Building Trust Across Your Ministry Leadership Team : Léonce Crump Jr.

Jason Daye | , , , , , , , ,

Building Trust Across Your Ministry Leadership Team - Léonce Crump Jr - 77 - FrontStage BackStage with Jason Daye

How can you increase trust across your local ministry leadership team so that you can serve more effectively together? In this week’s conversation on FrontStage BackStage, host Jason Daye is joined by Léonce Crump Jr., co-founder and senior pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta. His latest book is entitled The Resilience Factor. Together, Léonce and Jason discuss ways that you can learn how well your ministry leaders trust one another. Léonce also shares how you can build that trust and catalyze a resilient ministry team that’s ready to face together whatever challenges may arise.

Looking to dig more deeply into this topic and conversation? Every week we go the extra mile and create a free toolkit so you and your ministry team can dive deeper into the topic that is discussed. Find your Weekly Toolkit below… Love well, Live well, Lead well!

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Additional Resource Links

www.leoncecrump.com – Visit Léonce’s enriching website, which offers a wealth of resources, including his insightful book, thought-provoking blogs, inspiring sermons, and much more, tailored to empower and guide you on your transformative ministry journey.

The Resilience Factor: A Step-by-Step Guide to Catalyze an Unbreakable Team – Ryan T. Hartwig, Léonce B. Crump Jr., and Warren Bird have worked with team members in many kinds of churches and Christian organizations, served on numerous teams, and surfaced the best research on teams. In The Resilience Factor, they distill this wisdom into a series of practical steps that promise to both inspire and equip teams to move from floundering to flourishing.

Connect with Léonce – Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or just want to talk?  Complimentary Coaching Session for Pastors http://PastorServe.org/freesession

Ministry Leaders Growth Guide

Key Insights and Concepts

  • Effective leadership, as rooted in Scripture, often involves collaborative teamwork, much like the Trinitarian reality of God.
  • Scripture consistently portrays effective leadership as a partnership, emphasizing shared responsibilities among individuals working together with shared purpose.
  • The size of a ministry or church should not dictate the need for collaborative leadership; it’s about a perspective on how to accomplish God’s mission.
  • A polycentric leadership model, where everyone operates in their giftedness, can lead to a healthy and effective team structure.
  • Effective leadership involves creating an atmosphere of trust, beginning with the belief that “love believes the best” and extending grace to one another.
  • Building psychological safety within a team includes handling conflict maturely and inviting open dialogue, even when challenging topics arise.
  • Vulnerability goes beyond transparency; it means sharing deeper aspects of oneself and fostering deeper connections and trust within the team.
  • Radical candor, which includes honest and direct communication, becomes possible in an environment of psychological safety and vulnerability.
  • Pain often serves as a catalyst for change and growth in leadership, prompting individuals to confront challenges and make necessary adjustments.
  • Courage and resilience are essential attributes for leaders to navigate and overcome adversity effectively.
  • A clear sense of purpose and mission, shared by the entire team, promotes cohesion and resilience in the face of challenges.
  • It is imperative to focus on one’s eternal identity as a child of God rather than one’s role as a pastor or leader, allowing that identity to guide and sustain the leadership journey.

Questions for Reflection

  • How am I embracing the concept of collaborative leadership within our ministry team? How are others on our team collaborating effectively?
  • Can I identify instances in my leadership where I’ve leaned towards a solo act rather than seeking partnerships and shared responsibilities? How have those times shown me a need for a team?
  • In what ways can I apply the African proverb about going far together rather than going fast alone in my leadership approach?
  • How have I explored and implemented a polycentric leadership model in my team or organization? What were the results, both positive and challenging?
  • Do I truly foster a culture of trust within my team, starting with the belief that “love believes the best”? How can I improve in this area?
  • What steps am I taking to ensure psychological safety in my team, especially when it comes to handling conflict and inviting open dialogue?
  • How am I practicing vulnerability within my team, sharing aspects of myself that go beyond mere transparency to build deeper connections and trust?
  • Have I encouraged radical candor within my team, where honest and direct communication is the norm? How can I promote this further?
  • How have I responded to pain and adversity in my leadership journey? Have I found the courage and resilience to face challenges head-on?
  • Do I have a clear and shared sense of purpose and mission with my team? How can I ensure everyone understands why we’re doing what we’re doing?
  • Have I evaluated my team’s composition based on chemistry, competency, and capacity? Are there any adjustments needed?
  • Am I keeping my eternal identity as a child of God at the forefront of my leadership, allowing it to guide and sustain me in my role?

