Outreach Pastor of one of the largest growing churches in America, Mike Shelly opens up about a conviction that brought him to his current position at Real Life Church in Central Florida. To lead well, Shelly knows the importance of being “needed and known,” and following an intentional growth plan. Learn why it’s imperative to pull back the curtains on your organization’s vision so employees can stay in the know.
Outreach Pastor of one of the largest growing churches in America, Mike Shelly opens up about a conviction that brought him to his current position at Real Life Church in Central Florida. To lead well, Shelly knows the importance of being “needed and known,” and following an intentional growth plan. Learn why it’s imperative to pull back the curtains on your organization’s vision so employees can stay in the know.
This is the surgery.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this edition of the service journey with Rocky Desta. No. The premise of the show is that everyone is leading something or someone, whether you're a parent leading your family, your coach, leading a team or a team member leading a few, or even a CEO leading an organization. We're all on a path of being a leader. That's the title of the program is a server's journey. Thanks very[inaudible]. Everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm sitting here with my non gmo, organically grown, fair trade coffee, missed Ms Dot Edu. Studio dog is laying at my feet. I can't imagine a better place to be. And she's just listening for every, every word.
Speaker 3:Becoming a servant leader. Yes, but I hope everybody listening is, is able and ready to walk this journey of leadership with us. That's fantastic. Now I understand you have a guest today. Yeah, we do a Michael Shelley, uh, who is, uh, a big part of a local church called real life. What? A church, right? Yeah. And leadership. So this is a very compelling story and very compelling organization. Um, it's a church unlike a lot of churches and that they take a very business approach to serving their product, which is, in this case the Gospel, but, but it's been one of the fastest growing churches in America since 2003 it, it's been on the top 100 growth lists many times and they've expanded to many campuses and we're excited to have Mike, you're gonna learn a lot about being a servant leader. I'm excited to hear about Mike, but understand we have an epic moment for us. Yes. We have an epic moment in and you know, we try to find good and bad. I can tell you we have a lot more luck finding bad unfortunately. So this is us. These are epic Boma. They are epic. Yes. Epic moments for sure. This one is about Tony Hayward. He was the CEO at BP during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Oh yeah. And it, this was a pretty big disaster. I'm not only because of the oil. Tony was kind of a pretty big disaster. He was a little selfish or okay. He, he was Kinda maybe known for his selfishness. I don't know if servant leadership was in his vocabulary. Hopefully it is now. Maybe he's turned a corner, but he apparently during the middle of all this, took a day off to go sailing and it was right in the middle of this crisis and even worse, he famously remarked, I'd like my life back. Meanwhile, thousands of Americans were accounting their losses. It was a big deal. I'll up and down. I can remember people on the, on the shore scrubbing the animals down and yes, and then what it did to the tourism industry and all these people that their bread and butter was people wanting to come to a beach. People don't want to come to a beach when it's covered in oil. So when you, when you're a servant leader, yeah. Some of the words that shouldn't be in your life were a nurse. I want to take my life back. Well, you know the. Here's a reality. We all think it. I'm sure in our weakest moments, I don't know that it's something you should say or propagate within your organization because you know, in these epic moments, this is what we want to get across everybody leads. What kind of leader are you going to be? Yeah. When the oil hits the water, where the rubber hits the road, you find out, right? Absolutely. So everyone leads the question, what kind of leader are you going to be? Wow, thanks for sharing that epic moment in leadership on servers journey. Very welcome. I think we'd be better. Get Mike on the phone right now. I agree. So today I'd like to introduce Mike. Shelly. He is from real life church and I'm going to have Mike just explain first of all, Mike, if you could welcome to a survivor's journey and if you could tell us what your official title is.
Speaker 4:Well first, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I am a outreach pastor here at real life, which for relaxed that is um, uh, outreach for local global. Um, I'm also responsible for volunteers and for generosity and I work on the central team. So I'm working with all of our campuses around central Florida.
