Léonce B. Crump Jr. argues that pastors lead through cultural upheaval by choosing the hard things they avoid, starting with rest. Crump describes leading an Atlanta church through the COVID shutdown, when attendance fell from more than 1,000 to under 150 and later returned to more than 1,000. What rebuilt his capacity to lead? A regular Sabbath, a local community, and a coach, a counselor and a pastor of his own. He argues that leaders need a place to speak without consequence, a space that shrinks as profile rises. Crump notes that many turn trauma into fuel for success without actually healing, and that the hard things pastors avoid, from rest to difficult conversations, are what build the toughness the work requires. Léonce B. Crump Jr. is co-founder of United Church in Atlanta, which began as Renovation Church in 2008, and the author of The Resilience Factor and Renovate. He recently finished a doctorate in leadership.
Pastors remain tired, and Léonce B. Crump Jr. agrees with Ed Stetzer that the cultural division that followed COVID has not peaked. The two discuss what a leader needs in reserve, and what a leader has to stop avoiding to stay in the work.
The conversation
How do pastors build resilience that lasts?
In the face of perpetual exhaustion, Crump names his reservoirs: the vision God gave him, a practiced Sabbath, a local community of pastors, and a coach, a counselor and a pastor. He argues that leaders need a place to say anything without recourse, and that the higher a leader’s profile, the smaller that place becomes. Grit, he says, comes from choosing difficulty, and the first hard thing he names for pastors is rest.
How should pastors lead through a divided culture?
Crump preached a series from the Book of Daniel with the tagline “Living under leadership you didn’t choose,” arguing that most people in most of history lived under rulers they did not select, and that God’s people have lived through conditions like these before. He says the church, like Western education, tends to be ahistorical, and that a leader who panics will lead a congregation in panic.
From the conversation
“In order for us, I believe, to function and thrive healthily, we have to have a space where we can say anything and everything without recourse.” – Léonce B. Crump Jr.
“The thing that you are avoiding, the thing that you don’t want to do, is probably the doorway to your next level.” – Léonce B. Crump Jr.
“We have developed a culture that is averse to suffering. And unless you have purposefully put yourself in athletics or the military or some other form of voluntary suffering, it’s very hard to develop grit in your life.” – Léonce B. Crump Jr.
“If God is truly sovereign, then we can’t live in panic. And if we live in panic, then we’re going to lead our people in panic. We have to lead them with a steady hand.” – Léonce B. Crump Jr.
About
Léonce B. Crump Jr. is co-founder of United Church in Atlanta, which began as Renovation Church in 2008. He is the author of The Resilience Factor and Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are.
[00:00:00] Léonce Crump: I believe, to function and thrive healthily, we have to have a space where we can say anything and everything without recourse. Because those spaces generally do not exist, and the higher profile a leader or pastor you are, the smaller that space gets and the smaller that window gets.
[00:00:23] Ed Stetzer: What does it take to keep leading when you've been punched in the face, when the church you built loses most of its people, when trusted friends leave, right? When culture becomes more divided, the expectations on pastors become almost impossible. You're carrying wounds nobody in your congregation knows about. Here's the reality. Pastors don't just need resilience. We need reservoirs of resilience. I actually say we need reservoirs of resilience and community of support.
[00:00:50] Denominations, networks, and fellowships help with that, but we also need personal reservoirs of resilience, 'cause everyone is eventually gonna get hit in the mouth. And my guest today knows something about that. Léonce Crump has planted a church in Atlanta. It grew to around 1,500 people. COVID hit. When they finally gathered again, they were back to about 150 people. Staff had dropped from 27 to five, a massive building, a $20,000 a month mortgage. He wondered if the church would survive. It did, and today it's thriving again. But this conversation isn't primarily about church growth. It's about what happens inside the leader along the way. We're gonna talk about therapy.
[00:01:23] We're gonna talk about trauma, Sabbath, and community, grit, and suffering, having the courage to make hard decisions, and why sometimes the thing you want to avoid is exactly the thing you need to face. We're gonna talk about leading in a culture that may get harder. I'm actually of the view it's gonna get harder before it gets easier, because Christian leaders have been here before. Kings rise, kings fall. The King of kings remains on his throne. I'm Ed Stetzer. This is The Exchange. Let's talk about something, the kind of leaders who can take the hit and keep faithfully leading. I'm recording here at, with our Gloo team, and this podcast is sponsored and made in partnership with Gloo.
[00:01:59] Leah, super good to get to visit with you again. And, you know, last time I had you on, we talked about your book, The Resilience Factor. And it's kinda like I need an update on are you still resilient? Has life beaten you down? Because you had, you know, you wrote this book kind of coming out of COVID. Kind of update us on what led you to write on resilience, and then maybe update us where in the journey, 'cause I know it hasn't gotten easier.
