Welcome to the Vanderblemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Ide, Manager of Marketing and Business Development here at Vanderblemen. In today's podcast, William Vanderblemen talks with Sean Morgan, founder of the Assent Leader and host of Leaders in the Living Room Project. His passion is to help ministries navigate obstacles and turn them into opportunities. In this conversation, Sean talks about leadership development and the benefits of trusted leadership relationships. They also share insights about what happens after a succession and how to help navigate your church through a healthy transition. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Sean does a better job of this than I do. You really have to listen to his podcast. Sean, I don't think I've told you this, but when we started this podcast years and years and years ago, and one of my kids who was like, I don't know, eight or nine at the time, said, So what do you do? And so well we interview people and introduce them to our friends and that sort of thing and ask them questions. He said, So are you like Jimmy Fallon for the church? No, not really, but that's kind of funny. But but Sean's show really is. You get to get in the living room, you get to hear behind the scenes stuff. It's it's an amazing podcast. I think you should go listen to it. Sean, tell us the name so they can get right to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just Leaders in Living Rooms, which is the name of the podcast, but it's a metaphor for the other stuff we'll get to talk about today around our cohorts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and Sean, uh I would love it. I'm amazed at how many times I assume people know someone and then they don't. So I'd love it if you just take a minute and tell our listeners a little bit about your background. You got a flag behind you in your living room. Like, how'd you end up doing this and what are you doing now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I grew up as the son of a church architect and loved my dad's work, but I never felt a call to ministry. In fact, if you've seen architectural design committees for denominationally affiliated churches where people will almost wring each other's necks over what color of carpet they're fighting for in the lobby. You don't want to be a part of church at all, like not organized church. So I grew up seeing that and uh just pursuing my passion, which was military and aviation, and and went that route. And it's always um such a glimpse of God's grace when you see the way that he takes your choices and turns them into something beautiful for for his glory and his kingdom. And the experiences I had early on in life in the Air Force, uh, start out at the Air Force Academy, um, and then into the Air Force ultimately led me to a part-time job in the Air Force, which is called the Reserves, the Air Force Reserve or the Air National Guard. Those are part-time jobs. And lo and behold, God used those experiences to um help open up the door for me to enter ministry. Now, prior to that, I had been a part of a church plant, a church in Colorado called Woodman Valley Chapel, that my family was involved in in planting and getting going. That's the church I grew up in from nothing to this amazing and our good friend Jim Tomberlin pastored there, as you know. So I was in the church plant, but I didn't know because when you're in second grade, it's just church. It's not a church plant. But when I started settling down in Northern California in the Air Force Reserve as a part-time job, um, my wife and I felt called to be a part of a church plant. A new expression, um, very, very great commission-centric movement of people. And that became home church. Uh, I'll spare you all the details, but um, we we grew, but it wasn't healthy growth in a lot of ways. And I was called to come on staff and did a great job of helping the church go from a church plant go from about 800 uh to about 400 over the first few years that I was there as the executive pastor.
SPEAKER_00Um they call that a Gideon's revival. Go from 10,000 to 30.
SPEAKER_02You drank water the wrong way, you're out of here. Um so yeah, it but it was interesting because I think God was helping us figure out what was important and how to focus better on really discipling people. And it took years, but God did bless that and and turn that around, and the church began uh to grow, and and we began to even actually it was about a 60-day period where the church tripled in size. Um amazing story there. But um, our our friend, as you and I have talked about before, a guy named Tom Raynor wrote a book called Breakout Churches. And it was a book about churches that had exponential growth. And that was one of the churches that um in that book, I think it was only maybe 10 churches that he references in there, was New Life Church in Fairfield, California, of all places, which is the greater San Francisco Bay Area. And churches wanted to come visit after they read Tom's work, wanted to come visit and learn from us, and God called me into a more big sea church role, influencing other pastors in that season. And ultimately, it led to what I'm doing now, which would be getting pastors in groups of typically six to nine pastors in a very relational centric environment and focusing on leadership development through trusted relationship and deep conversation that really only comes from relationships that have trust. And that's what we do at the Ascent Leader, which is a small nonprofit that I run.
