#64 The People Factor, Pt 2 | Chemistry, Conflict, & Kingdom Teams

Great teams aren’t built by avoiding conflict or chasing talent—they’re built when leaders confront sin, protect their families, reject compromise, and follow the Holy Spirit as they love people well.

In this episode, Mark and Erica get real about the hidden threats that can quietly wreck your team: unresolved conflict, pride, unhealthy alliances, and the pressure to choose gifting over character. They talk through how to create a culture of “confront, repent, forgive,” why you must protect your family from ministry expectations, and how subtle compromise can derail a leader. You’ll also hear practical “tips and hacks” on building both an inner support team and a healthy staff culture where unity, honesty, and emotional safety are normal. Throughout it all, they point back to the Spirit of God as the real architect of healthy, kingdom-advancing teams.

📋 Key Takeaways 

1. Unresolved conflict is the #1 team threat  |  Healthy teams normalize a Matthew 18 rhythm: confront → repent → forgive, instead of walking on eggshells and letting hurt snowball into division.
2. God often uses conflict to deepen love and strengthen roots  |  When you “don’t run,” stay at the table, and let wounds heal together, your relational roots intertwine and your team becomes way more resilient.
3. Character and spiritual fruit > raw gifting  |  A brilliant “diva” on the team can quietly erode culture. Look for people who smell like Jesus—humble, trustworthy, safe—rather than just people who can get things done.
4. The Holy Spirit is the real Team Architect  |  The “third strand” (Ecclesiastes 4:12) is Jesus in the middle, showing you who to pursue, what to confront, when to wait, and how to love your people well.

💬 Quotes & Soundbites

1. “Some of the people you love most will hurt you most—but if you don’t run, your roots can actually grow together.”
2. “The people around you are probably the most awesome thing God is doing in your life—you just don’t always see it, because you’re staring at the goal instead of the team.”
3. “Annoyances aren’t the same as sin. Sometimes you need to forebear; sometimes you need to confront. God’s Word—not your irritations—has to be the standard.”
4. “If you avoid hard conversations, you’re not just keeping the peace—you might be reinforcing pride and quietly reshaping the whole culture around compromise.”

🕐 Timestamps

• 00:00 - 18:00 -- Intro, Threat #1:  Conflict Resolution (Matthew 18, confront–repent–forgive, “little foxes,” pride, walking on eggshells).
• 16:30–20:30 – Threat #2: Not protecting your family from ministry expectations; giving your kids freedom to be honest, not fake.
• 20:00 - 24:44 -- Threat #3: Compromise & Unhealthy Alliances  (Jehoshaphat & Ahab, being “in” with the wrong people, secular work examples).
• 24:45 - 25:54  -- Surprise #1: People oversell their strengths and undershare their shadows; why character at home will bleed into leadership.
• 29:30–46:44 – Tips & hacks: building an external support team, valuing spiritual fruit over raw talent, diva dynamics, references, and “the wrong people on the bus.”
• 46:45–End – Final word: Ecclesiastes 4:12, inviting the Holy Spirit to lead your team-building, and practical questions for this week.

📖 Scripture Tie-Ins

• Song of Songs 2:15 – “Catch the little foxes…” (small issues that destroy the vineyard).
• Ephesians 4:2–3, 15 – Bearing with one another in love, keeping unity, speaking the truth in love.
• Psalm 84:10 – “Better is one day in your courts… I w

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Transcript

Mark Carter (00:06):

What up everybody? Welcome back to the Bible Leadership Podcast. My name is Dr. Mark Carter. I'd like to connect your Bible to your leadership and your leadership to your Bible. Hey, last time we started talking about creating the right team and some of the things that we said was that you can have a warm relational team where people feel close. You can have an effective team, you can have neither or you can even have both. Today we're going to walk through some threats and surprises and tips and hacks that will help us foster greater teams. Let's take a listen. Hey, what's happening everybody? Welcome back to the Bible Leadership Podcast. So last time we started a conversation about teams, teams that are both satisfying and gifted. We said, if we're going to have great chemistry as teams, there's three things that are going to be happening. There's an attraction, there's a responsiveness, and there's complimentary gifts that are all helping one another out. As we dive back into this, we're going to talk about some threats and some surprises and some tips and some hacks. So let's get after it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):

Alright, mark, let's think about it. What are some threats and surprises when it comes to the topic of surrounding ourselves with the right people? What can that look like? What are some threats specifically?

Mark Carter (01:23):

Yeah, lemme give the number one answer that I think is the most important and that is failure to deal with conflict. So this is Matthew 18 all over again. There's got to be culturally normative to confront, repent, forgive. There's got to be a like, this might not even be real, but I'm feeling this, I'm seeing this and I need to bring it up because if I don't bring it up, it's going to fester under the rug and it's going to grow under the rug and it's going to lead to more accusation. It's going to lead to misunderstanding, misinterpretation. It might lead to just sin, but that's often not even the worst thing that could happen. What's worse is hurt feelings that kind of snowball and get worse and worse and worse, that sabotage the mission. And so one of the things that we found, and I think we haven't always done it perfectly, but we tried to build it into the culture right away, and that was, "Hey, when you see something that is like that was wrong or that hurt me, or it feels like that was wrong, maybe I'm mis-seeing it, but let's talk about that because God's word says it's wrong. Or I think what you did, God word says that's wrong. Let's talk about that. Can you repent for that?" And once you do that, that clears the air. That just clears the deck again and people are really afraid to do it. But I think the devil reinforces that fear because he knows it leads to chaos.

