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Lead Wisely · The Don't Pastor Alone Podcast

• 0:05
  Bob Bumgarner: Welcome to the Don't Pastor Alone podcast, where we connect pastors and churches
• 0:09
  Bob Bumgarner: with trusted people and practical resources so they don't pastor alone. I'm Bob Bumgarner.
• 0:14
  Jimbo Stewart: And I'm Jimbo Stewart. Today, we're going to wrap up our four-part series on
• 0:19
  Jimbo Stewart: the four kingdom practices that shape healthy pastors and healthy churches.
• 0:22
  Jimbo Stewart: Pray dependently, preach boldly, shepherd resiliently. And today,
• 0:26
  Jimbo Stewart: we're going to talk about what it means to lead wisely.
• 0:30
  Jimbo Stewart: So, Bob, what is wise leadership?
• 0:34
  Jimbo Stewart: I mean, leadership itself was one of those words that obviously,
• 0:37
  Jimbo Stewart: I mean, you hear it everywhere. And I think I've heard a hundred different definitions
• 0:41
  Jimbo Stewart: of what leadership is, but not everyone means the same thing.
• 0:45
  Jimbo Stewart: Obviously, they're not always targeted.
• 0:47
  Jimbo Stewart: You're targeting here, when you say lead wisely for the pastor of a local church, what do you mean?
• 0:53
  Bob Bumgarner: Great question. I think that, so it's obviously within a biblical context.
• 0:59
  Bob Bumgarner: So we believe Jesus is the greatest leader of all time. So leading wisely is
• 1:04
  Bob Bumgarner: how do I lead the most like Jesus?
• 1:07
  Bob Bumgarner: And with that in mind, I would say that we have to understand that more than
• 1:11
  Bob Bumgarner: a position, leadership is a stewardship.
• 1:14
  Bob Bumgarner: It is how I direct the resources that God has put in my care.
• 1:21
  Bob Bumgarner: Leadership, Maxwell's right, it is influence, but it's more than that.
• 1:26
  Bob Bumgarner: It's influence with responsibility.
• 1:28
  Bob Bumgarner: So in other words, it's influencing toward a thing, toward spiritual maturity,
• 1:35
  Bob Bumgarner: toward kingdom growth and outcome.
• 1:38
  Bob Bumgarner: It is driven by serving. I mean, it's motivated by service.
• 1:44
  Bob Bumgarner: It's not primarily about controlling. It is, as a matter of fact.
• 1:50
  Bob Bumgarner: I'm not saying that you never try to control an outcome, but what I can say
• 1:55
  Bob Bumgarner: is just like in a marriage, if you're trying to control everything in a marriage,
• 1:59
  Bob Bumgarner: you're probably not submitting to one another and you're probably not serving.
• 2:04
  Bob Bumgarner: You probably have an agenda you're working toward.
• 2:07
  Bob Bumgarner: So wise leadership in a summary statement is helping people move toward God's mission.
• 2:15
  Bob Bumgarner: And Tom Patterson, a friend of mine, would say it this way when he was talking about perspective.
• 2:21
  Bob Bumgarner: It is making decisions today with tomorrow in mind.
• 2:26
  Bob Bumgarner: That's wise leadership.
• 2:29
  Jimbo Stewart: Why do you think, or do you think, leadership in the church is a particularly,
• 2:37
  Jimbo Stewart: difficult lane or avenue of leadership?
• 2:41
  Bob Bumgarner: I think it's a difficult lane because of all the leadership models we have.
• 2:47
  Bob Bumgarner: So in America, we have military, and within the military, you have the Navy
• 2:54
  Bob Bumgarner: SEALs, and then you have sports.
• 2:57
  Bob Bumgarner: And so you have, what does a head football coach do? You know, how do they lead?
• 3:04
  Bob Bumgarner: And then you have the wise Harvard people, you know, when they talk about leadership.
• 3:10
  Bob Bumgarner: So why is it hard in the church? Because we really haven't narrowed our model of leadership.
• 3:18
  Bob Bumgarner: We believe at First Coast Churches that you can learn from those other lanes
• 3:24
  Bob Bumgarner: of leadership, but there's only one perfect model. and Jesus is his name.
• 3:30
  Bob Bumgarner: And that Jesus led in such a way, like, think about this.
• 3:37
  Bob Bumgarner: Jesus led knowing he was leaving and his most expansive work would happen in his absence.
• 3:44
  Bob Bumgarner: So, he led so that the God, so three and a half years later when he left,
• 3:50
  Bob Bumgarner: the people would be ready for him not to be there. That's movement leadership.