Full-Text Transcript

How can you increase trust across your local ministry leadership team so that you can serve more effectively together?

Jason Daye 
In this episode, I’m joined by Leonce Crump Jr., co-founder and senior pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta. His latest book is entitled The Resilience Factor. Together, Leonce and I discuss ways that you can learn how well your ministry leaders trust one another. Leonce also shares how you can build that trust and catalyze a resilient ministry team that’s ready to face together whatever challenges may arise. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Jason Daye 
Hello, friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of FrontStage BackStage. I’m really looking forward to the conversation today and today’s guest. We are proud to be a part of the Pastor Serve Network. And each and every week, I have the distinct privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader and diving into a topic and getting into a conversation all in an effort to help you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you embrace a healthy sustainable rhythm for both life and ministry. And not only do we record these conversations, but we also create an entire toolkit that complements the conversation that we’re having. So you and your ministry team at your local church can dive more deeply into that. And you can find that at PastorServe.org/network. There you’ll find additional resources including a Ministry Leader’s Growth Guide with a lot of different questions and insights that you and your team can process through. And so we encourage you to check that out and take advantage of that resource that we provide for you. And then also at Pastor Serve we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders and our team is offering a complimentary coaching session for pastors and ministry leaders. If you’d like to learn more about that, you can check that out at PastorServe.org/freesession. Now, if you’re joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up. Take a moment to drop your name and the name of your ministry or your church in the comments below. We love getting to know our audience better and we’ll be praying for you and for your ministry. And then whether you’re following us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe or to follow so that you do not miss out on any of these great conversations. I’m excited now to welcome Leonce Crump, Jr. to FrontStage BackStage. Leonce, welcome to the show!

