May 2024 | Keynote 4 “Kingdom Style”

[00:00:00] Thank you, Carrie. It’s a kind introduction. I’m just so humbled, excited to stand with you here today. In this session, we are going to take a deep dive into what happens when a kingdom leader engages in a kingdom style of leadership, also known as the kingdom of God advancing through relationships.

That’s what we’re going to talk about. So while all of us in this room come from very theological backgrounds and perspectives, I’m confident that there is one thing that we can all agree upon. That is Jesus Christ was and is the most effective leader the world has ever known. Yes. So if that’s the case, then wouldn’t it benefit us to study his life, his words, study scripture from [00:01:00] a leadership perspective, something that I don’t think we do it often enough.

One of the things that stand out to me from Jesus, the leadership expert, are his words in John chapter 10, verse 10, pretty common, popular verse says, I’ve come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly as Rick Beatonville used to say, there is a God and I ain’t him. And neither are you now.

While it’s true, none of us are Jesus. But if you’ve been born again, then that’s what’s already been shared. In this workshop, you are a carrier of his spirit now, which means that even though we can’t give eternal life to anyone, we are tasked with modeling and demonstrating what abundant life can look like right here in the middle of the marketplace, in the middle of the work day.

So taking Jesus example and using [00:02:00] his spirit as our guide, we can then conclude what our mission as kingdom leaders is. And it’s this simply put our mission. As kingdom leaders is to intentionally care for their people and raise them up to their God given potential. But first things first, there are no magic recipes to how this works.

I think you’ve probably figuring that out by now, a successful style of kingdom leadership for you and your organization will look vastly different perhaps than what it does here in our organization. But we do believe, however, that there are a couple of priorities that help set the stage for God’s kingdom to advance first inside of you as you are a carrier of his spirit.

And then through your leadership, we believe that a leader can successfully demonstrate a kingdom style of leadership with their people by engaging in these two key areas. Priorities. Sounds really simple. We’re going to spend some time on each [00:03:00] of them, know them and grow them. So let’s start with that first one of know them.

And we believe that knowing your people is such a priority that it actually begins before they walk into your place of business on their first day of employment. Here at Beat and Bow, we’ve chosen to spend a significant amount of time and energy during the selection process on getting to know them as a person before they even show up.

It’s part of understanding whether they belong here or not. But then it’s our responsibility to continue that on a deeper level after they are with us to really know them. We know that God has tasked us with knowing our people. And if we don’t start early and consistently demonstrating that over time, perhaps we might end up like Ron Swanson.

Let’s take a look. What a gorgeous, herbaceous medley. There’s been a mistake. You’ve accidentally [00:04:00] given me the food that my food eats. Salad is traditionally the first course of the wedding. Is a gerbil marrying a rabbit? Any dog under 50 pounds is a cat, and cats are pointless. Hey, if you see Andy, will you not tell him I’m here?

Okay. Because of what happened, I don’t want him to think Stop. Don’t want to know. The less I know about other people’s affairs, the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.

Anne was getting a little chummy. When people get too chummy with me, I like to call them by the wrong name to let them know I don’t really care about them.

Man, I borrowed that video from Cal. He and I share a love for that TV show Parks and Rec. And in the show, if you don’t know Ron Swanson, he’s the senior leader and he’s, he’s a man’s man [00:05:00] who simply tolerates with minimal effort the people that he leads. And while that’s humorous, it’s also really sad because unfortunately, Ron Swanson represents a pretty large population of leadership out there in the marketplace.

So we’re talking about know them and I want to break this down real practically into two components. And the first one is what we call shoulder to shoulder. As a leader, our job is to be actively engaged with our people in their work. Now, you may be thinking, wait a minute, I have a job. I hired them to do a job.

And now you’re asking me to be engaged with them in their job? Aha! Yes, welcome to life in the kingdom of God here on earth, where tension becomes the norm and discomfort is often the indicator of [00:06:00] success. Yes, I’m suggesting that you make room to be actively engaged with your people in their daily work.

