← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 776 | Small Church Dysfunction: David Ashcraft Talks about Growth at LCBC, Succession and Growing the Global Leadership Summit
01:23:15
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- [00:00]
A
Well, before we jump into today's episode, I'm here with our monthly State of the Church Trends Update with David Kinnaman, Barna CEO. David, it's good to have you.
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B
Hey, Kerry, good to see you. Nice to be here.
- [00:10]
A
So we're talking about family. I was digging into some of the data that you did as you surveyed marriage and family, and it really blew my mind. It challenged some assumptions that I had.
- [00:19]
B
Yeah, well, we're so glad to hear that. That's what we're here for.
- [00:23]
A
That's right. Blowing up assumptions everywhere.
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C
Right.
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B
As often as we can.
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D
Yeah.
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A
What are you finding, David?
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B
Yeah. So the last two years we've been working on a major study on family and marriage. And for those of you who might be watching, this is the COVID of the new report called the State of Today's How Households Are Changing and How the Church Can Support Their Resilience. It's a major, major piece of research. We've been working on it for a while and we're actually just uncovering some incredible findings. But we're here to talk a little bit about some of the key findings. And the first is that the structure of family isn't changing as fast as we think, but the experience that we have of family is changing. So, you know, we talk a lot about, well, families are different. They're so different. And they are, but they're not actually that much different in the last 20 years than they were 20 years ago. And I believe what has really taken place is there sort of three major trends. Number one, the digital environment has reshaped parenting and relationships. Number so families are different because the tech world, the digital context that we're in is changing, how we get input and where we go to find relationships. So that's number one. Number two, we're more aware today than we were 20 years ago of the diverse family structures. So they were pretty diverse even 20 years ago. Blended families, single parents, you know, widows, widowers, all the rest. What has changed over the last 50, 70, 50 to 70 years is that we're much less likely to be a married only society. So, you know, 70 years ago, seven out of ten Americans were married. Now it's just less than half. But again, the family structures haven't been changing as much as we think, but our experience of them has for digital diversity. And the third is this idea of the language of mental health and therapeutic frameworks. Like everyone is a therapist now. Everyone has a language for this, for better and for worse. And so I think those are three reasons why our experience of family is being redefined in our current context. So the report delves into a lot of those layers and helps people really understand some of the current trends.
- [02:23]
A
Well, the thing that got me when I was digging into the data, David, is I think often as a preacher you have an assumption of who you're trying to reach. And when I looked at it, it's like, oh, this is very different than the picture in my head, just, you know, suburbs, et cetera. So is that what you saw?
- [02:38]
B
What were some of the things that.
- [02:39]
A
Oh, I just thought, you know, when you think about we're trying to reach people who are married with kids, isn't the majority of families not like that anymore? Like the majority are not families with kids living at home in America?
- [02:53]
B
Yeah, right. So that's true. And I think part of what's interesting is that the church is working best for married dads with children, which is mind blowing. It's working least well, but it's working least well for single moms and, and, and for singles in general. So there's this real interesting kind of overview of the kind of ways in which, and, and listen, most pastors are married who have had children or have children at home. So there's a real sense in which our, our audience, I don't like to use those terms, but just when you think about the people in, in the room are, are actually mirroring some of what a married man might experience as a pastor. So we've got to expand our understanding of family and, and then speak to those different segments not because the gospel changes, but because each person's experience of what it means to be in a relationship, in a household, in a family is changing. And that leads me to the other major finding from the study, which is that while there's a lot of discussion around, around Gen Z and what they want out of marriage, they are definitely rethinking family and whether you need to be married to have kids. However, 78 of Gen Z, these are 25 and under, want to be married someday. So 78% still want to be married and 81% say they still believe in the value of marriage. But they're actually less likely to say, for example, that a child should be raised in a context of a marriage that is essential for a child to be raised in the context of a marriage. They're much less likely to value some of the traditional statements about marriage. So it's interesting how they still have this, this kind of muscle memory of traditional marriage, but they're not maybe Building their life towards those kinds of outcomes at quite the same pace or in the same level of priority as previous generations.
- [04:41]
A
I gotta just thank you, David. I mean, we've done 12 of these updates now and I don't remember a more data rich year than 2025. And just thank you for all the work you and your team do. It really helps us. As you say, data informed decisions makes a big difference. So you can toggle back into all of the reports that we've done over the course of this year, one a month. Just go to stateofthechurch.com Carrie, that's stateofthechurch.com C A R E Y. You can access this and a whole lot more over there. David, thank you.
- [05:11]
B
Appreciate it being here. Thanks so much.
- [05:13]
A
And now to today's episode, the Art of Leadership Network.
- [05:18]
D
Abe pretty much every week then would come and he would stuff the boxes before church started with his view on me and what I've done or said, what I said in the last week's message, that was wrong. And so that was kind of the fodder. Every, every Sunday morning people come in and again you want to know what the news is. So you go back before the service starts and you get your mail out of the mailbox and they were always getting Abe's comments.
- [05:44]
A
Welcome to the Carrie Newhof Leadership Podcast. It's Carrie here. I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. Hey, whether you're watching or whether you're listening, wherever you are, I hope this finds you well. This is coming to you from downtown Franklin, Tennessee, my temporary studio. And I've got David Ashcraft on the show. He is the longtime senior pastor of lcbc, now known as Lives Changed by Christ Church in Pennsylvania. They grew from a handful of people to over 22,000. Today we talk about the early days of ministry. Dysfunctional, like you want. You lead a small church or have been involved with a small church. You want to talk about dysfunction, we go there. He can empathize. I can definitely empathize. Talk about scaling LCBC succession and then his new role at the Global Leadership Summit and Global Leadership Network. I think you're really going to enjoy it. So thank you so much for listening. And let's dive right into my conversation with David Ashcraft. David, it's so good to have you on the podcast. Welcome.
- [06:42]
D
Thank you, Kerry. Great to join you today. Appreciate it.
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A
Yeah, long overdue, long overdue. And I feel like we're a couple of leaders who have almost connected so, so many times or connected Very briefly. So it's nice to actually sit down and do a deeper dive.
- [06:57]
D
Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. I think we're definitely similar circles that we've been traveling in, and we've brushed up against each other a few times, but not really got to talk much.
- [07:03]
A
I've actually spoken at LCBC for a conference a couple of times, but didn't cross paths. So I'd like to go back to. Because, you know, yours was. What year did you start at LCBC?
- [07:16]
D
So I started in 1991 and then stayed for 32 years.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. Which is awesome.
- [07:22]
D
What.
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A
Let's start here. What did you learn over 32 years of ministry? What did you learn or learn about longevity? Because that seems to be a challenge for a lot of leaders these days is longevity either staying in one place a long time or staying successfully without being disqualified. In a long place, in one place.
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D
For a long time.
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A
What did you learn about longevity?
- [07:45]
D
So, Kerry, I am a huge proponent of longevity for pastors. I think that we tend to quit too soon. We hit rough waters and we bail and we're out. Miraculously, it sounds like what you always hear is God's calling them to someplace greener, and it's always a warmer climate and a prettier climate, and I think we bail out too soon. And so when I came to LCBC in 1991, I had made a commitment to God to say, I won't go looking anyplace else. And I came out of Dallas, Dallas seminary background, and I just watched pastors all the time, constantly looking for the next biggest thing or the next step forward for them. And I didn't want to play that game. And so I just said, God, I'll stay as long as you want me to. I won't go looking. If you send something my way and make it real clear you want me to move, but I won't ever go looking. And so I didn't.
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A
So if I can interrupt, why was that so clear to you as a young leader in 1991? Because that's not obvious to everybody.
- [08:38]
D
Well, again, watching. So my dad was a pastor in Dallas. I was on his staff for about 10 years. And so I watched Dallas grads that I had grown up with. They were in our church when I was a kid. I watched them go from church to church to church, and then even my classmates go from church to church. And it was almost an understood thing, Carrie, that if you went to a church of 200, then within four or five years, you start looking for a church of four or 500. And then several years later, you look for a church of a thousand, and it just didn't seem right to me. And I would always listen to them say, you know, I went through some hard times, but talked to God, and God just called me someplace else. And, you know, I don't know, sometimes I'm not sure it's a calling, but that was what the way it was obviously expressed. So I just didn't want to fall into that game and do that.
- [09:22]
A
No, I get it. Sometimes calling is like we use calling as a mask for other issues that we don't want to talk about or we don't want other people to know about. It's amazing how many times somebody almost got fired and then they got called somewhere else or they got bored, but they got called somewhere else. Like, you saw that early on.
