Bridging the Gap: Leading Across Generations | Jared Deverna

Great teams don’t happen by accident, they’re built through trust, curiosity, and a willingness to learn from one another. In this conversation, we unpack what it looks like to work across generations, from earning trust as a young leader to empowering others with responsibility and clarity. It’s a practical look at asking better questions, leading with humility, and creating environments where both experience and fresh perspective are valued. 

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, welcome back to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. And we we get some pretty special guests around here. I mean, if you've been one of my kids said, William, Dad, you are you like Jimmy Fallon for the church? It was kind of funny. No. Uh, but superstar today, Jared DeVerna's back. And uh, Jared, if you know, it had been part of our podcast. He interned with us while in college, and now he's, I think, is it internship or full-time gig? Or what's the right way to describe your job right now?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Um you can call it an internship, sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

They're all internships. It's all temporary. That's right. Right. We're the none of this is gonna last. So that's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. At a really great church. Uh, I'll go ahead and out the church. Uh, fellowship church in Dallas, Ed Young is the pastor, and just has been a beacon of creativity for as long as I can remember, and I can remember because I'm old. Uh and today I want to talk to Jared, who went from here to there. And I want to learn what the one thing that fellowship does so well is they reach across generations. Uh, the the you know, Ed's a little older than I am, so he's really young. Ed and I have been around a little while, and he's still able to reach down to generations. And I think the teams are able to work cross-generationally. So tell me what it's like. I mean, are is everyone there, you know, super young? For those of you who don't understand the context, uh and I'm gonna make some people mad, which apparently I'm good at. But uh we we had a big win when Jared was here as a team, and so we all went out across the street is the Kirby Ice House. And uh we were gonna celebrate. Jared, come with us, it's gonna be awesome. The Kirby Ice House, go get a beer if you don't drink beer or whatever. Uh I didn't realize you had to be 21 to get in, so Jared couldn't get in. So uh and now I'm happy to say I can get into the Kirby Ice House. But should you? See, everybody's got different rules at work. We'll do that on another podcast. Right now, we're gonna talk about uh reaching across generations. So, Jared, tell me like the just the landscape of who you're working with generationally. Is it all your age and then other people are in another one? Or how how is it structured? Do you have uh different age people you interface with or not?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, absolutely. I uh it's definitely across generations. So uh primarily with middle schoolers, also with high schoolers, also college students, and some adults. So it's a little bit of everything. The most for my context would be the middle schoolers and the young adult guys, um, with some of the high school guys as well, but more so for the high school guys and them in serving capacities of them leading, being a volunteer lead for a team that I oversee um uh for the middle school guys would be, I guess, the the primary groups or ages and stages of life that of guys that I interact with the most.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah. Well, you've done a great job of earning favor with older generations. I'm considering myself one of those. Uh well, I mean, it's real. It's not a it's not a normal thing. I've never looked at you and thought, young guy. I have thought, what can I learn? Uh but hardly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Uh not at all. But what have you seen happen? Do do generations stay siloed if they don't? How is that encouraged? How is it modeled? How what can pastors today learn about how they can create a place where generations work together?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I I think it sounds extremely simple and and um I don't want to oversimplify it, but having the older generation serve the younger generation of a high school guy is going to be able to speak to the context of life that a middle school guy is living in quite easily because that was him three, four years ago. A young adult guy is gonna be able to speak into the context a high school guy is living in because that was him three, four years ago. But also, I I I love when I see a young student serving the older generations as well. An example would be in the production booth of there are lots of ways, especially with you know all the technology that those guys deal with that I try to stay away from personally, but that they you know are on different types of cameras or different sound systems and stuff, and to see them serve the older generation, but also really I mean the entire church if you're doing something like that, of where you are inviting and encouraging students to get involved in serving the older generation. But but I think primarily though, it's the olders serving the youngers and giving them advice. And I mean, it's so easy to say hey hey, here's what I wish I would have done when I was 15 years old.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

