Your leadership style will change over time

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone to the Unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stephenson. I get to oversee Church Planting for Converge and then a local church planter here in Orlando, Florida.

Danny Parmelee: I'm Danny Parmelee and I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And today in our conversation, we're going to talk a little bit about the unique changes that take place as a leader, when you plant a church. So meaning you're probably going to lead differently year one in your church plant than maybe you do in year five as a church planter and pastor at that stage. I know for me, totally happened. My guess is Danny, you probably experienced the same kind of changes.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, and I would say some of the stuff that I'll share today is truly is kind of learning from mistakes. Or it's learning only in hindsight, in comparison to hey, this is what I did. And someone gave me some really good, you know, training or information. And so I did it, and I saw how well it worked.

Lee Stephenson: Great. Well, please share.

Danny Parmelee: Okay, so here's, here's my two things in comparison of leading year one to year five. And this is something that I often share with church planters is that in the beginning, the key word is yes. So it is saying yes to everything. And here's why I say that this was somewhat of a mistake, is that I read leadership books and everything about leadership books was do only the things that you're good at, say no, and you need to protect your time and boundaries, and yada yada yada. So I kind of operated a little bit like that, but then kind of quickly understood...like, I need to meet people and network so it was saying yes to everything. Like, "Hey, will you come to my you know, church and preach? Will you come to my you know, banquet? Will you do a funeral for my aunt's dead hamster?" Yes, you know, those are, you know, I've shared that before on the pod...just saying yes to everything. Just so that I can make connections that I could network and those types of things. Now in comparison, then once you begin to grow, so you're saying yes to everything. But then once your plate is completely full, you literally can't add anything more to it. That's then when you begin to start being choosy. But I feel like we have these leadership principles. And we tell planters, like, you know, say no to things, and all they're doing is sitting at home twiddling their thumbs, you know, checking their social media accounts to see if they're getting more, you know, likes that type of thing. It's like, no, you got to be out there meeting with people. So it's Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then as you continue to grow, then your keyword is going to switch to "no," so that you're only saying yes to the things that you know, only you can do type of thing. And then the other thing deals kind of with the empowerment. So again, you read leadership books, and everything is like just give stuff away and trust people with responsibility. And I think that as a church planter that can bite you in the butt. And so to make a point, I'm going to exaggerate, and to say you've got to be a dictator in the beginning. And then later is when you empower. Now, again, this is a total exaggeration, but it's just meaning that your hands have to be so tight on things. And you can even give the impression of empowerment. But you better have an eyeball on every nickel that comes in and out of that church. Every decision that's made. The social media accounts, even if you're hiring someone. You know, or it's one of your volunteers. I mean, you just need to have hands on everything to protect, because there's just too many crazy people out there that want to intentionally or unintentionally sabotage the vision, the culture, the direction, everything about the church. And you just need some time to be able to protect that, build that. And then as you move along, eventually you're going to get to that point where you are entrusting. And you're like, "Oh, no, you are running the small groups ministry. So if that's the curriculum, that's the direction, that's the new rule, then you know, maybe I'll still give input but I really want to entrust you and empower and not make your volunteers or staff feel like they've got to you know, ask permission for every single thing that they do." So those are those are my two as far as kind of just shifts. Which you know, takes a little bit of balancing and learning. You won't do it perfect, but just as a mentality and in the back of my mind.

Lee Stephenson: So were you not a strong enough dictator in the early days of your church plant that you wish you were?

Danny Parmelee: No. The one thing... So I was maybe partly by natural bent and I am a you know, high D on the DISC. But I literally... So my coach slash mentor was Tom Nebel. And I remember a specific time when he was coaching me and I said, "Hey, I'm getting pushback on this. And this." And I do remember his exact words. He said, "You know, I used to have that same thing. And then people started to ask me, are you some sort of dictator?" And then Tom, I remember him pausing. And then he said, "And my response was, yes." And he might not have ever really said that and had that conversation. But it was enough in me to go, okay, it is okay to be a bit micromanager, heavy handed dictator, whatever you want to call it in the beginning, to just protect that vision. So it was a word from him that I believe that God spoke through him just to at least, you know, to hang on as much as I could, to stuff until people have proved... Yeah, till they were ready. Until organizationally, we had enough momentum and culture behind it besides just everything being open ended.

