Escaping a Ministry Trap Most Leaders Miss : Nicole Martin

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, it’s always a joy to be with you. Welcome to FrontStage BackStage. I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each week, I have the honor of sitting with a trusted ministry leader, and we engage in a conversation in the hopes of helping you and other pastors and ministry leaders just like you thrive in both life and leadership. If you’re joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and take a moment to drop your name and the name of your church in the comments below. We love praying for your ministries. And whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe or follow so you do not miss out on any of these great conversations. Nicole Martin is joining me today. Nicole serves as the Chief Impact Officer at Christianity Today. She’s the founder of Soulfire International Ministries, has written a number of books, including her latest, entitled Nailing It. At this time, I’d like to welcome Nicole to the show. Nicole, welcome.

Nicole Martin
Thanks so much, Jason. It’s great to be here.

Jason Daye
Yes, it’s so good to have you back on the show. It’s always a joy. Love to hear how God is at work, not only in you, but through you. Super excited to dive into a topic that you’ve been spending a lot of time praying, researching, writing, and sharing about, and that is really looking at leadership. Leadership for ministry leaders and the call for us to really surrender, and even experience suffering, enter into suffering, in order to truly be effective in the way we lead. And that may not sound like the most exciting conversation, right? It’s like, let’s talk about surrendering and suffering, but just the truth of it, Nicole, in the world in which we live, we recognize that the enemy is trying to trip up ministry leaders left and right, and we’ve all seen that. It’s no secret, right? So, this is a key component of leadership. So, before we dive in, talk to us a little bit about what drew you to really putting pen to paper, spending time focusing on this idea of what it truly means to lead.

Nicole Martin
Yeah, thanks for asking that. I started this journey more around 2019, and at the time, I was trying to build on this kind of growing theme that was building within me on redemptive leadership. I did my doctoral work in this. And the idea of redemptive leadership, in general, is that traditional leadership builds success, success, success. You start out as a shoe salesman, then you own the store, and then you own the region. But redemptive leadership is built on your failures as well. When you fall, you learn deeply. When you mess up, you recover, and you’re able to move in different spaces. So, I found myself torn between the reality of the world around me that said it’s all about success, it’s all about grabbing the triumph, it’s all about being victorious, and the message of the cross. I had this thought around 2019. If we measured Jesus by crucifixion, no one would follow him. So, how is it that we can just latch on to resurrection, as if that’s the only part of Jesus that matters, and dismiss crucifixion, and I started to think about the consequences of that. So, that’s how the book came to be. My own wrestling, my own discipleship journey of trying to embrace the realities and the gifts of the cross while also maintaining this joy of resurrection, because the two really do go together.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that. And throughout your new book, Nailing It, you do a great job of holding a lot of tensions together, right? We’re going to talk about that, and that’s the reality of I think what was so encouraging as I was reading it, was that I was reminded that that’s the reality of our life, really, in Christ. The kingdom is here, but not yet. It’s that tension, right? So, we see that throughout. One of the things that I really appreciated that you dove into was this idea, and you mentioned it, this idea of triumph and triumphalism, right? I would say, especially for pastors and ministry leaders in the US. Other countries I know experience this as well. But in the US, we have kind of this culture that is ingrained in us. So, Nicole, talk to us a little bit about this idea of triumphalism, and what it looks like, because it’s kind of like a fish in water. You don’t really know you’re in water, and yet, here we are surrounded by it. How it impacts even the church in ministry.