• 3:56
  Bob Bumgarner: So anyway, that's awesome. I do think that we sometimes...
• 4:03
  Bob Bumgarner: Church is harder. A business leader who's looking at the way a pastor leads
• 4:07
  Bob Bumgarner: thinks they can solve every problem they have.
• 4:11
  Bob Bumgarner: But they can fire people.
• 4:13
  Jimbo Stewart: Exactly. That is a, as you say, that's got to be a huge key difference is in
• 4:18
  Jimbo Stewart: ministry, you're primarily working with,
• 4:21
  Jimbo Stewart: volunteers, church members that you can't, you can't fire them and you probably
• 4:27
  Jimbo Stewart: don't have enough people volunteering in the first place.
• 4:30
  Jimbo Stewart: So if I lose this person, then what do I do?
• 4:34
  Bob Bumgarner: And they don't necessarily come to you skilled. They come willing.
• 4:41
  Bob Bumgarner: And then in addition to that, you're a pastor at a church and you've only been
• 4:47
  Bob Bumgarner: there two years, but everybody else has been there 30 years.
• 4:51
  Bob Bumgarner: And the last two pastors did it a little different than you did.
• 4:55
  Bob Bumgarner: And so they're used to how they've been trained to do something.
• 4:59
  Bob Bumgarner: And you're coming in and you're not overtly bucking the tradition,
• 5:05
  Bob Bumgarner: but you're certainly unfreezing their thinking.
• 5:08
  Bob Bumgarner: And that oftentimes develops resistance.
• 5:12
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah, not only that, like some volunteers give you another V.
• 5:16
  Jimbo Stewart: In a lot of churches, you got to, you can have the best idea in the world,
• 5:20
  Jimbo Stewart: but the people got to vote on it.
• 5:22
  Bob Bumgarner: Yes.
• 5:22
  Jimbo Stewart: And, uh, and so, whereas if you're running a business, you know,
• 5:27
  Jimbo Stewart: one, if somebody is not falling in line and they're going against what you need
• 5:30
  Jimbo Stewart: to do, you can fire them and you can replace them and maybe even fairly quickly.
• 5:34
  Bob Bumgarner: Yes.
• 5:35
  Jimbo Stewart: And then they're, you know, no CEO is getting all his people to vote on his, his vision, his idea.
• 5:42
  Bob Bumgarner: Yes.
• 5:43
  Jimbo Stewart: All right. He's telling you. This is what we're doing.
• 5:46
  Jimbo Stewart: And so as a pastor, not only do you have to navigate the difficulties of volunteers
• 5:50
  Jimbo Stewart: helping you do this, but not everything, but in some churches,
• 5:53
  Jimbo Stewart: a lot of it ends up getting voted on. And even if not officially voted on,
• 6:00
  Jimbo Stewart: they could just choose to leave.
• 6:01
  Bob Bumgarner: Well, and to build on that, not only is it voted on in a real vote,
• 6:06
  Bob Bumgarner: then it's financed by them.
• 6:09
  Bob Bumgarner: So you have volunteers. You have to lead so well that volunteers,
• 6:15
  Bob Bumgarner: since God's saying, this is the direction we want to go, we're going to vote for it with our hands,
• 6:23
  Bob Bumgarner: and we're going to pay for it with our hearts, and we're going to do it with our feet.
• 6:28
  Bob Bumgarner: So, I mean, that is a whole another level of leadership.
• 6:33
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah, it's definitely a different type of leadership.
• 6:35
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Jimbo Stewart: You've coached a lot of pastors and ministry leaders, myself included.
• 6:41
  Jimbo Stewart: One of my favorite things about this podcast is I already ask you a lot of questions
• 6:45
  Jimbo Stewart: every week, and now we're just recording it.
• 6:47
  Bob Bumgarner: Sure. That's good.
• 6:48
  Jimbo Stewart: So after you've coached as many pastors as you have, what mistakes do you see
• 6:53
  Jimbo Stewart: repeated as kind of a pattern over and over in a lot of different pastors?
• 6:58
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah, I think there are some common ones. I think moving too fast.
• 7:03
  Bob Bumgarner: And what that means, it's not really about speed, it's about trust.
• 7:08
  Bob Bumgarner: So in other words, people only follow people that they trust.
• 7:15
  Bob Bumgarner: So have you been there long enough to ask of them what, have you been there
• 7:21
  Bob Bumgarner: long enough and establish trust that's deep enough to ask what you're asking them to do?
