Episode 3 - Bill Thrall Part 1, "The Soul of a Leader"

As Vice Chair and co-author with Truefaced-Leadership Catalyst since 1995, Bill’s genuine desire to see relational health in those he works with, has been vital in setting the tone of the organization. His eloquence and integrity have given him opportunities to teach Truefaced’s principles internationally. His wisdom has been penned throughout the entire series of The Ascent of a Leader, Beyond Your Best, and The Cure.Prior to joining Truefaced, Bill founded and pastored the influential church, Open Door Fellowship, for over 20 years. While there, he developed an effective character development training program that nurtured visionaries such as Kit Danley, founder of Neighborhood Ministries in Phoenix, AZ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

The number one cause of leadership failure is isolation. There's not even a close second. And the reason for that is because in a how-to leadership world, the critics and the criticism, the um difficulty of leading, all of those factors start to break down a leader's ability to trust or be trusted. And so they start even working, ramping up more of their ability to be skillful. And what that does eventually is it uh it lit it literally takes them so high on the success ladder that they no longer can handle the weight because their character hasn't been formed. And unless the leader's character is formed, he can't handle the weight of success.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

You're listening to Restoring the Soul with Michael John Kusick.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Welcome to Restoring the Soul. I'm Michael John Kusick. Today's program is the first of two conversations with Bill Thrall, and it will be a treat. For over 20 years, Bill served as founder and pastor of Open Door Fellowship, which was the soil for his influential teaching and co-authoring of books like The Ascent of a Leader, True Faced, Bose Cafe, and The Cure. I love Bill's bio on his website. Most of the time I don't pay attention to bios, but there's a reason why everyone, from CEOs of worldwide companies to heads of mission organizations to the newlyweds down the block, want to have Bill Thrummel as their mentor, it says. His experience and wisdom prove true as he helps others establish trust in all their key relationships, and he nurtures grace to base communities. Bill Thrummel's vision, as you will hear, that he shares along with his colleagues at True Faced Ministries, John Lynch and Bruce McNichol, is to see hundreds of thousands of high trust cultures of grace multiplied around the world. I know that you're going to enjoy his perspective and approach toward leadership, but before we jump in, I need to tell you that Bill is the king of the one-liner, that quip that makes you reach for pencil and paper, or at least wishing you had your smartphone so that you can jot down what you just heard him say. So let's jump into part one of my conversation with Bill Thrumall on restoring the soul. One of the things I'd just like to go back to is to hear about uh how Leadership Catalyst got started and how you got your start in this whole uh ministry of training and developing people.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah. Um Leadership Catalyst started in um July of 1995. That's when Bruce McNichol moved to Phoenix. But it started earlier than that in terms of Bruce and I uh in our relationship. We um first met each other uh back in the early 80s, but by 88, 89, 90, Bruce was putting on some pretty large events in um different parts of the country. And one of them was just um a leader development event. And and I could tell from his reactions and mine that we were pretty much on the same page about process. So we started talking pretty seriously about it, and um he asked me if I would consider uh our church at the time and his ministry partnering, because we thought maybe we could do something that way, and that didn't work out. So I was in Japan with our daughter and her husband and family, well, he hadn't had their family yet, and with my wife, and I had one of those experiences with God where it was like, Bill, this is something I really think you ought to do. Call Bruce and tell him you're ready to start something. And he said, Okay, then I'll move to Phoenix. And he said the reason he moved to Phoenix because I wouldn't move to Chicago. And and so we started together, and he moved to Phoenix, and and we didn't do any uh external ministry for 18 months. We spent the 18 months finding each other's heart and trying to figure out what we're gonna do. Well, prior to that, that was 95. In 86, which was then nine years earlier, I had already begun to work on what I would call understanding how does a leader, how do you form leaders? Zillion books are written on principles of leadership. And I was really concerned about the formation of a leader. And so that distinction uh allowed me at the time, I was pastoring open door fellowship, and John Lynch had become a believer, had gotten out of seminary, and I invited John, and he became our preaching pastor, and I went behind the scenes for the next nine years and just worked on principles that'll help us understand uh not leadership, but the formation, the maturing, and developing of the leader.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

And so from the beginning, you've had a whole different agenda than the typical leadership development. What's the core of that difference?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

