How Shared Leadership Sustains Healthy Ministry : EK Strawser

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, it’s Jason Daye, the host of FrontStage Backstage, and welcome to another insightful episode. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader, and we dive into a topic to help you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you thrive in both life and leadership. Now, if you’re joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and drop your name, the name of your ministry in the comments below. We’ll be praying for you. And whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe so you do not miss out on any of these great conversations. I’m super excited because the Reverend Dr. Eun Strawser is returning to the show to join us. We’re going to be having a wonderful conversation. Eun is the co-vocational lead pastor of Ma Ke Alo o, non-denominational missional communities that are multiplying across Honolulu. Eun also serves as a community physician. She’s the founder of the Iwa Collaborative. She’s written a number of books, including her latest, entitled You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone. Eun, welcome back to the show. So good to have you.

Eun Strawser
Thanks so much for having me, Jason.

Jason Daye
Yes, it’s always a joy to have you to dive into conversation. Absolutely love it. Love the work that you’re doing there in Hawaii. Eun, you model this idea. We’re going to be talking about the power of shared leadership, and you model this well for us. But, in your book, You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone, you do share that your own personal experiences with shared leadership in ministry haven’t always been structured in such a way that gets it right all of the time. And so I guess the first question I’d like to start with is, why is shared leadership in the local church so challenging at times?

Eun Strawser
Oh my gosh. I think the question begs to be asked: Why is shared leadership difficult in any part of human culture and human society? It’s not just the church. This is one of the times when it’s not just the church, right? I think in general, sharing leadership is difficult because I think in general, people find it difficult to share power. Power feels like a commodity that is very limited, and so there’s only just enough to go around, and maybe there isn’t enough to go around. So I think it’s because sharing leadership really has to do with sharing power, and human beings are just not that great at it, and the church also is not that great at it.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s a great point. When it comes to sharing power in the local church, there are some things that we have to consider and think about because of how power is understood, right? And so we’re looking at sharing leadership in the local church. Power is understood in some specific ways that you draw out in your book. So let’s talk a little bit about the nuances of power as expressed in the local church.

Eun Strawser
Yeah, I think that, again, it really depends on what kind of setting you’re in because most of us, and this is an American church for sure, and I think in other parts of the world, too. But when we’re thinking about power and power dynamics in the church, most of the time, we’re thinking about the mainstream, most predominant church in the US. It really is the most ethnically powerful churches, which are mostly white evangelical churches, right? So when I’m talking about power and power dynamics, every church has it. Every church struggles with it. Every church has to figure out what are the power dynamics? What’s the power currency that’s working within your church? So, I think that there are some things, right? One is thinking through who makes decisions, who is included at the table to make those decisions. It’s not just decisions around vision, mission, values, and those kinds of things that every organization, including churches, has. But it really is making decisions about what kinds of decisions get put on the table. Who is invited to make these decisions? What kinds of conversations do we want to highlight in order to make these kinds of decisions? Decision-making in general definitely has a power hold in every church. I think another thing when thinking about power is who probably has the most amount of relational authority in the church? It’s usually not the person who is the best communicator, it’s not the worship leader, or anything. But there are people, we can all just think of them now, who probably, if they send one text out for an invitation, easy, 25 people will answer that call, right? A lot of that also holds power. People who hold a lot of relational authority, influence, relational influence, or social influence do hold power. We see that in social media. Why is it that people are so captivated by the likes and the following? Because relational authority really is a powerful thing. And then, lastly, it probably is around a scriptural or spiritual authority. There are, again, these may not be people who have some sort of title in the church, but we all can just stop and think through, oh, yeah, I can see these people hold some sort of a scriptural or spiritual authority over people’s lives. Most of the time, it has to do with their expertise. People come from a background of maybe they feel like they know the Bible more. Maybe they are better prayers. Maybe they have just known Jesus for a longer time, right? For whatever reason, those types of people also have some sort of holding of power within the church.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s very helpful. When we’re looking at this idea of shared leadership, oftentimes, we’re looking at sort of those who have influence within the local church, if we’re talking about local church setting, those who are contributing and kind of those leadership roles. One of the things that you make clear is, if we want to have true shared leadership, healthy shared leadership, it takes a level of maturity, and you talk about kind of immature leadership versus mature leadership, and how those kind of look different. I was wondering if you could just walk through a little bit of that to help give us a bit of context. We’re looking at this healthy, shared leadership. What is that maturity that we’re looking for?

