Ms. Ann Bezzerides: Hi, everyone! Welcome to The Orthodox Leader. My name is Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides, and we are so glad you are joining us for episode number five. The goal of this podcast is to give you, Orthodox clergy and lay leaders, to give you the knowledge, tools, and resources you need to be better stewards of your influence and have a greater impact on the organizations you lead. I’m here today with Dn. Michael Hyatt! How are you doing, Dn. Michael?

Dn. Michael Hyatt: Ann, how are you doing?

Ms. Bezzerides: I’m good! Beautiful weekend here in New England.

Dn. Michael: Well, it’s beautiful down here in Nashville, Tennessee, too. One of my favorite, very favorite times of year.

Ms. Bezzerides: Well, we are grateful to be back with you again, and today we’re talking about the leadership strategies of Jesus. Dn. Michael, why is it important?

Dn. Michael: Well, I think the reason that it’s important, Ann, is because, basically, if we’re going to build a sustainable, effective ministry as leaders, we need an intentional leadership strategy. This is the sort of thing we can’t afford to be just reactive to; we have to be proactive, and we have to be thoughtful about what we do. And in this episode—this is going to be serious Bible study—we’re going to look at three leadership models from the Bible and then ask ourselves the question: How does this apply to our leadership in the context of the Orthodox Church?

Ms. Bezzerides: Okay, for our listeners, as we begin, let us encourage you to post your questions in the comment section of YouTube or wherever you happen to be watching. Dn. Michael will be answering those questions live in the second half of our show. If you want to ask your questions anonymously, you can text us at 615‐721‐2303. Okay, let’s dig in. Dn. Michael, please, tell us more about these three leadership strategies.

Dn. Michael: All righty. So as I begin, I want to give you or build a model for this. So, humanly speaking, and I suppose from the perspective of today, it seems like maybe Jesus—let me make sure I’ve got all my stuff going here—it may seem like Jesus came at the wrong time. I mean, if he had come today, there would be all kinds of communications technology that would be available to him that wasn’t available in his day. I mean, if you think about it—and here’s how I kind of think about it—he wanted to preach the good news, and we know that all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth—that’s 1 Timothy 2:4.

So he had to consider: How in the world can you reach the most people, but in the first century, his options were limited. However, if he had come today, think of what would have been possible! He could have taken advantage of all our modern communication strategies. For example, he could have had his own television show, which would be amazing, right? Or he could have had his own radio show, or, like so many of us do today, he could have had a podcast, or maybe written a New York Times bestselling book. And on top of all that, he could have used social media to get the word out.

But, here’s the thing. He didn’t do any of that. And in fact—this was suprising to me when I read it in Galatians 4:4, St. Paul says, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son.” He didn’t wait for the 21st century with all these communication technologies—no! He did it right there in the first century with none of that. So clearly strategy— Oh, Gail’s saying to me that I’ve got something on the screen… Oh, there we go; that’s better. So, yeah, he certainly could have waited till the 21st century and taken advantage of modern technology, but here’s the thing: he didn’t do that.

In modern Orthodoxy, I think sort of the de facto leadership strategy seems to be one where we expect the priest to do everything. It’s a little bit like the parish council president who said to his priest, “We pay you to be good, Father. We’re good for nothing!” Well, this is not the model for how God set it up originally. So I want us to listen to this passage from Ephesians 4:11-12, one of my very favorite verses in the Bible, but it says this:

And he himself, that is, Jesus, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Now, based on this verse, Ann, it’s the saints, not to refer to those who have been canonized and gone on to their rest, but the living people of God: the laity, and the clergy, all together. So this verse, it’s the saints who are primarily responsible for the work of ministry. So, yes, God’s given the clergy to the Church, but their primary job, in addition to serving liturgy and all the things that they do, and indeed the work of ministry—one of their primary functions is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. I don’t think we practice that too often. Does that make sense?

Ms. Bezzerides: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. It’s also really powerful.

Dn. Michael: Yeah, I think we have got to be aware that that’s our function. And again, I don’t think that it means that we have to give up anything else that we’re doing as clergy or as leaders in the Church. Certainly our job is to do some work, and we have our areas of responsibility in all of that, but if we’re not equipping the people that we lead, we’ve kind of failed in our role as leaders. I think that’s one of the primary tasks of leaders, is to equip the people that we’re leading so that they can co-labor with us. This is not a solo sport. Leadership is intended—ministry is intended—to be a team sport.

So that’s kind of my thoughts on this whole thing.

Ms. Bezzerides: I think. Let me say something a little bit, about the Telos Project. We’re actually asking young adults to do ministry, and every time I say it, I get nervous as I say it. This sort of: “Wait, are we really asking people to do ministry? Isn’t that what those trained in seminaries are supposed to do?” But it’s right here in Ephesians: “equipping the saints for the work of ministry.” So we’ve misdefined “ministry” maybe then, too.