The difference is that in a lot of and this is all good stuff. I mean, in understanding how to lead, it's critical. If you're in the military, it's critical in corporation, critical in the church. How to lead is critical. But often overlooked is the uh development of the leader in the how-to-lead world. Um the number one cause of leadership failure is never a skill letdown. The number one cause of leadership failure is isolation. There's not even a close second. And the reason for that is because in a how-to leadership world, the critics and the criticism, the um difficulty of leading, all of those factors start to break down a leader's ability to trust or be trusted. And so they start even working, ramping up more their ability to be skillful. And and what that does eventually is it uh it lit it literally takes them so high on the success ladder that they no longer can handle the weight because their character hasn't been formed. And unless the leader's character is formed, he can't handle the weight of success. Because with success comes unbelievable power, unbelievable privilege.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

And without those are the times you probably see people implode or yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I mean, that's where we sabotage themselves. Oh, huge bad life choices that are made. So that was our that was our beginning, and uh Bruce and I wrote together The Ascent of a Leader. And so at first, when we started working together, we were realizing three parts that we said are are uh intricately woven together, and without all three you can't make it. One is uh understanding humility, understanding relationships of trust, and creating environments of grace. If those three things, a safe place, if those three things are not in sync, failure is inevitable for the leader.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

For the leader.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And for those they influence.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

And you define humility pretty differently. I love how you define it, but not beating yourself up or deprecating yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

No, I mean one of the things that we do, we I'm saying in a broad Christian sense, is that we have these virtues, Christian virtues. Humility is, quote, one of the Christian virtues, and you kind of have that uh scalp on your belt, so to speak. I got that one. And it's one of those virtues misunderstood, in which I can't talk about it because it would ruin the fact that I am, so therefore I can only be humble in silence, whatever that means. Well, the tragedy of that is it doesn't work. So we have what we call a relational definition of humility. It's trusting God and others with me. Every act of trust is an act of humility, but it comes with incredible promise. God gives grace to the humble. Now, as evangelicals, oh, grace, you know, I understand that. That's what saves me, you know. It's a big deal. I love grace. Oh man, we know so little about the grace to live by. We know the grace that we're saved by. So that that indispensable part is critical to the formation of a leader. It's it's like so many of the things Jesus teaches. They're they're like backwards to us. Sometimes we will, well, I shouldn't say sometimes, when we do a pastor's conference, I'm the one in my notes, I'm the one who gets to ask these two questions. We just did this in Portland with a huge group of pastors, is the question I ask. How many of you have excellence as a value or virtue for your church? Don't raise your hands, but you just see them trying to get their hands up. I'll say, don't raise your hands. I have another question for you. How many of you have humility as a virtue or a value for your church? Not as many hands are going to go up. Then I'll say this to them. What if God doesn't want your excellence? What if God wants your humility so he can give you his excellence? And they just look at me like, you son of a gun, what do you do to what are you doing to us? Because because we have been trapped into a mindset that God is really honored when we give him his our best. But God is really honored when he lets us give him to us his best. That's when he's really honored.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Two very different things. And you've already implied this, but it sounds to me like that's a whole new language for most pastors and leaders.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah. No, it is. I I think that's a good point to make. I I think we're better at it now, 17 years later, 16 years later, we're better at it in terms of the um language, but uh but initially our language was so us that people couldn't figure out what you guys would make this up. But but over the years now, as we've uh like we did our workshop even today, giving people uh the the Bill Thraw one-liners, but but basically now uh saturating those one-liners with scripture and understanding. And it's taken a while. I mean, uh I I would say to you that back in the middle eighties to the early 90s, uh, I don't think I had even a bit of an understanding that our perspective in grace was different than the majority. I wouldn't have known that then, because I lived in my own little world. It was only when we stepped out of our little world into the majority world that people would say to us, What are you talking about? You're talking about grace. One of the statements that we make is for many uh evangelicals, grace is one of the theologies, I believe. I have a theology of grace, I have a theology of family, I have a theology of of uh relationships, I have a theology of God, and grace is one of my theologies. And we say, no, that's not a biblical perspective of grace. Grace is not one of our theologies, it is foundational to our theology. Now, if you put it in the foundation, it's a very different worldview.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