Eun Strawser
Yeah, I emphasize in the book that there is a starting point for it. I think that, in the church, leadership criteria should be very different. It should look counter-cultural to the world. If we are choosing and using the same criteria that the world uses in how we pick our leaders, who we feel more comfortable with, who we are more convinced can be in charge or make decisions, I think that we will be missing the point about who Jesus considers as part of the first ones in the kingdom of God, right? And so, our criteria for leadership should be the same as the criteria I think that Jesus has for who’s a part of His kingdom. That being said, I think that every single discipleship is not just a criterion for leadership. Discipleship is a criterion for following Jesus, period. If you are not a disciple who is actively imitating Jesus, you should not be leading in any church context. You just shouldn’t. Otherwise, the whole point of why you’re leading would be motivated by something else. Number two, I think the criteria for shared leadership, or leadership in general, in my mind, but it makes it so that shared leadership happens faster, I think, that the marks of maturity for leaders, kind of all go in a flow. You look for the people who are the most humble, and not people who are quiet. I’m not saying that, or shy, like those secular ways of thinking about humility, right? Like Jesus characterizes himself as being very, very, very humble, and you can look at it in the way that he lives, and you would easily feel like, oh, that doesn’t seem like a very humble guy. He’s not shy, he’s not quiet, and he’s not off in the corner somewhere. He’s a public person. He’s a leader who displays active humility. And it really is thinking through humility, a person who is going to be thinking about others before themselves, is a better leadership quality than, I think, anything else. I think then humility, that mark of humility, makes way so that people, you look for the people who are honoring other people all the time. They’re the best at noticing people, making sure that they’re also elevated above them, right? If you think of the parable that Jesus shares about when you enter into a room, don’t take the best seat. Be invited into the best seat by the host, right? I think that he’s talking about the people who understand how honor works in God’s kingdom. I think the people who are mature in honor are the people who are the most hospitable. If you’re going to be thinking of others as valuable, then for sure, you’re going to be making space for them, right? It’s going to be in stark contrast to the leaders who take up space, who grab to hold on to space. But I’m going to be looking for leaders who are so, so good at understanding the balance between when to take up space, when to take up space so that I can create more space for others. When do I give up space so that others can take up space, right? That really does have to do with hospitality. Hospitality is not just about making good coffee, you all. It just isn’t, right? It’s a mark of mature leadership. And then lastly, I think, if you’re looking for leaders who are humble, who are honoring, who are hospitable, you will find that it’s the leaders who are the most hopeful. They do not bring their people into despair. They’re not the people who are going to be anxiety-ridden, anxiously waiting for what’s going to happen. They’re the most hopeful, even in times of despair and uncertainty. Those are the four marks of mature leaders. Those are the four things I’m looking for in my own local context.

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.

Jason Daye
Yeah, absolutely. I love those. I love how you kind of flesh those out and again, how they’re so reflective of Jesus in so many ways, which makes sense. I mean, if we’re following Jesus, then we should be reflecting Jesus. When it comes to this idea of shared leadership in Scripture, we often go to Ephesians 4, the APEST model. I would love, Eun, if you could kind of walk us through that because you touch on that in your book. I mean, that’s kind of core to this conversation around shared leadership. And for those who may not be completely familiar with the APEST model, would you kind of walk us through just the foundational basics, and then I’d like to lean in a little more because you bring some really fresh perspective, I think, to this conversation, which I think is very helpful for shared leadership.