[00:02:23] Léonce Crump: No, it certainly hasn't. You know, going into COVID, we were dealing with our own challenges. I shared with you last time you know, we had a coup and a split on our leadership team. It caused a whole bunch of reverberations through the church that we had to lead through and we left 2019 and went right into COVID. And because of where we were at the time, we had just sold our building downtown. We were meeting in a temporary space. December 6th, 2019, we purchased our largest property we've ever had, 12 acres, 120,000 square feet.
[00:02:53] Ed Stetzer: In Atlanta.
[00:02:54] Léonce Crump: In Atlanta.
[00:02:54] Ed Stetzer: That's a lot. 12 acres. That's pretty, yeah, pretty—
[00:02:56] Léonce Crump: Yeah, it's insane. And then February 1st, the world shut down. And so we didn't gather physically for almost 14 months. And I didn't know if we'd have a church when we came back. And as I was sharing with you earlier, you know, we came back in April of 2021 to a $20,000 a month mortgage and 120,000 square feet and 125 or 30 people.
[00:03:19] Ed Stetzer: 'Cause your church was over 1,000.
[00:03:20] Léonce Crump: Yeah, we were over 1,000 going into COVID. Came back less than 150. And quite honestly I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if we would survive. We spent some intense time in prayer with our very small leadership team. Our staff had gone down from 27 to 5. And we decided we were gonna dig in. That really was kind of a trigger point into writing this book and trying not to give a blueprint so much as here are a few things we've learned about how to move forward, and not just move forward, but move forward better than you were, before the trauma, before the loss, before the suffering, before the chaos, whatever. And that led to the writing of the book, Resilience Factor.
[00:03:59] Ed Stetzer: When I first read the book, I kinda thought, "This is a good post-COVID book." I remember right at the beginning of COVID, we did this Facebook Live that a couple hundred thousand pastors ended up coming on. And I said, "This is probably what it's gonna look like over the course of two years," et cetera, et cetera. And I think a lot of that timing did happen, like, you know, waves that happen, all that sort of stuff.
[00:04:08] But then what I think for many of us, me included, didn't see that the cultural convulsion would kind of explode out of COVID and still, and even early on, I started talking about the cultural convulsion and wrote about it in Outreach Magazine, but I think it's lasting longer, and I don't even think we're at the peak of it yet—
[00:04:27] Léonce Crump: Absolutely not.
[00:04:27] Ed Stetzer: —in the division in the culture right now. So the resilience is still needed. And I've actually talked about pastors now need- reservoirs of resilience and communities of support. So let's talk about what are some of the reservoirs of resilience? 'Cause man, pastors are tired still. Now, they didn't, it peaked, I wanna quit, peaked during COVID. The Barna data talked about that. But talk to me about how are they getting reservoirs of resilience today?
[00:04:59] Léonce Crump: Yeah I can speak to my situation.
[00:05:01] Ed Stetzer: Well, I'd like you to.
[00:05:01] Léonce Crump: Yeah. I, I've j—
[00:05:02] Ed Stetzer: 'Cause you did write a book on it.
[00:05:02] Léonce Crump: I did.
[00:05:02] Ed Stetzer: Now it's like, it's like what do you do now? 'Cause you, you've gotta still be the resilient pastor.
[00:05:07] Léonce Crump: Yes. You revisit first things. I think it's so critical That what keeps me in the game is the vision that God gave me and revisiting that over and over again. Putting in good rhythms of health and wellness. You know, I'm practicing a regular Sabbath, an actual Sabbath maybe for the first time in almost 20 years of ministry. Which helps to pour into that reservoir of resilience. Community. I'm, I belong to a community of pastors locally. I've been a part of national movements for years, but was still isolated in Atlanta. And I ended up connecting with one of your students, actually, James Griffin.
[00:05:42] Ed Stetzer: Great guy.
[00:05:42] Léonce Crump: And a, and another group of guys there in Atlanta. They just kinda pulled me in. And so we've been running together, for quite some time. We take a trip to Montana once a year to just reflect and refresh and fly-fish and shoot stuff. And so, all of those things pour into that. And I think I told you before, I think every pastor needs a coach a counselor, and a pastor. Derwin Gray is my pastor. Sean Lovejoy is my coach. He's a good man. And then I have a great therapist. All of those things feed into my ability to continue to walk forward, and I think this is so important.
[00:06:17] It's not just about moving forward. It's about coming back stronger after every blow. And so you may have to shift some of those dynamics in that reservoir. Maybe I need more community. Maybe I need more therapy. Maybe I need more shepherding. But all of the ingredients have to be there, and that's what builds up that reservoir of resilience.
[00:06:35] Ed Stetzer: Super. And having a pastor is... And Derwin Gray's a great guy. And so having a pastor makes sense. Coach, not many people do it, but I think it's great, and Sean's a great coach. Not everyone can get Sean as a coach, but he's a great coach. Talk about the therapy one. So, 'cause you just said it on a recording, so—
[00:06:35] Léonce Crump: I did.
[00:06:50] Ed Stetzer: —so, and I'm guessing you say it at church—
[00:06:50] Léonce Crump: I do.
[00:06:50] Ed Stetzer: —'cause you're trying to normalize this.
