The Rusty George Podcast

Intro/Outro: Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

Rusty George: Hey, welcome to episode 216. Wow. I can't believe it's been that many. Thank you so much for your support and your participation. We're doing a contest right now. This is the last week. You have to submit a review. We're gonna collect all the reviews we've gotten, pull out one name and read that review on the air and give away a prize. You're not gonna wanna miss it. And it's better than just a Starbucks gift card, although those are pretty cool too.

We would love to have you leave a review, make sure you do that wherever you get your podcast from. It's very, very simple. And you can tell us what you think of the show. And we would love to hear from you helps us get the word out. This is what we're trying to do to help leaders. Well, today we are sponsored by Stadia. As an incredible organization in stadiachurchplanting.org, they work to sponsor church planters and get churches started.

Their mission is to create churches that help children. And they're doing just that. Over their many year history. They have planted thousands of churches and we wanna plant thousands more. We're on a mission here at Real Life to plant 30 churches by the year 2030, we are seven in. We'd love for you to participate with us as well. In fact, go to stadiachurchplanting.org, to find out more about that. And you can make a donation there to the great work that they are doing.

Today, I get to talk to a leadership legend. A guy that has a blog that is one of the most popular blogs that's out there when it comes to leadership. He worked for John Maxwell for 20 years. He is the executive pastor at one of the largest churches in America, 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He has worked as a vice president of leadership at InJoy Church Development, but he's best known as a leader with a pastor's heart and a coach's instincts. He truly loves the church, is described as one of the nation's most innovative church thinkers. His passion is developing and empowering leaders who want to grow, are willing to take risks, and enjoy the journey. His name is Dan Reiland. You're gonna love what he has to say. You're gonna subscribe to his blog when we're done. And you're gonna wanna share this with a lot of friends. Here we go. My conversation with Dan.

Well, Dan Reiland. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. For those of you who don't know a little bit about you give us the brief snapshot as to who is Dan.

Dan Reiland: Hey, hey, so first of all, thank you Rusty for inviting me to be part of your podcast. It's- I love doing this, so it's my pleasure. The brief, well, you know, we were just chatting. I am one of the few native Southern Californians, born and raised in San Diego.

Rusty George: Oh, wow.

Dan Reiland: So that's a, a big part of, my journey. But so fast forward, like decades there's for, for the short version. I love to say that my claim to fame was I broke John Maxwell's internship. You know, and I, when I graduated from seminary, I was his first intern in San Diego. And I was his last. Apparently, I was so bad and I was, I was the worst ever thing. And, and, and so he like shut down the program and, and never had another one, you know, and he's a leadership developer. So, but there's redemption to the story. He did ask me at that point in time to, um, join his team. And we served together 20 years and we're still close and talk all the time, was just with him in another meeting, working on one of helping a little bit with one of his books and all and so that was the first 20 years, that we came out to Atlanta, Georgia and been with kevin Myers now at 12Stone for 20 years as the executive pastor. We're in a triple succession, which is really kind of cool. Um, we've been investing in that for years, raised up the young guys from, from within. So we have three millennials stepping into our role and, that's- that's a whole gigantic topic, but that's pretty fun. So, here we are talking with you today.

Rusty George: That is so cool boy. So many avenues we can go with that. So, let's start with Maxwell. I would see that as he led you and thought there's no way it could ever get better. So, let's just shut this thing down. Way to go. Tell me what it's like. I mean, you work for John Maxwell. I mean, I'm so sure. There's so many things you learned from him, but what life lesson do you apply the most?

Dan Reiland: Clearly, there's one in the story I tell the most. I'll just give you the life lesson. For brevity or we can tell stories if you want.

Rusty George: I'd love the story! Yes.

Dan Reiland: You would?

Rusty George: Yes, of course.

Dan Reiland: Well, I'll tell you the story. It's a bit humbling. I was hoping you'd skip the story and those are the best.

Rusty George: Those are the best.

Dan Reiland: So, um, alright. I'll tell you the story. I, I, right after the- we call it residency here, but the internship, he invited me, this is an old fashioned warrior, but this is the eighties. Right? And he said he, he, invited me on the team to be his Christian Education Director. So, I've got all these volunteer leaders and everybody that were raising up and, and, I got my first report card from the head of the whole thing, volunteer team. And my first report card was (counts) four words. We don't like him. (laughter)

That's I don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that's not a good report card. You know, and, and, and, so he called me in his office, says, you need just, you know, and this is the first, first step, many times I heard him say this phrase: "Dan-o, it seems to me..." And I thought, I didn't know what was coming, but I knew that was his coaching year ago.

And he, he said, well, I'll never forget Rusty. This always takes me back. He said, "It seems to me like, you act more like you own the church than you serve the church." And I thought, it was just this hit in the gut, you know, you're running around here, you're in charge and all this, you know, and, and this was, this was the life lesson that he said in that moment he had, hadn't been in a book yet, hadn't said it 10,000 times yet. I don't know what was the first time, but he said, "Dan, you need to know something. People don't care how much you know, till they know how much you care." And he, and then, you know, those were really, that was a tough moment as a kid outta seminary. And, and he said, here's what I know about you, Mrs. John, he, he, he, you know, he gives the hard lesson, then he turns it. He said, "Dan, here's what I know about you. You have a deep love and a deep passion for people. You're just lousy at communicating it. You've- you've got to get that out. You you've got to let that out of you." And then he said, "Or you're not gonna make it in ministry."

And so I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this wait, this, the church was right across the street from, from this Yum Yum donuts. And John was famous for let's go across the street and get a diet Pepsi and a Yum Yum, I thought "We're not going there today, are we?" You know, this is, this is not what's happening today.

And, and, so he, he talked about that. He talked about walking slowly through the crowd. He talked about, "You know, Dan, you're always running around here, wanna save the world for Jesus. And you got your brief case, full of things, problems you're solving." He said, "Slow down. These are people they, they need the love you have."

