The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
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Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
Don't Feel Qualified? Hear Julie's Amazing Story.
Transforming leadership through faith and vulnerability. Join us in discovering Julie Eesley’s inspiring journey from teacher to Executive Director at King of Kings Lutheran Church.
• Journey from education to church leadership
• Importance of embracing one's unique experiences
• Roles of executive directors in advancing church missions
• Creating welcoming environments for newcomers
• Establishing one-on-one meetings for team accountability
• Power of gratitude in fostering community relationships
I'll just be really honest and frank right at the top of this. I experienced a tremendous amount of anxiety when we moved. I had kind of been struggling with it a little bit and I saw we were attending King of Kings at the time and I saw a little post in the bulletin when we still had bulletins right. I'm saying that there was a part-time kids ministry position open on the King of Kings staff, a part-time kids ministry position open on the King of Kings staff and so I applied, got the job and that started my kind of trajectory into the role I'm in currently. And so I just want to encourage people who may feel like I'm not equipped or I don't have the education. I'm not someone who's coming in with an MBA. I'm not even coming in as someone with a college degree in business at all. I was a teacher by trade and then a mom for a long time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast. It's a great day to be alive. I pray man. I have so much going on right now. There's so much I don't know. Jesus juice around in the relationships. The Holy Spirit is doing some amazing things and I am juiced up in Jesus to hang out today with my sister in Christ, julie Easley. Let me tell you about her. She's the executive director of ministry at King of Kings Lutheran Church in Omaha, omaha. I've been hanging out with a lot of Omaha people recently. Omaha shout out to Peyton Manning right, yeah, yeah, let's go. I'm a big Broncos fan. So she's been in her executive director role for the last seven years. Before that she had some part-time roles.
Speaker 2:But the hope of the conversation today is to elevate pastors and pastors need those that have been in the business marketplace community, those that think of systems and structures and strategies to advance the cause of Christ. You know, in the non-denom world we don't necessarily agree theologically with everything with our brothers and sisters there. But they have the role of executive pastor and in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod we've got a lot of executive directors and it's kind of unfortunate that there isn't kind of an auxiliary office I would say for the need for executive directors. That's one of our passion. Projects kind of on the side, is to recognize pastors coupled with an executive director, type of a leader who also understands theology, understands discipleship, has been in the life of the church, but then also brings kind of marketplace. We'll say first article realities, just how things grow in a healthy way. We have a lot to learn from one another in the church and in the marketplace today. So that's where we're going to head. It's going to be a lot of fun. Julie. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, looking forward to the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so likewise, let's just start out with your ministry story. Kind of tell us where you were before entering into your role, and then we'll move into how your role has evolved over the years at King Kings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds great. And so I just wanted to introduce myself by saying I was not a business leader prior to taking on this job. So I was a first grade teacher when I graduated from college. For a while, then I was a stay-at-home mom for a really long time and then I sort of followed my husband around from job to job. We ended up in Omaha, nebraska. He's a professor at the university here and I was homeschooling my children at the time.
Speaker 1:And I'll just be really honest and frank right at the top of this, I experienced a tremendous amount of anxiety when we moved. I had kind of been struggling with it a little bit and when we moved my husband moved out six weeks ahead of us. I had the three, our three sons, packed up the entire house, moved out and kind of crashed and he said you know what, why don't we put the kids in school? And you find a small part-time job and have a different sort of life than being at home all the time. And I saw we were attending King of Kings at the time and I saw a little post in the bulletin when we still had bulletins, right, I was saying that there was a part-time kids ministry position open on the King of Kings staff and I would be assisting our lead pastor in kind of helping put together like simple materials for for lessons, bible lessons, all of those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And so I applied, got the job and that started my kind of trajectory into the role I'm in currently. And so I just want to encourage people who may feel like I'm not equipped equipped or I don't have the education. I'm not someone who's coming in with an MBA. I'm not even coming in as someone with a college degree in business at all. I was a teacher by trade and then a mom for a long time. But it's interesting, my, my father was a principal and then he became an executive director of a church and I think administration was kind of in my gifting and in my blood from the very beginning and my taking a job at King of Kings was God's way of kind of unpacking and revealing that gifting to me.
Speaker 2:Well, that's so cool. God takes us from all different corners and you just never know. It is really a divine adventure. From just summarizing your story, from being anxious about a move, anxious about your future, you know to your husband, Shout out to your husband.
Speaker 2:What an awesome man of God to say we just need a different, let's just try something different and let's take a little bit of a risk and then just see what God kind of unveils. So going back to like your early years, was it pretty evident Like, wow, I love church administration, a lot of my gifting toward kind of details and maybe systems and helping us strategize. Was that something that just kind of evolved quickly or over time? Just tell a little bit of that story.
Speaker 1:I think I could see the threads of it all. Throughout my life I liked being in charge of things. I think I was probably one of those little girls that was described as bossy. I liked organizing things. I was a residential leader at college, oversaw, you know, floor of girls in our dorm. I was the stage manager for a lot of productions in theater, and so I and it's interesting even when I was a first grade teacher, I remember walking by the principal's office and thinking I think I'd like to have that job someday. So I think there were always seeds of that in me. But but those were all lying pretty, pretty dormant until I started at King of Kings.
Speaker 2:Cool. So seven years ago you take on an executive director role. That's like drinking from a fire hose in a ministry. I mean, you're working at the time with Mark Zender and and toward the end of his career, love, love Pastor Mark, really a strong mentor, kind of spiritual father for me from afar for many years. Amazing, amazing man of God. So how did that transition go? Because that's a lot of responsibility. You've been in the world, but, yeah, it kind of up the ante if you will, in terms of expectations, tell that story.