Eun Strawser
Yeah, I think the conversations around APEST and other terms for it, like five-fold ministries, apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, all of those conversations probably got more popular right around when the missional movement of church planting started happening. So in the late 90s, early 2000s. Oh, my goodness, the good old days, as we like to call them, right? When church planting was so easy, right? It came in tandem with it because, around, especially in the US, there was a mimicking in the UK as well around that time. But a lot of the work around missional movement models or church planting models was that we need an apostolically-wired, entrepreneurial leader, maybe in skinny jeans, might I add, who needs to be the one to go into the city and start church planting. Those are the people that we were envisioning who are going to be in leadership positions. But a lot of the thought for me is that APEST isn’t to create another hierarchical, domineering leadership culture. One of the things that we are responding to from the late 90s, early 2000s missional movement, especially here in the US, is that it has also created a lot of domineering leadership, where everyone has good intentions to start off with, but we have seen headline after headline of leadership abuse, really, really terrible things that have happened in the wake of this kind of leadership. So the point is not that because APEST in itself is the solution to all kinds of leadership, and that’s the leadership type that we should have instilled in the church. We’re trying to think through the gifts of Ephesians 4, where the apostle Paul talks about how these leadership types, apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher, are given as gifts to the church to do what? That’s the question that we should be answering, and we should be paying attention to the fact that there are five different types of leadership that are a gift together for the church. It’s not just shepherd leaders who are a gift to the church, or teacher-type leaders are a gift to the church, and so on, right? I think in that wave of the missional church planting impulse, it made way for these huge mega churches. Who doesn’t love a mega church? You get to go in, you get to leave early, and no one will fuss or mess about you, right? It was like, very comfortable, right? But it was the dawn of all these very evangelistically wired leaders. They can draw a huge crowd. They know the art of welcome and big, huge, entertaining spaces, right? So we’ve seen different versions of each of these types of leaders. But again, it begs the question that they’re not meant to lead on their own. They are meant to be a gift altogether, apostolically-wired leaders, prophetically-wired leaders, evangelistically-wired leaders, shepherd-wired leaders, teacher-wired leaders, altogether, are supposed to be leading the church. Again, to do what? That’s the big question to answer. And Ephesians 4 does answer it. It answers it in just like two sentences, right? The gift that Jesus gave to the church of these five-fold or APEST-gifted leaders is so that these leaders will help to equip the church. Towards unity and for the service or works of God, right? Leaders are not supposed to do the work of God on behalf of their congregation. Did you hear that the pastor’s role is not to do the work of God on behalf of their congregation? The pastor or the leader’s role in the church is to equip the people of God to do the works of God, so that what will happen? So that there will be unity in the church, in the body of Christ, and that they will all mature to the likeness of Jesus. Oh, my goodness, discipleship again, and in a way where it actually includes a flourishing of the community, neighborhood, or city around them. That’s the definition of Christian leadership. That’s the definition of church leadership.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s so good. Eun, as we look at APEST, as we look at Ephesians 4, one of the things I love that you differentiate between is the idea of the role. The role of the apostle, right? The role of the prophet versus the gifting, right? And you’ve shared this, you make this clear that we get too caught up in the role, then suddenly we’re, as you said, church-planters, and we’re looking for people who are apostolic, right? We’re like, okay, they’re the people who are gonna go plant the churches, and then we have the other people, the shepherds, or young people who just kind of stay around and care for the sheep that are already in the pen. And so we get to split everyone up, as opposed to that idea of shared leadership, the giftings of the shared leadership. So, Eun, I’d love it if you would help us understand, like practically speaking, because this conversation has been going on for a long time, and it’s gone in some different directions. But practically speaking, for a local church context, what does a healthy shared leadership reflecting Ephesians 4 look like? Where do you even start to make sure you don’t go down one of these trajectories that can get you a little off kilter, but where do you start so that it stays healthy from the get-go?