And so he coached me through that and today and for decades, almost embarrassingly now in books and in lectures and things, he'll say, "You know, Dan-o, my buddy here, you know, is riding shot gun for 40 years, probably one of the most relational leaders I know." And the only reason I can say that to you now is just out of pure gratitude, just gratitude that he would've taken that time to pour into this kid, running down the hallways, right by the people.

Rusty George: Boy. That is a great story. That's worth the, that's worth the price of the podcast right there. That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that.

Dan Reiland: Well, I, I, I tell that story, that's a bit humbling, but God, God says that's a core story in your development and you have to tell it when it comes up.

Rusty George: Yeah, that's so true. I think a lot of us have those kind of stories from our past where somebody had to speak a little reality into us, and tell us what mattered most. So you- you're in a season of life where you are, you're coaching people, you're leading people, you're an executive pastor, but along the line, you decided to start blogging. How long have you been blogging? Because this is your blog is, is very popular and I love it. But, how long have you been blogging and why did you start blogging?

Dan Reiland: I love, I love to get to talk about this and by the way, sometimes Russ, I can be long-winded. Please interrupt me if I'm going too long, you will not offend me. So, I actually started blogging before blogging was blogging. 1997. It was like a printed, can you imagine this is like cassette tapes, right? It was like a printed newsletter out of InJoy ministries that I wrote twice a month and literally wrote the articles. And I actually constructed, I, I designed a cartoon, like a church cartoon and had an artist draw it.

We thought, thankfully, we kept copies of them. I mean, they're just kinda like in the archives, you know, but that's, I started writing to pastors and John called it the pastors. and it's been that since then, um, to answer your questions, probably, I don't know when blogging started it wasn't then 7, 8, 9, 10 years, you know, mm-hmm cause I have there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of, of articles and I, I keep taking off.

I keep usually leaving only about four or 500, 4- you know, let me see. Man, maybe 400 on there. And the guy who helps me put it all together, cause I keep taking the old ones off. He says, stop taking the old ones off, you know? And, but, but here's your question? Why did I start? Well, I love to write, but more importantly, um, my calling is to build the church. Early, early on God spoke to me and simply said, "My purpose, you know, mission calling is build the church." and for, for me, what that means is a very deep place, cause it's never changed in 40 years, build the church and way- the way that breaks down most simply put is, develop leaders who build the church that lift up the name of Jesus. And we see life change because of that. So developing leaders, developing leaders is my passion and part of my calling, as I just said.

But blogging, see, I told you a long answer.

Rusty George: No, I love it.

Dan Reiland: Blogging allows me to reach more leaders. And to invest in their lives to therefore build more churches, therefore reach more people for Jesus. That's it, that's never changed in 40 years.

Rusty George: So tell us a little bit about blogging because I know all of us have tried that at some point and then, it's a discipline to keep going. How did you come to, you know, your rhythm for how often you'd write? What you would try to say? Because I remember the early days of my blogging, I, you know, one day it'd be about the game I watched last night. The next day it'd be about a leadership book. I read the next day about a cool recipe that I'm trying out on the barbecue.

So, you know, it was all over the map. How did you discipline your voice and, your, your cadence, your rhythm of how often you'd write? What advice do you have for bloggers out there that are trying to communicate?

Dan Reiland: Well, I'm gonna just jump right on top of what you're saying. Consistency is key. Consistency is absolutely. Everything people often ask me and other bloggers, where does all your inspiration come from? Where does the inspiration? It's Tuesday at four. I have to write something. You know what I mean? (laughs)

Rusty George: Exactly.

Dan Reiland: And so honestly, discipline is part. And if it's, if, if you have the discipline to do it, then you have some skills to do it. And there's part of your calling. You see you, you see the impact. You're not trying to just build yourself a platform, but you just, you actually care about people. That those are the things that produce consistency. I'm gonna come back to rhythm in a second, but, um, I think it also then goes to stay in your lane.

Yeah. And in fairness to all the bloggers out there, when blogging started, remember it was always like a hundred words, 200 words, 300 words, and people made fun of it. Like Twitter. They, I don't care what sandwich you had for lunch, you know? Well, obviously it's matured a ton from then. And, so, but stay in your lane. Figure out who you are. What is your, like when I say share with you just a minute ago. Um, my, you know, build the church and then, you know, develop leaders who build the church, who lift up an name of Jesus. Why now? I've I run in just four lanes. Now it's taken me 40 years to get to just do, but I literally, you know, I started way, way, way back then thinking saying said, "God, I think these are the lanes you want me to run in", but I was a kid.

I didn't know. So I think you want me to run into, to lead, coach, write and teach. To lead, coach, write, and teach. Well, but over these decades, I've done well. I'm in the weeds. I'm in the details today. I can tell you, I literally only lead, write, coach, and teach. And, and so writing is in a space. That's one of my lanes.

Rusty George: Hmm.

Dan Reiland: In other words, I get energy from it. I'm- when I can remove some of the pressure from it, which isn't always easy, but I get energy from it. I think God speaks to me. So stay in your lane. If you're a blogger, if you- what's your lane? Stay in it. Don't write about cooking. If you're gonna, if you're lane is leadership, um, then stick with your style.

Rusty George: Mm-hmm.

Dan Reiland: Right? Stick with your style. So stay in your lane, stick with your style. What that means. I have some things that I'm, um, very adamant about. And that is one I, I, I I'm, I write in a positive, encouraging way. I refuse to write negative. I don't wanna, I'm not gonna write with bites. Some of my coaches tell me, put a little more bite in there, put a little more edge in there, throw a little negative and I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna do it. And that might be seen sometimes as softer than tougher. I don't care. That's that's my style. And I'm practical. Above all. I, I want things that somebody can take out the door that day, so I'm not deep. I'm not Tozier. I'm not maybe, you know, I, but it's practical. Right. Um, now let's go back to where we started to all the bloggers and the budding bloggers and dreaming bloggers. Frequency is determined by the quality of your content.