Nicole Martin
Yes, well, if you go back to the founding of our nation, you have people like de Tocqueville saying that there’s something about this nation that is truly exceptional. Then, you fast-forward to the Cold War, and you have this idea of triumphalism. We are Americans. We will always be the wealthiest, we will always be the strongest, we will always be the ones who conquer. And that national ethos kind of bleeds its way, whether we know it or not, into our understanding of the church. Slowly but surely, we start to think that the ones who are blessed are the ones who are closest to God. So, those who have money, those who have fame, and those who have influence, those are the ones who are blessed by God. Before we know it, there are some people we don’t even, and I keep saying we don’t do this intentionally, because it’s just the water that we drink. It is a theistic Darwinism, as Russell Moore says, it’s a survival of the fittest faith style. So, we start to think, if I’m messing up, if my life isn’t going the way that I want, if I don’t have enough money, if I don’t have enough food, then I must not be favored by God. But those who have are the ones who are favored. That’s the ethos of the world. God forbid we start to think, this is how Jesus actually operates. When we think this way, then we don’t make time to care for the least of these because we think they’re beneath us, and they just didn’t work hard enough. When we think this way, then we start to think that my trauma, my troubles, my mistakes, or my sins make me disqualified from the gospel, and the Cross says neither. So, there’s a lot in that. And what I was trying to unpack is not just the impact it has on us, but on the teams that we lead. If I think that this is a survival of the fittest faith journey, then I’m going to look at my staff team and say, Whoever is not performing well, you’ve got to go. And, yes, there are legitimate times when low performance needs to be reconciled and dealt with. But if the ethos is the low performers, the quiet ones, or the ones who are not at the top of their game, those are the ones that God doesn’t like, then that affects everything about how you lead.

Jason Daye
Yeah. And that’s such an interesting concept to wrap our brains around because, as ministry leaders, our heart is to be effective in ministry. We’re on mission, right? So, you get caught up in this idea that you’re on mission, and therefore, we have a responsibility to make sure that everything is firing on all cylinders, that everything’s moving forward, and yet, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but, we can push that to the point where that is how we’re measuring everything, and that is how we’re living out our leadership, right?

Nicole Martin
And that’s what we worship.

Jason Daye
Right. Exactly. So, how do we, I guess, a good question, as I was reading through the book again, I was thinking, how do we recognize this? Because what you share in the book, Nailing It, makes sense, especially when we look at Jesus, right? He should always be our model. But how do we recognize this in our own leadership if we’re missing this?

Nicole Martin
Yeah, each of these chapters kind of spells out warning signs when we’re out of balance. And I do need to say that there is no single way. Part of why I wrote this book, part of the reason why I wrote this book, is because it’s exhausting trying to mold yourself into what other people think is the way to be successful. The Cross gives us a wide variety of ways to navigate this, and everything depends on who you are, what your gifts are, what your personality is, and what your calling is. So, for some people, the warning signs will come in exhaustion. What is wearing you out right now? Are you worn out because you’re fighting so hard to get the numbers, whether that’s financial numbers, attendance numbers, or online view numbers? Is that wearing you out? Because if that is exhausting you, then it’s time to rethink. God, help me to reset my ego. Help me to remember that my worth is not based on these numbers. Help me to reset my view of success for the church, so that I can start to remember that this is about discipleship and not about hemorrhaging growth. Help me to reset my view according to the cross. So, exhaustion is one of the key markers. Another key marker is the assessment of the people. When I was working in corporate America, we used to do 360 assessments, and that is where you take an assessment, your team takes an assessment, and sometimes even your family members take that assessment, and you get all this feedback from a wide view. For some reason, we get into church ministry, and we think the only approval we need is that of God. So, we don’t test and ask our teams, How am I doing? We don’t ask our family members, How do you see me in ministry? And I know this is part of the heartbeat of Pastor Serve, which I love, because those views of us play into our understanding of what needs to be adjusted. So, I would say you got to check. Are you exhausted? And then you need to check the people around you. How are they perceiving you? How are you coming off to them? Are they seeing you as authentic and following God, or are they seeing you as a little bit over the top? However you would define that.

Jason Daye
Yeah, and that’s good. Absolutely love that, Nicole. But that means we need to be vulnerable in our relationships. Because the reality is, we’re not going to pause and ask other people. I remember when I was pastoring one of the churches where I was a lead pastor, I brought a new team member on staff, and we had a staff meeting every week. And part of the staff meeting, a big part of that staff meeting, was diving into our weekend worship experience the weekend before. And I would open it up, and I’d say, Okay, guys, talk to me. Feedback. Let’s talk through this. Where did we miss it? Where do we, you know, how can we, and so, really processing through that. And I remember this new team member, after our first meeting, he asked if he could talk to me in my office. So, we jumped in the office and he said, Jason, I’ve never been on a team at a church where we sat down and the lead pastor invited people to give that feedback. And it was like an aha moment for me, because it was like, if we’re in ministry, we need to be, I mean, iron sharpens iron. We talk about that. We need to be open, but that takes that vulnerability. So, in one of the chapters, you focus on crucifying ego. So, help us understand a little bit about that vulnerability in leadership, that openness, that invitation for people to speak into our lives, and why that is so often a challenge for ministry leaders.