- [09:40]
D
Yeah, exactly. And so I was a big fan of John Maxwell early on, back at that time as well. And he would always talk about the average length of a pastor, and he'd talk about student ministry guys being right around two, two and a half years. And he would talk about the storm cloud that were there. And the tendency was before the storm had fully passed, even though it might just be right on the edge, the pastors or student men he would talk about would bail out of their situation. If they waited just a little bit longer, the storm would have passed. They could enjoy what they were meant to enjoy. And I experienced that at lcbc. My first five or six years were incredibly difficult within six months of my coming to the church. And again, it's a small church, 150 people.
- [10:18]
A
Because you didn't start it, right?
- [10:20]
D
No, I came about three and a half years in. So 100.
- [10:23]
A
Okay, so it was a church plant.
- [10:25]
D
Yeah, it was a fairly new church. They had had one pastor, not the one who started it. They'd called a pastor when the church was about a year old. He lasted about a year and a half, two years, they dismissed him. And so they'd gone through some turmoil. And when I came, being a Texan, never thought that I'd moved to the Northeast. All my friends said, oh, you're moving to the Rust Belt. What are you doing? And so we came as Texans, not sure what we were going to experience, but we fell in love with the people. And so the first five or six years, six months into my time at lcbc, the first board chairman stood up in the middle of a meeting. And his tendency was to. When things weren't going his way, he'd throw a Little tantrum. And then the rest of the board, there were only five or six board members, but they would all acquiesce and go his way, and they would move on. And so he did that in a meeting six months in. It was October. I can still picture it happening. And he stood up from the table, and it was a small church. And in a small church, everybody has a key to the building. And so he stands up and he pulls his keychain out from his pocket, unravels the key to the church, plops it on the table, says, you don't need me anymore. You got David. And he walked out. And I don't even remember what the situation was, but I think it probably was over a control issue. And when he threw his little tantrum that night, the rest of the board didn't go his way. And so that, I think, is what kind of drove him away. And about a year later, next board chairman did essentially the exact same thing, and another one did the same thing. And it was always. I don't even remember the issue so much, Carrie, Other than we were just struggling to figure out who we were. That was 1991. So the music battles were going on. Within six weeks of my time at LCBC, a man named Abe came into my office and he said, if we don't stop playing those choruses, then everybody that gives financially to the church is going to quit giving.
- [12:06]
A
It was choruses in 1991. I remember that man.
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D
And that was pretty radical.
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A
Yeah, pretty radical. Choruses from the 70s.
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D
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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A
So he said, everyone's like, you're talking to every small church pastor in America right now. Control, taking the keys away, quitting, manipulation.
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D
We're going to.
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A
If you do this, then we're going to withdraw the giving and everything like that. So what happened with Abe?
- [12:33]
D
So I just said, abe, I appreciate what you're saying, but this is what the board has asked me to come and do. And so unless the board asked me to change, I can't do that and won't do that. So he left and told everybody that he talked to that don't listen, bother talking to Dave, David. He won't listen to you anyway. And became my greatest nemesis, really. And so again, small church, country church. Our town is only about 4 to 5,000 people. And at the back, back then, all small churches had mailboxes, little cubbies in the back hallway. This is before email or anything. That way, I remember you'd get information. Yeah, you'd stuff all the information. And so instead of saves on postage. Exactly. And so Abe, pretty much every week then would come, and he would stuff the boxes before church started with his view on me. And what I've done or said, what I said in the last week's message, that was wrong. And so that was kind of the fodder. Every. Every Sunday morning, people come in, and again, you want to know what the news is. So you go back before the service starts, and you get your mail out of the mailbox. And they were always getting Abe's comments. And so that was, like I said, five or six years of that. When we were grown from 150 to about 320 people, we were going to hire the next. The only other staff person when I came. Carrie I was the senior pastor, but I was the only pastor. I was the only staff member.
- [13:46]
A
There was no.
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D
So we were going to hire no. So I don't know why I was a senior pastor. But anyway, we were going to hire a worship leader. And back then, if we had a congregational meeting, small church, everybody showed up because there were going to be fireworks. And so we're talking about this worship leader we're going to hire. And Abe stands up the meeting and says, why would we hire anybody? Nobody could work with David anyway. And it was just that kind of contentious spirit for the first four or five, six years. And we were still growing. So we grew to, in that first five or six years, about 600 people. Somewhere along the way, we quit talking about what we wanted to do, and we just started doing it. And there was a shift there. I think it was a shift in the culture. And maybe I outlasted Abe, though. Abe stayed in the church for, I don't know, seven or eight years and finally drifted away. But, yeah, so again, I just watched pastor after pastor leave. And once we got through those first five or six years, Ruth and I said, my wife Ruth and I said, why would we ever want to leave and go someplace else? Because we're just going to have to do this again in a different environment. So let's enjoy what God is doing here now.
- [14:54]
A
Man, there's so much in that. I mean, you have read so many small church pastors. MALE I want to back up a little bit. Why that church? I mean, if you grew up in the church, you're from Dallas, dts, you had options. Why Pennsylvania?
- [15:12]
D
So, Kerry, we had probably when I was about 30 years old, I'd been serving in my dad's church for eight years at that point and felt like it was time for me to lead on My own. And so Ruth and I, being Texans, we said, God, we'll go anywhere you want us to go in Texas. And we thought we were being incredibly generous and totally open handed with God. So for a two year period, we literally talked to over 30 churches in Texas and none of them were right. And the interesting thing is I wanted to go someplace that really had an interest in reaching people for Jesus. And every church says they want to do that, but most churches don't. I mean, it's in their mission statements. They'll talk about it. But then when you get down to the brass tacks of how far are we willing to go to reach people for Jesus, and then you start finding out they're not really that serious about it. And so I wasn't one that wanted to go to a church. So this is where it may get offensive for some pastors, but some churches just want you to come and hold their hands and pat them on the back. And that's fine for some people maybe, but that's not me. And so that's what we were finding in most of the churches in Texas. And it's just real clear it wasn't right for us. When we got to that two year period, we finally said, okay, either God wants us to stay here in Dallas, or we finally reached a point and said, okay, God, if you really want us to go anywhere, we'll open up our hands fully and go wherever you want. And then within two or three, four weeks, things began to open up and the church from Pennsylvania, which later we knew to be lcbc, invited us to come and candidate. So.
- [16:47]
A
So you went. It's funny, I went to a bunch of churches and it just didn't work out and ended up where we've been now for 30 years, which is interesting. So, you know, this may sound, you mentioned the worship wars. Like this might sound like ancient history to a good chunk of our listeners, but I get messages almost every day from church leaders who are still where you were in 1991, where I was, you know, in the late 90s and early 2000s. And you and I have the scars about music wars and everything. It's still an issue. It's still an issue. I talk to pastors who are still doing the blended traditional contemporary services and trying to make everybody happy. What did you learn about music in those early days of ministry?
- [17:34]
D
So, Gary, everything I say is just more my thoughts and feelings. So I realize there's different thoughts and feelings. I'll just say that up front, but I have strong biases and what I watched early on is, and my dad's church was one that did it in Dallas, where rather than pick a direction, they tried to keep everybody happy. And so one of my guiding principles as a pastor is you cannot keep everybody happy. And so we made a decision very early on, and we said, since we can't please everybody, we'd rather we go by the 9010 rule, is what we still talk about today. And we rather 90% of the people be wildly enthusiastic with us, 10% can be wildly upset with us, and we're okay with that. And you can go and church that are trying to blend and nobody's happy. The ones that wanted back then more hymns, they were upset. You sang two choruses. The ones that wanted choruses were upset that you sang two hymns. And so nobody was happy. And you could feel it instantly when you walk in those buildings. And so we just said we weren't going to play that game. We're going to pick a direction. And for us, 1991, being contemporary, was unique in our area. Nobody else was really doing it. And so we would just say, man, if this isn't for you, we get it. There's a lot of other good churches that are still doing it the other way, and maybe that's where you need to be, but this is the direction we're going. And so what it did is it created this sense of excitement and energy that we'd picked a direction. And we had people very upset with us, but that's okay. And 9010 has served us well. We still follow that even today with 25,000 people. And what's funny, Carrie, is we'll do something today and we'll get 20, 30, 40 emails that are upset with us. And we'll all get rattled and think, oh, no. But then we'll kind of pause and go, okay, wait a minute. 90, 10. So 10% of 25,000. Oh, we still have another 2,450 emails to get before. Really need to start worrying about this.
- [19:19]
A
Before you really anger 10%.
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D
Yeah, exactly. So that's served us real well.