Um, I discovered, you know, when I, when I went back, maybe only seven or eight years ago, and I tried to get more serious about contemporary blogging. I tried three a week. Months. Couldn't do it. I went to two a week. Couldn't do it. I couldn't keep up my style. I'm not, I'm not Seth Goden. There's some geniuses out there who can write 300 words and blow your mind. I can't say hello in 300 words. And so you have to know your style. And, and, so I, and, and I, I discovered another practical thing. I could not write leadership talks, write leadership books and blog three times a week. It's just too much. So for me, once a week is where I've landed now for years and years. Every Monday morning, without fail 52 times a year, then I write a little bit long form, you know, 1100 words or so.

But I think that, I think I'm trying to say here is, is never outwrite your quality. If, if, if you, if you can do that, if you can do three or four a week, great. But don't, don't, don't do it to the point where you hurt your quality, the quality, if, if, if I'm gonna get in trouble for not being PC here. But if, if, if consistency is king, quality is queen, content is queen. I know I'm gonna get in trouble for that one, but maybe you're gonna take that out there, but (laughs) is that you get to get the idea. I'm trying to say.

Rusty George: Yes, that's so good. So good. Because I think a lot of us who are disciplined to begin with think, okay, the, the master or the leader or the king is the deadline. but you're telling us it starts with quality and your quality allows your or determines your consistency. That's that's really good stuff cause you're right. If you're not, then you're just getting, you're just filling out words to get it done.

Dan Reiland: Yeah. Filling out just blather. And after a while you that people aren't gonna follow you. And so I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say content is queen and consistency is king. And, and, and (laughs) I know I'm a big anyway, so chicken is what I'm saying. Um-

Rusty George: That's good.

Dan Reiland: So, yeah, that really is true, cause ultimately, with, with massive, massive amounts of content out there, right? What will make you stand out is you said something. You said something.

Rusty George: That's so good. Yeah. You said something not, you said something often.

Dan Reiland: Correct.

Rusty George: Okay. Let's shift gears to your day job. You are an executive pastor. This is such a unique role and such a needed role, and I'm glad that, you know, over the last 20 years, this has become a normalized role. A lot of churches have this, the churches of all sizes, not even just churches that are 5,000 or more. People are deciding I need a number two. I need a, a Robin to the Batman. I, I need somebody to do the Xs and Os while I cast vision. But it seems to me, the more XPs I meet, the more senior pastors, I meet there- there's just so many different ways to go about this. I've had XPs that are only in the office and do the day to day and the Xs and Os between the Sundays and I've other XPs that thrive on being out amongst people during the week. I've seen some XPs teach on the weekend. You know, what, what different roles have you seen XPs play? And talk about, you know, just some of the common ways to look for an XP and just some of those particular job descriptions that they have.

Dan Reiland: Yeah. Well, there are, really good question and it really does start start here. Um, there's really two big categories, two big, I say categories that you can- that XPs typically land in one, or almost always land in one or the other, unless you're in these gigantic churches that have named one of the, one of the layers of their staff, everybody's an XP. You know, XP of everything. And, and, aside from that, but two big categories are one is administrative and the other's ministry.

And those aren't exciting words, but let me unpack them. There are Administrative Exec Pastors. They're typically over finance and buildings and it, and maybe HR and insurance and all that stuff. And they're really good at it and really important. And then there's the ministry side where I've, where I've lived for four decades now that's all things, staff, ministry, architecture, ministry design, meaning what the ministries you do. What, what you don't do. What's working, what's not working. What, where's, the innovation, all that kind of stuff. And then leadership development. Um, that's the, the other side. And those, it is usually one of those two. Now it's never that black and white, we get it, but that's the two big categories.

But there's another thing Rusty that really, really plays into this. And almost, almost, maybe more to your, the core of your question and that is, it depends on the size of the church. Um, this is probably gonna bug a few leaders out there. So understand you- this is just a structural thing that I've seen thousands of churches, but it doesn't have to be yours, but let me just say what sort of the benchmark, um, philosophy is here. That less than a thousand or 1200 in attendance, you might be a little early. And if you're less than a thousand or 1200 in attendance, typically that XP is gonna need to carry another full on pastoral ministry, departmental, whatever role. So if you can do it, but it's not just an XP, like a really common one might be an executive pastor. And, and, and he, or she also does small groups. Something like that. Cause there's two small. You can't afford it. Right. Here's the problem with starting too early.

The one that I've tried to coach a lot of churches through is when you start early, which is okay, you can do it. But when you start early that guy or gal has to do both the administrative and the ministry, you have to do both. Then by the time the church gets to a size where this is like a real deal.

And it's the whole thing. You're 12, 13, 14, 1500. And, and then they're gonna hire. The other side, they're gonna hire from somebody almost every single time. When the senior pastor sits down to talk with the, the, the, the person about which side do you want? Almost every time they say I want the ministry side, and most of the time they should have stayed on the administrative side because that's the one that is the senior pastor really wanted them to take and there. So they, they intuitively picked that person to go do that stuff. Cause that's not the stuff they wanted to do. And so now you're putting the wrong person in the wrong job or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it gets really messy.

That's so good. There's more, but I'll stop there.

Rusty George: No, I love that. Because I've done that. I hired a guy to do both, and then I wanted him to do one, which he was fine with. The staff was not. So there was a bit of a revolt on that end, cause they would prefer him to stay in ministry and not in administration. So yes, interesting the dynamics there and I love your categorization of, you know, 1200 people or less versus more, just the need of it. That makes a ton of sense.