Speaker 1:And so kind of what happened is. It was sort of a gradual story for me. So I started working in the kids ministry department. I think Roger Timer was so gracious. He was my boss and he talked to me a lot about he was willing to spend time with me and talk with me about ideas that I had about ministry. I just was extremely curious and interested in everything that was happening at King of Kings and so I spent a lot of time talking to him and he encouraged me to take on more of a leadership role in the kids ministry department, did that and soon was organizing all of that. I then left for about a year. I thought you know what? I think I'd like to make some more money. This would be great. Again, my husband kind of spoke into my life and said I don't, I don't think you're going to love the job that you're taking on. I said, ah, not a problem, as long as I'm making more money, I'm going to be happy. Three months later I was like I'm miserable.
Speaker 2:What was that job? What did you take on for a?
Speaker 1:bit I was overseeing. I was working for an insurance company and I was overseeing case management for a ton of different insurance cases. I'm sorry to insurance workers, but that sounds miserable. Yeah, it was tough no offense.
Speaker 1:So I was. I came, pastor Mark had said to me if you ever want to return, we will find a job for you. And so I came back at the time and currently we still do have a counseling center that we were hoping to lift off that was struggling, and so they kind of handed that whole project over to me and said can you kind of bring this to life? After I did that there was some management transition kind of happening at the top of the organization and Pastor Mark had talked to kind of all of our top leadership at King of Kings and said you know, we need to move someone into, someone new, into this executive director role. Who do you think would be a good fit for that? And after he heard from the team, he offered me the job.
Speaker 1:So again, I was coming at this not from a place of a tremendous amount of experience but a lot of interest, and so what I did is I basically took myself to school and I read as much and as deeply as I could about management. I had developed a passion for management when I was leading our children's ministry team, but I knew I really needed to get more up to speed, just because I was and I mean this not in a derogatory way I was ignorant, so I spent a lot of time reading and researching and then, as I stepped into this role, just viewed it as a learning laboratory and applying what I learned and just wanted to see how it would work in real life.
Speaker 2:Imagine if we had cohorts of LCMS because we're both in the LCMS of LCMS potential and current executive directors who are working together. Our executive director has to go outside of our church body, but the LCMS is a unique culture. I could see that A couple, three cohorts of five to 10 leaders who have paid the dumb tax and just want to bring other people alongside. Here's some great books. We're just going to get together once a month, talk about pray for what's going on in our unique ministries and do a book study to keep layering on, because it's never. As the world changes, as systems change, as the way we engage online and in-person kind of evolves for the ministry, it's never set it and forget it. You're constantly building and what got you here is not going to take you there. So it requires a ample amount of humility as you go on this kind of management journey. Say more there, julie.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would have loved that. I found it to be kind of a lonely experience. In a lot of ways it was just like figure this out. I didn't know anyone in the LCMS circles who was in my role and I didn't know any women in that role at all. Right, so for me it was just kind of forging ahead and through my reading I felt like I was learning a lot.
Speaker 1:My team was incredibly supportive. I think that's one thing I want to really do here is just shout out my team because they were ready for change and when I said this is something that I'd like to pilot or something that I'd like to try, they were like we've got you and kind of came around, came around me and made those things possible. But I think those kinds of cohorts would be absolutely powerful. Why not learn from someone who's gone ahead? I think just the confidence of knowing you know there are going to be challenges but you're going to be able to overcome those that encouragement would have been so profound for me. So, boy, I'd love to see something like that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, let's do it, julie, you and Jack, my executive, you guys should just get together, get on a meeting and let's form this.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it's called or whatever.
Speaker 2:But you guys should, you can, you can be the change we want to see. So let's, let's go back, like early on what were the tests that you started to run and then we'll move into more of your day to day? Now I do want to hear that. But what were some of those tests? The build measure, learn tests, that, if you can put yourself six, seven years ago that your team said, yeah, well, we'll try that.
Speaker 1:What were some of?
Speaker 2:those Can you give us examples.
Speaker 1:I think probably and right, this is going to sound like basic for some of the people who are listening, but we had no regular systems of one-on-one meetings at all across the board.
Speaker 2:You mean staff? Yes, staff meeting together Really.
Speaker 1:Well, we maybe would have a general staff meeting happening occasionally, but what I put into place was every manager was going to be meeting weekly with the people that they were overseeing. That was not happening at King of Kings at all, and it was leading right. It was leading to a lot of chaos, and so, again, this is not rocket science, but just putting together those systems of accountability. Talking through my expectations for what those meetings would look like, I think that was kind of a first and basic thing that we were doing.
Speaker 2:Let's pause there. So what do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just put a pin in that. What do you? What were your expectations currently, your expectations for those one-on-one meetings? What did you standardize my?
Speaker 1:expectations were especially at the beginning, because I wanted things to get much tighter is I was expecting each manager to meet an hour a week with their direct report. It was going to be hey, let's spend time at the beginning. Well, it was going to be hey, let's spend time at the beginning. Well, sort of opening with prayer. Then I want you to talk personally with your direct report. How are they doing spiritually? How are they doing? How are they developing their relationship with the Lord? What's going on with their family, all of those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:Then I'm asking them to bring me their agenda of what's going on in their week, what's blocking, what's hurting, what's stopping, what's going amazingly well, what their hopes are for the week, what they're looking forward to, what their big projects are, all of that.