Speaker 3:It seems like a pretty, a pretty far reaching job. I'm gonna have you explain about that a little bit? Just a little bit, but you know, first of all, Mike Talk, talk a little about yourself, where you're from and your family. Just the important things to you.
Speaker 4:Well, the most important is I am a husband and father of three, a grandfather of soon to be five and that is, that is by far the best part of everything going on.
Speaker 3:Not Sound that old to me. Now. He is exceedingly young saying that because he's younger than I am and I need that, you know, Egos stroked.
Speaker 4:So that's the best part of life right there. I mean, honestly you can't, you can't have a bad day when you got the grandkids that when you walk in the door and they happened to be over in the yellow poppy and come running to you. It is just, it's just great. So that's the best part. I spent 23 years at Raymond James Financial, uh, in, in their home office, mostly in the management, in the it area of working with it and the financial advisors. So I was a licensed financial advisor only son I could understand what they're dealing with and I kind of played the middle between the, between what the advisor was doing in the field and what it was trying to build and develop and train on. So where's their Home Office?
Speaker 5:Where's your home?
Speaker 4:Tampa. Tampa St Pete is the, uh, is the Home Office of, of, of a very large. I still considered regional because they're not on Wall Street broker term.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I didn't realize that might tell us. Uh, what, what did you find fulfilling about that job? What, what area is really, really motivated you as a, as a team member?
Speaker 4:So when, when, you know, I was not a Christian back then, so, you know, for me it was the, it was the challenge of the next, uh, the next promotion, the next step on the ladder. And, um, as I, uh, as I come up on 493 weeks coming Monday of being a Christian, I jumped off that career ladder as soon as I possibly could and started to just reevaluate everything. I mean the purpose, the purpose of, of financial gain and growth and career was, was kind of off my, uh, my, my, my number one listed in, so I Kinda just regrouped and spent the next, uh, five years kind of, um, kind of creating my own role there. And they, they were mean. Raymond James was great. They were very generous to me and allowed me to do a lot of things that probably wouldn't have allowed most of the, especially in the down market. So it was pretty cool and I got a little and I would tell you I was planning on retiring there. I mean, life was good. There was no reason to differently and it's pretty. No, no worries. You know, I kind of created my own role and I was having fun doing it. I'm at the work out of the Winter Garden Office with my wife. So it was, we were having a, having a good time, had a couple of nights straight, have like some really sleeplessness and I'm a kept waking up and praying and I actually went out to the kitchen with reading, reading some scripture and man, I, it just, it just kinda hit me at that third, that third morning I told my wife, I said, I feel like I got to reach out to real life and just see if they, they need me, um, or could use me really
Speaker 5:mike real life at that point. Or were you.
Speaker 4:We've been attending real life for a five or six years at that point. And um, yeah, I've been involved where we're leading to becoming one marriage classes, uh, in a men's group on Monday. It's just, I'm really, really enjoying enjoying real life, you know, kind of as a, as a consumer, right?
Speaker 5:No, I got to stop this here. What is real life? We're nationwide. You know, we don't know what his real life, real life
Speaker 4:is, are a nondenominational church here in Claremont. How a home. The first one. First of the seven campuses or in Clermont? I'm the eighth campuses are Spanish a campus here on Claremont also. Then we have seven other locations outside of. It's in central Florida. Wow. We're about$6,500 on a weekend right now. I'm on a course of a, of a, of a year of just over 4,000 volunteers. Um, so it's, uh, it's, it's, we have an online campus that, that man, maybe 2000 people a weekend at this point. Um, but just, yeah, it's a, it's a great place. It's a very relational, very real. Um, obviously it, it, it, it got my wife and I connected in a way that at that somehow got me moving in a direction of wanting to leave a, a, a job. I was coasting ad really and able to able to um, uh, switch gears in the ministry.
Speaker 3:So talk to me about it. It sounds like that was part of the switch. Uh, and, and I think you definitely explained a lot about real life, but, but I know it's, it's one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Is that correct?