• 7:28
  Bob Bumgarner: And so if you move into a place and you within 90 days or 180,
• 7:36
  Bob Bumgarner: days are proposing a relocation and moving from the hymnal to projection of
• 7:44
  Bob Bumgarner: a screen and not meeting on Sunday night,
• 7:48
  Bob Bumgarner: they have a title for you. You're the former pastor.
• 7:52
  Bob Bumgarner: And so moving too fast. But I also think you can move way too slowly.
• 7:56
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Bob Bumgarner: You know, and so part of people, spirit-filled people know that God's going somewhere.
• 8:04
  Bob Bumgarner: And so if you, if you've been somewhere and it's been three years or a number,
• 8:10
  Bob Bumgarner: you know, a long time and there's, and you're not, if you're not moving towards
• 8:14
  Bob Bumgarner: something, that's, that's too slowly. And so I think both of those things.
• 8:17
  Jimbo Stewart: There's always got to be some level of transformation, right?
• 8:20
  Jimbo Stewart: That's what we have to be maturing, which means we are changing.
• 8:24
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 8:24
  Jimbo Stewart: And so finding that, what we call tactical patience, the ability to know kind
• 8:29
  Jimbo Stewart: of the, the pace at which we need to lead is key.
• 8:33
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah. I actually think as well, another thing that I see is real,
• 8:38
  Bob Bumgarner: and I see this in younger leaders that are kind of fresh seminarians or fresh Bible college people.
• 8:45
  Bob Bumgarner: If I could get in their head, I think I'd see this on the screen. You know what?
• 8:48
  Bob Bumgarner: I know that my previous pastor couldn't please Ms. Smith, but I'm going to be able to.
• 8:53
  Bob Bumgarner: I'm going to be the one. And so trying to please everyone.
• 8:57
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 8:58
  Bob Bumgarner: I think is a pattern I see. And when they realize they can't please everyone,
• 9:04
  Bob Bumgarner: avoiding the hard conversation, kind of thinking if it, if I ignore it, it will go away.
• 9:10
  Bob Bumgarner: And certainly there are some trivial things that maybe that'll happen,
• 9:13
  Bob Bumgarner: but it's not everything. You've got to have some of those hard conversations.
• 9:18
  Jimbo Stewart: Do you see, do you see a lot of mistakes when it comes to how well they communicate
• 9:23
  Jimbo Stewart: or clarity of direction?
• 9:27
  Jimbo Stewart: Do you see that as a common one?
• 9:28
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah, I do. I actually see that as one of the most fixable things.
• 9:32
  Jimbo Stewart: Okay.
• 9:34
  Bob Bumgarner: Especially if you are, I see it especially in those who like to move fast and
• 9:40
  Bob Bumgarner: those who are good on their feet and pretty articulate.
• 9:45
  Bob Bumgarner: You think in the moment you can do something that communicates and inspiration's
• 9:51
  Bob Bumgarner: good, but clarification is the game.
• 9:55
  Bob Bumgarner: And so do what you have to do to communicate clearly, timelines,
• 10:01
  Bob Bumgarner: budgets, working frame, frameworks for how something, the result,
• 10:08
  Bob Bumgarner: like what's the result we're going after?
• 10:11
  Bob Bumgarner: How does this serve the most vulnerable people at our church?
• 10:15
  Bob Bumgarner: That's not just, I mean, that's necessary. That's actually shepherding.
• 10:20
  Bob Bumgarner: That's actually anticipating what the sheep need and addressing it.
• 10:26
  Bob Bumgarner: Sometimes the reason people ask really hard questions in business meetings is
• 10:31
  Bob Bumgarner: because you don't pre-answer them.
• 10:34
  Bob Bumgarner: So the wise leader thinks about what are all the questions people are going to have.
• 10:41
  Bob Bumgarner: They even go to naysayers and they say, hey, if we propose this,
• 10:46
  Bob Bumgarner: what would your questions be?
• 10:47
  Jimbo Stewart: Yep.
• 10:48
  Bob Bumgarner: And then you develop reasonable answers, like, and, and not dismissive answers,
• 10:55
  Bob Bumgarner: but reasonable answers.
• 10:57
  Bob Bumgarner: So I think that's super, I think, I think you're, I think you bring up a good
• 11:01
  Bob Bumgarner: point. If there is something that I think is kind of the,
• 11:06
  Bob Bumgarner: There's no silver, the multi-tool. Communication is the multi-tool,
• 11:13
  Bob Bumgarner: of wise leadership.
• 11:14
  Jimbo Stewart: I would add one more to the common mistakes I've seen and even practiced and had to correct.