Dn. Michael: Yeah, we have, and it’s no wonder—and we talked about this last week when we talked about self-care, but it’s no wonder that so many pastors, so many senior priests, feel absolutely, utterly overwhelmed. It’s all these clergy statistics that we looked at last week, too, of why so many are frustrated, burnt-out, broken down, ready to quit. And it’s certainly not all, but enough that it should be of concern to us. And maybe the problem is in the model of ministry that we’ve adopted, that we think it falls on us, especially those of you who are watching or who are listening who are senior pastors, thinking it’s all up to you. And the people think that maybe their role is to help fund it—sometimes they don’t even do that—but it’s very easy to get into this model where the only person active is the senior priest, and the laity simply sit passive and don’t really do anything. They’re just like every other kind of consumeristic thing in our culture, where the entertainment model is prevalent, where people are just kind of watching—they don’t have popcorn, but they’re pretty much watching while the priest runs himself ragged. And that’s not fair to the priest and it’s not good for the people.

Ms. Bezzerides: Wow. So you’ve got a lot to teach us on, Dn. Michael, on how we begin to help leaders rethink of literally equipping the saints: equipping people for ministry and not a show with popcorn… without popcorn. [Laughter] And how do we begin that? How do we even begin to think about it? How do we do that?

Dn. Michael: Well, one of the things I’ve done here is try to break this down into three different leadership models. They’re all very similar, as people will see as we go through this. They’re all very similar, but I think what this is going to show is the importance of making sure that we’re equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, so maybe we should just dive into that.

Ms. Bezzerides: Sounds great.

Dn. Michael: Okay! So let me give you kind of the leadership strategy of Jesus. So it consists basically of five parts. Gail’s saying we’ve got a little bit of an echo here. Gail’s my wife, and she’s listening here, so I’m going to see if I can make sure that echo cancellation is on, and I can’t remember where that happens, so let me just see… John, if you’re listening you could text it to me; that would be awesome, because I don’t know where that is.

Ms. Bezzerides: I don’t hear your echo. I wonder if it’s both of us or just me particularly.

Dn. Michael: Yeah, it could be. So our team is saying that it’s you, but I don’t think… You might just try turning down your audio just a little bit, the audio that’s coming back to you.

Ms. Bezzerides: How’s that? A little better?

Dn. Michael: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m hoping that it is.

Ms. Bezzerides: Well, you talk; I’ll fiddle around with mine.

Dn. Michael: Yeah. Maybe in the meantime John can text me and tell me how to fix that if there’s a simple fix for it.

Okay, so model number one, the leadership strategy of Jesus. Basically it consists of five parts, and this is the part that, if you’re watching or listening, you need to pay attention to. So first of all, Jesus led himself, and this is where all true leadership starts. Self-leadership always precedes team leadership and public influence. If you can’t lead yourself, you can’t and shouldn’t lead others. And the reason for that is something I like to refer to as the law of replication. We will, as leaders, replicate ourselves in the lives of those that are following us, those that we’re leading.

This is why, when you walk into different cultures—it might be a church, it might be a corporate culture—you’ll notice that people take on a lot of the same language patterns, a lot of the same behavioral patterns, sometimes they even dress in a similar way. And it’s just kind of unconscious, but leaders replicate themselves; like begets like. And that’s why we’ve got to lead ourselves first. This is why Jesus often withdrew to quiet places to pray. See Matthew 14:23, for example, Luke 5:16, and 6:12, and 22:41-44. He knew that his character and his identity was the foundation of his ministry.

And this is so important in my estimation, Ann. This is why we spent three episodes—episodes two, three, and four—on this very topic of self-leadership. It’s that critically important. So if those of you listening haven’t heard those, let me encourage you to go back and listen to those episodes. So that’s the first step: leading our self.

Second, Jesus confided in the three. He had this inner circle comprised of Peter, James, and John, and he did special things with them; he took them on special outings that he didn’t take the Twelve on, for example, the Transfiguration. He revealed to them his greatest glory and his deepest temptations: you remember that they were with him in the garden. They got to see a side of him that even the other nine disciples didn’t get to see. He prayed with them. He taught them things he didn’t teach the others. And he even introduced them to his heavenly family in the Transfiguration. They were his closest friends and his confidants.

Then he trained the Twelve. So he chose the twelve disciples to be “with him.” That’s the language out of Mark 3:14. He chose them that they might be with him, and I talked about this a little bit a couple weeks ago when we were talking about self-care; maybe it was last week. So he trained the Twelve. He chose them to be with him. He taught them; he also gave them assignments. He shared with them his daily life. His training was not so much a program as much as it was life on life. He poured out his life to them. And like the Apostle Paul would do years later, he poured into them his very life, and I would encourage you all to look at 1 Thessalonians 2:8 in that regard. And because of this, he entrusted them with power to do the work that he himself had done, and in fact he promised them that they would actually do greater works.

Okay, so then that leads us to the 70; he mobilized the 70. So Jesus had a smaller, more intimate group that he gave specific assignments. You will recall, he sent them out two by two. He asked for a big commitment. He gave them virtually no resources. I hear people in churches complain all the time, and I’ve probably been guilty of it myself: complaining for a lack of resources—but Jesus gave them virtually nothing! And yet he demanded that they perform miracles. He told them to expect opposition, and he promised no earthly reward. So he asked for a big, big commitment.

Then—and this is usually the place we go—but he taught the multitudes. Yeah, Jesus had a public ministry. He occasionally spoke to thousands. However, he didn’t pander to these groups or tickle their ears. He confronted the status quo. He jarred his listeners’ sensibilities. He often taught in parables that were inscrutable to the people he was talking to. And interestingly, he didn’t feel the need to clarify everything: he often left his audience confused and wondering what he meant. And his goal was apparently to shift their paradigm and get them to think.

