Wayne Cordeiro on Leading on Empty

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith interviews Wayne Cordeiro, Founding Pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii with over 11,500 in weekend attendance. In the episode, Doug and Wayne discuss leading on empty and the effects of burnout.

Wayne has led New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii for 36 years and has planted 162 churches. His passion is raising up emerging leaders.

Key Takeaways

Wayne and Doug discuss the importance of focusing on discipleship in ministry leadership. Church planting and success in the ministry is a result of proper discipleship. Character-development is crucial. 

Wayne talks about burnout and the telltale signs of depression in leadership. It’s not something that you can plan for. Burnout is restored by healing, adjustment, and rescheduling.

There’s a difference between tiredness and burnout. Tiredness is resolved by better sleeping habits, burnout is not.

Wayne discusses solitude’s importance to our mental and spiritual health. Solitude is not isolation. Isolation is getting away from people. Solitude on the other hand is a planned away time with God.

Suffering in leadership is actually okay. If you never suffer, you never grow and never learn. Typically our darkest moments in leadership are right before our brightest moments. 

Wayne gives advice for every season of life.

Our Twenties are for gaining life experience. It’s a time to take advantage of opportunities and to be a servant leader seeking to serve. 

Our Thirties are for us to experiment with what God’s given us and to discover exactly what God has called us to do.

Our Forties are for leadership development and for us to hone our craft and sharpen our skills. 

From our Fifties on, we are to be looking for successors and emerging leaders to pour our life and leadership into.

Links:

Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordeiro

The Divine Mentor by Wayne Cordeiro

Sifted by Wanye Cordeiro

New Hope Fellowship Church

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:07

Hey, podcast, family, and welcome to episode number 269 of the L three leadership podcast, where we're obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host and today's episode is brought to you by bear tongue advisors. If you're new to the podcast. Welcome. We're so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and subscribe. And if you've been with us for a while, please make sure that you're subscribed and share this podcast with others, leave a rating and review. It really does help us to grow our audience. So thank you in advance for that. And today's episode, you'll hear my conversation with Wayne Cordeiro. If you're unfamiliar with Wayne, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Uh, one, this was a bucket list interview for me as many of, you know, if you've been listening to the podcast, this has been a very challenging and difficult year for me. And in the midst of the difficulty, I read two specific books that made a huge impact on my life. And they were both written by Wayne. One of those was called leading on empty, and one was called sifted. And those are both must reads. So if you're a leader, go and buy those now. Um, but Wayne wrote them both. And so we spend the entire conversation today, focused on those two books. And you'll hear us talk about what it looks like. Delete on empty, how to recover from burnout, how to actually know your burnout, uh, how to actually navigate difficult and challenging seasons. And so if you're tired, if you're going through a tough season, please listen to this whole conversation. You're going to take so much away from it. And I really think that Wayne through his experiences are going to help you is going to help you immensely. And so, uh, let me just tell you a little bit about Wayne, so you can learn more about him. He's the founding pastor of new hope Christian fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii. Yes, he pastors in Hawaii, how lucky and they have over 23 locations in over 15,500 and weekend attendance was, is remarkable. He's also a church planter at heart and has planted 124 churches all over the world. And he's also an author of 12 books, which two of them. I just mentioned. I'm just going to keep on those two because you have to buy them leading on empty and sifted. And so you're going to love this conversation. We also dive into the lightning round at the end, so get ready to enjoy. But before we dive into the interview, just a few announcements. This episode of the[inaudible] leadership podcast is sponsored by bear tongue advisors, the financial advisors at bear tongue advisors, help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. Find out how bear tongue advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your future. Please visit their website at bear tongue advisors. That's B E R a T U N G advisors.com, securities and investment products and services offered through Waddell and Reed, Inc member FINRA, and SIPC bare tongue advisors, Waddell and Reed, and L three leadership are separate entities. Well, Hey leaders, we're just about one month into the new year, and I'm sure that you've already set your goals and are excited about growing in 2021. But I really want to challenge you, uh, if you really want to 10 X your growth this year, I want to challenge you to join or launch in L three leadership mastermind group. Mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the past six years. And if you're unfamiliar with what a mastermind group is, they are small groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together for at least one year, twice a month in order to help each other grow, achieve goals and do life together. And so we have the opportunity for one, either you to launch a mastermind group or for you to join an L three mastermind group that already exists. If you're interested in learning more, go to L three leadership.org for slash masterminds. And with all that being said, let's dive right into the interview and enjoy my conversation with Wayne Cordeiro.

