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Welcome to the Slingshot Group podcast. I'm your host, Tim Foote,

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CEO of Slingshot Group, where we build remarkable teams through staffing and coaching.

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And I am so excited to have with me today for this episode in person, Glenn Packiam.

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Glenn, thanks so much for being here.

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Thank you, Tim. Great to be here with you and looking forward to this conversation.

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Music.

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I have had so much respect for you, Glenn, and just watching how you have gone

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from strength to strengthen your ministry, influence and impact,

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but also how you've just reinvented your ministry over and over again as God

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has led you into new places and new territories,

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now from Colorado to California. Just give a quick snapshot, if you wouldn't mind, just of your ministry journey

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for some of our listeners and watchers that may not be familiar.

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Well, I was at, so right now I'm at Rock Harbor Church. I'm the lead pastor

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there and I've been there for about two years. Prior to that, I was at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

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Springs, and I was there for 22 years and held a variety of different roles.

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I mean, I got there when I was 22. So, you know, I started out as like an apprentice in the worship office and

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then became a worship pastor and worked with the college ministry and,

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you know, all this, you know, next-gen type stuff.

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In 2009, I began shepherding a evening service, the Sunday night community,

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did that for two and a half years, and then launched our first off-site congregation,

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which The way New Life does those is it's multi-site, but with some sort of

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quasi-autonomy to those congregations.

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So I led New Life downtown for 10 years and then also served as associate senior pastor.

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So I was helping involved with the model, coaching some of the other pastors and all that.

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And then the Lord called us in a really beautiful way to come out here to Costa

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Mesa and to serve an amazing church that we fell in love with right away. So here we are.

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How surprising was it after 22 years in one place to get that call? Yeah.

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Well, I mean, it was not surprising to receive some invitations only because

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sometimes when you're in a church like New Life, there are people who say,

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oh, maybe we'll invite this person to apply for this thing or that.

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So there were different ones on the team that would get some invitations here and there.

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But Rockharbor is a church that I have looked up to and admired from afar.

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Far. And I've known, you know, I knew Todd Proctor. I've known Todd for a number of years.

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But when the call came, it just seemed like, no, no, no, this can't be,

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the Lord can't be in this. We're on a certain, you know, trajectory or whatever, a pathway.

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And somehow it was one of those things where I felt like we couldn't let go of it.

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And we kept revisiting it. But Tim, it took time. I mean, from the first phone

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call to our yes, you know, in writing was not quite Quite 18 months, but man, pretty close.

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It was like March 2021 to June of 2022.

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So Glenn, you know that we work with ministry organizations,

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nonprofits, churches, and there are so many different directions I could go with you today.

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So many questions I could ask, but you have done this big transition and then

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you've been leading through a season of change.

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And you wrote a great blog that you should read if you haven't already on Glenn's

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website called 10 Lessons from a Leadership Transition.

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And I love that topic, and there's something in that for all of us because all

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of us at some point are going to go through some transition or as leaders of

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teams, we're going to lead through transitions. So let's hit on a few of those things. We might take all 10 of them.

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We might have time, but I'll pick and choose a few.

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But let's dive into a few of them. And first, I'd love to hit on the one that

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I personally may struggle with the most.

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Can you guess what that might be? I'm not going to. too.

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Slowing down. Let's talk about that. Yeah, you know, first of all,

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your comment, Tim, about transitions being applicable to a variety of situations, I think that's spot on.

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And here we are, you know, a few years post-pandemic, right?

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And yet, I think there's a very real sense when I talk to pastors around the

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country that they are almost in the process of replanting their churches or

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rebuilding their churches because there was such a reshuffling of the deck.

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People left, people came, you know. So in some ways, every pastor feels like,

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yeah, we're in the middle of a transition, you know. And so that idea of slowing down is not one that comes natural to me either.

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I am, I mean, I think on the StrengthsFinders, one of my top five is Activator,

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you know. So if you see the thing like, let's go, let's do this, you know.

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But I learned something watching the leadership transition even at New Life

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that happened 17 years ago is when you arrive on the scene, people are—usually

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you're coming into a situation because there's been some measure of difficulty.