[00:06:53] Léonce Crump: Yeah, we actually have a counseling center in our church.
[00:06:53] Ed Stetzer: So how does that, as a pastor, how do you navigate telling people about that, the assumptions they make? Why do you tell people about that?
[00:07:03] Léonce Crump: Because I believe that our mental health as leaders is so critical. In the Black community in particular, I know you know this as the researcher that you are, therapy and things like that are stigmatized or had been for years. But at the end of the day there's so much PTSD in urban centers and in depressed neighborhoods and people are treating the symptoms, but they're not treating the disease.
[00:07:30] And some of that disease is a need for actual healthy therapeutic work on the causes and effects of certain behaviors. And I see the same in pastors. This is maybe the hardest calling you can have in life. I stand by that. And we are left constantly without any explanation- Right? You have your very best friends leave on a Sunday because you said one thing they didn't like, and they don't talk to you anymore, and this is somebody you had dinner with once a week for 20 years. The expectations are astronomical. The respect level is down. You know, the automatic respect that you engendered as a ministry leader is gone in part because of some of the failures of some of the great ministry leaders over time.
[00:08:14] And so, in order for us, I believe, to function and thrive healthily, we have to have a space where we can say anything and everything without recourse. Because those spaces generally do not exist, and the higher profile a leader or pastor you are, the smaller that space gets and the smaller that window gets. But there are guys dealing with truly clinical issues that they have learned to manage and navigate through productivity and success. And then one day you find out, you know, they've had five, six, seven adulteries.
[00:08:50] They've got a gambling problem. They've got a secret drinking problem. And all of those things could've been headed off if they had actually dealt with the trauma and the pain point that made them the way they are. In fact, I asked my therapist, I said, "Do you think that there is any great leader who is not navigating, healing from, or managing some significant trauma?" And she said, "You know, I've never thought about that." She's a, she's a double doctorate, 78 years old. She's like, "I've never thought about that, Léonce." And so I came back the next time, and she said, "I've thought more about what you asked me. I've been counseling leaders mainly, and pastors, but Fortune 500 leaders too, for 30 years, and every single one of them had some deep reverberating trauma.
[00:09:33] And every leader I've ever known had some significant trauma that was the fuel for their success because they were never gonna let themselves go back to that other place." But that's not actually healing them. That's just you learning how to take the pain of life and turn it into a fuel for success but the hole is still there. And you're not dealing with it.
[00:09:53] Ed Stetzer: Yeah, those desires that drive you can become the demons that drag you down in the long run. I've seen it happen multiple times. Okay, so, I'm interested how you've just personally, emotionally, spiritually, mentally processed going from a church that's over 1,000, was it 1,500 at its peak?
[00:10:10] Léonce Crump: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Ed Stetzer: Okay, and down to 100 and to 10% of the size. 'Cause again, that's COVID and, you know, your church is a multi-ethnic church. Probably the largest group would be African American. A slight majority. And African American churches regathered, the Hartford Institute, some, done some great research on this, they regathered at a lower level than everybody else any other racial ethnic group, but now engage online at a higher level than any other racial ethnic group, which is fascinating. But I'm just trying to think, what does Pastor Léonce Crump watch, boom. What, how, what, how do you process that?
[00:10:42] Léonce Crump: Yeah, I mean, as one might imagine, my first thought was, "Man, I have failed, and this is over." You know? There, there's no way that we can come back from this. And- really soul searching. Like, what did I do wrong? What should I have done better? Should we have come back sooner? Should we have pushed the issue? Because if you were watching the national news, like Georgia was a Petri dish for the division and political crazy that has come to represent everything in our country right now.
[00:11:05] And so you had the governor getting up on the news every day virtually saying, "Reopen." "We're back." "Life is good," et cetera. And then our mayor would be in a press conference an hour later. "If you reopen inside the city of Atlanta, I can't speak for outlying counties that the governor is addressing, but in Atlanta, if you reopen and we find out, we will close you permanently." And this was the back and forth for over a year.
[00:11:36] Ed Stetzer: Chicago was not... I was at Moody Church at the time. And Chicago was... Well, Illinois was also a difficult state, but we met with the governor. I led a group to meet with the governor, sort of backed off and, but the mayor didn't. And so you had to navigate these things, and I would say to you that there are people watching who have opinions, that you should've done this, you should've done that, but you had to navigate this with your elders and walk through that together. So you question should we have opened sooner?
[00:11:57] Léonce Crump: Yeah. Yeah, I question it all the time. But I can't go back and change it. All we can do is build from here and God has been incredibly gracious, and I, again, this goes back to the resilience reservoir. My wife reminded me, she said, "We moved to Atlanta with no money no building, no people, just a vision." I think we got a pretty good head start. And what a reframing, you know, part of—
[00:12:20] Ed Stetzer: What an awesome comment from your wife.