Lee Stephenson: Oh, that's good. Now one of the things that like I've wrestled with, even in my own journey of leadership...and I think I see it prevalent as you grow older as a leader and stuff is, how do you guard yourself from becoming more cynical? Because I think like, year one versus year ten, of pastoral leadership, I definitely became more cynical. During that time period, would you say that you wrestled with a similar type of bent Danny, when it came to leading and planting?

Danny Parmelee: Well, tell me what you mean by it. So when you say cynical, what do you mean cynical about people or just...

Lee Stephenson: About people. And follow through. And, you know, and that can become a negative response to becoming a dictator. It's like, well, they're just not gonna be able to do it the way that I can do it, and so I'm just going to do it anyways,

Danny Parmelee: That hasn't changed for me. I've always been cynical, so.

Lee Stephenson: Well, I appreciate your honesty, man.

Danny Parmelee: It's unfiltered. You said it's unfiltered. No, ah man. I don't know. But but in seriousness, I don't know if that's necessarily changed or grew... ah man that's a harder one. But you seem to have it. So I want you to say something about it. And I think you're a perfect example. So here's what - I have the blessing I planted a church one time. And I've already said that, like, you're naive if you plan to church once. You're certifiably crazy if you plant one twice or three times. So that's the category, the box that I'm putting you in here today.

Lee Stephenson: That's fine. Tha's totally fine.

Danny Parmelee: So with that...and maybe the way to help draw this out - what did you do the second time that you planted that you said, you know, what, the first time I made this mistake? But then I'm curious if there's any of those things, that it still didn't matter. And you're like, actually, the way that I did it before, and it kind of didn't work is actually what made it work. I don't know if that philosophically kind of makes sense. But when you plant a second time, you're clearly running everything through the lens of your previous experience.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, you are. And I would say, you know, it's interesting. I look at them differently. You know, the first church plant I did, I was 30. The second church plant I did, I was 40. You just see life differently. And so some of it is... Is it because of an age thing and maturity? Or is it literally like, you know, I think it's a hard, hard question to answer. I would, when I look back at the first church plant, year one of church leadership, I think I was more eager, more energetic, probably even a little bit more creative. But I would say probably a lot of the creativity probably was stupid creativity. Like it was just like, "Wow, why don't we try this?" You know, thinking, you know, "Hey, we're gonna be the first one to prove Solomon wrong, that there is something new under the sun." So...

Danny Parmelee: How'd that worked out for you?

Lee Stephenson: It didn't work out really well. But I think, you know, round two, and again, maybe it's just an age maturity thing. Maybe there's a lack of energy. You sit there go, "I've seen enough now. That's just not going to work." And so you're maybe a little bit more methodical. I wouldn't call it slower. But you're more tuned in to where you're going to spend your time. Where you're gonna spend your energy. Where you're gonna spend your resources. I mean, both church resources, but even personal resources. How am I going to my relational time? And it was different. You know, first time I was full time church planter from day one. Second church plant, I've got a full time job. So I just don't have the time or the cushion to be able to put into certain things the way that I probably would if I was full time. And that I've had to dial back my expectation. Like, there are certain changes that when you're a full time church planter, you can kind of guarantee and get it moving fairly quickly. Now I have to work through other people to inspire and engage and create that change or that momentum. It takes longer. In the long road, I think it will be better. I think will be a healthier entity. But it takes longer to create the change and the opportunity that maybe I seek. Oh, man, I wish we were just here. But because of not being in full time capacity. The reality is I just can't get it done.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. And what you're speaking to, or what you said is something that I've you know, of course, been pondering it as well. And that is that there is even though I joked about using the word naive, I remember planting and being naive to just so many different things. Even though I didn't think I was naive at the time. I just thought, you know, this is brilliant ideas. Um, but I'm wondering if that actually is what has fueled the ingenuity and why it actually worked. Like we did not know what we were doing. And there was less about church planting and networks and manuals and stuff. So we were kind of just making it up as we went along. But because of that, there was a certain amount of enthusiasm, energy, authenticity, dependence on God. Where is if I were to plant the second time around, I feel like I would be in the same spot that you are where it's like, "Okay, I'm not going to try this. Or I'm going to take even a little bit of the less risky road. Or we tried that. That didn't work." Do you know what I mean?