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Or at the very least, let's say some measure of disruption. And again,

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disruption, framing it that way, that applies to all kinds of leaders.

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Transitions, right. That's right. And when you arrive in a disruption, you have to take time to assess the condition

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of the people on your team and the people in your church.

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One of the things I was grateful for is we arrived at the end of August.

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I wasn't officially set in the role in terms of like preaching and all that until October.

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So I had about a month, I had that whole month of September where I was working,

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but not yet, you know, in the pulpit sort of way.

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And so I took that month and I had about a 90-minute meeting with every single staff person.

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And just to give people a sense of the scale, this is about a staff of about

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18 to 20 people at the time. So it wasn't so daunting that you couldn't get through that, but yet significant.

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And what I wanted to know in each of these conversations was,

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tell me a bit of your story. Tell me how you discerned a sense of call into church.

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And then I wanted to know, tell me about your passion. What's the thing that

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that sets you on fire? You know, what's the thing you're passionate about?

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And then tell me about the fit of this role for you. Like, what's this been like?

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And then finally, tell me sort of any aspirations you have for your future.

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And when I sat down, almost every single one of them, Tim, at some point began to tear up and cry.

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And they would each say, one-on-one, you know, but at some point they would

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say, I don't know why I'm crying. And I thought, I think I do. And I could say that with empathy because I had

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been on the other side of that. When we had the Ted Haggard scandal at New Life in 2006, and then the transition,

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New Pastor came in in 07, there were so many complicated emotions.

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There were so many different wounds. And I learned that part of what you're paying attention to as a leader,

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especially with your team, volunteers or staff, you're asking yourself,

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Lord, am I seeing weariness or am I seeing woundedness?

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And I think both of those things can show up in similar ways,

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but they're very different. A person who's weary just needs, oh, let's give them an extended break, maybe a sabbatical.

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But if a person's wounded, actually what we need is some professional help,

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some counselors, some therapy, maybe also a break.

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But you can't rest your way into health or wholeness.

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You have to be able to get the help that you need.

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So you can't just say, okay, guys, sorry, it's been a tough time.

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Let's go charge another hill. Again, if you're weary or if you're wounded, you're going to respond differently to that.

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So slowing down is so important to assess the condition of the team,

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to assess the condition of the church before you can begin to act.

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And, you know, some people come in and they have vision pre-packed and they're ready to go.

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To me, that would have been a mistake. For me, that would have been a mistake

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because it was not about me sort of exporting or kind kind of bringing in this

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pre-packaged vision or plan, I really believe that there's this kind of missional mindset of saying,

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Lord, what are you doing in this context and in this season?

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Time and place, this context and this season.

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You have to know what time it is and you have to know where you are in order

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to know what you're going to do and how you're going to lead. Glenn, that's a top learning. And many, many leaders of organizations are like

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you. They're activators. How do you, was this something that came naturally to you or did you have to

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self-talk? Did you pre-plan it? How did you step into that slower pace?

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I have benefited from the wisdom

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of so many people, Tim, that I'm not even sure I could name all of them.

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But I've talked to people who've gone through transitions. I've paid attention

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to how it felt on the other end of receiving a new pastor coming in.

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I watched some of the things that he did that were helpful.

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And then even, you know, when I left Colorado, I handed over new life downtown

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to a really good friend of mine, Jason Jackson. And when he was coming in, you know, a few years prior to that,

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he told me the story of, of going skydiving and it's just stuck with me.

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And he said, he said, skydiving instructor said, remember that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

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And I thought that's it because you do want to go fast, but the only way you

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can go fast is if you it's smooth, but it won't be smooth unless you slow down.

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So that's the key. And I think transitions, because they're coming right after

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disruptions, there are built-in bumps and you can accelerate through bumps,

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but man, that's not going to be fun for anybody. If you slow down, you find that place of smoothness and then smooth ends up being fast.

