What is God's Role in Success?

In a culture obsessed with size, speed, and status, Jeff and Dave ask the question of whether Christians should be focused on a different measure of success.

Dave and Jeff will challenge you to rethink your definitions of achievement, question your motivations, and discover the joy of partnering with God in ways that may look unconventional, but bear the unmistakable fruit of the Spirit. 

Whether you're a pastor, a business leader, or simply someone seeking to live with greater intentionality, this episode will equip you to lead with humility, welcome the overlooked, and find true fulfillment in the journey, not just the destination.

LinkTree:
https://linktr.ee/AllisonParkLeadershipNetwork
Email:
Jeffl@allisonparkchurch.com
Davel@allisonparkchurch.com
Instagram:
@Jeffleake11
@Dave.Leake

Transcript

Dave Leake: 0:00

Today, we're discussing the question, what part of our success does God get credit for? In reality, there's a lot of things we can do that are just going to work right. We can build strategies. We can work hard. We can be intelligent with how we invest our time and our money. How do we make sure we're staying on track with what God's asking us to do, and how do we achieve the kind of success that God wants us to have, and not just material or public success? If you'd like to hear more, tune in. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have our culture creating conversations. I'm Dave, and my

Jeff Leake: 0:37

name is Jeff, and we're glad you're with us today. Of course, we're father and son and both on staff at Allison Park church. I'm the Lead Pastor, Dave as the North Side campus pastor, and we're glad you're with us today absolutely

Dave Leake: 0:48

quickly. Thank you for joining us. We were talking today about how you know maybe you're maybe you're a longtime listener, but did you know that you could actually be a viewer as well if you obviously were on YouTube, if you want to search Allison Park leadership podcast, but also Spotify has a video option now where, if you click on the podcast, you can actually watch the whole episode right there on your phone. So we'd love to invite you to to join that part of the conversation. Yeah, and,

Jeff Leake: 1:14

and, you know, we were talking about how we actually admitted to each other just before the podcast, how when we listened to a podcast, I almost always forward the first four minutes of the podcast, because I know there's advertisements that happen there, or people just sort of talk about starting the podcast, but what we thought we do different today is to say another way to engage with us besides the likes and the reviews, is to just leave us a comment. We love hearing from you that way too comment on the topic, or even just something that you want to say to us about future episodes, or whatever we'd love to hear from you on any of those platforms. So

Dave Leake: 1:49

if you didn't skip and you would like to comment, thank you for sticking with us so far. Five years ago in November, was it five years? Yeah, five years ago, November was when we started, when we started, Isn't that wild? Yeah, it's also wild to be the thing that we started right before COVID hit.

Jeff Leake: 2:07

So this is, like the five year anniversary episode, almost,

Dave Leake: 2:10

not quite. I think November 19 was our first one we ever released. So, but we're coming up on it anyway. Well, I think maybe our very first episode, or was one of our first three, because we recorded them all at the same time. Was uh, titled, What is success? Do you remember that one?

Jeff Leake: 2:25

I remember it vaguely, okay, since it's five years ago, but yeah, I think, I

Dave Leake: 2:29

think I was the one that was more compelled by it. So yes, because I was like, This is awesome. Um, we wanted to do some kind of a follow up. It's a little different. But today, I think we're going to discuss this question of, What is God's role in my success, right? Or did you have a different way to phrase that question?

Jeff Leake: 2:48

No, I think that's a good way. I do remember now that you mentioned it, Dave, we were, because you were, I think, moving into a new role with Allison Park. You had finished up your youth pastor role, and you were getting ready to take Northside, and you were going through some soul searching about, how do I know I'm doing well in ministry? And we and we then asked the question, because I think a lot of people feel this about life, and I think a lot of people who are pastors and leaders in churches feel this way. Is, how do I know? Because, because the comparative standard isn't a good measure. So we wrestled with some internal identity questions, I think, on that particular issue, what? What makes me successful? What makes me pleasing to God, but? But this particular question that we're going to deal with today is slightly off of that. It's different from that, right?

Dave Leake: 3:37

Yeah. So I think this question for me, started thinking about the church world. And I know you were mentioning to me that you think it's a lot broader than that, but I'll just let me just start with the context of my sort of world that I'm in. You know, it's I found it weird whenever I was jumping into ministry, how there are formulas and Strategies for Growing a church that seem to work, not necessarily universally, but in America, at least if you're in a similar part of similar socioeconomic status, like if you're in the suburbs, if you're by a college, or if you're in this part of a highway. Do these kind of things? Send out these kind of mailers have these kind of service services with these kind of sermon series and questions and social media this way, and generally it works, right? And in terms of, like, getting numbers there, and like, to me, I was like, Oh, that, like, at first, I was like, that's weird. I was like, Oh, that's cool. Like, through leadership, we can grow something. And I think my question that I've been sort of thinking through recently is so, so, what part does God have in in the growth of something like when it comes to growing a church, if you follow a formula and you work really hard and you do what seems to work with mailers and these zip codes and, you know, and these kind of family oriented events and Captain. Amazing sermon series. Like, is that is the growth in those, in those phases? Is that from just good leadership, or is there a degree of God's releasing something, or is it like, Well, God's releasing something, but it really, but we almost act like it's us. Or then, what about situations that are not those like, so I'm in a very urban demographic, and I've realized that the strategies, the growth strategies, that work in suburban places, particularly this in the south too, they have it really like when mailers don't work that well, what do you do when people don't do social media, when even like door to door, flyering is different, like, so certain strategies aren't the same. They don't translate the same way. But I think, like beyond, I'm not just talking about north side, just with churches in general. Say somebody's really working hard to try to grow their church, to reach the lost, the disciple people. It's not going as quickly as they hoped. It's not going as well as the hoped. Is it just the strategy is bad? Or is it God is holding something back right now because it's all about the Kairos specific timing of God, and we're waiting for the next wave to hit, or like, basically, what role does God have to play in something growing or being healthy, and what role is IT leadership or our responsibility or our job? Does that make sense? Sure, and I think it goes, I do think goes beyond churches. I think the question of as a leader, like, what is God's role in my success

Jeff Leake: 6:28

as a business leader, as a parent, yeah, as whatever, like, is it just technique based? Is there, is there some spiritual formula to this?