Now, what this should not look like. Is you standing over their shoulder, reading every email, listening to every single phone call. Now that might actually be a part of an onboarding or a training process for a short amount of time. That’s not the longterm job. But what I am talking about is you as the leader, helping them be successful in the longterm.

There’s, there’s a reason why so many professions require ongoing continuing education courses or certification that has to be renewed because most, Segments of our marketplace have figured out that no one can do this in isolation. No one. For many business leaders, this image of a waterfall perhaps illustrates the kind of influence that we would like to have.

It’s pretty [00:07:00] beautiful. It’s strong, has a lot of force with it. It starts at the top, flows all the way down to the bottom, to the, even the most entry level role. And while that’s appealing, maybe even intoxicating at times. It’s impossible and it’s exhausting to try and be that involved and that influential in, in everything, even if perhaps it might stroke our egos a little bit.

So again, I, I realize there’s tension here because on one hand I am saying, be engaged with your people. And on the other hand, I’m saying you can’t do it all. So what do we do with that? Well, I think that this image of a cascading waterfall more accurately depicts the kind of relational leadership that The Lord has designed for us my influence as a senior leader may indeed start at the top and reach the bottom [00:08:00] levels, but it only happens as it cascades through one level at a time directly starting with the people who are under my care.

My love and influence may impact all levels, but it only starts with those people directly under my care. And then what happens is this kingdom thing begins to duplicate. And multiply itself as it works its way throughout the organization. And I realized there’s a lot of names on the screen. You don’t have to capture all of those.

But what this represents are all the people under my care here. And there’s a lot of names on their way. Too many names for me to get to know personally what a cascading style of relational leadership looks like for me. It’s four names, really. Allison, Liza, Justin, and Vicky, who’s on maternity leave, but her team that I’m serving directly here now is with us in the room as well.

These people are the representation of [00:09:00] this cascading style of relational leadership that are under my direct care. That’s my primary responsibility. Because as you’ve already heard it said, I think the team directly under care under my care is my mission. The work they do is their mission. Now, the work that we do as senior leaders, it really does matter, but that work itself does not matter more important or more so than the people that we directly serve.

If we as kingdom leaders will care for the people that we lead, then they will care deeply for the work they do. So we’ve talked about shoulder to shoulder. The second. Part is what we would call heart to heart. And that’s being actively engaged with them as a whole person. And this goes, this goes beyond the work they do.

This is, as it says, it’s getting to know them as a whole person, which means we’re going to care for them professionally. [00:10:00] personally and spiritually at that sink in for just a minute. Perhaps it’s best that we return to our Jesus model. Cal said this earlier that we, it’s so easy in scripture for us to see how not only relational Jesus was, but how, how interruptible he was too.

I mean, there were, there were times he would be on a mission and he would literally stop in his tracks and give his whole attention to a complete stranger. So if we would summarize Jesus leadership model, we would say that he was highly Personal and highly relational and his leadership, I believe, cascaded.

It demonstrated the same cascading style that I illustrated just a moment ago. He was, he was deeply involved relationally with his father and then deeply committed wholly to the disciples directly under his care. And then a few other people along the way. [00:11:00] And then what happens is they began to replicate and duplicate this model as Jesus set the example.

So there it is, this cascading relational style. And one of the most helpful tools that we employ here at our company to engage with our people is called the one on one. Not the first time you’ve heard that, but to define it, we simply say these are recurring appointments each week, where a leader connects with each of his or her direct reports.

Now for us, these generally are weekly recurring without end one hour appointments. Now that might not be the right thing for your organization. Um, remember, there’s no recipes here, but the point is you as the leader, Are to demonstrate that you care, and you’re willing to listen with no agenda, which can be really challenging, and there is a decent [00:12:00] chance as you maybe begin to engage with some of these that they feel pretty awkward in the beginning, or they’re unnatural, but again, we should view that as an indicator of growth in the kingdom.