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Such a powerful learning, Glenn, that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

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And then that whole metaphor of skydiving, you know, often when we're They're

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coaching leaders through transition. We'll talk about the parachute drop and how you drop into this new forest and

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you've got to assess your surroundings, which is what you're doing with those leaders.

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And then also the key leaders that are around you, they need to block for you.

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They know the surroundings. They know the landmines and they need to assist in those transitions too.

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So those are great learnings. I'm excited about this next lesson and intrigued.

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Honor your inheritance. Talk about that one.

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I was conscious coming in that I was standing on someone else's shoulders,

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that I was reaping where someone else had sown.

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And this was actually one of the things I learned by watching Brady at New Life when he came in.

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He used the biblical story of moving the bones of Joseph, you know,

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when the people left Egypt. And I think there's something there about remembering your inheritance,

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remembering what you've come from. And it's very difficult sometimes, again, and sometimes there There is a transition

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because something was painful. And so the temptation then is to kind of say, well, let's just cut all of that

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out. We don't want to remember it. It's a new day.

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And leaders who do that, I think, are making a mistake because the tares always

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grow up with the wheat and you can't throw the whole thing out.

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You have to say, hang on, some of this is actually worth fighting for.

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Some of this is worth affirming and blessing.

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And I think one of the beautiful things that happened, it's a gift that I was

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given coming into Rock Harbor, is the chairman of the elder board and the executive

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pastor, and a few others, did what they jokingly refer to as the reconciliation tour.

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And so they used kind of this year and a half of in-between time to actually

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go and find key people, either former staff people, former elders,

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that maybe had been hurt over the years because of various bumps,

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disruptions, mishandling of, you know, and they tried to sit down with him and

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apologize where appropriate. Mend fences, do what they could to repent and restore some measure of peace.

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And in some of those cases, it resulted in a person, you know,

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being able to return to the community at Rock Harbor.

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So I, when I heard about that story, Tim, I was like, okay, this is a church

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that is not wasting a transition time.

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So, you know, we can talk about this as if it's all up to the leader.

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So much of what contributes to a leader's quote unquote success is the pre-work

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that the church does before the leader arrives. And I was blessed to have a church that did some beautiful pre-work that led to this.

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So it's easy to bless that. It's easy to honor that.

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And I think it doesn't mean that you can't leave it. It doesn't mean that you

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can't build on it or move in a slightly different direction or even a dramatically different direction.

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But honoring your inheritance allows you to say, these are the gifts of who

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we are and who we've been. And now, here's how we can and move forward. And, you know, actually we talk

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about these as biblical principles, but the best companies understand that this

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is a key prerequisite of any strat op is like, we need to know where have we been?

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What are these key turning points? And in our story, and therefore,

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where are we now? And then therefore, where do we want to go?

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But it's ironic to me that Christian leaders, the ones who are supposed to say,

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remember what the Lord has done. Let's set up these memorial stones on the banks of the Jordan before we go into

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the the promised land all the way, right? We're supposed to know better.

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And yet we kind of act like the story started with us.

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And man, it did not start with you. It did not start with me.

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The Lord has been on the scene. He's been working.

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Let's just humbly take our place in the story. We're not that smart.

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We're not that good. No, no. And you got it. You know, one of the things, you know, this is a common saying,

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but Brady used to say this all the time at New Life as well is I'm just an,

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we're all interim rim pastors. And in one sense, that's, that's sobering. I have friends in the UK, as I'm sure you do.

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And, and one of them pastors at this beautiful church in Oxford called St.

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Aldate's, Stephen Foster. And, and on the back of St. Aldate's is this plaque that lists all the vicars,

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all the senior pastors, you know, and it goes back eight, 900 years.

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Now, if that doesn't humble you, you know, but we have such this hero mentality,

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especially in America of like, and now Now the story begins.

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Nah, we're, you know, our lives matter, but we're not, the story is not about us.

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Yeah. I'm gonna read something that you wrote about this in the blog,

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just to encourage you to read the blog. You wrote, recognize and respect where you've come from and where they've come from.

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Recognize where you are reaping, where others have sown.

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Praise the shoulders you're standing on. Repair bridges that have been broken if possible.