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Thank you so much. It’s so good to be here.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, so good to have you with us, brother. Now, Leonce, you really as a senior pastor champion the idea of team leadership. And I love what you, Warren, and Ryan share in your latest book, The Resilience Factor. But as you and I both know, a lot of pastors across the country and around the world often feel like, Hey, I am the team, right? I’m wearing lots of different hats. I am experiencing a lot of different roles. I’m doing a lot of different things. And so as we dive into this conversation, Leonce, I would like to start with you sharing a little bit about the importance and the value of regardless if your church is whatever size it may be, whatever size your staff may be, whether you’re out in the country or in the city center, you’re in the suburbs. Why is a ministry team, that team ministry leadership, so important for ministry?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, for me, it’s rooted not only in anecdotes and stories but really rooted in Scripture. In fact, one verse I go back to often is “A three-fold cord is not easily broken. One may fall, two may fall, but three help each other stand.” There really is a sense that, even a Trinitarian sense, right, in the end. I hate to use this large word, but ya’ll are all pastors. But even in the ontological function of God Himself, everyone has distinctive roles, but it’s all the life-giving person of God functioning as a team within himself, even to accomplish the goal of redemption. And so I think when we look to the Word of God, and we look at the arc of the story that he’s telling, we see very plainly from beginning to end that there were very few solo actors. There were very few singular, great champions, and usually, if they were there was tragedy attached to it, like a Saul or like a Samson. But when we look at the Bible and effective leadership and effective ministry, then you often see partnerships. David and Jonathan, David and Nathan, the prophet Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, there’s always a partnership element where the responsibilities are being shared by multiple people. And that’s not determined by your ministry size or your church size. It’s really determined by your perspective on how you actually want to accomplish the thing God’s put in front of you.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s good. That’s vitally important, I think, as we’re looking at, what it means for us to really serve effectively in ministry. As we just kind of survey this idea of team leadership, and think through this, there are some elements of a team that really lend themselves to helping us as ministers stay healthy. We don’t have to look far to see painful examples of pastors and ministry leaders not really making it. And whether those examples are moral infidelities, moral failures, whatever those might be, looking to other things to help satiate the soul, getting caught up in addictions, and all those types of things. That’s harmful. That’s harmful for the person, harmful for the family, for the church, and for the community. But also, just pastors who may just be feeling depleted or exhausted or burned out, and just not like they can finish. Talk to us a little bit, Leonce, about how this idea of team leadership helps contribute to a healthy ministry for us as individual pastors and ministry leaders, healthy ministry that’s serving the kingdom well, and kind of for the long haul of ministry.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, there’s an old African proverb, I’m sure you’re familiar with it. It says if you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far, go together. And I think that there’s a lot there, in understanding that our longevity, our ability to sustain faithfully over time, really depends on sharing the load. And I know that’s unusual. You know, I know that the model we’re used to, particularly in the West is, you know, a head pastor and a flank of associates. And I do think that there is some value in expediency and the ability to move quickly when you have a more hierarchical structure. But equally is the pressure and the danger. The uneven distribution of weight does, in fact, as you just described, cause men to fall, it causes them to run into addiction to cope. They don’t have anywhere to take their deep personal pain, they don’t have anyone walking with them in their sin pattern. And it puts us in a position of absolute vulnerability. Whereas team leadership allows me to not only excel in my gifts, but it protects me from having to try and do things that I’m not gifted to do. It helps me to steward my energy. We don’t talk a lot about energy stewardship, we talk a lot about time stewardship, but it helps me to steward my energy, it helps me to steward my personality. I’m an INTJ, I’m actually an introverted person. And so too much time in front of people exhausts me, it depletes me. And if I’m not healthy, then I will look to unhealthy means to try and revive myself. Whereas a team leadership structure actually allows us to distribute the work, distribute the weight, and distribute the expectations, as well as having a unique support system as we try to accomplish a common goal. The last thing I’ll say, and maybe we can dive into this, but I’ve really been exploring this idea of a polycentric leadership model. And we’ve been trying to implement that in our church and it’s messy. And it’s tough, but it’s also very, very rewarding.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, well, let’s go that direction, Leonce. I would love to hear what you guys are learning. Why? And I’m sure the answer you just gave is a lot of why, you know. But why are you willing to make that shift even when it is messy? What’s that looking like for you guys?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, you know, for me, it usually comes down to conviction, right? I’m willing to make that shift even though it’s messy because I am convicted that this is the best way. And it’s hard and let me be very clear, I’m not necessarily advocating for a completely flat structure because that does come with its own problems. What I am advocating for is an intersected structure where everybody is operating in their giftedness, and they are trusted to operate in their giftedness, and at any given time any one of those people can be the point leader. That’s what I would kind of describe as polycentric leadership. So for instance, we’ve kind of mapped this out over the fivefold ministry paradigm from Ephesians 4. I am clearly and primarily apostolicly gifted. I like to start I don’t like to finish, I like to get things out of the ground. I don’t like to manage them. And it actually drains me to try and manage them. And then one of our teammates is clearly a more prophetically gifted individual. He is all about the holiness of God and the reverence of worship and fighting for justice and mercy and righteousness. And then we have the evangelistically gifted team members, and the teacher in myself and Brianna, and then the shepherd in Sylvester. And so in each of these areas, and caring for the flock, fidelity with the word, passion about the lost, passion about the holiness of God and the reverence of worship, passion about multiplication, we each take point leadership when focused in those particular areas as it’s laid over the body. And we submit to that, so if Doug says, I really think our next initiative toward reaching people far from God should look like this, then all of us fall in line under his leadership. And it doesn’t mean we don’t contribute to that effort. But we fall in line under his direction, and when you’re able to function that way, again, especially if you’re the senior pastor, yes, it can be hard. It is hard because it’s not natural to defer. Especially when you’ve been given a position of authority. And it’s not natural to submit yourself under the leadership of a person that you hired. There are a lot of different sociological and psychological tensions there, but the benefits far outweigh the griefs.