You Don't Own Your Team | Jared Deverna

Starting a new job or stepping into leadership? This episode breaks down how to start strong, take initiative, and grow in your role. From asking better questions to understanding context and building trust, we’re sharing practical advice for early-career leaders and anyone navigating a new season of work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the Vander Bloom and Leadership Podcast where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey everybody, it's William. I uh sometimes I do the podcast and it's like, okay, what are we going to talk about? No, I'm kidding. But sometimes we get to talk about super fun things and we have special guests. So who's the special guest today? Is it Rick Warren? No, is it Andy Stanley? No. It's Jared. Jared's back. Welcome back, Jared. Thank you, sir. Glad to be here. Yeah, you're here. So, Jared, so so one thing about our uh company that's it's painful, but it's it's a posture I'm trying to take is, you know, we are not here to keep people. Uh the people who that I get to work alongside, they're not my people. Uh, and this is kind of a fully caffeinated way to start the podcast. But if you're a pastor right now and you're talking about your staff and your people, Newsflash, they aren't yours. They belong to Jesus. And uh, you know, some of the a lot of our multi-site, you're working in a multi-site church now, and a lot of them say one church many locations. Uh, I I think it's one kingdom many locations. Good. So in the in the golly, it'll be 18 years this year since we started the company or I started it. And uh, you know, I think we've successfully launched about 15 small businesses from people who came here, learned what they were doing, and launched businesses that are still in our city and doing great things. And we've launched people into churches. We have people that are pastors and people that are student pastors and administrators that that came here, did good work, and then felt a call. And Jared, you were real clear with us from the beginning that you sense God calling you into ministry eventually, right? Yes, yes, yes. Tell it tell us a little bit about how you ended up with us, and then we'll get to where he is now because that's we're gonna talk about really interesting how what what are the lessons learned when you're starting work at a new place, especially in a church. So tell us how you ended up here and a little bit of the journey to where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Absolutely. So when I first I hadn't known about Vanderbloom for a while, my my parents had had told me about it and made me aware of the company. And I was looking to gain some experience in the church world. Um, and one of the skills that I had developed actually by serving in the church was some graphic design marketing type of skills. And I literally emailed Vander Blumen saying, I saw on their website, if you're a college student and you're looking for some internship experience, somewhere where you can grow in your spills, your skills, grow your capacity. Um, and I uh reached out, sent an email, sent over a resume that looks a lot better now with Van Der Blumen on it. Um and they said, you know, we we're actually looking for someone with your skill set. And I was able to come on team and what uh changed from just initially doing some graphics for some um long-form content and some uh uh some marketing items turned into having the opportunity to host the podcast alongside you, um, helping run the social media and a lot of other marketing efforts, and um got to continue to grow in my capacity and my skill set. So that's kind of how I ended up at Vanderblumen. And um now is that the other question that what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Well, yeah, where'd you go and what are you doing now?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah. So I I took an opportunity at a uh at a church in Dallas and have been absolutely learning so much just being surrounded by like here at Vanderblumen, just some of the best leaders that I've ever met, and being able to really glean from them both in what's taught and what you're just picking up by being alongside leaders like that. Taught and caught. Absolutely. And have been helping out in some of the student ministry area and have seen a lot of God just doing what only he can do and just playing my role to help really honestly, I would say steward what he is doing in the life of the church.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Well, and uh it's gotta be cool. I mean, here we're you know, open Monday to Friday, it's a big full week. Now you only have to work on Sundays, right? That's that's right, yeah. And I get to just sleep in the rest of the week. It's really, honestly, it's really great. Not exact, obviously. Pastor, the pastor of your church, um, who I've known a long, long time, has a fabulous phrase for ministry. Uh, it's the most brutiful job ever. That's right. And you don't even have to tell people what that means. If you've been, it's brutal, it's beautiful, it's the best. It's like the beginning of a tale of two cities. It's the best of times, it's the worst of times.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

I've heard it said before, it's like if you think you can do anything else but be in ministry, go and do anything else. That's right. That's right. You gotta be you gotta be called to it to be able to, I guess, palette the brutal parts, but also I think it brings a greater appreciation for the the beautiful parts of ministry, of seeing the life-changing people. And uh, that's what makes it so brutiful.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