So, a common trend. Well, there's really only two ways to do this, I guess, is for XPs to come out of the ministry realm to where they- they started in ministry and now they're going to administrate and now they suddenly, you know, their peers become their direct reports, um, which can be difficult. And then you've got XPs that come outta the marketplace, which is a very common trend where you've got a guy on your board, or you've got a guy in the church that just retired and you think, boy, he knows how to run a company. Let's bring this person in or this woman in to, to, to run this organization.

And then I can just teach, I can just be with the people. So, two different types of XPs there. Executive pastors. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what advice you would give a brand new XP that's been in ministry already and now is shifting from ministry to more administration.

Dan Reiland: Yeah. Um, or on either side actually, but yeah, the brand new XP first, I just wanna make a quick comment. Um, the trends for a long, long time in terms of how many XPs typically come from the business arena and how many come from ministry? It's about 50/50 now. It's about 50/50. And here's another thing. More of a nuance that I wanna say is sometimes we think, well, you know, the business guy, he's a business guy and you know, the, the ministry guy, he, you know, he's the, he loves people.

And I tell you, I've seen just as many men or women who come from, as XPs, the business side who are just as pastoral or caring or more so than the ministry side. So I think that's a, that's a mix that you it's just about the individual it's about how their, what their wiring is. But anyways, right back back to your, your question, what advice would I give brand new?

I think the first thing I would say is focus on the culture of the staff. Focus on the focus on the culture of the staff, everything. I mean, culture that you build, the environment that they're in is everything. And we can talk about that, but let me just go quicker on a couple things, to condense this a little bit.

I think second, so focus on the culture. Second is to invest in the staff. And, we try to, we try to overcomplicate investing in the staff. We call it the two X principle, you know, invest twice as much in as you expect back out. But there's really only two lanes to run in. And one is care and shepherding. That's the spiritual, the personal side. And the other is equipping and development. You know, your, your pour- you're just helping them be a better leader, a better equipper. And those are the only two that you have. And as long as you've got a good mix of the, both, the care and sheparding and the equip/developing, you don't have to search for what, all the other new things, that's it.

But there's a lot in those two worlds. There's a lot. Then the last thing I would say, and I know we could talk about these things for a couple of hours, these three, but the next thing last thing I would say is you can't overestimate the relationship. With the senior pastor and the executive pastor, you just can't overestimate.

Rusty George: Right.

Dan Reiland: I spent more of my time trying to solve that problem with those two individuals. It's based so much. So Rusty on trust, communication. And the- and big time expectations. Yeah. And when is any of those three are broken? That's the core right there. Trust, communication, and expectation. It, it just, it doesn't work, but-

Rusty George: Don't you feel like so much of the relationship between the executive pastor and the lead pastor? It's a little bit like a marriage. Because, you know, having kids, your kids will come to one of you and ask for something. If they don't get it, they go to the other one, you know, and ask for it. Same thing happens on staff and they end up playing and, and they don't even mean to, it just happens that way, end up playing the two against each other. That's why, there are some guys that have multiple XPs. I could never do that cause I, I, I'm not Mormon. I can't be married to multiple women. Right. So I, I just, just one. So I have one XP, but I do notice unwillingly. They, they, they can kind of, people can kind of play you against each other. And so that, that relationship is so huge.

Dan Reiland: It is. And, and, you know, way back when, when John and I started, we really hardly knew what an executive pastor was. There was a small handful of us in the country trying to figure it out. In fact, we spent almost a year trying to figure out what my job description was and we couldn't do it. That was 1980, whatever it was, you know? And so I said, well, I got an idea, John, what we keep trying to figure out, well, my job script, why don't we just figure out what yours is. Hmm, and then I'll take everything else and that worked. But the mom and pop thing, you're, you're bringing a lot of things to mind from experiencing from XPs across the country.

Another thing we started right back then, cause John, think about John Maxwell, is so inspiring. He is so you just walked down the hallway, we call, I call it the Maxwell morphine, you know, just, just the touch of his garment, you know, and, and, but it was true. I mean, he's just a motivating guy and, and, people would have hallway conversations with him.

And he said, I, John, what do you think about this? I did. Oh, I love it, baby. Do I love it? You know? And, so they would think he just told me I could. And I said, no, he didn't. He goes, yeah, he did. He loved my idea. So John, I had to figure out how did we stop this? Yes. How don't we, we get to stop this, you know?

And so he came up with these like three windows or three doors or, or something. Because I was one that you mentioned where I just grew up in the ranks. And so I had to turn all of a sudden, I'm just, I'm one of the guys and now I'm, you know, the XP, that was a challenge, you know? And, and, so there, so what we said was we had to start, we had to take away the image that you couldn't talk to John, and you had to only talk to Dan.

So we said, hey three, here are the three things. If you, if you just wanna talk to the pastor, Call his admin and get an appointment. Say, I just wanna talk to my pastor. Great. Do it. You know what? I haven't had a burger with the pastor in six months. Great. Do it. Get an appointment, go have a burger. Well, I, I just wanna dream a little bit, you know, about ministry. Great. Do it call. We gave so much freedom that they, that they actually go, huh? I don't need to see him. I'm fine. You know, it's when they can't, see? So we'd said then we, but this is the yes, yes, yes. And here's the no, here's the never, never, never, never, never. And John I is, is with his personality. Even he never violated this once we said to each other, if they come to you, John, you can never make a decision with them. You can never, ever make a decision. Cause there's 500 little things you don't know. Right. And you're gonna send trains in the walls and things are gonna blow up and budgets are gonna explode. Now, that doesn't mean the senior pastor can't get what he or she wants. It just means come and tell the XP so that, so the thing John said a thousand times. Oh, I love it. I love it. Go talk to Dan. Oh, that's good. Go talk to Dan. Probably go talk to Dan, go talk to Dan, go talk to Dan. That kept us out of so much trouble. Now that goes back to what you just said Rusty. Now that relationship has to be like no daylight. I mean, it's, it's just tight. Philosophically, ministry, biblically, um, tight, tight. Or that doesn't work, but that's worked now hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of XPs used that now.