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Rebuild fences that need mending. Yeah. Yeah, powerful words.

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What would be your advice to somebody, the biggest piece of advice,

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stepping into a new role in an organization right now?

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I think you've got to know the story. You've got to know the story so you know

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where some of the pain points are. And so you can know where the ruins are, where the old bridges are,

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where the old fences were. And some of those you may not want to rebuild, but you ought to at least know.

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And, you know, this is where I've also been helped by my academic work.

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When I did my doctoral work at Durham in the UK, I learned a skill that was

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the blend of sociological, situational analysis, and then paired with theological reflection.

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And many evangelical seminaries, this is not a knock, but many evangelical seminaries

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are so good at teaching us how to think biblically and theologically,

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but we're not trained to think sociologically.

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And so we ignore the questions of history. We ignore the questions of psychological impact on people.

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So I think if a pastor comes in, adopt some of those tools. And the simplest

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sociological tool is history, the tools of the historian.

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If you were an anthropologist, you'd come in and you'd say, tell me the story

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of this people, of this land. So that's what you'd want to know. Yeah, that's great.

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So as we move on to the next one, which is provide clarity, I just want to talk

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about the fact that in our work, this is huge.

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I mean, we see so many ministry organizations just drifting towards complexity.

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The communication and messaging gets muddled. People don't understand what's

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going on. So, so important. You say at the end of your blog, disappointment is inevitable.

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Nobody likes to admit that a leader has limitations, but every leader has limitations.

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Unhealthy leaders choose to ignore them. But I also think unhealthy leaders

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are grown out of lack of clarity. I mean, it rises and falls on clear expectations. Talk about that, providing clarity.

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Well, you know, maybe we could say it there's clarity about expectations and

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there's clarity about your own limitations. And you have to have clarity about both of those things because part of,

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and one, and they're connected. So when you provide clarity about.

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What you expect of others and what they can expect of you, it actually also

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forces you to name your own limitations. Well, it's self-awareness, right? It absolutely is self-awareness,

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and it fights against this fleshly impulse toward pride, where we want to think

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that we are the unicorn leader that can actually do all the things that a pastor is expected to do,

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and we can do them all equally well. No, we can't.

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But recognizing our limitations is then what frees us up for collaboration.

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And then, you know, so clarity then becomes about the roles.

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What is your role? What is your role?

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And what is the job ahead of you? What does it look like to actually be doing

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your task well within this? And then, you know, there's all kinds of tools for this, right?

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There's clarity about strategy. There's clarity about roles.

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There's clarity about ourselves. But I think just taking the time to do this,

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Tim, I have not, the first two years, especially the first year.

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I wrote more in my Evernote than I think I ever have written.

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And I was, I just got to keep a note open and I'd go back, I got to revise that.

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That's not what, how I want to talk about our DNA or that's not how I want to talk about who we are.

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So you're providing clarity about our identity, our values.

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Some people call it even, you know, there's a sense in which you're trying to,

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externalize the soul of the organization. When you come into a new place, people know what the, what the church really

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is. And they won't tell you directly, but again, this is like the tools of an anthropologist.

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You get them talking and you'll be like, oh, I get this. Like I picked up Rock

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Harbor, people lit up when they talked about radical generosity.

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Oh, we gave away more money one year than, you know, or they talk about radical sort of going.

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I heard about the go campaign over and over again. There was this year that

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everybody, we were all going to go somewhere, you know? And when people light up about stuff, that's, that's your clue.

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Oh, this is a core piece of the soul of the organization.

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But your job as the leader is to externalize the soul of the organization.

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What I mean is put it into words, because if it doesn't live in words,

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it only lives in a person. And this is getting beyond transitions here, but unhealthy organizations are

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overly dependent on a singular individual.

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Unhealthy organizations are overly dependent on a singular individual because

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everything lives in the person. So they go, what do we need to do for Easter this year? I don't know.

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We better ask the pastor. What should we do about, you know, baptisms or child dedication?