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, just a quick reminder that we provide a free toolkit that complements today’s conversation. You can find this for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. In the toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including our Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide includes insights pulled from today’s conversation as well as reflection questions, so you and the ministry team at your local church can dig more deeply into this topic and see how it relates to your specific ministry context. Again, you can find it at PastorServe.org/network.

Nicole Martin
Oh, you know, in each of the chapters, I had someone tell me the other day that it’s kind of frustrating, because you’re kind of telling me two different things at one time. And I said, Yes, that is what I believe Christ is calling us to do. This is not a stay on one extreme and live there. This is actually a regular calibration depending on our scenarios. So, in the chapter on ego, I talk a lot about our worldviews. Worldview is just how you’re trained, how you’re raised culturally to see the world. So in certain cultures, there’s a high view of honor and shame. In those cultures, it is dishonorable to talk about yourself or to speak of yourself in any way. That’s just dishonorable, and you bring shame to yourself if you talk about yourself. In America, they say that we’re more of a guilt and innocence worldview. So you only talk about yourself if you’re innocent, but if you’re guilty, then you’re not allowed to boast about anything. And then you have other worldviews. So, once you locate your worldview, then you’ve got to figure out, Where am I in this context, and what is God calling me to do? In every context, the balance, I believe, of Scripture is to, on one hand, know that you are fully and completely loved by God. That you have nothing to prove. That you are, in Romans 1:16, not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And also, what is it? Galatians 1, I want to say it’s like 9 or 10, that if you were living to please people, you would not be a servant of Christ. So, this sits on the one side, I’m approved by God. I’m beloved by God. I’m known by God. I have nothing to prove to this world. And on the other hand sits, and I am but a broken vessel, so that the all-surpassing powers of God are of God and not of Me. I am weak, and so I have to boast my weaknesses. This is the way we have to temper it. For me, it shows up in the pep talk before the meeting. God, you have qualified me to be here. I don’t have to question whether or not I belong. I thank you that you’re going to give me the words to say, and I can walk in full authority, and Lord, I just lay it all before you. Correct me where I’m wrong. Adjust me where I need to be adjusted. Make me open to see what I can’t see right now. That’s what it looks like. It’s the deep love part that anchors us, and the deep humility part that says, Nevertheless, not my will, but Your will be done.

Jason Daye
I absolutely love that. Let’s lean in a little more on this, Nicole, because if we move to either extreme, that’s when things get crazy, right? So with ego, specifically, let’s talk about the two extremes. Because when we think of ego, we often think of the one extreme. Yeah, the super ego, right? So, help us think through and process through, as leaders, both of those extremes. Then how do we, as you said, temper those or recalibrate those in line with the cross of Christ?

Nicole Martin
Yeah, I actually think both extremes meet in the same place. So, if they were two extremes, rather than being a straight line, I think it’s more like a circle. So, people who have an overinflated view of themselves are more likely to trample their teams and trample the people around them because they are the only ones who matter. People who have a very low view of themselves are also very prone to trample their teams and run people over because their effort to make up for their insecurities often shows up in the same way as the characteristics of a narcissistic person. So, it makes you wonder because, again, we’re just living in a time that feeds our self-centeredness. It hits me every time I take a picture of my girls, they’re 10 and 12, and then they say, Let me see it. They have grown up in a culture where they are vividly aware that everything they do can and will be used as social media clickbait. So, they’re hyper self-aware. It’s just part of our society. But, when you look at the traits of very narcissistic leaders, you can’t always tell if this is a person who’s self-absorbed, or if this is a person who is really a self-defeating person with very low self-esteem. So, while they’re two different things, the symptoms show up in the same way, and the collateral is always the same. It’s the people they serve, it’s the teams they lead, and it’s their family members and friends, because when you are super insecure or super self-centered, other people are just pawns on your chessboard.

Jason Daye
Yeah. So, as we’re looking at ego, let’s stay here for a minute. So, we’re looking at ego, and one of the things that you share in Nailing It, and it makes perfect sense, is that if you’re a leader, then you’re going to have, to some degree, some ego, you know what I mean? In a healthy way, right? Because you’ve got to believe in yourself enough that you can lead others, right? And so we have that side of it, and then we also have the side where, as you said, I’m willing to lay down. Not my will, but Your will, Lord. How do I enter into that? In a regular life in leadership, how do we recognize, maybe, if we’re leaning toward one or the other? And how do we keep those in balance in kind of a regular life-on-life way?