I wonder how often we’re doing that in the Church, where we’re shifting people’s paradigms and getting them to think differently, because the truth is the world teaches us so much that’s counter to what the Church has for us, and it will be confusing to people that are just confronting it for the first time. I know when I became Orthodox, some 37 years ago, I was so confused by it all, trying to make sense of it all, trying to kind of rethink what I thought before as a Protestant and to kind of reorient my thinking. In fact, I’ve got another podcast, At the Intersection of East and West, where we’re going through Dr. Jeannie Constantinou’s book, Thinking Orthodox, and that’s all about developing an Orthodox phronema. And it’s tricky, and it’s hard, and I love that I’m immersing myself in it. I oftentimes teach things so that I can better understand them.

But this strategy of Jesus achieved the breadth that so many leaders want today. He was able to minister to the many because he focused on the few. However, it required that he gives those closest to him more access; it required more investment on his part and on their part, but it resulted in a greater transformation.

So, Ann, let me just give you another story or another illustration that I think will be helpful here. So we’re all familiar with these, I think? Russian nesting dolls. I love these things! So here’s the first one: This is like Jesus. Leaders, those who are listening and watching, this is like you. But then there has to be built kind of around you sort of the next layer. So that’s layer two of the Russian nesting dolls. Think of that as the three. Then we have the Twelve, the next layer up. Then we have the 70. And then we eventually get to the multitudes. So I’m stacking these Russian dolls, for those of you who are listening and not watching; I’m just stacking those Russian nesting dolls together.

So Jesus’ leadership strategy, this strategy that I’ve already articulated, this five-part strategy, evidently worked well. Why? Because within a generation his followers turned the world upside-down. That’s literally what Acts 17:6 says. Within seven generations, the Emperor Constantine accepted his message and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. And here we are, Ann, almost two millennia later, talking about it.

And let me just make one more comment, and then I want to hear your thoughts on this. But for me, after interacting with leaders at every level for almost four decades now, my observation is that most leaders only focus on the last two parts of the strategy, leap-frogging over the first three. So they’ve got a public teaching ministry—they’re concerned about the masses—and they’re good at mobilizing groups for special assignments, like when the bishop comes or there’s an annual festival or something like that. However, very few intentionally train a small group of disciples. Even fewer build deep relationships with a handful of confidants. And fewer still lead themselves well. And as a result, they don’t have the kind of lasting impact they could have. So I think the biggest takeaway from this first model is that you have to go deep with the few if you want a ministry that will meet the needs of the many and especially if you want to have lasting impact.

Ms. Bezzerides: Wow. So much to unpack! And I am getting a little echo myself, so I’ll just speak just a few words, then I’ll pass it back to you. You know, I think as I think about this, immediately what comes to mind is that Peter, James, and John, and then the Twelve, weren’t perfect. Jesus didn’t even really control them at all. They kept getting things wrong, for a long time. [Laughter]

Dn. Michael: They did.

Ms. Bezzerides: And yet, it was the strategy; it was the leadership strategy. And just the incredible trust that Jesus had that this was going to work amidst the ups and downs of it all. And then also I think about it a lot for clergy, certain solo clergy at parishes. They can’t hire three and twelve and have that be the team the way someone running a business would. And yet Jesus didn’t hire them; he wasn’t hiring Peter, James, and John.

Dn. Michael: I think that’s sometimes where we kind of professionalize the ministry. And again, we’ve fallen into the same paradigm, that unless you’re full-time, paid clergy, you can’t do the ministry, and we shouldn’t expect the laity to do the ministry. And I think that’s what’s got to shift, especially given the fact that we have such an enormous clergy shortage, and we’ve got all these people that have all kinds of gifts and talents and time and treasure and other resources, and it’s kind of on us to mobilize those people, to train those people, to give them a vision for what ministry could look like for them.

Ms. Bezzerides: I love it.

Dn. Michael: All right. Should I go to the second model?

Ms. Bezzerides: Let’s do it, but let me just encourage our listeners to post your questions in the comments section of YouTube or wherever you happen to be watching. Dn. Michael will be answering those questions live in just a few minutes. If you want to ask your question anonymously, you can text us at 615‐721‐2303.

Dn. Michael: All righty. So I want to talk about model two, and it’s the leadership strategy of Moses. Actually, let me just go here before I share this verse with you. Believe it or not, this strategy, this leadership strategy of focusing on the few, didn’t originate with Jesus. He borrowed it, like so much that he borrowed from the Old Testament, because he was the fulfillment of the shadow that was revealed in the Old Testament. So the first time that we encounter this strategy, albeit in a slightly different form, is in Exodus 18. So I want to start reading this verse, and it’s a long passage, so everybody hang with me, but here’s what it says. I’m starting in verse 13; Exodus 18:13.

And so it was on the next day that Moses sat to judge the people. And the people stood before Moses from morning until evening.

So he’s putting in the hours! Then the text goes on to say:

When Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, saw all that he did for the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit and all the people stand before you from morning till evening?” And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and the other, and I make known the statutes of God and his laws.”

So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out, for this thing is too much for you! You are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen to my voice” (Jethro says) “I will give you counsel, and God will be with you.”

