Leading Second Podcast

Anna Morgan is always such a treat to have any time she comes on the podcast! She is a constant and continual learner, she has such a great heart for the church and leaders, and I just count it as such a privilege to have her and her husband in our world.

If you’re not familiar, Anna is on the executive team at City Church Chicago, is married to our friend John Morgan (if you haven’t listened to his most recent episode with us this past fall, it is worth your time to go back and listen to), and she champions women in ministry so well in many different ways.

The one big question that we will try to answer in this conversation is, “How should I carry myself as a leader?”

In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul tells us to “live a life worthy of the calling we have received.” If we are to lead others toward maturity, shouldn’t we be setting the example for that? And if we are, what does that even look like? At a time where it is more and more popular to view self as authority, it’s getting easier to forget that we are to submit ourselves to Christ in everything we do? We tackle these topics of authority, being authentic, and submission, but also get into some of these questions:

Are you concerned with some of the conduct that you are currently seeing?

What are you seeing from church leaders currently on social media that is concerning you?

How important are seasons of prep?

What have you observed from people (leaders especially) who create posts and online content that ends up showing a gap between themselves and their pastor?

I hope and pray that this episode leaves an impact on you and leaves you wanting to put some extra thought into how you conduct yourself as a leader.

Run strong this week,

Brandon

Resources:

https://firmisrael.org

https://israelu.org

Ruth Haley Barton

Pete Scazzero

Leading From The Second Chair by Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson

After the episode:

How can you carry yourself differently this week as a leader? How can you live a life worthy of the calling you have received?

How clean is your car?

“Should my church have a say about what I post online?”

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

The big question we’re going to wrestle through on this episode is this: What could healthy team culture look like moving forward? In a season where it seems like everything has changed, some things remain constant - and the need for healthy team culture is undoubtedly at the top of that list.

Today we’re going to talk to a team I highly respect in so many ways — the Life.Church team, under the leadership of Craig Groeschel has grown to be one of the most influential churches in the world. But what I appreciate so much is WHY they have gained influence. Their approach to ministry, commitment to health, and generous heart have won them my respect. We have two segments for you today with this team, and I’m so excited for you to hear from them…

Part 1 is with Kyle Kutter. Kyle is the Central Group Leader of Digital Technology. If you are familiar with Open Network, Church Online Platform, Church Metrics, or Develop.me, Kyle has had his hands on them all (also, if you’re not familiar with them, I cannot recommend all of these enough). Here is some of what we talk about:

Talk to us a bit about Open Network and your church’s heart to resource the “big C” church.

What do you see about the church that is recalibrating right now?

From a church that has pioneered digital gatherings for churches, is there still a place for physical gatherings?

What lessons should we take with us coming out of this season?

What about the local church has given you hope?

For the second part of our episode today, we focus on their team culture and what makes their team so special. Both members of part two have been at Life.Church for over 10 years and that kind of longevity cannot be bought or shortcut to. Rachel Ricker is the Central Group Ministry Leader for Host Team. Sam Marin is the campus pastor for Edmond, OK, which is the broadcast location. Here’s where our conversation leads us:

What do you feel is most special about your house and the culture of it? And what do you hope people remember about your church?

What is so special about the culture of your team?

What is the difference in carrying culture at a broadcast location vs. a remote location?

What do you tell yourself when feedback is coming your way?

What does being a culture carrier mean to you?

Is there a time where you got it wrong with being a culture carrier?

I was so excited to get a chance to sit down with this group of leaders from one of the most influential churches globally and have also had such a profound impact on my own life.

Run Strong this week,

Brandon

After the episode:

Evaluate how you carry the culture of your own church. How can you better carry it to your teams?

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

This episode has literally been years in the making. I am so excited to have Pastor Lee Wilson finally join us on the podcast! I can honestly say that Lee has been one of the most significant ministry influences in my life. He came and consulted at the very first youth ministry that I had the opportunity to lead in Minnesota and preached at a winter camp with us (fun story in the episode about that). His fingerprints are all over Leading Second. I have always loved his voice on the platform, wisdom off the platform, and intentionality with which he lives his life. Lee has served in plenty of roles in his years in ministry, including as a lead pastor, but is currently serving as Youth and Executive Pastor at Abundant Life in Syracuse, NY.