That's right. Well, and and that is uh now we're going down a rabbit trail, but welcome to Jared and me. Uh that is old advice. The first place I heard it cited, yeah. Um when Charles Spurgeon was preaching over in Britain and maybe the best English-speaking preacher ever.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Uh George Whitfield, maybe he's close, but uh both of them could be heard a quarter mile away without any amplification. That's pretty amazing. So they do this amazing job preaching. God breathes on them and their work. And all of a sudden, particularly for uh Spurgeon, he had all these young men at the time, it was just men in ministry, uh coming to him saying, I think I want to do what you do. I think well, who wouldn't want to do what you and so his advice to people when they came to him was, okay, go try everything else first.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah.

unknown 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

When our oldest Matthew, uh, who was our very first intern before you, uh, he was a he was a rising freshman at uh at AM. And uh our our producer who's sitting back there, don't shake the camera, Alex. Uh we can we named him Beta because he was at Fish Camp and he was our first intern. And we had beta fish when the kids released. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Beta uh came to me after his internship with us. I think I want to go into ministry. And I said, Well, you know what my job is? He said, Yes. Talk me out of it. Yep. Like, yep. Because if it's a call of God, it will not go away. Yeah. You're not, it's not like you're holding the lottery ticket and they're gonna read the number and then it's no good anymore. It won't go away. Absolutely. And nothing will guide you through working in a church unless you have a call to that church. Because it's it's beautiful, but it's brutal.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh, absolutely. Right? I I've heard it said before too. The the calling on your life is found in like the lingering thoughts that you have. It's like, you keep coming, you know, I could go and do this. I remember I wanted to go into sports broadcasting. I love William, William knows this. We we talk golf, we talk football. I am a sports nerd and a sports fanatic.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

I'm not anywhere near that. Uh it is 48 days to the masters today, but not a sports today. Um I'll take uh by the way, Brooks kept coming back to the PGA. I like that call, actually.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

I do.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

I like that call. He might win this year. I believe it. Got some work to do, but he's the major whisperer.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I know. He he is he's gonna work some of that Brooks magic, they say. Like I said, sports nerd, sports fanatic. And I thought, Jared, what better place for you to be than college game day? And I so I thought, I'm gonna go and do this. I'm gonna I'm gonna be a sports commentator, it's gonna be awesome, it's gonna be the best, good to travel. And and then I just kept coming back to that lingering thought. And I was like, I can't let that question go unasked. And I think that's really anyone who's in ministry, you can probably identify with there's this question that you keep coming back to, and you can't just let it be a what if you gotta go and answer it. And that's really, I guess, that thought fleshed out of like those lingering thoughts that you have of keep coming back to.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

It's harder to feel those now. You know, it used to be uh we're gonna get to how do you start well as a church, but it's interesting, um, particularly our friends in the Baptist church, which is the bulk of Protestantism in uh in the denominational world here in the US, they used to have, and there are a few pastors now who are reinstituting, you know, you'd have at the end of the service, if you've heard the voice of Jesus and you feel called to discipleship, come down front and then we'll baptize you later and all that. And after that call was administered during the last hymn, which was probably 18 verses of just as I am or something like that, but uh after that, they said now, if you are feeling called to ministry, come forward. It used to be a standard call every week, and we don't get that anymore. And unless somebody looks you in the eye and says, Have you ever thought about so i i you know a word to pastors out there? You're exceptional. Uh all my friends are like, Can you get Jared back on the podcast? I'm not listening to your podcast though, Jared. You're exceptional, you figured it out on your own. But if you're listening today and you're not providing a regular avenue, maybe it's looking people in the eye, maybe it's in a service, a regular avenue for saying you might need to consider ministry. You're not gonna talk them into it. You're not gonna talk anyone into ministry.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

But if you don't be the, you know, people haven't heard, how will they know? If if you don't make the move, it it won't happen. I think sometimes I got so caught in trying to overpopulate heaven with new believers that I forgot that I'm also supposed to be calling people into the the field. Yeah. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, it's it's the it's the both and balance of you know finding something that you love and of but understanding, I think, too, those brutal parts of ministry, the grass isn't always greener, and of finding satisfaction and uh not a not a contentment and that you're satisfied and and and laid back, but but of that you are you are just you have an understanding of a fulfillment of this purpose that God's placed inside of inside of you, and uh that it's really only I think fleshed out and brought to fruition in that context. And when you when you know it, you you know it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Let's shift gears. Um let's talk about, you know, there's a great book out called The First 90 Days. If you haven't read it or if you're not giving it to your employees, you should. I I would write one, but it's pretty dang good. The first 90 days. Like, how do you get off to a good start at your job? You're probably 180 days in, you know, six full months or something like that. Tell us uh you tell me a few things. Let's start with this. Uh, what just what was one surprise to you?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Hmm One surprise. I think that something that surprised me was the personal and in a good way, personal initiative that is uh was in this context entrusted to me of hey, this is your responsibility. There's not really a checklist to per se of things for you to do. There's not exactly a system or a uh super uh systematic uh playbook for you to run, but here's some things that we've seen work now, contextualize it to what you're entrusted with and go run with it and try things and fail and get back up and try again and be creative in the ways that you're attacking, attacking the what you are responsible for. And and I use that word attack, I mean just of being um uh of being, I guess, aggressive, I guess I would say, of tenacious, of saying, I'm going to do everything I can to steward well what is my responsibility. And so that that to me is just the not to say it was just like, here's this, go figure it out, but of saying there wasn't a super systemized uh playbook per se of things to do. It was more so here's some things that work in this context, here's some things that work in this context, go and uh take those and make it your own.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