(02:50)
If you can get everybody mad at each other, and we've seen this, you've seen this in multiple organizations, when you're just walking on eggshells, it's because there's not a culture of confront, Repent, forgive.

Erica Adkins (03:02):

Yep. That's good. So in thinking about that too, I think when we just lean into that conflict quickly, it hurts initially, but it builds a stronger relational tie. I think one of the things that I often ask when I'm in that conversation is, "what's the thing beneath the thing?" Because it was the straw that broke the camel's back, probably, but there's probably some deeper level thing, and when the person tells me the actual deeper level thing, my heart gets actually tightened with theirs, and I begin to see, "oh, okay." And it helps me shape how I interact with them in the future too. "Oh, okay. That's why that hit you. It's probably from something from your childhood even. Oh, okay, I can now come better toward you in relationship because I know how you work."

Mark Carter (04:00):

And it really is, it's a great tool for the Lord to teach us one another and teach us one of their tolerance and relating patterns and all that. I would say at the end of the day, this is on the leader to make sure this culture is happening.

(04:12)
You have to model it First, well.

Mark Carter (04:13):

You have to give permission for it. You have to react to it well, you have to initiate it. Meaning if you don't do it, you're kidding yourself if you think everyone else is going to do it. They may not all do it, even if you do do it, but there's no way they're going to keep doing it if you don't do it.

(04:27)
There's got to be an approachability. There's got to be like, "tell me if you think or if you feel hurt or I did something wrong." You got to be willing to shut stuff down and "okay, we're taking this meeting to resolve this now. we're not going to do the thing we were going to do. We're going to do this thing."

(04:41)
Some of the language just to give people examples of how that might work. We might say, and we have a whole script that we follow. In fact maybe we'll try to make that script available to people, but is essentially, "Hey, I do a lot wrong, but I've noticed... it seems like you're doing this... or you let that happen. And God's word says..." We always include God's word in, "God's word says this..." We include God's word because God's word convicts. We don't get bent out of shape about one another's annoyances. Annoyances are not the same thing as sin. If one's really just annoyed, that might just be their own flesh and their own need to forebear. But if there's sin, that's where we need to lean in and say we need to call 'em on it.

(05:24)
And often there's a, it might be, "you are so right. I totally jack that up, Erica, please forgive me." It might also look like, "I don't remember doing that exactly. And I can tell you that's not my heart, but knowing my dumb butt, I might've done it." You know what I'm saying? "I'm sinful enough that I don't even know what I do sometimes, and so, I know that I'm evil. So if I did that, please forgive me." That little exchange right there erases, dude, that can erase years of pain. And if that stays in a marriage, and it stays in an organization, it's just frees a bird, dude, you're not tiptoeing all over everything. So when leaders don't see that conflict as a threat, and "'I don't want to deal with this,' 'I don't got time to do that,' and 'Who are they that I should even have to come do that?'" Well, who they are is the people God has called you to serve next to. And he's called you to protect that space and keep devils out.

Erica Adkins (06:23):

And I think the quicker you deal with the "little foxes", the better and more healthy your team will be all together. I've seen in different seasons leaders just kind of like, "it's fine, I'm not gonna lean in with that." But then it grows to a lion that is now devouring other things in your community. And so, yeah, you just got to lean in quick. It's hard. It's no fun. Nobody likes to do it. Nobody likes conflict. And if you do, you might be a little weird. Just lean in quick, quick.

Mark Carter (07:00):

It's also reinforces pride when you don't. So when we not... Say you and I are in tention. If we're in tention, you might be like, "well, I was going to say that to Carter, but I'm just going to go around him because I don't want to deal with that. So, I know there's another way to do it. It's not quite as effective. It's not quite as quick, but I don't want to mess with it, so I'm just going to go around him." So it shuts down communication. It reinforces the idea that I'm fine on my own. I don't need to learn anything from them, I don't need to even understand their heart any better. This is just fine. And no one means for that to be prideful and arrogant, but pride and arrogance still attract the curse of God and repel the grace of God. And so it's really hard, man. I think it takes huge Holy Ghost backbone. This is the hardest part maybe. But once you get that as a norm, it's easier and easier to keep doing. And then it can take, let's take three minutes and just get rid of that thing and then we'll move up. But that's all it takes.

Mark Carter (08:07):

Do you know what I'm saying?

Erica Adkins (08:08):

Well, and again, because there's an understanding of each other's hearts and you know, love each other, you're on the same team, you're fighting toward the same goal. You're no longer fighting against each other in this thing. We're fighting with each other toward this thing that's potentially going to be the downfall of us. Let's just get rid of that. We're good. We're on the same team, let's go.