We kick off this conversation with Lee by chatting about a book he has coming out very soon called “Map Your Life.” It’s a joy to hear his heart behind this upcoming book, which is for this generation to define their God-given purpose.

If we are going to run this race and run it to win, we need to have discipline and intentionality be a big part of who we are. Lee says that if you become a better person, you become a better leader. So our big question this episode with Lee is, “What can an intentional, disciplined life as a leader look like?”

Some of the questions that we cover in this conversation are:

Do you struggle with discipline? If so, how do you regain it when you lose it?

What role has a discipline played in leading you into a life of true contentment and peace?

What is the greatest habit or discipline you currently have working in your life?

Where do you start in mapping out your life?

What is the greatest lesson you have learned in leading second?

Please do not miss the last 7 or 8 mins of this conversation. Lee speaks to the heart of Leading Second and talks about accepting that as a calling on people’s lives.

It was such a joy to have Lee Wilson on this episode with me! I hope this helps you get some structure to the disciplines of your life and lead with more intentionality.

Run strong this week,

Brandon

Resources From The Episode:

https://leewilson.life

@leewisonlife on IG

After The Episode:

What discipline can you incorporate into your life and ministry this year?

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

Well, in our last episode, we had a question come in from Taylor Persello, and this week she joins her pastor, Joshua Bingle, for our conversation!

He is the pastor of Genesis Church in Spokane, Washington, and is no stranger at all to this space. I love the way he thinks, and he is always one of the first places I go to bounce ideas off. Taylor is a member of the team at Genesis and is involved in so much behind the scenes here with Leading Second, from creating content to helping us stay organized. We are so blessed to have these two incredible people in our tribe.

The main question we want to ask them today is this: What impact does my personal health have on my relationship with my pastor?

In almost all of our relationships, in church or otherwise, we WILL experience hurts and offenses. When that happens, there’s likely a secret contract or unspoken expectation that is at the root of it. This idea of secret contracts is something that Josh and Taylor introduced to me and has shifted how I think about so many relationships. So I wanted them to unpack that here for all of us.

A couple of the questions that we cover in this episode are:

What is a secret contract, and where do they come from?

How do we know if we’re holding someone to a contract they didn’t know about?

What are some examples of secret contracts?

We end things off by talking about what healthy contracts look like.

I pray that this episode shifts some hearts and reaches people who can get a hold of this idea because I believe it can be so powerful if recognized.

Brandon

After the episode:

What are some secret contracts that you hold others to?

Are there any that you need to rethink or rewrite?

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

Back for the first time this season, we have another installment of a series that we do periodically called ‘I Am With You.’ We sit down and have a conversation with a lead pastor and one of their key team members.

Before we even get into that, we had a great question come in from a listener and member of the Leading Second team that I really enjoyed. Taylor Persello asked, “How do you lend the credibility of your pastor, to people that you lead or influence, without abusing his name or using the pastor card?” If you lead from the middle, I know that you have dealt with this. It was a great question that led us to an even bigger question, so don’t miss that part of the episode.

Well, this week, we have the privilege of hosting Pastor Marcus Mecum and Even Cromer from Seven Hills Church in Florence, Kentucky. Marcus is one of my oldest and first friends in ministry. I first got to know him back when I was a youth pastor, and he actually was as well at the time! And Even has been on staff at Seven Hills for six years now and is currently the business pastor. This church has something so unique in their culture about developing leaders, so that is our big question or idea this week and what I hoped to draw out of them. What does a good target look like for developing leaders?

Some of the questions that we discuss in this episode are:

How do you develop leaders in the church right now?

How do you identify future or potential leaders?

If you started over today, what is one thing that you would do?

What are some top qualities of prospective leaders?

There are so many practical steps that we can take from this conversation and start implementing them into our teams and processes. Let’s focus on elevating the right people to places of influence in our churches.

Run strong this week,

Brandon

After The Episode:

Who did you meet this week? How are you going to take that family and progress them into the life of your church? One family at a time.