Dave Leake: 6:38

Yeah, because it feels like the way that leadership culture would be, like, who would talk about this, even in Christian circles, is, is, it's like, you lead really well, and you do your best, and God's there in the background, and God, Well, God made all this possible. You know what? I mean? All credit to God, but

Jeff Leake: 6:55

it's like, so, like, I just scored a touchdown. This is because of God's work in my life, right? Yeah, we celebrate those moments in in athletes lives or performers lives, they'll give all

Dave Leake: 7:06

glory to God for it, but in reality, what they're really thinking and by the way, we're, of

Jeff Leake: 7:11

course, dealers family for Pittsburgh, I happen to see Justin fields, who's currently our quarterback, whether he is next week or not, we don't know. But he walked into the stadium and he said, just here to bring glory to God, that was his T shirt, right? And so I think the intentionality about that, whatever I'm going to do, I want to do for the honor and glory of God, I think that's beautiful, yeah, of course, right. But it does seem like then when we do well, we think, Well, God must have, you know, brought this about in my life, and we do poorly, then the question is, well, maybe, maybe I did something wrong. Or, No, I might be missing something in my life. I

Dave Leake: 7:47

think I don't. I think we generally give credit to God the way that God generally gets credit for all good things. Yeah, but it's really I did this. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's, that's, that's too far, maybe a little bit I did this, but I want to give glory to God for it kind of a thing. Yeah? And God enabled me, because he showed me that this strategy would work, but I was the one that had to bust my butt. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, right? So it's like, what? What role does God have in growth and in success? Okay,

Jeff Leake: 8:16

so let's go back just to the whole church world thing for a minute. So we'll get to this generally. And if you're not a church leader, maybe this will be interesting to you from a curiosity point of view, but or maybe you've thought had questions about why the churches are organized like this. So in my lifetime, Dave the church world shifted from the community based, small church pastor who was primarily involved with pastoral care, preparing sermons. And most churches were about 200 or under, and it shifted to a sort of a church growth model. The whole church growth world was developed church growth conferences and seminars. I remember my my father, when he restarted the church of Monrovia that he that he led. By the end of the 1970s there were now this trend of some of the very first churches being eight, 900 people. And my father pastored a church that grew to 898, or 900 people with multiple services in the same building. And it was sort of like, Wow, look how big this church is, it's, it's, it's amazing, but there were really very few churches bigger than 1000 and now they're churches that are 100,000 Right? Like Life Church with Pastor Craig Groeschel or Steven Furtick, and Elevation Church, where you have these mega, mega churches, and around the world you have some churches that are hundreds of 1000s. Okay, so there became this church growth technique world where some of the things we would learn from the business world or from leadership skills, we applied like some of the things that we do now to open churches when we plant a new church are very similar to when you open a new furniture store, right? So. So our Grand Opening Day is on this particular day, and we're going to have these sales going on, and you send out postcards and mailers, and you do a marketing campaign, and you center everything around getting people there on that one day. Because if you can get buzz created around the launching of your new furniture store, and people have a very good experience, then you end up becoming a, you know, a part of that community, an identifiable part of that community. Same kind of thing is true with planting a church. I've done this over and over and coached pastors to do this, where you practice your services, you don't invite people into the moments where you're not ready and prepared to receive guests. And then once you get everything down and you're pretty competent, confident in what you're going to be able to provide, then you have the grand opening Sunday, and you bring as many people to that as you possibly can, and people enter that as if that church has been in existence for a decade, because you have excellence on every level. And people think, I could bring my family here, and they they come back. And all of this is based upon some techniques that work in suburban America to draw a crowd. And then, if you continue that same discipline of large attractional events and effective communication and a process strategically that moves people from one step to the next, you're going to pastor a growing congregation, and all of that is wise. I don't think we would be against any of that. But now your question is, can we do that without God? Yeah, yeah, no, totally. Like, what role does God play in that? Because

Dave Leake: 11:34

somebody can run a great furniture store without God, sure, right? You know, like, it might not be God honoring, but it could be, you know, monetarily, doing really well, and you could have even a good staff culture, and

Jeff Leake: 11:45

if you have enough money to hire the right musicians to be on stage and as part of your worship team, and you have a pastor who's in a gifted communicator, and you got the ability to organize great children's programs with a good brand and a great Instagram social media profile, you are good to go. You're

Dave Leake: 12:07

primed to blow up, especially if you're in an area that is a growing part of the city. People are moving in a lot and

Jeff Leake: 12:13

oh yeah, right, well, that's part of this. That's part of the strategy of planting churches, is you go to a high growth area with a lot of new families that are being displaced because they move from one place to another, and they're looking for community. And if you hit that right at the right time, you can blow up pretty fast. Yeah. So, so

Dave Leake: 12:33

this leads to my question, which? Which?

Jeff Leake: 12:34

None of that is wrong or bad. It's all good thinking sure to do anything other than that would almost be negligence, yeah, right. It'd be like, Why would I not do any of that stuff? Sure, especially because now I can be taught, step by step in a manual how to make all that work so that I can be as effective as possible in reaching the maximum number of people. I agree that could be reached. Yeah,

Dave Leake: 13:00

to be clear, like now that we know we there's like a some science to gathering people, building a crowd, and how it works in, you know, suburban America. I think, of course, we should use that. I think we should do everything for the maximum effectiveness, but spreading the gospel and making disciples. My question is beyond that, though, it's okay. So if there are techniques to plant a church, there are also techniques to grow a church, and you can, I think you could technically, and there probably are places like this. I have none in mind that I'm not even criticizing, but because you have a very good leader, a CEO type leader who's very good at managing teams and processes and systems, and they're a gifted communicator. You can almost lead your church to growth, whether or not it is even like you could. You could lead your church to growth even if it wasn't a God honoring place. I'm not saying that that is the case. Well,