Speaker 3: 3:33

Wayne, thank you so much for being willing to do this interview. And why don't we just start off with you just telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do well, uh, I spent 36 years in Hawaii planting churches, so had the privilege of being part of starting 152 churches that span to, um, Japan, Australia, Myanmar. We have 16 and Myanmar and, um, in Taiwan, uh, Okinawa now, the Philippines and then on the West coast. So my heart beat is to train up emerging leaders for the ministry, the disciple them and the cause. I believe that, you know, tomorrow's church, the biggest problem with tomorrow's church, won't be a lack of leaders. It'll be an overabundance of underdeveloped leaders in places of leadership, and that's when the apostasy begin. So, uh, I really do want to disciple up young men and women who know the word of God and are committed, uh, to see the kingdom of God advance in biblical ways. Can you say a little bit more about that in that process, at least how it plays out in your life? I'm just curious, how do you view discipleship and mentoring the next generation? Well, you know, I noticed that one of the very first things Jesus did when he started his ministry was he chose 12 that they would be with them. He'd send them out and he cast out demons. And um, so I thought, Hmm, same thing with LIJ started the school of profits. And, uh, I take a look at Paul, the apostle, and he's always speaking about discipling and his proteges of Timothy and Silas and Barnabas and John Mark some ended up, well, some not so well, but he was, his assignment was permeated with discipleship. So some people see me as a church planter when in actuality church planting as the result of discipleship because you disciple of leaders and they need to go somewhere, they need to do something. So church planting is really a result of actually a different kind of, uh, desire and passion that's to build up leaders. We were talking before we dive into the interview and I was sharing how I've, I've been in the L three community knows that I've been going through a difficult season with panic burnout, um, et cetera. And you wrote two books that have significantly impacted me in this area. One is leading on empty and the other is shifted. And I want to kind of get into both today, but especially in the world we live in today with COVID and the year that we've just had, I think so many leaders are dealing with leading on empty. And can you just start off just telling us about your personal story on why you wrote this book and what your experience was? Yeah. Nobody wants to enter into a time of burnout and anxiety or depression and no one plans on it. It's hard to train for it. And, uh, and it happens, uh, imperceptibly, uh, when you're somewhat of an innovative person, Doug, you, you start something you, you, cause I'm a type a person. I want to see fruit. And, uh, it's no different from the father in John 15, 16. He says, you didn't choose me. I chose you and appointed you that you should go for them. Bear fruit. He's a fruit inspector. He talks about that with the fig tree. So I want to make sure that I'm bearing some fruit and in doing so, you, everything, you start, you gotta run, you gotta manage. You're the president, you're the pastor. You're, you're the top dog on everything you start. And, uh, if you're innovative, uh, in somewhat of a prolific way, you can't pass off these things fast enough and you don't want to, because you can hand it off to somebody that'll destroy it. And I've had that happen three times as some, with some of the ministries that we began and they no longer exist today. Cause I passed them off too quickly to people that weren't ready. They had character flat spots and aptitudes in certain ways, but there are nice people. And I found out that nice people don't necessarily fit, uh, in every case. So, uh, I was just overwhelmed and uh, not nefarious, not because I was malevolent or didn't do what Jesus wanted me to do. It wasn't due to sin. It was simply because, uh, we were innovating and, and um, doing ministry. And I remember, uh, Doug, I was taking a jog before a conference that I was to speak at in California. And lo and behold, I find myself sitting on the curb on the street crying and my hands were shaking. And I looked at my hands and I said to myself, something's broken, but I have no idea what it is or how to fix it. So when I finally went back to Hawaii, I met with a psychiatrist friend of mine. It was a wonderful Christian. And he said, basically, when your serotonin level has been depleted, you are running in your passion on endorphins, on excitement, on joy. But then when too many things start to pile up, now you've got to manage, you got to do HR, you got to do taxes, you got to do problem solving. Now you're moving from your passion to something that is not in your wheelhouse. Uh, and so, but you still have to do it. It's part and parcel of everything. Now, 80% of my energy was going to this area that was not my wheelhouse and I had actually shifted. So now instead of running on passion and excitement and my endorphins and because it was filling my tank, now I'm doing something that drains my tank. And I had no idea when that switched. So now I'm running on adrenaline, I'm running on duty, I'm running on, I gotta get this done. So now I am leading on empty. You can't just say, I'm done. I'm out of here for a year. You just can't do that. But what happened to the church? The people, you know, they'd go nuts. So you have to lead on empty and lo and behold, Doug, it was a year and a half after that, that I actually had a heart attack. And, um, so I was flown to Stanford medical and they put three stents in my heart. And so still today I've got to take, uh, an injection self administered injection every two weeks to keep my heart clear out of curiosity. Yeah. What does that,

Speaker 4: 9:47

How old were you when all this happened? Just out of curiosity,

Speaker 3: 9:50

I was 52. You too. Yeah. And so, uh, I realized that I'm frail and not, uh, I am not invincible and I really need Jesus every step of the way. So changing my schedule a bit, I still have that drive, but I've got to throttle that back and keep myself healthy because if I, I go down, a bunch of stuff goes down, so it can happen.

