The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast

Aaron Graham is leading a $37 million building campaign with 900 people and explains exactly how to inspire people to give to something much bigger than themselves.

Carey and Aaron also cover what it's like to be held hostage by an enemy army at ten years old, how to unite a congregation in a divided world, and how to tackle cultural lies.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

ALPHA

Alpha is a free 10-week resource that helps your church invite and welcome people who are asking real questions about faith. You create the space, Alpha provides everything else. Start with the free 3-Step Alpha Launch Plan at alphausa.org/carey.

BRUSHFIRE

Brushfire has been helping churches manage registrations, check-in, communication, and reporting for over 20 years. For qualifying churches, they offer a subscription designed to help your ministry grow. Save on Brushfire at brushfire.com/carey.

Every leader loses customers. Few know how to win them back. Will Guidara, the restaurateur behind Eleven Madison Park and author of Unreasonable Hospitality, joins Carey to talk about taking the anxiety out of service, the customer-service pet peeves that drive him crazy, what AI is actually doing to hospitality, and the lesson Simon Sinek taught him about leading people.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ACADEMY

First Impressions Academy gives guest experience leaders live coaching and practical training to help your church make a better first impression. Try it free for 30 days with code CAREY30 at ficonf.com/academy.

GLOO

Gloo is a technology platform built for the faith and flourishing ecosystem. They handle the tech and digital marketing so your church can find and connect with more people in your community. Learn more at gloo.com/grow.

Should you use AI to write your sermon? Maybe not. Three years after ChatGPT, we don't just sound the same. We're starting to think the same, or not think at all. Enter brain rot.

Carey walks through seven tells that give away AI writing, shows you how to find the voice only you have, and unpacks a new study on cognitive surrender that every pastor needs to hear before next Sunday's sermon.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

AI AND THE FUTURE CHURCH

Carey's new book, AI and the Future Church, is built on three shifts that anchor your church through the change ahead. Make Sundays non-downloadable. Build shock absorbers for the crises heading your way. Fortify your integrity before AI exposes what you'll fall for. Pre-order now at aifuture.church.

CHURCH GROWTH ENGINE

Church Growth Engine is the free weekly newsletter for pastors who want real growth without compromising depth. Every Tuesday, research-backed insights on what's actually working in churches your size. Subscribe free at churchgrowthengine.com

BELAY

Your church's finances matter, but bookkeeping isn't why you answered the call. BELAY's U.S.-based financial experts handle the numbers so you can stay focused on leading and serving. Text CAREY to 55123 for their free Blueprint for Growth resource.

Most young leaders try to sound like someone else long before they sound like themselves. Tyler Staton, lead pastor at Bridgetown Church, talks about finding your voice as a preacher and writer, what a season of sickness taught him about pace, why addiction thrives when you're moving too fast, and the gift of imagination you're probably wasting.

Slow down for this one.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

THE ART OF PREACHING

After 30+ years of preaching, I've made pretty much every mistake you can make as a communicator. That's why I created The Art of Preaching, a step-by-step course to help you break free from panic and preach with clarity, confidence, and impact. Enroll now at theartofpreachingcourse.com.

SUBSPLASH

Analyze giving trends, streamline your media workflow from livestream to social, and automate follow-up so no one falls through the cracks. For leaders already stretched thin, head to subsplash.com/carey and save $500 when you sign up.

IF THE TREE COULD SPEAK

Tim Tebow's new book, If The Tree Could Speak, tells the story of Jesus' sacrifice from the perspective of the cross itself, with stunning illustrations that make it genuinely moving for any age.

Pick up a copy wherever books are sold.

In Part 3 of this summer's Required Listening, Eugene Peterson's son, Eric Peterson, and biographer Winn Collier talk about Eugene Peterson's battle to avoid losing his soul, his struggle to overcome his workaholic tendencies, Bono and celebrity, and the tension he had to overcome to create a contemplative life.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

AI AND THE FUTURE CHURCH

I'm releasing a new book this September called AI and the Future Church, a pastoral playbook for leading your church through the biggest disruption of our lifetime. Pre-order it now at aifuture.church, on Amazon, or wherever you buy books.

BRUSHFIRE

Most ticketing platforms provide cookie-cutter technology, but Brushfire has been helping churches for over 20 years manage registrations, check-in, communication, and reporting all in one place for one monthly subscription cost for qualifying churches.

Listeners of the podcast can save on Brushfire by visiting brushfire.com/Carey

GLOO

Gloo connects ministries and nonprofits with donors, churches, and audiences that are already looking for what they offer—through channels and networks those people already trust.

If you know your mission matters, but you're struggling to get it out there, that's exactly the problem Gloo was built to solve.

If you need a real marketing partner, someone who actually gets this space, go to gloo.com/grow to start that conversation.

In Part 2 of this summer's Required Listening, Carey interviews Eugene Peterson weeks before he retired from public life.