[00:12:21] Léonce Crump: Yeah. Yeah. And part of resilience is being able to reframe, not in an unhealthy way. But, you know, we're scratch planters. We're parachute planters. Nobody gave us anything. We just dropped into Atlanta and started a Bible study in our, in our loft that God grew to a church of 1,500 in four years. That's a miracle. And so to restart with, you know, more people than any church planter in general is starting with—
[00:12:39] Ed Stetzer: It's quite a core group if you're thinking about church plant
[00:12:47] Léonce Crump: —you know, quite a... That's exactly right. Yeah. It's an and so that's what we did. And we said, "Okay, we have a core group now. We have a million dollars in the bank that'll at least burn off slowly for the mortgage, and we're gonna go. And either the ship is gonna go down or it's gonna, or it's gonna fly. And we're gonna figure out how to make it happen." And so for the last four years, prayer, hard work and really digging in with the spirit of God we have seen our church grow back to over 1,000 people.
[00:13:14] We baptized 300 people over this last year. We've had, nearly 1,000 decisions for Christ. I mean, I can go down the line. Over 2,000 first-time guests just in the last two years. And I attribute all of that to one, just the kindness of God. But two, our decision to say, "Okay, we're not gonna look at this from the perspective of all that we lost. We're gonna look at this from the perspective of what we can do with what we have."
[00:13:39] Ed Stetzer: Get knocked down, you get back up again. I've heard that said. I've heard that once. Well, Mike Tyson said it. Everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth. And then you, then you decide who you really are. Help us think a little bit about grit and ambition and what's toughness and what's spiritual resilience, and like how that all sort of relates together. I mean, you're a pretty like just go get it done kind of guy. How does that all relate together? The spiritual formation, grit, ambition. Unpack that for us. Tease that out for us.
[00:14:06] Léonce Crump: Yeah. I would say it's like a gumbo, you know. And that's not 'cause I'm from Louisiana.
[00:14:06] Ed Stetzer: Yeah, I knew that would somehow gumbo—
[00:14:11] Léonce Crump: Well, I mean it's so—
[00:14:13] Ed Stetzer: —would come up. And you make... You have your own special recipe, I under— you were talk— We're at the Right Now conference, and you were just talking about backstage about your gumbo recipe, which—
[00:14:16] Léonce Crump: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. I do about 85% of the cooking in our house. All right. Okay. Which most people wouldn't know. I've got my own apron. My wife loves it. All right. All right. But—
[00:14:28] Ed Stetzer: Okay, so back to gumbo.
[00:14:29] Léonce Crump: Yeah, but that's how I see it is you know, your base is your spiritual formation. That's your roux. That's your foundation. That's what flavors everything. If you screw the roux up, you screw up the gumbo, right? And then all the other pieces, the ingredients that get poured into that work together to create this beautiful melange of flavors or in my case, or your case, a beautiful expression of God's creative genius. And so, I think when your base is right, when you have good spiritual rhythms, when you're forming yourself around the word of God, practicing Sabbath, practicing silence, solitude, slowing and then within that you actually do the work of developing toughness and grit and determination and just deciding that pain is not the worst thing in the world.
[00:15:16] That is how all those things work together for me. And it really is like, okay, this is gonna suck. This is gonna hurt but it's not the worst thing in the world. And my identity is not riding on this, and the people who love me, their love for me is not riding on this. And so I can bet it all on black and we'll see what happens. And I wish that was something you can teach, but I don't know that it is. I think we have developed a culture that is averse to suffering. And unless you have purposefully put yourself in athletic or military or some other form of voluntary suffering it's very hard to develop grit in your life. That's my personal opinion.
[00:15:55] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. Americans have worked very hard. People in the West have worked very hard to avoid suffering. And so, yeah, I remember, Phil Ryken does this talk Phil Ryken, President of Wheaton College, about, how we embrace this as this, we embrace the sufferings of Christ. Part of the pastoral role is to embrace that as well. So I mean, if I'm thinking I don't want that how, why would I want to lean into that, and then how do I lean into that?
[00:16:18] Léonce Crump: So the why, if you want the spiritual answer—
[00:16:18] Ed Stetzer: Please.
[00:16:18] Léonce Crump: —is because we share in the sufferings of Christ. If you want kind of the practical answer, it's because it is the only way to actually have the impact that I think we quietly desire. At least I hope we all desire. Like I, you know, whether it's 100 people or 100,000, I want my church to be impactful and influential in my city, and that is the only path forward. And how do you develop that? By doing hard things.
[00:16:44] And just deciding to do hard things, small things and large things. You know, I tell young preachers "Go up with your Bible and just preach and see how bad it goes." You know? Do your preparation, right? That is choosing to do a hard thing. But what they're gonna develop is a new muscle to learn how to communicate and not be notes dependent, 'cause that's what...
[00:17:01] I just go up with my Bible, and they're like, "How do you do that?" Well, because I had to really suffer through some terrible communication in order to grow that muscle. It's, you know, and I hate to be the big guy who works out making a workout analogy but that's exactly what it is. You work out the muscle, you tear down the muscle. It grows bigger in the recovery on the other side of that. And we actually have to choose hard things. So one of the hard things I'm choosing right now, and you better not make fun of me—
[00:17:27] Ed Stetzer: I might, but let's see.
