Ep. 4 - Filling Slots to Multiplying Leaders

Featuring Chris Flathers, a trainer for Multiply Group.

Chris is a New England homeboy who grew up in Portland, Maine. Called to multiply disciples, leaders and churches, he has been in pastoral ministry for over a decade in a variety of roles and church sizes. Currently, Chris serves as the Lead Pastor at Connect Church, which he planted in fall of 2019. Since 2019, Chris has also worked with Multiply Group to come alongside churches like yours to help them develop an intentional leadership development strategy for their church.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hey, welcome back to Currents, a podcast for pastors and ministry leaders here in the Northeast. If you are a pastor, ministry leader in the Northeast, you know the pressure. There are always more needs than there are people, another ministry staff, another role to fill, just another Sunday to prepare for. And if we're honest with each other, it's that constant scrambling just to fill slots. And that's the topic for today. What if the mindset is actually limiting the future of our church of just filling slots? What if God hasn't called us to simply recruit volunteers to the immediate needs of your church, but to raise up leaders who will multiply the mission far beyond what you can do by yourself? That's the tension that we're driving into, that we're kind of looking at today. One approach keeps the machine running, but the other builds momentum. And here with me today, I'm joined by Chris Flathers from Multiply Group, who spent years helping churches kind of make the shift from these short-term fixes to really long-term leadership pipelines. Chris, it is so marvelous to have you with us today.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Good to be with you, Doug.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Hey, we're talking about conversation. And you know what? This is kind of cool because you are a um you're a maniac, brother, aren't you? You're a Maine homeboy.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I am. Yeah, was born in Maine, lived in Maine for middle school, high school, got to do a pastoral ministry in Maine for a handful of years. I I love New England.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

That's awesome. That's awesome. And and as I I said earlier, um, we're not going to hold it against you that you moved to Colorado and planted a church there. I I know there are lost people in Colorado too. Um and as long as you can just still tell us that you're a Patriots fan. Is that true? Rooting for the Patriots. Okay, then we can continue on with the podcast then. Um hey, um, so you are with uh what's so cool is that you are with Multiply Group and you have been coaching uh for how long with um Multiply Group now?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Uh as a coach coming up on seven years, um I was introduced to MacLake and the leadership pipeline process uh over a decade ago now. Yeah, when I was a pastor in Maine.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

That's that's so cool. And and you have been our coach here at Faith Church. And uh just this past week, um our senior pastor, Matt, was saying, what a difference that this has already made in our church. So he is already uh kind of singing your praises and obviously uh Mac Lake's material and that. We're gonna get to that in a minute. We got kind of an exciting announcement at the end of this podcast, too, kind of coming up here. But when you think about the phrases of filling slots versus multiplying leaders, I mean, what's the core difference for pastors to kind of understand between those two?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, that's a great question, Doug. I think uh a couple things to consider. When we are primarily um motivated to fill slots, one, I get it. Like Sunday comes every seven days in Colorado too. It does. Uh and there is a whirlwind that comes with the rhythm of ministry, and yeah, we do need people to serve in these roles so that we can do all that God's invited us to be a part of each week, week over week, month over month, year over year. However, when we are primarily motivated by filling slots, really we're just trying to solve our own personal pain. Like we need this slot filled, so we're gonna find someone who seems ready enough and we're gonna place them in that spot. However, when whenever we're practicing leadership placement like that, we'll never have a culture of leadership development. And in a culture of leadership development, we're not just driven by our own personal pain. Yes, Sunday is coming, but what we're really motivated by is the God-given potential that we see in someone else and wanting to partner with the Holy Spirit and what God's doing in their life currently and what he might do all the more through their life in the future. So we want to be driven more by people's potential than our pain.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

And that'll help us shift from just leadership placement to actually uh being a person who develops leadership in others and could even help foster a culture of leadership development as well.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

That that is so good to uh to understand uh the the the dichotomy between those two. But what what would be some of those warning signs, maybe that a church has fallen into you know slot-filling mentality? Uh you know, how how do you know you're in one of those churches?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Here's a question that'll kind of get you in the gut. If every slot on your team was filled, would you still work to develop leaders? Honestly, each of our own personal answer to that question is enough. But what it would look like in the church as it gets expressed, uh we're only we're only shoulder tapping people when we have a need. We are looking for people who are are ready or at least close enough to ready that we can just place them in the role and kind of set it and forget it. Uh what it might feel like for people in our churches is that they're being thrown into the deep end of the pool of leadership, and it's a sink or swim experience. Yeah. And some swim and we celebrate that, but what's unfortunate is some will sink or they'll be discouraged and they'll just they'll kind of uh quietly bow out.