Lee Stephenson: A hundred percent.

Danny Parmelee: So it's interesting, because even right now, one of the church, you know, planters that that I'm coaching, I see different things. And I'm like, so much of me wants to step in and say, "You know what, that's not gonna work. And don't do this. And here's what you need to do. Like, just follow the playbook." And then and I have literally coached myself to say, you know, what, don't say anything, let them do it. This is the only way that we'll... As a church, Big C church, across the world, and specifically to the United States, be able to try new things. And to continue to push the envelope. I don't want to create a cookie cutter church that is just actually probably five to just 10 years behind culture type of thing. And so I don't know, maybe some of the the listeners here are those that are just on the front end of things. And they're trying to learn absolutely everything they can so they don't make mistakes. And maybe our word to them and say like, "No, it's okay. Try things, be yourself, break the mold, push back on your coach a little bit unless it's Lee or Danny." And then for those going a second time, you know that maybe they do need to say, hey, how do you recapture some of that spirit of just going for it and not weigh everything through the lens of risk adversity?

Lee Stephenson: I agree, I think we've got to...And now, let's address our coaches that may be listening. You've got to release the younger guys to be innovative. Allow them to try things. Half of it may fail, more than half of it may fail. But there may be just a golden nugget hidden there that could actually be something that's hugely inspirational to multiple churches, multiple leaders within the life of the church. But we will never find it if we put the kibosh on those those things. And so, year one. Yeah, I think I was probably much more innovative. But I had the time and the energy to be so. By year five, the demands had grown. And I mean, we were no longer a small church. And so the interaction and those type of things. But I could see it in myself. So I began to even budget time, just to be creative. You know, putting it in my schedule. And I still have to do the same thing, even today, where I literally will blot out different moments in my calendar to make sure that I'm giving myself space to think out of the box and put myself in scenarios that challenge me to think differently than the way neccessarily I would just script it.

Danny Parmelee: Right. Yeah. And I think that there was something too and in the beginning, I was willing to take the risk, even though yes, I feared fear of failure. And I think most church planters do like at the heart of hearts, that was the biggest fear is fear of failure. But when you're starting out and you're young, it mattered less. Like if we, if we would have pooped out and failed, it wasn't that big of a deal. But if you planted a successful church, and then you failed on the next one. Or you failed, after you've grown something really, really large, it just has a different feel to it. So I think like, the younger you are, and if it's your first one, and you don't know what you're doing, if you try a whole bunch of things, and you fail, it just seems less. So there's more of that motivation to just go for it. And, you know, I've been thinking this of course, you know, there's the you know, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It's a podcast that is...has a few more downloads than our podcast.

Lee Stephenson: Just a couple.

Danny Parmelee: But anyways, you know, thinking through especially the first couple and where they're talking about the different phases of like the Boomer church. And then you have the Gen X church. And then I'm asking and wondering what is going to be the reactionary thing to what we have right now. And just really trying to also, maybe some of the planters that right now I'm even disappointed in, they might have it. They might be trying to do the very thing that is going to reshape whatever church looks like for that next generation. Just like everyone was looking at Mark and Mars Hill going, "This is never gonna work. This is like totally wrong. It's not you know, that's not what people want type of thing." So anyways, that it will be curious to see this next generation of, you know, young leaders to be able to take things to a new place.

Lee Stephenson: I agree, and it's going to be exciting. I am super excited to see long term, what we see birth and the creativity that hopefully and prayerfully will continue to move the church forward. Well, thanks, everyone for tuning in. It's been a fun conversation. And we're trying to be creative. But we're keeping it real. So until next time, you keep it real as well. We'll see ya.