Podcast

092 – Leadership Development

General Leadership

Posted on November 23, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

Everybody’s got some level of leadership traits. You do. I Do. Have you ever wondered how you could develop those traits even better than they are now? I have. So, in today’s Church Tips podcast, we’re going to talk about exactly that: Church Leadership Development.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:20
Hey friend, it’s great to be with you here on this Church Tips podcast. And we really hope if you’re in the United States that you had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. We loaded up on plenty of Turkey and everything that went along with that. So, feeling pretty good. Are you feel pretty stuffed here?

Jonathan Hardy 0:34
Right? Yeah.

Church Leadership Development

Dick Hardy 0:35
So, here we are on Black Friday. And we want to talk to you about some opportunities that are ahead here at the end of this episode. But before we do that, I want to talk to you, and Jonathan wants to talk with you about the development of personal leadership skills within yourself. I remember a time I was sitting up in in Johnston, Iowa, just outside of Des Moines at a Village Inn. And I’m having conversation with the Lord. I don’t know how you talk to the Lord, but I’m having conversation with Him. Or I’m saying, “Look, I am so overwhelmed.” And I felt I had this image of a plate, and all the stuff, probably good for Thanksgiving. All this stuff is falling off the plate. I can’t handle all the stuff that’s on this plate. And I asked the Lord to give me a planner to just expand my capacity to lead. And that was a benchmark moment for me. And he did. He helped me. It wasn’t like, oh, the next moment I had that. But it went from a plate to a platter. And along the way, it was the development and the growth of greater leadership within me. The intentional steps I had to take, and of course the spiritual steps along the way. So, today we want to fire away some thoughts for you on how to develop the best pastoral leadership traits possible. And we hope you find this helpful. We’re gonna try to keep it fairly short and sweet for you. And Jonathan’s gonna get us started.

Tip #1: Constantly Read and Invest in Yourself

Jonathan Hardy 2:04
Yeah, so one of the first things to do to help is to constantly read and invest in yourself all the time. It’s basically to never stop. You know, what was it Lowe’s or Home Depot? Lowe’s, I think. “Never stop improving.” One of the two. I don’t remember which one it is, but that this is the concept, never stop improving. As leaders, we can’t ever stop improving. We need to keep improving. You got to have a book you’re reading all the time. You got to be investing in yourself all the time. That’s why leaders.church exists. It’s a way for people to strategically invest in themselves personally, so they’re growing in their leadership. And that’s why we started it. In fact, right now we’ve got a great deal. You can go to leaders.church. If you’re not a member, you can get signed up and get some of the extra bells and whistles, because it is the Black Friday weekend. But the point is, you have to keep working to get smarter as a leader to grow personally, and invest in yourself. That’s the first and foremost thing if you want to improve and develop your leadership skills, you have to make the investment in yourself.

Tip #2: Emulate Other Leaders

Dick Hardy 3:05
Well, and right along with that, you know, I would encourage you to emulate other leaders. I remember we have a mutual friend, that he said “I love to be around. Dr. Mark Rutland.” Dr. Rutland was the president, former President of Southeastern University, then of Oral Roberts University and he speaks and communicates. He’s got tremendous leadership giftings out there. But this friend of ours said, “I like to just watch him lead. I like to watch Rutland lead.” And I thought that is good. So, you have people in your sphere of influence, that are a step or two ahead of you. And they are great leaders. Watch them lead. Learn from that. It doesn’t mean you have to mimic them. But I’m telling you, if somebody has gone before me, and they’ve developed the skills, I want to listen. I want to watch. And if I can emulate what they do, I’ll be a better leader for having done so.

Tip #3: Merge the Practical and Spiritual

Jonathan Hardy 4:07
The third thing is to merge the practical and spiritual. You know, the spiritual components and the human components of life are not completely compartmentalized by one another. There’s an interconnectedness that happens between the practical aspects of life and the spiritual. And so, this means that we need to be seeking God and relying on the Holy Spirit all the time to help us to grow. And even kind of doing what you said earlier about how you asked the Lord to give you a platter. We need to be asking the Lord to help us to grow.

Dick Hardy 4:39
Right.

Jonathan Hardy 4:39
And then we need to be doing the practical things that we know to do to grow. And so, as we take a step of faith, God directs it. And then we take another step of faith. God directs it. So, there’s this interconnectedness between us stepping in to doing action, taking action, and God’s hands on it. And so, you have to merge these two together. And you can’t just say it’s one or the other. That’s the hope strategy. And the hope strategy just doesn’t work. You can’t just hope that I’m going to get better someday. You know, hope maybe God will do it. Well, no, you have to take steps, too. And so, it’s both.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 5:12
It really is. So, if you were just to recap this thing, Jonathan, and you want the listener, the viewer, to think, “How do I develop in a pastoral leadership way?” These three things. What’s the summary of that?

Jonathan Hardy 5:27
Well, it’s read and invest in yourself all the time. It’s emulate other great leaders. And then it’s merge the practical and the spiritual together.

Jonathan Hardy 5:34
That’s so good.

Jonathan Hardy 5:35
And when you do those three things, that’s going to help you get where you need to go as a leader, as you’re leading the church.

Dick Hardy 5:41
It really will. And again, we are so happy to be able to offer you the Black Friday content with the sale available. And is there anything else you want to tell about that? Just go to leaders. church or…

Black Friday Deals and Church Leadership Development

Jonathan Hardy 5:54
Well, if you’re not a member of leaders.church, that’s your first step. You need to jump in and become a member of leaders.church. There’s 300-plus videos. Plus, there’s other resources in there, discussion guides, content that you can use, not only for yourself, but you can use that to train your team. So, you know, a lot of times pastors are like, man, I know I need to train my team, but they don’t have time now. So, the first thing to get squeezed from people’s time is this investment stuff, because it takes work to put that together. Yeah, well, we’ve done all the work for you. You literally can go in and watch a video. Get your team together. Watch a video. Print out the discussion guide. Ask some questions. And the beautiful thing is, you know, you can take it and make it your own. So, we provide Word documents, PDFs, all this stuff. You can just jump in and get access. So, if you’re not a member, you need to jump in. We’ve got some special offers right now. Go to leaders.church. Just www.leaders.church. The other thing, if you are a member, or even if you’re not, you might also be interested in this. As you know, we have what we call Church University. This is our online education arm that we provide from leaders.church. And this is a way for you to grow in specific areas of ministry. So, we have one on church boards. We have a course on the audio production that happens in the auditorium. We have one on preaching and kids ministry.

Dick Hardy 7:12
Those are the four big ones right there.

Jonathan Hardy 7:13
And right now, you can get those at a steep discount, and all you have to do is go to churchuniversity.com. Again, churchuniversity.com. And you can jump in and get access to these courses. These are full courses. I mean, they’re legit, and you’re one of the presenters. I’m one of them. We have other presenters. So, like this is top notch, college or seminary level education. I mean, it’s legit.

Dick Hardy 7:34
So, the two places you goes to leaders.church. Go to that site, and go to churchuniversity.com. They are two separate sites. But we’re working this Black Friday to make it as easy as possible for you to step in and begin that investment.

Jonathan Hardy 7:49
That’s right.

Dick Hardy 7:50
Okay. Anything else?

Jonathan Hardy 7:51
That’s it.

Dick Hardy 7:51
Okay. We’re good to go. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. Make it a great one, and be blessed.

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Podcast

092 – Leadership Development

What’s in this Episode?