Jeff Leake: 13:59

are isn't that what we talk about all the time with celebrity pastors who built large organizations, who have some kind of fall in their life, or you find out that behind the scenes, maybe they were living something like a double life experience. And we say, How could that happen? They built this mega success. But then you see beneath the surface that it wasn't built on a healthy foundation. And what you're saying is it's actually, it is actually possible. So the model of pastor in America in 2024 is the CEO model? Yeah, the gifted, the gifted communicator, CEO motivational speaker slash CEO model of church, right, right? Yeah, so, so we went from the 1960s which was the chaplaincy model, which is basically, I'm here to be your pastor. I'm going to be here to care for your soul. I'm going to create community for us to enjoy. And we went from Chaplain pastor to CEO pastor. Master, CEO motivational speaker, Pastor, yeah, like

Dave Leake: 15:02

Steve Jobs. Maybe that's the wrong one, but yeah, you know the young like cool dress as

Jeff Leake: 15:08

well. Innovative, yeah, innovative looks good on social media Exactly, exactly. Now that that is a suburban I would still wouldn't say it. It probably plays anywhere, to some degree less in urban spaces than in then in maybe suburban or rural communities. But yeah, in fact, it's hard to really be noticed as a successful pastor if you don't fit into that category. Sure.

Dave Leake: 15:38

So So then. So this is the question, and I just want to be totally clear, I think that many people do that and honor God like crazy, and I think that they grow the churches with that model, and they're brilliant, and they're a phenomenal communicator, and God called them to do this, and God gifted them to do this, and they're reaching the lost and making disciples. And I have no problem with that. This is not a critique of the model. Like, don't be like that. Like, let's go back towards chaplaincy that that's not, that's not the goal of this. The goal is, is, is it just formulaic, or does God have a role in the growth? How do we know if God has a role in the growth? Like, if he is so obviously, you could do it without him, and you could have a church that is built on a bad foundation that's due for collapse at any point, but assuming that it was like, yeah, how, how do we, like, Where? Where does, where is the credit given to God? And not just like he's in the background, but it's mostly our hard work. Like, pray like it all depends on God. Work like it all depends on you, and mostly it depends on you, but God's in the background, blessing you with the gifts and talents you had. Like, where is it that? Where is it? How do we invite God to be a part of the process so that it's not just we are leading and he's happy with us? Where is it we're following and leading people in following? Like, how do we Does that make sense that I'm asking?

Jeff Leake: 16:59

I think it does. So maybe, maybe we take a little turn on this, because we would say, so I'll make personal observations. So I think I lead like a CEO motivational speaker leader, don't I

Dave Leake: 17:14

probably well to So you agree a little more hands off than a typical CEO leader would probably be okay. Hands off. How you Yeah. So I feel like before the 100 church vision, you were probably engaged in the day to day, like running and growth, and then largely, you kind of passed a lot off to executive leaders. Now you're like a, I guess you're more of like a executive coach, communicator, you know what I mean, hands on, a lot of other places and kingdom initiatives and and, yeah, you still do CEO things too. But anyway,

Jeff Leake: 17:50

so not the hard driving CEO. No, right, right. Okay, yeah, it's interesting that you thought that I didn't know something. Okay, so I probably was birthed in an era the 80s, 90s and and you know, what do you call the early 2000s where I was striving to learn from CEO, Pastor, leaders and motivational speakers. I remember hearing Bill Hybels from Willow Creek talk about one of the gifts in Romans chapter 12 is leadership. And he says, if you're a leader, lead with diligence. And he was saying, this is, he was sort of like the model CEO of Willow Creek. He kind of thought of himself that way, and built this empire of influence through, through what he was doing at Willow Creek. And he was basically saying, you know, squeeze every drop of your leadership skill out of yourself so that you can build the maximum effective organization, so that you can reach the maximum amount of people. Okay, so I was groomed in that I think I was striving to be that in many ways. And so I've been sort of raised in that culture. Then 2020, came, and I started to look at everything I was leading and everything I was doing and thinking, I'm not sure that size and organizational effectiveness is enough. I think we can actually create disciples that are too shallow. They don't know what they believe. They're not making disciples of other people. They're a part of an amazing, slick organizational system, and it looks so good on the outside, but when you start to really look and see what's going on in people's hearts and minds, or maybe when you look on social media and you see what people are posting and how they're reacting. I think, man, maybe there's something missing from this corporate model of church that needs to be recaptured. Because could we be succeeding in creating an excellent corporate corporation that is called the. Church that has all of the growth systems and the strategies and the structures, and it feels so good to the consumer coming in, receiving ministry. But could we be creating a hollow version of what a Christian is supposed to be, because we're missing other components that need to be and some things I think that we have done since the pandemic would be counter to building the corporate model, for sure, like preaching the hard truths of Jesus, like like Jesus, one of Jesus success moments was the moment whenever he laid it down in John chapter six, and said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can have no part of me. And whole bunch of people left. And that that was success, because he was trying to define what it really means to follow Jesus. Or when John the Baptist had his disciples and all of his following leave him and go follow Jesus, which made his crowd size much smaller, but his long term success as a person was much greater because he he did his job. He pointed people to Jesus, and the crowd started to follow the right person. So I think some of the things we've done since 2020, have there's, there's a benefit to the corporate model, but it has its limits when it comes to whether or not we're being successful in the eyes of God, like you can build a growing church and not care about the poor, you can build a growing church and not and be building your own kingdom and not realizing that it's actually happening. So some of its motivation, and some of it is, I guess, defining what the target is, what we're after. So does that resolve anything inside of you? I