It’s not something that we run from, and as a leader, you I don’t set the agenda for the one on ones I have each week with the people I directly serve. They set that agenda. It’s also important to note that these primarily should not be a catch up conversations on all the tasks and the work related questions.

Those we should make room for in other times and other meetings, but not during the one on one. It does not mean though that the work cannot be addressed. It just means that Our motivation should not be to primarily dig into status updates and all the job task of what’s going on. And while the one on one is their agenda, as the leader, I can be and should be prepared to maybe ask some [00:13:00] healthy questions to spark the conversation.

So here’s some good examples that I’ve used or heard some other people use. What was the best part of your weekend? Think about that for a minute. If I’m having a one on one with one of the leaders that I directly support. And I asked this question. And if they’re honest, which they should be as we develop relationship over time, what I’m going to hear about in the answer to that are people that they care a whole lot more about than me and activities that they love a lot more than their work.

That’s what matters most to them. So it’s a way of getting trust established and relationship deepened to ask about their weekend. Here’s another one. What’s been the most life giving thing that you’ve been a part of in the last week?

Now sometimes if we were to go directly to our people and say, Hey, what’s the favorite part of your job? [00:14:00] Do you think they really feel freedom to tell you? Just start making a hierarchical list of what they love and what they don’t. Probably not. But if you ask them what’s been the most life giving part, they’re going to let you in on the thing that matters most to them.

It might be work related, and it might be personal. Again, we’re getting to, to know the whole person here. And if it is a work related, well, you should really pay attention and somehow make a mental note and write that down later as the thing that, you know, gives them the most life. Well, on the flip side of that, I have asked this question even recently.

What’s been the most life sucking thing you’ve been a part of in the last week? Because if we’re honest, they’re all parts of our jobs that sometimes suck the life out of us. And when you ask your people this question, it’s a safe way for them to tell you the things that either A, may be causing a lot of stress, Which we should pay attention to or things that maybe they’re not confident in [00:15:00] which we should also pay close attention to or if they Share something personal now.

We have something to pray about on our own aggressively Maybe even with them or finally this one. What’s one thing I can do better or differently to help you We talked a lot about feedback. I found it doesn’t really work to ask the general question. Do you have any feedback for me? They’re caught off guard.

It’s like being punched in the mouth. They don’t really know what to say because they do have feedback. But just a broad open ended question like that is just oftentimes too broad. So narrow it down. Hey, what’s one thing I can do better or differently? And if they don’t have something on the tip of their tongue, which they probably do, give them a minute to pause and say, you know what, why don’t we come back to that next week or I’ll ask you again tomorrow.

Be thinking about that. Just, just one thing. Again, those can happen during the one on one. They can happen spontaneously, but they’re great conversation starters and, but really when it comes [00:16:00] to the one on one, here’s a, here’s a quick gauge to determine how I like to use this gauge to figure out how these may be going for the people that I lead.

Do you, do I know some activities that their family, their spouse are involved in? I’ve genuinely come to love. I love hearing about Liza’s husband’s photography business and see he’s just killing it on social media. Like, it’s so fun to talk about that. It’s really fun to hear Allison talk about her son’s flight school or her son is a firefighter, or hear her latest news about being a grandma soon for the first time.

So exciting. Or Justin, his, just the journey that God’s taken him on to come to Lubbock, Texas. These, these things are, are really important, but they don’t typically emerge in a business meeting or over email because that’s not where real life happens. [00:17:00] Those things emerge as I invest my time with them individually over time.

Now I mentioned a few minutes ago that we should care for them. Personally, professionally, and spiritually, since we know from cows talk earlier this morning that all leadership is spiritual, we cannot ignore the spiritual when it comes to the people that we lead and serve. We have been given such a crucial part to play in that.