Speaker 4:It had been. We've been on that top 100 for a number of years on fastest growing. Um, it's a, it, I think from 2003 to two now you're probably 2003 looking at 200, 250 members to know a 250 attendees now over$6,500 a weekend. And, and, and that, that part of our, uh, of what we're trying to do is we, we follow an intentional, a church growth plan and our executive pastor is one of their coaches and, and that allows us to really strategically plan how do we, how are we going to double impacts in five years, how are we going to make more and better disciples in a five year span and then what is the next one year look like? So that way we can really focus on what we need to fix or do or improve or whatever it may be a toward that goal of five years. And we renew that plan every year. And we do that same plan with, uh, our partners here in Florida. So if a new beginnings, rocky as you know, our homeless program, we will do this strategic planning with them. Um, Monty, our executive pastor and I will have to India once a year and do the renewal and the plan with our India partner whose church planting there. Um, so it's a big, it's a big part of us and that is where we really learn a lot about what we can, what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong and how to fix that.
Speaker 3:No, I came from a background where I went to one church, it was on the corner and that was it. You say you've got how many locations?
Speaker 4:Well, so there's the main, a main location right here in Claremont. And that's um, uh, the first location and now there are seven others around Orlando. So the goal is vision Orlando. Let's Circle Orlando with, uh, with high capacity church.
Speaker 3:How do you do that? I don't understand how that concept works.
Speaker 4:It's pretty cool because we have our lead pastor Justin Miller is fantastic and, and we will broadcast him from here and stream him to the other locations. So if you're, if you're here in Claremont, you're going to see him live. If you're at one of the other locations, you're going to see a stream of him at that moment and it works well. It's a multisite model. Kind of follows that in, in, in many churches where you have a broadcast location so you don't have people speaking at everyone. You really what you, what you is, you have a great communicator. We have a great communicator and our lead pastor justin, and it's much better to take and stream him than to try to find better communicators all over the place.
Speaker 3:Sure. So it sounds like when you were at Raymond James, James, you're coasting, you like your job and you've kind of created your own role, but it sounds like you were almost woken up, so when you made the switch to real life, you feel like in some ways this was a god inspired move.
Speaker 4:Totally. I had no reason to switch except that he kind of put it, put it on me on those three sleepless nights to. And really, I would say kind of nudged and poked me a little bit so that, that third morning when I, I kind of set it out loud to my wife, uh, I think I need to reach out to real life. I was like, man, can I really say that out?
Speaker 3:Really? Is that really what I want to do? And churches are so well known to pay so much. I'm sure, you know, it was not a big shock to her. I'm sure it came as a wow
Speaker 4:thing on your mind is how are we going to afford it?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure. Well, how, how many team members do you have at real life across all seven campuses and eight services?
Speaker 4:So the, um, the 4,000, 93 is what our account was for last, uh, last calendar year. Wow. That could be anywhere from somebody who serves a one time event like a night to shine special needs prom where they only serve that one night and they gave it. There was a great, incredible night and they're on the list as somebody who served. Or it could be somebody who could be a kid life changing diapers every weekend and you would be on that list too. So there's a wide range of, of opportunities to serve. We also have another role in here called partners. And what have you found is most of the roles we talked about on the volunteer side or weekends, we can services when you get into, into with during the week. And we have a, we're, we're running this church during the week. I mean we have a lot to do to get ready for the weekend and we have found that we're up to over 28 partners and these people have committed to 10 hours a week of volunteer time during the week. Typically enrolls that, you know, they may have had a skill in before. I have a, we have a, um, a path to cfo of a, of a well known a brokerage firm in New York also who is volunteering his time to help in the finance team and helped to redesign some things. I mean, just just fantastic what you're able to find in your, in your core, a core group of people who have some time on their hands.
Speaker 3:So I love this idea because you know, when most people think about team members or employees are thinking just the paid staff, but you have a role that is very all encompassing because you're talking about not only the paid staff but all these, his army of volunteers, which in effect become part of your team.