A very important distinction, as you said, between grace that we're saved by and grace that we live by.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, it says in the scripture, as you have received Christ Jesus your Lord, so walk ye in him. The as there is the same. I mean, uh we we uh we we may get terminology differences with evangelicals, but there are very few evangelicals that would not understand that in order to become a Christian I had to trust God. Very few of them would. I mean, how else would you become a Christian? So that's not a problem. Well, what am I trusting God for? I'm trusting God through the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse me of my sin and to give me eternal life. And that that would be the evangelical message of the gospel. Right. No, no, nobody's gonna, I mean, very few are gonna battle with that. But when you say one of the miracles at a place called Calvary was that Jesus died for my sin. One of the miracles at a place called Calvary is that Jesus actually took upon him my shame. One of the miracles at a place called Calvary is that Jesus made me new. Christian life is not about changing who I used to be and to who I ought to be. Which is the mantra of a majority of the church that doesn't understand grace. It's not about changing who I used to be and who I ought to be. It's about living out of who God says I am. That's that's the grace that's foundational to who we are as believers.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

I definitely want to unpack that. Before we do, I want to go back to the definition of humility of trusting God and others with me. What might that look like for your average senior pastor, CEO, or leader of influence? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Well, I I'll I'll I'll answer that, but I'll tell you a little story in great in opening it. Um sometimes I'll be asked to come alongside, as I am often, not sometimes, to come alongside a leader who, for whatever reason, his board or his team or his church board or elders or somebody's, they're really concerned about this guy. He needs help. You know, let's call Bill. You know, if I'm the one they call. There's several people they can call. And I'll say to them, if they call me, I'll say, okay, I want to meet him. And uh and then I'll say to them, and if he agrees to let me, I want you to know that I will only work with him in the context of his leadership team and the board. I will not isolate him from you. Because his problems are you. And they'll go, what? We say that again in English? We want you to help him. I am helping him.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

They wish they called somebody else exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

I'm saying, no, I am helping him. I'm helping him by helping him understand that unless you guys, his leadership team, whatever you call that, and and his board, understand the critical role you play in who he is becoming. So I'll say that to him. So when I meet with these leaders, and uh some of them agree, some don't. But I'll meet with them and I'll say to them, uh, hey, thanks for coming. Let's have a little couple hours this afternoon, I get to know you. But let me kind of start this with two questions for you to ponder this afternoon. First question is this are you at a place where you're willing to let somebody help you? That's my first question. Are you at that place? Because at that place, um uh you need to decide if you're willing to earn my trust. Second question is this are you willing to let somebody help you, but not on your terms? They'll look at me like exactly, exactly, because I'll say to them, what we want to do in our relationship is model what I hope will happen with you and your career key leaders. See, so they look at me and they go, Oh man. And it's been actually I I'm not bragging, but it's been quite successful.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

And you're so in answer to my question, you're actually inviting them into this humility of trusting you.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Exactly. In in my relationship with them.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Yeah, creating a context for it to happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Exactly. The guy I went coil hunting with, I told you about this week.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

He's one of those guys.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Okay. It's got to be very messy.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

In a good way. No, it's it's very, very messy.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

As opposed to here's the formula, here's here's how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, I met with uh uh doesn't make which Christian college, but a large Christian college's president was in crisis with his board and all that good stuff. And and I met with his his cabinet. And I said to them, here's some material, that's just a tool, but I have a question for you. Do you trust your board? Write it down. What what cop is what what hinders you from trusting your board? Write it down. Make it personal.

unknown 17:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I looked point to him and said, You trust him? Write it down. Look at each other, you trust each other. What hinders it? I want you to do that. All this went. I could just feel the freeze in the room. I mean, it was a heavy freeze. And I said, write them all down. Now put them away. We're not gonna talk about them yet. I just want to prove the point. The point is, you guys need to learn how to build and restore trust with him. And then after we did all that, we went through some training and then I sat with he and his board. Same question. I mean, at the board level, it surprised me because the board buy-in was quicker than the cabinet's buy-in. I mean, they were all over it. So I'm saying all of that's a complicated response, but the point is that uh our leaders have been taught how to lead. But they haven't been taught how to trust. And they haven't been taught how to be trusted. And when they don't know that, there's no way that ultimately anybody can stand with them. And if a leader doesn't learn to let somebody stand with him, he is doomed for failure. And and his failure will repeat itself everywhere he goes.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

And that brings us back to grace without grace, which is one of the in the Senate of a leader, there's the picture of the ladder. And one of the sides of the ladder is the environment of grace. Yeah. And so without grace, trusting is foolish.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