So I want to encourage you as a, as a starting point, maybe on the spiritual journey is just start praying for the church. The people that you lead by name. You’ve already heard it said somebody in our group just yesterday said, it’s amazing. I’ve been praying for my people. And after one month I have a genuine love for them.

I’m kind of surprised. Yeah, that’s how that goes. Pray for them by name and their spouse and their kids. But do you even know their names? Maybe that’s the starting point because think about it. All of [00:18:00] us, we have struggles and we’re often really good at passing people. And we either give or hear that. Hey, how’s it going?

Hey, how are you? And what’s the general response? Liars. All of us. We’re so good at giving, yeah, good. How are you response? It’s just robotic. It actually makes me feel uncomfortable because I don’t want to lie, but they’re moving and I’m moving and it’s like, it’s just a greeting. It’s not a sincere question, but we all know that’s not an authentic response.

So as the leader, what we must Understand here is that when it comes to being vulnerable, we must go first. Now that’s a scary word for some of us because we don’t like that. But here’s this kingdom principle again, where there’s tension in this and that becomes the norm. And we’re discomfort again as an indicator of success.

So during these one on ones, we should be an active listener, not [00:19:00] a problem solver. And again, I know there’s maybe a fine line between some of these nuances, but we should be ready at any given moment to share a story that relates to something that they’re sharing or going through or ask about their dreams or desires, and then be ready to share a part of our journey.

Also, you know, I say all the time around here that God doesn’t miss a thing, like nothing catches him by surprise. And he uses all of our story to bless other people. He is so intentional and strategic. And when we as leaders are, when we’re eager and we’re willing to share and ready to share a story about maybe enduring a health concern or a struggle with a child, or how we’ve endured difficult seasons of financial hardship or praying with lost family members.

When we have stories like that, [00:20:00] it begins to validate what they’re going through and it adds such hope to them. God uses that to help set them free. They’re not alone in this. For And what it also does is it kind of humanizes this leader team member relationship that can so easily become stale and robotic if we’re not careful.

So if this concept is new to you, maybe you have some doubts. Hey, look, I get it. Um, and you may be wondering how this plays out in real time. A group has been doing this for a while. Well, a few years ago, when we first started these workshops, we had a ministry called, I work for him radio. They came and they set up shop here.

They attended two or three workshops. They sat in all the sessions like you have the breakout sessions, and they even interviewed all of the keynote speakers in advance, did live radio shows, recorded some shows to air later, and. After a couple of these workshops, they kind of [00:21:00] threw a flag on the play and said, look, I hear all the leaders talking about this, but what is this really like at the frontline level from the team members?

So with our permission, we gave them just kind of rule of the roost here and they walked through the buildings and they found 11 frontline team members who were not leaders. And they organized them in groups of two or three, pulled them into a room, put a headset on them and a microphone in front of them and push record.

And they did live radio interviews without prepping them on the questions they were going to be asked. Why these 11 people agreed to that, I don’t really know, but when the shows aired a couple weeks later, we were shocked when 9 out of 11 of those people’s people said the favorite part of their week here at work was their one hour one on one with their leader.

See, these really aren’t that scary because that just [00:22:00] proves to us that real relationship investment matters. It’s how the kingdom of God advances in the workplace. It’s through relationship. But you may be thinking, okay, Casey, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Um, I think I’m doing pretty good. My employees, they know I’m not a jerk, at least most of them do.

And I have an open door policy. I’ve said it. They know they can come in at any time. So how is that going for you? How often do they really come in? And maybe that’s a great beginning place, but we believe that a significant part of a kingdom leader’s responsibility is to actually be the relationship initiator, not just the responder.

We as the leaders are the relationship hosts for the people entrusted to our care. You’ve, you’ve probably heard it said that people come to work But when they leave, [00:23:00] why? It’s because of the boss.