- [19:24]
A
It's amazing to me. I think of it as doing the math. And I'll talk to leaders about that all the time. So even in a church of a hundred, it's like, man, so many people are opposed. Well, I'm taking names, write them down. The number of times in a sample of a hundred. You don't even get to six or seven. Cause it was Abe, and then it was this other family, and that was another one. And Another one. And then you're oh yeah, there's one more. And then you're like, yeah, what else? And they're like, well, that's it. But you know, one Abe can totally throw you completely off your game. I gotta ask you, why did you ask him to leave? Like for you to be able to tolerate him stuffing mailboxes every Sunday for any period of time? Like, what was the thinking? What was your thinking as a young leader in just letting Abe stuff the mailboxes with angry notes?
- [20:18]
D
Yeah, you know, I don't think I ever ask anybody to leave. I remember one elder that was somewhat of an antagonist and he was upset because we weren't using back then the King James Bible. We right away started using the new living translation. He didn't like that. And there were just a number of things and in my youthfulness and probably arrogance back then, I probably baited him some into just having some disagreements. And so he ended up leaving. But Abi didn't and I'm not sure why. I just. He didn't bother me. He bothered me, but he didn't bother me. And I didn't feel like he had that much of a voice. And so, you know, it just kind of outlast him. And I'm not saying that's the right way to do it. It just for me wasn't really all that much of an issue. And he was friends with a lot of the, you know, the founding members of the church. And so it's like, eh, I don't know that I need to upset them by driving him away. And I knew that he didn't have the influence he thought he did. And so that probably was the biggest piece of it.
- [21:15]
A
This episode is brought to you by.
- [21:16]
C
Amplify plus from Ministry Brands. One thing you've heard me say a lot of times is time off won't.
- [21:22]
A
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- [21:23]
C
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- [22:08]
A
Episode is brought to you by my 2026 church trends hey, as you head into 2026, watch cultural shifts do you need to keep an eye on as a church leader? I mean, it's a really big question, right? You got your head down trying to do the work from day to day, but there's some big stuff happening, right? You and I both know how easy it is to get caught up into the week to week of ministry sermons, meetings, you know, Sunday after Sunday grind, and you just miss what's really going on in the culture. That's why every year I release my annual Church Trends Report, and it's to help you see what's next and to lead with clarity. So for 2026, I've identified seven disruptive trends that are shaping the future of.
- [22:50]
C
The church, and we're seeing Gen Z's surprising surge in church attendance.
- [22:54]
A
They're kind of leading it, something very few people expected two years ago. There's a new boldness in evangelism I'm going to be talking about, and maybe the most concerning of all. Most churches still aren't ready for the AI revolution that's already reshaping ministry and leadership. So those are just a few of the trends that we'll be unpacking this year. The trends are backed by data, and I share my thoughts on why it's important and what you can do about it. So this year I'm doing something new. All the trends are premiering live inside the Art of Leadership Academy. You'll not only get the full 2026 Church Trends Report and the Leader Guide, but also a live interactive Q and A and podcast series. All of that is launching in January, so if you want to be the first to access it, head on over to 2026ChurchTrends.com for free access. Once you've signed up, you'll be in the loop for everything related to my 2026 church trends report. Again, it's all free, so just click the link in the description of this episode or visit 2026churchtrends.com the future of.
- [23:55]
C
The church is still bright, especially for leaders who see it clearly and who respond wisely.
- [24:01]
A
Yeah, there were a number of people who were kind of eye rolls I'm sure with his weekly notes and then other people be a little tried. But sometimes that can be really difficult. Like when my wife Toni and I reflect on the early days and all the opposition that all that quick change brought. I think it was harder on her than I realized. What was the dynamic between you and Ruth in that season.
- [24:26]
D
So, Carrie, I care about people, but I kind of don't, too. And I know that sounds terrible as a pastor, and especially when you're new to the church. I didn't know the people. I didn't have a long history. And so I didn't have a history with Abe. And so if he was mad at me, it was like, okay, you can be mad at me. But there was no relationship to lose.
- [24:45]
A
It never was right.
- [24:46]
D
And so it was right. Exactly. So it didn't hit me that hard. And so Ruth is very caring and just a real sweet individual. And so it would affect her, and it would bother her when Abe or others would say things about me. And then she'd also tell me. She said, it's easy for you. She said, you don't ever go to the grocery store. But she said, I go to the grocery store and I've got to see Abe or his wife or other people in the grocery store. And so it was harder for her, for sure.
- [25:12]
A
Yeah.
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D
And so much so, Carrie, every Christmas, every board meeting, I'd come home and her first question was, I still have a job. And then every Christmas, as she was putting Christmas decorations away, she would say, am I packing up for next year? Am I packing up for a move? And so that's how tenuous it was those first five or six years of not being sure what was going to happen.
- [25:34]
A
Wow. Okay. I think we're maybe similarly wired. I tend not. I feel things more intensely now than I did in my 30s when I was starting out. It'd be like, ah, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. And that led to burnout and a bunch of other stuff. But, yeah, I generally have a thicker skin than maybe a lot of people in pastoral ministry do and certainly than my wife. If you're looking back on those first five to seven years, what would you do the same and what would you do differently?
- [26:03]
D
So, you know, I think Ruth would tell you one of my traits is I like to call it determination, steadfastness. She would call it stubbornness. And so I think that actually served me well during that time. I was building relationships, but trying to build them with the right people, the influencers in the church. Not just to be able to get in with the influencers, but really, who are the people that are going to make a difference long term. And so that was happening, and then I just kind of stuck to my guns and said, man, this is the way that we're going. And unless the board truly does ask us to change directions. And even in the midst of. Of the turmoil on the board, with board chairman leaving, the board was still steadfast of saying, we really want to introduce people to Jesus. This is how we want to go about doing it. And so it helped me be steadfast that way. So probably continuing to be stubborn. I think I would have kept doing that. Like I said, I did bait the one elder. Now, looking back, and I feel bad about that, there are times that I didn't respond with as much love or graciousness as I should have. Yeah. So probably that. But otherwise, I'm not sure I would change a whole lot.
- [27:12]
A
So while that opposition happened, you were growing from that handful of people to or 100 or whatever it was to 300 to 600. What were some inflection points in that growth?
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D
Well, it sounds. So again, you're talking small church here. We filled our auditorium. Our auditorium would seat 400 people. And we filled the auditorium once. And so the question that we started asking then, and we still ask it today, is, are we done yet? And we said, are we done introducing people to Jesus? We've grown to 400. If not, then we're gonna have to add a second gathering. And you'd have thought it was gonna be the end of the world going to second gathering people saying, we'll never have enough workers in children's ministry. I'll never see my friends again. I mean, the tension was so high, you could cut it with a knife right up until the Sunday is an issue.
- [28:00]
A
And that's another issue. I hear from church leaders, too. It's like. Like we can't be two churches. We can't be divided. Like, if you're a one service congregation, that's still an issue for a lot of people. So how did you get through that?
- [28:14]
D
You know, having. So some of it having done it in Dallas. We had multiple services in Dallas, so I knew it could happen. I knew it wasn't going to be a problem. And my tendency, my approach for doing things, to say, let's just try it. And oftentimes I will say, you know, I think it's going to work. I'm not sure either, but let's just try it, and if it doesn't work, we'll go back. And so I'm more of a let's undersell and overproduction type person. And rather than come out emphatically saying, God told us to do two services, I don't think I've ever heard God tell me to do something that directly, nor have I ever used that as a way to get things done. And so we said, let's try it. And you know, by the time that Sunday morning was done, never heard another word about it. And we went on to add six, seven gatherings at that location. And so it just, it's not an issue anymore. But you have to kind of break through some of those barriers. That was one. We got to six services in that auditorium and we needed to finally build. And you know, we were, it was going to kill the staff, it was going to kill me. And it was the first time we had to ask for money really to be able to grow. And so we thought, oh no, we're going to lose people in the process. And we grew by 50% as we were asking people for money before we moved into the auditorium, new auditorium. And I think Kerry, what did it for us? We never had a diagram of the building. We never, it wasn't about a building, it was about introducing more people to Jesus. And so having gone now through probably seven different building transitions, it always was about introducing more people to Jesus. And we would say, you know, we know you'll come at 4 o' clock on a Sunday afternoon to come to church, but you're not going to get your unchurched friends to come at 4 o'.
- [29:50]
C
Clock.
- [29:51]
D
We need more space. It's not for you, it's for your friends, neighbors, co workers, family that doesn't yet know Jesus. And that's always been our approach. And so because it was such a vision focused effort, we grew by 50%. And so by the time we finally moved into that auditorium, the day we moved in, we jumped from about 2,000 to about 3,000. And within another couple of years we grew to 6,000. So I mean, it was just taking off really, really fast.