[00:17:29] Léonce Crump: And then I'm not doing it.
[00:17:29] Ed Stetzer: No, tell me. I wanna know. I promise I won't make fun of you. Maybe.
[00:17:32] Léonce Crump: I've been doing Pilates. Listen, just hear me out.
[00:17:36] Ed Stetzer: I would just say that you could take me in a fight, so I'm not gonna make fun of any exercise you do, but—
[00:17:39] Léonce Crump: Hear me out. Hear me out. So I've had back issues for 20 years. I've got a... And that's why I'm kind of sitting funny now. I'm in a little bit of a flare up. But I've got a herniated disc that swells, and it actually shifts my pelvis when it swells. And I had two options. I either had to have surgery, which, you know, back surgery is last resort. For anybody listening, last resort, because I watched it kind of destroy my dad's mobility. Or I had to find a way to strengthen my deep core muscles at a level that would actually hold everything together. And let me tell you something. You don't know how weak your core is until you go to a Pilates class
[00:18:16] Ed Stetzer: Oh, Pilates things mess people up.
[00:18:17] Léonce Crump: And- I mean, it's like tough... I've got stinking Becky over here with five kids and she's popping up and down like nothing, you know? And Susan is 68, retired nurse, and she's balancing on one leg and I'm like, "What?" And I'm shaking like, "Ugh, ugh, ugh," you know, just trying to hang on for dear life in a plank for two minutes.
[00:18:37] Right? And it's some... it, and it's a different kind of hard. You know? Yeah. I love being punched in the face. I know that sounds weird but I was a fighter. I love it. I love it. I love lifting heavy weight. I love contact. Like I've always loved that. To have to go and do a plank for two minutes and be the biggest person in the room and the only guy in the room and have all these ladies outperforming you all around it is choosing hard. And I can give you 10 examples, great and small, where I've just made it a part of the rhythm of my life to choose hard things to grow my grit.
[00:19:10] Ed Stetzer: What... If you're talking to pastors or church leaders, what would some things you say to them, "You should choose this hard thing"? Like what are some things that we avoid that we should lean into?
[00:19:18] Léonce Crump: This is gonna sound counterintuitive.
[00:19:20] Ed Stetzer: Tell 'em. Tell me.
[00:19:20] Léonce Crump: Rest.
[00:19:21] Ed Stetzer: Rest. That is a hard thing for pastors. It's a hard thing for me.
[00:19:23] Léonce Crump: Rest.
[00:19:24] Ed Stetzer: Yeah, sure. Rest. So that's a hard thing to force that as—
[00:19:27] Léonce Crump: To literally say, "Friday's my day off." And I'm gonna take care of stuff around the house. And Friday evening to Saturday evening or all day Saturday to Sunday morning is my Sabbath. And I'm actually going to Sabbath, and I'm not gonna... Here's another, Saturday night sermon prep.
[00:19:43] Choose not to do that. Choose the hard thing of having to prepare, of having to think ahead of having to map out your schedule, of not being reactive to everything around you. Letting go and actually empowering other leaders. Having things grow up around you in your ministry that you didn't have your hand on and you find out about, you know, and are surprised. Like I just found out we have this burgeoning old people ministry happening in our church. Like, they called it, 50 over fi- 50s over 50 or something like that.
[00:20:12] Ed Stetzer: Back up the bus. We are not calling it over 50, the old people ministry.
[00:20:15] Léonce Crump: Well, here's what I'm saying. That's what they call it. I'll be 50 in a few years, bro. I'm like, "I'm right there" and they're like... I was like, "Hey, can I get in?" And they're like, "No, you got like five years before you can get in." You got five years.
[00:20:24] Ed Stetzer: Well, I'm in my late 50s, actually the latest 50s that you can be in.
[00:20:25] Léonce Crump: Yeah. So I'm like, I'm pretty close to, sort of starting—
[00:20:31] Ed Stetzer: So you'd be a part of our ministry.
[00:20:32] Léonce Crump: I'd be a part of the old people ministry. And it's literally 55 to 75. And then we got a couple outliers that are like 70, 80 or 90. They did that without anybody. And so one night I'm leaving my office late and there's like 40 or 50 people, you know, gray hairs, all hanging out, eating in the li-... I'm like, "What is going on?"
[00:20:41] Ed Stetzer: Some pastors would be nervous of a bunch of 40, 50 gray hair people one day.
[00:20:54] Léonce Crump: Well, I've already been through the worst, right? I've already been through the worst, so—
[00:20:58] Ed Stetzer: Well...
[00:20:58] Léonce Crump: —so but it was, it was so amazing. And so that's what I would say is the thing that you are avoiding the thing that you don't wanna do is probably the doorway to your next level. And there's a litany of things that I believe our pastoral friends could choose in their physical life right? Like actually eating in a healthy way. I'm not talking about a diet.