So we must come to grips with the fact that time is the most treasured asset that we have. And we have such an opportunity here to make a kingdom investment with it. I also understand the tension that you may be feeling. Some of you are thinking, this sounds so easy. Really, really great in theory, but you have too many direct reports.

We’ve heard, we’ve heard of people say they have 10 to 12 direct reports. We’ve even heard of people say they have 35 to 40 people on the org chart that are pointed straight to them. And to think about having one hour or even 30 minute one on ones with 30 to 40 people would literally take your entire week and completely exhaust you.

That sounds crazy. Yep. That sounds pretty crazy. And we agree with you that you probably do have too many direct reports. We have [00:24:00] learned here in our organization that a leader can really only deeply engage with five to six people on a regular basis. And beyond that, it’s time to restructure the team. I also know what you’re thinking.

Wow, that’s expensive. Yep. The cost of restructuring teams and raising up more leaders can be expensive. But if people are your ministry, then aren’t they worth it? How do you put a price tag on that? Your business is God’s ministry in the marketplace, and perhaps the next area of financial investment or growth that you need to make is in restructuring your team so people can be cared for on a one on one basis.

Now, restructuring may indeed cost you something, but I assure you it actually costs a whole lot less than the cost of repeated high turnover. Remember, people leave oftentimes because of the boss, so [00:25:00] turnover happens when they are not cared for. I read recently where it, they now estimate that it takes two times a departing employee salary to find, recruit, train.

So if we squint at filling roles and we have to continually do that, turnover just snowballs on us. And actually, the more turnover you have, that number begins to get exponentially higher. So speaking of research and turnover, a few years ago I found some pretty startling statistics. Check this out. 89 percent of bosses believe employees quit because they want more money.

However, only 12 percent of employees actually leave the organization for money reasons. Now, as much as we would love that 89 percent statistic to be true, because if we’re honest, it kind of removes the responsibility from us. It pardons us from wrongdoing. [00:26:00] It’s not the reason people leave because 79 percent of people who quit their jobs cite lack of appreciation as their primary reason for leaving.

It’s not the money. The number one thing employees say that their manager could give them to inspire them to produce great work. Is recognition, but to recognize and verbalize consistent appreciation is impossible if we aren’t shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart with them on a regular basis, 58 percent of people say they trust strangers more than their own boss.

Those of you who are parents like me, my wife in the back of the room, we would never ever put our kids in a car with a complete stranger in a packed city unless they have an Uber or a Lyft sticker in their windshield. And then we implicitly trust them and we’ve never met them [00:27:00] and still people say they trust them.

And finally, this one, 65 percent of employees would rather fire their boss than get a raise from them, which then means two out of the three people who report to you would rather fire you than receive a raise from you tomorrow.

I would hope that’s not actually true in this room. But it’s true at large that we have a responsibility to care for our people. And if we don’t, money’s not the issue. I know that that’s a lot of numbers and statistics to take in. Uh, but really what we’re getting at is here that an employee’s longterm success in their role is largely our responsibility as we invest our time with them, which might seem really hard for those of you, for those of us, us, who are really task [00:28:00] oriented.

However, that’s not a valid excuse before the Lord to not invest relationally. To wrap this up, I would say one on ones, they are a great tool, but they’re just that. They’re just one tool. There are certainly a lot more tools, but perhaps a great starting point is just to Stop and ask the Lord to reveal to you what he sees in them.

Lord, what do you see in the people that I lead and serve? Will you show me?

You see, the world is, the world is full of organizations who make financial profit, but a true kingdom style of leadership will also yield the fruit of relational profit.

So that’s, that’s knowing them. Let’s move on to the second kingdom priority of grow them. But first let’s return as a reminder to the mission of [00:29:00] our, of a leader, a kingdom leader’s mission again, is to intentionally care for their people and raise them up to their God given potential. I think it’s blatantly obvious by now, but it’s near impossible to contribute to the growth of someone unless you really know them.