Mark Carter (08:28):

Yeah, that's totally it. So this is kind of like the other side of that. First when you do that, that's teaching you how to love your people better. And I'm pretty sure Jesus invested us becoming wiser lovers with more discernment. So that's probably on his agenda even if it wasn't on your day's agenda. But I think we've seen this, and by the grace of God, I think we've gotten through this like our spouses and our closest peeps.

(09:01)
When people don't pass this test, it can be a small church, it can be a giant church, but when theres a loud stuff to fester and there's not going to be compromise, there's not going to be confession, there's not going to be repentance. Relationships can schism where the Lord would've had unity. I'm sure God can still do great things with both, but they might have stayed together and done a whole lot more and now we'll just never know because they didn't pass the test.

(09:33)
I've mentioned this to Erica, some other ones: I've found, and I didn't intuit this test when we first started. I didn't know that some of the people you love most are going to hurt you the most. If you will, just out of sheer faith and love, just grab their hand and say, "I'm not letting go. Let's just, if we have to sit here and be silent, and my heart is torn in half right now, even so, and I'm so pissed, even so, I'm going to stick with you and let the Lord slowly pull us back together. What happens is, your wounds begin to heal together. Now you know, you've stuck with it, and you know their heart, and you heard 'em out, and you re-considered, and you re-prayed, and re-confessed, and now you're becoming, it may be a different illustration is: your roots are growing together now. And they're way stronger, and things can zip between them way faster, because you allowed yourself to heal into one thing rather than into multiple things.

(10:35)
That might be rare, that might not be always the way it goes, but I feel like I now have a vision for, that's how it can be. And so whether it's someone who, now I do this with all the folks that have been closest over the years, but I also do this now with folks that are even just, they're pretty new to me or to the ministry or whatever, and I can cast vision of like, "I know this is hard, man, I hurt you for the first time. I didn't mean to. if you'll stick with me, we can learn each other's hearts and we can know each other way better and we can frustrate the heck out of the devil and bring the kingdom way more. And no one has to get church hurt. No one has to go anywhere." I don't know that's idealistic to think that's always going to happen, but I definitely see it now as a thing that can and does happen.

Erica Adkins (11:16):

Yeah, it kind of peeled back the curtain we've talked about, we've been in ministry together for 20 years and I remember very vividly sitting in your living room one day and Brandon is the worship pastor here, Mark's the senior pastor here. We love each other. We've done life together with each other for a long time. I honestly don't even remember what the conflict was, but it was a deep conflict and we were almost ready to leave. And I am so grateful that my husband has a different personality than me and he's stalwart and he's going to push through the conflict. He's just going to love well and remain well. That's just part of his character. And I'm so grateful that he did because I was ready to bolt. All that I could see was my hurt in that moment. And I'm so grateful we did it because I think we leveled up in our "family" essentially. We became more "family" in that season.

Mark Carter (12:22):

I think that's totally true, and I think your man is one of the greatest men on the face of the earth. But I also think we couldn't have foreseen it, I don't think, I didn't know this was a lesson, but it taught me, "you don't have to necessarily know how to get out of this, just don't run," that was the "Church Pain" message, "Try Not to Run."

Erica Adkins (12:42):

Just Don't run. Yes,

Mark Carter (12:47):

And it is a faith, it's a faith thing.

Erica Adkins (12:50):

It is.

Mark Carter (12:51):

"I know I love you, but my flesh is on fire right now. So just sit with me for a second. And that second might be a month and three months, or more."

Erica Adkins (13:01):

Or whatever and years. I mean there was another season where I was just ticked and stuff maybe didn't go down the perfect way, but I think even the season was right and the conflict that kind of came at me and made me feel like running. Again, I'm so proud of my husband, I'm so glad for my husband and because he was on staff here, I couldn't leave the church. But I think sometimes that's it. You just have to get closer and if you run, you might miss out on a lot of blessing.

Mark Carter (13:39):

And I think one of the presuppositions that's hard to think about then is there might be a whole lot more wrong with me than I know about my failure to love what I'm willing to endure, what I'm willing to go places with people with emotionally... I think in almost all my conflicts, that's usually one of the lessons is, "yeah, you're just part of the problem is Carter, you're just crappy at loving. You aren't good at this yet." And so, God be praised, I have to get the tests anyway. I might as well get them with people that I really love and admire.

Mark Carter (14:18):

So otherwise you just missed them. And then you, you're an arrogant cuss.

(14:23)
What do you think are so, I mean, E, you hear that, what are some of the things that the Lord blew up in you during those times? What were the ways that he was asking you, "Erica? I know this is hard. I'm asking you to grow."

Erica Adkins (14:34):

Yeah, I needed a lot of humility tests. There was a season in our church where we had this women's conference and it was huge. It blew up and was huge quick and it was awesome. And I have always wanted to write and I've always wanted to lead and I've always wanted to preach and I was like, "I'm going to get found. People are going to see me and I'm going to be elevated and this is my fast track to having my own book deal." And the Lord pushed all of that to the side. And there was a lot that needed to be developed in me in character, and it's still not the right time, and I'm still asking, "Lord, did I miss what you were trying to do in me? Is this still something that you want to do and create in me, or am I just needing to be sidelined?" But I think a lot of it, I needed the more character before I could be elevated. And I don't know if that elevation will ever come, but the character has to come, and I'm okay to just be a "door holder in the house of God" if that's what that looks like.