Speaker 4:When you look at numbers, you kind of have to think through like on a normal, on a normal weekend, you know, if the growth, if you, if you're trying to have everyone in your, in your membership and congregation to be connected and to grow. Um, and then in some way serve or, or missional living. I mean, everyone's got to do something. So the serving side of, of, of a, of a person's spiritual law walk is there like everyone should be. So if 65 people, 5,500 people are here on a weekend, at some point you're hoping 65 people, 6,500 people are serving to.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You want to get them off the sidelines and into the game. So how do you, it sounds like you had this great culture at, at real life, how do you go about creating that culture and what are some things that you do to try to, you know, keep it going, keep a compelling culture going?
Speaker 4:Well, I think culture is one of those things that while it's a, uh, it can get away from you, you can be very intentional about how you created it and we are always working on that. That is not something that, you know, that we've got the silver bullet and everything is all set and culture is perfect and all the volunteers are loved and appreciated and, and want to serve more. I wish that was safe or not there yet. Uh, the, the, uh, the, what we're trying to really do is shorten our, decrease the span of care. So if I'm a ministry leader and I happen to have a, um, you know, kid the kid life area and I've got 150 volunteers on the weekend, I can't, I can't show them all love and affection and ask them how they're doing and, and really even get into, um, uh, you know, how can we make their jobs and their roles even better. I can't get into all that. So what we were trying to do is create small circles, a smaller circles span of care. So Hey, I'm a ministry leader, I've got five and those five then have five and those five have five. So you've got to continually build kind of higher, higher level leaders in the volunteer corps so that when that first time volunteer comes in, they have somebody that they are kind of associated with and that person's the one who's pouring into them and making sure that they have any prayer requests. We've got them. And if there's any, if they have an issue at home that we know about it. I mean just, just, you can't, you can't expect one person to do it all. So we try to figure out how does that look on a, on a circles of influence.
Speaker 3:So, so for you guys, it's very important to create these teams where you've got, you know, everybody's got somebody there kind of looking after and, and they're making sure that they feel loved and appreciated. I
Speaker 4:love and appreciate it. And I think the, you know, um, there's a little bit of everyone has a little bit of a meeting to be needed and known and uh, so you know, what are, what are the needs that the church has and we don't want it to be about the church needs. We want it to be about your spiritual growth because you're serving. But it comes down to hey, we have these, these are the things that have to get done and somewhere along the way this is going to fit somebody, a skill set perfectly. And we just want to make sure that as they, as they get into that role and they start to serve, that they're loved, appreciated. And No, you know, and sharing, even sharing with some of those high level volunteer leaders what our strategic plan looks like, kind of creates almost an insider feel and man that people love to see what we're trying to do from behind the scenes and you know, kind of pulled back the curtains and say, well here's how we got to the color on the wall. May Have People love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've spoken about this before. It's amazing to me. And I think I shared this story where, you know, we have a small Italian restaurant right down the street from where I live and I don't know why, but I know the owner and that means so much to me. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like my narcissistic tendency of wanting to, you know, say, well I know that you know, but the food is affected by the fact that I know him and he's kind of pull back that curtain. So you guys do work a lot in letting people understand here's our mission, here's why we're doing it. Here's what we're doing. Even down to the color of the wall. Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4:Well, and stepping back a second, you just said there's a, there's an aspect of um, so we said needed a known already, but there's a little bit of, Hey, I, I, if I know if I have a little bit more tolerance when I have a relationship. And, and one of the things in the corporate world that struck me is just so hard as we. It was all about the results, right? Everything we did was results driven and it was less about, hey, that person is on the wrong seat of the bus. Let's find the right seat. It's like that person's on the wrong seat. Embassy, get them out of here and move on. And there's no grace involved in, you know, in a church world. I mean there might be maybe too much great, but you really work towards um, what is the, what is the right balance of grace results? And we have to, we have to a push toward results, but finding people the right roles, the right things for them to do that, that matches their skill sets, especially in a volunteer role. If I'm not, if I'm not kid friendly and you put me in with kids, I'm not going to last long. You know, you got you gotta have the right, the right spots for the, for the, for the people's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So now you talk about, uh, you know, at, at chick fil a, we know who our target customer is. We know that it's probably a 35 year old soccer mom with kids who's got a crazy life and it's just really trying to get somewhere with good food, quick service or, or a know quick service, but also good service to talk about. Um, you guys I know have done a lot around your internal customer is what, what's your focus?