Speaker 4: 10:14

Yeah. You showed it in the book when you met with that psychiatrist. He also recommended taking a year off, which, you know, when I read down like that, that seems extreme. And he said, if you can't do that, you know, take off six months, uh, what did you do? And what would your encouragement to leaders be like if they're at that burnout point? So when it comes to taking time off, because I think for, even in the season that I'm in, I actually took a week off of work. Um, there's a fear that, Hey, if I took off several months from work, you know, I don't know if I'd ever go back. Like, I feel like there'd be such a void. I mean, can you just speak to that? I'd just be curious what you learned from that. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:46

Uh, I had been in ministry for about 23 years at that time. And, and somewhere between 18 years and 25 years, people will go through that dip. And, um, I don't know if it's just biological, but they're, they're going to face that and you need to take off time as much as you can so that you just first heal. And the second is that you, um, STEM any further damage to your psyche. So basically you've just got to arrest that. And then even when you come back, you have to reverse that. So it'd be nice to take a year where you STEM it and reverse it before you come back. But that's not always the case, but if you can recognize, realize it, there have been some counseling and in, uh, advisory groups so that they can watch you. Because often I say this way, you know, the, I cannot see the eye. Uh, if you need something's wrong with your eye, you gotta have someone look at it for you. So that's where a rescheduling, a rebalancing of your life comes in. Uh, but not a lessening of the passion. It can't be a lessening of your call. Some people just bail out on their call and go from an eight plus a disciple to a C minus disciple. And they think that's what God wants. He does not. He wants you to stay as an A-plus and that includes balance. And that's what I had to find out.

Speaker 4: 12:12

So, um, I am curious, you know, can you talk about, you obviously had to experience physical feelings to understand that something was wrong. Um, Carrie knew off as a great book called didn't see it coming. And I know that was the case for me. It sounds like it was the case for you. Is there anything leaders can do, you know, to actually see warning signs that, Hey, if I don't change something on the front end, I'm going to experience what Wayne went through, what Doug's going through. Uh, you know, how do you tell the difference between, Hey, I'm just tired as a leader versus, Hey, something's going to end up not in a great place. If you don't change something.

Speaker 3: 12:43

Yeah. Everyone gets tired. But a lot of times, you know, with a night or two of good rest, you you're, you're bouncing back. Now when you're going through burnout a night or two of rest, doesn't bounce you back. Uh, you go through anxiety, um, problems, you get short of breath, you can't clear your lungs. Uh, you think you're going through a heart attack and you can't, your brain doesn't work quite as well. And you start moving into the slippery slope of depression. And so I went into a, uh, clinical depression. I had to have medication to get me back out. It was a pretty bad slide into a deep Valley for me and found myself, you know, cringing on the floor of my office in a fetal position crying. And it was just too, too painful. But, uh, you have to remember that even though it's a tough season, do not be afraid of it. If I could give you a pill or every pastor, a pill or leader a pill to avoid that, I wouldn't do it because you see your plate might be this big and you're operating here and you gotta be able to find the edge of your plate or your potential, uh, your capacity. So what is it? And if we're so afraid of the edge, then you may live your whole life way beneath the potential that you really have. And you'll never find what your potential or capacity is. And the only way to stretch your muscles is stretching is bring it to a fatigue. So if you're a weightlifter, you know that there's a thing called a you lift and do reps on to fatigue, muscle fatigue. Then that's when the smaller cells break down, bigger ones are built stronger muscles result. So there's a plate that you have is if I can do that, uh, share that. And you got to get to the edge of your plate. Now, when you feel the pain of it, that's when you need to make some adjustments not before. So don't be afraid of the pain. Do you have children, Doug?

Speaker 4: 14:41

I do. I do. We, I have a one week old boy and I have two, two girls. So three kids.

Speaker 3: 14:48

And you know, when your children start growing, um, when you buy new shoes a year in advance, uh, when they're half fitting and they're getting three fourths of the way to the end of their shoe, no, you buy a new shoes. When they say dad, my feet hurt. And then, you know, it's time to get him new shoes. Uh, life and growth in life is like that. You're going to come to points or the edge of pain and you, if you sustain it and let it go, that's when you get blisters, but you have to allow pain to be that point of communication by God or your psyche telling you, you need to readjust, get a bigger fit, um, reschedule, do something different. So I would say, do not be afraid of pain. Um, when it does speak though, you need to start listening. And so tiredness will be resolvable and rectifiable with rest. Uh, burnout is rectifiable by healing and rescheduling and balancing.

Speaker 4: 15:51

I love that differentiation. And I also want you to talk about, uh, again, I mentioned two books that you wrote, uh, one, you were on your own one, you wrote with Francis Shannon and I was born called sifted. You see a difference between leading on empty and burnout versus seasons of being sifted. Do you view them as the same? I'm just curious how you would do that.

Speaker 3: 16:09

Yeah. One is an attack on your psyche and your health. The other is, could be an attack on your ministry and to refine you. So one is for refinement and the other is you is for rescue. And, uh, so they're different. And, uh, the Lord spoke to Simon, Peter and said, um, I'm going to pray that your faith not fail when you're being sifted. And he doesn't say, when you're burning out, I'll just pray that your faith not fail. You know, no, you, you make adjustments and, and bring in balance. So there's a big difference between sifting and burning out.

Speaker 4: 16:44

Uh, I want to hear you talk a little bit more about your recovery process and you talked about, you know, needing to delegate, needing to reprioritize. Um, you, you were extremely practical in the book and if you haven't read it and you're listening to this, please go and by leading on empty, uh, you given a tire game plan for it. But, uh, you know, you mentioned a personal retreat day, um, implementing a Sabbath. Can you just talk about some of the rhythms of rest? I believe you go away every summer for a month or two. Uh, now what are some of those rhythms of rest you've implemented that have made a difference in, in this season of leadership?