(15:41)
So I think that was something in me, I think slowing down and just trusting the leadership around me. And if I'm not in a position, yet, I can trust even that is from the Lord,

Speaker 4 (15:55):

Come on girl.

Erica Adkins (15:56):

If the Lord isn't putting me in a seat of authority yet because of the positional authority that's already there, I can submit to the positional authority, trusting that actually God's in charge of them. So I think that heart of humility, a heart of submission, and then just a heart of patience, it will come when it needs to come. And if it hasn't come yet, either that's not the Lord's plan, or it's just not time.

Mark Carter (16:30):

I think those are really good lessons. I think some themes I notice in my versions of all these things, often there's some way that I'm trying to shape life, whether that is-- I'm trying to get somewhere faster, I'm trying to avoid this conflict, I'm trying to make my thing happen-- and someone is getting in the way and it really is usually a character thing. It doesn't present as a character thing, but it's like, "Hey, let me mess with your plan a little bit," and I don't like my plan to be messed with. And so that creates all kinds of flesh that comes out. And I don't have this right by any means, and I've got a long way to go, but I think one of the turning points potentially for me was, when the Lord began to teach me, "the people I've put around you are more valuable not only to him but to you than whatever the thing is that you want. That right now they seem to be working cross-grain toward. Whatever they're trying to stop or whatever they're trying to force or whatever it is, Even if they're sinfully doing it, they're so much more valuable than anything you've got coming. They're the treasure dude, what are you doing?" The people around you are the most awesome thing God is going to do for most of us. We just don't see it. We think it's some goal out there, especially leadery people. And I think as he began to open my eyes to that of, "These are all the best people I'll ever know, and it's a privilege to do life with them." And so whatever we got to get through, let's just get through it. I don't want to do it any other way. ,

Erica Adkins (18:13):

Lean in well early and quick. Yeah, that's good. What about family health and success? What's a threat maybe?

Mark Carter (18:26):

I think it's a threat to not protect your family from ministry. So one that comes to mind is... so, for those with families, especially young kids, if you're going to do life, so we're talking to church here generally, but I think there's probably some applications to a secular job.

Erica Adkins (18:42):

Absolutely, yes.

Mark Carter (18:44):

There's got to be a sense of, "you're free as a human, to not be as committed to this as I am. You're free as a human, to just not fake anything. You don't have to fake your walk with God or whatever. You can just be normal. You don't have to go to the church thing. You can do this." I don't say dippy thing over here, but this thing that doesn't,

Erica Adkins (19:09):

Passionate about that instead Yes.

Mark Carter (19:11):

Or this very secular thing. None of that matters to me. I want you to have your own relationship with God. That means you get to go your pace, you get to evaluate, I'm going to put you around godly things. "Yeah, you got to go to church and that kind of thing." But I'm not going to force you to put on any airs or anything like that. You just get to be you with the Lord and evaluate if you want Jesus to be your king. I hope you do, but I'm not going to try to force that.

(19:37)
I think other people, so you can say that, that that's the life you want them to have. But if you have too many other people, I think it's healthy to have a good amount of people like hey, people matter. And so our family cares about people, but if those people are always distracting from family, I think that's a threat. And so building in early, we talked about this a little bit less time, but building in early mechanisms to have time with your family members so that they know you like them and you didn't just church or work or whatever it was. Yeah.

Erica Adkins (20:04):

Yep. That's really, really good.

(20:07)
Alright, what about the threat of actual compromise? I mean we've talked about conflict, I think a little bit within your team, but compromise within your team, People Who are, it is obvious their fruit is, it's probably rotten, or they are making character choices that are, it's just not going to bring blessing on your team.

Mark Carter (20:34):

I think we got to watch out in different phases of life, because I think the enemy, like "new level, new devil." You go to a certain place with the Lord, and you're like, "wow, I've never seen this before." But I think also, be aware there's new temptations at different levels. So I think about Jehosaphat and Ahab. So Ahab is a wicked king, okay? He's the king of Israel and he's a Baal worshiper. He's not a good guy. Then you have Jehosaphat who's the king of Judah and he's mostly a great guy. He sends out teachers in, he sends the teaching of God's word out into land. He's stirred up about, "yeah man, we need more of God and it's got to be God's way." He stops Ahab once. He's like, "well, what is the prophet of the Lord? Say, let's find that out."

(21:16)
Nevertheless, he hangs out with this dude a lot and he's part of this joint marriage between their families. And I'm reading this, I'm like, "Jehosaphat, what are you doing? This guy's wicked. You're partnering, you're putting your families together with someone that's not going the same direction." And I don't know if there's a, I can only speculate what was in his heart, but I can imagine there's different ones, We get to a certain place where it's like, "I really want to be in good with this kind of person, or with these people, or this secular people that can have this kind of a power." Sure, I have had some version of power back then, but I think we have to be careful of this temptation to, "I'm going to compromise with this for the sake of the kingdom. Maybe it will if I just...