That is remarkable. Uh and I uh I here's why I say it's remarkable. Usually it's like, I don't know what to do with those kids in the student ministry, go figure it out, right? Or we've got 10 hyper-focused parents that have a way they want you to do the student ministry, and you better do it that way. Um I I don't know many contexts where you're told, be creative and get it done. And by the way, here's some plays we ran in other ball games that worked. Yep. So figure it out. Is that is that a fair way of saying it?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I think too, it's allowing history to and what's worked previously to inform what you're doing now, but also you have to change things up or else it's just gonna get stagnant. That's something that uh has been drilled into the way and the pace that um uh that I guess that I've been trying to lead at of you you can use this prior context to inform the way that you'll go about in the future. You should not stay um glued to or tied down to the way that things have been done and that you have to change it up, you have to get creative, you have to find different ways to do things, or else it's just gonna get stagnant. And, you know, if you think of um uh a river where the water's just or a river with um water running through it versus I guess a a basin or I don't know what it'd be called, but where the water's dead sea. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Everything in there is dead because there's no water flowing through it. No, nothing leaves the dead sea. It flows in, but it never leaves. Exactly. Nothing lives. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I think that might be why you know, you know, of how how can I be um mix things up and change things. So yeah, I'd say it's correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

There's an old line I read somewhere, I think it was Mark Twain. Um, because I'm always like, I almost this is the like the nerdiest thing, we're gonna lose podcast listeners. I almost did a PhD in the history of doctrine. Doesn't that sound rivet? Wow. Yeah, I'd rather go to the dentist, right? Yeah. No, but what was interesting was to see like um there are patterns, but then they have to be contextualized. Yep. Right. And we could spend a whole podcast on that. But Mark Twain said it one time, I used to think history repeats itself. He said, uh, I think it was him, he said, um, I don't know if history repeats itself, but it sure does rhyme. Yeah, that's good. That's good. It's good. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's really good. Now, on the how you're off to a good start, and I know that because uh when we visited before the show, you said, Well, I keep getting more responsibilities. Well, you don't give new responsibilities to people that aren't getting it done. Usually, if you want something done, you ask a busy person, right? Yeah. So you must be off to a good start. I know it's early. I don't want you, I know you're not gonna self-tout. You you don't have that in you, but you've got to have some things that you look back and go, I'm glad I did it that way rather than something else. If you got a few things off the cuff, but absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I I think the the biggest thing for me and um that that I learned really quickly is that I've got to, when you're leading any team, you have to have leaders in that team of layers of leadership and of people that you know you can trust, people that you've invested into, that you'd have relational equity in. So it's not just I'm asking you to do this and I'm gonna ask you again to do this, I'm gonna ask you again and again and again and again and again. And then that person gets burnt out. But it's relationally investing into people, and I think as well empowering them to do um what you used to do. Of if I'm doing the same things that I was doing three months ago, then that's not a good thing. Of I should have, I mean, just a really practical example of at first when I uh began, I was individually uh reaching out to to students. And at a certain point, numerically, that just doesn't make sense. You have to have people in place to take that weight that understand that weight and are actually gonna do it. Now, I will say too, there's the entrustment of that, but then there's also the inspection that it's actually done. Because I I typically there on some of my teams, we have some high school guys who help lead in different ways. And no disrespect to the high school guys who may be listening, but not totally the most reliable group of people out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Well, in fairness, they are not their frontal courtship is not fully developed. So it's you know, men and in general probably don't have a but but teenagers like oh Mark Twain again. When I was uh 18, my father was the dumbest man I'd ever met. And when I turned 21, I couldn't believe how much he learned in three years.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