SPEAKER_00I I mentioned this uh before the show broadcast that you know people hear from us all the time about a succession that we do or hiring us for succession planning, and it's kind of become a thing and read our book or whatever. But what happens after that? You know, uh my daughter, when when we were doing the first version of Next, which was called eight years ago now that we that book came out, and uh we titled it next. So we were probably that was probably nine years ago, and she said, Are you gonna write a second book? And I said, Yes, and she said, You know what you should call it? And I said, No, she said, and after that. So Sean is kind of like the and after that of the kingdom. Like, so I go ahead and get to get so there's there's your book title. You can write it. I'll write the foreword if you want, but uh and after that, deal. So, you know, I I get to keep up with the people that are doing well and some some that are not doing well, and even the best churches have things that are not going well, right? It's just wheat and chaff grow up together. That's the way it is. So I would love to hear. I mean, first of all, give our listeners an idea of how many. I mean, you told me the other day how many hours you put in to listening to people that have been through a succession and are the quote new guy. Uh tell tell us a little bit of the scope of your work right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, the Ascent Leader focuses on the cohort environment, and we really launched that with leadership transitions. Um, we do executive pastor cohorts, we do church planner cohorts, but the the very beginning of that was me looking around and seeing most of my friends at the time, ages 35 to 45, let's say, that were new lead pastors, and they sort of had this feeling. Um, one, I think there were most of them able to admit, I don't really know what I'm doing. Like I'm taking this role as a lead pastor of this church and this thing that existed before me. And I'm prepared, but that doesn't mean that you can do everything right. And so they they sort of had that feeling, but they also, I don't think anybody verbalized it, but I got it. I understood that the church at large sort of felt like the succession was over when the baton pass ceremony happened, but they were realizing that their leadership journey was still kind of on brick one of a long journey of bricks, a long paved road of bricks. And so there was just that sense of wow, I I'm just getting started. And so what do I do here? And I thought, man, there's a lot of there's a lot of things going on in Christendom around succession. This might be an opportunity to really invest in leaders that I at the time knew. I knew their names, I knew their churches. In some cases, I'd been there and met with their boards. And so I began just saying, hey, if you guys will show up, what if I could get us all in the living room of a leader who transitioned well? And that very first leader ended up being a guy named Judd Wilhite, who had transitioned, Central Church, from multiple spouses. It was a huge church when Gene Apple stepped out of the senior leadership role there and Judd followed him. Um, but the church grew. And Judd's an exceptional leader, but he's also one of those people that is a very learned leader. So um he can talk in a very teaching and educated way about the dynamics of leading a church that I think a lot of people when Gene left, they felt like, well, Gene's our pastor. And well, we're only it's it can only go downhill from Gene Apple, right? I mean, he's such a great man, such a great pastor, uh good friend. And so that's sort of the environment that Judd had stepped into there. And that can be a tough place. So, like, well, I love Gene, I want to honor Gene, but I also believe I'm called here for now, and that this church is here for what God's calling us for to tomorrow. So that really became the center part of, well, let me see if I could gather leaders around this idea of I just got the baton pass, now what? Um and it started working, and people started showing up and they were hungry. And so then I did another one and people showed up for that. And then the people that showed up for the first one called me and said, Let's keep going. Like, I want to do another one. And so we just sort of became uh um like on a path learning together. It was not a strategic thing. I didn't think seven years later, eight years later, I'd still be focused on that with momentum and growth. Um, not at all. I think it was just like there's an opportunity and a need here, and I think some people will trust me to try to help meet it. But as you alluded to, now seven years later, doing that almost full time, there's a good 10,000 hours of work in succession transition. And I realized, oh, I'm stewarding some stuff here that I think can help other people. So I I want to keep focused on it and use that at this point in life, second half of life kind of thing, uh, you want leverage, right? You don't want one calorie that you spend to result in one calorie of benefit for somebody else. Like if you're gonna burn a calorie, you want it to be leveraged into 10 or 50 or 100 calories for others. And that's what I found in this is that there's opportunity for leverage for making real change and difference in the lives of leaders that you care about and you want to put wind in their sails, but they're churches as well.
SPEAKER_01Your organization is unique. Therefore, the way you find your next staff member should be unique too. Whether you're a school, nonprofit, family office, or values-based business, we are ready to help serve you. Contact us today to get started.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. And uh I guess we both Judd was our third search ever. Uh oh Was it?