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, yeah. Leonce, that’s fascinating. I love how you laid that out for us, it’s very practical and we get a sense of that. One word that you used multiple times there was trust. I think, Leonce, for something like that to work there has to be an incredible amount of trust. And you guys touch on this in the book, The Resilience Factor. You talk about the fact that if you’re going to build a resilient team, this idea of trust has to be, you know, you can’t just expect it to be there, you have to be intentional about trust. You have to think about what this means for each of us. And I don’t want to put words in your mouth, brother. But I would imagine if you didn’t trust the other four of the five, it would be even more challenging, and would probably be pretty dysfunctional, right? If you attempted to do leadership in that way. So tell us a little bit about this idea of trust. What are some ways we can build trust and develop an environment through our own leadership of trust? And whether it’s paid staff or key volunteer staff, regardless, you know, building that team and understanding that piece of trust and the importance of that.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, if I go back to the Bible for a minute, I think the foundation of trust comes out of 1 Corinthians. Love believes the best, right? So if we can establish a culture of grace, from paid staff to unpaid leaders, down to the person who takes care of the facility. And I would say across to, actually, let me correct that. Because down is hierarchical. Across to the person who takes care of the facility, if we can establish a culture where we are in that love believes the best. And so even if I’m rubbed the wrong way, even if I’m irritated, even if I’m right that you are totally out of line. I want to extend the runway of grace to believe the best until I actually know the worst. So that’s kind of the foundation there. I think the next piece that you build on from there is psychological safety. And a lot of that is going to be created by whoever is considered the point leader. And the way you build psychological safety, just a few examples, is how you respond in conflict. Do you power up when you feel challenged or are you invitational and welcome to challenge even if you have to rebut it? When people are out of line, how do you respond to them? Do people feel free to share their actual opinions, and not just the things that aren’t going to rub you or someone else the wrong way? So that’s cultivating psychological safety. The next layer up from there is vulnerability, right? Transparency, I would say it’s different than vulnerability. Transparency is allowing you to see into me some things that are not otherwise obvious. Vulnerability is giving you information with which you can harm me, right? And so I think the next layer is vulnerability. That we have spent time sharing some of the corners of our hearts that if they were otherwise shared in any other environment, could be incredibly harmful to me. And then I think kind of the last layer on top there is radical candor. And once love believes the best, and you have psychological safety, and you’ve created an environment of vulnerability, then you can have radical candor where I can say to you exactly what I’m feeling and exactly how I’m seeing it. And you don’t take it personally, you actually take it in a way of receptivity, because you know that I’m not pulling punches, and I’m not shading the truth in order to make you feel better. But I’m actually saying it as it is, because I think it’s going to move our relationship, the project, and the culture of our team, forward.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, absolutely love those layers. And as you’re describing them, they all make sense. And they all sound beautiful. But in real time it’s messy. As you said, I mean, we know it’s messy, people are messy. So, Leonce, as we look at this, I think that the first layer oftentimes people can process through, you can get through. They get maybe to the psychological safety layer and oftentimes, people don’t feel safe, so they never get to that candor layer up top because they don’t feel safe here. Like they can speak into, hey, here’s something that I see, just to be able to talk about it, because they feel like it might come back to bite them, right? So, in ministry with our teams, if we’re going to build a resilient team, we have to overcome that. We have to fight for that. So what are practical ways for a pastor or ministry leader watching along or listening in right now, reflecting on our teams? What are some practical ways that we can help build that psychological safety so we can continue up those layers and get to that radical candor?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, I will say the first thing is to go to your team, if you are senior pastor, lead pastor, founding pastor, point leader, vision guide, you know, we’ve got about 20 different titles now for the person who’s up top. But I would go to your team and ask outright, do you feel safe to say exactly what you feel in a meeting? Or to me privately? Do you feel like you can challenge me? And not in a dishonoring or disrespectful way because we wouldn’t want to do that to anybody, regardless of their position. But do you feel like you can say that’s wrong, or I don’t agree with that, or I’d think that the reverberations of that are going to be incredibly costly? And it may be depending on how unsafe, because the word toxic is thrown around so much now. So I’d say it depends on how unsafe and maybe not even unsafe, but how uncommunicated that safety is, the method of asking those questions may be different and may be a 360 review, and may be an anonymous survey. It may be a direct one-to-one with the person with whom you think you have the most trust on the team that can give you an evaluation of the rest of the team. But there are a multitude of ways that you can get at this to actually understand how safe your team feels with each other, and then with you, who may be considered the point leader.