Ann, in my experience, too many pastors are trying to go it alone. However, as I said earlier, ministry is a team sport. God never intended it to be a solo sport, and yet we’re trying to bear this burden that, frankly, is unbearable. Well, Jethro goes on to say, in verse 19:

He says, “Listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel, and God will be with you. Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God, and you shall teach them the statutes of the laws and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do.” He says, “Moreover, you shall select from all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.”

Okay, so the numbers are different, and now I’m commenting on the verse. The numbers are different, but the concept is the same. It’s kind of the Russian doll thing again. So Jethro continues:

“Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge, so it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure.”

So this is like the secret to long-term ministry, to sustainability! And then he continues:

“And all these people will also go to their place in peace.”

Now, I referred to this as the leadership strategy of Moses, but kind of, to give credit where credit’s due, this is the leadership strategy of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law.

I want to just kind of show—and those of you listening, I’ll describe this—what it looks like, and this is very similar to the same kind of model that we had with Jesus. So we’ve got Moses, and if you think of this as concentric circles that come out from Moses— So we’ve got Moses leading himself, of course. However, he stops trying to take care of everyone else’s problems on his own. So instead he heeds his father-in-law’s voice, and he appoints rulers of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. So, Ann, from my perspective, the big take-away here from the second model is that your leadership strategy is going to have an impact on you and on those you’re leading. If you choose the wrong model, you’re going to wear yourself out, and the people’s needs are going to go unmet. And most of all, it’s just simply unsustainable.

Ms. Bezzerides: “So that you will be able to endure.” I love the way that goes.

Dn. Michael: Isn’t that interesting?

Ms. Bezzerides: So clear. Yeah.

Dn. Michael: Yeah, I don’t— I think there’s so much to that, but I think Moses was doing what I see a lot of especially young leaders do, or sometimes older leaders that just haven’t been trained. They just think it’s all on them, and they may complain about it, they may be frustrated, they may have to confess frustration and anger toward the parish council or toward the congregation, toward the faithful, but the truth is: they kind of got the wrong model. And I think that it’s up to the leaders—all of us that are leading; I don’t care what position you’re leading—I lead a couple of organizations; I know you do, too—it’s up to us to articulate this model, and—and this is the important part—we’ve got to cast the vision for ministry by everybody. So that’s part of what we’re called to as Christians, is to a ministry.

It’s not just where the priest is going to do it all and we’re going to sit back and watch, but we’ve got to accept responsibility for the ministry God has committed to us, and if you’re a layperson watching this, you should have a ministry to. I mean, it doesn’t really matter what it is: What’s God called you to? And this is something, a consultation you should have with your spiritual father or local parish priest, and to go to them and to say, “Where can I help? Where can I help shoulder the burden of this ministry so that it’s not just you, Father? I want to be somebody that helps you with this.” So does that make sense?

Ms. Bezzerides: Oh, it makes a ton of sense. I love it, and I love thinking in that way. I think so much we also need to sort of revive what it looks like to use our time in service of our church communities in real ways, in our sort of modern, fast-paced life, and the lure of Netflix I think sometimes draws us away from using our time substantially in service of a place like our parish. So I think about that a lot. How do we energize people to use their time in service of the ministry of the Church? And then I also think ministry isn’t in the confines of the things we do in and around a parish. That any Christian taking their life seriously as a Christian will have ministry in their place of work, and that, discerning what that is, in whatever field you’re in, takes prayer and wisdom, but that that is ministry, too.

Dn. Michael: Absolutely, and it’s important ministry, because the truth is the parish priest can’t go to those places where you are. And unless we accept responsibility for ministry in the marketplace or wherever we may find ourselves, ministry’s not going to happen. It’s up to us, and I think that’s one of the things that the early Church did so well, is everybody took responsibility for ministry. Certainly the disciples did, and, as we’ll see, those who followed them also did the same.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s great. Folks, please post your questions in the comments section of YouTube or wherever you happen to be watching. Dn. Michael will be answering those questions live in just a few minutes. If you want to ask your question anonymously, you can text us at 615‐721‐2303.

Dn. Michael: Okay, so we talked about model number one, the leadership strategy of Jesus; we looked at model number two, the leadership strategy of Moses. And what I want us to look at now is the leadership strategy of St. Paul. So it didn’t begin with Jesus, and it didn’t end with Jesus. So St. Paul provides a similar model in 2 Timothy 2:2. He says to his spiritual son, Timothy; he says:

In the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people, or faithful men, who will also be qualified to teach others.

So what I see here, Ann, is a very similar model. Again, the nomenclature is slightly different, but the Russian nesting doll metaphor still applies. So let’s overlay Jesus’ model with St. Paul’s. St. Paul leads himself, certainly, and in fact he can say to the Corinthians; he says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” That’s a bold statement, if you think about it, for anybody to be able to make: “Follow me as I follow Christ.” But here St. Paul leads himself. Then he passes it on to Timothy, who passes it on to faithful men, who pass it on to others, who eventually pass it on to the multitudes and indeed the world.

I’m not going to take time to build it out tonight, but there’s a sense in which the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch kind of articulate this same kind of model, because there you have bishops, priests, deacons, the faithful, and then eventually non-Christians. So working together, as St. Ignatius says, as a symphony, with the bishop leading. All these things work together in order to accomplish the ministry of the Church. And it’s designed to be like a symphony, with the bishop as the conductor, and all of us playing our appointed instruments at the right time and in the right way.