Carey talks to Eugene about the origin of the Message and the life rhythms he and his wife Jan adopted that helped produce the legacy millions have appreciated. Plus, they discuss what it was like to lead through the turbulence of the 1960s.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

AI AND THE FUTURE CHURCH

I'm releasing a new book this September called AI and the Future Church, a pastoral playbook for leading your church through the biggest disruption of our lifetime. Pre-order it now at aifuture.church, on Amazon, or wherever you buy books.

GLOBAL CHRISTIAN RELIEF

Global Christian Relief supports persecuted brothers and sisters in places where following Jesus carries a real cost — Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and more — bringing Scripture, emergency relief, and long-term church investment. When you give to GCR, you're not supporting a cause, you're standing with family. Visit gcrelief.org.

In this inaugural episode of Required Listening, Carey talks to Gordon MacDonald. For his 80th birthday, Gordon MacDonald wrote down the 15 leadership and life lessons he's learned so far.

He unpacks all of them here: how to stop cheating the people closest to you, how to survive doubt and obscurity, why you reinvent your interior life every decade, and how to ask the questions that open a heart.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

AI AND THE FUTURE CHURCH

I'm releasing a new book this September called AI and the Future Church, a pastoral playbook for leading your church through the biggest disruption of our lifetime. Pre-order it now at aifuture.church, on Amazon, or wherever you buy books.

BRUSHFIRE

Brushfire has been helping churches manage registrations, check-in, communication, and reporting for over 20 years, all in one easy-to-use platform. Save by visiting brushfire.com/Carey.

ALPHA

Alpha is a free resource that gives your church a step-by-step guide to host conversations where people can explore Christian faith together over a meal, no pressure. Download your free 3-Step Launch Plan at alphausa.org/carey.

Father Ron Rolheiser has thought longer and harder about grief, aging, leadership, bitterness, and surrender than almost anyone alive.

John Mark Comer joins me to co-interview him on what ministry actually costs, why so many leaders end up bitter, and what it looks like to give your life away before it's taken from you.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

ART OF PREACHING

If you're still writing your sermon Saturday night and replaying the mistakes Monday morning, The Art of Preaching is for you. It's a step-by-step course that's helped over 3,500 preachers write and deliver messages that land. Until July 15th, grab it for fifty dollars off at theartofpreachingcourse.com.

VISITOR REACH

Use the free Digital Health Assessment to see how many people are searching 'church near me' in your area.

Visit VisitorReach.com/Carey to get your free assessment or book a demo.

GLOO

Gloo is the technology platform for the faith and flourishing ecosystem. They exist to serve the people who serve others.

They do two things really well: they handle your technology, and they help you find and connect with people.

If you're a church or a nonprofit or a ministry and you're tired of spinning plates, go to gloo.com/grow

John Ortberg has spent decades leading churches, writing books, and teaching leaders. But every leader has parts of the job they're not naturally good at. In this conversation, John opens up about pain in leadership, what it's like to be an introvert in ministry, and how to handle the work you'd rather avoid.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

ART OF PREACHING

If you're still writing your sermon Saturday night and replaying the mistakes Monday morning, The Art of Preaching is for you. It's a step-by-step course that's helped over 3,500 preachers write and deliver messages that land. Until July 15th, grab it for fifty dollars off at theartofpreachingcourse.com.

FREE WHEELCHAIR MISSION

80 million people with disabilities in developing countries can't get to work, school, or church because they have no way to move. Free Wheelchair Mission provides durable wheelchairs completely free to recipients across 95 countries.

For about $100, you can give someone their independence back.

Visit https://freewheelchairmission.org

Matt Chandler doesn't pull punches. The lead pastor of The Village Church joins Carey to talk about why wearing a cape doesn't help anyone, the death of secularism, and why the church is all wood and no fire.

Matt also opens up about the moment he almost quit, what Spurgeon taught him about suffering, and why he stopped neglecting the Holy Spirit.

🔗 Show Notes

🤖 AI and the Future Church - NEW BOOK!

🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet

🧠 The Art of Leadership Academy

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Follow @careynieuwhof

❗️Connect with other podcast listeners about each episode of my podcast, including me. You'll get exclusive insights by asking questions, sharing insights, and learning how others are applying the content in real life.

Join for free: https://careynieuwhof.com/shownotes

ART OF PREACHING

If you're still writing your sermon Saturday night and replaying the mistakes Monday morning, The Art of Preaching is for you. It's a step-by-step course that's helped over 3,500 preachers write and deliver messages that land. Until July 15th, grab it for fifty dollars off at theartofpreachingcourse.com.

BELAY

BELAY gives you U.S.-based assistant or accounting support tailored to your church so you can lead instead of manage. Text CAREY to 55123 for a free copy of The Freedom Framework.

RIGHT NOW MEDIA

God's Kids from Right Now Media is a brand-new elementary and preschool curriculum launching this fall. Head to RightNowKids.org/access to schedule a free demo.