Speaker 2 (22:04):

Reunite, I don't know.

Mark Carter (22:05):

Here's an extreme example. I'm going to get in good with these mob people in case some of 'em come to Christ. Maybe not though. Maybe just if they get sick and come out of the mob. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying can't be friends with 'em, but I'm saying if you're trying to work something there, I'm spending a lot of time here, bro. I just think you're on the wrong track. And it doesn't have to be mob level people. It can just be like, this is an association. I'm going to the bar too much. I'm going with people now to places that compromise who I am because I want to go with them. And I'm like, "it'll be for the kingdom." Maybe just trust the Lord, be salt and light and invite them to your things, but if you're going someplace that is sucking down your integrity, dude... I just say, in the same way I'd say to Jehosephat, "bro, you're doing so much right. You're causing great stuff to happen in the land. What are you doing? This is not the way."

Erica Adkins (23:02):

Well, and maybe a good barometer to watch is, how much are you becoming like them instead of them becoming like you. I remember early on when Brandon and I first got married, this is like 20 years back almost now, and I started working at this other organization, total not Christian organization at all. Big, big, big corporation. And I had this team and I was like, "you know what? I want to feel like a part of the team and I want to love these people." None of them knew the Lord. And I started going out to happy hour with them every once in a while, but then I noticed myself chameleon-ing to them and talking more like them and behaving more like them. And I noticed my mindset was shifting. I wasn't trying to pull them toward Jesus and the culture of the Kingdom. I was starting to become more and more like their culture. So be in the community, love the people, but be really careful as you do that to see, you don't want to make alliances with people who are going to ultimately pull you away.

Mark Carter (24:05):

That's it. Totally. And we see at the end of Jehosaphat's life, the Lord weighs in and he's like, "well, yeah, he did a lot right? But he didn't totally get rid of everything he should have." And even the Lord sinks a bunch of ships. He goes in this shipping operation with Ahab. If you know the reference, put it in the comments. I can't remember what the reference is (2 Chronicles 20), but essentially the Lord sinks all their ships and he says that the Lord sinks their ships because of their association together. He did not want Jehosaphat with Ahab the way he was. So we just got to be careful there, man.

Erica Adkins (24:34):

Yeah, man. It'll mess some things up. The alliances that we make with compromise.

Mark Carter (24:41):

That's it. That's it.

Erica Adkins (24:42):

Okay, so what about some surprises?

Mark Carter (24:46):

Some surprises, and this is a little bit simpler, but if you don't know this yet, people will tend to oversell themselves. And I don't mean to, we probably all do this. If you're going for a job interview, you're going to say the best version, man. But just know, especially in a church, you're relying on their gifts to do things. And if they oversell their gifts and you haven't had time to investigate, "is that true though?" Or they undersell their shadow of, "by the way, I'm also a raging alcoholic," whatever. We need to know that upfront. And they're not going to tell you that, necessarily. And they might not even know. They might see themselves through very, they don't know what kind of a cuss they are in their own marriage. They don't see that. But if you pay attention to, "well, now I see that," and we can't have that representing our marriage ministry or whatever.

Erica Adkins (25:35):

Well, and just ultimately, again, your character at home and your character in your personal life is ultimately going to bleed into your character at work, regardless of what you think or how many different masks you put on, who you are becomes who the culture is. And so being careful.

Mark Carter (25:55):

That's really good. I think one more that I would mention is as a leader, you often forget the power you have in the room. You forget how much weightier your voice can be than other people's. So, especially when it's time to pursue somebody. I've certainly been guilty of, I'll be like, "well, if theywanted, I guess they don't want to be a part of this, because they didn't come back around, or they didn't return my email, or whatever, ah, well." People maybe are just a little bit more nervous. They're like, "oh, I don't want to bug the pastor, so I'm not going to follow up with that. I texted him, but I guess he didn't text me back, he doesn't like me or something like that."

(26:35)
Just know there's a disproportional weight on you to be intentional with people--Whether that's to recruit them, to get them on a team, or even just like they're going to take you more seriously. They can put a lot of rejection power in you. So places you didn't mean to reject people, It might come off like that. So I think there just takes a concern and a slow walk of just checking in with people and like, "Hey man, I didn't hear back from you. Whatever happened with that. Even if something went wrong, you're communicating: I wanted to be with you. I wanted to get some kind of connection with you. That's good. And I think that you won't feel that necessarily. You have to just play that anyway.

Erica Adkins (27:17):

Yeah.

Mark Carter (27:18):

If that makes sense.

Erica Adkins (27:19):

I think that's good. Keeping in mind as a leader, it's your role to build your team. It's your role to assemble your team. It's your role to ensure that your team is healthy and loved and feels supported. Your voice probably does carry the greatest weight. And so how are you speaking to your people to ensure they feel a part of the team, they know they're empowered, and that you're behind them and cheering them on. That's kind of mission critical.