Jason Daye 
And then once you learn that, hey, people may not feel as safe as I think they should. I might be like, Hey, I feel like you could tell me anything because we say that and we might believe it. But they may not feel that way because of past experiences or different things they’ve seen. What are some steps you can take at that point to make it safe to kind of start building that trust level?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, I think there are a couple of ways that you can go about it. And some of it depends on your governance. You know, for us, we have overseers, which are an external board, in addition to our plurality of elders. Our overseers come and do cultural assessments a couple of times a year from the outside, and they interview staff members and team members, and I am completely removed from that process. And then they give me a report and give me feedback on where things are and where things need to change. And so at times, and in periods in the life of our church, where there has been low psychological safety that has been assessed and evaluated. In one of those instances, we brought in an outside therapist to do some group sessions and also do some individual sessions to kind of get at the root of it. Because if it’s tied to something that you can’t control as the point leader, then there’s really nothing you can do. If it’s childhood trauma, if it’s residual wounds, those are things that have to be dealt with inside of the person. But there are things you can do to alleviate activating those things in your environment and create as much buffer as possible, then you should be able to do those things. So we had a man named Ben come in, he owns his own practice in St. Louis. He did several group sessions, he did several individual sessions. And he came back on the other side, and he said, here are the six or seven things I think you can do to make this a healthier and more psychologically safe environment. And it fundamentally shifted our culture. One of the things one of my mentors, a late mentor, told me who fell to the pressures that we’re talking about right now, Dan Patrick was like an older brother and a mentor to me, and what he gifted me with was self-awareness, and how that even robs psychological safety. What he said is, that there are six factors of intimidation, height, size, intelligence, power, intellect, and wealth. And he said, unfortunately, for you, you have at least five of those and most people think you have six. And so when you walk into a room, you are already at a disadvantage for creating psychological safety for people. So you have to be even more aware of what your body’s doing. What’s your face doing? How does your tone sound? Do you speak first or last? So these are all gifts that he gave me, even following the assessment we had from Ben. and over time it has rapidly improved our culture. And really created an environment of psychological safety to where, and this is the last thing I’ll say on this particular point, where you will have uncomfortable moments where teammates cross the line. Because it’s become so free that they have lost kind of the governance that they have been kept behind for years. And so this expulsive stuff comes out. Now, how do you deal with it, right? Because if you deal with it the wrong way, then you’ve just moved yourself backward in psychological safety. But if you deal with it the right way, then you’ll actually benefit from it on the other side.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s fascinating. To think of the layers as you develop, it’s not like you do it and you’re done. You’re like, Hey, we got it, guys. It’s ongoing. Leonce, one of the things I love you said, is the self-awareness piece, you spoke on that. But even the invitation for an outsider to come in and evaluate. As a leader, you have to put yourself in a place and say, Listen, I believe that the mission that God’s called us to is paramount, right? Like that’s above even my own preferences, right? Or my own ideas, my own thoughts. You have to be at a kind of a mature level to be able to say, Hey, listen, I want to invite people to poke and prod a little bit and to say, Hey, here’s some cracks. And not in a demeaning way, obviously. A very hopeful way of saying, here are some opportunities, maybe is a better way to say it, right? There are some opportunities for you, in your team, in your church, and in your ministry to make an even greater impact for the Kingdom. Because a lot of people fear someone pointing out flaws, right? And that’s kind of human nature to a degree, right? None of us will love someone critiquing us necessarily. But if we’re going to build a ministry team that’s going to make a lasting impact that’s beyond you and beyond me, we’ve got to be able to get to that place. So what does it take for a leader to say, Okay, I’m at a point where I am willing to invite others in, to put us under the microscope to a degree, to help us see what maybe we’re missing? What psychologically, and even spiritually, does that take for a leader to get to that space?