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

Hey, it’s Brandon. We’re interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a more personal episode today. I want to take a second and thank all of you who have reached out to check in on us or encourage us in any way. It has been such a blessing to be surrounded by an incredible community and so many great friends. We pulled an audible this week, and Lindsay and I just sat down and talked through what we’ve been going through these past couple of weeks. It has been some of the most trying times in our lives. There have been plenty of moments of doubt, fear, disappointment, but God has seen us through every step of the way.

Through this whole process so far, we clung to having our foundation in our faith and the importance of community. Those two things have been so important to us. Knowing that no matter what happens, God will provide, and God is there for us. We’ve been driven to the feet of Jesus. And we can’t say enough about the support that we’ve had from the people around us. We would not want to walk through this alone.

In walking through this, we wanted to show the other side of what people typically see on social media, or anywhere else we share about our lives. Beyond the filters, beyond the highlights, beyond the perfect lighting and staged poses, people have real lives. These lives can be messy and complicated. Just because you don’t have the experience you see of others while scrolling through Instagram, don’t look down on yourself or think less of your own situation. People see the perfect baby photo. We’ve wanted to show the NICU pictures. The captions about what we’re struggling with.

Lindsay and I hope that this episode is just encouraging to you. Whatever you may be walking through right now or in the future, lean into that foundation of faith. Embrace the community around you and if you don’t feel like you have one, reach out. You’ve found a community in Leading Second.

Run strong this week,

Brandon and Lindsay

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

For the second week in a row, we have another introduction to the Leading Second family! My conversation today is with Brad Lomenick. If you’ve been around church leadership for very long, he likely needs no introduction to you. But for the uninitiated, Brad is one of the visionary leaders who launched Catalyst! A podcast, a conference, and a group that has taught leadership to many thousands of people through the years and has had a considerable impact on churches worldwide.

Most recently, Brad’s focus has been advising organizations and building connections with young leaders who will outlast him and build something greater than he could. He breaks down the lie of needing to go from big to bigger.

Brad has a wealth of leadership experience and knowledge, but the one big question that I wanted to talk to him about is, “What are some habits of a healthy leader?”

That leads to conversations about creating rhythms, having an ownership mentality, and anticipation.

A few of the other questions we ask Brad:

When was a time where you led from the middle, and what were some lessons you took from it?

What is something you’ve learned about leading up?

What was your inspiration for writing H3 Leadership?

What would you say to somebody is needing to recalibrate this season?

How do we keep our hunger alive?

Right now is the perfect time to take some risks. We have COVID as a built-in excuse. So try some new things out!

Run strong for the Kingdom this week,

Brandon

Resources:

www.catalystleader.com

“H3 Leadership” by Brad Lomenick

“When” by Daniel Pink

After the Episode:

How can you be a leader who anticipates this week? i.e., what things can you take off of your Pastor/Leader’s plate?

How can you create the best rhythm this week that allows you to flourish and thrive at your maximum capacity?

Be the Chief Innovation Officer this week in your role. Have the courage to try something out.

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COMMENT

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We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

We have a first-time guest to the Leading Second Podcast, but she is a fast friend to our tribe and me. I am so excited to introduce Kadi Cole! Her professional resume speaks for itself, but Kadi was in leadership for 16 years at Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. She served in key leadership positions as the church grew from 3,500 to 23,000 and launched eight additional campuses. Her final role was as Executive Director of Multisite as she oversaw all campuses. She has since launched her personal business, Kadi Cole and Company. And her newest passion project is helping church leaders who want to do a better job developing the female leadership talent in their congregations. She even has a new book that was just released on that very topic!

As we’ve done every week this season, we have one big question for our guests, and this week, the question is, “What disruptions should the local church embrace in this season?”

Kadi is an absolute expert on leadership development, church multisite, and growing staff and volunteer teams from within your congregation. She has a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in so many topics. We start our conversation by talking about her latest passion, which is women in ministry. Two things that Kadi has said and stuck out so much to me are, “suddenly, every church is a global church” and “communication is the new excellence.” We spend the bulk of our conversation unpacking these statements. The metric is no longer just butts in seats on a Sunday, so what does that look like now? And how can we thrive through disruption? We wrap things up by talking about diversity in ministry.

This is a unique conversation with somebody who has such a unique voice, and I cannot wait for you to listen.

Every interaction I’ve had with Kadi has left me both encouraged and challenged in the best possible way! I hope this conversation leaves you the same.