Speaker 3: 17:15

Yeah. One is I keep my disciplines, you know, you, you've got to be a master at the basics. And when I started burning out, Doug, I started to lose the basics, uh, like Vince Lombardi, you know, when they lost the game, when they were applying the legendary coach called the practice the next morning, and they should've won, but they, they lost it and they lost it on the basics. So the next morning he called this team players together, held up a football and said, we're going to start all over again. This is a football. And, uh, sometimes we as Christians get involved with and complicated ministry and strategy analysis, et cetera. Uh, but really we need to be professionals at the basics. And when you are, God really starts to bring in the rest for you. You don't do it. A lot of times, we put our energy in doing what God should be doing and we Slack on what we should be. So one of the things I knew I knew I needed to do was get back to just daily devotions to make sure we do a thing called soap, where script drops, innervation, application, prayer, and we use a life journal every morning. I had to get back to that. The second is to take Sabots during the week. Uh, so now I take Monday and Fridays off. So I'm doing this from home. And, um, because it's, uh, on a day, that's my day off. But, uh, I used to work five days a week and then preach on the weekends and keep right on going. And I can't do that. It's just too much. So I have to understand that I am human and frail. I also now schedule a breaks, just in fact, I was talking to my wife and I said, honey, we're going to get away five times a year. I don't care if we just go to a state park down the road and put up a tent, but we've just got the getaway. So we were planning that just the other night. And so we've got to schedule our away times, uh, before I have to, because there's a big difference between isolation and solitude. And let me give you the definition of that. Isolation is, let's say this is a plus 10, and this is a zero on your energy scale. And this is a minus 10. A lot of times our energy goes down to a minus 10 and then we just got to get away from everybody. Just got to get away. I don't want to see people. So I isolate myself and I go from a negative 10 to a zero. And then I think, woo, I can get back into ministry now, but you're going in at a zero. On the other hand, solitude is plus 12 and you're down to about an eight and you need to fill up. And so you get away, read some books and joy and what fills your tank. And you then come back at a 12. So that's called solitude. It's a plan to get away. And Jesus did that. It says an early, uh, a long while before day, Jesus would go to the garden, spend time with his father. He wasn't out of minus 10. He just schedule that in. And he had a time of solitude to make them even stronger. Most of the time, Doug, we don't do solitude very well. We do isolation. Uh, I was, I paddled carbon fiber canoes in the oceans. I do ocean sports and, uh, we were doing a race from the Island called Molokai to Oahu. And it's over a big, uh, pretty rough channel. And it, this time was in a six man canoes, a fiberglass canoe, and six of us are paddling. We're racing with a hundred other boats and we carry what we call Camelback. Uh, it's a backpack with water in it. And as a tube that comes over here and the coach said to me, Wayne, every 15 minutes, take a drink. And I said, but what if I'm not thirsty? He said, no, no, every 15 minutes you're paddling art. You take a drink. I said, but what if I'm not thirsty? I can keep going. And, uh, because I have to grab the tube, put it in my mouth, take a drink, and then keep paddling. I'm going to lose two strokes, three strokes. And he said every 15 minutes. And I said, why don't I just wait until I'm thirsty? And he said something I'll never forget. He said, Wayne, if you wait until you're thirsty before your drink, it's too late. Your body has already gone into dehydration and a drink will not redeem and restore that it will start to deplete your system. And you'll have lactic acid build up and you'll be done in an hour. Never forgotten that. And the same is true with isolation or solitude. If you're just waiting for isolation all the time, it's too late, you're already going into spiritual dehydration. So learn the difference between solitude and isolation and get up there and to this portion here and do what Jesus did. It'll keep us healthier.

Speaker 4: 22:20

Uh, in the book, you mentioned your personal retreat day, and I thought this was extremely helpful. Can you share everyone what a personal retreat days and what you do on it?

Speaker 3: 22:28

Yeah, sometimes I'll, I'll do different things. Cause you know, um, always remember that consistency and variety of the secret to balance consistency and variety. Uh, you want to do certain things consistently, but you have to make sure it stays various and colorful. So sometimes on my retreat day, I'll just take a book and just maybe read the whole book and take time to underline and think so when I'm done, I will fill it up a little bit. Sometimes I just go and get ahead. Like with my sermon planning, I'll throw it out another two months and think through. And instead of just putting down titles and making it sound like it's interesting to people, I really pray over each of them. I just take more time. And when it's done, my heart is so much fuller because I did that. And those retreat days are, well, I tell you they're worth their weight in gold.