So I think if there’s a take-away here it’s that this third model, you have to focus really on finding and developing reliable people, what the New King James calls “faithful men.” But that’s where it often breaks down or it doesn’t break down. And one of the things that you’ll see as you look throughout the New Testament is you see these qualifications for deacons and these qualifications for priests or presbyters, and qualifications for bishops, and even, if you go back to Acts 6, where the first deacons were appointed, there was a list of qualifications. The key is to find trustworthy people, reliable people, that can co-labor with you in God’s vineyard, whatever that may be—whether that’s at work or that’s in the Church or whether that’s in a parish or organization that serves alongside the Church.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s so helpful. I think— As I think about it, I was thinking about our Church in general, and I think a lot of our camping ministries and OCF and CrossRoad, they end up being structured such that you have a leader and you sort of have a core staff of people, and then you have your next group out of the staff, the camp staff. And that works well. That sort of… Our camping programs are working, more or less, in the Church. And so we’re modeling that.

I think, as I think about this on the local level, on the parish level, I guess I immediately think—I’ve heard clergy say to me, “I can’t get too close to the people,” for a whole bunch of reasons. And what are the reasons—what are the reasons you think that local leaders, local clergy especially, would do this, because of some risk of getting too close to people, and the challenges there? What are the obstacles, do you think, for local clergy, for having this, especially working on the three and the twelve?

Dn. Michael: You know, I think there’s several obstacles. One is that I think that it’s difficult to be vulnerable and transparent. I used to think—I can compare it to parenting. I used to think with my daughters—I have five of them. I used to think, “Wow, if I’m really honest, they’ll lose respect for me.” And this is so counter-intuitive: it’s the exact opposite. When I share with them something I’m going through—and obviously you’ve got to be discreet about it—their respect goes up for me. And I’ve found that the same in the workplace. I’ve run small organizations and I’ve run large organizations with over 750 people. And I’ve found that if I can be vulnerable, people are willing to step in.

But I think there’s a lot of pressure on leaders today, and maybe it’s even worse in the Church, that we’ve got to be perceived or project that we’ve got it all together, so that we don’t have anything lacking, that we’ve got it all, especially if you’ve been professionally trained. To admit that you may not have it all figured out, you think that people will react to that. No. People will follow you. There was a reason Jesus led his three confidants—Peter, James, and John—to the garden and saw him as he talked with the Father. Obviously, somebody heard that conversation with the Father, where he said, “If it be your will, let this cup pass from me.” Well, that’s a very vulnerable thing to say, but that’s how he felt. And he was honest about it, and the disciples heard that. He wasn’t afraid to let them hear his struggle.

And so I think that we’ve got to be the same, and if we try to project that we’re perfect, that we’ve got it all figured out, that we’re not struggling with anything—that actually discourages people. And I’ve had people say that to me. They said, “You know,” when I’ve shared some struggle or some failing, people will say, “You know, I’m just so grateful to know that you struggle with the same things I struggle with.” That’s what creates connection. It’s not by what separates ourselves and acting like we’ve got it all figured out, but it’s that vulnerability that creates the connection.

Now here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying I think the pastor should stand up and confess his sins to the congregation, but what I am saying is that there ought to be a group of people, a group of leaders who are committed to doing ministry with him, that he can be more vulnerable with, that he can share his fears and his concerns and what he’s struggling with and some of his questions and frustrations and all that.

I know I had a conversation with my pastor last week, where he was sharing some frustrations, and all that did was draw me to him. It made me esteem him even more, because I thought to myself, “He’s like us.” And we can remember that passage in Hebrews—I think it may be in Hebrews 4—but we don’t have a high priest that can’t understand what we’re going through. No, we have someone who is like us in everything but sin. And so that’s a comfort to us.

Ms. Bezzerides: So, as I think about it, here’s a sort of question to just really provoke something. As a priest who’s choosing the three and the twelve, are the twelve parish council and then three are the favorites on parish council? [Laughter]

Dn. Michael: Yeah, it’s a good question, and I think that it’s going to be different in different contexts, like in a company context, which is where I work most of the time, I’ve got an executive committee that’s made up of my CFO and my daughter who’s the CEO, and we meet once a week. We deal with the weightier things and the real challenges, and we’re super honest with each other. But then we have an executive team—and I’m going to come back and apply this to the church in a minute, but we have an executive team, of about five or six other people, who lead the functional areas of our company, whether it’s marketing or product or sales or finance or whatever. And then we have the larger group of employees, and we have about 65 full-time employees right now. So I kind of see them as beyond the twelve, but sort of that… like the 70, that those are the people we mobilize to accomplish things in the world to meet the needs of our clients and customers.

So how does that apply to a church? Well, it depends on the context. Certainly if you have multiple clergy in your parish—and then I realize that that’s a rare thing and a privileged thing, but in our parish we do have multiple clergy. We have about five deacons; we have three priests. And so I think those can certainly be your confidants; maybe your fellow priests. But then, beyond that, it could be your parish council, that you might make equivalent to the twelve. But those are people in whom you ought to be pouring your life. If all you’re doing with the parish council is getting together to do the business of the church, and particularly administrative business of the church, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

It’s a cost for people to sit on the parish council. They’re giving up their time, they’re giving up watching Netflix on that night; they’re giving up whatever they give up to be on the parish council. Usually those people are expected and hopefully do make a more significant financial contribution. But if all they’re doing is going through the administration of the church, that’s not really… That’s a missed opportunity. We need to be thinking: How can we build into the lives of those people?

