The Courageous Pastors Podcast Shawn Lovejoy

This week Shawn steps back to the mic to interview one of his first coaching clients ever, Chris Bell. 
Chris leads 3 Circle Church, a five campus church in South Alabama.
Shawn and Chris talk about growing in healthy ways. Growth doesn’t always equal health. Bad things— like weeds— can grow quickly.
Rather than focusing on the growth, we want to look at the soil— the culture. 
As the church grows, such that you can no longer be in every room, the culture remains. Therefore, it’s essential that you work on the culture. 
In reality, every church and organization already has a culture. This leads us to questions such as— 
* Is the culture we have a culture we actually want? 
* Have we created this culture, or did it just “happen” by accident?
* Are there things in our culture we need to change? 
Furthermore, Chris talks about what to do when you drift from the culture you want— and how even those moments can become teaching opportunities for your team. 
 
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3 Circle Church = https://www.3circlechurch.com 
Pastor Chris on Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/pastorchrisbell/    
Book a free Strategy Session = www.CourageousPastors.com/strategy  
See other posts on our site about culture: https://www.courageouspastors.com/blog?tag=%2Aculture  

In this episode, JC interviews his very best friend (and his wife’s bestie, as well), Jeremy and Corrie Isaacs.
Jeremy and Corrie share a unique burden to minister marriages. They come from two different backgrounds.
Jeremy’s parents had a solid marriage, but he never saw them “live out” the conflict— nor was he taught how to manage it.
Corrie was raised by a single mom— with no marriage example to follow (her mother was married four times). However, she saw incredible marriages before her at church… and realized Jesus could restore everything.
The two of them believe that God not only CAN redeem your marriage, but can also enable your marriage to tell a bigger story than you imagine possible.
 
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See Jeremy’s coaching page at Courageous Pastors: https://www.courageouspastors.com/jeremy
Find Generations Church online: https://www.g.church/
To book a Strategy Session go to www.CourageousPastors.com/strategy
To learn more about building your killer team, grab your free book at www.KillerTeamBook.org

Kyle Jackson brings a unique perspective to the Courageous Pastors Podcast. Usually, with speak senior leaders, but Kyle brings his experience as a campus pastor and let us know things like: 
How to support the vision of the leader you’re following, as well as How to lead well when you’re not in charge He’s actually be on staff with his wife, too, for 13 of the 15 years he’s been in ministry. His wife is a worship leader where he serves.
 
Kyle is the son of an evangelist. He walked away from church from 18-25, but reconnected when he attended a mobile church— in a high school. After about 13 weeks of standing “in row 10, with his arms crossed,” he began connecting… and continued taking next steps. 
He became a teaching pastor. Then a coach. And then continued growing.
 
Through some relationships, he transitioned to becoming a campus pastor with Church of the Highlands, to launch the first “out of the state” campus in Columbus, Georgia. They launched in August 2019— and closed 6 months later (for Covid). Then, re-launched when everything opened up again. 
 
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To book a Strategy Session go to www.CourageousPastors.com/strategy 
To learn more about building your killer team, grab your free book at www.KillerTeamBook.org 

In this episode, Kevin and JC discuss Kevin’s journey from “his call” to pastoring to serving as an executive pastor— and how he knew he didn’t want to be the “lead guy” at the church but wanted to serve as the XP.
It’s a good word. Most staff members are not going to serve as the senior pastor. Most will be the number 2, number 3, or something else.
Kevin and JC talk about several important factors: 
 
⭐️ the importance of execution— of getting things done. 
Specifically, the discuss vision and trust, and identify how to know when you move forward without waiting for instruction as well as how to know when to ask permission. 
 
⭐️ the importance of EQ as opposed to IQ.
Most of the time, leaders aren’t fired (or hired) because of their Intelligence Quotient but because of their Emotional Quotient— of their ability to relate to people. 
 
⭐️ the importance of the team.
We function better together. Face it, leadership— at ANY level— is lonely. 
Sometimes that’s a function of leadership— it CAN be lonely at the top. But we make it lonelier than it has to be.
 
⭐️ the importance of decision-making.
Sometimes you need to be attached to the outcome. Many times you don’t need to be. In fact, most to the time you don’t.
 
⭐️ the importance of honor.
Kevin talks about “taking the bullet” when needed— and of deferring to the mission and the people who are part of it. 
 
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Links for this show— 
Join us for Building a Killer Team Live— www.KillerTeam.live
Claim your free Killer Team Book— www.KillerTeamBook.org
Kevin’s page on the CourageousPastors.com site = www.CourageousPastors.com/kevin 
On Instagram, @KevinLloydLive 

In this talk we divide the content from the past 23 talks into 7 “buckets,” that is, 7 repeating themes we saw.
#1 = Be you (not a knock-off of some other leader).
#2 = Take care of you. You can’t pour from an empty cup, serve from dry well, run on an empty tank… you get the idea.
#3 = Race relations are tough— and are worth the work. And they’re tough. And they’re worth the work. And tough. And worth it. And they are part of bringing the presence of the Kingdom.
#4 = The pandemic happened. Regardless of where you stand politically or medically or on any other issue, culture shifted and that radically changed how we do church.
#5 = One of the changes is that church moved out of the building. For sure, we don’t want to stay out of the four walls— as if it’s an either-or decision. We want to do both, gather and scatter.
#6 = Look back to the past— not to see failures and frustrations but to see the faithfulness of God. When we see our history with Him, and where He’s brought us, we gain confidence to keep stepping forward.
#7  = Coach-ability. It matters. Never underestimate the value of an outside voice to speak into your life and give you perspective, unleash new potential, and push you beyond what you dreamed possible.
Finally, tie it all together…
A lot of people think the church is in trouble, that it’s going to disappear. Don’t believe it.
J.I. Packer was asked years ago, “Who’s the best preacher?” He replied, “You don’t know him.” When pushed, he replied that not even he knew him because God has people all over, everywhere— just like Elijah didn’t realize there were 7,000 more besides him… that is true today.
Join a tribe. We’d love to have you.
 
Learn more at www.CourageousPastors.com/blog/024

Clay Smith took over Johnson Ferry Baptist Church just before the pandemic hit. He was 40 at the time, following a leader who planted the church and had been there since he was 2.
Now 43, Clay looks back and shares some of the lessons he’s learned about following a legacy leader.

“First, you are an interim,” he says, “We are all coming and going.” 
That is, you might be at your church for 3 months, for 3 years, or for 30 like Clay’s predecessor… but your job is temporary.

That said, Clay highlights five lessons he’s learned— and is still learning.
“We’re all learning,” he reminds us.