Eun Strawser
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. The third part of the book really is on what shared leadership looks like in real life. And I kind of go through identifying how to identify shared leaders. How do you actually even start this leadership structure? How do you structure it? And then, how do you make it so that it’s sustainable, right? So, many pages, many words, you know all of it. But I do think that to make a delineating point, a leadership is not just about fulfilling a role, but if we start thinking about a shared leadership and using a tool like a pastor, fivefold, it really is trying to think through leaders are meant to, if the equipping the people of God is the main point of this whole thing, and it’s equipping the people of God in a way, so that an outside community will also be able to pay attention and be a part of other churches flourishing. If that is the goal of shared leadership, then what kinds of environments are leaders better suited to provide? I think if we use the language of environments, then we move away from thinking that it’s like a special characteristic, and turn APEST into a personality test, which, because who doesn’t love a personality test, right? We all do, right? But it makes it so that we are the types of leaders who are intentionally creating intentional spaces and environments, so that the people of God are equipped in specific ways, which contributes to unity, maturity, and into the likeness of Christ, and it includes a flourishing of both the church and community. If that is the mainstay, then you know that not one single type of person or one person alone can lead in that manner. So I’m going to move backwards, because everybody loves to start with the A. I just love to start with a T. You just see it in my writing the whole time. So, teaching environments for the teacher leader. Most people, I think, make the mistake of thinking that teacher leaders, or teacher-gifted leaders, are the ones who are going to do all the teaching. They love to talk. They love the Bible so much that they want to talk about it all the time. Please give them a mic. But no, if you’re a mature teacher, what kind of environment are you trying to create? You’re not trying to create an environment where everyone’s going to just listen to you speak into a microphone. The kind of environment you’re creating is, is it a learning environment? Do the people of God hunger to learn and thirst more about who God is, what his character is like? How does Jesus function? Right? They want to learn about this. And so if there’s a learning environment, it makes it so that the people of God are equipped to learn more and teach one another about who God is, right? So they don’t create a teaching environment. They create a learning environment. But that’s not it. You can’t just stick around and fulfill the equipping of the people of God, so that there is a flourishing of the entire neighborhood around them. We can’t just be that, right? Then come shepherd leaders. The shepherd-gifted leaders, everyone thinks they’re the nice people. They’re the ones who make me feel comfortable. They’re usually the ones who give me something to eat. They want to chat quietly, just one on one, beautiful people. They’re my favorite, favorite kinds of people, right? But what do shepherd-leaders do? They are not the people who just want to create a comfortable environment, which is hard to do, because most Christians want to provide a comfortable or comforting environment. The shepherd-leaders actually are the ones who want to create a healing environment. They understand more than anyone else that there’s a lot of suffering and pain going on and that Jesus actually can heal you. That’s what they firmly believe. Jesus actually can bring you the wholeness that you have been looking for all your life. And I’m not the one to do it. I want to provide an environment so you have access to that. I want to create an environment where the entire community of people are actively participating in the healing work of God through one another. That’s a shepherd’s environment gift, right? Then we move on to the evangelist. Most people think that the evangelists are the ones who are the coolest, the trendiest, and who know all the hip language. My kids would die if I tried to do any sort of Gen Alpha, Gen Z speak right now, so I won’t do it. But what are they actually trying to do? They should not be trying to make entertaining environments, which a lot of times, I think, evangelistically-wired leaders think that they’re supposed to do, and there’s a lot of burden to keep up with that. What they’re supposed to be doing is they’re supposed to be creating a welcoming environment. Does the hospitality of God shine clearly through this Jesus community, through this evangelist leader, creating that welcoming environment? That all are welcome. They’re like a bridge to outside the church and inside the church. They’re constantly saying that all are welcome to God’s family. The prophet leader. Sometimes the prophet gets a bad rap, right? A lot of times, we think that the prophet leader, they’re either the super angry one, or they’re really, really critical, right? They’re just like, constantly yelling a lot, but actually, that kind of trope has been such a dismantling force for a lot of the black and Latino churches because most of the time in our culture, if the black churches, historically, and the Latino churches more recently, have been at the helm of prophetically led congregations. So we have a lot to pay attention to with our brothers and sisters in the black and Latino churches. That being said, prophet leaders aren’t the ones who are just trying to make a perfect or perfection-wired environment. That’s not the point. The mature profit leader creates environments where there’s liberation. They’re constantly thinking about the freedom that Christ offers all of us. Are we actually people who are living liberated? Are we actually going out and tending to the liberation of other people? It’s not just the people who pray really fervently, it’s the people who are actually going to be the most wired to seek out justice, the kind that Jesus seeks out, the kind that God tells all of us as Jesus followers to seek out justice and mercy. And then lastly, the apostolic-wired leader. I know we all love them because they are really, really great at starting new things and are entrepreneurial. But that’s actually not their gifting. Their gifting, when it’s poorly done, when it’s immature, they probably create more of a competitive environment, and it really is so hard to work under, right? But when there’s a mature apostolically wired leader, you know them because all they want to do is send people out. They look for new territory, new environments, not because they want to run away, not because they are resentful or bored with a congregation. It’s because they have so much hope in what the congregation can become. They are constantly looking and spreading out to look for new places to send and grow the people of God. Why? Because in each of these leadership gifts, we’re constantly thinking, How do I and how do we together equip the people of God for the works of God so that there is unity and the maturity and likeness of Christ for the flourishing of the community around us?