- [30:18]
A
In a town of 5,000, you outgrew the town. I mean, I've been to LCBC, there's a bunch of farmers fields around there, man. Like, come on, where did everybody come from?
- [30:30]
D
So they were coming from all around. We had people coming 45 minutes to an hour and a half away to come. And again back then, this was by then late 90s, early 2000s, but it was still unique what we were doing. I would like to believe. Well, I know that God was definitely in it. I think that we focused on doing things with excellence and authenticity. And so I think there was something appealing for people to come. But those farm fields ended up being our next big thing. We grew to about 8,000 in that location. And we were Full again and we needed to expand our facilities again. And the township told us no. They said you're disrupting our roads. I mean they're little two lane roads, you've been there. And so no, you cannot grow anymore. They value farmland here. And so they said you can't take up any more farmland. And so we were devastated at first and we just, but we kept saying are we done? Does this mean we're done? Are we done yet? And about that time multisite was getting started and so we went and looked at several different models and figured out the one that worked for us and jumped into multisite at that point. And looking back now, now we think what a gift it was that the township said no. At the time we thought it was into the world. But now if we have 5 or 6,000 at our broadcast location then that means we've got 19, 20,000 at locations that never would have happened if we just stayed single site.
- [31:54]
A
So yeah, that's true. And that was still the era of like 3, 4, 5,000 seat auditoriums. That's where people were building them out. I mean not so much anymore but back then it was just like, well just build a bigger boat and keep going and don't think about multi site so.
- [32:10]
D
Exactly, exactly.
- [32:12]
A
When you think about innovation. So you know, what was pioneering ground in the 90s and the early 2000s is now how we do church today, right? In many respects. What did you learn about being one of the first? Because you truly were like, you probably could have counted on two hands maybe including your toes. The number of multi site churches. When you guys went multi site it was actually innovative and difficult and we weren't as connected as we are now via the Internet and video and social media and everything. So. So there was a real pioneering spirit. What did you learn about going first or becoming one of the first to try something?
- [32:54]
D
Well Kerry, at that time I had always been hesitant to plant churches and I know it sounds awful to say that and my reason for it was the failure rate that I saw over and over and over. And so I just thought, man, I don't think that's the way to go. What attracted me to multisite and to your point, there weren't a whole lot of churches doing it, but it was in essence taking a model that was already working our church and saying how do we replicate that in another location? Same leadership for the most part, same model that we know works, same group of people that are already coming to lcbc. But let's take so what we did is we developed a plan for about five locations. And so we would carve off 500 people and send them to start a location. Another one we sent about 1000 people, 1200 people to start another location. So instantly they had our DNA, they had leadership that had been a part of lcbc. And so we knew it would work. It was just finding the right model. And back then you had kind of real low end. If you've got a white wall and a projector, you can start a site to the North Point model where if you had $50 million, you could start a site. And we didn't think either of those worked for us. And so we landed more on Life Church's model. What's interesting in Pennsylvania, you've got Philadelphia on one side of the state, you've got Pittsburgh on the other in the middle. It's pretty rural. And so we now have developed out several different models where we've got the broadcast campus, which runs about 5000 people. We've got seven or eight campuses that run about 1500 people. But then in the more rural areas, we've got a model that runs about 705 to 750 people. And then more recently started another model that's two or 300 people. And those two or 300 people, churches campuses, or the biggest churches in their town or even their whole county because it's just, it's real rural. So we've had to be flexible and say we can't just hard be hard nosed about. It's got to be one size fits all. And so we've had to flex on that.
- [34:52]
A
And did you go with video off the outset on the model, like video teaching?
- [34:58]
D
One of my real strong biases, Kerry, with multisite is if you're going to scale, and not that we even knew we were going to scale back then, but if you're going to scale, I think it's got to be video. And I will hear sometimes, sometimes people say multi site, it's not really working anymore. And my strong argument would be it has nothing to do with multi site. It has totally to do everything to do with the model that somebody chooses. And if you choose to go live teaching, there's an inability to scale with that. There's all kinds of divisiveness issues that pop up and you're not really one church anymore. And so we said it's not about the person, the leader. Back then it was never about me. And so people would often joke and say LCBC's one of the largest churches. Nobody had heard of and they definitely hadn't heard of me. And it never was about me. It was about saying, what can we do to grow and expand lcbc? And my desire was always so they'd go on generations way beyond me.
- [35:51]
A
I want to go back to where we started, you know, 30 years of leadership. You know, I was joking with a friend of mine who's celebrating 30 years next month and leads a very, very large church. And when I step back after 20 years, somebody said to me, wow, 20 years without a scandal. And I'm like, I didn't know that was a category and I wish that wasn't a category. But David, 30 some odd years for you of leadership and going that was at one place and going strong. Now with the gln, what are some keys, some lessons you picked up along the way about going the long distance run in leadership? Where did it go? Well, did you almost flame out at some point? And what's leaving you with gas in the tank at this stage?
- [36:38]
D
Yeah. So one of my mottos early on, and it's still a motto of the church today, is let's not do anything stupid to mess up what God is doing. And we don't write that on the walls. It's not printed anywhere. But any staff member at LCBC can repeat that back to you instantly. And I just watch so many people, so many leaders do stupid things and oftentimes stupid would. It's never. Well, I shouldn't say never. Rarely is it doctrinal or theological issues. What it tends to be a relational issues where you and I are on the same staff and we get sideways and rather than come and address the issue with you, we let it build up and so we get sideways and we blow up the church because of relationships. So some things we'll talk about is keep short accounts. If I've got an issue with you that I need to go and talk with you, you instantly about that. We talk about communicating truth with grace. And the tendency in churches is not to communicate truth first of all. And if we do, it's not with grace. And so very first we called them newcomers classes back then. Now we call them first steps. We still teach the same principles today. And I would just say if you to people coming into the church, because again I was the only staff person, I'd say if you come into the church and you stay, here's how we behave at lcbc. And you just need to understand one of the ways we behave is we communicate truth with grace. And so I would every time say if you tend to be a kind of person that you can't communicate truth to somebody, that you have to talk behind somebody's back and tell everybody else what you're upset about, then we don't want you here. I don't want you here to run our church. And I just say, there's nothing that runs a church faster than talking behind each other's back. And so I would go so far, and Ruth would always. She would always be in those meetings and she'd get upset with me every time, but I'd just say, go run somebody else's church, but don't ruin ours. And so some of it was just those kind of things. Carrie. So it's relational issues that I think blow up churches. It's playing too close to the fire when it comes to moral issues. And so we were prudish. I mean, we have, and still have today, some pretty strong rules of a man and a woman. If they're not married, they don't ride in a car together, just the two of them by themselves. You're not in the building, in a closed office with a closed door, by yourself, with a woman. And I know that people can break rules and get around that, but you just look at reality and places where I've seen them mess up. Sometimes I think they try to say, well, we're beyond that. We're more mature than that. That's not gonna happen yet. It does. And so we just said, let's just be careful. Let's just be smart.
- [39:13]
A
This episode is brought to you by.
- [39:14]
C
The Art of Preaching. So, preachers, does this sound familiar to you?
- [39:18]
A
You're up on a Sunday morning, you're.
- [39:19]
C
Giving your message, and then all of a sudden you lose your train of thought, right? Maybe you fumble for your notes, or you tell a story that flops just to fill the time, and you feel like all the eyes are just staring right back at you. Your gut drops, your palms get sweaty, and then what do you do? You replay it in your head on Sunday afternoon and again when you're lying awake at night staring at the ceiling. Look, I get it. After more than 30 years of preaching, I have made just about every mistake you can make. Make more than once. But becoming a more effective preacher and communicator is a skill you can grow and develop. And that's why I created, along with Mark Clark, the Art of Preaching, a step by step course that helps you break free from panic and preach every Sunday with clarity, with confidence, and best of all, with impact. And you won't just learn from me. Mark and I do the course together, but you will also hear from Faith, Yuri Cho, Megan Fate Marshman, Noah Herron, and Adam Messa. And together we are going to bring you the strategies, the tools and encouragement to preach sermons that are clear, engaging and memorable. Most preaching resources give you inspiration, some give you a formula to follow. But the Art of Preaching gives you the insight, strategies and tools from a variety of perspectives to transform your skill set and develop your gifting. You will actually transform your preaching one step at a time. You'll be amazed at the results. The course is open for enrollment now.
- [40:43]
A
And you can check it out at.
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C
Theartofpreachingcourse.Com or by clicking the link in the description of this episode. Again, just click the link in the description of this episode. You will get instant access to our course, the Art of Preaching.
