- 12:31Speaker 1: not fair, as I said, but I'm very, very engaged.
- 12:34Speaker 1: So when possible, go deep rather than why The second
- 12:37Speaker 1: one is to go long term rather than short term.
- 12:40Speaker 1: I could you know, I could spend you know, thirty
- 12:43Speaker 1: minutes with one hundred people and there's nothing to show
- 12:46Speaker 1: for that. There's just not And so you know, giving
- 12:49Speaker 1: more of my time to fewer people and going long term.
- 12:51Speaker 1: So again my example with this group, I told this
- 12:54Speaker 1: group of our next generation leaders, hey, I want to
- 12:56Speaker 1: meet for a year. This isn't three times. We're not
- 12:59Speaker 1: going through a career. I really want to go long
- 13:02Speaker 1: term rather than short term. I say to our pastors,
- 13:04Speaker 1: if you're going to get involved with a couple that's
- 13:06Speaker 1: struggling in their marriage, commit a year. Don't don't just
- 13:09Speaker 1: meet with them three times and pat yourself on the
- 13:11Speaker 1: back and say, well I did some marriage counseling. Come on,
- 13:14Speaker 1: you know you don't fix a marriage with three thirty
- 13:16Speaker 1: minute or hour sessions. If you're going to help a
- 13:19Speaker 1: couple grapple with the real issues of marriage or parenting,
- 13:22Speaker 1: that's a long term commitment. And I can't make a
- 13:24Speaker 1: long term commitment to eight couples, but I can make
- 13:27Speaker 1: a long term commitment to one couple. So again there
- 13:29Speaker 1: are multiple applications, but at the end of the day,
- 13:32Speaker 1: you know, go long term rather than short term. And
- 13:35Speaker 1: then the third one, you know, is very context specific,
- 13:38Speaker 1: and that is go time, not just money. It's tempting
- 13:43Speaker 1: to just write a check to a charity, it's tempting
- 13:45Speaker 1: to write a check to a couple in need or
- 13:46Speaker 1: an individual in need. And I say, look, you know,
- 13:49Speaker 1: give your money wherever you want to give your money,
- 13:51Speaker 1: but in one of you know, pick a charity, pick
- 13:53Speaker 1: an organization, pick a family, and don't just give them money,
- 13:57Speaker 1: give them your time. Again, you, for one, what you
- 14:00Speaker 1: wish you could do for everyone? Don't you wish everybody
- 14:03Speaker 1: could volunteer there? Don't you wish everybody could give time
- 14:06Speaker 1: to a struggling family, or a struggling kid, or a
- 14:09Speaker 1: you know, a young man or a young woman from
- 14:12Speaker 1: a difficult that has a difficult home life. So don't
- 14:14Speaker 1: just give time, I mean, excuse me. Don't just give
- 14:16Speaker 1: money when it's appropriate, when it's possible, give time. And
- 14:19Speaker 1: so when a leader models those three things what we've
- 14:23Speaker 1: seen here, it gives people permission to say no. It
- 14:27Speaker 1: gives people permission to avoid disengaging or on the other extreme,
- 14:33Speaker 1: engaging with everyone. And as everyone in an organization embraces
- 14:37Speaker 1: this value, the impact is phenomenal because again, it moves
- 14:41Speaker 1: us away from fairness, it moves us into engagement, and
- 14:44Speaker 1: it's an engagement that change actually takes place. And then
- 14:48Speaker 1: it allows me, going back to our introduction for this
- 14:51Speaker 1: entire podcast, it allows me to decide who gets my
- 14:54Speaker 1: time and I don't have to apologize for that. It
- 14:58Speaker 1: allows me to say to people that used to get
- 15:00Speaker 1: a lot of my time, you're not going to get
- 15:02Speaker 1: this much time anymore because I need to do for
- 15:05Speaker 1: one what I wish I could do for everyone. And
- 15:07Speaker 1: the landscape has changed, the organization has changed, and again
- 15:10Speaker 1: this becomes a value that's so much a part of
- 15:12Speaker 1: the conversation, so much a part of the culture in
- 15:14Speaker 1: an organization that everyone benefits.
- 15:17Speaker 3: Ultimately, Andy, I know there's a story from your dad's
- 15:20Speaker 3: life actually that illustrates this do for one idea. Tell
- 15:24Speaker 3: us that story.
- 15:24Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love this, and I remember when my
- 15:27Speaker 1: dad told me this years ago. This is one of
- 15:29Speaker 1: those stories that every once in a while, when on
- 15:31Speaker 1: with a group, I'll say, Dad, tell him, you know,
- 15:32Speaker 1: tell them that story. This is one of those. My
- 15:35Speaker 1: dad had just finished high school. He felt like that
- 15:38Speaker 1: God wanted him to be a preacher. He felt called
- 15:40Speaker 1: to preach. His single mom, she worked in a textile mill.
- 15:44Speaker 2: They had.
- 15:44Speaker 1: When I say they had no money, they had no money,
- 15:47Speaker 1: I mean he grew up very, very poor. He delivered newspapers.