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I don't know. We better ask pastor. And that's the first telltale sign to me that this is an unhealthy organization

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because if it all lives inside the individual, then we're overly dependent on them.

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He's become the sun in the solar system. Instead of saying, no,

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no, no, we've got to externalize it. And these set of values, these set of convictions, this is what we're orbiting around.

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This is what we're – and what that actually allows you to do is empower more leaders.

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Now that clarity now, we all see it, and now we can all run toward it.

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How much, Glenn, and this is a side note, does that play into some of the leadership

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meltdown that we see nationally in ministry organizations?

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I mean, I suspect a lot. I suspect a lot.

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Because again, you take the myth of the heroic individual, and then you combine

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it with an individual who refuses to codify or externalize culture into statements and practices.

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And so now everything has to be calibrated around that individual.

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And, but, but listen, a human being was not meant to bear that kind of weight.

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So human beings, we all have breaking points. And this is maybe the other,

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the other myth of leadership health, Tim, is I think we have this notion that

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if we did enough spiritual practices, we would never have a breaking point.

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And I just want to say, this side of our resurrection, this side of our resurrection,

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we all have a breaking point. We all have a breaking point. So you could have the best Sabbaths and the best

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rhythms and the best routines and all this stuff, but if you push too fast,

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if you carry too much weight, you will crack. We are jars of clay.

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And the treasure is Christ in us, not us, right?

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Amen. So at some point, we have to give up this myth of the heroic individual,

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take the time to write down things, externalize things.

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And sometimes that'll be a collaborative process and a really wonderful team

20:29

building process for a new leader. We did a lot of that.

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And you keep adding to it. You keep adding to this sort of library of language

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and practices and frameworks.

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I mean, we're compiling it now at Rock Harbor. We're like, man,

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let's get a little book together of all the different frameworks and tools that

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we use because that's a way, again, anthropologists, when you study a tribe,

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what's one of the things you look at? Not just their language and their rituals. You're going to look up their artifacts.

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You're going to look at this ancient whatever stone or this artifact.

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Same idea. What's a church's artifacts? That will reveal their culture.

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But if there are no artifacts, and the answer to every question is,

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ask pastor, we're in trouble.

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Yeah. And there's a direct tension with culture that lifts up the heroic individual.

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Whereas the way of Jesus is so different. Yes.

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And I think that leads into your next lesson, which is directional versus collaborative

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leadership is so important.

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And I know you share a lot about this in your book, The Resilient Pastor. You should read that.

21:31

Amazing. What are some best practices around when we need to be directional

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and when we need to be collaborative in our leadership? I think...

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On the meta level, we are tasked with being directional. And part of leadership means having vision.

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You can see farther down the road than the rest of the people in the organization.

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So there is a part of it where you say, man, the meta direction,

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three, four, five years, maybe even 10 years, you see something.

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You're given the gift of vision. But I think collaboration really comes in when we say, all right,

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so what's the next step now? What's the next six months?

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What's the next 12 months? Maybe even what's the next 18 months?

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And I think that's the delicate blend.

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It's hard to sort of say, let's all seek God as all 10 of us as an eldership

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on the meta, meta, meta, you know, direct.

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I think you have to come in to say, guys, I think this is the general direct.

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We are this kind of church. Like I came in saying, gathering everything that

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I'm hearing, here's the three words that I would like to suggest dust are the

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DNA of Rock Harbor and counter formation mission, you know, so that that's meta.

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Then we go, okay, I think this next season is about formation.

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What do you think? So now we're testing it. Now there's a certain layer of collaboration

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there where I'm proposing and they're responding.

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And then there's another layer down. Okay. So we're going to focus on formation

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for the next year. What do you guys think that means?

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Now we're collaborating on, gosh, I think it means we really dig into our table

23:00

groups, or I think it means we, We come up with a framework for how formation

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happens, and boom, the ideas start popping.

23:07

I, you know, it's funny to say you, you, you're a worship leader.

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I think you'll appreciate this, but it's like songwriting.