It's just uh yeah, that's that's that's funny. That's funny. But it goes to show you, I mean, just that there is so much growth that happens in that time too. And of I like I love seeing the growth take take place over over time in the life of someone as well. Of like six months ago, you barely responded to my text, and now when I would ask you of how something is going, of how many people are at this or how how this is going, of when I'm inspecting it, and you're slow to respond. And now you have people who are reaching out to me and of saying, hey, this is how this is going, and being proactive about it too. And it's not just like I'm, you know, because I don't I don't want to be the bad guy, but you know, if you're gonna well, I want to make sure it's done, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so just the balance of the inspection, but also the empowerment too, of um having leaders around you.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Have you learned anything? Um, it big or small, it doesn't have to be your greatest lesson or some paralyzing question. Um have you learned anything about, I mean, you were young, still are, but you walked into a very established church, very large church, lots of sites, a lot of people who've been there a lot longer than you. Yeah. What are some things that you either look in hindsight and say, I wish I'd done that differently, or I did do that well? What are some lessons people could learn as they're moving into a new placement where they're not from around here?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

That's really good. I think ask questions and then ask more questions and then ask more questions and more questions and more questions. Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you more questions then.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

So uh, like what's a good question you asked? Um questions are are so interesting. My friend Kerry Newhoff spent a long time studying interviewers before he really got going on his podcast. Just brilliant. But you know, I used to ask candidates, tell me your greatest failure. And it's like what's the failure that's gonna make me look the best? Well, it's just any superlative question. Yeah. I call them at what's your greatest, what's your most, what's your worst, what's your least? Those are paralyzing. So questions can be paralyzing or empowering, right? Depending on the way you ask them. And so what what is a good question you ask that people are like, oh, that's not a good question?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Um I think that finding I think again it goes to the to the context. Finding people who've been there longer than you and people who are above you in leadership and gleaning from them of uh I mean, this is honestly a question that served me well, is he what would what would you have changed about the way that you did this? Um what what would you do if you were in my shoes? And what are some ways that what like I love the the question or the thought of like what are some trends that you see happen, especially with people that are above you in leadership? Uh what are the trends that you've seen take place? Of where do you see the tide turning? And and kind of you're trying to gain the context of what's happened before before you can really look ahead of like, okay, let's I I love to, you know, be goal driven and to and to think of like what's possible in the future, but it's I think a lot the future can get clearer if you understand what has happened behind you. Oh, that's so good. And so it's like how do I figure out what the last six months have looked like, the last year have looked like, the last five years have looked like so that I can understand the highs and lows, the the ebbs and flows, I guess, of like even seasonally, what are trends that you're seeing, patterns that you're seeing, so that I can take that and bring that to my context. And too, I think as far as just understanding trends, like there are seasons in different times of ministry where you can expect you should be expecting some growth. Other seasons where it's maybe not going to be as much or maybe even stagnant. Um and if you are in that season, I guess, of where there's maybe not a lot of growth and you're not expecting it, you're just gonna be beating yourself up and beating yourself up and beating yourself up. And obviously we want to, you know, continue to to grow things, but it's also like okay, well, if you look at a year ago where we were, we're in a much healthier place.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, you can't train hard every day. Yeah, that's good. You can't get fruit every day from weightlifting or working out. And you know, I was we were talking earlier. I want to talk about this as uh later in the podcast, but uh I'm trying to be somewhere relevant with AI. And so I'm trying all the different things. And uh yesterday, in about 20 minutes, I built an app uh using Claude. It was amazing. It did all the coding for me. I just sat and got interviewed by Claude and it did the thing. It was unbelievable. But I wanted a workout interview. I'm trying to gain back a little speed in my golf swing. And I it interviewed me and asked me about my workout schedule, and it said, You're not resting enough. Wow. We're gonna have to build more rest days in if you want to see gains. And it's kind of the same thing you're talking about. It can't be record number every week. No, no. But uh but unlocking the past will unlock the future. That's a that's brilliant. Yeah. Do have you been asked questions? Do people come to you saying, Jared, what do you think about this, this, or this? I mean, if not, that's fine. That's very normal.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