Dave Leake: 21:54

think it's a part of it. I think there's, I think there's more questions. So, yeah, I guess, okay, like you answered the part that some of it is stuff that you can't really see, because it's heart stuff, and that that maybe starts with the leader, and we can't see into the hearts of men the way that Jesus could. So some of it is, is you got to answer to God for this, right? But let's, I'm just talking about in the case of where this goes well, and you're not just numerically, let's say it's going well and people are being discipled well, like, because you are saying the hard things. And it's not just your only goal isn't build the biggest Empire possible. Your goal is grow, reach the lost, make disciples. And it's like, Where is God? Because I'm saying, even if the results good, where is God in that process? Like, I to me, it feels like I don't feel like it's that honoring to God to be like, oh, like he did the whole thing. But then, like, secretly, it's like, but it was like, I could write a book on all the things that worked. Do you know what I'm saying? I guess, I guess that that's still true. There is a component of leadership, like Nehemiah, you know, and going back to to rebuild Jerusalem in the temple, like, there's a there's a way to do it, there's a methodology to actually succeed. And I'm sure they use their skills. I'm not saying don't use skills, but like, how is God different than chance. How is, do you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like, what I think I'm wrestling through? Should there be some part of an invitation of God into the process? Is it just we follow the biblical principles, and because of that, because we're following, like, generally, what God's asked to do with the church? Like, it's working. Because, do you understand what I mean? Because I think it's like, here's how it feels. The difference between a growing, hollow church and a growing, significant discipling church is not just systems and processes. Like I visit. I think that there's some more substance there. I think I think the kind of church that I want to be a part of, is not just doing the general will of God. Well, they're obviously doing that, but I think that they're taking part of specific, okay, strategic things. Now,

Jeff Leake: 24:10

now we've hit something that is, I think, with the key to what you're saying. So what we said, I think, in the last episode we did, November 29 2019 is we basically said, Success in God's economy is always based on obedience. And so if you're doing a model, and the model is working, but it's not what God's asked you to do, technically, might be successful in the eyes of people, but it may not necessarily be successful in the eyes of God, because success in the eyes of God is obedience. I think when you make steps of obedience, it's there that God gets involved. If it's not obedience and God's God may or may not be involved. I think sometimes God blesses stuff that is just our own endeavors, because we're preaching the gospel. And people are getting saved, like even Paul says in Philippians chapter one, he's talking about these people who are competing with him and trying to undercut his ministry. And he is like, I'm still happy that the gospel is being preached, even though I believe that they're doing this from wrong motives. But hey, listen, whatever for me to live in is Christ and to die is gain. So I think the question is, is a matter of obedience. So the corporate CEO model is not the only way that God does things. If God is leading you to do the corporate CEO to learn from the other people and to go to a fast growing city and to implement some of the strategies that are part of the corporate CEO model of church, and that for you is obedience, because, you know, God's asked you to do that, and I think God's in it. But there are a lot of other ways, like, I don't want to focus too much on my story. You mentioned the 100 church vision before, there was a significant seminal moment in my life, in 1996 where the church was growing. Based upon this, I was becoming more effective as a leader. I was becoming more effective as a as a communicator. The North Hills of Pittsburgh was was growing. People were moving in here. Allison parks. Numbers were increasing. We were going to move down the road some buy some property, build a bigger building, so that we could be a bigger church. And the Holy Spirit said, That is not my agenda for you. My agenda for you, first of all is to plant churches in your in the economically challenged communities all up and down the rivers of the city of Pittsburgh. And secondarily, I'm going to grow you. Your church is going to grow. But if you seek first my kingdom by planting churches, all these things are going to be added to you as well. At that point, I had to make a strategic obedience decision to go counter to the growth of my church to accomplish the purpose of God's specific will. Because you said General will, specific will God's Gen Scott specific will for Allison Park church was to plant other churches. Now his overall will was that we would grow too, because we've now tripled in size since that moment. So it's not like God was against us becoming bigger or even more excellent in the way we do what we do. It's just that the pathway forward was a very specific assigned direction. You experienced this Dave in the north side, so you hit a wall with how we were doing church at the north side, with our Sunday morning experiences. And you made a strategic you led us strategically into saying, Let's worry less about how it looks in comparison to the other campuses, and let's focus upon the mission that God has for us to really build a relationship with the community we're in the north side of Pittsburgh, and specifically Northview heights, which is one of the housing development plans there. Yeah, right. And we're gonna worry less about whether this fits into the corporate model, and we're just gonna serve our community. And you did that and it grew. So wouldn't we say, I think that was you obeying the specific will of God for your situation, and God breathed on it and blessed it, and we've seen an increase in the numbers of people getting baptized and saved. And so I think that's isn't that? What it is, yeah, isn't making sure that whatever you're doing, you're doing an obedience to God, and not just because other people do it. Yeah,

Dave Leake: 28:24

that's probably true well, and I guess, I guess this is just this kind of this is probably taking the application of our how to get a word from God episode we did, and maybe working through some of this practically, because I think we talked in that episode about assignments from God, how you can get a specific assignment for your life or for your church? Yeah, you know, the house that you're part of, I

Jeff Leake: 28:45

think too we tend to, because this, the last episode we did was abortion and the American dream. And we were talking about, you know, maybe the American dream is not a good target. And I think if we were going to apply this to the larger world around us, not just the church world, we would say sometimes success in American culture has become an idol, yeah, for sure, it has. Sometimes success in the ministry world has become an idol, right? And that is outward organizational, growth oriented success.

Dave Leake: 29:21

Yep,

Jeff Leake: 29:22

it is, it is. It is a good thing to grow. It is a good thing to reach new people. It's a good thing to do things with excellence, but it isn't the main thing. Yeah, the main thing we do is obey and please God.

Dave Leake: 29:36

You know it's a good thing to grow, but it's not a good thing to grow at any cost.