SPEAKER_03I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm at a local one, not surprised. It was uh pretty crazy. Yeah, Judd and I are the same age. Uh in fact, when he went to Central about the same time I went to First Prize Houston, and we were both like 31 and in way over our heads, and I cold called him and said, Hey, uh, you don't know me, but I am a young senior pastor in over my head, and I know your church because I'd been to Gene's church before, and I'm guessing you're young and in over your head. Will you be my friend, please? It was the lamest cold call ever, but Judd's so gracious that you know, a love long friendship, and now he's helped birth two ministries. What a great thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely he has.
SPEAKER_00So 10,000 hours. I got a question for you. You walk in after succession, I'm asking blanket questions, knowing that every church is unique, but when does the crap hit the fan? When's the honeymoon over? Like when you're talking to these guys, what's the year it's like, oh, you're in year three, or you just finished year three. Where where is that moment in the in the work that you've done scene?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I spent about 90 minutes this morning before breakfast on a call with a leader that you and I both know, and at a church, most people would probably know who was talking to me about that. And he basically said, these are the things that aren't working for me. I'd in an ideal setting, I would wait to make these changes, but it's gonna cost me personally so much that I don't know if I can do three or six more months with the systems and structure being the way they are. So the whole conversation centered around is it too soon? And um every, you're right, every church responds differently to change. I would say this to leaders um you want to prioritize in that early season of the honeymoon where everybody is just sort of thinking beautiful, gracious thoughts about the church and your leadership and the future. Um, uneducated, but still beautiful, gracious thoughts. Um you want a honeymoon to go in your Yeah, that's the honeymoon. That's the description of the honeymoon. Um, it's an artificial um concept of what the future is going to be like that we're all in love with. And then when reality sets in of, oh, the future's gonna be like that, you're gonna lead like that, changes like that are going to take place. That's when the honeymoon ends. And I would tell most leaders the honeymoon season, you get a few chips that you can cache without ending the honeymoon, but there becomes either a sum total of change, or one big change potentially could end the honeymoon as well. Um, but a sum total of change or a big change or two that sort of reality sets in, and people begin to see that their uneducated hopes and visions for the future of the church are different than the reality you feel you've been called to lead. And that chasm ends up causing heartburn. And that sort of ends the honeymoon there in that um, you know, there's a an old cartoon I saw that was like uh church search committee, is what it said on the wall. And there was a consultant, it was probably meant to be you, um, working with the board. And the church consultant's response to the board was so you want an iconic leader who's a great visionary to come here and change absolutely nothing. And that's what everybody wants, right? I want this great preacher and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to change anything. But yeah, I want I want the church to have a future. And the thing about that is to give the church a future, we have to reach people who aren't here today, who our community is becoming. There's U-Hauls coming in and out every day. And what's the net effect of that? There are people in this town who are unreached and they're different than the people we were reaching last year. And so that sort of stuff is what begins to end the honeymoon, um, usually six to twelve months, but under normal circumstances. Um, obviously, COVID gave people a free, like, we know this is our survival. We've got to make big change. And so I think people that extended honeymoons in some ways, and in other ways, there was such polarity that it ended honeymoons prematurely. Like you didn't have to do anything, just the fact that you didn't do something ended your honeymoon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I it was the uh, you know, the old George Clooney movie, the perfect storm, where the three things, the three storm fronts sit together and they were done. And you know, you throw a uh unprecedented pandemic on top of uh uh racial tensions that needed to surface but have been bubbling a long time, and then a presidential election that made my dogs fight with each other, uh you know, like it's like not good. Yeah, it was six to twelve months. You've got some fast changers. I my experience uh across the broader and maybe just my sector is I usually tell the church board when we do the search, you need to buckle up for somewhere in year three or the end of year three, because that's when something's gonna change. Um the worm will turn, either the beginning of year three or the end of year three. And I and I tell the incoming pastor, usually with the senior pastor search, there is a search committee of some kind, right? Um five five years from now, you will be lucky if two of the people on your search committee are still at this church. So just get rid of it. No, these are the people that brought me here. No, no, no, no, no. And I don't know if that holds true with what you see or or not, but that uh those are two markers I throw out there.