- 15:50Speaker 1: That was where his money came from. And he took
- 15:52Speaker 1: some of that money and helped he and his mom,
- 15:55Speaker 1: you know, live and eat and live indoors, you know.
- 15:57Speaker 1: And so one evening he was standing out out of
- 16:00Speaker 1: his church, he says, undersneath the street light, the way
- 16:02Speaker 1: he paints the picture, you can see it. And he
- 16:04Speaker 1: was talking to a friend of his, a guy named
- 16:06Speaker 1: Julian Phillips.
- 16:07Speaker 2: And this was an adult.
- 16:07Speaker 1: My dad had just graduated from high school or was
- 16:09Speaker 1: about to. He's talking to this man, Julian Phillips, and
- 16:12Speaker 1: he was telling him that he felt called to preach,
- 16:15Speaker 1: and he wanted to go to college, but he didn't
- 16:16Speaker 1: have any money and he didn't think he'd ever be
- 16:18Speaker 1: able to go to college. And while they were talking,
- 16:21Speaker 1: the pastor of the church walked out, walked across the street.
- 16:24Speaker 1: My dad says his name was Reverend Hammock. He still remembers.
- 16:27Speaker 1: Walked across the street and this Julian guy called the
- 16:29Speaker 1: pastor over and said, Reverend Hammock, Charles, that's my dad.
- 16:33Speaker 1: Charles feels like maybe God's calling him to preach and
- 16:35Speaker 1: he wants to go to college. Do you think we
- 16:37Speaker 1: could help him out? And so Reverend Hammick said, hey, Charles,
- 16:41Speaker 1: I want you to come see me next week. And so,
- 16:43Speaker 1: sure enough, my dad went in to see his pastor
- 16:46Speaker 1: and Reverend Hammick said, you know what, tell me your stories.
- 16:49Speaker 1: And my dad said, I you know, I want to
- 16:51Speaker 1: go to college. I feel like God's calling me to ministry.
- 16:53Speaker 1: And this Reverend Hammick said, well, let me see what
- 16:55Speaker 1: I can do. My dad leaves, time goes by, he
- 16:58Speaker 1: graduates from high School's head into that summer between high
- 17:01Speaker 1: school and college with no plans, he said. He said,
- 17:04Speaker 1: about two months went by and he got a call
- 17:06Speaker 1: from Reverend Hammock and he said, Charles, I've worked it
- 17:09Speaker 1: out for you to go to the University of Richmond
- 17:11Speaker 1: on a four year scholarship. How does that sound, well,
- 17:16Speaker 1: my dad said, this sounded wonderful, and my dad says,
- 17:20Speaker 1: I think I showed up at college with like twenty
- 17:22Speaker 1: seven dollars in my pocket and that was it. Now,
- 17:24Speaker 1: the point of the story is, you know how many
- 17:27Speaker 1: scholarships could Reverend Hammock work out for guys that feel
- 17:31Speaker 1: like they might feel called to ministry.
- 17:32Speaker 2: Not many.
- 17:34Speaker 1: And it would have been so easy to say, well,
- 17:35Speaker 1: you know, I can't send all of our high school
- 17:37Speaker 1: graduates to college. I can't send every kid who feels
- 17:41Speaker 1: like God wants them to preach to colle Mean, I
- 17:43Speaker 1: can't do it for everyone, but here's a guy who understood,
- 17:46Speaker 1: you know what. I can't do it for everyone, but
- 17:48Speaker 1: I can do it for this one kid.
- 17:50Speaker 2: And oh my gosh. You know, truth is, I probably
- 17:54Speaker 2: wouldn't have been born.
- 17:56Speaker 1: You know, based on when my dad and mom met,
- 17:58Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know, think about the trajectory
- 18:01Speaker 1: of his entire life, which change in the lives of
- 18:05Speaker 1: untold numbers of people, because one pastor decided, you know what,
- 18:09Speaker 1: I'm going to go deep, I'm going to go long,
- 18:12Speaker 1: I'm going to go time, and I'm gonna go money
- 18:15Speaker 1: and do whatever I can to help this one high
- 18:17Speaker 1: school graduate get into college. Now I imagine you know, some
- 18:21Speaker 1: of our podcast listeners they're thinking of their own story
- 18:24Speaker 1: or their parents' story. I mean, we see this multiplied
- 18:27Speaker 1: over and over and over. So the challenge for us
- 18:29Speaker 1: is not to get caught up and trying to be fair,
- 18:31Speaker 1: not to get caught up and trying to do for everyone,
- 18:34Speaker 1: and not retreat to doing for no one, but to
- 18:37Speaker 1: ask the question, Hey, what would our world look like,
- 18:40Speaker 1: what my organization look like if I did for one
- 18:43Speaker 1: what I wish I could do for everyone. And maybe
- 18:45Speaker 1: this sounds a bit grandiose, but I think if everyone
- 18:48Speaker 1: did for one what they wish they could do for everyone,
- 18:51Speaker 1: ultimately that could impact the entire world.
- 18:54Speaker 3: Andie, thanks so much for spending this time with us today,
- 18:56Speaker 3: and thanks to all of our listeners for joining us
- 19:00Speaker 3: the Connected Accomnected