Speaker 4:Get back to that strategic plan. And we've talked about the intentional church stuff. The, one of the first things you do as you go through that, as you start to figure out what is, what is our target? And, and when you say target, it's not, hey, we are only trying reaches person. Sure, we want everyone to find their, their, their home and in eternity here in heaven. But there's a, there's a target that our church is trying to reach, right? So we go through what is going to be the best, what it's going to be the best opportunity for us to reach them if we reach that one person, that person has the biggest impact. And for us it's that 32 year old God aware father and husband, right? So he may not, he may not be all in on Jesus, but if we can get him in the, in the church and hey, the wall color isn't a um, you know, pink and the, there's no floral patterns on the couches and the chairs aren't the normal heart of pews. And the music is more rock and roll. I mean, but by the time it's all said and done, you, you, you reach him. He will be the one bringing his family. He will be the one who has the most impact on the, on the, on his circle of influence. Even at work or friends now, that's not to say that we have a lot of, um, you know, why does that come in without the husbands or single moms or, or, uh, uh, seniors who have retired. I mean, that's not all they all come, but if we target and, and build around this target, then then everything else kind of falls into place. So, so that, you know, and I share that with our, our partners in the volunteer world is to have given them some idea of how to, how we got to where we're at and that we tweaked that a little each year. I mean, a couple of years ago it was a 35 year olds, but now we're at 32. And, and part of the reason is that 32 year old father has that age group of children that we really want to, uh, excel app, you know, the, even if those kids to have come to church and want to come back, um, and, and, and, and they're learning about Jesus without even realizing how cool it is that that's the kind of thing that, that will improve. You know, improve that 32 year old
Speaker 3:a desire to come and I think it is like it's, it's completely all inclusive. Anybody who wants to come yet, you know, the doors are open but it is important to kind of know. But, but here's our main demographic and as you say, you do have to, you know, kind of compel them to kind of come and find ways to make your place as inviting as possible. How do you, what do you do about, um, you know, reward and um, I'm going to share real quick. There's, there was a study done and um, there's a. and I didn't know this was a job. I wish I knew these things when I was in college, but this gentleman, Dr Bob Nelson is a recognition expert now. I don't know what that pays, but that sounds very interesting to me. You know, we may have to do some research, but he, he has a study where he reports that 58 percent of workers report that they are seldom if ever receive a thank you from their boss. And to me that was really disheartening because we're talking about almost 60 percent of a workforce that is not receiving any kinds of things or recognition for the effort. And I know that's important because you know, merits research company, they show that employees who are recognized on the job are five times more likely to feel valued, seven times more likely to stay with the company, six more likely to invest in the company and 11 times more likely to feel completely committed to that company. So we know that, you know, that is a huge thing and you mentioned it, people need to be needed and known what it sounds like. You guys are very intentional. What are some of the things that you do to thank and reward your team?
Speaker 4:That's one of the hardest when you the 40,000 people, right? So what do you do for 4,000 people? So again, if you have the smaller circles where each person is getting that attention from somebody that it's a very important corporate world. So different. I mean I'm, I'm, I'm driving toward results. And the truth is, you're getting paid to do a job. Why do I need to tell you you're doing a good job, you should be doing it. This is your job.
Speaker 3:And that was the prevailing thought for. I mean, you know, all of my growing years through the workforce. That was the prevailing thought is, thank you. I thank you every week when I pay you. You know, it was. It's a different buyer.