[00:21:21] I'm talking about eating mostly whole foods rather than not eating at all which many of them do or grabbing whatever crap you can grab on your way from one appointment to the next. Building margin into your schedule instead of back to back to back to back to back to back to back. I can go down the line. These are all things—
[00:21:34] Ed Stetzer: All hard things.
[00:21:34] Léonce Crump: —all hard things that I know pastors find challenging 'cause I find them challenging.
[00:21:34] Ed Stetzer: Right. Sure. Sure. And that's one of the reasons I wanna talk to you because you've sort of, you've lived this out loud. You know, you've written about it. You kind of walk through it. And you know, we... I'm guessing, Sam Chand, you know Sam leadership pain. I really like what Sam says about that leaning into leadership pain is such a key for our future leadership, is to embrace it and to lean into it. Like hard conversations, like as a—
[00:21:50] Léonce Crump: That's another one.
[00:22:01] Ed Stetzer: —people, so many pastors they, it's the f- they need 15 seconds of audacious courage just to say, "This is not working the way this is right now." But it's painful for them. So leaning into that pain. So how do I get, like you said, you know, you gotta be hit to develop the grit, but so how do I get the strength that I don't have now to lean into the painful decision?
[00:22:22] Léonce Crump: Putting the right people around you that'll help to push you. I mean, I hate to make this sound so simple. But it's me, Sitting there in our membership class. This is a true story. This just happened. Sitting in our membership class, and there are two women sitting together, and I'm wondering, are they together or are they together? It turns out they are together. They both wanna become members. What's my gut instinct? I don't wanna have this conversation. Right? Like, you know, let's do it in a macro way. Let's throw up our statement on human sexuality on the website.
[00:22:53] And then, you know, like, then you tell them, like, "This is- That's my gut. Right? It's choosing in that moment to say, "Hey, me and my wife would like to take you guys to lunch and just share a little bit about who we are, and kinda where we stand on some things." And so we scheduled that appointment. That lunch appointment is coming. You were a pastor and are a pastor for a long time. How many times were you in that moment of decision and you found a way out of it?
[00:23:17] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. Because I've found a way out of it. It's true. It's true. I always have the tendency to avoid the hard things, but I'm aware of my tendency. Yes. So I probably, at my age and stage, you know—
[00:23:25] Léonce Crump: Oh, you don't care no more.
[00:23:25] Ed Stetzer: —I'd probably lean into that. Well, I do care. But I'd probably more likely lean into that. I think, the people-pleasing aspect is always in us. But I would say to you, I think, clarity is kindness on some of these issues.
[00:23:38] And I think, I think having those conversations are, is fair and clear to everybody. I think that's a good thing. But it's getting to the place when pastors who may have, you talked about therapy earlier, who may have father wounds often or may have, you know, people-pleasing tendencies. I do think that pastors need to be aware of their own struggles so that they can walk through them. The only way out is through.
[00:24:01] Léonce Crump: That's exactly right. Yeah. And so that's why all of this goes together. Because I had to deal with some of my father wounds and really mother wounds more than father wounds in therapy. And my need... You know, I'm an Enneagram 8. I know some people say it's demonic. We'll go down that line another time. But you know, 8s are developed through oppression. I had an overbearing mother, and I remember making a decision at, like, nine that I would never feel this way again. And so my whole life, up until I started to get some wholeness, was treating the world like it was coming at me.
[00:24:35] Right? And so I had to get that whole. People-pleasing is the same thing. That, you know, that, that's where you had a family where you were the glue, or you were the negotiator. You were the one that kinda kept the peace, and so now you've brought that into a pastoral ministry, into an anxious system to quote Friedman and you're creating your own chaos. And either you don't know it, or you're so avoidant of it that you just let it go. And so I think it's just one decision after another, like you said, to just lean in, to say, "You know what? I don't wanna sit down with these women. I know it's gonna go bad. We've already been on a website for baiting and switching," because there was this whole list of Atlanta churches that seemed affirming but weren't.
[00:25:15] And we were, me and Passion, us and Passion were at the top of the list I was like, "I don't wanna go back down this road, but at the end of the day, if I avoid this one, I'll avoid the next one and the next one and the next one, and the next one. And that's what a lot of my brothers and sisters are doing. And as you see, when you see those avoided hard conversation leads to dysfunction and unhealthy organizations.
[00:25:27] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. So it just happens. Do you know what I tell people now? Pain now or pain later. So you're gonna get the pain. You gotta... I'll often say, "We're making a hard decision. You gotta pick your pain." Which pain do we want? And it's more later usually. It's usually a greater painful situation if you don't address it at that right time as well. You worked in the business world—
[00:25:45] Léonce Crump: I did, yeah.
[00:25:45] Ed Stetzer: —and you've worked in the church world. Give me one transferrable lesson or concept that in the... 'Cause pastors, depending upon the pastor, some pastors are like, "I don't wanna look into, I don't wanna be worldly like a CEO" but, you know, I'm, I actually have a whole—
[00:25:57] Léonce Crump: But it's a multimillion-dollar organization.