Speaker 1:So that's going to take up a good chunk of the meeting. Probably, like I would say, probably that personal time, maybe 15 minutes, then a half an hour of what you're working on and then maybe 15 minutes of the agenda that I'm bringing. And a lot of times I would find there was overlap between what they were bringing and what I was concerned about, but it's helping me to stay on the same page as well. So I was meeting with all of our kind of upper tier leadership. So I'm not expecting I'm not expecting my people to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself, and so I'm. At the time I was probably I probably had eight or nine direct reports that I was meeting with hourly every week. Things were profoundly disorganized and dysfunctional when I started, and so I knew that we would need intensive care at the beginning.
Speaker 2:And as time has gone, on.
Speaker 1:As time has gone on, those meetings have changed every other week, but the expectations are still the same, so that has remained constant. Another thing that I oh sorry, yeah well, that's so good.
Speaker 2:Did you get that kind of organization from anywhere? It sounds like death by meeting Pat Lencioni's death by meeting may have shaped some of your. Did you read some Lencioni early on?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes. Yes, I read all of his stuff. I mean I. Another book that made a profound difference for me is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
Speaker 2:No, I love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, that book was extremely helpful for me in how we manage people. So let me what I heard you say in your meetings. For those of you, if you're not meeting one-on-one, with your direct reports every single week on the calendar, what are we doing? Like that has to be the starting point. So it seems basic. But if you're not meeting, building trust, hearing. So here's the three questions for me, just summarizing what you say. And we have the same kind of expectation with our direct reports how are you personally, spiritually, family, et cetera? How are your goals coming along? What are your goals, current, et cetera? Some longer range, some shorter term? So let me into your world. And then how can I help?
Speaker 1:Here's my agenda.
Speaker 2:I want to partner with you. So it's really those three questions. Shout out to Michael Lechokamp back in the day. I'm a young leader, 28 years old. He says, Tim, those three questions, that's it. That's an hour every single week. Trust is built off, they go. It doesn't feel like you're micromanaging anything like that, but you care and you want to support, you want to move down roadblocks that are in the way toward whatever it is. And yeah, that's just a best practice. If you're not meeting weekly having those three kind of focuses in your meetings, let's just start that. That's a great, great next step. So, all right, we've hung. We've hung out there for a minute. Now the next kind of strategic change that you made, Julie.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I did is I right? I had been reading deeply and widely of all of these management books, but I realized first of all that there were, there were many, many. Probably everybody on my team was not doing the same thing, right.
Speaker 2:Nobody else really has the time or the inclination.
Speaker 1:Some people are highly interested in management and other people not so much. But I wanted to make sure that everybody who was managing someone on our team was going through a short course that I developed called Management Matters, probably a 16, 17 week course. That sort of distilled down all of my management learnings into the things that I felt would be most helpful and most critical for my team. And every other week, just for a half an hour, I would walk them through a management principle. I would talk with them for 15 or 20 minutes and then leave about 10 minutes for them to discuss it together where they were seeing that happen.
Speaker 1:Here's what made the difference A, they were learning how to be better managers, but then also we were creating a shared vocabulary around management, so I could say a phrase and they would understand. Oh, so I would say look, this is not a root canal conversation, this is a brushing your teeth conversation, and they would know that meant don't save up all your criticism for an hour and a half like deep dive with someone. If you see someone getting off track, just have a five minute conversation to kind of push them gently back into the spot where you want them to be so right. There was a lot of that shorthand that we developed together, which was so a way of really bringing our team together, and it made a huge difference. So everybody who was leading was getting this management training.
Speaker 2:That was huge. I am so juiced up right now Like that is next level leadership Meet once a week or every other week and discuss. You can consolidate your best learnings. I love that strategy. That's great. We have a every week gathering of our executive director leaders, so all of our developmental leaders there's about 15 people in the room church and school, multi-campus, et cetera, and we spend half of the time talking theology. It's a little bit deeper. There's no one right way. Yours is 30 minutes, ours is closer to an hour and a half.
Speaker 2:Some team, you could probably tighten that up to an hour but it's okay, we get together because there's some collegiality and care and prayer and those types of things. We do a BLESS rhythm. So whoever you BLESS, listen to. It's a whole acronym eat, eat and with et cetera, as we're deepening our roots in our community, out in the wider community, and then we spend time in theology and some sort of a management book.
Speaker 2:Resiliency training is kind of what we're walking through right now. There's a lot of trauma in our world and so how do we become more adept at walking with people going through extremely painful situations? And it just kind of evolves over the life of. But the biggest thing is, it's all about relationship. I see you, I know you, I care for you, and then when the difficult cause I hear you talking about difficult conversations. It's not. I'm just going to stew about this until I get to see Julie one week from now. It's no, no, no, I have rapport with Julie. Julie comes to me. I trust Julie she's going to have the five minute little course correct. It's a little course correct. What I see the biggest struggles is you let this thing happen. This thing, it's not that big a deal.