Jason Daye
At PastorServe, 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
Yeah, I love that, Eun. I love how you describe those gifts and those environments and help us think through that. But if I’m a local pastor of a local church and I hear this, I’m like, Man, I would love to see that come to fruition here in my context, what are some of the first steps that you would recommend that they would begin to take or begin to process through? What does this look like in a local missional community or local church?

Eun Strawser
Yeah, when we started out, this is my second church plant in Hawaii for seven years, and I remember vividly that first church plant launch meeting. You know, everybody loves it. Those are like the fondest memories, right? And we had done an APEST or five-fold content teaching, just so that people would understand vocabulary. And we did a lot of conversation around environments before anybody kind of chose, like, Oh, I think that’s me. Before people did that, we made sure that everybody was equipped to understand what these environments were and why. How does God actually use these kinds of environments for his good? So we kind of landed on that so that they were equipped enough so that when the time came, which it came that day, I asked everybody in the room. There were about 25 of us. I asked everybody in the room to sort of divide out, physically use the whole space to walk over to if you feel like you’re an apostle, walk here. Shepherds here, teachers here, evangelists, and prophets. So they kind of divided out the room. The first step, I think, is really to know what your skew is in your church. So the first place to start is with your leaders, right? Do some equipping around APEST. Do some language stuff so that they understand vocabulary, and then just do that initial ask, What do you think you are? And then divide up the room. If you know your APEST skew, then you also know what pieces of environment creating you’re probably missing. That first time around, when we did it, I was definitely the only apostolically wired person. I was standing by myself in a lone kitchen island. So, you know all the metaphors on that, right? And we knew Hawaii, in particular, has a culture where there are a lot of shepherds in it. Aloha for a reason, right? We’re very good at caring for one another, right? So we had a lot of shepherds in the mix. We also had a lot of evangelists. People are excellent at hospitality in our church. Those were the two big, big groups within that leadership skew. So I knew from the get-go that teacher, prophet, and apostle voices, those environments that they long to create, and help create. So a learning environment, a liberating environment, and a sending environment were going to be at the low end. The environments that we probably will be starting off with will be ones who want to be growing from comforting to healing, going from entertaining to welcoming. We’re going to be excelling at that first. So, I think knowing your skew, your APEST skew, within your leadership. You can take a next step and maybe do a teaching for your entire congregation, so that you understand your entire congregation skew. If you know that, then you know what kinds of environments will naturally come from that, and then you’ll also know what kinds of environments are lacking and probably need to be tended to. Probably the biggest starting point, especially for leaders, is if there is a huge discrepancy between the senior pastor and their leadership or their congregation. Then you have to rethink. How have I been leading a congregation that is more, let’s say, shepherd-based, right? Or a leadership set that is more prophetically wired, and how has my own leadership been sort of in contention with them? How have I not been sharing power with people who are wired a little bit or gifted a little bit differently from me? So I think knowing your APEST skew, knowing the APEST for yourself, and not just keeping it to yourself, but how does it interact with the rest of your leadership and congregation? That’s a good start.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s so helpful. And I like the reflective piece of it because sometimes you gotta look in the mirror and say, Okay, this is my gifting, and how is that being reflected in the ministry, in the church, currently? I have a question, Eun. Is this one of those things where initially, to kind of use this metaphor, you lean into your strengths, or are you looking at immediately trying to shore up your weakness, if you know what I mean? So if you lean yes one way, do you like run with that skew? Or are you looking and trying to be very intentional about, hey, let’s get some balance in here?