Nicole Martin
Yes. There’s a book, The Body Keeps the Score, and I have started to lean more into that. More now than I did when I first got started in leadership. And what I mean is, and this is a very minor example, but it’s still real. Sometimes, I can tell when I’m leaning to one side or the other based on how I’m feeling in my body. Meaning that there’s a certain embodied nature about leadership. It’s the nerves that you feel before you preach. It’s the fatigue that can weigh you down when you’re entering into the trauma of others. So, I think for me, we can tell when we’re getting into the space of insecurity and improper view of ourselves when we’re comparing ourselves with other people. When we start to have an unchecked jealousy rising up. Not only do I wish I were like that person, but that person is wrong. And deep down, what we mean is, I wish I could get there, but I don’t know how. So, that space of comparison. It can show up even in our overworking. If I feel myself falling into workaholism, that’s a sign that my ego might be out of check. If I’m leaning too far into perfectionism, trying to prove that I’m worthy, trying to prove to other people I can do it, then that’s a sign on this side of insecurity. On the side of self-centeredness, sometimes I can tell if I haven’t asked for anyone’s opinion in a while. I was in a meeting the other day where I suggested to someone that we should survey the audience and see if this is something that they want. And the person said, No, no, please, let’s not do any surveys. I said, Why? And they were like, Because, what if they asked me to do something that I can’t do? So I mean, actually, that example could fall in both areas. But, if I’m afraid of getting input or feedback because it might change the direction I had set for myself, then that’s a sign that I might be leaning into self-centeredness. If I obsess over the external things. What this background looks like on the virtual stream, how my clothes look against the virtual background, how bright my teeth are, or what my hair looks like, and getting mad at people because my hair wasn’t right on the last broadcast. Those kinds of things will let you, these are the indicators, and they’re different for everyone. So, what’s a trigger indicator for me may be different for you. That’s why I said knowing our bodies, having a relationship with God where we can feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that is the best, most important information we need.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s so good. So, as we look at Jesus as the model in this idea of ego, specifically, what do we see in Jesus that we can adopt for our lives as we are leading in ministry?

Nicole Martin
Oh, man. Jesus is so kind to report out loud, at least to the gospel recorders, that he was his father’s son, that he was about his father’s business, and that he was not here for us alone. He was here on assignment from the Lord. So, Jesus models that his affirmation comes from relationship with God, His calling comes from God, and his assignments come from God. We can gain so much from just recognizing that our relationships with God are the most important aspects that make us who we are. My child of God-ness is the most important attribute I have, more than anything else on my resume. So, Jesus models that. This is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased. God reiterates it. He’s the one. He’s the one I love, and that becomes the marker of His ministry. And it is with that confidence in the love of God that Jesus can go to the cross, because the cross is arguably the most vulnerable moment of Jesus’s ministry. It is the point of perceived failure. It’s the moment where everything is laid on the line. If we’re not careful, the naked eye would say that the world overcame Jesus in that moment. Death overcame Jesus in that moment. But still, on the cross, he demonstrates this belovedness, this security, so much so that he can commend his spirit. So much so that he can forgive people. So much so that he can make room in the kingdom for a thief. He balances. He’s in the most vulnerable position of all time, about to die, but still operating in the security of God’s love. So, what we see in the resurrection of Jesus is that same thing, having the authority enough to walk on Earth and show his body, the resurrected body, to everyone, and having the humility enough to say, Thomas, come touch my hand. Touch my side. Oh my gosh, when I think about this, thank you, Jesus, for this example of the cross and resurrection. It is humility and authority mixed in one, and that’s what I want for my life. That’s what I want Jesus to do in all of us, to show us how to work that out.

Jason Daye
At Pastor Serve, we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders just like you. If you want to learn more about how you can qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. That’s PastorServe.org/freesession.