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
I would say pain and courage. There’s a certain degree of pain that will force introspection. And my hope is in doing things like this with you, and writing books, and giving talks, and coaching ambassadors, that I saved them from some of the pain. But the trigger for me was incredible pain. And this is not the podcast to dig too deep into that, but we just had some extraordinary organizational pain, some betrayal, and some shocking sideways blows. And at that moment, I had to decide, am I going to flee? And it did cross my mind. I had opportunities elsewhere in places that I’ve wanted to live for a long time. And I had to decide at that moment, well, I can run away and I can be done with this, and I can put it behind me. Or I can have the fortitude, the courage, and the resilience to face it and be a different leader on the other side of it, and therefore have a different organization and community. Because I do see the church as kind of this dual entity of community and organization. But to have a different situation on the other side of this, I think that’s what it takes. It takes a lot of time for us for whatever reason, and I do have thoughts on it. But it requires a pain trigger and then the courage to do the work on the other side of that pain trigger. And so for me, the last five years have been filled with doing the work. I have a counselor, I have a coach, I have mentors, and we have overseers. I do marriage counseling with my wife, not reactively but preventatively. We’re doing family therapy, like we’re doing all of these things. And spiritual direction and prayer retreats, because I want to continue to benefit from the cost and continue to change toward a better version of not only what I can be but my influence and effectiveness across the different spheres where God has given me leadership.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, Leonce, I love that. And thank you for being that open. I think it does something for all of us whenever we hear someone say, Hey, I’ve experienced some pain because we’ve all experienced pain without a doubt. If you’ve been in ministry, you’ve experienced pain, period, right? We can all commiserate on that together. So we’ve all experienced pain, but for you to say, Hey, listen, I am pulling others into my life, coaches, counselors, even marriage, and all of those pieces. And kind of almost normalizing that, because I think in some ways it’s almost like Oh, my goodness, and I think as a society, and as pastors and ministry leaders even, we’re getting to a place where we’re not so caught up in being the lone wolf who has all the right answers somehow. Like we’ve got to prove to everyone that we’ve got God figured out. That we’re all on a journey together and God has invited us into community with others. God is intentional, we see this throughout Scripture, go back to the Bible, we see the importance of people speaking into one another’s lives and that whole idea. So thank you for clearly sharing that with us and how God’s using that in your own life because I think that’s a beautiful thing. And I think that really ties into the idea of the value and importance of a team. Because your team is not just, what you’ve just expressed is, it’s not just the key staff members or the key ministry volunteers in your local church. But your team moves beyond that, right? We have other people who aren’t even a part of the local body, who are part of our team to help us honor God well, serve our people well, and glorify Christ, right? And so I love that idea of team is in so many different ways happening and you’re exemplifying that so beautifully. So thank you for that, brother.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Appreciate you, my friend.