12 years old.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So I heard a talk one time uh from my friend Craig Gruschel. He did it at back when he had a big conference called Catalyst, which was a big deal back in the day. Um he really ought to Craig, if you're listening, I know you do, uh, you should write a book about this. There was a talk, you probably remember all your talks, but it was a talk about how generations can work together. And it's he said the key is honor and respect. Yeah. And I I didn't really get it until he got into it. And it kind of reminds me, if you think, if you know that uh that book, Love and Respect, the marriage book that talks about women need love, men need respect. And that it's a really interesting concept, but honor and respect, it's not a gender thing, it's a generation thing. Craig said, here's the thing younger leaders honor the people older than you that have been around. Yep, absolutely. Honor them. You know, show them defer, show honor toward them. And older leaders respect the potential, the talent, the action of younger leaders. And and sometimes you see uh one way but not the other. And and you know, I think of uh your pastor, I know for years, I don't know if he still does it, but he would go to the student retreat in the summer at the beach. Like, he didn't have to do that. People that can do that, but he respected. I mean, yeah. So uh get let's just get real. Tell me a place where you've been given uh an uh what you thought was an unusual amount of latitude or authority to do a job as a brand new 20-something on staff.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, I think that when I when I came on with the came on team, we had this middle school group of guys who I was shown ways that had worked, uh a rough outline or playbook of things that have worked in different areas, but and and entrusted to say, here's what worked elsewhere, go take from this, eat the fish, spit out the bones, and contextualize it for where you oversee. And just really was entrusted with that to say, hey, the this this playbook is not always gonna work. You know, when you're when you have a high school guy, all of them has have phones. You can text all of them. When you have a middle school guy, not all of them have phones. When you have a high school guy, they some of them have license and they can drive themselves. When you have a middle school guy, he he's he's he can't drive himself. Yep. And unless he's biking to church, mom and dad have got to be bought into what's happening. And if they're not bought in, it doesn't matter if the student loves it. Yeah, that's right. Because they can't get there.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

That's right. Middle school, I used to think middle school ministry was about charming kids. It's not, it's about working with parents. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So give me a like a real time. I'm putting you on the spot. Yep. A real-time example of uh you get a task and you go yep, yep, yep, yes, ma'am, yes, sir, whatever the case is, and you walk out and you go, I have no freaking clue how to get this done. Have you had that happen yet? Yep, yep. So I was get tactile. Tell us without, without, you know, I don't want to disrespect the church or anything like that. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

No. Uh so we were uh a little while ago, we had an amazing baptism moment, and um they they told me, Jared, uh, you're gonna be leading this team of you're gonna be, we want to be ready to have uh to lead this moment with the capacity of X amount of people. If they were to come forward, we need to be ready to receive them. Hundreds. Okay. Hundreds. Not one or two. No, hundreds of if they come forward during this moment, we need to be ready to receive them and have a good flow of of uh of honestly. It sounds so simple, but of just having towels for them. And I was like, okay, that sounds awesome. It was at a location different than mine. Um, I said, that's great. I I love it. We're gonna make it happen. Where are the where the towels at? Who are my people that I'm doing this with? Where was it done before? And they were just like, make it happen. And we were given the flow of what the night was gonna look like, and had to take that and ask a bunch of different questions to find the right answer. That's something that's always drilled in. Uh always seeking knowledge is the uh acrostic, I guess, for the word ask. Back up. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

That's uh old people would say tweetable, but we don't even know what that is anymore. It's texable, it's traded. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

But uh Yeah. It's uh that's one that you that's on a coffee mug somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's on a coffee mug.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Sorry, tell me again. Ask. Always seeking knowledge. That's really good. And it's something that's gonna stop you.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

I've been the older leader. I have seven kids. Let's put it that way. Been the older leader of that home. Why are we doing that, Dad? Why, why, why? You remember that phase, parenting? Why, why, why? And you get pretty worn out and you say, Because I said so. Right? If you spot someone who's always asking why, I think it's your job as a leader to say, are they seeking wisdom or are they trying to get a task to do and you you just tell them what to do and they go away? If you find a person who's seeking wisdom, it's great, not being bossy, but like help me learn, run with that. Yep. The curi in the Be the Unicorn book, curiosity is one of the markers of super performers. And uh if you find somebody who's always seeking knowledge, was that what the coffee mug says? Yeah. Then that's someone worth remembering. That's why we're sitting here today, because I saw that in him and he was kind enough to respond. So hardly.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

It's something that I think really if you are the you talk about the curious a lot and and be the unicorn, of you know, the questions that you ask are gonna help lead you to the place that you want to go to. And the it's also knowing who to ask is of and I heard it put this way, you need to write ask the right people the right questions. And when you do, and especially when you're entrusted with a task of I I heard it this way, that to put the weight of clarity back on to the person who's entrusting you with this task. Because it's your job to execute it, but you're taking their vision for this moment. It's not yours. You're under their, you could word use the word authority, but under their leadership of this moment is about isn't about how I want it executed. It's about me executing it how they want it executed.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

And that can sound like just being a puppet, but it's not.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