SPEAKER_02Two things. I'll address the three-year thing. You're absolutely right. Three year, uh the third year is generally, you know, um, whatever, from 24 to 36 months-ish is generally what I call the year of pain. Read Sam Chan's book. It's brilliant. Read it no matter what where you're leading, because it's just the leadership book, but it's certainly iconic in year three. So what if if year one's a honeymoon, what's year two, what's year three? And and uh obviously there's a lot of dynamics that change that. The calendar isn't what's dictating it, it's really about milestones. But year two is typically change implementation, it's where changes are beginning to be made, but typically people have some patience, like, oh, and it it's not really until year three where the the leadership pain is felt that people be behave in a way and respond negatively to change. So not all responses to change are unhealthy, but the real negative and unhealthy ones, those are the ones that really set the tone for year three being this tough year where, yeah, your your predecessor's former elder chairman just left the church over something you did. And that's the stuff that happens in year three. But I think it's important just to pause, we can dive into this further if you want, because I have said exactly what you said to many, many elder circles around the succession topic. Is I'm usually a little lighter. I sort of fib, I say half of you won't be here in five years after the baton pass, and they're aghast. And then I tell them, actually, it's probably more like 80%. What and then I say it really shines light on something that I think is an inappropriate success metric for leadership transitions, and that is that all of us are happy five years from now and still here. Um if that's the only way we we think succession can be scored as a as a win, if we're all the insiders are still happy five years from now, what we have just described is a country club. Um but we have to reapproach that and say we are all here to volunteer our time and expertise and to give our money to something that God's new visionary is here to lead us toward. And some of it we might not necessarily like, but if we believe it is part, because what hasn't changed in transition? That's always a great question. What hasn't changed? Well, I can tell you one thing that hasn't changed the mission of the church being love God and love others. Some amalgam of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission is the mission of the local church, and that didn't change. And if we're gonna keep doing that three years from now, five years from now, it can't be just about us still being here and being being happy.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that is so good. And I I I hope people wrote that down. Um, I would just piggyback. I tell boards, incoming, outgoing people, you know, the one thing that's not gonna change the ownership of the church. This is Jesus Church. So listen to me carefully. I want you right now to declare as profanity the term my church. Just call it profanity and hold each other accountable. If you'll get rid of that phrase, you'll get rid of a lot of headaches.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I want to wonder.
SPEAKER_00Well, i I forget it all the time. But oh my church and my people and my this and my that. No, it's not. This isn't my company. It's not your nonprofit. Like, nope. I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. But uh it's it's it seems like remembering ownership goes a long way. So let me ask you let me ask you this. The guys uh that you are working with that have done well, and and you said it on a podcast we did together and said it so well, they're no easy successions, right? Uh people ask me all the time, is this gonna be a hard or an easy search? Like, if if a search were easy, I wouldn't have a company. It's just like the but but of the ones that are going well, what do you see as maybe some common denominators that the incoming pastor do in those situations? And then the other side, what do you see the outgoing pastors do that really works?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a meeting in the middle for sure. That's the sweet spot um teamwork, right? So I would say outgoing, I think I can think of two main things. One of them is that they keep the church focused on mission, not method. We we kind of alluded to that a few minutes ago. Focused on mission, not method. Um if the church embraces risk and change for the sake of being on mission, um, then that is probably the most important cultural aspect of the church approaching transition in a healthy way. I as a success incoming pastor, I would say look for that. Look for that in the church. Is the church mission focused? Because if they're mission focused, they're going to be less method focused. And the second thing an outgoing leader can do, and in and this isn't just the outgoing leader, I would say it also is bridge leaders. It's executive pastors and youth pastors and children's pastors and staff and elders that I would call bridge leaders. They're anchored on both sides of the transition. They have influence and anchoring in this whole thing. Uh, so absolutely staying focused on mission, paramount. And then the second thing is an outgoing leader-specific thing. And you and I have talked about this before on my podcast on leaders in living rooms, is the identity of the lead pastor and their preparedness for um, I guess the the really clear way to say it, which I will say around people that I I trust, is are you comfortable with obscurity? And if the outgoing leader is comfortable with objects, gold, say that again.