Speaker 2:I don't need to address it and it's just like burr in your saddle right. Let's go Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yes, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Address the small things, right, right, and so one of the things probably when we started this leadership course together I was I talked to them a lot about the principles from Kim Scott's book Radical Candor, and so what she talks about is kind of that nexus between caring personally and challenging directly. So those one-on-ones that I'm having with people are reinforcing. I care about you, right, and I truly do. These people have become dear to me over the years. Right, I want to know how they're doing, but at the same time, I'm also going to be challenging directly. I'm not into micromanagement, but I am into accountability, and so people just know what to expect from me, and if there are issues, we're going to talk about those and bring them out in the open. So we're not right, you can shove things under the rug, but you're going to keep tripping on them, no matter how many, because, because they're still there, they don't go away. And so what I'm really into is being brave in conversations, having them at a frequency so that, right, the decks are clear at all times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, so so powerful? Why? What is it about A difficult conversation? Because I've done a lot of speaking, writing on this, pastors in general. I don't know if you know this, julie, we love people want people to like us.
Speaker 2:You know we're in front of people, so we're vulnerable, we're preaching and teaching and doing those things, but we don't take feedback that well Pastors can grow in taking feedback, you know. Yeah, it's hard for everybody. So just speak very, very generally. How do we politely shift the church culture into a higher trust, higher challenge community, and are there some principles around difficult conversations that we could discuss now to just go a little bit deeper, to take that practical next step for the leader who struggles with difficult conversations?
Speaker 1:Right. And so this is a theme. This has been a theme of my leadership throughout, and I think that what I want to share is that the gospel has profoundly impacted the way that I lead. In my mind right, this is the gospel isn't just a ticket to heaven. Mind right, this is the gospel isn't just a ticket to heaven. The gospel impacts how your relationships and how you view yourself and how you view others, every, every single day. And so what I've and man, this is only ripened and matured.
Speaker 1:Over the seven years in in this leadership role. I realized that the only thing that I'm bringing to the table is my transformed life in Christ. I don't need to prove anything to anyone anymore because my righteousness is in Christ and so my willingness to engage in tough conversations and love. It's not to right, I'm not in it to save face. I'm not in it to prove a point or to right. Be the winner in those kind of conversations.
Speaker 1:As a person who's experienced Christ's love and wanting to have reconciliation with someone, that's what's pushing me forward in those tough conversations. Right, and kind of entrusting, asking God to lead in those moments, knowing that he's going before me, but then entrusting the results to him as well. So, right, it lowers the stakes. It's no longer me trying to look like a perfect person who has it all together. It's not me trying to win in a circumstance, it's me coming there with love. And my intention in those conversations needs to be and I have to check my heart. Am I having these tough conversations in love, out of love, like what's my motivation for that? And once I realize or come to terms with the reason I'm doing this is because I want the best for this person. I want our church not to be successful but to be godly and to be making a godly difference in the world. That's what gives me courage in those moments.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, it's our identity in Jesus, it's our baptismal identity that changes absolutely everything.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's the most foundational thing.
Speaker 2:I mean it really is and it keeps us from lying to ourselves, right, yes, yes, because I think a lot of times leadership I'm going to lie to myself like this is just going to go away. I deceive myself and the truth is not in me. So I have to recognize I have this desire to protect, to control, to manipulate, and I have to die to myself and the new man or woman in Christ has to be raised up in me and then I can enter into it, the posture that I have open hands and kind of a shrug shoulder like okay, holy Spirit, we're just going to figure this out together. But I know I have to be honest with what I see. If I'm dishonest or try to even sugarcoat, soften the thing that I see, I'm not helping that person and obviously I'm not helping advance the kingdom of God.
Speaker 2:Jesus was the best at this right. Jesus drew people closer to him through hard words of challenge. You know he didn't entrust I like this. He didn't entrust himself to men because he knew what was in the hearts of men and so he entrusted himself to the Lord. He was an audience of one. He was there to please the Father and then he also developed deep relationship to get behind me. Satan to Peter, you are the rock, your confession is the rock upon which the church is going to advance and the gates of hell won't stand against it. So yeah, he was high challenge, high trust and it appears, by the Spirit's power, that really worked well for the early church in and through struggle.
Speaker 1:So anything more to say there to land the plane. I think I just want to say if, if, if conflict conversations make you feel nervous, you're not alone.
Speaker 2:Not alone.
Speaker 1:Look I I still right If I'm going into a tough conversation. It's not like, oh, I'm super relaxed.
Speaker 1:If you feel nervous, you're not doing it wrong, right, it touches the most vulnerable parts of ourselves, right. And so what I always do when I go into it, or try to do when I'm going into a tough conversation, is to remember that Jesus has gone ahead of me into this meeting, he's beside me as I'm talking and he's going to be working after the meeting is done, and that just helps me to relax into his presence and have a conversation that's not as fraught. So, right, tough conversations are never easy and they probably do get to a degree a little bit easier as you learn more about yourself and trust yourself more to the Lord. But if you're thinking, man, this is so hard for me, it's hard for everybody, so it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right behind me here, julie, that's my, this is my office, that's my chair. I could look at that chair and have PTSD from all the things that have happened in this. A hundred percent, you know. But I've entrusted it all to the Lord and every single time God bats a thousand. Every single time I enter into a difficult conversation it produces growth and care and trust. Every single time I've rejected the difficult conversation for a certain period of time and I've got better in closing that gap.
Speaker 2:You know, I think sometimes our team is kind of shocked with with me. I mean, they'll come in and you hear about so-and-so and talking, you know, and I obviously recognize I'm in a triangle and I can't control it. This person, it's in their, their wheelhouse and and I'll I'll sometimes shockingly go. I think I think so-and-so is just right in the other room. So why don't we just bring them in and we talk about it right now? I just wanted to alleviate my anxiety and now we're just like you know, yeah, anything more there on strategies to like just do it quicker, it will rip the bandaid off.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we, we, we do talk about this a lot as a team, and so here are the. I'm just going to break down just a little bit of radical candor with you for a minute, and so you can read this more in the book.