Speaker 4: 23:27

Hmm. Thanks for sharing. Um, I want to talk a little bit about the books shifted. Um, it seems like, uh, you shared a story in the book that a young man that was, I think it may have even been, your son was ready for ministry and just came out of Bible school. I'll fire it up. And he said, I'm ready. I think, was it your son? I'm ready. I'm ready. You said, no, you're not ready. Uh, you haven't suffered enough. And that's the thing of the whole book is basically we have to go through seasons of suffering in order to be influential and to be who God calls us to be. Do we really have to suffer as a Christian? This whole principle? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:01

Yeah. I wish I wish we didn't have to. Uh, but you know, uh, in the midst of suffering is when we start to grow, if you never suffer, you never grow. It's just like learning. Um, the only time you learn is when you lose in, if you're in a competition and you win, you learn squat, but if you lose, you say, you know, I got to do this, I gotta change this. I gotta do this. I gotta practice more. So you'll only learn at the Valley floor, never at the mountain top. So, uh, Peter says it in this way. He says, and let those who suffer according to the will of God keeping trusting their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right. In other words, he's saying, let those who suffer according to the will of God. If he says, there's a way to suffer. That's according to the will of God is probably inferring that there is a way to suffer. That's not according to the will of God. It makes you harder, more contrary, a little bit more bitter, maybe prideful, and you don't learn anything from it. It just makes you a little crusty or, but I've got to learn how to suffer according to the will of God and keep in trusting my soul to a faithful creator in doing what is right. So yeah, when you do suffer, you grow a lot and we hate it. We hate it. We hate it. I wish to God's goal for my life was convenience and comfort, but it isn't it's likeness. And so suffering is sort of like when God is chiseling something out of your life, like if you're a sculpture and, um, when Michelangelo was sculpturing Peter, uh, he sculptured Peter out of this big, huge piece of granite. And when someone said, how did you know Peter was in that rock? Uh, or rather David, wasn't sorry. When David was in that rock, Michelangelo said, I kinda didn't. I had just started chipping away everything that wasn't David's and sometimes God's going to chip away stuff. That's not Doug, it's not in the image of Christ and it bleeds, but we give and got permission to do that. So however it comes, the chisel might be in the hand of a wife, a pastor, a coworker, an accident, and even of stupid mistake we make, but it's amazing who God puts that chisel in the hands-off. And we have to make sure that we're looking at the chisel, that God is guiding, not the messenger that's wielding it.

Speaker 4: 26:28

So, so talk to someone in a season of sifting right now, whether it was, you know, God chiseling them through a spouse and just working on the character or even a mistake that they made, um, seasons of sifting can be extremely difficult and can cause people to want to just throw in the towel and just say, this isn't worth it. What would encouragement be to those people listening right now?

Speaker 3: 26:45

Yeah. That's why Jesus said, Peter, I pray that your faith not fail. And once you have turned, strengthen your brethren, there's something about coming through a season of suffering that ratifies your ministry. Once you have come through it, strengthen your brethren. In other words, you got to go through suffering to certify that you're going to be someone that I can use to teach others. If you don't, you ain't. And so one is to help the person to see the other side of the sifting to see what's on the other side. Cause often failure comes right before success. You know, the darkest moment is right before the, the leaf breaks the ground and becomes a shoot or a plant. And sometimes we think we're done when we're just about to begin. And the devil Doug would love to get you to drop out right before victory is one that gives him the greatest taste of his cunning and his strategy. And, uh, right. When is the darkest get ready? Cause God's about to break through in a wonderful new way in your life. One is to help them to see the overall picture. And the other is find a coach that can handhold them through it. If they're not a veteran, if they're a acolyte or an apprentice, uh, boy, I tell you the greatest friend you would have during this time, Doug would be to have someone kind of handhold you through it as to how you feeling what's going on. Here's what you do and, and why. So your faith not fail. I can't do it for you, but you can do it. And I'm going to encourage you all the way. And when you find a brother like that, uh, you found gold. Wow.

Speaker 4: 28:23

Thank you for sharing that. A question that I'm starting to ask. All the leaders that I interview, um, that are seasoned in life and leadership is can you just speak into each decade of life? Something that you'd speak about leadership. So specifically twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond. Um, if you just have one word for each decade, what would you tell those leaders?