Speaker 4:Right, exactly. So, so now you look at it from a church perspective, most of the stuff around here is done by somebody who's not getting paid anyway. So you've got that aspect. That's step one. Step two on this, this whole thing is, hey, this is somebody, this is their spiritual growth. Like this is not a, hey, this is just to get a job done. If that diaper doesn't get changed, we're going to get a bad review and we've lost a. we're going to lose sales. It's not about that, right? It's about, it's about the person who is sitting in the Pew in, in our case, the chair listening to a message maybe for the first time connecting with God and building a home in eternity and that person who is changing the diaper, who has already gotten to that point and says, I'm doing this for you Lord. Now we've got to get both of them and we've got to make sure they both feel appreciated. They and part of it is whether it's the administrative leader who is saying, really great job, really, really incredible that you guys are doing this and we're so thankful that you're here. Whether it's the verbal or what we try to do is on an annual basis, do some, do some volunteer appreciation type things where we get all the volunteers in and we'll get them in the auditorium and we'll just love on them for a couple of hours and then from the staff point of view and just thank them and you know, we'll make fun of ourselves as a staff. We'll make. We'll thank them for everything they're doing and really just show them a good time. And let them know like, Hey, this, this church does not work without you. We don't have enough paid staff at this place works if we don't have a 4,000 volunteers.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I would imagine that you do a lot of the communicating piece of Hey, you're not just changing a diaper, changing a diaper allows a mom or a father to be in a church can, you know, hearing a message without being interrupted and with and with and really without having to worry about their kids being taken care of. So you guys do a lot around that communication piece of it's not just a diaper for
Speaker 4:ultimate industry leaders are on task to do that. And then we do it from a higher level on top of the past. Will mention that in messages now and then. And, and he'll even, you know, typically call out the diaper changer like God bless you guys because not everyone could do that. You know that that takes a special person so that some of you can sit in there in the audience right now. It takes a special person to be in there changing your kid's diaper and it's,
Speaker 3:well, I'm amazed that that in and I have always felt like, uh, you know, the, the two things I'm hearing a lot about our intentionality and then the span of care. I think both of those two are very important and I think really what you're sharing is it, it's not easy and it doesn't happen without a real clear plan and direction.
Speaker 4:Very true. I think the other piece of that is you have to have an every level of leadership at the church. They have to be a servant leader. You have to come at this with the. It's not about me being first, it's about everyone else's growth and turn in moving toward a tournament. I mean, you Christian leadership, I mean, it is, it is so different than normal corporate world leadership and really is about giving your best without having to be first, which is the exact opposite of the corporate world, right? You're going to give your best so that you can be first.
Speaker 3:Right? And, you know, um, we were hoping though, and that was a perfect segue, we're hoping that what we're able to do is take these elements because we agree servant leadership is the way it, it, it's really the most compelling way it does pay great dividends, but you're not doing it for that. It's the right way to serve. And we're hoping that partly through the show, we can encourage people to become servant leaders in an industry like the financial, you know, institutions or at a restaurant or at a hospital, you know, there's got to be away. And we know the stats show that the more you lead this way, you do get great results, but you're backing into the results, if that makes sense. Were, you know, we do care about relationships and results, but we care about relationships first. And then the results happen because of those relationships.
Speaker 4:When you think about, when you think about a, uh, uh, I kind of, what I'm talking with men about marriages and stuff, I'm always do a wedding. It's usually about, you talk about the priority. If you can keep God first, your spouse, second your kids after that, not heavy your spouse with your kids after your spouse and then your self found the list. Everything is good. I don't even put work on the list. I mean that work life balance. Most people have an easier time becoming workaholics and not so much on the balance of their homes, so it's that same type of thing. You know, if I can keep that, that the, the, the volunteer experience revolved around God first and the and their ministry leaders around God first. Not me first, but God person. Then putting my volunteers ahead of myself, putting my partners ahead of myself, but my staff I had in myself, it all falls in place
Speaker 3:and I love that idea. I really do feel when your focus is not on you and when your focus is on serving other, those things do kind of fall into place, which is a pretty, pretty wonderful. You know, if, if the result's never came, we wouldn't have legs very long and on being a servant leader, but you know, I'm, look at your church. There's been tremendous growth, tremendous success, and a lot of it is on how intentional you guys are around being servant leaders. Mike, if you could kind of tell us how somebody can have a first introduction to real life if they've never been or maybe don't live in Orlando.