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You know, you've been in a songwriting session. Someone comes in,

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you're like, what do you want to write about? I don't know. What do you want to write about? You know, and this is going to

23:19

be a long day of, of co-writing, you know, but if someone comes in and go,

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I've got to start, I've got an idea, or I read this poem or,

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you know, yeah, all right, let's, let's run with that idea.

23:28

Creativity always, human creativity is always derivative.

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It's never out of nothing. It's never ex nihilo. We're always working with preexisting content, Right.

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So there's some measure of a leader saying direct directional leadership.

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I'm giving you some building blocks. And now what are we going to build with

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these yellow, blue, red bricks of Lego? You know, what are we going to do together? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting for me.

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I've always been a collaborative leader and I often feel pressured when I'm

23:53

backed into a directional corner. Talk about tension and how you lean into tension in collaborative leadership

24:01

and how you work out when it's healthy or unhealthy. healthy.

24:03

You mean when a team wants to pull in a different direction,

24:06

that kind of thing? Yeah. I think, so in the resilient pastor, I suggest this sort of matrix,

24:13

this quadrant, this, you know, two by two and it's freedom and vision and freedom and vision.

24:18

We typically set on a line and we go, you either, the more freedom you want

24:22

to give someone, that means the less vision you got to give them.

24:24

And I suggest, no, let's put it in a two by two. So let's see if we can do this year, if you have no vision and no freedom,

24:31

and you work in that organization, you're going crazy.

24:34

Because it's just like, I have no freedom to change anything and I have no clue where we're going.

24:40

So you know, it's not gonna last long. They'll be calling Slingshot for another job soon.

24:44

Now, if you have high freedom, but unclear vision, that's chaos.

24:49

That's the book of Judges. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, right?

24:52

And I've been part of church and ministry environments where it was,

24:55

quote unquote, empowering, but it was really just chaotic.

24:57

Like every department was running. And you know, the only people who knew how

25:00

chaotic it was, was the production team or the facilities team.

25:03

Because they're like, we have to support how many events this weekend, you know?

25:07

So that's chaos. Where it's high freedom, but unclear vision.

25:10

Vision now when you do low freedom but

25:13

clear vision that i used to call that clone

25:16

you know like but but actually i've started to think that's cultivation

25:20

that's where you start someone you're going

25:23

to start a new staff person or a new leader by saying

25:26

i'm not going to give you a ton of freedom but i'm going to give you very clear vision this

25:29

is your role i'm a big sports guy i think you

25:32

know on a basketball team this is like telling your

25:34

rookie your job is to play great defense and grab every

25:37

rebound you can and don't shoot the ball like when

25:40

you get past it that you know now when you move

25:43

up the the chart you go to high freedom and clear vision this is where you know

25:48

it's like the golden state warriors in their heyday or my team the denver nuggets

25:52

last year i'm with you come on now i'm a maggots fan where you don't have to

25:55

call a lot of plays that's what coach you don't call a lot of plays you have

25:58

five high iq guys on the on the court and they figure it out.

26:02

And that to me is the, that's peak collaboration.

26:06

And it doesn't happen at every level of the organization, but it ought to happen at the highest levels.

26:10

And even then it doesn't happen in every decision, but every so often,

26:14

boy, it's magic when it happens. So high collaboration, talk about a high performing team and how diversity of

26:22

thought plays into that and how diversity in general plays into that.

26:27

I, we were going through, we're in the midst of this now, cause we've added

26:30

three key leaders, key positions to our team.

26:32

And you, you can feel the viewpoint diversity and different people have different

26:37

comfort levels with disagreement, you know?

26:39

And so I I'll say to the team, different perspectives is great.

26:44

Different camps is not what we don't want is we don't want this,

26:48

the staff to kind of say, I'm going with it. They want more of more, more, whatever, you know, more of this,

26:53

more of that, more small groups. No, no, no more events or, you know, more holy Holy Spirit time.

26:58

No, no, no. More quiet contemplation time. We can have different perspectives, but we can't form different camps.

27:03

That's what we don't want. So I am, and maybe this is partly the academic thing, I really love the dialectical approach to tension.