[00:26:05] Ed Stetzer: I know. You gotta have, you gotta have like... I mean, I have a whole course with RightNow pastors Plus on change leadership. And I draw from Kotter's Change Management and—
[00:26:11] Léonce Crump: Oh, yeah. One of my favorite books.
[00:26:14] Ed Stetzer: I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. And churches, like I teach this to pastors. I'm like, "Man, I coulda brought along 30% more people on this change if I had just thought through the process." I think all truth is God's truth. So but give us a principle from the business world that you would say, "Hey, pastors, you need to learn this thing," that was very common in business.
[00:26:30] Léonce Crump: It's very common in ministry too if you're listening. Culture eats vision. The entity that I worked for before, I won't say the name. Clear vision on what we're supposed to be doing. We were bringing technological solutions to the healthcare space. But the culture was terrible. Backbiting, lying, stealing deals fluffing the numbers taking other people's warm calls and giving them your cold calls. And so even though we had a great vision and our CEO was a great guy it imploded.
[00:26:57] It imploded because the culture devoured it. The second principle I say that is transferrable is giving as much time to thinking as you do to your doing. All of the great CEOs have set aside time every single day where they just stare off into nothing. We couldn't imagine doing that. But the great leaders, the great CEOs, the Fortune 500 guys, they all have periods of the day where there's nothing on their calendar. And they're just staring off into space, and that's where they get their great ideas. That's where the catalytic things happen.
[00:27:31] And then I think the third, you already said it is really learning change management. You know, we think that we got up with this great vision for what God's gonna do in our church. And we're kicking it off next week. You haven't created a guiding coalition. You haven't created a sense of urgency. And it's just, it's... And you could do... And some, like, some people really have the skills to persuade people. But if you use the tools you'd persuade more people, and a lot of people don't have the vision casting. And—
[00:27:54] Ed Stetzer: The tools can help you.
[00:28:00] Léonce Crump: —and the people who don't have the skills want to behave like the people who do, and then they wonder why they have chaos, right? And so, you know, that was another learning, is if I want, if I wanna launch a new campus in, at the end of 2027, which we will, I'm talking about it now. Right? I'm not talking about it in July of 2027. "Hey, we're gonna have a vision meeting for people who live in the Kennesaw area for the..." No, we're talking about it now.
[00:28:24] We're mapping now. We are marketing now. We are putting those people in relationship now so that when we get ready to launch this campus, we have 50 or 100 people who are already bought in. The vision has been cast for almost two years. And nobody feels like they're losing anything, right? So you get the early adopters in that guiding coalition phase and then, and then you go from there. So but they don't teach that. I'm assuming you're teaching this.
[00:28:51] Ed Stetzer: This is what we teach. Yeah. And I teach it some at Talbot School of Theology, but also this is the course I deliver right now.
[00:28:56] Léonce Crump: We did not learn this at RTS. Okay? They told me to preach good and disciple the people, and then everything else will take care of itself.
[00:29:03] Ed Stetzer: Well, and see, I would say it's a little tricky because in most seminary environments, the people who become professors become professors 'cause they're good scholars. They're not necessarily good leaders. They're not—
[00:29:12] Léonce Crump: practitioners.
[00:29:12] Ed Stetzer: Right. So we, you, what we do, like Brandon Cash teaches leadership for us, and, you know, Brandon is, he's the chaplain for the Dodgers. He's a teaching pastor at church. He's led things. Brian Howard teaches some leadership for us. I teach leadership for us. So we've all led in real world situations. So you gotta sorta... I mean, I don't want my Hebrew professor to teach leadership. And I have several Hebrew professors, and they're amazing. So I think that does make a difference. But you gotta get the leadership professor in there.
[00:29:35] Léonce Crump: Yeah. Because my leadership course at RTS- Let's just suffice it to say I could've, I could've read five Lindsay only books and gotten more
[00:29:42] Ed Stetzer: And we're, and we're very thankful, Linc Duncan for the good work—
[00:29:42] Léonce Crump: Love you.
[00:29:42] Ed Stetzer: —you're doing at Reformed Theological Seminary
[00:29:42] Léonce Crump: Love you.
[00:29:47] Ed Stetzer: Keep churning them out. You know, it was actually a seminary president named Danny Akin, who is retiring now—
[00:29:47] Léonce Crump: I know Dan
[00:29:52] Ed Stetzer: —who's the one who said to me. I said, "Why don't we teach leadership in seminary?" And he said, he said, "That's not the kind of person we end up teaching at seminary. We need to find ways to partner to teach leadership." Now, at Talbot, we actually have some people who... I just hired Jamie Grogan. You know Jamie?
[00:30:06] Léonce Crump: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Ed Stetzer: Yeah. So Jamie just joined our faculty. So for me, because I really, I'm a professor of leadership and mission, I built some faculty that can do that. It's hard and so let's just, let's be nice to seminaries.
[00:30:06] Léonce Crump: Yeah. So they're— No, and I love my seminaries. Yes. Yes I just hate that there are so many things I had to get on the other side.