Jeff Leake: 29:40

No, right? That's what we said, the American dream. There's a limit on it. It's not the American dream at any cost. It's not success in ministry at any cost, not at the cost of my integrity, not at the cost of my humility, not at the cost of my obedience, not at the cost of limiting the presence of the Holy Spirit when he's. Wanting to move in a situation, but it doesn't fit into my box, not at the cost of me being willing to lose in order to gain temporarily. Because I'm going to focus on something that might cause my organization to slow down, but I'm going to reach a demographic of people that maybe don't add much benefit back at the moment, sure, but Okay, so I don't know if I this is sort of a delicate thing to talk about in the proper way, but so one of the things that we did in 2020 is we adopted, or helped sponsor the launch of a East African congregation, revival Church International, that has required my relationship with Bishop and and helping to get that whole thing started, because it's a learning curve for me, and it's a different culture, and a lot of times it's messy. When you have people that are moving in and they're they're learning us and we're learning them. It's taken hours and hours and hours of my time to build a relationship with them, and they with me. And really, it adds nothing to our organizational bottom line to to have this relationship. It's not like we would say this causes us now to say, well, look at how many we have. But it's been so worth it. I have grown so much, and I've gained so much from these relationships, and we did this in obedience to God, not because it fit the corporate model. And some of the ways that you receive God's greatest attaboy, Well done, my good and faithful servant, pleasure and favor is when we do things that don't seem like success at all, and in the eyes of anyone other than God and and yet bring him pleasure. There's this great book written by a Catholic priest, and it's called in the name of Jesus, and I'm searching for the name of this guy now maybe I'll remember it before the end of the episode, or where you're talking next. I'll look it up. He was a successful lecturer and professor. He'd written many books, and he felt convicted that his soul was out of whack, almost like John Mark comer's experience when he wrote ruthless elimination of hurry, and he actually left his job as a professor at a prominent university and went to work in a care home for those who were mentally and physically challenged. So is he? He went from corporate to chaplain, but Chaplain amongst the most broken people you have society. And he writes his experience of functioning in the name of Jesus, and what seemed to be a counter culture move, Francis Chan, he's another guy. He built this huge church in California, and then all of the sudden, decided to leave it in order to go, I think he's back and forth as kind of a missionary to, yeah, I think he spent a lot of time various parts of Asia, yeah, right. And so he left the corporate model because he felt like it was constraining him from REALLY following Jesus in the kind of self sacrificial missional way of life that he felt needed to be lived. It is true that the corporate CEO motivational speaker model comes with enormous amounts of stress that tend to squeeze the life of your soul, that can make you into the type of person that is untouchable and arrogant, if you're not careful, um, and May. Here's another standard, I guess, of what success would be if we said the first is obedience, the second would be character. So is it producing in me and in the people around me? Christ like character? Am I growing to become more like Jesus? Am I being obedient to His purpose. These are two things that I think we have to hold on to. So let

Dave Leake: 34:04

me pause for a second. I think, you know, it just to be clear too, I don't have, there's like, there's no churches that I even thinking of, or could think of right now that I'm like, Oh, these are the kind of places that are doing it the wrong way. It's it's more from my own internal wrestling that I'm coming with this, because it's like, okay, some things work, some things don't. Where, every time we come to the beginning of a new school year, like August, September, we're rethinking what we're doing, and we're looking at, how do we make it how do we make this a place that people can, you know, bring their unsaved friends and family to? And how do we reach the lost? And there's a lot of strategy, and it feels like it's, it's this time of like, it's prayer, it's, it's prayer and seeking God, but it's also planning. And so I think I'm wrestling this from the from the from the perspective of like, as I'm building and growing things and looking to you. Uh, Steward, what God's given me, you know, am I? Am I doing this the right way? I think that's where this motivation is coming from. But I'll say, I think when you keep talking about obedience as being one of the character and obedience with obedience to Me, what feels like, oh, this. This is the, this is the nuance that gives me the check or no check is, am I asking God, what do you want this year or this month? Because it's like, well, I would be, I would be being obedient to God as long as I'm, like, trying to reach the lost, to make disciples. Like, generally, yeah, we're following the Great Commission.

Jeff Leake: 35:35

But this is what you said. There's the general will and there's a specific will, yeah, yeah. So we're generally being obedient, but you're talking about to be really successful, you have to be is being specifically obedient. I

Dave Leake: 35:45

think, if I think, if, for me, I think, if I am not taking it to the place of God, what? What specifically are you asking that what I'm at risk of is measurement and comparison and being generally obedient, obedient while the specifics are affecting my motivations. Does that make sense? What I mean? Yeah, cuz you could be generally, I could be generally, probably I have, at times, been generally following the will of God, but I've been under tremendous stress because I'm trying to prove something to myself, or to, you know, well, the

Jeff Leake: 36:21

people that we celebrate in the Christian world in the United States are always the best motivational speakers and the best CEO leaders,

Dave Leake: 36:31

biggest church, fastest growing area, yeah,

Jeff Leake: 36:35

the better looking you are in the young and hip, the more you look young and Hip online. It's I mean, so this is not an era where we look to the spiritual fathers and we say, you know, this is someone who's a sage and wise and self sacrificing and lived amongst the poor and like, that's not, that's not the hero of our culture. Maybe it should be. Maybe we shouldn't be always looking to the CEO leader, but that is, that's the guys who speak at the events, right? And that's the people that get held up as the success models. And that's how, when we get in, internally driven, we start to think, How do I become that? That's

Dave Leake: 37:14

who gets the awards, too.

Jeff Leake: 37:15

It's who gets the awards, right? It's

Dave Leake: 37:17

like this, Hey, we're not just about stats, but all your awards are for the best test right here,

Jeff Leake: 37:24

when we stand before God one day, we'll find out whether we were successful or not. Yeah, right. And some of the people that we think are successful now may not necessarily be the most rewarded in heaven. Some of the people that most rewarded in heaven, we might have no idea who their names are, yeah. And so that's I guess another thing is have the right heroes. Because when we have we have the heroes that are based solely on the corporate success model, and those heroes fall, we have a tendency to have our world like, what happened? It like, sort of messes with our equilibrium. And some of it has to do with the fact that we may be celebrating. There's a part of that that should be celebrated, and some, in some sense, those who are leading in that way should be held up as models. But if they're the only models we see, and then we have a tendency to think so the person who's doing successful Urban Ministry, and it doesn't look like the corporate where are those people that we look at and we celebrate, the people who are doing successful rural ministry and and could never have a church of 10,000 because there's not even 10,000 people there in their county. How do what are the models we look at there? Right? So there has to be a way of viewing things through the lens of heaven so that we aren't super imposing an American 2024, version of life. That is not the way God looks at things. I