- [40:57]
A
You give yourself way fewer opportunities if you have rules, and maybe once in a while you accidentally end up up in a building alone. But then you're like, I better leave. Like right, like, exactly. And you know, we've had conversations on this podcast where I've had some people say, well, you know, that's not fair to women. And they have a really good point. Right? Because if you're not going to develop a female leader one on one the way you would a male leader, is that discriminatory? It's a really good point. On the other hand, you put yourself in the path of temptation again and again and again. And on that note, you know, you think about your cohort, your class of people who started 30 years ago with you. A lot of them didn't make it. They flamed out either. Burnout, moral failure, an affair, financial improprieties. And we're not going to name names here because we don't need to. Unfortunately. There's enough cases that we can all conjure up an image or two. But I'm just wondering, in your colleagues who didn't make it, did you see certain recurring patterns? Like, were there things that you would say, yeah, in some of these cases they didn't have X. Do you see recurring patterns in the people who didn't do well over 30 years?
- [42:17]
D
Yeah. So I don't know that I've ever looked at reoccurring patterns, but there definitely were some. So I wrote several years ago because of a friend that kind of had a failure that way. And I'm not doing this to promote the book because I don't need notes.
- [42:29]
A
No, no, go ahead and tell us what it is.
- [42:31]
D
But it was called what was I thinking was the name of the book. And the reason why I titled that is because as this person fell, I just kept thinking, what in the world was he thinking? And so if there were a reoccurring pattern and if he made a mistake, he put himself in situations that he never should have been in. And I look and go, what in the world did you, what were you thinking to be in that situation with another woman even if nothing happened? And that's where the questions are, did it not happen? Even if it didn't happen, why would you put yourself in that situation? Why would your family allow you to be in that situation? Why would any of your co workers allow you to be in this situation? Because you look at it and you go, people knew what the situation was and somebody should have stepped up and said, you know, that if nothing else, this doesn't look good and you ought not be in that situation. So probably if I were looking at themes, Kerry, it would just be putting yourself in situations that you know you shouldn't be in. Nothing good is going to come out of it. I mean, it's kind of like in the sports world where even just last week I read about a shooting of several NFL players. And then when you keep reading into the article, it's 2:09 in the morning and it's kind of back to that. Nothing good happens after 12:00 clock or 10:00 clock or whatever time you want to put it. But it's just like, like what do you think is going to happen at 2 o' clock in the morning outside a nightclub? Why would you be there? And so I think that's one.
- [43:59]
A
Yeah, you know, it's really interesting you think about that. Last night I was at dinner with a young pastor and his wife. My wife and I were out with them in Franklin and our server was really interesting, had come through. We found out his life story, you know, a bunch of pastors around the table. So he tells us he came through addiction and, and broke up with his wife and now they're back together and their parents for the second time. And he was asking about us and I said, you know the pastor, it was Noah Herron. His church meets at Cannery Row, downtown Nashville. It can't get more downtown than that. And I said, yeah, and we're doing our live event there next September. I said, do you ever go to Cannery Hall? He goes, I can't go downtown Nashville. It's too dangerous right now for him because of Broadway and the drinking and everything. I can go in there, no problem. It's a really cool venue, but that's a really good thought. Like, he had an addictive past. And yeah, there's a little bit of drinking on Broadway a couple blocks over for sure. So don't put yourself in difficult situations. What else have you seen in terms of patterns?
- [45:02]
D
So, you know, this one is more, maybe more anecdotal than actually. But looking back at people that have fallen now, I look back and I think of conversations I've had with them or that I've heard them have in public, and there was just a coarseness to their jesting. Scripture says don't even get involved in coarse joking or things like that. And so looking back, these individuals would tell jokes. You just kind of go, ah, I'm not sure that that was quite the thing to be telling. And again, it doesn't mean that everybody tells a coarse joke is going to fall off and do something immoral. And yet I look at patterns and go, okay, maybe what else is going on for them? Again, it's almost like. Like, what makes you think saying that is the right thing to say? And then you start wondering what else is going on in their head or what other to make them feel okay with what they're saying or doing. And so I don't know, Carrie, and it's harder to. If I saw, like, if I saw you doing that, would I call it out? I don't know. I'd probably in my head go, oh, man, why is Carrie making that joke? Or why does he think it's okay? Or why does Kerry think it's okay to be in that situation? And I guess I probably should call it out. It depends on who you were. If it was somebody that was close to me, I probably would question if it's not.
- [46:19]
A
Yeah. But I've been in those situations before too, where there's 10 people around a table and you just kind of walk away going, oh, wow.
- [46:27]
D
Yeah, at the time you didn't know. But later on you hear stories and it's like, oh, that's too bad.
- [46:31]
A
You put it together.
- [46:32]
D
Yeah.
- [46:34]
A
One of the things that one of my counselors has said, I've heard other people say, is that one of the patterns is a of lot lack of close relationships. So any observation, and I was looking at some Barna data very recently. Pastors are still not good at relationships. We still are more lonely than we should be and than we need to be. So, David, when you look at people who didn't make it, did you notice Any relational patterns. And then the second part of the question is for you. How have you handled friendship and relationships over the years? Living in the same community now for three, 35 years.
- [47:08]
D
Yeah. So I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert. I'm most happy being with Ruth, my wife. We've now been married almost 47 years. Truly. Truly is my best friend. And we have a very open, authentic relationship. Open with each other. Should be careful. I say that because I do not have an open relationship. We are very authentic with one another.
- [47:28]
A
Yeah, but you're very transparent. Not every marriage has that. Not every marriage.
- [47:33]
D
And so, you know, I've been in relationships with men, even guys on our staff that we get together every week and we've got our set of questions that we're going to ask each other of. Did you do this? Did you do that? And, you know, that's good. But we all know I can lie to anybody. And if I'm doing something wrong, it's very likely I'm going to lie about. I'm not going to tell you that I'm doing it. And so for me, it's truly been more my relationship with Ruth. And I'm an open book. And I can't even carry. I can't even lie to her about, like, I love Little Debbie nutty bars. And if there's some in the cabinet and she's not home and I take one and she comes home and said, what have you been eating? Because you can smell it on my breath. I can't even lie about that. So, I mean, I'm just very transparent with Ruth that way. And so it truly is my relationship. I think you do need somebody that you're transparent with that way and that can call you on things. And Ruth has a radar. And even if I'm not doing something wrong, but if there's somebody, it could be a man or a woman that she's concerned about why they're trying to get close to me. Or if there's a woman that she just doesn't fully trust, then she'll tell me and she'll say, I think you need to be real careful around this person or that person. And I need that because I don't always see that. So it's those kind of things. I didn't travel alone. Always took somebody with me. Me still do that today. And so, again, it's just being careful and being smart about the situations we're in. Yeah.
- [49:02]
A
One of the things that. And I'm skipping a little bit ahead here, so feel free to back up if we missed anything, but there's some stuff I want to get to. I want to talk about your current role, the GLN and everything, but, you know, the succession seems to have gone really well at lcbc. We've had Jason Mitchell on. I've spent a little bit of time with him and very impressed. He has only great things to say about you publicly and privately.
- [49:26]
D
Good.
- [49:26]
A
And you're still living in the community?
- [49:28]
D
Yes.
- [49:28]
A
Like, is that still your church now on today?
- [49:32]
D
Yes. Yeah, we still attend. I'm still technically on the staff and we'll speak not a lot, but four or five times a year. And so still involved there? Yes.
- [49:40]
A
So I have a very similar dynamic. I'm not on staff anymore, but it's kind of weird still a decade out. Being part of the church that you used to lead, how has that felt, felt for you?