No, it's your responsibility to go and take it and then also say, hey, what are some other ways that we could elevate this? What are some ways that I could bring to their attention of, hey, have we thought about this? Have we have we thought about this? Now, and two, ask specific questions as well. This there's nothing worse. There's one uh gentleman I know who if you don't come to him with a specific question of an example would be um, we need we well, I guess our task, I guess, would be, hey, we need chairs. He's gonna walk away because he doesn't know how many chairs, where are the chairs, and and and what color are the chairs, what type of chairs. But if you say, hey, we need 50 black plastic chairs in room, blah, blah, blah. Bye, blah, blah, blah. Then he'll help you. Yeah, yeah. But it's the specificity of the question to say, hey, I I've I've thought through this, and I'm not just bringing you a problem, but I've thought about how we can elevate this, and now I'm gonna ask a few more clarifying questions so that you can give me the clarity I need to go and execute this.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

See, so so what I'm hearing as an older guy is you're not just telling me there's a problem with this and asking questions. And that's fine. There are problems with everything. They ask me a question. But but what I hear you saying, and I'm I don't want to put words in your mouth, is okay, let me make uh sure I understand the solution. Yes. What does success actually look like?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yes, that's a perfect phrasing of it. Of like, what would if I were to do this excellently, what what are some ways, some some ways that I should be thinking? What are some things that I should apply to my area of of oversight? And two, um I think it's it's just you're not bringing them just the problem or the question, but you've thought through just taking some time to think through whatever you're asked to do or entrusted with, and then being like, okay, I have a general idea, I have some ways I could see this happening, I have some ways I could not see this happening, I have some problems that I could see arising, I have some ways that I think this could go really smoothly and bringing that to them of saying it's not just being lazy and being like, I want you to think for me. That's not it. It's I'm gonna I'm gonna think about it, and then I'm also gonna understand whoever's above you in leadership probably has a better idea than you and other experiences, and so get their insight.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Well, I mean, if I wanted to be a skeptic, I'd say, okay, so you work for a bunch of micromanagers and you better do it the way they want, or you're gonna have to do it over again. I don't hear that from you at all. In fact, here's a lesson I'm learning as I get older. Uh, you know, some most really great leaders I know are micromanagers. It's amazing. I've walked with a pastor of a church that he was the founder, and that you would know it. I mean, tens of thousands of people every weekend. We were walking down the hallway meeting with a head of a government, and uh he stopped to straighten a trash can. Phil Jackson. Wow. Detail. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every deal. John Wooden, maybe the greatest college coach ever. You're not old enough to even know who that is, probably. But uh UCLA. Okay. Do you know what the first practice every year was? Uh I might have putting on socks.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Dang it. I I knew it was something like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I didn't knew. And he's like, well, what in the world? What a micromanager. She's like, no, no, no, no. They've expanded the season. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was 30 games instead of 20 or something. Yeah. And it's gonna be a long season. And the people who don't learn to do this right are gonna have blisters. And we can beat them if we don't have blisters. So, like it's so if you think I'm working for a micromanager, you might just be working for a really smart person. Oh now, yeah, flip side, I can't stand micromanagement. It makes me crazy. Uh, if you do ask me to get involved, I'm gonna go granular, but I'd rather not. And and here's a mistake I've made as an older leader talking to younger ones, okay? Uh, William, how would you like this done? I I want that part done. Well, what would that look like? I don't care. What I'm trying to say to them is I believe in you. I believe in your wisdom. Why don't you do the best version of what I'm explaining? And we'll live with that. But when I say I don't care, what they hear is he doesn't care. I'm trying to convey delegation, right? I'm trying to convey I trust you. Yep, but what they hear is apathy. Well, if he doesn't even care about it, why would I do it again? So if you're an older person and they're asking you questions, don't answer with I don't care. I I learned that the hard way. He just doesn't care about anything. And I'll probably still do it. Uh and I don't care. No, I'm kidding. So that's one thing. Now, let's go back and I want to add one other thing. Yep. Uh when you talk about since since I can be the old guy, I'll pretend to be old. And uh you come to me with questions, you said the it's so important to find the right question and the right person. And I would add one other thing and the right time. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

That's really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Timing's everything.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not looking for if it's something that's very important too, and especially with the and and this goes back to honor as well, really, of like you honor and value the time that you are asking from your leader of if I'm gonna ask you if to take some time out of your day so I can get some clarifying points on something that you've entrusted with me or entrusted me to be over, I better have my stuff together.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