Dave Leake: 38:50

think this is a little bit of my Allison Park church bias, but part of how I would want to measure that, I think you actually can measure, but they don't. They tend to maybe get ignored a little bit as, like, you know, who is sending out the most people? Like, you know, we talk about with coaches and sports like their coaching tree, where Bell Belichick had these many people that want to become successful head coaches. Like, how many people are we sending out multiplying people that are reaching the most hurting or poor or margin? Yeah, that's

Jeff Leake: 39:21

another one I was going to say. Is when you're at how does God get involved in our ministry? Here's how one way that I that I pray, that I think is very much in line with how God thinks I pray like this. Give me the One God. Give me the give me the guy who's coming out of prison and has no place else to belong. Give me the foster child, young person that's coming that needs a family to belong, to give me the addict that needs a church family to love them and help them break free. Give me the single mom that feels like she's all over the world. Give me the widow that has nothing to offer but is so longing for a pastor that will look at. Eyes and let her know that she's valued and loved. You know, give give me the person that is that has got that personality disorder. They don't belong to anybody else because they never fit in anywhere. Bring them to my church so that they feel like that they have a place to belong like I want to be the church that welcomes the one, the one that's overlooked, the ones forgotten, the one that's a misfit, the one that doesn't feel like they connect anywhere. And God, if you give me those people, I'll, I'll feel like I'm wealthy, sure. And I think that that, if your heart is that, because some churches are built like a country club, and they just, they want the people that that bring with them wealth and connection. Well,

Dave Leake: 40:42

I think, I think the which, by the way, the stage like example of that young person, that young CEO, motivational speaker, leader, is often like, I'm reaching the movie stars. I'm reaching the new CEOs that need a pastor. It's like,

Jeff Leake: 40:59

No, I'm taking my picture with

Dave Leake: 41:04

just five away, Justin, just doing awesome. So don't be knocking Justin. He's putting out like worship stuff now.

Jeff Leake: 41:12

So, but listen, listen, so sometimes the celebrity, though, is the most lonely person in the world. It's probably sometimes the CEO. I've met CEOs, and they don't have anybody that they can really be vulnerable with and friends with, because everybody puts them into this category of a person that no one can get around. So I actually want the CEO too, but I don't want them because they're going to bring some kind of money to me. I want them because I know God cares about them too, and in their space, there's a unique point of need there. And so if you're there praying for people to come into your environment for what they can add to you, that's the wrong motivation. But if you're there praying for them to come so that you can add something to them, then that's the right motivation. And so I don't think there's anything wrong with having a church full of business owners who are shaking the world, but that person is not less important or more important than the guy who's homeless and is on the street and when he comes in to the service, he needs a special welcome, because people might not necessarily feel like they know what to do with that person. So I think some of it is our wiring and motivation. Some of it is our heart, and we have to really work hard to think like, oh, here's, here's a question for you. I'll ask this of you, Dave, if Jesus was alive today physically, what kind of church would he lead?

Dave Leake: 42:33

That's, I don't know. I mean, I can think of some traits and characteristics generically,

Jeff Leake: 42:38

generically. Give me some. Sure he was a great communicator. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I don't think he would be opposed to organization. I mean, when he had the crowd feeding the 5000 he set them in a row of 50 so that the food could be distributed in a way that was pretty quick and orderly. So there was, and he had a crowd of over 20,000 they estimate 5000 men and women and children. So a lot of times, Jesus was in a mega church size ministry, moments in ancient culture, which where that would have been unheard of in his day.

Dave Leake: 43:13

Yeah, I think he probably would have just, he would have, you know, obviously, been very loving and straight to the heart of those that feel like they're outcasts. And I think he would have had no qualms about stepping on any any toes, opening cans of worms, you know, like pointing out the elephant in the room. I think he would have done that. He probably would have been provocative. He would

Jeff Leake: 43:38

have been a little weaker, meaning that once everything got set in your had a certain expectations the way things were, he would mess with that just specifically to make you I think he would think, or just Yeah, I think he would have, and I think he was doing that all the time in his own culture.

Dave Leake: 43:52

I think I he would have been the most, like, you know, the like, the word triggering. He would have been the most triggering person, yeah, like

Jeff Leake: 43:59

a Donald Trump triggering kind of thing, but more of just a prophetic kind of triggering,

Dave Leake: 44:04

yeah, yeah, not, not abrasive, but he sometimes was almost a little abrasive to embarrasses. You're right, you're right. He was so I think he, and I think he would

Jeff Leake: 44:16

never demeaning, no, yeah, never demeaning. But, but yes, he was very direct and confrontational, confrontational. Yeah, yeah. So I don't he would have been totally okay if his crowds dropped. Yeah,

Dave Leake: 44:27

losing the whole crowd, which is crazy to think about that. Yeah.

Jeff Leake: 44:32

You know, for the sake of the message and the integrity of the movement, he was willing for everyone to leave.

Dave Leake: 44:38

I think something had only 12 left. On that note. I think something about, like, modern America churches. And I feel like this is just a there's probably a piece of this That's wisdom, but I feel like it's usually only talked about as wisdom is like, well, if I say this is going to create such a mess, or if we say it in this way, or if we're not super careful, you know what I mean about this? Like, what? What will happen if I if, or if the. Wrong clip gets out there, or if the wrong person takes this but the wrong way is true, that

Jeff Leake: 45:04

saying things out of integrity and anointing for the right reasons that causes you a mess is a good thing. Deeming unwise and foolish true is a bad thing. And there's a fine line between those two. Yeah, I'm

Dave Leake: 45:17

not saying Say whatever you want to, obviously. Well, some

Jeff Leake: 45:21

people attract a crowd because they are that. It's true. They like purposely say things that instigate, but they tend to attract a crowd of people who have the same prejudices as them, and they they roll in because they they love it when someone calls others out, right, right? And that's that's also some weird kind of success model that isn't necessarily at all a success. I