- [49:52]
D
Yeah, it is an interesting dynamic, Carrie. So our succession process, the way it started, even back when I was in my mid-50s, I happened to have opportunity to sit around a table with about 15 people and Jim Collins, the good to great writer, and as he's talking, he's sharing his five levels of leadership. And so quietly in my head, arrogantly, I'm thinking, well, surely when he gets to level five, his top level, he's going to describe me. And I'm thinking, I must be surely a level 5 leader. And when he gets to level 5, he describes it. But he made a comment that just really kind of blew me away. And he said, you're never a level 5 leader until you've actually left your organization. And it's better when you're gone than when you're there. And truthfully, that's not what I had expected. I thought, when I leave, there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I told the congregation, I said, I hope there's weeping and gnashing of teeth and I hope there's some disruption so all of you will realize what a great leader I was. And. And Jim Collins that day just said, if that happens, he said, you're not a good leader. And so that really rattled me. And that started me on this 10, 12 year process of saying, I want to do whatever I have to do to make sure LCBC is better when I'm gone than when I'm there. And so that involved a variety of things. We had to reorganize the staff structure, and we'd done that five or six times to that point, but had to reorganize the staff to be ready to move into the future. It meant finances. We had debt at that time. We got to a point we were debt free. And then we got to a point where there's huge war chest to forward. We planned future campuses. We got the church used to different voices. So at that point, I had been teaching most of the time. And so we evolved into a teaching team. And that was a challenge the first several years where people weren't necessarily excited to hear other voices, but they got to the point where they love hearing other voices. And as we talked about it from a board standpoint, we could have waited until I stepped away and let the next leader deal with it, but we thought, no, let's do it now while I'm here. I still have a lot of chips in my pocket as far as a leader. And so let's go through whatever hard times we need to go through now so the next person can do well. Part of it was figuring out who my successor was. And so I very early on felt like Jason was the right person to take my place. The good thing is this was way early in the process. So like I said, for me it was a 10 to 12 year plan. And so when I first brought Jason's name to the succession team, they instantly said, no, there's no way. And so I said, well, tell me why. And so they named four, five, six different deficiencies that they saw. And so the good thing is when you start real early and you've got time, then you can work on those deficiencies. So I said, okay, let's work on those. And so it was more theological training. It was helping him be a better communicator. It was making sure that he truly could lead a full organization. So there's a variety of things like that. And so by the time we worked on all those things and came back then seven years later to that same group on the succession team and said, I still think it's Jason. What do you think? And then it was like, oh, of course it's Jason. So when I talk with people, Carrie, about succession, I just say, first of all, time's either your best friend or your worst enemy. And if you don't start early, then you're going to be, to a point of you just take whoever you can find, or you're going to have to go outside the organization and bring somebody in. And sometimes that works. But I was taught that if you like the direction you're going as a church or an organization, then you hire an internal candidate. If you don't like the direction you bring somebody from the outside, because the reality is somebody from the outside is going to change the direction. And you and I know as Christians, we all talk the same language. It means very different things. And so you're going to go different directions. So as a board, we talked and said we love the direction we're going, we want to keep it going that way. So right away that brought us to an internal candidate and there were several different people that I considered. But again, because we had time, then it allowed Jason to grow and develop and he's doing a fantastic job. But had we not, had I waited two years and came at that point, it wouldn't be Jason today. And so it'd be a very different scenario. One of my other biases, Kerry, people will say, well, that's great you had Jason in your church. We don't have somebody like that. And I would say, you know, I think you might. I think that God puts the people in our path in our church. The problem is we don't develop those people and we expect to have a fully developed, ready to step into my shoes candidate right behind us. And that doesn't happen. You've got to work with them, develop them. And Jason and I joked and said for the last five years before I stepped away, we were together more than we were together with our spouses. But it was just part of that development process so that you just help him see how to think through different scenarios, situations. And so I think developing your successor is huge.
- [54:44]
A
Well, the other thing that's not fair to a Jason or a Jeff Brody who took over for me is lcbc. Your leadership skill grew with the church. It's not like right out of the bottle in 1991, you're ready to do 22,000 people over multiple locations.
- [55:00]
D
You weren't.
- [55:01]
A
I wasn't ready to lead church. Over a thousand. I wasn't ready. Even with this podcast. I've grown into this over 11 years.
- [55:08]
C
Right.
- [55:08]
A
The hobby becomes my full time job and then a successor has to come in, boom, right out of the bottle and work. And it just doesn't work that way.
- [55:19]
D
Exactly. Yeah. So to your original question, how do you stay after. Was kind of one of your questions. And one of the things I had to decide early on, Kerry, is, is this about me or is it about lcbc? Even in my transition? And I listen to pastors all the time and they'll say, yeah, I think I'm going to step away when my kids are finished with high school or I think I'm going to step away when my kids have graduated from college. And I mean, I understand the practical side of that, but I also look and go, okay, so God's calling in your life is really wrapped up on when you're 17 or 18 year old finishes high school or your 22 year old either does or doesn't finish college. And it just doesn't seem right that way to me. And so I really said it's what's best for lcd. And I still took care of myself where, you know, I had to make arrangements with the board in writing. This is what will happen when I step away. I said to the board, 10 years before I stepped away, if you guys will take care of me and I don't have to build a second career because oftentimes you'll hear, you got to know what you're going into next before you step away. And so I just said to the board, if I'm going to do that, that means I need to start now, building my next career, so to speak. And I don't want to take my eyes off of lcbc. I want to stay totally focused on LCBC till the Sunday I walk away. And so I just need to know that for several years you're going to take care of me for me to be able to do that. And again, I'd say you got to have that in writing. And we had lawyers look at it. The handshake isn't, I hate to say it, it's not good enough. And I've talked to so many guys that, well, the board said, and then two or three years later, the board forgets and it's not good.
- [56:53]
A
Wow. Did you and Jason develop any rules about what you would do and not do? Because I think it takes a, a lot of humility, David, to do what you've done. Because if you don't have humility, guess what? You've just blown up Jason's life and LCBC's life. And you talked earlier about not wanting any gossip, which I agree with. But, man, you have so much power. All you have to do is whisper to somebody and it can spread like wildfire through the church. So what rules did you develop or what are you doing that is making it possible for Jason not only to lead, but to thrive and for LCBC to thrive? What do you think people in your shoes and my shoes have to do?
- [57:36]
D
Well, very early on, he and I said, we will always be honest and open with each other and talk to each other and whatever our feelings are let's talk about them. So even for years through that process, there were times where Jason would start getting impatient and say, I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. What am I doing here? And so he would come and he'd tell me that, and I'd say, you know what? I think felt exactly that same way at some point in my life, would talk it through and I'd say, here's why I think it's worth waiting, but you gotta decide that. So we would talk through that. When I did step away, Carrie, I made the decision to stay away for 12 months, so I'll even back up a step. I stepped away in November, and again, if it was about me, I'd have stepped away January because every pastor loves to preach Christmas gatherings and we have 40,000 plus people at a Christmas Eve. What a great way to go out. But I thought, you know, okay, I can do that. But If I'm putting LCBC first, better for those 40,000 people to hear the new guy than the old guy and kind of sing him out. And so I stepped away so that he could take those Christmas gatherings. It's just little things like that. And so putting the church first. And again, I still was concerned about me, but stepping away from me. I knew that it was going to be hard and feel like a loss. I joked the last month that I was coming to church and I said, I feel like I'm driving to my own funeral every weekend. And so it was hard. Stepping away was good for me. If I were only stepping away three months, it would have been like a long vacation or sabbatical, even six months probably was too soon. I thought that those 12 months were for the good of the church, that it would help them break from me. And that definitely happened. But it also was for me because I know myself, I had to step back into conversations or situations I had no business stepping into. And so I needed that break and the church needed it from me. I don't office at the church. We have offices someplace else. And that was important because again, it'd be real easy for me to go to somebody's office and question what they're doing, why they're doing it. So I don't go to staff meetings. I'm really just more of a church member for the most part. And Jason still calls me on a fairly regular basis and we'll about talk, talk through different situations. But yeah. So I'll tell you what surprised me. Nobody had told me about the emotion of pride or am I getting the Recognition that I feel like I ought to be getting. Those are the two emotions that hit me. Never expected it. And so I've probably spent more time the last two years, Carrie, confessing to God and saying, God, I am so sorry. Pride is popping up here, that desire to. And it's the stupidest things. You know, it's in a vision casting environment, and they're talking about the next campus that's going to be opened up. And I just want to go, well, wait a minute. Does everybody realize I planned that campus and I raised the money for that campus, and, you know, are you seeing me here? And it's not about me, and it never was about me, but that's the kind of stuff that comes up. Or Jason and I joked about. There was one, one service, and he happened to catch my eye right as he was saying this. But he was announcing something. He said, we're going to do something we've never done before. And right as he said that, he said he thought. And I thought, we've done that dozens of times before. And so it's just little things like that, but it's all pride. And so you have to swallow that or you have to confess that if you let that brew, it would be easy to make a statement or a comment and blow things up. And so I just. Yeah, it's a lot of confessing to God and saying, I'm sorry. It's taken several years, Carrie, to get there. I've said to a couple people, I think this jury to me is still out as to how involved a person can still be after 28 years in your case, or 32 years in my case. It's just because the emotions are strong.
- [61:30]
A
It's tough, Jeff And I realized I have to basically bail except for him, like, just sit in a row, have normal conversations with people in the lobby. And if anything, it's probably led to me withdrawing more than engaging.