Mark Carter (27:49):

And leadery, people can be like, well, I just want goers, man. I want people that can be aggressive and go after it. Dude, awesome. Yes, I do too. However, if you're in a church, at least, there's more to this than just that. There's little sheep that the Lord brings, and they're very tender to him, and he cares about how they experience this. And yes, they don't always behave great. They behave like sheep sometimes. They're timid, and they're like run away. And yeah, nevertheless, you're going to get it wrong, but do the best you can to follow up with those guys.

Erica Adkins (28:20):

Yeah, I think even in the corporate sector, your people are humans. They're not just bots. And so leaning to recognize that they have lives outside of the corporation as well, I think just gives you a leg up as a leader. You will have more buy-in from your team if you recognize that they are an actual human that has other things outside of the four walls of your building going on in their life.

Mark Carter (28:49):

I think it's not always intuitive as a leader in that secular environment. It's not always intuitive what salt and light looks like. So if you're a Christian in that environment, you're supposed to lead different. So there should be some sense of, I care about my people more than the other gal over there that isn't a Christian at all. Maybe to our shame, maybe cares about her people more than the Christian one.

Erica Adkins (29:12):

I think you'll even find more fruit in your team as you consider them as a whole human

Mark Carter (29:18):

Word up.

Erica Adkins (29:20):

When people feel supported by their leadership, they're going to work harder and more efficiently and effectively because they feel like you care. You're on their side. Yeah, I

Mark Carter (29:31):

Know. That's right.

Erica Adkins (29:33):

Alright, what else, Mark?

Mark Carter (29:35):

Some tips and hacks. You want to rock Some of that?

Speaker 2 (29:37):

Yeah, let's dive in on that. Alright, so I think we've talked about this a lot, but again, family first, building your support system, making sure that your home is solid. You've got your counselors who are solid, you've got your outside of the house team, people who know you and know your role, maybe, and are able to support you well. Who are the people that you even look for? How do you assemble those teams?

Mark Carter (30:05):

Yeah, just to clarify, you do all that just to remind, we've already said this, but you do all that so that you have a better team. You're just smarter, you're getting better stuff done, you're doing more effective stuff. That's the why of all this. But sorry, ask the question again.

Erica Adkins (30:19):

Yeah, so how are you looking for those people? How are you assembling that external team so that as a leader you're more positioned to lead your internal team? Does that make sense?

Mark Carter (30:29):

How do I assemble the external team?

Erica Adkins (30:31):

Yeah,

Mark Carter (30:35):

I think it's a lot of fishing, man. It's a lot of minor intentionalities and seeing which ones grow. And this is where it comes back to the Spirit, that chemistry thing that the Lord himself has to do. He can't force it. I've had people that I've tried to be close to and the Lord wasn't in it. I'm sitting here trying, "man, what the heck?" Feeling even rejected for some stupid reason. Instead of... just look at, survey the land, what sparkles when you think about it, or look at it, or there's a responsiveness? Planting a lot of those, which means I've had entire relationships or beginnings of relationships where I'm trying to invest in somebody. And so let's say it's another pastor across town. I'm trying to get time with them, I'm trying to be intentional with them. And you know what? It's just not going anywhere. So well, hey man, that was cool. I liked that person, but I'm going to invest somewhere else now until I find the different ones. It's like, ah, chemistry.

Erica Adkins (31:35):

Yes. Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. Alright, thinking about on your own team, a tip of looking for the spiritual fruit over raw gifting. Again, we talked about this in the last episode, but just another church I was on, they found the guy who had all the right qualifications, they brought him in and it just didn't really work and he left and they were left again without a leader. So thinking about, who has the right heart even before just the right qualifications.

Mark Carter (32:11):

Yes, I can only speak for me, and this might work very differently in different places, different organizations, but I would tell you for me, I now value the chemistry and the DNA of the ministry way more than I did initially. You could just bring, I thought you could transplant a whole lot more in than I feel like you can now. So if there was a particularly gifted guy that I might be going after, I've just learned to be suspect about that. And partly because I've had plenty of divas now, I've had plenty of people that were like, "I am it." And I'm like, "wow, bro, you're not it though. You're just gifted. And that's not the same thing."

(32:53)
So the fruit of this person, someone who's full of Holy Ghost fruit, when you put them around other people, things blossom. They light up the space man. You know what I'm saying? That's the kind of impact I want.

(33:07)
I no longer care about just having efficient people. I want efficient people, absolutely. But the more godly you can get them, the more like they smell like Jesus a little bit. They feel like, they care about these people. I would trust my little ones in the same room with them for a long time. Versus some of them "man, I can carry the widget, and I can get it over there faster or whatever, and I can run a team, and I can sharply yell at them all what to do." Dude, that's not even anything to me anymore. Well,

Erica Adkins (33:36):

That's an automaton, not a teammate.

Mark Carter (33:39):

And those people aren't necessarily going to bleed for you. They're bleeding for them. They're here to get ahead with what they want to do. I want people now that I want you to be in love with this space. I want you in love with this organization.

Mark Carter (33:54):

Want you in love with Jesus. I want you in love with these people and I want you to love me in the sense that you'll tell me the truth without any kind of weird idolatry there. But I said, I want you to love me, in some sense, of like, dude, I'm asking you to bleed for me, not for your personal mission, whatever that thing is.