Speaker 4:Awesome. So if you're in the Atlanta area, we have seven locations and a Spanish service here in Claremont as well. Um, so that would be the easiest thing is to go to www dot real about life. There's no.com on the end. It's just real about life and find the location for you, for you that's closest. Now, many people are like, Whoa, you know, I don't know. I'm not ready to go to church with that. I've had a bad experience with church. I'm reasons are endless. You can always start out, start out online. We have a lot of people who will, will watch live online during one of our times for services. There was actually a little chat room on the side if you're, if you're doing it on your laptop where you can ask for prayer requests and you can ask questions about what's being said in the message. Um, and we have, we have volunteers who are, who are running that for us and it's, it's, it's great. Um, or you can watch anytime on the, on the, uh, whether it's the website or the APP. You can watch past messages. We also have a talk show called real talk where our lead pastor, Justin Miller also, that's kind of a talk show about biblical, about issues currently and then puts a biblical perspective around it. It's fantastic. Yeah. I, I can't send enough people there who are just trying to figure out marriage or. I mean, what is figuring out gambling, divorce, uh, um, alcohol. I mean there's so much stuff that like this world throws at us and then he takes it from a biblical perspective. It's fancy.
Speaker 5:No. All that's online. Is that correct? All online. All online. This is amazing because I was sitting in here with this question and I think you just answered it, but with the culture and the marketplace changing, I mean from going from a rick stores to online marketing, you guys are right there. You're already there. Aren't yet in the,
Speaker 4:you have to, you have to be online or otherwise. I mean, honestly, every church I know of, uh, I, I'll, I'll be at our services, but I may watch a different churches, different service sometime during the week because I really liked the way that pastor relates to me. So it's all got to be online and that is, it's about you have to change with the times. If it's the same with online giving, you know, not everybody writes or he writes checks or carries cash anymore, right? You have to have things that you can do on your phone and it's the same thing. You've got to be able to change with the times and be more, uh, you gotta relate.
Speaker 2:Mike, we've got a couple sections before we close and they're very much fun. So we're going to put you on the spot just a little bit, um, and you know, if you feel uncomfortable you can just refuse to answer, but you know, I know you're going to be okay. The first segment, we call it this one or that one and we just gave you two people and we want you to kind of share which one you admire more and maybe a reason why. Sound good? Okay. Alright. So the first person to our elan musk or Richard Branson,
Speaker 4:I'll go with what he's doing and changing. He's not doing it well yet. At the same time, he's taking on something that no one has done well yet. And I, I'm anyone that can be a front runner like that and can, I mean heck, let's just go back to um, even even watching a documentary recently about Tesla in the, in the, in the age of, of Westinghouse and Edison and met you. It's tough to be in the forefront of some things like that. So I'm going to give, I'm going to give it to him.
Speaker 3:Okay? That sounds great. Uh, Steven jobs or Bill Gates,
Speaker 4:I'm going to go with jobs. Um, I just don't. Hey, those are those both of them. I mean, they, they, they are uh, so close. Um, if you would ask me probably six years ago and it said, uh, I would have gone the other way with gates because I was a Microsoft person that an but apple person. So you almost have some lucan loyalty that you have to go with. But we both are impressive. I, I, I actually, I feel like I'm jobs as best as yet to come. Like I, you know, Gates Gates is now in the, in the philanthropy thing. He's going out there, he's got it all going on and, and, and, and enjoying it. I'd like to see where jobs, how jobs turns out like that before I can really make. All right now I'd say jobs. I'm an apple guy,
Speaker 3:uh, Steven Spielberg or Walt Disney.
Speaker 4:Spielberg somehow, even though a lot of that stuff ends up being under Disneyland
Speaker 3:in bread for sure. But taco Taco, are you just a huge movie buff or.