- [61:47]
D
Yes.
- [61:48]
A
But I feel like, you know, we can be part of a small group. We can give. And then I meet with Jeff every other week at his request, and that's sort of an open session mostly for him, really. And, you know, it's. But it's swallowing that pride. Gordon McDonald, when I was stepping away, away five years ago, I asked him, you know, what did you learn? What should I be aware of? And he just said, oh, they forget you quickly. And boy, oh, boy, was he right.
- [62:14]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:15]
A
Because the ego in you is like, yeah, I used to do that, or, hey, I think I came up with that. And nobody cares Nobody cares and nobody knows.
- [62:24]
D
And Carrie, the staff will use, or Jason will use a phrase that. That I used all the time. And the first several times it was like, well, that's my phrase.
- [62:34]
A
Tm. Tm. David Ashcraft.
- [62:36]
D
Exactly. But then I realized, you know what? To your point, nobody's going to remember me or my name five, ten years from now. The only legacy I will leave are the character qualities or even statements that get carried from Jason to the next person to the next person. And that's really my legacy, and it's not my name. And so if you think about it, what more would I want than qualities that maybe I hope I possess got transferred to Jason, that'll get transferred to the next person and the next person. That's where it goes on and on. But again, it takes humility to say it's not about my name or people noticing me. And so, yeah, that's the challenge.
- [63:16]
A
I get it. I get it. You know what? And we keep having this conversation on the show because I think over the next 10 years, 50% of churches are going to transition like this. So it's not a moot issue.
- [63:27]
D
Yeah, exactly.
- [63:29]
A
So then a few months after stepping down in the official role, you get yourself a new job. You want to tell us about that?
- [63:36]
D
Well, when I stepped away, I never said I was. I said constantly, I'm not retiring. I'm just moving on to the next thing. And so the thought was, and I still do work with pastors here in Pennsylvania. And we started an organization called the Advantage of Advantage and reached out to the largest churches In Pennsylvania, the 80 largest churches invited the pastors to come and meet with us for one day to talk about how we can introduce more people to Jesus in Pennsylvania. So 74 of those pastors took us up on that invitation. There's four of us that work in this, what we call the advantage. Then at that meeting, as we talked, we said, would you guys be interested in meeting in cohorts twice a year for 24 hours? And 64 of those pastors took us up on that. So we've been doing that now for. It'll be two years in March. To be in those groups, what they had to commit doesn't cost them anything. But to be in those groups, they had to commit that they would in turn form groups of 10 or 12 pastors in their area, and they would pour into their pastors, those pastors. And so now we've got 361 pastors in a year and a half that are part of those Cohorts. We think by March, we'll be right around 500, maybe 600 pastors in Pennsylvania and all just to say, how do we introduce more people to Jesus? So that's a real cool thing that I get to be a part of. Loving that. That's been exciting. So I thought that was going to be what I was doing in the future.
- [64:53]
A
This is the future.
- [64:55]
D
Yeah. And about three months in, well, two things happened. One, Ruth, at some point sat me down at home. She said, you need to go find something else to lead. And apparently I'd been trying to lead around the house more than she wanted. And so her comment was, you need to go find something else to lead, and it's not me. And so. So that one gave me permission to look around. I'm not a fix it person at home. I don't have hobbies. Carrie. My life was my family, it was the church. And I know that we're challenged all the time to have a balanced life. I do not believe in a balanced life. I think that if you're going to excel at something, then you're going to have to give up some things. And so for me, I gave up hobbies and focused on my family and the church. And I love it, but I'm very, very content. But without having all of that for three months, then Ruth was noticing a void in my life about the same time. I had been on the board of the Global Leadership Network for several years, and there was a leadership transition taking place. And so they invited me to come and be a part of that. And so it was great for me because I love leadership. I love working with pastors. And so it was a real good fit for me.
- [66:04]
A
Yeah. And, you know, there were challenges in front of the GLN as well when you took over the leadership. And, I mean, there's the big transition from Hybels and Willow and all of that, what, seven years ago, eight years ago now?
- [66:17]
D
2018.
- [66:18]
A
So, yeah, yeah, 2018. And then Craig took over as sort of the face with the place. But there was a lot of things that had to be done behind the scenes. And even the model was like 20 years old with satellite churches. And so I'm interested to know what were some of the initial challenges that faced you when you took over leadership at the Global Leadership Network.
- [66:41]
D
So there were two big things. I'm not a young man. And so they weren't picking somebody that was going to come and lead them for the next 30 years. The two big challenges that I was asked to really Tackle one. We had drifted missionally. And so the summit itself really started focused on pastors and helping pastors be better leaders. And Bill did such a great job of training pastors that then business people started coming and going. This is great stuff. And so then it became a very broad tint as to who was coming, which is fantastic. But over the years, it had drifted from the focus being on pastors to almost being on business people, and almost to the point the last number of years, where it was almost like there was a hesitation to talk about Jesus. And so the board was saying, if we're not talking about Jesus, if all we're doing is teaching leadership, why are we doing this? Other people are doing it. We don't need to do it anymore. So I was asked to bring us back in line missionally and really bring back the focus on churches and pastors and leadership within churches. So that was one. And then financially, we'd been struggling and we'd been losing money, and so it was to kind of right the ship financially were the two big challenges for me. And so we feel like it's been two and a half years now. The last two years, we've righted the ship financially, and so that's been a real big thing for us. And missionally, we feel like we're back on track. We're focusing on pastors and churches again. And that's been a real good thing for the staff to understand fully who we're focusing on. And it doesn't mean we're not interested in the business person, but it's through the church that we impact business people, not trying to go to the businesses and impact them.
- [68:16]
A
Yeah, that's sort of like this podcast. I had a big aha moment three years ago where I kind of thought I was doing the split focus, and then I went through a summer of reorientation. I really felt like what I would call the second call in my life. The first was to go into congregational ministry as a pastor. The second was, was, this may cost you something, but you're going to focus on the church. And so for three and a half years now, we've been drilling down on helping people reverse the decline in the church. And you know what? There's a lot of business people who listen and maybe a few atheists, but for the most part, they're donors, they're board members, they're key volunteers. They're the people who have a day job but really love the church. And it's been an absolute journey, Joy, absolute joy to be able to see this focus. One of the challenges, though, is content is everywhere now. I remember there was a time, the first time I heard Patrick Lencioni was at the Global leadership summit maybe 20 years ago. And those talks were so rare because you did not hear from people. Well, now you can get Pat on a lot of podcasts on his own channel. Same with Andy. Same with Craig. I know Craig does a new talk every time. What are you learning? Because I think this is not unique to the gls. It's also churches. If your church isn't online, every other church is. Sermons are everywhere. What are you finding about the content experience and what people are wanting to get access to now? How's that changed, if it's changed at all? David?
- [69:46]
D
Yeah, I think it definitely has. And for us specifically at the Global Leadership, Global Leadership Network, it has changed in a couple of ways. One, to your point, content is everywhere. And so 30 years ago, we're 31 years old now. It wasn't. So that's.
- [70:00]
A
No, it just wasn't.
- [70:03]
D
For 25 years, the summit had Willow and it had Bill. And so people would come because they wanted to hear Bill. People would come because they wanted to figure out the Willow model because it was thriving. Those are gone now. So we lost those. What we still have, though, in spite of even a leadership failure, is there is one, a trusted brand where people still trust the summit, that we're going to bring the best speakers to the table. There still is a desire, in spite of content being everywhere. It's kind of like church, what we discovered at church. And again, this is going to sound almost heretical to say this, you know, with COVID Carrie, we spent six months saying online is great, Online is great. It's just as good as church, just as good as church. Watch online while we were closed, and then when we opened our doors back, we're like, oh, wait a minute, it's not quite as good. You need to come back in the building. And so now there's this dilemma where you don't want to talk negatively about church online because it is good. But if you compare it to the live, it's not quite there yet, I think most people would admit. And so we want people back in the buildings because there's something that you experience when you're together with a group of people focused on the same subject. And I can listen to Patrick Lencioni in my car on headphones as I'm exercising. It's different than when I'm sitting in a room of hundreds or thousands of other leaders. He's on the stage. And there's something about stepping aside from your normal schedule for one day or two days. There's something about being in a room full of other leaders. It's just a different dynamic. And I have heard for years people say, oh, people don't do big events anymore and it's all going online. I don't think that's true. I mean, there's a reason why people still go to concerts. They can listen to every artist they want all day long in their car at home, but they still pay big money to go to a concert because there's something about that experience and the relationship of being in the room. So I don't think that's going to go away if it's done right.