Speaker 3: 28:43

Yeah, the first stage Doug in the twenties, I'd say gain life experience, uh, don't worry about pay salary benefits. You gotta have life experiences. You've got to do everything from counseling to, to preaching, to cutting wood, to setting up chairs, to sweeping the floor, cleaning toilets, can't life experiences, because really now at I'm 68, uh, right now I basically teach out of my life experiences. Cause I just have hundreds and hundreds of them to draw from at 20 years old, you have theories, you have concepts, you have ideologies. And we hear that they're a dime a dozen out there and we don't need to hear another one. That's in the name of Jesus to give more certification authority to your voice, not just, just gain, just serve the fastest way to leadership for 2035 year older is go through the servant's entrance. Biggest servants serve. Uh, Elijah did that with Elijah. We have paid people that I'm interning that are 20 early thirties. They think they've gained everything they need to know about ministry. And you don't need to tell me because you know, this is my area of expertise and it's like, get real. Uh, you don't have a clue. And so what happens is God takes them through a sifting sifting of themselves. They got to get that out of there and stay as a servant. The be grateful in the second stage is start to, um, experiment with, uh, uh, what God has given to you. Let's say you can do 10 things. You can, you can do this. You can go to youth ministry, you can play a guitar. You can sing, you can do this, but put those 10 things on a whiteboard and then ask yourself what of these 10 things that I can do is God calling me to do with my whole life. Where's my base camp. Where's my home base. Is it playing the guitar? Does he want me to be a singer and a worship leader like Chris Tomlin for the rest of my life? Uh, or is that just part and parcel of my ministry, but not the home base of it? It's not my camp. That's not where I camp. Okay. So what about this? As a missionary, I can do a, be a missionary and be a TV person. I could do this well when I wrote all of those things down, I said, you know, where I land is being a shepherd, a pastor. I can do all of these other things, but this is where I'm going to be. And this is about 30 to 40 years old. You start to really zero in what God's calling is. So then when it comes to pastoring, anything with pastoring, preaching, counseling, et cetera, critical thinking, be bold in that area. These other things here, don't be so bold in, you know, uh, be a little bit more pensive. That stuff is optional, but what God's calling you to do, do it with all your heart and soul, because that's what God is going to be watching you in. That's where he's going to gift you provide for you. Not in these other things over here, the devil will throw money out over here to get you distracted and how many young men and young leaders are, uh, distracted. And, uh, you know, we say it this way, Doug, what's worse. What would be worse than doing what God's called you to do somewhat poorly is doing what God has not called you to do excellently. Wow. So if it's not what God's called you to do, but you are a stink and good guitar player and singer, but he's really calling you to be a Reacher. You better make sure that you do this one. Well, even if you do this other one poorly and never mix them up. So that would be in the thirties. And then the forties, I would say to them to start settling into, uh, doing their leadership. W very, very well, uh, because by this time you're going to need some refinements, some optimization, you got the basics down, wonderful. Don't lose the basics, but now you need to refine. You need to advance. And then by the time you're 50 start looking for disciples. And even if in the forties, you can do that start discipling, discipling. Because really, if you think about it David's ministry, when he, uh, had Solomon David's greatest ministry would be in the next generation, not in his, he was to be now veteran teacher, just like Moses on the Hill with Aaron and her on one side, Joshua was in the Valley, fighting the Amalekites. It was like at about age 50. We need to make sure that we've got our hands lifted more than we are swinging a sword. And so at that point, I would say, start discipling, like crazy, pour your life into young disciples. And the past that Baton, I think when that happens, you'll have a full orbed leadership career and I think God would smile at. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 33:55

And you mentioned passing the Baton, uh, earlier in the interview and you talked about, you had a few handoffs that didn't go well. Um, I'm just curious any advice there. I know a lot of leaders that are thinking about succession, uh, any advice there for leaders in that season of life, how and how to pass the Baton well, and so it doesn't end up how those three ended up.

Speaker 3: 34:13

Yeah. You know, uh, it's a kind of a double edged thing. On one hand, I did have some drops on the Baton, but if I had to do it over again, I would still believe in those people. I still believe in them. Uh, and cause I don't ever want to get crusty and say, didn't work with those, you know, whatever generation that might be. I'm not working with them anymore. I, I would still believe in PE. Cause if you think about it, you know, in Matthew 13 and the parable of the sower and the seed, there was four different types of soil. Only one soil produced 30, 60, a hundred fold. So if you look at it, it was a 25% success rate, three out of four, didn't make it. And yet he has a parable that that's good. It's okay. But that one that made it or fruit 30, 60, a hundred fold. So I'm going to keep throwing seed out. And even if I make mistakes or a Baton pass, doesn't work, I'm going to keep refining it and keep optimizing. It just don't ever stop believing in people believe the best out of them and whether or not they succeed. It's not your responsibility. Yours is to believe disciple and send sort of good.

Speaker 4: 35:35

Uh, in a minute, I want to dive into what I call the lightning. Just a bunch of fun questions for leaders. But, um, I mentioned already, if you haven't gotten the books leading on empty and sifted, I'd highly recommend those. And those are just two out of a dozen plus books that Wayne has written. So I'd encourage you to buy them all. But wait, is there anything else that you would leave leaders with today on these two subjects of leading on empty and being sifted before we dive into the lightning round?

Speaker 3: 35:56

You know, one of the things I would say is make sure that, uh, you have, uh, ongoing conversation because if you look at the internet now and all of the amazing resources that are available, uh, content is plentiful. Conversation is rare and what's happening is we're starting to exchange content for conversation. We're starting to, uh, take resources over relationships. And that is a dangerous transition. It will unbalance the ship. It will make it very, very vulnerable to the waves that bash against your side, because you're almost tipping at that point. Uh, so keep relationships open don't burn bridges, find a group of people that, and it could be only two or three, four or five, but that you can have open, serious ferocious conversation with and they, with you, it keeps you balanced, keeps you human, keeps your feet on the earth, even though we are citizens of heaven.

Speaker 4: 37:03

Thank you. Uh, let's dive into the lightning round. And uh, the first question is what is the best advice you'd ever received and who gave it to you?