Rusty George: That's so good. We came up with a phrase where we'd say you dream with Rusty, and then you execute with the executive pastor. And we have a clear delineation there. And we there's a joke around our staff. Now that we've started. And that is never say Rusty said. Because what would happen is you'd come out of a meeting and say, well, Rusty said I could do this. Well, Rusty doesn't even remember. So, uh that's right. Don't don't quote him on that.

Okay. This is so helpful for XPs. Um, you've worked with some incredible leaders. You've mentioned John Maxwell, but Kevin Meyers, there at 12Stone has built an incredible, oh yeah. Incredible ministry. A different type of leader, a different type of personality. What are some of the, the, the common lessons you've learned from those two or even some of the common threads between the two? Just some leadership nuggets from these great leaders, over the years.

Hey, let me interrupt for just a second. Would you help us plan a church? Go to stadiachurchplanting.org today to find out more. All right. Back to our episode.

Dan Reiland: Yeah. It it's interesting that, that there's so much about them that's similar. And then there's a couple of things from the, you know, the, the takeaways that were, you know, dramatically different. I, I think among these two, um, brilliant guys and, and leaders, here's some things that are a hundred percent in common of the two of them, even though their personalities are very, very different.

Um, they're John and Kevin are both incredible visionaries. They, they have an entrepreneur spirit in them, but they, they, they, they have great faith. Um, I think faith and leadership often have to go together, and, and spiritual gifts wise, but they're incredible in visionaries. They're master communicators. And what's interesting is they're both natural master communicators, but very few people know how, how hard they work on it. They work on it all the time. Like for example, I remember years ago when we started going multisite and Kevin's a brilliant, natural gifted communicator, he didn't, he wouldn't have to work on it ever the rest of his life, he was still being the top 10. I think he's, he's really, really good. And I remember him saying, Dan, there- it- it to communicate to a live room is dramatically different than communicating to a camera to all these campuses we have. And I watched him for three years, teach himself how to speak to a room and to a camera at the same time and not get dated in all the different, you know, geo- geographic areas. And I watched him master a new art simply cause he said, I'm, I'm not gonna rest on natural ability. So just a gifted communicator.

Rusty George: That's good.

Dan Reiland: Um, two more things that both of them. Is they're driven for progress. Mm-hmm um, it's, it's just, you know, they're driven for progress. And second they're high energy. These guys are high energy. I have a big, big battery too, but these guys are high energy.

Now, that's kind of the, the leadership side you'd expect to hear, but let me tell you two or three things that people don't, they might not guess the two of them, I, I. Mind blowing generous beyond imagination, generous be- I mean, they are what they do behind the scenes and things. No one ever knows. I wish we had time. I could tell you our incredibly generous human beings. Second, they're they're far more pastoral than you might ever guess. Writing notes, going to hospitals, staying for two hours after a service, talking to people. I mean, they're far more pastoral and, and then their love and their dedication to their family.

Oh my gosh. Now, with now with the grandchildren, they all have, you know, they just crack me up when they get around their grandkids. I mean, they're, they're fun to watch, but you asked the second part. I think Rusty, you know, lifetime of leadership lessons. True. We have all day for that. Told you a story already with John, but I think categorically, obviously both under leadership.

I think John probably pulling from him was his, his, his incredible positive attitude. And to think bigger, I'm still working on thinking bigger today. One of my, my growth things, I literally have written down think bigger. You need to think bigger and out, you know? And, and, um, but just. John just, you cannot shove him in a box.

You just, he will, he's not gonna stay in it. And with Kevin, um, very grateful for his spiritual intensity. Hmm. His prior life, his walk with God, his, it, you, you, you know, praying with swords, you, you can't ex you can't get a, you, you just catch it. Um, those two things. Again, of, of the many, I'm so grateful for the positive thinking and spiritual intensity from these two guys.

Rusty George: Oh, that's good. Boy. This is a masterclass. Okay. You mentioned culture previously. Let's come back to that. Culture is such a huge buzzword, but it's also, it's the air we breathe. You can tell it when you walk into a Chick-fil-A versus a- well out here, we have Jack in the Box. There's a big difference between those two when it comes to culture.

Dan Reiland: Oh, wow.

Rusty George: You sense it when you walk into Lowe's versus home Depot, there's just different. Um, and they're not always, one's right, one's wrong. They're just different. How would you define culture and you know, how do you, how do you build it and how have you built it there at 12Stone?

Dan Reiland: That's so funny when we finish I'm I'm going on a, another one of these. A zoom call with pastors and that's our topic. So, I wish I had go grab my notes. Um, but, but, what is culture?

Culture is- is basically what, what you believe and how you do what you do. What are the values you believe? What are the values you believe they're important and how do you get things done? So, one is deeply philosophical. It's about- it's about literally values and how you think, you know? How you think, what you believe and how, and then, but there's a project that said how you get things but you can't leave culture, this ethereal, cool, saying on a wall. It also has to be. Well, how do we do stuff around here? That's culture. How do you get stuff done? People, you know, when you, when you have somebody join a staff, um, they invariably we always do a 90 days. What was the biggest surprise to you and stuff? And of course, all thing they're always, always saying, I didn't know how you guys did that. Now, I know how you do that. You guys are really relational here, but you're really driven. And I don't know how you get that done, but you know, there that that's all culture. So again, it's who you are, what you believe, who you are, what you believe and how you get things done.