Speaker 4:Oh, I, I used the Spielberg movies back in the day in the seventies and eighties, late seventies and eighties. I mean, just fantastic. Was asked.
Speaker 3:Okay, last two, we've got the first one is going to be star wars or Harry Potter Star Wars.
Speaker 4:Okay. My wife's not as not a science fiction movie Fan, so like my star wars days or watching the trilogy in college over and over and over. So I haven't even caught up on all the other stuff over the last few years. A Harry Potter definitely would fall into the having seen it, having wanted to see it. I'm going to spend my time on one will be catching up on the star wars. Okay,
Speaker 3:that's fair. Now, and this last one I have to ask, I, I live in a house with girls and a lot of you know, you know, very direct call that I have to be one sided here, but this last one is, are you a Broadway fan or are you a rock and roll fan?
Speaker 4:Oh, rock and roll. I kind of knew that about. Well, I'm going to try to get you into the, uh, between the wife's daughter and the grandkids a little too early to say, but it's all rock and roll.
Speaker 3:All right. That's very fair. Well, thank you Mike for coming and you've been really helpful with us and just really showing us how a different industry looks at serving people and you know, definitely this wrinkle of the large amount of volunteers that you have that you consider part of your team. But if you could, I'd love to close with maybe a leader that you admire or maybe a life quote that you, you try to live by.
Speaker 4:Well actually I think I said the quote that Maxwell Maxwell just fantastic. All his leadership stuff blows me away and I love. I love reading, listening. It's all, it's all good. So I think he's, he's the one that will, will always be in the forefront for me, but there's just kind of that saying that I said earlier, Christian leadership is, is giving your best without having to be first. And that's one that I really, I really just try to live by that. And that's also the home to, you know, again, I'm going to give my best without having to be first at the home and give my best here, um, and don't have to be first. And, and even even, even with whether it's my idea or not, doesn't matter whether it's whatever's going to be best, I just want to, I want to be a part of that and it doesn't have to make me first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome. And that's a very big task for sure. You know, it's one of those life quotes. It's easy to say and it's harder to live right.
Speaker 4:Much harder. I could say it all day long, um, will have my wife on that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That, that can be dangerous for me because then we'd have to have my wife's on and you know, I would be exposed. There's not enough room for that. We thank you so much for being on the show. And guys, I would encourage you, if you're looking for a home, a checkout checkout real life, it's a great organization, great church, and they really care about people. Well that was very interesting. Rocky, can you kind of review what Mike just said? Yeah, there's a lot of great content and I think this would be an episode that you might want to really dig in and kind of maybe listen to a few times, but I think the common themes are going to be that nothing happens without intentionality and without a communication of why you're doing what you're doing, your vision and your mission and and servant leadership and that well and I think that's like servant leadership is the reason they're being intentional and they're communicating and then the. The other item that I think really stands out to me as the span of care. Understanding that we can't meet everybody's needs. It's impossible, but you're going to have to duplicate yourself and each. Each of you will have to have a circle of people that you're helping to be known and Phil needed.
Speaker 5:Well, thanks for joining us here on the servers journey. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and you can hear all of what rocky wants to share and you can be a good leader. That's what we're working for. Learning to lead by serving and if you subscribe, you know, you'll beginning a server's journeys moment now. That's the pick me up started of the day. It's like a two minute episode if you like what you hear, tell a friend and like us on facebook, like a, on the, wherever you could like as like, it's also um, rocky has got some great stories on there, on the website. You can check those out. A server's journey. So until next time I'm just stumbling. It was such a good interview. I'm, I'm trying, I'm having a hard time here.
Speaker 2:Well Larry, we appreciate all you do for the shower and I just want to remind everybody we consider this to be very important. You know, we are trying to create a revolution where you can both get results and feel loved and cared for by the places you work. So we're are all on this journey together and it's really about how you serve in your leadership role, whatever that leadership role is. And that's why every week for sharing the servers journey, I'm rocky desteffano. Thanks for joining us. And together we are going to learn to be okay,
Speaker 3:better leaders.