Speaker 3: 37:11

Wow, I need to say my wife cause she might be, uh, you know, uh, one of the, uh, pastors of many, many years ago, uh, saw that I had different gifts in this area, in that area. And he said something really neat. He said, why not? I believe in you. And God's going to use you in a great way. And they said, but, uh, I want you to make sure that you keep your humility strong and your pride, that, that, uh, uh, in depth, you know, you just kill it. And so then God can take you a long way. Uh, the other one was not really a piece of advice, but it was really a, an inspiration moment that get me going for years. Uh, I remember in Bible college, I went into a classroom and uh, that professor said, now I'm three, three months old in the Lord. And all I knew was the new Testament and I'm in Bible college and everyone was like saints and cherubim and seraphim in the class except me. And so the professor says, let's all turn to Jeremiah. I guess it was a devotional time. Let's all turn to Jeremiah. And I remember turning around thinking who's Jeremiah. And so the kids started laughing at me. One of the kids said in your Bible, stupid in your Bible. And so I thought, man, I don't belong here. I'm not good enough for this college. And well, the next class was taught by a wonderful lady and she started off by saying, what's your dreams? And one kid would say worship leader or pastor or counselor. And then she would say, do you think Cindy could be a counselor? And we'd go, yes, Cindy, you go get them girl. And uh, Billy think he can be a good youth pastor, all men. Yeah, we're cheering each other on. And, and then she, she uh, asked me and we had the conversation. And then she said, just write your dreams on a piece of paper. So we all did. And the next day, uh, after handing it in, we got it back and it didn't have a grade on it, but it had in red a note from her. And this is what the note said, Wayne, I can see that the hand of God is on your life and God is gonna use you in great ways. She said, keep speaking, keep preaching, keep wanting to help people keep believing in them. And then she ended it with this. Doug. She said, the kingdom of God has been waiting for you. I must've read that phrase

Speaker 4: 39:46

12

Speaker 3: 39:47

Times before I went to bed that night. And, uh, it stuck in my soul and it just, every time I wanted to quit, uh, her words rang back to me and she said, Wayne, the kingdom of God has been waiting for you. And that has been probably one of the greatest, inspirational and defining moments that God used this lady to give me as a gift that would sustain me through the valleys of life.

Speaker 4: 40:15

Wow. Do you still have that inside of curiosity? The piece of paper?

Speaker 3: 40:20

I, I don't know where it is. I wish I had it.

Speaker 4: 40:23

Yeah. That's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing. Um, if you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read, what would it say? Wow, uh,

Speaker 3: 40:34

Stick with your wife. You know, Doug, I see so many young ministers now falling and being terminated because of immorality. I mean giants in the faith, you know who I'm talking about there, they're all over. And I'm thinking, Oh no, the kingdom needed people like you. And somehow we got too full of ourselves or too busy in ministry and someone else looked better. Uh, and in fact, that's not an original thing. I was a Bible college student and his name was pastor Dick cook. He pastored three churches in Eastern, Oregon, Christmas Valley, someplace else and someplace else, I can't remember. So we went to one church at eight o'clock and then we, he drove me to another church at noon. After lunch, we drove to a third church and had an evening service and he was what they call a circuit preacher. And they still have them today in areas that are very remote and on the way home after being with them all day. And he'd been a pastor for 40 or 50 years, I said, brother cook. I said, what's one thing you could tell me as a young leader. One thing, if you could sum your whole life up, what would it be? And I was waiting for this grand divine kind of injunction that would come and transform me into some Saint or apostle. And, uh, so he tapped his steering wheel and he said one thing and I had a Texas accent and I said, one thing, he turned to me and he said, you young. I said, yes, I am sir. And he said, you're energetic. I said, yes, I am. Well, here it is, stick with your wife. And that was probably 40 years ago. Never forgotten that

Speaker 4: 42:23

It's powerful, uh, best purchase you've made in the last year for a hundred dollars or less.

Speaker 3: 42:28

Yeah. Oh man. I don't know. Uh, I think I, um, uh, my bought a coffee grinder so I could make rent it say I'm a coffee addict. If I could take coffee intravenously, I would. But uh, I love good coffee. And so I was buying, you know, beans and I mean coffee and I thought, no, I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to buy some really good beans and grind my own coffee and, and, uh, drink that. So that was the good effect. This, I have it right here.

Speaker 4: 43:10

Um, when, uh, do you have a book or two? I'm sure you could list a thousand, but do you have a book or two that you always recommend to people that have impacted you the most?

Speaker 3: 43:17

You know, there's so many Doug, just great authors out there and so many insights, uh, and some of the older books are still fabulous. I would like to recommend missionary biographies of Hudson Taylor, Jonathan Goforth, David Livingstone, um, Jim Elliott, Amy Carmichael, mother Theresa. So many of these are mentors that I call historical mentors. A lot of times contemporary mentors that the end of their story hasn't been written yet. And so if you lean on them too much, and then something happens that dashes your hopes on the other hand, people like Billy Graham or mother Theresa, or some of those from the past, John Wesley, all of those, their stories have been written and you know, the end of their story. And so then you can say, that's kind of like, I'd like to example or model my life after. So the books that I read would be those kinds of books and then of late, um, well, not of late, but uh, read a book on Abraham Lincoln, uh, called team of rivals. And, uh, I've enjoyed that. Uh, so there's so many, but those are the ones that I would say. Yeah, take a look at those that are more ancient books that, uh, talk about missionaries whose did not fail when they were sifted. Um,