It can't happen.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

It can't happen because uh often we as Christians are the most schizophrenic of all people. We know Christ has something really significant in us, and we really want to be known. But because of our shame stories, we're afraid we will be. So we live in the crisis of the of the unknown. You know, in in 1 John we're we're invited to walk in the light. Ephesians chapter 5, we're invited to walk in the light. Well, the light is is that biblical place where nothing is hidden. You can't hide in the light. Well, uh so sometimes we read those scriptures and we we create an ought to. I ought to walk in the light. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's a reason you can walk in the light. You've been made new. You ain't who you used to be. You've been made new. You have been made righteous and holy. Throughout all of the scriptures, holiness and light are inseparable. And I'm invited of God not to work at getting into the light, but I'm invited because of what Christ did in me to be in the light with God. And in that passage in 1 John, it's it's so hard, it sounds so contradictory to many Christians. He's invited us to walk in the light, and then he tells us those who walk in the light will sin. And if you say you don't sin, you're a liar. And you go, wait, that can't be true. I mean, I'm either one or the other. No, I'm both. See, I'm both. But if I can't walk in the light, because I don't believe I should walk in the light, I will try to manage my sin so I can function in the light rather than seeing it. It's only in the place of light where I can deal with my sin. That's Mike, that's a huge, huge difference. And in my mind, it's the only thing that makes First John make sense.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Mm-hmm. And the whole sin management, you use that, Dallas Wheeler has used that phrase. It's something that it's a false kind of hope that we can be good enough, but it also keeps us from the very thing that we want, which is to be loved for who we are.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Exactly. It's interesting. Um when Adam and Eve first sinned, very first sin, they sewed together fig leaves. That was the first act of sin management. Man felt obligated to do something about the fact he had sinned. And a friend of ours named Tom years ago, he said to me, you know, Bill, your fig leaves aren't covering as much as you think they are. But but you see, what happened is sin management is is a theology that is rooted in Law because it it's a theology that says I can do something about my sin by working on it. That's a principle of law. Now, what the principle of law does is the principle of law was written by God to convince me that I am unrighteous. Working on the principle of law will never produce righteousness in me. It'll only continue to reveal the unrighteousness that I have. So sin management literally keeps me preoccupied with sin and devoid of relationship. Grace brings me into relationship so there is a basis from which I can deal with my sin. Again, it's one of those huge misunderstandings and almost contradictions in the scripture.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

And yet it's a huge distinction. Oh that each of those is a different path.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

A different path. That's why we have the book True Faced. That's why we have the two paths.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Well, tell me about that. What's the I've read True Faced. Some of the people who would hear this may not have heard of it or read it, but what's the heart of the message of TrueFaced?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah. Again, I'll back up a little bit. When we were first working with this triad of humility, relationships of trust and environments of grace, our focus was leaders. But we realized that a majority of our audience never saw themselves as leaders, even if they were in leadership positions. So we wrote a book called True Faced that we would say we've written to readers. That's anybody. Principles of Grace Written to Readers. And the whole basis for that book is this reality. Can I trust who God says I am? Can I trust that? The miracle of Calvary is that God made me new. Can I believe that? What if we as Christians actually dare to believe we're already righteous? What if Jesus, when he said, The world women are my disciples because you love one another? A new commandment I gave you. What if he was teaching the theology Jesus was teaching this? Under the law, you could not become righteous because you were unrighteous. But you can obey this commandment because you're righteous. See, Jesus never taught this. Ever. Noble in his theology are these words. The world will know you are my disciples because you sin less than they do. That's never in the theology of Jesus. He knows better.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

So righteousness is not measured by how little I sin.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

It's measured by the presence of something.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