Maybe it’s also the parish Sunday school teachers that could be another level that we invest in. Those people are certainly mobilized. Or the people who are the head of the various ministries in the church. As leaders, what are we doing to build into the lives of those people. I think in your context, whatever it may be, those of you who that are listening, whatever your context may be, you’ve got to kind of figure that out. What are the different layers and how are you going to respond or pour into the lives of each of those?

You can’t give yourself to everybody! You can’t do the same ministry to everybody. You just can’t. And Jesus didn’t! And so what he did was he spent more time with the Twelve, for sure, and even more time with the three, and certainly more with those inner circle groups than with any of the multitude. And, yes, we have a public ministry. We’re expected to lead or to celebrate the various liturgical services of the Church, expected to preach—those are all ministry, in a way, to the multitudes, but they’re also opportunities to build into the lives of the faithful, and to mobilize them for the work of ministry, not only in the church but beyond the church walls. So I think it’s a good exercise, and I would just encourage, especially pastors, but even in civil leadership, to get alone, to pray about this, and to identify these different groups, and to come up with what I would call a cadence of communication, or a cadence of— so what are the attributes of those relationships going to look like?

For example, as I mentioned, I meet with my executive committee once a week. I meet with the executive team every two weeks. And I’m pretty much poured into their lives. Most of our business is business coaching, and so we have a group of about 14 business coaches, and I make it a point to pour into their lives once a month. So we have a coach training session where I’m teaching them how to be better coaches. So I think that’s the question to ask: What do people need to be more effective ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? How can I equip them to do that? Because education certainly shouldn’t end when catechism does, and holy illumination—baptism, chrismation—is just the beginning, really, of our education, and it should go on forever.

Ms. Bezzerides: I love that. I also love how you’ve named some groups that already exist within the parish structure, like Sunday school teachers, so that if somebody’s listening to you and thinking, “Oh my gosh, another thing I have to add to my plate? Whom am I going to find?” they’re already there.

Dn. Michael: They are, and the challenging thing is we think— It’s kind of like the proverbial leader who doesn’t want to delegate because it takes more time than just doing it him- or herself. And if you’re a leader and you’ve ever had that thought, you’re normal. “I’m just going to do this myself, because it takes too much time to try to explain it.” Well, it does the first couple of times you delegate it, but once you get those people to whom you’re delegating up and running, it gives you exponentially time back. But it takes that initial investment.

But you’re going to invest your time somewhere. You’re either going to stay on the hamster wheel and keep ministering to the multitudes, so to speak, and have this public ministry and continue to shoulder all the things—and I’m thinking already we’ve got Advent coming up, Christmas, then Epiphany, and then house blessings, all these things. And there’s certain things that sacramentally only a priest can do. But that’s a question to ask yourself, if you’re a priest: What are the things that only you can do, and what are the things that you think only you can do, but maybe what you’ve got is a limiting belief, and maybe what you need to do is to reframe that. There may be a lot of things that other people could do, and, frankly, would be better at it than you are. But the few things that you can do and only you can do, that’s where you’ve got to be focused.

Ms. Bezzerides: So I’m thinking about our listeners, and I’m thinking: Okay, if I had three and twelve, or some sort of equivalent, and one feels like I have a wayward disciple or a toxic person in the group… And we think about Jesus and his interactions with his disciples. You sort of say, “He was God, and he knew how to pick…” [Laughter] And I think about it, and I think there’s this powerful passage in Luke that we hear about the disciples arguing among themselves about which one is the greatest: these moments where Jesus is like: “Guys! You’re getting it all wrong!”

Dn. Michael: Exactly.

Ms. Bezzerides: And I guess for us as human leaders, when— do you have any counsel of when you just— you’re still hoping that the teaching just needs to keep going, and that they are the disciple, and you have hope on the other end? And when, really, they have become a toxic leader in the community and they’re somebody you actually need to put some distance with and figure out a different person at that time or place? Does that make sense?

Dn. Michael: It does. Well, I think that one of the things that we have to consider and we have to ask the question: If Jesus was God, and he selected these disciples, he didn’t have a perfect record, right? He picked Judas, and that was a pretty big bust. There’s probably a lot of reasons for that. In God’s economy, he had to be betrayed, and all that kind of stuff, but I think also, by way of example, I think he kind of takes the pressure off us. We’re not going to always get it right. We’re going to pull people in close that end up betraying us. Everything that Jesus did was an example for us. Everything that we experience—there’s nothing that we experience that he didn’t experience also. But he was betrayed, but it didn’t keep him from picking the Twelve, and when that one fell off, they picked another one to replace him, and that’s sometimes what we have to do.