Speaker 4: 44:35

What's your biggest leadership pet peeve,

Speaker 3: 44:38

Pet peeve. Yeah. Uh, I think the, um, I'm so excited about the younger leaders coming up. Those that are 30 and 40 years old and 20 somethings, uh, amazing. But, um, my pet peeve is when they start to get too trendy and try to look more like the world and, uh, than, than heaven and that you can't tell them apart from the young celebrities and they almost revel in the fact that they are. And I thought, you know, we need to make sure that we're resembling people whose, whose greatest treasures are within. And it's the purity of spirit. And even as Peter said to the young women, let it not be in the braiding of hair and the outer clothing, but let it be a gentle and quiet spirit of the heart. Uh, in fact, when Doug, when people say, Wayne, what do you look for when you hire people? Uh, character competence, coolness trend, um, are they good-looking, uh, athletic? No, none of those. Uh, what do you look for? I look for the way they think, uh, I've watched them, how they think, how they solve problems, how they look at the world, how they interpret things that are going on in current events, what's happening at the white house. And I just liked to listen to how people, uh, conjecture about it, because it tells me how they think not only in things of the world, but the things of God

Speaker 4: 46:04

You've got, you've gotten to spend time with some of the world's greatest leaders. And I'm just curious when you get to spend time or have lunch or coffee with a great leader, do you have a go-to question that you always ask them? No matter what

Speaker 3: 46:13

I don't, I, I just want to absorb from them. I'm a sponge. And, uh, I know, I know bill Hybels kind of went sideways a little bit, but, uh, I would spend three days with them. I'd fly out to Chicago and we just kick around. And I like his forcefulness. One of the times I was, we were driving in his car and he said, what do you think about? And I gave an answer and he paused for a second and he looked at me and he said, that's not a very good answer for a leader to give, okay, let me reword that. But, uh, and then I've been with, you know, people like Tony cam polo or James McDonald, or, you know, some of those were on the elephant room with TD Jakes and, uh, Steve Furtick. And I'd like to just watch them and their human side, you have to be okay with their human side. Otherwise, um, you have a wrong concept of reality. Not everybody has a human side and it's flat, even Elisha said, you know, I poured water on the hands of Elijah. Uh, uh, those that are commentators say that means after he goes to the bathroom behind the bushes and Elisha washes Elijah's hands. Wow. And yet respected him yet. He loved them yet. He served them. And, uh, to me, that is one of the greatest assets of any up and coming leaders that when you see the flat spots of a veteran leader, does it make you disrespect them more like them less? Or do you say we all have a human side and I want to see everything without condemning, without deprecating. I need to see it all. And didn't Paul say that, that I might know him in Philippians and the power of his resurrection. And it's almost like a stop and pause and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I might attain to the resurrection of life. I thought that's how we need to see leaders from the bottom to the top and respect them

Speaker 4: 48:18

Still. Amen. Now this one you live in Hawaii, which is a bucket list item for most people, but is there anything that you've crossed off your bucket list that you would say, if you've never done this in life, you have to do this.

Speaker 3: 48:35

So what, what I would say they would have to do? Yeah. You got to go to Hawaii, Doug. Hey, you know, It's on the way to heaven. I mean, it's, it's

Speaker 4: 48:44

Right. Um,

Speaker 3: 48:47

No, I would say to each pastor, each leader, um, develop an avocation and it's not a bucket list to any location, but it's an add vocation where you, you spend time doing something other than ministry or leadership that whether it's woodworking or something. And what it does is it actually clears your head so that you're better here. Don't get an vocation that distracts you from ministry. Get one that inspires you for ministry. I ride horses and believe it or not, I shoot forty-five calibers. I have a, it's a, uh, called mounted shooting. And so we run our horses as fast as they will run. And we shoot 10 targets or 10 balloons. And we have five shells in each gun and it's just black powder. So there's no projectile. But when I'm riding my horse that fast and he's running 35 miles an hour, and I'm trying to shoot things on both sides and running them through a pattern, you can't think of your sermon. You can think of a staff person that is bugging you and you better not cause you would be one with the dirt. Uh, and I've flown off my horse several times, broken both legs. So, uh, it helps me to get my mind off of leadership and ministry to clear it, to give it rest. And then when I'm back in ministry, I'm ready to go again. So get, uh, an avocation that you really, really enjoy, and don't, don't go home to heaven till you do it.

Speaker 4: 50:18

Hmm. Well, Wayne, this has been a rich conversation. Thank you so much for your time today. I noticed you're going to add value to hundreds and thousands of leaders. So thank you. Uh, anything else you want to leave us with? No, just an honor

Speaker 3: 50:28

To be with you, Doug and glad for what you're doing, keep doing it. Because as I said, content is plentiful today. Conversation is rare. We need people like you having face-to-face conversations, even if it's over zoom, let's keep going.

Speaker 1: 50:45

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 50:45

Hey everyone. Thank you so much for listening to my interview with Wayne. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash two six, nine. And as always, if this helped you, it would mean the world to me. If you would subscribe and leave us a rating and review or share a key takeaway on social media or share it with another leader that you know, it'll help, uh, that really does help us accomplish our mission of reaching leaders. So thank you in advance for that. And as always, I always like to end with a quote and I'll actually share a quote from the movie, the shack, this is faith based, but if you're going through a tough time, I want to encourage you to hang on. And this quote helps me often, the quote says this, instead when you fear, you're imagining a future without God, and that future doesn't exist. And so I hope that that encourages you no matter what you're going through, you will get through, keep pushing, pushing through and keep trusting God until next time, Lauren, I love you very much and we will talk to you next episode.