Um, how you create it. Well, let me, let me say there's so much here. This is such a fun topic. Well, it is keep in mind. Every time you hire one person, you change the culture. One person changes the culture. So you can't do a talk on culture and- or every time somebody leaves you change the culture, you can't do a talk and put a thing on the wall and give out a tape and buy a book. And you're done. You have to work on culture every day, all the time. And it has to be practical and real and every, and the team has to buy in. We work on it in our, all. We work on it all the time. We actually, you know, in our, on our list of we have, staff culture and staff attribute. amongst the staff attributes. We have questions. We, we hire and develop by the attributes and, and do reviews by them. So there we have hiring questions under each one. So it's a, it's a whole system to we're hiring the people that are like, you know, that fit in this culture. Um, I, I can hear myself rambling. I better stop.

Rusty George: No, that's good. I'm taking notes. This is great.

Dan Reiland: But you, you started to talk about how to build it. Um, I, I think, I think the first step is you have to declare what it is. What is your culture? We spent months and months and months, and months and months defining that we, we re because of the succession, um, the. 12Stone is, is still 12Stone, but we want, we want our young leaders to put the flavor on it. They want put the, the color and the spin and put the new words and the fresh vibe. And so we've been in 18, 24 months now, redoing lots of stuff and changing it. So it's them. Right? And, so we. We're 18, 24 months into that culture refresh. And so much work has gone into that. So the first thing I want, you know, listeners to hear is you can't go on a weekend retreat and figure out this is our seven things, and this is our culture. It's a big thing. Here's a, here's a great resource. Do you know, do you know, um, Rusty, do you know William Vanderbloemen?

Rusty George: Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh yes.

Dan Reiland: His book, um, Culture Wins? Great book.

Rusty George: It is.

Dan Reiland: Best sentences in the book is who are you? Meaning your staff, who are you when you're at your best? That's a great, so you don't want an aspirational list, just an aspirational list, but who are, who are we when we're at our best? Start there. And build it real and then infuse it, appraise it, review it, reward it, call people out on it. You know, whatever that, whatever that culture is. I'll say one last thing and I'll stop. cause this is a fun topic. The, the phrase we use here is what's in the water? And we work really, really hard to put the culture in the water very intentionally. We do very specific things to put that in the water. There's another side. Sometimes there's some crud in the water you have to take out. And Rusty that's when stuff gets in the water that you don't want in the water, it's really hard to get it out, but you have to work hard to get it out.

And we've had to work on some things to get out of the water, but you, you gotta, it's not just the coolest and rah-rah, you gotta sometimes get the bad stuff out of, out of the, out of the, culture.

Rusty George: Okay. Let's talk about that for a second. Okay. How does the bad stuff get in the water? Is that made the wrong hire? Lost the wrong person? Made a snap decision? Um, went through a difficult season? How- how have you seen that play out?

Dan Reiland: Well, there's a lot of pieces there. Sometimes it can be, it's Al- many, many, many, many times the core of it is communication or lack thereof. If they're, if they don't know the expectations, they don't know what's going on. They don't understand the culture, um, human, the human nature. If, if, if, if you don't fill in the dots, if you don't complete the dots, connect the dots, they will, and they're gonna do it wrong. And so second, if you allow pressure to build and you don't answer questions or bottlenecks to build those kinds of things, um, the, the, the pressure keeps rising and you don't have relief through communication or trust.

They'll the staff, we're human beings. They're gonna talk in the hallways in the, you know, but they're always gonna get it wrong. It's better to get it in the room and talk it out. Kevin and I have been the bottleneck. Probably three or four times in our tenure together, it was flat us. The bottleneck simply described as this, nothing can move forward because we're blocking it. We're holding up a decision. We can't get to it, whatever, whatever it is, we, the staff can't run forward. They can't make progress cause we're holding them up. cause we won't make a decision or we won't declare a thing. And so we work really hard to. If, when we're the bottleneck and we work really hard to break that, but tho those kinds of things will, will damage put, put, damage in the water.

I- I'm I'm, I'm hesitant cause I want tell stories of some stuff we've had in the water and I don't want to, but I think I'm gonna, because that's the only way to be helpful. So I'll tell one cause we've had it.

Rusty George: Go for it.

Dan Reiland: Can I do it? Okay. We had this thing. That there was this phrase that got in the water and it was, it was bad news. It was not good for the culture. It was "Well, you know, 12Stone: part-time is full-time and full-time is all the time". That's not a good phrase. And it got, it was getting communicated. "Well, you know, 12Stone: part-time is full-time and full-time is all the time". And, and it was kind of getting buzzed out there and, and you can't, you can't repress it or command it down. You have to deal with it. Where did it come from? How did it get there? And what do we do about it? Because we do work hard of our, one of our attributes is drive you don't we, we got drive here, but it's very healthy drive. If you, if you're here, people love being here. So. You know, that can cause the XP or the senior pastor, something like that to get defensive.

And, and so sometimes I could start getting defensive you- the second, if the second the lead team gets defensive, you're in trouble. You, you have to back up and say, Hmm, no, there's something here. These are good people. This is a great staff. These are great people. There's something here. What is it here?

I gotta race forward. cause there's a long, quite a road there. Let me race forward to what we discovered and, and the tool that came out of it. We started saying let let's let's cause if anybody here is really working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, we, we don't want that. We want that to stop mm-hmm and what we discovered was there's a difference between working too much and a busy life.

And what was happening is the majority of the staff had a really, really, really busy life. They weren't working too much, but they had a really, really, really, you know, the, they got the kids and the cars broken the things happening. They gotta go to the doctor. It's, such's a really, really busy life. But when you have a really, really busy life in the church and you're under pressure and you don't have enough time and you don't have any margin, the tendency is to indict the church with that.