I think that more now at first, probably less so. Um, I I actually when I first came on team, I think there were questions of how have you seen it done elsewhere? What what what have you seen at work at uh at other places? What what are other people doing that we should be doing? What are we doing that's not good? And getting the, and you talk about this a lot, of the fresh perspective is so valuable to any organization of when you bring someone in new and it's like, okay, you haven't been there. What do you think of the way we do this and the way we do that? So at the beginning, I think there's a lot of questions. And then after a little while, it wasn't as much. And then I think more recently, when people, I guess, are more aware of the like I will do a good job with stuff and actually will bring some beneficial ideas of you'll get asked to bring some opinions or or thoughts or ideas and something too. I I love a team that's always asking the input of others as well, because I mean, quite frankly, no one is going to be able to grow a team or grow anything by themselves, at least not uh in a meaningful way. You need a team of ideas, and I think that's where you can filter out the the the best ones as well. I mean, a really practical one was and a few weeks ago we were asked to come up with some ideas for how we can create a really special moment for students who came on a Wednesday night of handing them a gift of a it was uh of something that happened in the night and handing them a photo of that moment at the end of the night. And so we were asked how can we make that happen? Send your ideas in by the end of the day, blah blah blah blah. And it's taking the ideas of others and mushing them together, I guess, to find the best solution.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Well, by my read, that's how the world started. Seriously, everybody's like, oh, in the beginning, God. Well, in the beginning, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Remember when when he was about to create humans, he said, let us make man in our image. Yep. So there is no Lone Ranger anywhere except there's one like place Lone Ranger lives. Do you know what that is? Tell me. Uh C.S. Lewis's mentor, I think his name was George McDonald. He had several, but one was an amazing thinker, and he said, Hell is God's granting of our final wish to be left alone. That's powerful right there. Isn't that good? Y'all steal that and use it. That dog will hunt. It's a hundred years old, but it's really good. You're choosing, you know, the Roman Catholics now say we don't excommunicate people, but if you choose this path, you're choosing to excommunicate yourself. So it's it's solitude is good. Introverts love it. Uh we've got introverted clients that would love to go back to the lockdowns. That was awesome. But uh, you know, I saw Saturday Night Live did a skit last week on are you tired of being around everybody? Just get COVID. You get 10 days off. So go do some faceless Zoom videos. Exactly. So anyway, uh the idea that you're looking back to look forward, the idea that people are asking you new things, and and frankly, you you touched on it, but I say it all the time. And if you're watching or listening to this, you're probably trying to build, run, or keep a team. That's kind of what we focus on building, running, and keeping a team. And you've got new people. The great value of longtime employees is institutional memory. And you can't replace it. And and honestly, it's one of the few things I still give to this office is we were walking in and they were doing a thing with training for new researchers on the different forms of Presbyterians, which I grew up in. And we're really good at splitting. So there's a bunch of us. I mean, it's probably a new one because it's the beginning of the week. But you know, uh it it maybe last Sunday, maybe maybe next Sunday. But uh I can I can look at that and say, I've been here a long time, I can tell you this, this, this, this, this. That's what long time, long-tenured staff people can do, institutional knowledge. What new people can do that no one else can do is say, why do we do it that way? Yep. And most of the time they're afraid to say that. Yes. The really great people that I'm trying to learn from actually say, no, I want you to say that. That's good. Don't tell me how to do it, but you might ask the question so why are we doing that? You know, one client we worked with for a long time, we have so many clients that are like, we hire from within, we hire from within. We hire college interns, and then they turn into fabulous employees. Alex is producing the show, another example of somebody who started. And by the way, if you're a college student watching, if you're at AM and UT, and I think Liberty, uh, you can get college credit working here. It's pretty cool. Yeah, you should have gone to one of those schools. You could have gotten this done quicker. But uh, you know, there's just such value in having a leader who's willing to say, how do you see what we're doing wrong? Ask the question, why what's here? Well, this has been a great start, Jared. I want to talk more. I want to talk, uh, I want to have another podcast. I want to learn from you. I mean, there's a reason you went from just do some graphics to hosting the podcast, but like uh we'll we'll come back in a second episode. And I want to dive into uh the things that you're learning in a church that does a phenomenal job of reaching across generations. Yes. And that is something we're all gonna have to face. You can't just plant a church for people your age because sooner or later you get older. Yep. So but we'll we'll come back to that and we'll talk about how you can reach across generations in another podcast with Jared. And just a little cheat sheet for you. If you see us and say, William must only own one shirt. I'm not that holy. Uh we're just filming a bunch of them while Jared's here because we don't get them every day. So thanks for tuning in. Really glad you were here, and I hope you tune in again. And we're going to talk more about how to reach across the generations in our next episode.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're looking for more leadership resources, you can find us at Vanderblumen.com and on socials at Vanderblumen. We'll see you again next week where we continue discussing how to build, run, and keep great teams.