And unfortunately, most business. Models will teach you, train you how to grow the professional skills of a team member so that they can then contribute to the growth of the company on. Now, while there’s nothing really wrong with that, in principle, it runs the risk of completely ignoring the heart of the team member when it comes to their growth.

So we must come to terms with the fact that taking part in the growth of our people is primarily about their benefit, not ours. So there it is again, this upside down nature of life in the kingdom of God here on earth. And because it’s upside down, there’s just not going to be a clear cut way on how this should be done.

But there probably are some common [00:30:00] ingredients that we can put into practice when it comes to growing the people that we lead. It starts with this one. Pray for them daily. I’ve already mentioned that. Watch what happens in your heart when you do that. Ask them about their dreams and their desires professionally and personally.

Now, this should be exciting, not scary. I think we hesitate on asking questions like this because we’re afraid they’re going to tell us that they’re looking for another job. Well, by now I think you understand why they probably might be looking for another job. Again, their responsibility comes right back on us.

Or try new things with them. There’s so many creative ways to, to do this. A few years ago I heard about some of our IT guys who went to a, Training conference in Florida. I went skydiving during one of the breaks. I mean, that sounds amazing. Um, I’ve done axe throwing and gone ziplining with teams that I’ve been a part of.

I’ve, I’ve even heard rumors of Manny’s and petty’s that’s just the guys, you know, that that’s taking place during the workday, [00:31:00] but these are investments of time into our people that will yield fruit down the road. And finally, this one, give them real authority to make decisions. That’s part of growing them is helping them steward decision making.

And so a logical fear is, well, what if they screw it up? Yeah, they probably will. But so did you. But as we engage with them over time, the mistakes they make will likely be reduced and the grace will likely increase. That’s what happens in the kingdom. And if you know them and are walking alongside them, then they really aren’t making those decisions alone, are they?

I mean, since, since creation, God has chosen to partner with human beings to usher in earthly transformation, it’s, it’s really quite the paradox, but it’s exactly what the Apostle Paul [00:32:00] demonstrated at Ephesus when the Book of Acts tells us he spent over two years there. Training and discipling a few believers, and I just saw this recently, my wife and I were actually in Ephesus just a few weeks ago, and it caused me to dig in and do some reading on this, and in the book of Acts it said Paul spent two years in Ephesus with a few believers.

It actually says there were, there was no more than 12 of them, and Paul spent two years there for 12 people. Wait, that kind of sounds familiar. It didn’t take a lot of people to add enough motivation for him to invest significant amounts of time. We can safely assume then that participation over the long haul is required.

For us, a couple of years ago, I found this complete Jewish Bible version translation out of second Corinthians chapter 10 that says this, we will not boast about what lies outside the area [00:33:00] of work, which God has given us, but rather we will boast within our own assigned area. The area to which you have been assigned is kingdom territory.

And God’s priority for that territory are the people inside of it. Your assignment is first and foremost about the people entrusted to your care. But as we talked about in the last breakout session, I do want to make the point that this relational excellence that we’re talking about does not take a back seat to the operational side.

The kingdom advances when we faithfully steward both of them simultaneously. And if one gets more attention consistently than the other, it’s going to become lopsided. And that’s not healthy. It’s like a table with one of the legs shorter. It’s just not going to take much time for that imbalance to begin to make a mess of stuff.

We must be [00:34:00] accountable to each other. Truly loving people relationally without loving them with accountability is just, it’s incomplete. And a good indicator of how well this is going is when this accountability becomes a two way street where I can hold my team accountable, but then they could throw a flag on the play when I’ve gotten out of line in my, uh, 13, 14 years of time here.

One of the most fulfilling parts of my journey has just been to know that the Lord has used me in some supporting cast member role. to help other people become the best version of themselves. Rick Beatenboy led me directly for many years and he demonstrated this so well. I just, I can’t even remember all the times that he would just stop and look at me right in the eyes and say, Hey, you can do this.