unknown 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

And that's something that we don't see. And I I don't know a pastor who wants to do that to the people that God has called them to shepherd. So yeah, those are a couple of signs that I think of.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

I I would assume that the dropout rate is pretty significant in those kinds of churches, right? Um that that people serve for a short period of time and then uh quickly exit, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yeah, and and I think the the the staff team at those churches is constantly trying to fill positions.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Like, like, you know, as people are are saying, I'm done, I don't want to serve in this role anymore, they're just constantly trying to fill the role. And it it feels probably like they're on a treadmill at times, not making a whole lot of progress, but getting pretty worn out in the process.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

And I know that that's exhausting. Before we started what we're doing now with with Mac Lake's material, that was exhausting for our leaders to do that. So a mindset shift has to kind of happen. Um, and it has to happen probably from the top down, right? The way a pastor views people in their church. Um describe that to me a little bit about uh you know the mindset a pastor has to kind of make to actually make this jump into this.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yes, uh, it definitely starts with leadership, the the the senior leaders, because no matter how hard we try, culture always flows down, not up. And it's got to start with us in the role that God has called us to. And what's really important isn't the number of leaders that we develop as a lead pastor or as a senior pastor or as an executive pastor. What's really important is that we are vocally talking about it and we're visibly doing it. So our voice in hey, we want to have a culture of leadership development here, and here is who I am developing to do what I do, to lead what I lead, etc. So that that's really important. Um, the mindset shift, I appreciate Dave Ferguson's book, Hero Maker. I think that language helps a lot because uh honestly, a lot of my education, I I have a you know Bible college degree and a seminary degree, incredibly grateful for that. That taught me how to do ministry and in a sense put a cape on and make it happen.

unknown 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

But the invitation that I see in Jesus' ministry is not to be the hero, but to be a hero maker. And I think that's the mindset shift that we need to make. We not from from being the hero, being the guy, to all right, I'm gonna identify what God's doing in others and come alongside and help them win and use the gifts that God's given them. And they may even do uh far more than we could, but still being a you know, a coach, a cheerleader behind them.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

As a pastor, I can speak firsthand of this. It was something I knew I needed to do or should be doing. I didn't understand how. So, what would be, you know, for a pastor who's just hearing this, maybe and they've always known, yes, this is what I should be doing. I don't know how to do it. What are the first practical steps that a church could take or a pastor could take in kind of starting this leadership pipeline literally from scratch, right? Nothing at all to just, all right, we're just gonna start, start somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, all right, I'll answer that question uh twofold. One, I'll I'll share a story and invite us as pastors. Here's the next step that we could take, and then we'll talk about what the church can do. So years ago, I was driving around the mall area and I was listening to a leadership podcast. Greg Rochelle was interviewing uh a guy named Rory Baden. I I didn't know of Rory Baden at the time, but I was listening to this podcast, and Rory starts talking um about the different types of work that we have. And I was like, oh yeah, I recognize some of these terms. He's talking about how there's urgent work, stuff that's always buying for our attention. And I'm like, yep, as a pastor, Sunday's coming. It's always coming. Uh, the next event, funeral, wedding, holiday, whatever, it's coming. So there's the tyranny of the urgent, and then he talks about the important work that we should be doing. And I said, Yep, and I've read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Right, I need to focus more on the important work than the urgent work. And then Rory totally blew up my paradigm because he introduced a third category of work. And he said, There's this other category of work called significant work, and this work has a multiplicative effect. It could be a system that's developed so as things are repeated, it becomes more efficient, uh, or it could be the development of people. And then I started to think about how Jesus spent a disproportionate amount of time with a few in his earthly ministry. I mean, one scholar estimates that in the the recorded account of Jesus' ministry that we have in the Gospels, in the four Gospels, looking at all the different things that Jesus did, 73% of his time was spent with a few. That's crazy. Like 73% of his time.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

And I was looking at my time and I'm thinking, man, a lot of my time's going to the urgent, and I'm trying to focus on the important to be more like Jesus. I want to do what's significant. And uh about a year ago, I started asking myself this question, Doug, because um, once I start my week, like I'm I'm just running from meeting to meeting, task to task, whatever it is. And uh I get to the end of my week and I'd be discouraged because I didn't do as much significant work as I wanted. So I started to ask myself this question what am I gonna do this week that I can invite someone to do it? And I need personally have to ask that question at the beginning of my week because at the beginning of my week, like on Sunday afternoon, I can send somebody a text and say, hey, I'm gonna have to go go to the hospital to visit so-and-so. Do you want to come with me? Or I have this lunch on Wednesday. Do you want to come along? And if I if I invite the person on the front end, honestly, they're often open, they're interested, they're willing. And then, you know, driving to or from, we can talk about the experience. And now we're not just doing ministry, but now developing someone in the process. So that that's one thing we could do personally as pastors, just look at our week and ask ourselves, what am I doing this week that I can invite someone to do with?

