Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Shawn Lovejoy with us, the founder and CEO of Courage to Lead.

Shawn has been a pastor, a church planter, an entrepreneur, and a leadership coach. He started coaching pastors in 2001. Courage to Lead is there to help not only church leaders but also all kinds of other businesses lead themselves to the next level while staying healthy.

Shawn is with us today to share his own story of learning to lead his church and himself to a healthy place that honored God’s definition of success.

* Grow beyond anxiety. // Anxiety is a common thread among pastors because it’s easy to become caught up with the world’s definition of success. We can become focused on growing the church faster than Jesus wants it to grow. Ask those closest to you what they think about how you and the church are doing, and use their insight to create a healthy rhythm for your church and life. It’s a spiritual fight to win that way in our ministries.* 14-point covenant. // Shawn found himself walking down an unhealthy path as he struggled with workaholism. After a series of honest conversations with his wife, he made changes to get himself and his church to a healthy place. Part of that included creating a 14-point covenant with his wife which he signed and honored. It included things such as committing to be home by 5pm most days of the week and never walking into the house still on his cell phone. Examine how you can partner with your spouse or family at home as they support your work in ministry.* Shift the focus off of yourself. // As a pastor, the more you build the church around yourself, the less stable it is beyond you. Pastors can stay too long at a church and slowly the church’s focus moves to them rather than staying on the Lord and what is good for the church’s future health. The key questions to ask oneself are: Am I overexposed? Can I build a teaching team around me? Does everything go to hell in a handbasket when I’m absent? What decisions do I not need to be making? You don’t need to attend a meeting if you’re not the one making decisions in it.  * Courage to Lead. // Shawn is the founder & CEO of Courage to Lead, which is focused on leadership growth and helps pastors lead themselves to the next level by God’s power. There are three gears of growth: culture, teams, and systems. The organization consists of a network of coaches which works with pastors across the country, helping them lead themselves and their teams well while creating a healthy organization that’s scaleable.* Measuring Success. // Shawn wrote the book Measuring Success: Your Path To Significance, Satisfaction, & Leading Yourself To The Next Level focused on leadership growth and how to become the leader God wants you to be. Based on Shawn’s own experience coaching and leading as a pastor, the book also walks the reader through creating a leadership development culture in your church, staff, and family. * Defining success. // If you don’t define success for yourself, the world will do it for you. One chapter of the book talks about how the most neglected metric in the church is love. Most of our attention, energy, and stress is focused around programs, productions, processes, events, and problems. But do the people on your leadership team feel like their lives are better or more stressful serving in the church?