And if I don't, it's disrespectful, in my opinion, to whoever you are asking. It's saying I didn't honor your time enough to think through it. But when you, like you said, honor and find the right time as well. And um, I know people who structure their days of you know, doing meetings in the later afternoon and the more task-oriented things that are gonna take a lot of, not to say meetings don't take thought, but of things that are gonna be really hard for them to do or process in the morning of uh asking, hey, when would be a good time for this? Of uh finding time in your schedule to make room for them. It's not, hey, here are the windows that I have open, you know, can you pick one of these? It's what do you have open that I'll move something around for you to make that happen. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Well, and the whole question and answer thing, you know, one thing I've had to learn as a leader is when I ask a question, people exp think I'm I'm telling them to do something when I'm really just trying to ask a question. And if I ask them at the wrong time, it it throws, you know, uh I get scattered. I've got my notepad out here, I'm writing down things you're saying and and I'm learning. Um, but the old me would have fired off a text right away to somebody else in the office and said, do this. And it would have gotten done. But I'm not asking people to do things in the right way at the right time. Used to be text. Well, we've had to create a chain of command. Uh I'm gonna email you and get back to me by the end of the day. If I slack you, that's like, okay, this is and if I text you, it means I really need an answer. Yep. And and I have to own that and live with that. Yep. Uh so that other gen, and I would imagine, like, how do you communicate with your students? Do they they don't talk on the phone? They don't do they know how to talk on the phone? Well, actually, not like take a phone call.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yes, sometimes. It it rarely. The uh uh and too with Texas in some places, they have a phone ban during school lot. So you have this period during the day of X time to X time where you just unless you got one student who's just you know the youth pastor's term who's just a homie, the student who's a homie, and he's just gonna be like, Yeah, I'll text you back during the middle of the day, but and and risk being in trouble, which we love those students, they're awesome. But for the most part, you have this window of time where it's like you know you have no. But are you having to like snap them? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I it text message and of like and and I I try to think through of like, okay, this student's gonna get they're getting off of school at whatever time. That's when I should text them because they're gonna be right looking at their phone right when they get off of school. I mean, you know, who will be. Well, you can schedule, send you texts now on iPhones. It's great. Yeah, it's great. And I'm saying, I'm gonna schedule this out to you to see, you know, to check in or just, you know, for whatever. Yes. So that right when you're out, you get to see it. And then utilizing that period of time with where they're not gonna be responsive of, you know that. What are some other who are some other people I can communicate with of maybe their their parents, of um checking out on the the the family and stuff like that, or of just getting regular tasks and um things that you have to do done during those periods where you're like, you know for certain there's just no chance that the student's gonna respond.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Now, dropping back to the text thing and the Snapchat and the all the different ways to people deal with each other, are you having to learn different channels? I mean, people my age, I don't honestly, I'm pretty gullible for the new tech thing, but I never even learned Snapchat. So, like i as you're working across a lot of different generations, are you having to find different methods of communication or different ways of reaching people, or is it pretty uniform?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Um I I would say that it's the the way that I've heard it phrased too is we're we're just gonna do all of it. Now the there are some things too of like uh the I'm not gonna, you know, Snapchat or or whatever like that, that's not gonna do that. But the of having uh a social media presence for the youth ministry of like that that makes sense to me. Um but also for maybe the older generation of emailing. Okay, that makes sense to me. Let's do that. And also having hand printed things that they for people to ha pass out or to have on a on a Sunday morning. That also makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So you're just having to learn all the channels.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yes, it's it's it's not you you don't want to silo your waves of communication. It's just we're gonna do all of it. That's good. Do all of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

That's good. So uh you're talking to older people, you obviously asked the right people the right question. Are there a couple that have been um useful to you that you go back to? Questions that that people could learn and take away that are trying to talk to older bosses or the you know, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I think I think the most I mean, and this one's overuse, but just if you were um when you were my age, what's a few things that you would have done differently? Not overused at all.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