unknown 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

We're gonna start discipling more people, we're gonna start developing more people. You know, when it comes to the second part of your question, Doug, with like churches, where do we start? Uh, it's a great question. Because as you mentioned earlier, I've had the privilege of coming alongside uh dozens and dozens of churches around the country. And um, often churches will reach out to us because they're not really sure what their leadership development strategy is. And I get it. Uh for a lot, it's organic, uh, or they don't have one at all. So they're asking, hey, we want to define this, we want to get clarity around this. And what I would encourage a church to think about is uh threefold. How are you gonna prepare new leaders? How are you gonna equip your existing leaders? How are you gonna inspire all of your leaders? If you can figure out how you're gonna prepare some new leaders, equip your existing leaders, and inspire all your leaders, you have the beginnings of a leadership development strategy, and you can run that play over and over again, and you're gonna start to see some different results. Less leadership placement, more intentional leadership development.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

That's that's great. And and and that's kind of what I start to see happening here. How do you how does a leader um identify potential leaders as as you know, pastors, ministry leaders, you know, and I'm thinking here of you know, children's directors, youth directors, uh worship directors, you know every every segment of ministry in the church is is gonna have to um look for the the next generation of leadership. How do you how do you identify those people?

SPEAKER_02 14:54

That's a great question. And I think often what we do in the church, having done this myself, is we'll look for someone who's ready.

unknown 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

But if we're just looking for someone who's ready, we're gonna practice leadership placement.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

What we really should start looking for is somebody who's willing. Because if they're willing, we might have a an opportunity to disciple them and help them get ready.

unknown 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Or maybe we'll look for someone who's perfect, as if we think we are ourselves. What if we started to look for potential rather than perfect? Uh look for people who, whether it's at home or at work, or in their small group at church or wherever, you see other people following them. That that could be an indication that they've got a leadership gifting and an invitation to explore that, that could be a really cool opportunity, a really great conversation with that person. So look for people who have others following them. Those are a couple of things that come to mind. Uh character, I would definitely look for character, you know. Um we can develop competency, but character, the whole spiritual guide to the majority of that work. And a few things can undermine someone's leadership, like a slipping character. So look for someone who's got the character to withstand the leadership that you're inviting them to step into.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

That's great. You know, it there's this kind of um question about discipleship and leadership development, right? How how closely are they two different things, or uh does one overlap the other? I mean, how closely connected are those two? And how closely connected should they be to each other?

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, that's a really good question. And one that we receive often. So the way I like to think about it is leadership development is a continuation of discipleship. It's a continuation of discipleship. So in discipleship, um, you're gonna focus a lot on uh being having a character like Christ. Leadership development, yes, we're considering character and we're building upon that and also helping someone develop the competency to lead like Jesus. Discipleship is a lot about living like Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Leadership development gets to that next level of let's also lead like him. Like God's giving someone influence at home, at work, uh, on their school board or or a church. How do we help them steward that influence in a way that's gonna point people to Jesus? How do we help them lead like him? Uh I also, when I think of that, how to how to discipleship and leadership development, you know, play off each other. Uh, I think of how we should be discipling people and the gifts that God's given us. Like the person that the Spirit has gifted with hospitality, we should disciple them to be more and more hospitable. The person who's got the gift of evangelism, we should disciple them to be an evangelist, uh, gift of generosity, etc. Leadership development is saying, hey, I see that God is giving you the gift of leadership. To disciple you, to steward that in a way that's going to point people to Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

You know, this is a good, I think, opportunity right now just to kind of introduce some of the material because I think what you just said um that leadership is kind of a continuation of discipleship, that you are um, you know, one is about living like Jesus, the other is really about leading um like Jesus. And um the five books in his series, Mac Lake's series, um starts with leading yourself. And that has been really helpful to uh a number of uh uh individuals in our church that this is kind of where it it starts, right? This is where it all begins, that you gotta lead yourself well. And um I I I love the fact that um a lot of our 20-somethings are kind of starting here first, um, which is which is perfect. I love it. Um, but then then the second one is okay, now if you're a small group leader, if you're a youth leader, um this is the this is the next step to take. And and so uh yeah, I I have not found better material than this that that Max developed. This is this is good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