SPEAKER_00Say that again.
SPEAKER_02I asked outgoing leaders, uh, are you comfortable with obscurity?
SPEAKER_00Pure gold. Pure gold. When I was a pastor here in Houston, um one of the guys in our church was uh Lloyd Benson, he was the senator, uh, ran for vice president. I don't know, you know, he debated like I think Dan Quayle. And I knew Jack Kennedy, you know Jack Kennedy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he um he died uh while I was there, but before he died, I went and did the guest chaplaincy of the Senate. And he wasn't in the Senate anymore, so you have to have a host. And Tom Dashell was my host. He was a Democrat Senate majority leader from one of the one of the Dakotas, and he was lovely and you know, led me around and all, and introduced me to all the people that I don't think I've ever voted for. But uh, it was super, super fun and very civil tone and everything. Well, that fall he lost his re-election, which I'm not real sure how you do in the Dakotas. It seems like you just call everybody, but uh you know, but uh he lost, so I called Miss Benson and I'm like, I want to write him a note. He was so kind. How do I what's the best way to do that? She said, I'll just call him at home. And I said, and this was landline days, right? I said, Well, Miss Benson, I appreciate that, but I'm not gonna ring Senator Benson at Senator Dashell at home and bother him. And she said, This line, William, William, you have no idea how little the phone rings once you're not in office. Wow. And I just thought, wow, and that's that's a long, convoluted way of saying, are you comfortable with obscurity? Pure gold. That's good. I'd love to have you back and maybe ask some more hard questions to learn more about what you're seeing on the other side, the and after that, if we can do that. Uh, but I'd also love for people to I'd be honored to. Yeah, yeah. And I'd I'd really love for people to know exactly how to figure out whether they can get in one of the cohorts that you're doing. And maybe it's not succession, maybe it's exact pastor. What's the best way for them to do that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you're interested in a cohort in our way, there's a lot of different people doing cohorts out there, and we applaud all that because there's a lot of need, I think, for readjustment to the needs of leaders and the development of leaders. But our method and our way is at theascentleader.com, theascentleader.com. We've got information there on all the different types of cohorts we do, and there's a process where you can start a conversation with a small application to us, and that'll help us get to know you, and then we get you in touch with a coach. And when I say a coach, we have world-class coaches, coaches on our teams like Dave Stone and people like Nancy Beach that do just absolutely incredible work on the team. So you'll be connected with an A gamer who will love you, encourage you, and navigate that conversation about how to get you in a cohort environment that'll be great at serving your leadership needs.
SPEAKER_00And if you're in a church that's done well through succession and you're like, this is amazing, I didn't know this resource was available. I'll I'll just remind you, I don't think I've ever done this on a podcast. I'll just remind you that The Ascent is a nonprofit, and you could make a donation. Don't you get a scholarship, pastors that can't afford to get in a cohort?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we do. We have a goal. We actually don't want big donations because we want prayer. Um, so we actually ask churches to partner with us $100 a month. Um, and there's a donation link on our website. All that goes to scholarshipping pastors. Most of that is lower-budgeted churches with big visionary pastors that want to learn and grow, but they don't have the budget for it. And the vast majority of those are church planters, actually. And we think there's no better way to see a 42% number, like Barna has reported, of pastors who are considering leaving ministry. There's no better way to reverse that than starting with the end in mind with church planters and getting them in really good, grounded relational environments to grow as leaders. It doesn't take away the need for books and podcasts and conferences. Um, it's supplementary to those things. But um, I think there's five kinds of relationships out there. And most pastors don't have the top two. The bottom three are stranger, acquaintance, and friend. The top two are ally and confidant. And we really try to navigate that space of leadership confidant together and at a minimum create allies for pastors who don't really have that level of trust and relationship in the circles in their own church often.
SPEAKER_00Well, I can tell you, having sat in the chair, uh, there's not a better job, there's not a harder job, and there's not a lonelier job. So if you feel inspired, uh you you could make a visible difference in the kingdom with donation to theascentleader.com. Sean, thank you so much for making time for us today. I am just, uh, as my people from Western North Carolina would say, I'm ate up with succession. I want to keep learning about it, and you're doing such good work. Thanks for making the time today.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our newest episode. Thanks for listening.