Eun Strawser
I think it’s a little of both. Again, in a part here in the book, I literally lay it out step by step about how to structure this. Because, listen, I’m like every other church planter pastor. The organic way of the Holy Spirit. I live and rely, and lead by it, for sure, but there is an onus in doing intentional structuring and being intentional about structure in your church. I am a structure queen. This is the thing that I know. I think in, I think of people in, in timelines, and in all those kinds of things. And so I think that being intentional about it is important. That being said, why I say it’s a little bit of both. Here’s an example. I know that because I was the only apostolically wired leader in my church that my pacing would always be way too fast. My urgency in sending out people prematurely would probably shirk a lot of the maturing growth process that God has for his people, right? And so I actually had to, because I knew my own wiring, and I knew that it was a huge skew from the rest of my congregation. I had to learn rules of thumb for myself. Whenever I think of a timeline, I multiply by three. If I think it’s going to take three weeks, nope, it’s going to take way longer than that. If I think it’s going to take three months, nope, it’s going to take nine months, right? I just learned to do that and not trust my own pacing because it’s so skewed, right? I think the other thing was that, because I knew that we were skewed toward shepherds and evangelists, I knew the things to address in terms of conflict. The types of people that shepherds and evangelistically wired people love are very different. Shepherds love the insiders; evangelistically wired people love the outsiders. That is always going to come to a head with one another, right? Shepherds never want the entire congregation to grow. It feels like a threat, right? Evangelists get so mad at shepherds because the congregation isn’t growing, new people aren’t coming, right? But you actually need both, and you need more than just the two of them, right? So I knew the first thing because of the skew, what kinds of conflict things to tend to and equip my leaders in so that they know how to holistically love the way God loves and not just the way they love people. So I think knowing the skew helps to generate more about interactions. How do people work well together in it? Remember, APEST is not the one-and-done. One station, the end-all of all shared leadership. No, you have to understand that there are characteristics of maturity in leaders. APEST is a tool for knowing how to interact with one another so that you can lead together. I think if APEST is not used as a tool to lead together and find structures to lead together through, then we’re going to start abusing it. And I think that the intent that the apostle Paul had in Ephesians 4 will just get lost.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s so good. This has been super helpful, and for those of you are watching, Eun really lays this out, as she says, in the book, and really helps with this idea of taking this theoretical to a degree, this coming out of Scripture, and processing through it, and how do you actually begin to implement that and see that coming, those giftings being celebrated within the church, and what does that look like? So, Eun, this has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. As we wind down, I want to give you the opportunity to speak to brothers and sisters serving in ministry. What words of encouragement do you have for them?

Eun Strawser
Yeah, most people think that shared leadership is just loss of power and loss of your own leadership. But I’ve been doing this for seven years. I have the best leaders at every single level. We’ve multiplied from one missional community to 12 different missional communities all over. We serve over like 650 people. It’s like the best kind of life and leadership life. And you know what? I’m not tired. I’m not burnt out. I’m not thinking every single week, That’s it. I’m going to quit this thing. No, I get to actually live fully as an imitator of Jesus because I’ve learned the gift that God has given all of us as leaders is to share power. So I think that if there’s any other reason, if there’s one reason, to want to share leadership and really understand that actually the first-century church started off with shared leadership. I think the 21st Century is also being invited to share leadership. I think that if there is one convincing factor is that you will greatly feel that you are not alone in leadership, that church leadership is not meant to be a burnout model for you, and that God deeply cares for you and wants to deeply care for you alongside others.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that. I love that, Eun. Thank you so much for being here with us. For those of you who are watching and listening along, we have a toolkit available for you that complements this conversation that Eun and I just had. You can find that PastorServe.org/network, and there you’ll find a ton of resources, including links to Eun’s newest book, You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone. Also, some insights pulled out of our conversation together, and the Ministry Leaders Growth Guide, which includes questions for you to personally process through and for you to go through with the ministry leaders in your local church to really help you understand and dig more deeply into how this conversation around shared leadership applies to your particular context. So, be sure to check that out at PastorServe.org/network. Eun, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you and to hear what God’s doing. It’s fun to see from a distance, as you and I have talked. We’re on opposite sides of the planet. We’re both Island people, but two different islands, two opposite sides of the planet. But I love seeing and hearing what God is doing through the amazing work you and the leaders there in Honolulu are doing in Oahu. So it’s awesome, exciting. Thank you for making time to be with us today.

Eun Strawser
Thanks for having me, Jason.

Jason Daye
All right. God bless you, sister.

Jason Daye
Here at PastorServe, 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.