It's you think it you think about it. Not overused at all. I have never met someone that's older that doesn't love that question. Mainly because we love to talk about ourselves. It's everyone's favorite subject. Oh, you want to talk about me? Let's talk about me. And I'm young again. That's even better. So let's talk about it. No, I would use that a hundred times over. That's great. I used it uh can I tell a little story? Absolutely. I was a young pastor, um, Presbyterian church. I didn't realize when I went to seminary, I had a uh conversion or awakening, whatever your flavor of vocabulary is, uh, in college and got my act together, quit smoking on Ash Wednesday. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was a total turnaround, lost 50 pounds. Like it was a wow, big long story. But um I got to where I was uh uh asking people like how do I do this, how do I do that? And when I got to seminary, I realized nearly everyone there had a dad or a granddad who was a pastor. Your dad, your dad's pastor, right? And my grandfather is as well. Like a family business, which by the way, is biblical. The Levites were families. Yep. So, you know, it's it's all good. But I didn't have any of that. So I didn't know I came out and uh I just realized I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a mentor. Uh I went to a conference at Willow Creek with uh and Bill Highwells talked about if you're gonna climb a rock face, you need somebody that's farther up the rock face to pull you up. You need to find mentors, right? Yep. Well, I don't know how to do it. So I stumbled into this question. Well, what would you teach us? So here's what I did, and here's an amazing thing if you're a young leader. Here's a rule worth remembering. If you plan the party, you get to be on the invite list. Now, let me explain. Uh, I was trying to figure out how to find a mentor. I couldn't get these older, wonderful statesmen of the Presbyterian church. Give me time. So I decided, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna find the 30 best pastors under 30. Now that's 20, 26 or 7 at the time. And we're gonna get together. And we're gonna gather on our own dime. And we all had a little bit of money to travel, so it wasn't that bad. Uh, we're gonna gather on our own dime, and we're gonna invite uh uh an older, wiser person in with that one question. Yep. You know, what would you do if you were my age? And uh it was you know, we had to plan to gather at conferences where one of these guys was already speaking. Yep. Smart. I'm not one of the 30 best under 30, but if you plan the party, you get on the invite list. That's smart. And so we we had an amazing little fraternity or sorority or both, I guess, of people around the table. And we all and we didn't know what we were doing. We just got together. In fact, a little bit more of a rabbit trail was kind of a funny way to end things. I I we were all in youth ministry, but none of us were good at it. Uh, we were the associate pastors. I mean, one guy said, well, actually, we're the ass pastors if you really want to. Like, we we do all the things nobody else wants to do. But uh uh we just lost followers, didn't we? Probably. Yeah, probably. So anyway, uh we go around, and I'm doing some stupid icebreaker. Like, if you could pick one word to describe the upcoming year and your focus and what you want to see happen, pick a word, right? So we're all young, idealistic, and one guy says holiness, which is really good. Yeah, I mean, that's awesome. The other guy said prayerful. Wow. And it just got more and more, it was almost sacrine by the end because it's like so. We get done, and then I've got an Howard Eddington, who was pastor at First President Orlando, very creative, very similar in our family to Ed, uh Pastor Ed that you work with now. Um, we get done, and Ed's sitting there with his wife, Trisha, and uh I said, okay, and so we're gonna welcome Ed. And Ed said, and this is a great line for for older leaders. He said, Well, don't I get to play? I'm like, Oh, I didn't know you've I mean if you're a busy guy. No, no, I want to share my word. Okay, now listen carefully, older guys. He didn't go pious. Okay. All right, Howard, what's your word for the year? Go ahead, tell us. And we've done all the justice, holding as goodness truth. My word for this year is Viagra. His wife was sitting next to him. I'm like, oh, okay. Thanks for sharing. Maybe y'all need to leave now. Uh no. I was just saying, actually, I was kind of paralyzed. I'm like, what are you doing? And this was long enough ago that that was like a new thing. Like it was really crazy. And okay, well, thanks, Howard. So, no, let me explain. I said, Okay. He said, uh, so my father and my grandfather are both pastors. My granddad died in the last year or two, and uh, my dad's getting older. So I find myself asking him questions like if you were my age, what would you want to do over? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my granddad said it first, and then my dad, in a separate context, said the same thing. He said, My granddad said, you know what I've noticed about pastors, it happened to me too. When I turned 50, I kind of started mailing it in. I got tired, which is biblical. Uh, there was a retirement for carrying all the in the worst load-in, load out church in history. That'd be the tabernacle in the desert with all the lanterns and the castles and the garment. That's fair. The cloud of the Lord moves like, are you kidding me? We just got this set up, we gotta go set it up again. So it it they get tired at 50, they retire. Well, Howard's granddad said at 50, I just started mailing it in. So I asked my dad, and he said, Yeah. Yeah, something happens at 50, you get tired, and you're just not willing to get after it. And I'm turning 50 this year, and I'm not gonna mail it in. And it may take some help. So Viagra is my word. We're all like, oh my gosh, that was the best sound I've ever heard. And poor Trisha is sitting right next to him just smiling, she didn't even turn red. So but that was to me an example of if you as a younger person will go to the older and say, just tell me what you wish you knew that you don't that you know now that you didn't know. Yep. And and then the older person kind of respecting the younger ones enough to say, Let me play the game. And frankly, he won the game. But uh it's it's this asking questions where there's honor toward the older, respect toward the younger, and you can start to to cross germinate. Sorry, I took a took a bunch of time with a story about E D. Uh