Erica Adkins (34:14):

Okay, this is a throwback connection, but I'm thinking back to the 95-96 Chicago Bulls.

Mark Carter (34:20):

Yeah, baby.

Erica Adkins (34:21):

They were incredible and they had such an incredible team and they were amazing. 72 wins. I think it was. It was bananas how amazing that team was. But I'm thinking about how when they brought Dennis Rodman on the team, he wasn't a tamon, he was an incredible player, but he did not care about the team. And he was his own guy and he was in the news all the stinking time. But the team kind of started to fall apart because here you brought this diva in. Could he make all of these shots? Yeah, he was great. But the team started to fall apart, because it was this guy, with everybody else, but he was a separate thing, not working together to build the whole team culture. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said about that culture in that time, "As brilliant of an individual as Michael Jordan was. He was not successful until he got with a good team unit." And that I think that 95, 96 team was Like they were killer.

Mark Carter (35:18):

I think a spiritual parallel of that to me is folks that will come in... and this is kind of a careful thing because on one level, you can't be so quiet that I don't even know you're here. You know what I'm saying? You have to get in the pool so to speak, and play volleyball or whatever we're playing. You've got to do enough that I would be able to tell, oh, that person's gifted. On one level, your gift will make room for you. But if you're just like, "Hey man, just so you know, I'm the stuff." I've had this conversation with people recently. When you're coming into a church, or an organization, I do want to know what you can do.

Erica Adkins (35:58):

Yeah, I position you well.

Mark Carter (36:00):

Yeah, tell me if you've done this at some other place, Tell me man. If you got the goods here, that's great. However, if you're telling me, "so just so you know, I'm like freaking awesome. Just so you know. You wouldn't know this about me, but everyone who knows me knows that I'm freaking awesome." If you would say such a ridiculous thing, then you're not as awesome as you think you are. So there has to be of like, let me just be around you. Let me play ball, so to speak. I will be able to tell if you should be starting. You know what I'm saying? That stands out right away. But if you're really loud about it, then you're telling me you don't have a character to do the very thing that you want to do, necessarily yet. So there's a meekness, with also a boldness enough to say, "I'm going to get in and play well. I'm going to crush it on the field without moonwalking into the end zone," so to speak. Now we're changing all the metaphors and games to it. We

Speaker 2 (37:00):

We Have so many metaphors.

Mark Carter (37:05):

A way to do that, by The way, Is if you were really a rockstar somewhere, have the people where you were send some kind of a letter or email. So I would check people now...

Speaker 2 (37:17):

References.

Mark Carter (37:17):

Yeah, yeah. Essentially, send me a reference. Tell your last pastor, just send me an email. Tell me what that was. Because it might be that you really were awesome and he would tell me the truth. But you might just be someone who's looking to make trouble, and I don't know. So I need... the people that make trouble would tell me they were awesome. So that's the difference there.

Erica Adkins (37:40):

Okay, so thinking in that vein, and not necessarily that the people who think that they're awesome are going to cause trouble, but we talk about getting the right people in the right seats on the bus and getting the bus all going in the same direction. You need the people on your bus to all have the same vision going the same direction. What does it look like to get the wrong people off the bus a step? And what does it cost if you don't potentially?

Mark Carter (38:06):

Yeah. It costs you your integrity. It costs you the effectiveness of the team. When I say it costs you integrity: I mean as we mentioned in the previous podcast, you're communicating to everybody else. You don't want them to deal with conflict either. You want them to endure people that don't belong on the team.

Speaker 2 (38:24):

Ultimately, you're okay with compromise is what you're saying.

Mark Carter (38:26):

Right, And you're making that the culture. So it's not just you. You're making that the culture. A really good pastor friend of mine told me this once. I had to let somebody go and it was really hard. And he said, "Carter do it as their pastor, not as their boss." And what was helpful about that was it meant, "enter into the hardness of that moment." You can have just a, I wouldn't want this to be a corporate part. I would want this to be a hard, organic "ow," like that hurt, because it dignifies the situation As far as you can.

(39:01)
Now sometimes they just, we've had situations, people they just run, they won't even meet with you to have that meeting. But I think the ideal version is you communicate, "Hey, I know that we've tried this. I know that you were really excited about it. I've determined this is not the right fit. This is not where we need to go." And often there'll be a pushback, "but I think this." And you just come right, you circle right back around, "I hear that, and I care about you so much. This is not the right fit and this is not where we need to go." You need to slowly help them understand, "this is the hand God is dealing you right now. I want to walk with you through this. Let's try to do that if you're willing to." But it can just be really hard, which is why I mean back to the old wisdom, as much as you can, Don't put the wrong people on the bus.

Erica Adkins (39:54):

Yeah, start there.

Mark Carter (39:55):

Yeah. Because that's way worse.

Erica Adkins (39:58):

Yeah. Yeah. We already alluded to this at the beginning, but not rushing to appoint leaders; wait for the Lord to build the house. And watching for the Spirit's fruit in people's lives before you position them. And then Mark, I think you've done this so well, and again, I think we already touched on this a little bit, but I think a tip and a hack for your team is to be emotionally and relationally intentional with your people so that they feel safe and they understand each other in a way that actually builds a team unity that you already know each other's heart. You're ready to just go. We have what Fierce calls a "staff advance," but tell us a little bit about that.