• 11:21
  Jimbo Stewart: In light of the thread of don't pastor alone, kind of another angle to view that idea,
• 11:29
  Jimbo Stewart: is oftentimes doing ministry instead of pastoring alone by just doing it.
• 11:37
  Jimbo Stewart: Just doing all the stuff rather than looking for ways to equip the saints to
• 11:42
  Jimbo Stewart: develop leaders along the way.
• 11:44
  Bob Bumgarner: And think about the trap that that is, really, truly. So you probably got into
• 11:48
  Bob Bumgarner: ministry because you loved doing ministry.
• 11:50
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Bob Bumgarner: And so you're pastoring 40 people. And guess what? You are the primary doer at that stage.
• 11:58
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 11:59
  Bob Bumgarner: But if you don't start learning to be a developer of people, two things happen.
• 12:05
  Bob Bumgarner: Bottlenecks happen because you can't do it all when you're running 70.
• 12:09
  Bob Bumgarner: And the joy that you used to experience doing the ministry becomes resentment
• 12:15
  Bob Bumgarner: because you feel put upon.
• 12:18
  Bob Bumgarner: And you actually begin to resent the very people God has called you to serve.
• 12:23
  Bob Bumgarner: But guess what? You taught them to depend on you instead of somebody else helping
• 12:28
  Bob Bumgarner: them do the ministry. That's a great observation you make.
• 12:32
  Jimbo Stewart: One of the things about wise leadership is, obviously, you're making decisions.
• 12:37
  Jimbo Stewart: Like, at some point, you get to a decision point.
• 12:40
  Jimbo Stewart: Walk us through how you would approach or you would coach a pastor to approach a difficult decision.
• 12:46
  Bob Bumgarner: Okay. One of the things I think that's super important in making a decision,
• 12:53
  Bob Bumgarner: is getting really clear on the outcome you're trying to seek.
• 12:57
  Jimbo Stewart: Hmm.
• 12:58
  Bob Bumgarner: And that's more than just your perspective.
• 13:03
  Bob Bumgarner: So you want to know from whatever formal or informal...
• 13:08
  Bob Bumgarner: Group that you have.
• 13:13
  Bob Bumgarner: How do we feel about this? And then you want to get all of the question,
• 13:17
  Bob Bumgarner: all of the data points that you can get for that.
• 13:22
  Bob Bumgarner: That's really where, if you're a First Coast Church's church, we can help.
• 13:26
  Bob Bumgarner: So for instance, let me give you some examples. Suppose you want to do an evangelism
• 13:31
  Bob Bumgarner: project for your neighborhood or your community.
• 13:34
  Bob Bumgarner: You probably need to do a demographic study.
• 13:38
  Bob Bumgarner: And if you go to our website, there's a place where, you know,
• 13:41
  Bob Bumgarner: how we help go down to where, and we'll put this in the show notes,
• 13:44
  Bob Bumgarner: do you know your neighbor?
• 13:46
  Bob Bumgarner: And we can run a really great demographic profile to make sure that you know
• 13:51
  Bob Bumgarner: who's living in your neighborhood.
• 13:53
  Bob Bumgarner: So if you live in Ponte Vedra, Florida, you probably don't need a food pantry.
• 13:59
  Bob Bumgarner: I mean, or maybe even a clothes closet, But maybe you do need a marriage therapist,
• 14:05
  Bob Bumgarner: or maybe you need some Dave Ramsey stuff.
• 14:09
  Bob Bumgarner: So the decision to do a ministry like that is helped by knowing who lives in your community.
• 14:17
  Bob Bumgarner: Another thing to think through is when you're making a decision is to know the
• 14:22
  Bob Bumgarner: personalities of your people.
• 14:25
  Bob Bumgarner: Like who are the decision makers? So we've talked a little bit about DISC,
• 14:28
  Bob Bumgarner: D-I-S-C, I'll add here working genius, like what are roles that people are good
• 14:33
  Bob Bumgarner: at, even strength finders.
• 14:35
  Bob Bumgarner: All three of those are self-awareness tools that a pastor could,
• 14:40
  Bob Bumgarner: and we offer all those, could use to know how his decision makers think.
• 14:47
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Bob Bumgarner: Because you have to lead different folks differently and give different people more time.
• 14:54
  Bob Bumgarner: Too. So for instance, I'll share a funny story.
• 14:57
  Bob Bumgarner: There's a gentleman on my team. He was in his seventies when I was leading him
• 15:00
  Bob Bumgarner: with the Florida Actors Convention.
• 15:02
  Bob Bumgarner: And on the disc scale, he was a very high CS, which means he likes to move slowly
• 15:10
  Bob Bumgarner: and he can spot why things won't work. Yep.