But I’ll tell you what’s interesting, Ann, is that I think—again, I see leaders and particularly Christian leaders struggling with this—where they’re willing to complain about that person that’s toxic, but they’re often unwilling to talk directly to that person who’s toxic. And I think that that is a critical, important part of leadership. We need to seek to be direct, certainly kind, but to speak the truth in love. That’s the goal. St. Paul says that in Ephesians 4; I believe it’s verse 15—but speaking the truth in love. That’s the goal. And that’s difficult to do without the inspiration and help of the Holy Spirit, because it’s easy to just think that we’re going to speak in love and overlook people’s sin or overlook their toxicity or their annoying behavior or their disruptive behavior.

But here again, people can’t read their minds, and people are often amazingly unaware—un-self-aware—of what they’re doing. And a lot of the time it’s not malicious; they just don’t know any better. They just don’t know how they’re coming off. And I think that’s up to leaders. If you’re not willing to do this, you’re going to have a tough go of leadership, but you’ve got to speak directly into their lives. It’s got to be with love, and obviously without love just speaking the truth is not that helpful either. That’s a good way to alienate people and really frustrate people and get people angry with you and produce a lot of conflict. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and. We’ve got to speak the truth in love, and we have to be willing to do that.

I always refer to this as having an adult conversation. I’ll have a leader, and he’ll say, “You know, this person that’s on my team is so annoying, or they’re so negative, or they’re fighting me this.” I say, “Have you talked to them about it?” “Well, no. I haven’t talked to them about it yet.” Well, again you’re expecting them to read your mind! And here’s the thing: no one can read your mind! Not even your spouse. You know, I’ve been married for 42 years. I can’t read Gail’s mind; she can’t read my mind. And yet, we sometimes act as though they can, so we’ve got to speak up. And I think if there’s behavior that needs correction, the first thing you’ve got to do is try to correct it. You can’t just pull the plug, flush that person, and get somebody else. And I know that sounds easier, but it’s not! We’re in the people-development business, and we have to do our dead-level best to try to develop the people that we’re leading.

Now, if it gets to a point where we can’t lead them, then we may have to ask them to step down or move aside, but that’s on them. But we’ve got to give it at least an honest try. And I like this passage where Jesus talks about it in Matthew 18, one of my favorite passages, verses 16-17: “If your brother sins”—it doesn’t say, “put him on the prayer list”; it doesn’t say, “talk about him to other people”; it doesn’t say, “complain about him under the guise of asking for prayer. No, it says, “If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private.” That’s where it’s got to start. We’ve got to go and reprove those people in private.

Then it says, “If they don’t listen to you”—if they do listen to you, awesome! You’ve won your brother or your sister. “If they don’t listen to you, take two or three more with you so that every word can be confirmed.” So you can’t just stop even if they don’t hear you the first time. You may have to go back. And so there’s a whole series of escalating confrontation in that passage to ultimately—and God forbid that this would ever happen—would lead to excommunication. But we at least got to start at the very beginning of confronting that person in private.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s so good. I definitely struggle with confrontation.

Dn. Michael: Me, too!

Ms. Bezzerides: And I think what I’ve learned, the hard way, is, number one, sometimes I just have to write out everything first, what I need to say. And then I’ll say about a tenth of what I’ve written. [Laughter] And then I sometimes have a couple great friends who are much better at it, whom I literally need to rehearse with.

Dn. Michael: It’s great. I never go into those tough conversations without talking points, and the reason why is whenever I have one of those conversations—and even though I own my own business; I’ve got a lot of leadership experience—I get nervous. Sometimes I can’t sleep the night before, and the thought of having to confront somebody with something is really tough. And so I do the same thing you do. I put together talking points. I usually start with the conclusion. I’m willing to say the tough thing. But I’m also doing it in the context of real care and real love for that person, and I remind them of their value, and I say, “But this is getting in the way. And this needs to be fixed.”

Now, interestingly, we just a question on the anonymous line. Do you want me to read it?

Ms. Bezzerides: Yeah!

Dn. Michael: So this person said:

Hello. If a parish finds itself in a situation where the priest and the parish council demonstrate apathy, what can concerned parishioners do to effect a change? We’ve lost good parishioners because of the apathy. Our priest is retiring, and we will be welcoming a new priest and his family to our parish. I am hopeful that he will re-energize our parishioners. How can parishioners not in leadership roles help our new priest? Several of us are Sunday school teachers and directors and have worked to keep our Sunday school interested and meaningful. I thank you for your comments.

Okay, Ann, I did the heavy lifting of reading the question, so I’m going to let you answer it.

Ms. Bezzerides: Woo! [Laughter] Okay, wow. First of all, thank you to the listener. I’m so glad—I had a hunch about the anonymous line. I had a hunch. But thank you for asking this question, and you are not alone. I have had several other people reach out to me recently with similar questions. In our TELOS design, the first thing is: Listen, and figure out why people are apathetic? What is the narrative that the people will tell to narrate their apathy? Why are they no longer engaged by church life? And what are the stories they can tell?

And then what are their best hopes for what the community could and should be? And where could they dream about a new possibility for how this parish would actually make a difference in their lives? But I think hearing the stories of where the apathy comes from, where were the things broken—maybe trust broken, or who knows—I don’t know the particular parish context, but that would be my instinct. Dn. Michael?

Dn. Michael: Yeah, I think it’s such a good question, and I think it also may go back to being willing to have those difficult conversations. And maybe, like you said, listen first. Seek to understand first. And just say, “Look, this is my observation. What am I missing? Tell me where I’m wrong, because this is the observation that I’m seeing.” So you could approach it with humility and still get to it. And by the way, my wife Gail just prompted me on this; she says she would recommend this book which is fantastic, which is called Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High. Have you read that?