Jason Daye
Amen. I love that. I love that. One of the things that jumped out to me, Nicole, as I was reading, was specifically about what you’re just talking about. The fact that Jesus, in His resurrection, bore the wounds. The wounds were there, right? So, you have this victory over death, and yet this recognition that the wounds were present. His resurrected body was not; the holes or the nail scars weren’t gone, right? So, as leaders, when we’re working with our teams, when we’re serving in our local churches, how do we embody this idea of victory? But also not overlooking the woundedness, not only of ourselves, but entering into the woundedness and the suffering of those that we’re leading, those on our team.

Nicole Martin
Years ago, I had a doctor that I was working with, and he had visible scars. He had had brain surgery, so he had visible scars on his face. And at first, I was thinking, he could choose to cover that up. He could choose to have some kind of procedure to have the scars reduced. But the visibility of his scars made me trust him, because I knew, as a doctor, he had gone through something. He knows what it’s like to be a patient. He knows what it’s like to get bad news. He knows what it’s like to have to go through a healing journey. So, the visibility of his scars became a marker of credibility and trust for me. In ministry, not all of our scars are visible. Some of us have had heartbreaks that we can’t quite identify or show. Some of us have gone through situations, trials, and challenges that won’t be visible. But just being able to show off those scars every once in a while can be a marker of trust. Not in a manipulative way, but in a way that gives honor and glory to God. And I think this is what Paul was saying: I boast in my weaknesses. As leaders, people trust us when they know we’ve lost a loved one, too. As leaders, people trust us when they know we are not perfect. Yes, we’ve preached sermons, and we’ve thought the next morning, oh my gosh, did I actually say that? We’ve led teams, and we’ve had to go back to people and say I’ve had to go back to people and say, I just want to apologize for how I handled that. I thought I was doing the best thing at the time, but now, in retrospect, I recognize how that could have hurt you. And there was a time when I was in leadership, when people would say, You should never apologize because it’s a sign of weakness. But I think showing that scar that I have done wrong, and I now have this part of me, that can build so much trust in your team, and then it gives them permission to show their scars, not to be ashamed, and to use those scars for the glory of God.

Jason Daye
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely love that. Absolutely love that. One of the things that you write about that’s tied somewhat to ego, but a different topic, is this idea of power, and how we crucify our power. There’s a tension there as well, because we all have power. We’re responsible for using our power, for using the power that’s been given to us. At the same time, that power can be abused. So, walk us through kind of the idea of that tension that we hold in that power. The good of the power, and then the potential abuse of that power.

Nicole Martin
Absolutely. God has given all of us power. I talk about the six social bases of power. This is Raven French, a sociologist from several years ago. They talk about the bases of power. So every single one of us has a base of power. We could have legitimate power because we sit in a specific role. We could have referential power because we’re the seasoned person on the team. Regardless of where our power is, all of us have it. The one difference between a surrendered Christian leader and a leader who may not be a Christian or may not be surrendered is the question, God, how do I use my power for their good and for your glory? This is the question that every leader has to ask. Not, do I have power? Because you do. Not, I feel like I’m so powerful and I want to get more power, because that’s not your job. The point of you having power by the Holy Spirit is so that you can empower others and distribute that power in a way that gives glory to God. That’s when you start to see God empowering you more. My filling of the Holy Spirit is not so I can sit in my home and be like, Wow, I’m feeling pretty powerful today. God fills me with His Spirit to do something for him. To empower others around him. The markers of our ministry ought to be that when people are in our presence, when they’re a part of our leadership teams, or when they’re in our ministries, that they leave feeling more empowered than they did when they came, and that’s what power really is about.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And as you walk through Nailing It, this book, and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve got all kinds of highlights throughout this whole thing. I mean, this is solid stuff. But you walk through, we talked a little bit about ego. We talked about power. But you walk through a number of things that we literally, as leaders, need to crucify, right? As we look at kind of the big picture, and for those of you watching or listening along, I encourage you to grab the book, because Nicole really takes us through and really shows the example of Jesus in the midst of these, which is so powerful, right? So there’s a lot there. But as we look at the big picture, as we pull back, Nicole, and think about leadership as a whole, what God has entrusted to us, and this idea of of crucifying these different elements, what drives us to step back and say, How can we really evaluate our leadership as a whole and really begin to say, All right, what are the things that I need to crucify in my life? How do we practically get there and not just keep running with doing it the way we’ve done it?