• 15:13
  Bob Bumgarner: So what would happen in team meetings is I would come down from my boss and
• 15:17
  Bob Bumgarner: say, hey, we need to do this.
• 15:18
  Bob Bumgarner: And he would just be a buzzkill. He tells why it wasn't going to work.
• 15:25
  Bob Bumgarner: What I realized is I was leading him wrong. So what I did privately,
• 15:29
  Bob Bumgarner: I went to him and said, did you know you have a gift because of your personality to spot barriers.
• 15:35
  Bob Bumgarner: So here's my promise to you. The next time Dr. Sullivan tells us we got to do
• 15:39
  Bob Bumgarner: something, I'm coming to you.
• 15:41
  Bob Bumgarner: I'm going to tell you what he said. And then in our next staff meeting,
• 15:44
  Bob Bumgarner: you're going to be the one, I'm going to tell what Dr. Sullivan wants.
• 15:48
  Bob Bumgarner: And then you're going to give a presentation on how, what the barriers are that
• 15:52
  Bob Bumgarner: we're going to face and how to solve them.
• 15:55
  Bob Bumgarner: And like, it was amazing. It changed everything.
• 16:00
  Bob Bumgarner: And it was one conversation I was leading him wrong and leading him wrong caused my own problem.
• 16:06
  Bob Bumgarner: So we have tools like that that really can help a pastor make wise decision.
• 16:12
  Bob Bumgarner: So gather the facts, listen well, consider unintended consequences.
• 16:19
  Bob Bumgarner: Like in a small church, it matters who gets mad.
• 16:24
  Bob Bumgarner: And so I'm not saying never frustrate a gatekeeper, but you ought to know before
• 16:29
  Bob Bumgarner: the meeting if a gatekeeper is going to be mad.
• 16:33
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Bob Bumgarner: Because if you can go to the gatekeeper before and tell them,
• 16:37
  Bob Bumgarner: hey, we're going to talk about this. I know you might have some feelings about
• 16:41
  Bob Bumgarner: it. So I want to give you time to pray.
• 16:43
  Bob Bumgarner: Feel free to call me. Let's go to lunch before. But this is going to come.
• 16:47
  Bob Bumgarner: That really does sometimes soften the response. You've dealt with a lot of revitalization.
• 16:52
  Bob Bumgarner: What are some things that you have found?
• 16:54
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah, I would echo in what you were just talking about, going to the gatekeeper.
• 16:58
  Jimbo Stewart: I call that getting informal permission.
• 17:01
  Jimbo Stewart: And so I would often try to, especially early on in a revitalization,
• 17:05
  Jimbo Stewart: when you're still buying pastoral credibility and you don't have it yet.
• 17:10
  Jimbo Stewart: If I knew, man, when I propose this, I'm going to get some pushback.
• 17:14
  Jimbo Stewart: There should be some heavy opinions.
• 17:16
  Jimbo Stewart: And I know who those people are. I would go to those people and just,
• 17:19
  Jimbo Stewart: hey, as a hypothetical, like here's a real world one we did.
• 17:23
  Jimbo Stewart: We needed kid space. There hadn't been kids there in forever.
• 17:26
  Jimbo Stewart: Now we got kids and we don't know where to put them.
• 17:28
  Jimbo Stewart: We've got this huge choir room and there hasn't been a choir in years. It's this massive room.
• 17:34
  Jimbo Stewart: And really, I just, you know, the easiest solution is that now becomes the kids room.
• 17:38
  Jimbo Stewart: Well, I went to some people I
• 17:40
  Jimbo Stewart: knew would have an issue with that and just floated it as a hypothetical.
• 17:44
  Jimbo Stewart: Hey, here's what I'm thinking. You know, I think, have you noticed we got a
• 17:48
  Jimbo Stewart: lot of kids around? Yeah.
• 17:50
  Jimbo Stewart: Man, I can't figure out where to put them. You know, do you have any ideas?
• 17:54
  Jimbo Stewart: No, you know, I don't know where we would put them.
• 17:56
  Jimbo Stewart: I know this may sound crazy. I just, I was just thinking, how would you feel
• 18:00
  Jimbo Stewart: about if we tried to use the choir room for that, for the kids?
• 18:04
  Jimbo Stewart: Ah, you know, what if we get a choir again? And,
• 18:08
  Jimbo Stewart: well, I mean, if we do, do you think we could figure out how to,
• 18:10
  Jimbo Stewart: you know, like, and I would just converse with them until I felt like I had
• 18:13
  Jimbo Stewart: answered enough questions that not necessarily that they loved the idea,
• 18:18
  Jimbo Stewart: but that they, I'd answered their questions.