Ms. Bezzerides: It’s on my bedside table! I’ve got it, but I haven’t read the whole thing.

Dn. Michael: Well, it’s a great book. It’s a book that we recommend to all our clients, particularly those in leadership.

We’ve got a question from Emi, and I want to put this up. So she says:

So it seems to me that the state of the soul is intimacy with one’s soul. Why should I demonstrate it when God tells us to be humble and devoted to him? That’s what priests are for.

I’m not sure I fully understand the question, Emi, but thank you for asking it. I don’t know that you’re saying this, but it might be the case where you’re saying this, and that is that, look, I don’t have any right to confront somebody else. Is this what you’re taking away from this, Ann? I don’t have any right to confront somebody else. That’s kind of the priest’s job; I need to stay humble. Do you want me to put it up again?

Ms. Bezzerides: Yeah, no, I’m looking at it. “It seems to me that the state of the soul is intimacy with one’s soul. Why should I demonstrate it when God tells us to be humble and devoted to him? That’s what priests are for.” I think your guess was good.

Dn. Michael: Okay. Well, yeah, I think that the problem is that there’s so many admonitions in the Scripture that this is everyone’s responsibility. So when Jesus says, “If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private,” he wasn’t speaking to the clergy; he was speaking to the people. When he says, “When your brother is caught in his sin (Galatians 6:1), those who are spiritual go and reprove one”—so that may be the closest to it, but even there in that context, I don’t think that’s thinking of the professional clergy; that’s basically the more spiritually mature people in the congregation. Those are the people that have the responsibility.

We’ve got another anonymous question; two more, in fact. I’m mindful of the time, because I know that we’ve got five minutes left. Okay, so the next question is:

How can we create a different culture to help pastors from burning out? How can a pastor get the support of his council for more help, like youth pastors, and how can a pastor cast the vision to the laity to help with ministry? Any tips?

Ooh, that’s such a good question. Okay.

Ms. Bezzerides: Great question.

Dn. Michael: Number one, preach on it! Use the opportunity of the pulpit to preach on it and cast vision. Preach on Ephesians 4:11-12, and basically shift the paradigm and help people understand that they are responsible for ministry. That’s where I would start, and then I would begin to recruit people. Maybe you’re just going to start a Bible study with a handful of people that seem to be those that are more committed. Maybe it’s the Sunday school teachers, maybe it’s the people on the parish council; maybe it’s taking part of that parish council meeting and not doing administration, but taking 15 or 20 minutes and using it for the purpose of education and for training.

That’s something we do at St. Vladimir’s Seminary where I serve as the executive chair. We used to just go in for the administrative meetings, but none of the trustees signed up because of that. It’s because they love the seminary and they want to grow deeper in their faith. So now what we do—and in fact we’re doing this next week—we’ve got our board meeting on Friday, and Thursday is trustee education day, so a couple of the professors will come in; they will give lectures, and we will eat it up! We will love it, and it will make us better leaders.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s awesome.

Dn. Michael: All right. We’d better probably wrap it up here so that you can get back to your family.

Ms. Bezzerides: Do you have one more? Weren’t there two questions?

Dn. Michael: No, there was just that one. I thought it was a second one, but I was misreading it.

Ms. Bezzerides: Got it. Yeah, no, that’s so good. I love our listeners’ questions. The other thing I started doing with my team is once a week, just a vision huddle, where we just— It’s not long. It’s 10, 15 minutes of going back to the stuff that inspires us.

Dn. Michael: That’s good.

Ms. Bezzerides: Yeah, and it just makes a huge difference. We come out of it on a—I think we all do—on a sort of high, because we remember why we’re doing the work.

Dn. Michael: Well, I’m going to talk about this a little bit next week, because we’re going to get super practical next week. I’m going to be talking about how to lead productive meetings, and one of the things I’m going to talk about is sort of that vision component, and reminding ourselves where we’re seeing success and where God’s blessing us, so that we put everything—all the challenges that we have in the church—in the context of God’s at work in our lives.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s awesome. Okay, let’s summarize this great wisdom, Dn. Michael, as it’s passed off. We discussed three leadership models: The leadership strategy of Jesus; the take-away here is we need to focus on the few in order to reach the many. The leadership strategy of Moses, number two; the take-away here is that when it comes to ministry, we can’t go at it alone; if we try, we will wear ourselves out and the people we’re leading will suffer. And the third is the leadership strategy of St. Paul; the take-away here is that these models only work if we find reliable and trustworthy people to help us. Okay, with all that, we are so grateful for you, Dn. Michael.

Dn. Michael: Thank you, Ann.

Ms. Bezzerides: That’s all the time we have for this episode, but we so appreciate everyone joining us. We appreciate the questions, and we will be here again, God willing, next week at the same time. We plan to discuss—and I’m so excited for this one—the tough question: how to lead a highly productive meeting. Dn. Michael, as we wrap up, any final thoughts?

Dn. Michael: No, I don’t think so. I think we pretty much covered it. You did a great job summarizing it.

Ms. Bezzerides: Thank you so much for joining us this week!

Dn. Michael: See you guys next week! Bye-bye.