Mark Carter (40:49):

So the Staff Advance: we go typically every fall and we're going to talk about, "Hey man, here's what's coming in the year, and this is what we're getting ready for." Maybe this is a skill we need to get better at, or what have you. But really what that's about is: I want to spend some time, so we go, we will get a giant Airbnb or something like that and we're going to all have dinner together and we're going to go through meetings together all day that are largely relational. And the purpose of that is mostly I want us to be tight. That's all. That's the reason I want us to know each other. I want to know your heart. I want to know why you think that, because through the rest of the year, we're going to be taking fire from the devil. And when that fire comes, one of the things he's going to do is he's going to accuse them. And I want to say that's not their heart. I spend time with 'em on staff advance, devil, you're tripping. This is who they really are. Having a team that is as close as you can make them, it's just smart warfare.

(41:43)
In addition to getting to be able to enjoy those people, you want to be able to be resilient against the enemy. And I think that's not only the way to keep a team, is the way to make a team. Relational investments: I can remember a time, I think you can overdo this, so I think you can be over-snugly and over-relationally and maybe that's your gift and that's great. That's probably more of a pastoral role than pure leader role. But I think leaders are sometimes under-pastoral. Meaning, the best way to form a good team is spend time with your people and make those people, people who would spend time with their people. So that there's a growing sense of I want to belong to a people that, not only they're doing something to change the world, they're doing it with people they actually like after two years.

Erica Adkins (42:34):

Yeah. That's really good. I think let's just look at Jesus. He grabbed his people. He said, come follow me. So do what I do. Stay with me. Be relationally close with me. They sat down and broke bread together a lot, which means that they were intentional and slowed down enough to enjoy each other. What do you do when you're around a table? You just talk about life and you enjoy each other's company. And I think that's one of the things that we do at Staff Advance that is so beautiful. And it's just even during our staff meetings, often we're doing it over our lunch period so that there's just a camaraderie that happens that's so beautiful.

Mark Carter (43:14):

I think another side issue to that is... All that said, you could do that so much that all you're doing now is spending time with people.

Erica Adkins (43:28):

You're hanging out, Not getting the work done.

Mark Carter (43:30):

There comes a time to prune that and say, okay, but who are the heaviest hitters that I need to spend time with? Because now I've got too many people I need to slim down to. And that's a hard conversation too, because for some, you have to renegotiate, "what's the deal we're doing here right now?" For some, it's like, "I can meet every... I could get lunch with you every couple months or something like that, but that's about all I can do." Or even for some, I've had to have the hard conversation, "Hey man, I like hanging out with you. I can't just have friends though."

Speaker 4 (44:08):

Sure.

Mark Carter (44:09):

"I am not the guy you're going to go to the bar with. I'm not the guy even just to go to the game." Maybe sometime, occasionally, every few years. But my job is to build a kingdom, so I only have time for the goers who are going to be doing that kind of a thing. So if that means you slim down sometimes that's what it takes to maintain fruitfulness. Is to prune.

Erica Adkins (44:29):

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Wow. I think we've talked about a lot. I think we've circled the wagons and come down to it. Again, we started out by saying you can have a team that's excellent at what they do. You can have a team that's relationally great. You can have a team that's neither, or you can have a team that's both. And so trying to build that in to create the team that's ultimately going to advance the kingdom or advance your cause at your secular workplace. But that takes intentionality as a leader. And so having the people around you is going to shape ultimately what happens in your organization. So getting the right people on the bus and the right character is probably going to matter more than the right talent, though the right talent is incredibly important. So yeah. Mark, any final thoughts before we wrap it up?

Mark Carter (45:23):

I think one more that I don't want to have under messaged, and that is the importance of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So we're not just relational experts. We're people that are responsive to the relational expert Who Sees all the gifts and sees all the things we're trying to do for the kingdom.

(45:42)
And it says here, Ecclesiastes four, verse 12, "though one may overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands Is not quickly broken." And it's the three strands. It is, God, I need you in the center. I've got my relationship with this person, I've got me, and I've got Jesus in the middle. And I need with every person on the team, what are you doing right now? How do you want me to react to this thing? What's the challenge you want me to meet? What's the thing you want me to repent for? Who's the person you want me to pursue? What's the deal you want me to back off of? It's all like: he's the man, he's the God, he's the one we need to be taking our cues from. And I don't think we're aiming at the same thing if you're just aiming at a dope team where Jesus himself is not the maestro behind all of that.

Erica Adkins (46:24):

Yeah, that's great. So maybe take some time this week. Ask the Lord, open your eyes for the people who you need to bring onto the team. Ask the Lord to make you aware of maybe some of those "little foxes," the compromises and the conflicts that you as the leader actually need to address. And then just start asking him, "this is the ultimate team that I want. This is the kind of people that I want on the bus. How Lord, are you going to position me and those people to ultimately advance the kingdom and bring it further?"