Brandon

*editor’s note: Brandon, Lindsay, and Zane just welcomed baby Glo into their family this week! Head over to their socials and show them some love and support!

Resources:

https://www.kadicole.com

Kadi’s new book is “Find Your Leadership Voice In 90 Days”

After The Episode:

What ladies in your ministry can you identify this week that are not living to their fullest potential? Invite them to the leadership table!

“Connection is the new excellence.” How can you effectively connect with your team/guests this week? (Relationships, noticing people, caring for them, praying in person, etc.)

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COMMENT

LIKE & SHARE

We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

We are back for part two of my conversation with my Pastor, Kevin Gerald! Honestly, we were just getting started with what we released last week. We just let the tape keep running and ended up having to split it into two episodes, and part two is even better than part one.

Before we dive back into this conversation, I talk for a few minutes on the thought that connection is the new excellence. In a time that it is so easy to let people on our teams slip through the cracks, it is even more critical than ever that we are checking in and really caring for and connecting with those on our teams and in our churches. You never know the impact that a simple text or phone call can have on somebody.

Our big question for this conversation is still:

How can I build trust with my Pastor?

Well, we jump right back into this conversation where we left off, and we start it with a bang! We talk about the lost art of honor and making serving a part of who you are. Hopefully, that leaves you with a desire to buck the trends of not trusting leadership and encourages you to always be serving.

We close this conversation by talking about what Pastors look for before empowering others and giving ownership. Empowerment is the end goal for most people, and trust is the currency to get there.

I pray this conversation leaves you refreshed and with a new drive to build trust with your leaders.

Brandon

After the episode:

How can you start and/or continue to build trust with your Pastor this week?

Matthew 13:44 is the parable of the hidden treasure. What fields can you mine for treasure in?

Are you connecting with your teams and the people under your leadership?

Take initiative: What is the next move? How do I build and grow my team?

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COMMENT

LIKE & SHARE

We want you in our tribe! Stay connected to all Leading Second has to offer:

Website: leadingsecond.com

Instagram: instagram.com/leadingsecond

Connect with Brandon Stewart

Facebook: facebook.com/brandonmstewart

Instagram: instagram.com/brandonmstewart

Leading Second is an extension of the Team Church tribe. For more information on Team Church Conference and One Day events, check-out teamchurchconference.com or search Team Church on Facebook.

It’s always so exciting when I get to have my Pastor, Kevin Gerald, on the podcast. Not only because he was the first person to get behind me and help support and champion this thing along, but because I attribute so much of who I am and what I know to him. That is why we have him join us in this space once a season, so hopefully, you can glean some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life and leadership. We went way over on our time, but it was so good that we’ve split this conversation into two episodes, but we’ll have part two for you next Thursday!

We had another excellent question come in from one of the people in our tribe. David says that he recently stepped into a new role leading a team and wants to know what steps he can take to cast vision?

As we’ve been doing every week this season, we’re going to tackle one big question. In my eyes, one of my most significant accomplishments in ministry is the relationship that I have with my Pastor. It’s something that has taken work and time to develop. Trust seems to be the currency that leads to so many greater things. So our question this week (and next week) is:

How can I build trust with my Pastor?

We spend a little time breaking down a huge barrier that I know some second-chair leaders face when being honest with their leaders. We get a peek into the head of a lead pastor of 30 years on what he thinks when his team comes to him and are honest about themselves if they’ve dropped the ball in some area. His answer to this might be the opposite of what you would think instinctually.

Here are some of the questions that we cover here in part one.

What are some of the things that leaders on our team have done that have created a healthy relationship with you?

What are some things that have broken or deteriorated your trust?

How have you seen that trust is built in your space?

How important is communication to you?

We close part one of this conversation, talking about the importance of getting communication right with your Pastor. It’s on you to chase them and find ways to get in those circles. It’s also up to you that you show up prepared for those moments. I hope this gives you some freedom from any entitlement that so many face today, expecting their leaders to chase them down.

We are just getting started and you are not going to want to miss part two of this conversation next week!

Brandon

After the episode:

How can you start and/or continue to build trust with your Pastor this week?

Position yourself this week to be a student and novice of your Pastor.