And you're actually not working as many hours as you think. So we started saying in a very pastoral way, "Let's we don't want you working too much. Let's start tracking your hours". And, and, and, and only to their, the degree, it was helpful. And we discovered by and large, the vast majority were not working too many hours at all. And their eyes got big. And we said, Hmm. And here's what we discovered we had to first identify, were they working too much or did they have just a busy, busy life? Here's why: if they working too much, that's a different problem. That requires a different solution. If they have a busy, busy life, that's a different problem with a different solution. So we have to coach you appropriately. And that was a gigantic learning for us that got that bad Juju out of the water.

Rusty George: That's really, really insightful. And it's bringing a lot of clarity for seasons of our life, where the staff has cried out. Hey, we're overworked. We got too much going on. Don't add another thing. And then you look deep into their life and it's oh, you're in a busy season right now. You got three kids, they're all in travel baseball or karate or whatever it is. And you know, it's just, it's a busy season. Doesn't always mean that we gotta shut down everything around here, but it's a season. That- that's so good.

Okay. I need some, I need some leadership nuggets from Dan on staff on XPs and all of that. Let's start with: what are common traits that make great staff members? And let's think about it from this perspective, post COVID moving ahead. And you're in a season of life right now where you're beginning to hand the keys over. what's the next crop of pastors, leaders, what do they have to have? What's the skillset or the personality type or, the abilities they need to, to march ahead in this season?

Dan Reiland: Yeah. Well, cause it is, it, it it's a, it's a different season. I, again, I get to coach a lot and probably, you know, I, I, I always hesitate to do the, the overgeneralization. The generalization is so close to accurate. Probably that internally one of the, the, the biggest things happen right now is discouragement. Hmm. And externally is navigating a rapidly changing and divided culture. Well, that's, those are two pretty big things, you know? Yeah. But, but so what's new, you know, I think there's, there are some things that are very consistent and there's a couple of things that are really new or new to maybe, maybe nothing new under the sun Rusty, but, but new to a greater degree, one of them is, um, the capacity resilience.

Um, just that spirit within that, that come back from a setback. Just that spirit of resilience, I think too. Um, The character of substance, where, where, where, you know, leadership's a contact sport, you know, you're gonna take hits. Yeah. And, and you'd have to be able to stay in the game. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not a easy thing.

And so, that resilient spirit that, that resolute character. Um, I think we're coming back to a, a redefinition of calling, you know, we talk a lot about a lot of podcasts about the great resignation and all, and, and there's truths to that, but there's also, There are, we have a residency full, full time, of 30 full time residents.

Their college graduates are with us for two years and we train them in ministry and off they go. And part of our pipeline, we do get to hire some, but they're, they're, they're young, they're 22 years old, but they're resolute. They're fired up. They're all in, right? I don't ascribe at all to young and lazy. I don't, I don't believe that at all. I think now they're young and the best because they see what's going on. They see the collapse, they see the division, they see the, the, the mess and they go, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. Now, train me. right? I don't wanna get clobbered. So. So if I, you know, those are some of the newer things, I think that the things that have been true for a long time and now they're just true more is I think competence number one is competence. Not in order. Actually. I may put it a little bit more in order. Number one is humility. Um, there there's that there's a humility that, that, without that in ministry, you just, you're not gonna make it. I mean, Christ taught us, you know, and I think second again, not in order, but competence and capacity. Um, competence is the skill.

The ability to do something in capacity is the ability to do more. Um, obviously you don't hire, if you don't hire a student pastor who can lead the group that you have, you hire a student pastor to lead the group you don't have yet, you know? Right. And with competence, we're not even necessarily looking for what they've done in the church.

Are they, if we have a young leader, we have a lot of young leaders. If they were good at anything? If they were good at anything, we can translate that to good in ministry, but if they were good at anything, they're probably missing the stuff to be good at anything. And so drive, we look for, so competence, capacity, humility, drive, meaning energy.

They, they, you bring, they brings, you know, what it's like Rusty on your team when somebody else brings energy into the room, you know, that's like, thank you, Jesus. Somebody else showed up, you know? Right. And, intelligence, I don't mean Harvard, Harvard, Stanford, but I mean, um, the, the, the, but just the, just a sharp person.

And then the fifth one. Which would probably be the one that you would everybody would guess is, relational savvy, you know, emotional, you know, the EQ, the, the, the self aware, all, all that kind of thing. That's a, now interestingly enough, that is more problematic today and I'm not against social media. I'm not against any of that stuff, but isolation, social media, a lot of those things have contributed to. A little bit lacking in the social skill and, and, um, not social skill, like hanging out with a cup of coffee, but I- I'd give the number one is the ability to handle conflict without just collapsing.

Rusty George: Yeah.

Dan Reiland: That is a skill that's missing. Now I'll add that to that list that you asked before, the ability to handle conflict, to bring resolution, you know why it's so hard now Rusty? Is cause culture right now is used to taking sides. And, and if, if culture, the big banner is to champion something, pick a cause.

Pick aside. The art of resolution, the art of solving the conflict is not championed. Right. And, and so that's a skill where we look for and we try to teach.

Rusty George: That's so good. I was just having a conversation the other day with a, a trauma, um, psychologist here in our community. And I said, tell me 10 years after COVID, what are we pointing at? And saying that came from COVID. He said social skills. He said, it'll soon be a class in school. Because kids do not know how to communicate with one another, certainly with adults and the, the have, and the have nots will no longer be education or money. It'll be who can talk to people. And I thought, wow.

That's, I mean, it started with our phones and then I think COVID only made it worse. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So last one. And we've talked about what XPs need to do, but I'm a lead pastor. I'll take, I'll take the blame for some of the problem. For other lead guys out there. Um, what's the one thing that we could do to help our XP succeed?

Dan Reiland: Can I give you three? I can do it back.

Rusty George: That's okay. Take all the time you want.