Speaker 2:But just picture, there are four quads. Okay, great.
Speaker 1:So in the one corner there is radical candor, which is caring personally and challenging directly, all right. In the next quad there's ruinous empathy, where you're not challenging directly, you're warm and fuzzy, but you're not bringing problems to the table, right. But here's the deal. You may feel like you're being kind, but you're not really doing the person any favors because they're slowly getting more and more off track, more and more off. What kind of your expectations are as an organization? They're probably hurting themselves. They're probably hurting the team, their reputation with the team, if you don't address it right. That's what we call ruinous empathy.
Speaker 1:Then there's kind of obnoxious aggression, which is more of the challenging personally all the time but not caring personally. So that's running roughshod over people. I don't think that's typically our challenge in the church. That's running roughshod over people. I don't think that's typically our challenge in the church. Right, we call that front stabbing, but that doesn't happen quite as much.
Speaker 1:Now the last one manipulative insincerity. We are awesome at this. This is when we're neither caring personally or challenging directly. It's like the meeting that happens after the meeting, when you're running someone down and you're not addressing things up front. So that's probably that's super toxic and that's what we're trying to avoid. Right, if you're, if you have a challenge with a certain person and you're not talking to them about it in love with frankness, but instead are, you know, talking about it with other people, triangulating, gossiping Right, that that's bad. But instead are talking about it with other people, triangulating, gossiping right, that's bad. And so what I'm trying to do is get everybody into that kind of radical candor corner where we're loving each other well but challenging well also, and the team gets better and tighter because of it.
Speaker 2:So for those of you who have listened to me in our podcast for some period of time, especially related. We don't always talk about LCMS culture but I'll make it LCMS systemic culture statement here. Because of our passive, aggressive and that does move into the manipulative insincerity, because we've kind of standardized that tribalism has increased all the more in the LCMS. We've developed caricatures of one another. We talk about one another but not to one another, and I get it. The LCMS is the national church body. So many different contexts. This is hard. But apart from relationship, the worst type of culture is a high control, low trust culture. Yes, and that feels sometimes in some of the debatable conversations in the LCMS kind of what we have chosen and it's not the way of Jesus. Anything more to say there, julie.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I think that's really powerful and right. I think it's so true that you see Jesus right. Jesus is a perfect example of someone who's balancing grace and truth. But I think that what we need to do is to imitate. You know, paul says imitate me as I imitate Christ. I think, as leaders, it's incumbent on us to try to lead with both of those firmly in hand.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, that was a fun section For those of you who listen. I normally send out talking notes to my guests and Julie was so kind she didn't even email me and say hey, what are we going to talk about today? Jesus, trust healthy. As a staff, as you try to mobilize and equip the saints for love and good deeds, just get us behind the scenes a little bit of what King of Kings is up to right now.
Speaker 1:And so I think one of the things that I want to just share right off the top is that I'm incredibly blessed in that I know many executive directors kind of are overseeing HR and finance as well. If I was in charge of finance, our church would sink in about two and a half days.
Speaker 1:That is not my strong suit at all. So I'm blessed to have someone who's managing the finance side, and we also have someone who manages our facilities in HR. So, again, if you're juggling several of these hats and you hear about the things that I'm working on and doing, understand that I'm coming from a position of someone who's got space for some of these things.
Speaker 2:So you're more of a to use the executive term you're more of a COO of the organization, not a CFO. Some executive directors may wear the CFO and the COO hat, and that is challenging for sure.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:It is yes, and that's it. Many people don't have both of those skill sets, by the way. Right that experience, et cetera. So, it's great, but I love that caveat, just that word of blessing to those who are in a different context, and hopefully the church just starts to grow as you use your gifts and your team. There's a lot of people, I think, in our church, julie, who just want to serve. They just don't, they haven't been invited to the table to use their maybe finance or HR gifts as the church continues to grow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's a huge difference for people. I think yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So I'm encouraging you. If you have gifts to share, step forward. You may think you know I don't feel 100% qualified. Here's the secret Nobody does right, and God can take us from one point to much further than we could have imagined. I mean, that's my story, and God's been so good in my story through this and he will be through yours too.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for me, here are my primary roles. First of all, I oversee all of our upper level leadership, and so for me, I have, I think currently now, six direct reports. All of those direct reports have large teams below them. We have a staff of about 35. And so I'm the primary manager of managers. I oversee all of our staff. I also make sure that all of our big strategic initiatives are being pushed forward. I am not personally doing every bit of it, but I am providing oversight for all of the people who do so once your team grows enough right. You're overseeing people who are overseeing people who are overseeing people who are kind of doing the nitty gritty, but making sure that everything that. So Greg Griffith is the lead pastor at King of Kings and just making sure that all of the ideas and things that he wants to see moving forward into the future, are happening in and through other people. So a lot of my days are full of meetings. I also still am continuing to do management training, for I've just led our next tier of leaders through it and I'll be bringing probably our entire team on within the next year or two. I want even if they're not managing, I want to prepare them for management and I also just want them to get familiar with that vocabulary.
Speaker 1:I also lead our tactical team meetings. We're working, we're starting to take on EOS, which is employee operating system. It's a way of running meetings. I lead all of those for an hour and a half on Monday morning with our leadership team. I'm sitting in a lot of meetings around kind of our big events and things that we're doing, just making sure that everything is tight on a Sunday morning and then we do a lot of community outreach, a lot of events, making sure that those are all happening and going well.