I believe in you. And I’m going to help you see what he was [00:35:00] demonstrating was this supernatural combination of belief plus community, but it included accountability. Holly and I were recalling a story not too long ago where in one of these workshops, a couple of years, a few years ago, um, I was standing about right here, the workshop ended and Rick made a beeline right up to me and he said, Hey, you got a minute?

No, I’m busy, dude. I’ve got some stuff I got to do. Um, But then he followed it up by these words, Hey, you know, I love you, right? And those of us who know Rick in the room, if you’ve heard those words from him, you knew what was coming was a love filled accountability measure. And that’s what happened. But that was him loving me.

You know, see, we don’t, we don’t avoid tough, tough conversations with the people that we lead because we love them. We lean into them because we love them. It’s likely true that every [00:36:00] CEO or senior leader in this room is in your current position of leadership because someone saw you, believed in you and helped you become a better version of yourself.

It’s a pay it forward kingdom principle and it’s impossible for us to do this for others unless someone’s done it for us. And for me, the first time the power of relational leadership investment became clear was 1999. Now I didn’t know it then, but I can look back in the rear view mirror and recognize it as to what was going on.

I was. At that time I was about 20 years old and I was entering my third summer of working at a youth camp called Pine Cove Christian Camps, and I had applied to be in the leadership program, but when the camp director, a man by the name of Kevin East, called me, he was on the phone with the CEO, and they were reviewing my leadership application, and they, much to my surprise, they, uh, they didn’t offer me the [00:37:00] position I’d applied for.

They actually offered me a position two or three levels above that. It was actually the top leadership position for the whole summer, which meant that I would be leading about 50 staff and about 200 students every single week for 11 weeks of the summer. Now that sounds really, really cool. And it was, except there was, it was one major problem.

I had at the time what I would call a debilitating speech impediment in which I couldn’t even say my own name publicly, much less take a role like that that would require me to be microphone in hand on stage, much like this one in a room much bigger than this one for hours and hours at a time a day overseeing the meals, the games, the teachings, the discipline, the wake up calls, the shut down evening routine, the cleaning of the kitchen and all of it.[00:38:00]

But all that required me to be on the microphone, and that’s a pretty daunting thing when you realize that that communication part is impossible. So I told Kevin on the phone, you know this is, this is, You must be crazy, man. You lost your mind. I mean, he knew from me working from the previous summer that I had a speech impediment.

And, um, I just said, man, you’ve lost your mind. Why are you offering me this role? And he said to me something that has marked my life forever. He said, Casey, I know that. But what I also know is that you’re a man who passionately loves Jesus, and that’s what I see. And much like Rick said to me over and over again, you can do this and I’m going to help you be successful.

So immediately on that phone call that day, I went from this place of, you know, I can’t do this full of fear to this hope field. But [00:39:00] what if I can? Because one leader on one phone call, I took the job reluctantly, nervously. And if you’ve ever been in a room with someone who has a pretty severe speech impediment, to call it awkward is pretty bad.

pretty nice. First two or three weeks were pretty brutal. Got made fun of and that was my, that was my childhood and locker rooms getting made fun of and people were laughing. I just, I just, I just kept at it. And, but what was so beautiful was I would be standing on the stage, microphone in hand and I would, I would look in the back of the room and there was Kevin.

He was smiling. He was raising his arms. He was like, this bumping me through the air. He was coaching me like, keep smiling, keep smiling, because he could see the stress on my face. And he would always say, keep your eyebrows up. Everything sounds better when your eyebrows are up. So I would, I [00:40:00] would just practice this, you know, and just stumble through it.

By midsummer, I began to kind of get some confidence and things were growing. 11 weeks later. My speech impediment was gone. Well, 95 percent gone. You see, I’m actually thankful that it’s not 100 percent gone. I still struggle sometimes. Most people will never notice that, but I do. And it’s a reminder of how far the Lord has brought me.