• 18:20
  Jimbo Stewart: We'd had, I got their informal permission.
• 18:23
  Jimbo Stewart: And if I would do that with the right people enough, by the time I brought it
• 18:26
  Jimbo Stewart: to the whole congregation on a family meeting on a Sunday night and just was
• 18:30
  Jimbo Stewart: like, hey guys, here's something we're thinking about doing.
• 18:32
  Jimbo Stewart: They all know who those people are too.
• 18:34
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Jimbo Stewart: Right. And they're going to look and see, oh, I can't wait till so-and-so speaks up.
• 18:38
  Jimbo Stewart: And then, you know, one of them, they would even go, oh, me and pastor already
• 18:42
  Jimbo Stewart: talked about it. And I think it's a good idea.
• 18:45
  Jimbo Stewart: You know, and it just helps buy that credibility in that and avoid those decisions.
• 18:50
  Bob Bumgarner: Let me point out what I think you did. You matched your decision-making system,
• 18:57
  Bob Bumgarner: to the decision-making style of the church.
• 19:00
  Bob Bumgarner: So think about this. Suppose you'd come from a mega church where it was very
• 19:04
  Bob Bumgarner: corporate and you had been an intern there for a year and you'd gotten lots of great training,
• 19:10
  Bob Bumgarner: but now you're a pastor, you've gone to seminary, now you're a pastor of your
• 19:13
  Bob Bumgarner: first church, and it's time to make a decision.
• 19:17
  Bob Bumgarner: If you're unaware that a congregation of 30 to 50 that you're replanting or
• 19:23
  Bob Bumgarner: revitalizing is more like a family—,
• 19:27
  Bob Bumgarner: than a corporation, you're going to mess that up.
• 19:31
  Bob Bumgarner: And so you have to, and on a personal level, even if your bias is corporate,
• 19:36
  Bob Bumgarner: like even if you think corporate's more efficient, you have to honor.
• 19:41
  Bob Bumgarner: Think of the missiology of this. You're coming to a place, a missiologist honors
• 19:47
  Bob Bumgarner: the culture where they can.
• 19:50
  Bob Bumgarner: This is one of the places you can honor the culture by making decisions in ways that make sense to them.
• 19:56
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah, we would call it organizational awareness.
• 19:59
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 19:59
  Jimbo Stewart: Right? It's an understanding of the DNA of where it is God has called you.
• 20:05
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 20:06
  Jimbo Stewart: And again, it's one of those where like, is it what you want it to be? Probably not.
• 20:11
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah.
• 20:11
  Jimbo Stewart: Right? I mean, is everything exactly what, obviously it probably isn't.
• 20:14
  Jimbo Stewart: Or else where else are you going to lead them? Like we're always leading towards
• 20:18
  Jimbo Stewart: growing more like Christ.
• 20:20
  Jimbo Stewart: But it's where you are. And if it's where God calls you, then it's where God calls you.
• 20:24
  Jimbo Stewart: And you've got to navigate in what you— This is one of the things when guys
• 20:27
  Jimbo Stewart: call me and say they're going to quit. I would say one of the biggest mistakes
• 20:30
  Jimbo Stewart: is quitting too soon during a heavy time. And one of the things that guys will
• 20:35
  Jimbo Stewart: tell me, you don't understand how difficult this church is.
• 20:38
  Jimbo Stewart: And I always go like, look, I know this sounds, again, like the Jesus-Juke answer.
• 20:44
  Jimbo Stewart: Did God call you there?
• 20:45
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah, that's it.
• 20:46
  Jimbo Stewart: Okay. Well, he did. Well, then ask him how to, you know, one of the things I've
• 20:51
  Jimbo Stewart: heard somebody say, not as an against to lead like Jesus. They say,
• 20:55
  Jimbo Stewart: don't lead like Jesus. Let Jesus lead.
• 20:58
  Jimbo Stewart: Like in that moment, just go, okay, Jesus, I need you to lead.
• 21:03
  Jimbo Stewart: I mean, because every church has opinions. And so how do you keep people focused
• 21:06
  Jimbo Stewart: on mission instead of preferences in that?
• 21:10
  Jimbo Stewart: Regardless of what system you're in, you know, there comes a point where we
• 21:14
  Jimbo Stewart: can't let preferences and opinions override the mission that God has given us.
• 21:19
  Bob Bumgarner: If there's one thing I would say, the smaller a church is, the more likely it's
• 21:23
  Bob Bumgarner: led by preferences. And that's because they worked.