Speaker 1:I also am on the, although I am not. I don't, I just want to assure everybody I don't preach, but I am on the teaching team. I speak into messages and I love doing that. I do some. I work on Sundays. I'm in our Next Steps room I am meeting guests. I really feel like it's important to be on the floor on a Sunday and see what's happening. I lead announcements up front. I also do a weekly newsletter for our team. I think one of the biggest when your organization starts getting bigger.
Speaker 1:One of the challenges is that things you hear a lot is we don't know what's going on. That ameliorates a lot of that because people are hearing weekly from me. It's like a part I send out some encouragement, I share positive things. I want this to be an encouraging thing and it's not super long, right, it's probably four or five bullet points where I'm sharing a quote that helps makes people think here are some things that are happening. Just I want you to be informed here.
Speaker 1:If there are things that are getting a little off with our staff, I'll put in a little blurb about. You know something that I'd like to see change share a verse, those sorts of things. That's something that's happening every week, but mostly it's just intensive management. I'm also leading our leadership team. I always lead our management team through a book study, so kind of working them through that. That's kind of upper level leadership, just so we're diving deep together as a team. But yeah, so I would say, overseeing staff and making sure that really everything that's happening at King of Kings is happening well falls to me ultimately.
Speaker 2:Wow, julie, you're a fantastic leader. I can see why you're in your role, and I know you don't need me to say that, but I mean you have been gifted for such a time as this for the role that you currently have, and Pastor Greg Griffith and everybody there at King and Kings is so blessed to have you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, let's go into hospitality a little bit. I think you guys are working on that a lot. We just heard about our inviteable culture. We want our campuses when people come on, we want to notice people, we want to give gifts to people. There's some kind of best practices in this that we're looking to instill as well. I think we're. Probably both of our churches are moving in this direction. We're estimating about 30 first time folks that let us know they're with us a week and that's a lot, and what does that first impression kind of look like for them? So let's talk hospitality a warm, inviting first impression, Julie.
Speaker 1:Yes. So we have a person on our team who and she is absolutely incredible. I just like to shout her out. She's grown her team so much. She really helped us push the ball forward.
Speaker 1:So what, I'm just going to touch on several things that we're always trying to do at King of Kings. We want people's experience, from the moment they drive onto the campus until they leave, to be positive. Some of that involves just clear signage. So when people are coming in, we've got signs along the drive and in the parking lot so glad you're here. You know all of those kinds of encouraging messages as they come in. Right, Things, that things that make a difference. If you're parking like we have a huge parking lot, if it's beat up and looks terrible, Right, it's just. You need to look at everything through fresh eyes. It's easy. Right At home, you don't start to not notice things. It's the same at church. As people come in, is signage clear? Do they know where to go? Do our bathrooms look decent? Do they smell good? We just renovated our bathrooms, you know. Do they? Is that a welcoming? Are all of our environments welcoming? So we have a next steps room. I'm going to talk to you about this just for a minute because it's kind of cute.
Speaker 1:We had a library in the most strategic spot of our church. Our church used to be a manufacturing facility, so it's not your typical church. When you walk in it's not like, oh wow, this is all laid out so well. It's like this massively long corridor. It's kind of a long, skinny worship center. We've had to renovate a lot of spaces just to make them kind of family people friendly. But all this to say, there was some great real estate right as people walked in where we had our church library and that was like a sacred cow and we decided you know what? We can't have the library in the best spot. We need to turn this into our next steps space. And so we made the tough decision to take away the library. It was awful. People were mad. Let me say it was awful at the beginning. People were furious as I would walk by, they would make mean comments and I remember texting my dad, who is an executive director of a multi-site church, and I sent him this long text Dad, everybody's mad and I blah, blah, blah. This is so hard. And he sent me a four word text back and it said they'll get over it and it's true that was a tough call, but now we have a sweet next step space that's right at the front as people are coming in.
Speaker 1:One thing that we've done recently because that was kind of our one-stop shop for if you're, if you're a guest with us for the first time, also for our members, if you need to sign up for something or if you have a question, right. The room is very inviting and wonderful, but we were finding still that we weren't getting. We knew that we had guests coming, but we they weren't coming into that space as much as we wanted them to, and so it's kind of a big room. We have lots of wonderful volunteers for there, but I think people found it a little intimidating. So what we've done is we've put a little kind of pedestal right at the front of that room with a sign directly over it saying first time guests, and we have someone who's there. We have a choice of three gifts. We for a while we just had one gift. Three gifts are hitting. We are getting way more people at that little spot that says guest.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, first time guests here's what are your gifts, and they're great gifts, right it's, and so it's not chintzy stuff, it's nice stuff that people like.
Speaker 1:We have a very nice coffee mug. It's like it got a cork bottom, you know, it's like hefty, it's got our logo on it. We have OK. So we have a coffee mug. We have a water bottle that's great Like heavy duty Not again, not, not cheap Really nice. And then a T-shirt and people can choose, and then what we do is we have all of those things in a little cabinet and then we have bags and tissue but we're putting, we take the gift and we kind of wrap it up. As we're talking to people, it extends the time that we get to kind of chat with them, hear a little bit of their stories. We're packaging up their gift, they're filling out the connect card if they haven't done that. So it kind of just stretches out the time that we have with them and we've seen our numbers at that little space just jump. Good, and I want to give a shout out to Rich Burch who told us to do that and we were like all right, well, we'll see.
Speaker 2:He was totally right, so good.
Speaker 1:So do, you do do they have to give you.