Dave Leake: 45:43

just, I just heard a pastor saying, you know that the best way it sounded like he was quoting you. I've heard you say this almost directly, but he was just saying, if you want to grow, grow a platform, you just need to be extremely critical of the right people on any if you communicate it well. And you come after celebrities or well known pastors or leaders ideology

Jeff Leake: 46:05

or a party, yeah, or a politician. Or you say you can make a lot of money talk on a fear, or you talk out of alarmism, or you promote a conspiracy theory. The Yeah. I mean, his

Dave Leake: 46:17

quote was really, he was like, you're not adding any service, but you can instantly make a lot of money. Oh, yeah, you did follow, got a huge amount of followers. You can just from being well, some people grow their churches exactly

Jeff Leake: 46:28

like that, yeah. So we think of that as growing social media following, but actually, some people grow churches like that, yeah, you can grow to church to a certain size by going after a particular whatever. That makes people

Dave Leake: 46:41

say, Oh, I love that, yeah. And he's got the guts to say what needs to be said, yeah, exactly, which

Jeff Leake: 46:47

probably isn't really success in the eyes of now,

Dave Leake: 46:50

I'm sure that Jesus would have been thought of like that in some ways. He did have the guts equal opportunity offender.

Jeff Leake: 46:58

He didn't just speak against one crowd. He did it very strategically.

Dave Leake: 47:03

That feels like a model of that feels like a mark of obedience. Yeah, you know. So

Jeff Leake: 47:09

I can tell you, Oh, I'm sorry, what? So one of the things that I would say Davis were, as we're talking about this, is, at this stage of my life, having led now for over 30 years in a local church, I care so much less about the corporate success model. Okay? I mean, as I get towards the end of of my ministry time, I at one point I really wanted to see us reach a certain size, or I don't ever think I haven't stated that out loud, but in my heart, I thought, want to be great when we finally hit this next level. It's become really unimportant to me. Now, if all of a sudden we started dying, you know, we dropped 500 people overnight, I'd be like, What am I doing wrong? And I'd probably go into an identity crisis that's like, let's just face it, everybody has those reactions, yeah, however, I think I would, it would less affect me now, maybe because I realized that some of this doesn't matter as much as I thought it did. I'd much rather finish well. I'd much rather have a positive reputation. I'd much rather be approachable. I'd much rather be humble. I'd much rather be be able to say, I know I'm being obedient to what God's asked me to do, than have the the other things. But I'm still trying to do things with excellence. I'm still trying to lead in my context by learning every good principle from every successful leader as I possibly can, and seeing which of these apply within my context without being disobedient to what God's assignment is to me, but the drive isn't there. Like, I don't feel driven to it. I think that's another one of these factors. The success model often produces driven leaders, because it makes us what would How would you even describe drivenness? Because once it gets wired into you, it's like, so

Dave Leake: 49:03

this was, this was possibly another episode that we were discussing. So I don't want to, I don't want to too, too hard go into it. But I think, yeah, I can just, I can just do a little teaser for an episode we're talking about doing. Gordon McDonald is a minister that wrote a book, and I think the 80s. It was called ordering your private world. And he had this. I read this a handful of years ago. I'm not even sure where it came onto it, but you had already read it when I told you about it. And he sort of has these, this comparison of what he calls the driven person, the called person, and the German person is the bad guy in this one, which to me, I was reading, and I was like, I feel like he's, you know, I mean, he's probably that kind of guy that, like, is against, like, hard work and because driven, I'd always thought of as a good thing. Like, you should be driven, you know, better to be told, that's what Josh said earlier, better to be told to slow down than to have to speed up. Like, goes, goes fast as you can, as long as it's staying within the healthy, healthy norms and boundaries. But he talks about, like. Driven person is is often driven by a level of ambition or insecurity. They're They're driven to grow quick. They're driven to towards public acclaim. They're driven towards looking successful, value, valuing appearance over what's what's really there, over the the substance of somebody's life, over their integrity, or what's said in private. And that drivenness, while it can cause somebody to succeed, is sort of the antithesis or the opposite of somebody who walks as a called person. They only do what is being asked of them by God, and nothing more than that. And they sometimes wait until they hear that right thing to go into, and it's, it's a slower pace that has less guarantee of material success, but it is far more obedient over the long term. So for me, I read that, and this is something that we'll probably talk about another time again, but I read that and it challenged me like, how much of I driven? You know? So

Jeff Leake: 51:00

the the episode in the future would be, am I driven, or am I called? Right, right? Yeah. I think some driven this happens because we get addicted to the success we're experiencing. Sure, like, there's moments when I've come out and we've just had a baptism service or a big attendance day, and I'm on, like, a high,

Dave Leake: 51:19

or you get or you crave that success you don't have,

Jeff Leake: 51:21

yeah, but there's also just, like, an emotional high, like this past weekend. It wasn't the biggest Sunday ever, but in one the smallest of our four weekend services that I preached, we saw, I think 10 people raise their hand to give their life to Christ. Wow. And they, and most of them were young, were the teenagers or young adults, and so they came back to the back, and I had multiple conversations with people were coming to Jesus for the very first time. And I left, and I was, I was I was floating, yeah, I was like, I gotta do that again. I can't wait till next week. Can't wait to preach again. And sometimes you get wired into the enjoyment of seeing the fruit that you're experiencing. And you can work just out of the joy of it, and without knowing it, you're beginning to run out of emotion and out of obedience, like you're you're going off of the wow, this is so great. Look at this is happening. It's all good, but, but, but you can be overcome by just the euphoria of activity and lose touch with the fact that you are never supposed to stop following, never supposed to stop discerning, never supposed to stop slowing down to say, God is Is this too much like Jesus had these rhythms of his life where he be with the crowds and spend himself and then pull away to be with the Father, and then he and so there was you can, if you're not careful, you can, you can ride that emotion to the place where you burn out and you and you feel like I got nothing left to give. And then you crash. And success has that euphoric effect on us, that if we're not careful, becomes an intoxic, toxicating force that's driving us forward into things or to just because we can, like, just because you can do it, and just because you are effective at it, doesn't mean that you're in the right space, doing what God wants you to do at that particular

Dave Leake: 53:19

moment. I think it's such a difference. Just because what you're what you're doing, is going to work doesn't mean it's what God's asking you to do. There you go. And that feels you've answered your question,

Jeff Leake: 53:28

yeah. That is, if you're going to summarize this episode, it's what you just said, yeah.