• 21:27
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Bob Bumgarner: That's because there were strong leaders who led at a time when.
• 21:35
  Bob Bumgarner: You know, historically speaking, megachurches are relatively new to the scene.
• 21:40
  Bob Bumgarner: And so there was a time when the church of 150 to 200 was a giant church.
• 21:44
  Bob Bumgarner: And so there were ways that that worked. Well, times have changed.
• 21:50
  Bob Bumgarner: And one of the things I would say is that the difference between mission and
• 21:55
  Bob Bumgarner: preference, or how do we—every church really does need to answer five questions.
• 22:02
  Bob Bumgarner: What do we do? That's our mission statement. Why do we do it?
• 22:06
  Bob Bumgarner: Those are our values. Not how do we wish we did it, but no, how do we really do it?
• 22:10
  Bob Bumgarner: That's our value statement. How do we do it is our strategy.
• 22:15
  Bob Bumgarner: When are we successful is our mission measures, and where does it lead us is our vision frame.
• 22:22
  Bob Bumgarner: There are 40 books out there that you could buy that will have those five ideas
• 22:28
  Bob Bumgarner: that you can use, and they're all good.
• 22:30
  Bob Bumgarner: What I want to say is I use a tool, called the vision frame.
• 22:34
  Bob Bumgarner: And the vision frame uses mission values, strategy, and mission measures as
• 22:39
  Bob Bumgarner: the frame, like a window that you're looking through to the future.
• 22:43
  Bob Bumgarner: And so my personal conviction is, is as you move away from preferences,
• 22:50
  Bob Bumgarner: the church needs to articulate together what the answer to those five questions.
• 22:57
  Bob Bumgarner: And the good news is if you are a First Coast Church's church of any size,
• 23:03
  Bob Bumgarner: we are here ready to walk you through that particular process.
• 23:09
  Jimbo Stewart: That's great. Let's skip ahead to, there's a difference between being smart,
• 23:16
  Jimbo Stewart: and being wise, wisdom versus knowledge.
• 23:21
  Jimbo Stewart: How would you explain the difference between those two? Yeah.
• 23:25
  Bob Bumgarner: Knowledge is something you know. Wisdom is often based in knowledge, but it's discernment.
• 23:36
  Bob Bumgarner: It's the reality that you see that may not be obvious. So in other words, wisdom,
• 23:46
  Bob Bumgarner: is being able to see implications before they happen.
• 23:49
  Jimbo Stewart: My favorite dorky illustration is knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
• 23:56
  Jimbo Stewart: Wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.
• 23:59
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah, there you go. That's good. That's not only dorky, but it's helpful.
• 24:06
  Bob Bumgarner: And here's the thing. I, I love, I love tomatoes. So that, but, but not that much.
• 24:13
  Bob Bumgarner: So I do think that part of the, the, the wisdom versus knowledge piece is this not.
• 24:22
  Bob Bumgarner: I think it's the wrong question to ask, what's the smart thing to do here?
• 24:27
  Bob Bumgarner: I think the right question is, what's the wise thing to do here?
• 24:29
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Bob Bumgarner: Because wise means you have processed it, in my mind, through all the spiritual
• 24:37
  Bob Bumgarner: lenses, the emotional, the family constellation, through your own convictions.
• 24:44
  Bob Bumgarner: And so wisdom includes all of that.
• 24:49
  Bob Bumgarner: Wisdom will cause you, seeking wisdom will cause you to ask better questions.
• 24:55
  Bob Bumgarner: It'll cause you to ask open-ended questions and it'll actually allow you to suspend judgment.
• 25:02
  Bob Bumgarner: So in other words, if I'm asking Jimbo how First Coast churches can be better,
• 25:09
  Bob Bumgarner: he can tell me, but I've got to be, I've got to want the answer.
• 25:13
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah. When you say wisdom get you out of your preferences?
• 25:17
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah. It at least allows you to challenge them.
• 25:20
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Bob Bumgarner: Because I would go so far as to say, not all preferences need to be lost.
• 25:24
  Jimbo Stewart: Right.
• 25:25
  Bob Bumgarner: Because like, so in other words, I think the bigger a church gets,
• 25:28
  Bob Bumgarner: the more relational it needs to be.
• 25:29
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 25:30
  Bob Bumgarner: It's always been relational, but the way you keep relationship,
• 25:33
  Bob Bumgarner: so you hold onto that preference.
• 25:35
  Bob Bumgarner: We are committed to relationship, but the way we experience it,
• 25:39
  Bob Bumgarner: it's probably going to be through teams and small groups versus everybody in
• 25:43
  Bob Bumgarner: the worship center. Yeah.