[00:30:19] Ed Stetzer: Well, you can come to—
[00:30:20] Léonce Crump: RTS. So I just, I just finished my—
[00:30:20] Ed Stetzer: —I mean, you can come to Talbot
[00:30:22] Léonce Crump: I just finished my doctorate—
[00:30:22] Ed Stetzer: What'd you get it in?
[00:30:22] Léonce Crump: —in leadership at Metro Atlanta Seminary.
[00:30:25] Ed Stetzer: Oh, super. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another Presbyterian seminary. Another Presbyterian out of Perimeter Church. Perimeter Church. No, that's super. That's super. You know, there's still time. You could do another doctorate with me.
[00:30:31] Léonce Crump: Well, if my wife doesn't kill me, I will.
[00:30:33] Ed Stetzer: That's true. All right. Last question. Here we are. Again, I, I'm not a prophet, not the son of a prophet. I work at a nonprofit organization, but I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better in the next few years. And if that's the case, what word of exhortation, encouragement, hope do you have for pastors related to resilience and leadership and more?
[00:30:51] Léonce Crump: Fill in that bucket for me, worse. In what way? I—
[00:30:53] Ed Stetzer: In every way? No, fair enough. Fair enough. Well, I think- I think in past cultural convulsions, every 60 years, America seems to go through something like this. There was a higher level of violence. I think you're gonna see, I think, I hope not, I pray not, you're gonna see more violence. You're gonna see more division. I think the el- as elections are going back and forth, you can see people getting very—
[00:31:01] Léonce Crump: Yeah. You just saw what happened in the midterms
[00:31:12] Ed Stetzer: right, right, right, and so you see these kinds go back and forth with people. So I think that is what we're gonna see and it's not moving towards... You know, the '60s resolved by the early '70s. I don't think we're close to the resolution. I think it's gonna get worse. And I think globally, I mean, we're all waiting for China to invade Taiwan. We're still, you know, Pol- Russia and Ukraine are still going on and everyone in Poland is assuming that they're next. I mean, they're preparing for war.
[00:31:38] So I think it's unlike anything we've seen. And the ceasefire in Gaza is really— We don't know at the time this will release. We don't know if it's, what's holding, what's not. We're in something we've never seen before. I think the best guess is it's gonna get worse before it gets better. So what, how do pastors now... Give us hope.
[00:31:51] Léonce Crump: Yeah. I absolutely will. I would remind you that This is not new. Okay? Before the last election, I did a series out of Book of Daniel and I say this with no hubris, by God's grace, I think it's some of the finest work I've done. In painting a picture, the tagline was, "Living under leadership you didn't choose." And the whole idea was to show our people, number one, the right to vote is a new, is a new mechanism. Right? For most of human history the leader you had was either divine appointment in his eyes developed through nepotism, or military fiat.
[00:32:29] Like, that's how you got leaders. And so every other generation has had to learn how to live under leaders they didn't choose. And so we just walked through Daniel's story and the four or five administrations he served, depending on your perspective on Darius and Cyrus. And the whole point of that series was to show our people this feels bad It feels unprecedented, but it's not. And so how have God's people lived for generations through things like this and things worse than this? And so my encouragement, my admonition to my pastors and fellow leaders would be to remind yourself of that truth.
[00:33:13] Don't get caught up in believing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. It has been since before the resurrection, right? And so don't get caught up in that. Remind yourself of ancient Christianity. Remind yourself of the context of 1 Peter. Remind yourself of the context of Paul's letters and the Roman imperialism under which they were living. Remind yourself of why, the Judaizers were so frustrated with Peter for going to Cornelius's house. Like, remind yourself of these things, and remember that at the end of the day, especially for my reform brothers and sisters, if God is truly sovereign, then we can't live in panic. We can't live that way.
[00:33:53] And if we live in panic, then we're gonna lead our people in panic. We have to lead them with a steady hand, and that's not failing to acknowledge reality. In fact, I was almost late here because I got auto rebooked on my flight, and so I was on the phone to try and figure out how to get home tomorrow because they're pre-canceling a bunch of flights because of the lack of TSA workers and air traffic controllers. So I'm like, "I don't know how I'm gonna get home tomorrow." And that's a reality that we're navigating. And it... And so it's not failing to acknowledge reality. It is acknowledging reality in light of history, and I think that is one of the great failures of the Western education system, and I think it's one of the great failures of the church, is we're kinda ahistorical.
[00:34:31] We kinda start our life wherever we started and don't remember that there are generations of people who navigated generational things. And this is one of the stories I tell in my book, is if you were born in the '20s, you had the Spanish flu, World War I, and World War II all before you died. Okay? All before you died. It's one of the little anecdotes that we use in the book. Like imagine you were born in 1920s, and by the time you come, you make... You're middle-aged, you're in World War I. And by the time you retire, you're in World War II. Like, so this is not new. This is not new.
[00:35:03] And that's not to downplay it. But it is to remind us that we have to be heralds of history and consummation. This is what God did and who He was. This is who He is. This is who He will be. And as kings rise and fall, the King of kings remains on His throne.