Nicole Martin
Yeah, yeah. I wish there were another way. I wish we were naturally driven to become more like Jesus. I wish that there was just an engine inside me that, even when things were good, I’m driven to my knees. But the reality is, we’re often driven by crisis and discomfort. Leaders who are going to make these kinds of sacrificial changes in their lives to become more like the disciples that Christ calls us to be are often leaders who are frustrated. They’ve tried business as usual, and it’s still not working. These are leaders who recognize the uniqueness of their teams in these times. By and large, every single leader I talk to is recognizing. People, whether they’re in church leadership teams, on staff, or even in corporate life, are more stressed out now. They’re more anxious now. They’re more burdened. They have more responsibilities. So, they’re dealing with finances, rising costs, and everything else. They’re dealing with multi-generational care, having to care for grandparents, parents, children, nieces, great-grandparents, or great-grandchildren. So all of these things are what people are bringing into the workplace. And as leaders, at some point, we come to a place where we realize either my teams aren’t working for me, or I need to shift the way I’m working with my teams. So I would say, may God, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, may God orchestrate our lives so that we have just the right crisis at just the right time. The right crisis, meaning that God would remind us of our brokenness, and he would remind us of our need for him. And it’s out of that need, that crisis, that God, I recognize I have nothing. I am nothing. I can’t do this by myself. Out of that need comes a desire to be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit,

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good, and that’s a dangerous prayer, right? Because we’re inviting disruption into our lives, right? But that’s the place, I mean, the whole book that you’ve written about is pointing to the cross of Christ, which was a moment of crisis, a moment of disruption, the greatest moment of disruption in the history of humankind was at the cross. But that idea that sometimes we need to be shaken up a little, right? Sometimes we need it, because we get caught in those ruts, and we pray that those crises aren’t crazy crises. But let it be, Lord, that we can be disrupted enough to not just toss a little bandage on here or there, but really get to the heart of the matter, to take us to the cross. Absolutely love that thought and that prayer, as dangerous as it is. But God calls us to something deeper. It’s not just a life that’s a little bit better than the alternative. It’s a transformation, right? As leaders, we need to lean into that. As we’re winding down, Nicole, this has been so good. As we’re winding down, I would love to give you the opportunity just to share some words of encouragement to those who are watching or listening, those who are serving in ministry. What words would you have for them, Nicole?

Nicole Martin
I want to thank God for every person watching and listening, because they’ve tuned in out of a calling from God. You are called by God for such a time as this. There is no other human being like you on the earth. Never has been and never will be. So, this is the time to steward every single thing that God gives you, and I am so grateful to God that the cross shows us that God uses the good things and the bad. He uses your high moments and your low. He uses your strengths and your weaknesses to be an impact for the kingdom. So you have nothing to lose. You have nothing to prove. You have nothing to worry about. You have everything to gain by surrendering it all to the cross. That’s my invitation to you and my encouragement. Surrender it to the cross. You do not have to carry it on your own, and surrender is just, Lord, I need you, and that is maybe the most powerful prayer that any leader can pray. I cannot do this by myself. God, I need you, and I pray that God meets you in a way that you would never imagine.

Jason Daye
Oh, love it, sister. So good. Nicole Martin, thank you for taking time to hang out with us. Your newest book, Nailing It, is such a powerful book. I encourage you guys to check that out. For those of you who are watching or listening to this episode, just like every episode, we create a toolkit that complements this conversation. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. There you’ll find a lot of resources, including links to Nicole’s book, Nailing It, and also some questions that you can process through yourself and with your team at your local church or your ministry, and really process what we’ve been talking about here, this idea of what does it mean to lead and to crucify some of these things in our lives so that we can lead as effectively as possible for the kingdom? So, be sure to check that out at PastorServe.org/network. Sister, as always, it is a joy to hang out with you. I super, super, enjoy it. Thank you so much for making the time, Sister. God bless you.

Nicole Martin
God bless you. Thank you.

Jason Daye
Here at Pastor Serve, we hope you’re truly finding value through these episodes of FrontStage Backstage. If so, please consider leaving a review for us on your favorite podcast platform. These reviews help other ministry leaders and pastors just like you find the show, so they can benefit as well. Also, consider sharing this episode with a colleague or other ministry friend, and don’t forget our free Toolkit, which is available at PastorServe.org/network. This is Jason Daye, encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well.