Dan Reiland: 60 seconds, right? Name that- i, I think, I think I I'm actually quite confident about this, that, that the top one is to trust them. You, you, you have to trust them. If the trust isn't there, don't pass go. Don't collect $200. Stop, go figure out why. And this is very common, but why isn't the trust there? I, if we have a minute extra, I'll tell you why often is not there. But second is to empower. I mean, truly empower, you know, give them the keys, let them lead. Let them hire. Let them fire. Not in a vacuum, not without communication, but let them lead. And third coach.

They need your coaching. We want your coaching. We, we, we want your imprint to coach 'em coach help. 'em help. 'em help. 'em. So trust 'em empower them. And then coach 'em. I think the one thing I would say don't do is to micromanage or pull the rug. Hmm. Micromanagement. Nobody understands that, but. Pulling the rug is one of the common things I have to help I coach through is, you know, like the X people launch a whole thing and get the small groups go in and the da da, and this lead pastor come back here.

Now we're not doing it that way. We just spent six months doing that in one moment with a cup of coffee, you just, just, you know, don't do that. Now that goes back. Where's that take a back to right. communication. Right? If you guys, if, if, if you stay in touch, that would never. Because let's say Rusty, you wanted the small groups one way and your XP wants another way you get to be the SP, I mean the senior pastor, just tell 'em what you want, but if you surprise him with it, mm-hmm , that's not gonna go well.

Rusty George: It never does. And I keep thinking it'll get easier, but it, okay. Talk about trust a little bit. You, you teased us on that one.

Dan Reiland: Yeah. So. If I, if I close this out with something it's often would I open with cause it's such a, it's such a big deal and it's in the realm of authority. That's where it breaks. When I, when I talk with like the number one sort of deeper level thing with XPs, I would love to do it with both the senior pastor lead pastor and, and that's about authority. Um, when I say the, to the executive pastors is the really good ones, know how, how to handle all authority and no authority at the very same time. And that, that's an incredible skill because you have to be strong enough to lead and you don't wanna be just an executive ballet. You have to be strong enough to lead, but not so strong that you want more some the, the ones that get in trouble, they're they, they won't even lead. Well, what do you want?

I'll just do whatever you want. Ah, go away. You know, I'm paying you to lead, you know, and, and on the other ones, they, they want more, I wanna teach more. I wanna do more. I wanna do it my way that it's hard to, to, to govern a gas pedal, the throttle of authority. And so if the senior pastor thinks the XP is either under leading or overleading, they don't know how they don't know what to do with authority, that usually causes trust to break down almost every time.

And it's great to back up to the idea of the theological issue of authority. All authority is transferred. It doesn't belong to us. I mean, God himself, throughout scripture, I. Cool collection, not collections like a collection. Like everybody else, everybody has it. But the new Testament is filled with scripture that says all the authority Jesus had came from the father.

Jesus does nothing apart from the father and the, and that authority, Matthew 28 was passed on to the disciples. Well, it says same. I have a lot of authority at 12Stone. So what it was transferred to me from Kevin, it's not mine. And when we remember it's not our authority, somebody gave it to us. We wield it differently.

And then the personality between the senior pastor and XP is one to, between the personalities and calling conviction, ministry, philosophy, all that kind of. So that you aren't overlead or under leading. I mean, there's so much to it, but that's my fast unpack.

Rusty George: That's amazing. Dan, this has been a masterclass in leadership and relationships. This- I'm gonna- I've taken notes. I'm gonna listen to this again and take more notes. This has been so great. And you are somebody that I have looked up to from afar. I've loved your blog and, sometimes you meet those people and you think, Hmm, not what I expected. This was, far greater than I could have ever imagined. Thank you so much for living up to the hype. You have been a gift. Thank you.

Dan Reiland: You are kind, those are kind words. Those are kind words. Can I tell you something fun as we close?

Rusty George: Absolutely.

Dan Reiland: I just, I just, just did a first Rusty. I don't think I'll ever do it again. It's not my lane now. See, I, I validated something. I usually write on leadership, but I just put a new book out and, um, it's called Leadership Alone Isn't Enough. It's 40 devotions and 40 devotions to strengthen your. Hmm. And, writing to devotion was a very different thing, but I think God told me to do it. So I did my best. And so I'm hoping, and in this season, I think a lot of leaders who are really good leaders are actually realizing, yeah, everything rises up, falls on leadership next to the favor of God, everything rises and falls on leadership. But by itself without the power of God? Yikes. So I'm hoping that'll be an encouragement to a lot of church leaders.

Rusty George: I just saw that that book had come out and I was gonna throw you that softball, but you cranked it out anyway. So, thank you so much because I cannot wait for our listeners to get that and to listen or to read that. And, participate with that study. So thanks for making it a devotional. That makes it really easy for a lot of us to digest rather than, eight pages in a chapter. It's one. So I appreciate that.

Dan Reiland: It's a page. That's right. That's right.

Rusty George: Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time and for your input and thank you for what you're doing for the kingdom of God. And for all churches, you've had a huge impact on so many leaders today. I really appreciate it.

Dan Reiland: Thanks Rusty, great to be with you.

Rusty George: Well, Dan, thank you so much for being a part of our show. Loved, loved, loved the words that you had to say, and for our listeners, I think you were blessed by that. Make sure you share that with a friend. Leave a review. We're gonna draw winner next week. And speaking of next week, we have a special episode for our listener giveaway, where we talk about some of our highlights in the past episodes. And we talk about the gift that we get to giveaway and what's coming. With a special launch from the Leading Simple platform. You're not gonna wanna miss it next week. As we finally get into September and it's football season, I cannot wait so excited about my Kansas City Chiefs. Just trying to go 500 in the AFC West. That's our goal. Well, listen, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you leave a review. Make sure you share this with a friend and make sure you keep it simple.

Intro/Outro: Take a moment and subscribe to the podcast so you'll get it delivered every week. And subscribe to the Rusty George YouTube channel for more devotionals messages and fun videos. Thank you for listening to Leading Simple.