You know, Doug, when I I went through the leadership pipeline process when I was on staff at a church in Portland, Maine. And at the time, Mac didn't have all these resources. And I was the group's pastor, and part of my role was also writing the curriculum that we would use to develop our leaders. And I learned a lot through the process. When we moved out here to Colorado, I just took the work that we did in Maine and kind of rebranded it for our church plant, and we used it for a few years to help develop leaders. And then Mac wrote that whole series of books that you were just referencing, the Discipling Leaders series. And I I got to the point with the only the curriculum I had written that I was like, Man, I need to update this stuff. Like, but just you know, I've learned some things, need to tweet some things. And uh a little over a year ago, I really had this realization, and I'm like, I don't want to do that. Like, I didn't get I didn't become a pastor because I wanted to write curriculum. It's important, but God's gifted other people with that, with that ability. And I was looking at, like you said, I was looking at Mac's series of books, and I'm like, I don't think there's anything better out there, and I certainly can't, you know, write something like this. So we've started to use that series of books too, just like you guys are using it at Faith Church. And it's been incredible because it's just fodder, it's fodder for discussion, fodder for conversation. And what I appreciate about it is it's it tries to um invite an intersection of three things knowledge, experience, and coaching. If you picture like a Venn diagram, often in the church we'll be really good at one or two of those things. Knowledge is often in the American church our strength. Sometimes we have some experience. And in my my experience, uh the American church seems to be the weakest in the coaching side of things.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

But the the whole series of books has knowledge, experience, and coaching baked into it because it's at the intersection of those three things that we as people experience the greatest transformation. That's just the way God wired us. And as we've started to use it with our leaders, I mean it's Been incredible to see people grow in their faith, grow in their relationship with their with the Lord, and lead like Jesus in all different areas.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Yeah. I I just this past week I had the privilege to sit down with a couple of our young adult leaders and um I'm uh I'm taking the two of them through it and another group as well. But we we went through uh module number four in leading others, which was facilitating discussion. And they both came away saying, that was fantastic. We should have had this a long time ago. Both of them are uh going to go through it with me this summer because they're gonna become coaches. So they're gonna go through leading leaders with me. And um, I just can't wait to take them, the both of them, through it, because they're they're now at the next level where they're gonna start uh coaching um other small group uh leaders of our small, of our young adult ministry. And uh again, it's it's it's kind of like um it's it's just this wheel that gets spinning, right? And uh that's that's what's going on right now.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Flywheel.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

It totally is it's a flywheel right now. So so if I could ask you about some of the common mistakes churches make when they're trying to develop leaders, what what are some of those maybe mistakes along the way? How can they avoid them as they're trying to develop this pipeline?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah. Uh and I can empathize with a lot of these mistakes because I understand how we get there as pastors, because I've been there myself. I think one of the most common mistakes that I see is rushing the process. Because we do have a slot that needs to be built, we do feel the personal pain point of not having someone in that position. So we go quickly only to shortchange the development for the person and often we wreak the consequences down the road. So going too quick because leadership development really is playing the long game.

unknown 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

And we have to kind of love the process. We have to love the process of discipling people, love the process of discipling leaders. Because if we don't love the process and love the person, we're gonna shortchange it. And we're gonna shortchange both the process and the person. And and that's probably the greatest mistake that I see, or most frequent mistake. Um, other mistakes that I'll see would be uh placing someone in the role before they're ready, like uh or skipping a level level of development. Those are I would say um kind of offshoots of trying to go too quickly, but they're they're common ones. Just placing someone in the role even though they're not quite ready yet, or like we call it skip level development. Maybe they have led others, but now all of a sudden we need someone who could lead a ministry department, and we hire the the youth small group leader to be our next youth director, but they have no experience leading leaders. Yeah, and that's just not fair to them. Yeah, and often it doesn't go well, uh, unfortunately. So those are some mistakes that I see. I mean, there are many others, but we gotta if we're if we're signing up for leadership development, we have to recognize and just own the fact we're playing the long game here. It is a flywheel, like we were talking about a second ago, and it will pick up momentum, but uh on the front end, it can feel like a lot of work.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