Speaker 2:Sorry to get nitty gritty here, but do they have to give you their contact to get a gift? Nope, no expectation If you'd like to just get a gift.
Speaker 1:So and we put our kind of warmest, most emotionally intelligent people in our next steps room right, People who just are hospitable, make people feel welcome. I would say, as we're kind of wrapping up their gift and say, would you mind sharing your information with us? We're not, you know, we're not going to be bombarding you with info from the church. I would say, yeah, man, nine times out of 10, people will fill it out.
Speaker 1:They want to you know, and if people are coming to that spot, I think they're looking for a connection right. They want to be known. I'm sure we have lots of people who slip out the side door, and that's great too. Or it may take them, you know, several times to kind of get up the nerve to come to that space.
Speaker 2:So if you want to do a masterclass on this and just engage with someone you've mentioned, rich Burch, unseminary not that they're against the seminary, but they do a lot Rich does a lot of work with and he'll he'll set up an hour long conversation with you and your hospitality team and just you'll be able to tell them we're doing this right now, what you're doing, and maybe some strategic kind of next steps, some of the language that he invited us to change, because I'm like are you new here, first time here? He kind of said we should try in our public acknowledgments to let people know, hey, if you're new here, rather than first time, because some people may say, hey, I've not gone to that booth because my first time.
Speaker 2:I've actually been here three or four times, but just say if you're new here and have not gone yet to our new here start here table. We got a gift for you there Love to love to meet you there.
Speaker 1:So absolutely Yep, yep, and we Greg's. One of Greg's biggest bugaboos is we're not calling people visitors, they're our guests.
Speaker 1:They're our guests, and that's the mentality we take into everything on a Sunday morning, and so we do a lot of volunteer. Recruitment and training is huge for us. And how do we interact with people on a Sunday Right? Because it's not just how does your facility look, but it's how do you feel when you're there. Are people going out of their way to welcome you? Are they providing you with help? At critical Right, we've got people stationed at critical spots where people might get stuck Right. Got people stationed at critical spots where people might get stuck right. First, walking in kind of the entryway to our kids ministry, by the next steps room, near the coffee area, so anywhere where, and certainly by our worship center, anywhere where people might feel some hesitation or like I don't know what to do next, we've got someone there who's been trained and is warm and welcoming, so good.
Speaker 2:Anything else you guys are doing right now strategically on the topic of hospitality.
Speaker 1:We certainly have a variety of follow-ups on what we do.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:Once people give us their information, we're responding with like okay, and let me say information, we're responding with like okay, and let me say if you, Laura Ray, who oversees kind of our whole guest experience, would be able to speak into this more, she would be an awesome guest as well. So I will say that my knowledge is, on things that are happening in the church, Like I'm deeply involved with the people that I manage, but like all of the little processes, right, I'm a mile wide and an inch deep.
Speaker 2:Julie, I can't believe that's the way. I can't believe that's the way you are, because here's the reality. I know everything about everything that takes place, not even close Like I couldn't be any more facetious. There's no possible way. So.
Speaker 1:I love it. People are always shocked. They'll stop me on a Sunday and say what? About this I'm like I don't know they're like you don't? Know, Aren't you in charge? Yes, but someone does.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I know that we have like four or five different touch points. When someone comes, they're receiving email from us, but they're also receiving a handwritten card from with a $5 Starbucks gift card or scooters gift card in it, right? So this it looks like a letter from a friend. It's not just a, not just a King of Kings. It's coming in a little red envelope. It's all been hand signed. I've written so many of these to people especially. What we're asking is if anybody has interacted with them that week, that the card comes from them, ways that we can identify. You know a lot of times in the next steps room who that person talked to. The letter is going to come from them. So I have like five letters on my desk this week and I want to take the time to do that.
Speaker 1:Let me just add another side thing. I send out tons of thank you notes tons. I send thank you notes to our staff. But I send thank you notes and I've trained our own staff and given them thank you notes to give, to send to volunteers especially volunteers maybe who are doing some more of that unseen work, thanking them for what they've done, also saying here's what I appreciate about you specifically, I also ask them to include, like we have four values reliant, authentic, generous and courageous. In my thank you notes I'll say this is how I see you exhibiting this value of King of Kings in the ways that you serve. So it's a way of pushing church vision all the way through the organization, starting at the top all the way down. You know, to someone who's just started volunteering with us and saying I can see this in you, you right, it's so powerful. But so back to the handwritten notes make a huge difference both to volunteers and also to first-time guests. So that's a huge thing I do know that I probably write.
Speaker 2:just pause on that. I'm estimating I write 300 plus handwritten cards a year. Yes, so roughly one a day. It may not always be like one a day, strategic, but man, the written word, the power of the pen. If you're not, if you're not writing handwritten notes to your team, like across all spectrums of your team, you're really missing out a strategic. Because I've heard I just heard yesterday I was in a meeting that one of our directors said you know, I wrote a letter like three months ago and I've written dozens since that. He says it's up on our fridge and it just kind of encourages me when I'm in that suite. I it's amazing. And here's the thing it's up on our fridge and it just kind of encourages me when I'm.
Speaker 1:Isn't that sweet. It's amazing. And here's the thing I don't know. This is how I am. If someone writes me a meaningful note, I will read it once.
Speaker 2:I'll read it like 10 times and I'll save it Exactly.