It's by the presence of love. It's measured by the pre the world would know you're my disciples because you love one another. So what we did in True Faced is we create an allegory in which the person in the book comes across these paths, one leading, pleasing God to the room of good intentions, and one trusting God leading to the room of grace. And we describe the behavior patterns of people who, uh, with all the good intentions in the world, not understanding grace, will strive like crazy to figure out the Christian life. And we have a banner in the back of the room, and it says, working on my sins so I can have an intimate relationship with God. That's in the back room. You know, and there's only a bazillion Christians doing that this moment while we're talking. In the room of grace, it says, My God standing beside me with my sin in front of us. See, so often, again, these are just subtle things, Mike, but so often we believe that we need to do something about our sin so we can be presentable to God, and he becomes our last resort instead of our first resort. What if I just saw him for what he says is true? I tease people when I say this to them publicly. I wonder what God meant when he said, I will never leave you or forsake you. Wonder what he meant. Everybody says, Well, he'll never leave us or forsake us, but you don't believe that. See, some of you believe that you can go sin and leave God on the curb. I want you to know he goes with you. Because he'll never leave you. See, it it it it it blew the minds of the Pharisees that Jesus could go into the house of the sinners, the harlots, and the publicans. And somebody said, Well, God wouldn't do that because he's holy. No, it's because he's holy he can do it.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Say more about that. That the again, holiness, it sounds like where where you might go with that is that holiness is not about the absence of sin, but the presence of love. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Well, it's the presence of light. Think of righteousness and love, think of holiness and light. Where when Jesus would go into that place of darkness, it lit up. He didn't become dark. They had light shed on them. And when I say that, I mean sometimes I'll have young leaders because one of our audiences, our next generation leaders, they look at me and say, Man, I can't believe I've taken Jesus into those places. Yeah, well, it what did he tell you? What do you think he meant? I'll never leave you. Oh, I can't believe that. Well, try believing it. It'll change when you go there if you know Jesus is with you. If it's so comfortable to leave him on the curb, I say to the guys, if you went in a strip joint, it's so easy to imagine Jesus on the curb, it's a lot harder to imagine him sitting next to you at the bar. You just, you know, I don't want to think that thought. No. That's the thought you should think.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Because that's where he is.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

Yeah, and even in even in the place, the presence of love.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Exactly. Yeah, you just it so back to true faith. So our goal in that was to say to people, do you know what? In the room of grace, our relationships were the worst of you can be known, and you'll be loved more for it. In that scenario, the power of sin is always broken. The power of sin is always served in the principle of law. That's what Romans teaches us. But we don't believe my next statement, which is not mine, it's God's. But you're not under law anymore. You're under grace. The principle of law is no longer the principle that you serve, because you're no longer unrighteous. Oh my gosh, what if I believe that? We sat with a Christian leader in my home, in fact, Bruce and I and two other guys, and and he really had we were having dinner, uh, lunch, and he was sitting uh at the end of the table, and he he looked up with tears in his eyes. He said, Guys, do you understand if I believe that everything would change? And we said, Well, everything's been changed. You just have to believe it. Powerful message, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

It's a powerful message. Um and we both encounter people all the time, and organizations and bodies, and churches filled with people that don't hear that.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

They don't hear it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, we like I told you just last month, we were at this pastor's conference, and I'm gonna guess there were 300 pastors and families and wives, whatever, in in husbands, because this was a denomination where women were pastors, so it was husbands and wives, and and we were taking them through what we call our our true-faced intensive, where we have these principles of grace that we're trying to help people understand. If you can grasp the essence of these twelve, it'll help you. And at first they're just kind of, what in the world? Who brought these guys in? But almost without exception, every time we we usually do a late afternoon, evening, and then all day the next day. Not everybody, I don't, I couldn't say that, but a majority of them by the middle of the next morning are raising questions and revealing brokenness. Because this is one of the statements we teach, I know you've heard me say it many times, and that is if my theology doesn't touch my reality, it's because I don't understand grace. Grace always touches our reality. That's why there's a place called Calvary. Because at a place called Calvary, God touched my reality. I needed a savior. But I also need to be made new. And that's what he did. He touched my reality. And we and we don't believe that, then what happens is we will it's it's it's it's a natural propensity, like in the garden, for man to fill the gap until he's convinced God can. That's just that's just our natural propensity. We will fill the gap until we're convinced God can. That's it. That's the way we live. And so we have a bazillion well-meaning Christians who've got 10,000 books out there on how to do something. You know, I heard I heard a person very, very well, very, very well known in the arena of spiritual disciplines, and he stood before some of us one day and he said, Um, you know, uh, I used to lie until I disciplined my tongue, and I no longer lie. And people were politely clapping, and I was getting ready to throw up. And I said, You just lied. What do you like you no longer lie? What are you telling us? Because listen carefully. If sin could be managed apart from the cross, you don't need Jesus. If a person who was a liar could stop lying without a redemptive process, Jesus died for every sin because I cannot manage any sin.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

And we're so good at deceiving ourselves. And that's I mean, when you say you just lied, is that we deceive ourselves into really believing that there's been a change.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and and the and and there is there is change. Change does happen. Right. I mean, it does happen. We we are able. I mean, you have your life story, I have my life story. You know, I mean, AA works. It does work. I mean, people's behaviors do change. Right. But we're not talking about behavior.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

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