• 25:46
  Jimbo Stewart: All right. If you could sit down with 30-year-old Bob Bumgarner,
• 25:50
  Jimbo Stewart: what's one leadership lesson you would tell him?
• 25:56
  Bob Bumgarner: It is not all on you. No matter how good you are, it is not all on you.
• 26:02
  Bob Bumgarner: And the things that you thought you were controlling, God in His graciousness was doing it.
• 26:08
  Bob Bumgarner: And you were like a two-year-old helping your dad, and you didn't realize it was him.
• 26:14
  Bob Bumgarner: You really thought it was you. So that would be it.
• 26:20
  Bob Bumgarner: That's not everybody's, but I think that would be mine.
• 26:26
  Jimbo Stewart: All right, so a few rapid fires before you close this out. What is your favorite leadership book?
• 26:32
  Jimbo Stewart: I know you got a long list of those. Give me one.
• 26:36
  Bob Bumgarner: Okay. I'll just give you my favorite one right this minute is,
• 26:42
  Bob Bumgarner: okay, it's going to be discipleship that fits.
• 26:45
  Bob Bumgarner: That doesn't sound like a leadership book, but it really is a leadership book
• 26:49
  Bob Bumgarner: because it explains five environments that discipleship happens in and what
• 26:56
  Bob Bumgarner: each environment's good at.
• 26:58
  Bob Bumgarner: So I'm calling it a leadership book because here's what it's doing for me.
• 27:02
  Bob Bumgarner: When I talk strategy now with people,
• 27:05
  Bob Bumgarner: I can actually intelligently engage them in what do you hope happens in the
• 27:10
  Bob Bumgarner: worship environment, in the big room.
• 27:13
  Bob Bumgarner: And I can know whether it's going to, if that's going to happen or not. So that would be it.
• 27:18
  Jimbo Stewart: What's one leader who's influenced you the most in your view of leadership?
• 27:24
  Bob Bumgarner: It is my boss. It's Dr. Chavis.
• 27:26
  Jimbo Stewart: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Bob Bumgarner: When I came to the convention in 1997,
• 27:31
  Bob Bumgarner: he just, he helped me. He was so secure that he was able to help me be secure,
• 27:39
  Bob Bumgarner: so that I could actually ask the questions that I'd never asked myself before.
• 27:44
  Bob Bumgarner: And then ultimately, he actually moved over and retired early so I could have his job.
• 27:49
  Bob Bumgarner: So that sense of servant leadership,
• 27:55
  Bob Bumgarner: it's opened so many doors of opportunity for me.
• 27:59
  Jimbo Stewart: What's the most underrated leadership habit.
• 28:03
  Bob Bumgarner: Consistency over heroic effort. Yeah, just doing the right thing consistent,
• 28:11
  Bob Bumgarner: doing the small thing over and over and over,
• 28:14
  Bob Bumgarner: like being clear over and over and over again. Yeah.
• 28:18
  Jimbo Stewart: And there's so many things you've listed today that I want to reiterate that
• 28:22
  Jimbo Stewart: for our First Coast Church's pastors that we're here, right,
• 28:27
  Jimbo Stewart: to help with clarity, to help with leadership development, to help with all of those things.
• 28:31
  Jimbo Stewart: But as you close us, before you close us out, answer this.
• 28:36
  Jimbo Stewart: If every pastor listening remembered one sentence from today,
• 28:38
  Jimbo Stewart: what would you hope it would be?
• 28:42
  Bob Bumgarner: Maybe this is because I am celebrating 26 years of Spike Hogan pastoring,
• 28:48
  Bob Bumgarner: but it's this one. The best leaders leave behind healthier people,
• 28:53
  Bob Bumgarner: not just bigger organizations.
• 28:55
  Bob Bumgarner: They leave capacity behind.
• 28:59
  Bob Bumgarner: Capacity that can be embodied. They leave embodied capacity behind.
• 29:04
  Jimbo Stewart: That's good.
• 29:05
  Bob Bumgarner: Yeah. So here's what I want to say. Here's my challenge.
• 29:09
  Bob Bumgarner: If you've been listening to this, choose one decision you've been avoiding,
• 29:14
  Bob Bumgarner: and I want you to pray about it. Seek wise counsel,
• 29:19
  Bob Bumgarner: then design the next faithful step, pray about it again, and then with wisdom,
• 29:26
  Bob Bumgarner: and take that next faithful step, lead with courage, lead wisely,
• 29:31
  Bob Bumgarner: because you really don't have to pastor alone.