Speaker 1:People love that and I've had our volunteers come up to me and say that meant so much to me. It makes a huge difference. We had someone who came on our staff and said she had come from another church and she said I've gotten more notes of appreciation in the three months I've been here than in the 15 years I had at my previous church combined. Wow, yeah, please take advantage of that. It's huge, yeah.
Speaker 2:The world's discouraging. The world's discouraging when you need encouragement. You know if you got a pulse. You need encouragement and the power of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you'll see and they're spending time, they're giving of their time, Like I'm getting paid to be a King of Kings. There are many people who are working all week and then come to church and serve because they love the Lord and they love people. I mean it's the least we can do to recognize and say thank you.
Speaker 2:We're just about at time. So one last point in terms of hospitality, this has flown, julia, it's been so much fun yeah, so yeah, some final statements, final words. This has been great.
Speaker 1:I think I just would okay a couple more leadership resources that I think would make a huge difference for people.
Speaker 1:I led our team through a book called Managing Leadership Anxiety by Steve Kuss an absolute game changer for all of us, I would say, as leaders, what we need to be aware of and again, if I could emphasize anything to anyone through this is the gospel has a power to change you as a leader, and realizing that I don't have to be the strongest or the smartest or the most together person, but what I can bring to my leadership is my vulnerable self being transformed by Christ, is the most powerful thing that you can bring, and when you're bringing anxiety to the table, it will infect your entire team and will infect your entire church, and so what you need to do is to really press in to those areas of vulnerability, places where you feel insecure about yourself and your leadership, and bring those to the Lord and ask him to really impress on you how much he loves you, how much his righteousness covers you in every circumstance and situation, and it will bring both a confidence and a humility to your leadership that will change environments like you can't believe, and so I would just encourage people to do that internal work, that the book Managing Leadership Anxiety talks a lot about both our internal and systemic anxiety and how the gospel can impact that.
Speaker 1:So please read that. It'll change your life.
Speaker 2:So good, you had one more. Did you say, you had one more resource? Oh yes, another.
Speaker 1:So I do a lot of so I would say that probably the Bowen Theory is what it's called.
Speaker 2:It's just kind of a way of yeah, it's family, yeah, yeah, bowen Family. I love that. What's your favorite book?
Speaker 1:I loved Managing Leadership Anxiety. I mean, steve Cuss is all right, he's a family systems, but then there's a new book which is really accessible. I'm taking our team through now. That's called True to you and it's all about kind of emotional systems Differentiation, right? So how do I remain?
Speaker 2:myself. Allow you to kind of be you and yet still interact in a non-anxious way. Huge, julie, you just gave me more reading. I have so many books right now. I got like four or five that I'm rocking and now I'm like gosh, I need to. So for me, I end up cycling between like deep theology, you could say Lutheran confessions I like different biographies of leaders.
Speaker 2:I like philosophy and then the overlap of that kind of systems management theory, and then obviously I got to read the Bible every day. Let the Bible read me, there's just so many things.
Speaker 1:There's so many books in the world, I know.
Speaker 2:Here's another book.
Speaker 1:I'd recommend just for you. Personally, I'm reading through a biography of Martin Luther King Jr called King Won the Pulitzer Prize, written by Jonathan Eig E-I-G. It's not dry. It's really, really incredible.
Speaker 2:I'll take a look. Well, this has been amazing. If people want to, so one shout out you can do. The Holy Spirit can lead you to do whatever the Holy Spirit wants you to do, julie. But if you want to, form that working team for executive directors across the synod. We at the ULC would love you to help think about what that would look like. I think we could set up a cohort like super easy.
Speaker 1:You and Jack would geek out, it'd be a great time.
Speaker 2:What do you think?
Speaker 1:I would love to do that. I've been praying about, like Lord kind of what's next for me and my leadership, and I think that that would be powerful.
Speaker 2:And also.
Speaker 1:I just want to encourage people. If there's anyone who wants to reach out to me, feel free. It's julietkingofkingsorg. If you're like, hey, I'd like to get started with something like this, but I'm not sure, just feel confident. If you feel like the Lord is leading you and people are encouraging you in a certain situation and you're like, ah, I'm not sure, right. One of the things as a female in this role and just taking on this leadership role without much experience, what I really had to press into is, if I feel like God is in this, then I'm going to trust in his leading and not feel insecure about it and know that he's going to give me what I need in order to get the job done.
Speaker 2:Well, he has and he will continue to. Julie, I'm better for spending the last hour with you. I had that little heart in the drop, you know, heart drop moment more for, like I don't know how this conversation is gonna go, like this is gonna. Julie and I have only talked, like you know, 30 minutes, but it's really cool and the Holy Spirit's in it and you both love the Lord and love leadership. Like the time just flies. It's a joy to have gotten to know you better and praying for you and King of Kings and Pastor Greg Griffith and my accountability partner, zach Zender and everything going on with Red Letter and you guys doing your multi-site. We didn't even get into multi-site work that you guys are doing video venue, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:There's more we need to talk about into the future but this was a great start. Julie at kingofkingsorg, if you want to reach out to her, please like subscribe.
Speaker 1:What? Oh sorry, and I'll also be at best practices. Greg and I are going to do a talk about kind of the dance between lead pastor and executive director. So if you want to hear more, see me there.
Speaker 2:Come to best. I hope this is out before then. It may be out right around that same time. We'll see.
Speaker 1:We'll see it's a good day.
Speaker 2:Go and make it a great day. Jesus loves you. Go on mission, dream big dreams and, in team, execute those dreams by the power of the Spirit and His Word. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Tim Allman Podcast. Peace. Thanks, julie, thank you.