Leading Second Podcast

Our pastors hold a weight we may never even see and won’t ever know unless we sit in that chair. So, how can we help carry that? Here is a conversation with some practical insight and wisdom, regardless of your role or proximity to your pastors. Nick and Liz Dekold from Lakeshore Church in Rockwall, Texas, have been serving on their team for almost 20 years, so they have plenty of experience leading on behalf of their pastors.

Do you ever find yourself tying your identity to the affirmation of those around you? If we're honest, we all can from time to time. Joining us today is my friend Clayton Baird who is on staff at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida. We talk about health in your church leadership and make sure that we find our identity in Jesus. We also have Jesse Rodriguez offer us five ways to give good feedback.

What can you learn about ministry and leadership from NASCAR? Our guest today is Dillon Ritchie. An executive pastor at CoastLife Church in Venice, Florida, he gives us a great lesson about racing and talks about being faithful in serving. We also have Jason and Liz Klammor, who share their story about leading in the middle.

As church leaders in the second chair of your ministry, can you handle a no from your pastor? There is tension at times between ambition and submission, and in this episode, I have a conversation with Temi Pope from Union Church where we talk about being faithful in the second chair. We also had a great listener question come in from Mary Jones, asking how to lead individuals who have higher skills than your own.

The big idea in our conversation today is remaining faithful under pressure. When it seems that there’s pressure coming at us from all sides, I wanted to have a conversation about how we remain faithful through it. But first, Jesse Rodriguez joins us with another Top 5 that you do not want to miss. He gives us 5 Ways to Increase Your Capacity as a Leader (1:27). Then I sit down with Tanisha Stromberg, Jen Tribble, and Tim Tribble, all campus pastors from Parallel Church in Alberta, Canada (6:33). As a church in Canada, they face unique circumstances and challenges on top of the changes in their own church. They’ve had a wild ride these past couple of years, and I’m so encouraged by how strong their church has come out of it.

We’re in a moment where I believe that leaders could use some wisdom on how to walk through something. It seems that there’s a new report or event surrounding a leader falling or making a mistake at a pretty consistent rate now. So I wanted to turn to the person who has helped me walk through so many challenging moments and tough conversations in my life. I asked my pastor, Kevin Gerald, to talk about how we are to respond when leaders fall, what our mentality should be, and what we can anchor to in these times.

Our conversation today is with Greg Basch. He is the Campus Leadership Pastor at Elevation Church, so he coaches and leads leaders and really just has a brilliant leadership mind and voice (seriously, follow him on IG asap). But before we get into the conversation with Greg, we have our first “Top 5” this season. Joseph Kelly is the Associate Pastor at Discovery Church in Oklahoma City, OK, and he gives us his top 5 prayers every leader should pray (1:16). Since our theme this season is “from the second chair, for the second chair,” we’re doing a little "get to know you" time with our guests since so many will be brand new to the podcast (9:31). Then, on some of our episodes this season, we will give our guests 10 minutes to give us their favorite leadership lesson or message. So I’m setting Greg loose for an incredible lesson on promoting and producing (17:20). Finally, for our conversation, we’re talking about being faithful in your calling (32:06).

Welcome to Season 5 of the Leading Second Podcast! With so many incredible testimonies coming in already from Leading Second Camp, we thought it’d be fun to give a little window into the day we had. In this table talk discussion session, Brandon and Lindsay Stewart, John Morgan, Kaisa Freeman, and Larry Brey talk about the lost art of honor. They talk through honor apathy, being an architect of honor, slowing down, and what a lifestyle of honor looks like. If you don’t want to miss out on Leading Second Camp next year in Salt Lake City, you can go ahead and register now at leadingsecondcamp.com using the access code “PODCAST-INSIDER.”

We are back! It is officially Season 5 of The Leading Second Podcast, and I couldn’t be happier to be back in this space. I am so excited about our lineup this season and our topics on deck to cover! Our theme for Season 5 is “from the second chair, for the second chair.” We usually have quite a few lead pastors on the podcast, but I know there’s so much gold inside people in the second chair that we can all learn from. So this season, I want to highlight that and bring some dignity back to the second chair. To kick the season off, we are hitting the current climate of church and ministry head-on with an episode on faithfulness and how to lead in a season of deconstruction. Josh Bingle is one of the most intelligent people I know, and he can speak simply to some of the most complex and confusing topics. He is the pastor of Genesis Church in Spokane, WA, he is a close friend to myself and Leading Second, and I couldn’t think of somebody better to talk through this with than him. Deconstruction is showing up in varying degrees, and in many different ways all over the place, so we cover a broad range of questions like: What is deconstruction? What do we do when drift becomes deconstruction? Is there a difference between deconstructing and just asking hard questions? Are there different kinds of deconstructors? How do we lead in a culture of deconstruction? In this tricky season, people have more and more big questions. So not only do we need to know how to answer those questions, we must be able to lead others through it graciously. That is my prayer this week for you. Run strong and lead well, Brandon

The end of the year always brings some time of reflection but also planning and dreaming for what is to come ahead. I want to start 2022 with some intention. Most people likely want to be a better leader at the end of the year than we were at the start, but what are we going to do about it?