27:12

This is Hegelian's dialect where there's thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

27:17

So I'm very comfortable with that. Like if someone says this,

27:20

I really want to hear someone say, what's the counterpoint?

27:22

Okay, here's the counterpoint. Okay, so what's our Rock Harbor synthesis?

27:26

It's not necessarily what's the middle. It's not necessarily the middle way.

27:31

It's just what's our synthesis about this decision right here, right now.

27:35

That's really helpful. That's really helpful. I've got so many follow-ups,

27:39

but that might be another podcast episode. You close out your list with one that really is the glue to all of this,

27:45

and that's to create space to pray and listen to God.

27:50

Creating space to pray and listen to God. It should be obvious to us,

27:54

yet so often it's the lesson we have to keep learning the hard way,

27:58

right? Talk more about that. It's, you know, I think in the early months, six months, whatever,

28:06

it was easy to seek the Lord because I just, I felt so in over my head. I felt desperate.

28:13

Desperately dependent. Yeah, I was like, Lord, I need your help.

28:16

You know, I'm being stretched in every way.

28:19

And I think what begins to happen to all of us, it's human nature.

28:22

Things start, quote unquote, working. And you go, that's great.

28:27

And you give, I give, more of my time to my ability to problem solve, my ability to persuade.

28:37

And all that, you know, those skills matter. And it's not a,

28:40

I don't want to create a false either or. But I do think there is a proper priority of things.

28:45

And I have found the challenge that I have to fight for that space to say,

28:50

I need to regularly create space on my calendar, build it in,

28:53

build it in on Monday mornings. I don't take any appointments or meetings prior to lunch on Monday, typically.

29:00

And I need that reliable space to say, I'm going to go for a long walk.

29:04

Now I'm lucky enough that long walk can be by the beach, but I need the time

29:09

to listen, to be still, to see what emerges even in my own soul.

29:14

We're all leading out of something. And we could be leading out of our woundedness. We could be leading out of our

29:20

insecurities. We could be leading out of our pressures.

29:22

Or we could be leading out of being deeply loved by God. And if nothing else,

29:27

that's why we need space. I want to be careful that I'm not saying spend time with the Lord so that you

29:33

can download more vision. I'm very aware, and you will appreciate this as a former worship leader yourself,

29:39

like it's very easy to functionalize our intimacy with God. where I am getting

29:45

close to God because I need God to say something.

29:48

And I think it's so important as leaders that we draw near to God just to be with God.

29:53

I want to be with God just to be with God so that I can lead out of that place of belovedness. Yeah.

30:00

Glenn, it's interesting you talk about that desperate dependence in the early days.

30:04

You know, I remember nearly 25 years ago moving to the U.S.

30:08

From Australia to a new leadership role, culture changing, everything changing,

30:14

and how two or three years on, my wife and I would say to each other,

30:18

we miss being that dependent on God.

30:20

That's how we always need to live. And it's cultivating that dependence on Him,

30:25

and that can only come with time. So, Glenn, as we close the conversation, talking to leaders who might be in

30:33

that overwhelmed state at the front end of transition right now,

30:36

how would you sum this up and what would be your advice to them? Take a deep breath.

30:41

Trust the long game. Trust the slow work of the kingdom.

30:47

All the parables Jesus tells about the kingdom of God, like a seed in the ground,

30:52

like yeast in the dough, the kingdom work is hidden, it's slow, it's in the dark.

31:02

So it feels like a lot. You can't change it all now. It won't all turn around

31:07

quickly, but trust the long, slow work of the kingdom, of the Holy Spirit at work, and take a breath.

31:16

It'll be okay. Yeah, that's a good word.

31:20

Undervalued competencies of leadership are simply obedience and showing up and continuing to show up.

31:26

Glenn, I love talking to people that are way smarter than I am, just like you.

31:32

And this has been a great conversation. So many insights. Thank you for how

31:36

you serve and the difference you're making.

31:39

And I know there's things that you're going to want to share with other leaders

31:42

from this conversation. Please share and subscribe.

31:45

Thanks for being with us today. And until next time, stay curious and reach for the remarkable.