And what a miracle that he did, unless I would forget. He left a little behind, and I’m super thankful for that.

What I knew was supposed to happen that summer was in my quiet times with the Lord, the Lord just kept saying, just keep throwing stones, just keep throwing stones. And I knew what that meant. For me, this Goliath wasn’t a physical person, but it was the man in the mirror who had this physical [00:41:00] limitation.

Impossible to do the task put before them. But what Kevin showed me that summer was that a kingdom style of leadership provides a vision for who people could be far beyond their current position in life. One leader, one decision, a lifetime of impact. The fact that I’m standing up here today is still yielding fruit over 20 years later from that one phone call and that one leaders, one sentence.

Do you get that? That’s the power of relationship and that’s the influence that you hold in your hand right now for the people that you lead. There’s just no magic formula. There’s no secret conference or magic silver bullet you can fire that’ll make all the difference in the world. It’s just going to take some [00:42:00] time.

King David gave us a window into this in Psalm 27 when he said there’s one thing that I desire the Lord and that is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. What are the common ingredients there? It’s time. Sit. With them, it’s what it kind of sounds like to me.

See them and support them. That’s what David was doing in the presence of the Lord, which became his model for the people that he influenced. And Jesus carried that on generations later. Supernatural impact will most often occur in the collection of ordinary moments over time as we build relationship.

They don’t typically happen in one big moment.

I’ve been on the [00:43:00] receiving end of significant investments of relational time by, by kingdom leaders. I am their relational prophet. In the account of Kevin East, Rick Beaton Bow, and even Drew Brown. I’m so glad he’s in the room with us today. As leaders, we should be focused on helping everyone under our care get to the next level, even if that means they take your job someday.

When we, with a kingdom motivation, raise up other people, the Lord will create more opportunity for us as well. That’s also a kingdom principle. But a common question is, what happens if I invest all this time and restructuring and all this money into people and they leave? You Well, yeah, some, some will, but what happens if you don’t make that investment and they stay?

This topic does come with a warning and here, here it is. The style of leadership that we’re talking about, this relational style of investing in [00:44:00] people. It is simply the hardest way to do this.

It can be so much easier to flag, to hold on to people than the, than to raise them up or receive them, go on to other businesses or other teams in the company, walk away all together. And I’ve had practice in all those things just in the last year. I don’t know why that is, but man, it is hard. And I would rather on most days, if I’m honest, just hold them tight and keep them close because that’s more comfortable.

Yeah. Here’s, here’s that tension talking about raising them up to their God given potential. And yet I’m trying to hold them tight, but it’s just hard, but you know, that’s, that’s how it feels in a, in a family business,

Papa Jack Taylor used to always say that if the kingdom was anything other than a family business, then God would have chosen to call himself something other than father. [00:45:00] It’s family. Before each of our three children were born, my wife, Dana and I, we prayed that God would give us a life verse for each of our children before they were born so that while they were still in the womb, we could pray that and declare that over them.

We could paint it on the wall in their nursery and then have them recite it when they were kids, when they were little. And all three of those verses are something they can still quote today. At the ages of 22, 17, and 15. Why did we do that? Because we love them. I mean, really love them. And when the world and the enemy make their attempt to redefine them and their destiny, we have truth and they have truth to stand on that was given to them and marked on them before they were even born into this world.

That’s what family does. And [00:46:00] deep love compels us to search out truth. So in closing, I want to ask you just a couple of questions for the people under your care. Have you asked him for truth about them? Have you asked them for a genuine love? And then what would it look like to simply act upon what the Lord reveals to you?

You have been appointed and anointed by God to be the stewards of his ministry in the marketplace. And you can successfully demonstrate a kingdom style of leadership with the people entrusted to your care. Because after all, a kingdom style is above all things relational. Thank you.