I I remember one of the mistakes that we made um early on in the process that we were attempting to fast track too many at once in the same group with one leader leading the group. So there was probably six, seven, maybe even eight people in this one group. And now, afterwards, we realized we got to take some of these people through the process again because um the the real uh the the real kind of reflection that's required is on a much smaller level, one to two, one to three. And you know, the some of these folks they didn't they didn't understand the character trait or the competency uh trait, the skill that went along with it. We didn't there wasn't enough discussion and enough soul searching on it. I think we were just trying to fast track too many people through the process at once. So now we're realizing we have to go back, do it all over again, and do it the right way this time. And uh, but but it was a good learning experience for us. So we won't do that, we won't commit that same error twice now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, well, that's good. You know, there are a couple other um things that I see churches, uh mistakes I see churches make, they'll take a very programmatic-centered approach to leadership development, yeah, which ends up limiting who and how and when we can develop people. Yeah. Um, another approach, uh, really what we want, so rather than a programmatic center approach, we want to have a real people-centered approach. We see this start Jesus' ministry very people-centered in his approach to his discipleship of them. Um, we can be as well. Another thing, I'd say this is an underutilized uh component of leadership development, so it's not totally a mistake, but it's like contact, is leveraging peer-to-peer collaboration. Like the Holy Spirit's in them, and them, and them, not just in us. And if we can trust the spirit to speak through not just us, but others as well, letting peers sharpen one another. Like we we're all about iron sharpening iron in our men's ministries. Imagine if we let Proverbs 27-17 also shape our leadership development. And if we let people sharpen one another in leadership. I think of um when I was in Maine, uh, I was leading a huddle. So this is ongoing training with a group of coaches, and we were just having a conversation about what's working, what's not working, and uh as we lead our leaders, and the room uh was filled with really high capacity people. Uh there were elders from our church in the room, a VP of a bank, uh, my parents were in the room. My uh we had the an owner of multiple car dealerships. Like this was the guy on all the car commercials during Red Sox games, Patriots games, Celtics games, like all of it. Like very public figure. He's in the room, and I'm thinking, why am I, as a 25-year-old, the one leading this meeting? Like I'm the last person who should be leading this meeting. But it was my job, so I called the meeting. But because of what Mac had encouraged me in, not trying to be the expert in that scenario, but to foster peer-to-peer learning, we just collaborated. And halfway through our huddle, the owner of the car dealership stopped the conversation. He said, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Before we go any further, I just have to say, this is gonna change how I lead at work this week.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

And I thought, wow.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Wow. I can't even imagine the hundreds of employees who are gonna be impacted because this guy was humble enough to learn alongside other leaders in his church how to lead like Jesus in all areas of life. Yeah. And that's where I was, I'm not one over. I'm like, okay, let's go, Lord. How can I help? How can I be a part of helping people to yes, follow you and also lead like you?

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Yeah. And and I love that's the that's Max line, isn't it? Not just to live like Jesus, but lead like Jesus. And uh this is a good place to end right here, Chris, because we get to announce, and you get to be on on here with me right now as we're announcing that the we believe in this so much, the value of this, that um we have brought, we have we're gonna be bringing Mac Lake in this coming November. It's a one-day conference uh right here at Faith Church in Auburn. It's really a central place throughout the Northeast. So Mac's gonna come on one day for a one-day seminar, not just for pastors, but all ministry leaders. So if you've got, you know, children's uh, you know, worship, um, uh you know, we're we're we wanna kind of cover all the bases and have breakout sessions for each of those ministries to actually talk through and work through some of these questions. Um so this is gonna be exciting. November 16th is the day. Um, we're gonna have it on our website so you can sign up for that. Um, we've got a special rate. Compassion has uh agreed that if any person cannot afford either the conference or even a hotel, um Compassion International is going to support you to come and be a part of this uh one-day uh conference. So there's no reason why you can't be here for that. November 16th, we'll have a pre-conference on Sunday night. There'll be a banquet, so you can come to that as well, and then stay over and be here uh the next morning as uh Mac starts uh a series of messages on that day. So, Chris, I'm excited about that. Man, this is I think um a huge, huge thing for the Northeast, and I think it can really start making a difference in a lot of churches.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah. I if I was a pastor in the Northeast, though, I would mark my calendars for November 16th because I have experienced what Mac is going to be sharing that day, and it's gonna be powerful, it's gonna be personal, it's gonna be relevant, it's gonna change how you lead on November 17th and 18th in the year to come. And uh I think it's gonna be a really encouraging time together. And I'm excited for the Northeast. I'm really excited for the Northeast. I I'm living out here in Colorado, I love Colorado, I feel called to Colorado, but I there is a huge part of my heart that still uh is in the Northeast and wants to see the gospel spread like it once did and to do it again. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

So thank you, Chris. I appreciate you so much, brother, and uh for what you've done here at our church and uh the difference that it's made here. Bless you, thank you, and uh it's been great talking with you today. Thank you so much. My pleasure, fun to be a part. God bless.