Jason Daye 
So as we’re looking at teams, trust is a huge piece of that. What are some of the other factors and you guys touch on some of these in the book? What are some of the other factors that are very, very vital when it comes to developing, like you say, an unbreakable team, a resilient team, that can face whatever comes its way?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, I think some of the other variables are being sure that your purpose is clear. You’d be astounded, or maybe you wouldn’t because you’re in the consulting world, care world for pastors. But man, I go into church teams and there are 10 different versions of what the purpose of the team is, the executive team, the volunteers, and the church itself. And so there’s no cohesion. And if there’s no cohesion, there can’t be resilience. I think a shared mission is very, very important. To have absolute clarity on where we’re going, and why we’re going there, and why it matters. And that that mission is shared to the core by everybody who was on that team. I think team composition is a variable as well. And that’s not something we talk about a lot in church, because, you know, sister Sue has been the bookkeeper since we opened and she’s gonna die in that desk whether her work quality goes down or not. I think there has to be a threshold where we decide if we have the chemistry, competency, and capacity on our team that we need to actually function and thrive. So those would be a few of the other pieces I would add to that, trusting them, that are all operational in that they’re not just theory. It’s operational for you to sit down with your team next week, however many it is, and they could be volunteers, by the way, guys, and ladies if you’re listening, too. I’m a church planter, so I did not always have staff, we started with three people in my living room. My first team for the first three years were all volunteers, I was the only full-time person, but I still had regular team meetings with these volunteers. And so I would say no matter what your ministry size or dynamic is, get the people in the room who should be there, who have influence, who have responsibility, and hand them all the blank piece of paper and have them write down your purpose and your mission and see how many different answers you come up with, right? That will be one operational exercise. Or you get the book, The Resilience Factor, and we actually take you through those exercises in the book as well.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s awesome. And in the book, I’ve got to say, it is so practical, like, it’s not just a bunch of theoretical stuff, or, Hey, this is what I did in my church. I mean, it walks you through, I mean, it shares some anecdotal stories to help you grasp things, but it walks you through very practically. There are diagrams and their questions. I mean, it’s something you could take your team through and I love the fact that you put together a resource like this that you can literally, any church could pick up, they could walk their team through, and it literally gives you the reading, the exercises, the things to wrestle through, talk through by meeting, diagram out, and really pull it all together. So great, great resource. I certainly appreciate that, Leonce, and the work that you, Ryan, and Warren did on that. As we’re kind of closing down our time together, brother, I would love to give you time. You’ve got the eyes and ears of brothers and sisters on the frontline of ministry, our peers in ministry. I would love to give you just an opportunity to speak into their lives, maybe some words of encouragement as they are on the front lines serving the Kingdom.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Yeah, if I can encourage you that if you keep your focus eternal if you keep your focus on the life that is life, keep your focus on the fact that we are ambassadors from another kingdom with another citizenship and that the scoreboard doesn’t rest on you. Right? It doesn’t. The wins and the losses, you can’t control that. If you would keep forefront that your primary identity is not pastor, or deacon, or elder, or bishop, or presbyter, or whatever your different denomination is for ruling elder teaching. That’s not who you are. Who you are is a child of the living God. And if you would keep your sonship and your daughtership front and center and orient and organize the work out of that identity. It won’t be easy still. But it won’t press you either.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, I love that man. That’s beautiful, brother. Good word. Leonce, if people want to connect with you or your ministry to learn more about that, or connect with the book, The Resilience Factor, what’s the best way they can do that?

Leonce Crump Jr. 
I’m @LeonceCrump on all social media platforms. The book is sold anywhere that you can buy books. And if you do buy it and read it, leave us an Amazon review because that helps to generate attention to the work.

Jason Daye 
Definitely, brother. Yeah, and again, I highly recommend it. It’s a fantastic book. And we will have links to Leonce’s socials and we’ll have links to the book, too, in the toolkit for this particular episode. So if you’re working out at the gym right now listening to this, or if you’re driving down the road, just know that you can go to PastorServe.org/network when it’s safe, and all the links will be there, and you can connect to the book and connect with Leonce as well. So, brother, it has been an absolute pleasure, Leonce, having you on the podcast. I love this conversation. I think it’s so meaningful, so timely, and so encouraging. So thank you for making the time to hang out with us, Leonce.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Thank you for having me. This was an absolute joy. You did a great job.

Jason Daye 
Thanks, brother. I appreciate it.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
And this is a real gift of my time. Thank you.

Jason Daye 
Awesome. God Bless you.

Leonce Crump Jr. 
Bless you, sir.

Jason Daye
Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows, all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links to different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, and several other tools, but the greatest thing is the ministry leaders growth guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process, providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.

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