Dave Leake: 53:33

Just because what you can do will work doesn't mean it's what God's asking. I think that's the dilemma in church and church growth is, well, did God ask you to do this? Did God ask you to grow it like that? But I'm doing genuinely the right. If you ask

Jeff Leake: 53:46

that every hour, you're going to be sure never doing anything. Yeah, right, right, right? Every couple of weeks,

Dave Leake: 53:53

at least a couple times a year, yeah, you

Jeff Leake: 53:55

need to say, am I still doing what I'm supposed to do? Is there anything you want me to adjust my heart right with you, God, my writing wanting the right people. Have I become intoxicated with my own success? Am I trying to build my own reputation? Yeah. Is there a way for me to counteract how you know, the momentum of this is has been bad for my soul. How do I take second place? How do I humble myself? All of these are good checks for us to come back to to make sure we're lined up properly.

Dave Leake: 54:28

It's great. All right. Well, I think that about wraps up any closing thoughts.

Jeff Leake: 54:37

I would just say it's been such an honor to be able to be partners with God and in ministry, and I know I haven't always done it perfectly. Sometimes I've been driven instead of called. Sometimes I've been caught up in the euphoria of it all. There have been days I've been frustrated with the fact that what I'm doing isn't succeeding on the same level as maybe what's. Someone else, but I've I can. I know I'm never going to be perfect at this, but I love the question that I have to keep coming back to, because it's truly an honor to serve God in in this capacity of leading in his in his kingdom, leading in his church. So these kinds of moments are like this particular topic. Hopefully we've made you pause and ask some good questions, but I'll just say, stay in the game. Keep on leading. Lead to the best of your ability. You have to be perfect with this but, but try to be obedient in the space where you're in. Let God bless you there. And keep coming back to the center where you can get into that position where you're dependent on him. How about you? What's your final thoughts? Just because you can doesn't mean that that's what God's leading you to, right? Basically, doesn't

Dave Leake: 55:50

mean it's being obedient. Just because it's going to work doesn't mean it's what God's asking of you is, I

Unknown: 55:54

think what I was Yeah,

Dave Leake: 55:55

thinking, yeah, I I think asking the question is, where all this starts. I think, I think the danger is going on autopilot, going on growth oriented autopilot. It's working, it's working, it's working, it's working. And then I'm and then all of a sudden I'm exploding and I'm burnt out, or you're on the risk of having a real failure of integrity, or, you know, you're in a spot of

Jeff Leake: 56:19

think John Maxwell said it's good to be climbing the ladder, just make sure the ladder is not leaning up against the wrong wall, right? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Leake: 56:28

So I think, I think the question is the right one to ask. I think God's honor when we ask him to like Holy Spirit, are you leading me this way? Is this? Is this what you're is it? Are these the people to focus on Jesus? Because I could go here, but I think asking that question, and I believe he wants to answer, and I believe that the process of us partnering with him is what makes him proud more than the numbers that we have or the success.

Jeff Leake: 56:53

I think we enjoy it together. He enjoys working with me. I enjoy it's amazing that I could say that right? God enjoys working with us, and that we enjoy working with him back, and it's part of the pleasure of it, yeah. And I think one piece of real success is that you that you are living in that pleasure, living in the pleasure of partnership with God Wow, where you're saying to each other, look at what we get to do together. That's that's that's a beautiful thing. Good.

Dave Leake: 57:22

All right. Well, that about does it for today. So I hope you enjoyed being a part of this conversation. I think we're sort of live processing so at least I am. I guess you're on, you know, the the further

Jeff Leake: 57:34

always. That's part of the beauty of this podcast. We're both live processing things, and that's part of why you have to give us some grace, and what some of the things we say on this, on these episodes, because just to let you in on how the sausage is made, so to speak, we don't prep for these like you do, to some degree for a little bit, but never for a whole lot. Some of your prep is what you're reading, yeah, but you'll bring your concerns and disturbances to the table, and then we just have an open, raw conversation about it. And that's why sometimes you'll hear us say things like, I think, I think this, but I'm not sure. I don't want to offend over here, because we really are unfiltered here. This is the one space we get to do that, and we're glad that you're a part of these conversations. So if you can leave us a like or a review, yeah, or a comment today, or you want to subscribe for us on YouTube, that would be awesome. You know, it's kind of

Dave Leake: 58:22

crazy. Kind of crazy. Probably in our five years we've only had to flush maybe 10 episodes total, or we started and we're like, that's bad. That's always a crappy feeling. As you're like, This is working day, yeah.

Jeff Leake: 58:33

One we thought was really amazing, and the camera was, Oh, we

Dave Leake: 58:36

lost it. That was, like, a year and a half ago, that that was discouraging, so now we know to look for a red light right in that camera. Thank you, producer, Matt, for keeping us on task with that now. But hey, we also just like, like you said, we want us to say thank you for being a part of us. If you would like to engage with us, any of those things Jeff just mentioned, would be great. You can leave us a five star review. And again, if you do that on Spotify or, sorry, Apple. Excuse me, if you do it an apple podcast, we'll see your name. We'd love to shout you out, but any of those platforms you're listening on would be great. You can actually watch it now in the comments, on Spotify as well, or on YouTube, you can like and subscribe, share on social media. All of this is a way that you can actually help us to reach more people. So if you would consider yourself to be part of our sort of podcast family you've been listening for a while, maybe just consider doing us a favor by helping to spread the word, and we would really appreciate it. So again, thanks for joining us. We'll see you guys again next time you.