- [72:03]
A
You also have tremendous convening power. I've been fortunate. I've done the international event in Chicago, but I also spoke at the GLS in Germany, which is a thing. And Germans do not exaggerate, unlike Americans. They said 7,000 people in the room. I'm pretty sure there were 7,001 maybe like, oh my goodness. And it was a flat conference center. It was like when you're at the back of the room, the person on stage was this big. Now they had imag and everything. But the convening power of a brand like that. And we've also spoken across Australia, New Zealand. So shout out to your and to Phil and to Karen and all of you in the GLN globally and South Africa. I mean, there's tremendous convening power. The other thing I've noticed is because I've been there most years for the last five years, six years since Craig took over, and I've been there intermittently before. That is, it seems like the actual physical attendance in Chicago has gone back up again. Is that the case?
- [73:03]
D
Yeah. Coming out of COVID it was. Well, the first year it was all online during COVID Then we opened partially back up. Now it's open fully. And so, yes, the last several years it's been sold out with 7,000 plus people in the room. And there's just an energy and excitement of being there. And it's fantastic. I will say though, if it's done right at a location. So we've hosted the summit for 25, almost 25 years at LCBC and we have about between 2 and 3,000 people each year attend the summit. And Ruth and I, for years, even as I was on the board of the gln, the hope was, expectation was board members would come to Chicago. But we would just say, you know, we'd rather be here at lcbc. We feel like it's just as good here because we know the people and we love experiencing it with our people. And so I think it can be a great experience, even at other locations. But it is exciting to be in Chicago for it.
- [73:56]
A
So what advice would you have for. You know, a lot of people hate this term content creators, but people who provide messages, provide information, whether that's sermons or whether that's. Whether that's theological training or whether it's leadership training, that kind of thing. What advice do you have for them based on what you are learning at GLS and the Global Leadership Network, Global Leadership Summit.
- [74:19]
C
Right.
- [74:19]
A
At both organizations. What are you learning about getting content heard in a sea of content?
- [74:25]
D
Well, when we pick speakers, we'll typically have about 15 speakers at the summit. It's two days. It's Thursday, Friday, and we pull from three different categories. We'll look at ministry leaders, typically pastors that are doing well. We'll look at business leaders or community leaders that are doing well. The third area that we've just opened up more recently, I would say even in the last six, seven, eight years, are content or thought leaders. And they were not necessarily welcome to the summit stage in the past because there'd always been a real strong bias to. We want people on the stage that truly have led. And we still wrestle with that. And we talk about that all the time. Has this person already led or not? And the funny thing is, oftentimes our highest rated speakers are not the ones that have led. They're the best communicators and have great thoughts. And so I wrestle with and go, oh, but they haven't led. And then we get somebody that's led and done great, but they've been so focused on leading and doing well. They're not always the best communicators, but they've got great content. So there's always this tension that's playing there. I think Kerry, though, I mean, you've got to have good content. You've got to be able to communicate date. You've got to keep it somewhat. Simple is not the right word. I grew up under Howard Hendricks at Dallas Seminary, and he was constantly talking about kiss, keep it simple, stupid. And he said that every class he went to, he would just say, keep it simple, stupid. And so even as we're teaching content in a live environment, that way, in a big setting, if you're doing a workshop, you're the only speaker you can get as Detailed as you want for four or five hours. But if you've got 30 minutes on the stage, you've got to keep it fairly simple and broad, or you've got to drill down just to one point and really nail that one point. You've got to show how it's applicable in your life and other people's lives. And so it's some of those kind of things that make it different, the more personal you can make it and tell a story about yourself. Then you feel like in the room, you're kind of listening to somebody tell a story. They go, oh, they probably wouldn't tell this anywhere else, even though they've told it a thousand other times other places. But you still feel like you're getting inside information.
- [76:29]
A
No, those are good tips. The financial turnaround, what was key to that? What really helped? Because sometimes there's a lot of leaders listening to this who are struggling with that.
- [76:39]
D
Well, it was two things. One, it was from a donor standpoint, getting us back on track, vision wise, because there was almost a denial, or an unwillingness to admit that we're struggling and an unwillingness to admit that we had driven, drifted, missionally. And so some of the leaders, both on staff and even on the board, would say, oh, we can't talk about the fact that we've drifted because that's going to make us look bad. And it's like everybody knows. And when we had our first donor meeting, I stood up and said, look, here's where we've drifted. Here's where we've been. Financially, it's not acceptable. We're sorry, but we're going to work to change this. And they didn't applaud, but it's almost like you could have felt an applaud in the room because they know it. And even either they're stupid or we're stupid. If we don't go ahead and acknowledge it and talk about it, then the donors and business leaders are going to. Either they're so unaware of the fact that they've drifted missionally, or they're so unaware of the fact that they're struggling financially that, man, we're not sure we want to give to them anyway. And so just being authentic and real, I think, is huge, Carrie, in that matter. So part of it was just talking about it, and then the other part, for me, not as a. A leader in front of people, but as a leader of an organization or as a staff, is just to say no. And I think there'd been a reluctance of saying no to the staff. And so I spent the first 12 months saying, no, no, no. Good idea, but no, we're not going to do that. And I, at one point, I can remember an exec team meeting, and we were having to cut some things in order to make the budget. And I said, you know what? You guys can get real mad at me on this. And we had good relationships, and we've got a great relationship now still. I said, you guys can get real mad at me about saying no. I said, I'm a whole lot more comfortable with you being mad at me than my having to sit before the board in another couple of months and say, oops, we missed it by many, many dollars. I would much rather face your wrath than their wrath. And so no. And so I think a lot of times leaders are hesitant to just say no, but it's, man, the buck stops here. Somebody's got to say it. And so I had to.
- [78:47]
A
When you look back at your time so far in leadership, LCBC training, Global Leadership Network, the pastor thing you're doing in Pennsylvania, what's been most surprising to.
- [79:00]
C
You.
- [79:04]
D
People are people, you know, people that, when I started in 1991, that I would have idolized. And, you know, we have this impression. And I would say, even as LCBC has grown, Carrie, we would talk about this as a staff. Sometimes you'd look at other churches that were way ahead of you, big churches, and you think, man, they must be the most brilliant people in the world. And if we could only be as smart as them. And they are smart people, and they're good people, and God is blessing them. But after a while, you spend enough time and you realize, you know, they're not. Not that different than we are. And it doesn't mean that we're that great. It just means God is blessing us and we haven't done anything stupid to break up what God is doing here. And so, man, let's just keep moving ahead. Let's keep making good decisions. One of our big things was focus on what's best, not what's good. And so part of saying no, not only financially, is saying no to a ton of good ideas. And, you know, just in your involvement in the church and what you do, there's. There's no shortage of good ideas. And I just had to. And I feel like my last 10 years at LCBC, we're spent more time saying no, that's. That's a good idea, but that's not the best idea for us. The best idea for us is whatever's going to help us introduce more people to Jesus. And this is going to be a distraction. So we're going to say no. And you have to get comfortable with people being mad at you for saying no to their pet project. But it's like, man, no, we're not going to do that. So I think, I think realizing we're all people, we're all the same, that everybody has the same struggles, there are people that are way, way smarter than me. And so for me, my whole model was always the more I can bring people around me that are way smarter than me. My constant challenge carried a staff was, if you come work at lcbc, I'm going to do everything I can to make you as successful as possible. And early days, we couldn't hire experts from outside. We had to take people that we hoped we could develop. And so we would go and we would look at different models in student ministry, let's say, and I'd take that person to two or three or four different churches and I'd say we'd figure out what we wanted. And then I'd say, that's what I want. And I want you to get so good at this that people are going to come from all across the country to figure out how to do student ministry or worship and arts or whatever. It was every staff person we hired, and we've got 300 now, that was always a challenge to be so good that people are going to come and learn from you. And in part, it was an acknowledgement on my part. And I'd say to them, you're to going to be way better than this than I ever could be. And I think sometimes as leaders and pastors, we think we've got to be the smartest person in the room or we've got to be the best at. And if that's what we think, we're limiting our capacity to ever grow or move forward. And so for me, it was, I know my limitations, but I can do everything I can to lift other people up and. And let's do that.
- [81:44]
A
So, David, as a leader, you get asked a lot of questions. What's one question you rarely or never get asked that you wish someone would ask you?
- [81:58]
D
Probably that one.
- [82:01]
A
No, it's unfair. I get to ask the questions. I've had that asked of me once or twice. And I'm like, darn, I don't know.
- [82:08]
D
Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, Carrie. And I would say this oftentimes when I was teaching. I know my dark sides. I know the things that I struggle with. And I'm not sure that I want all of those revealed to everybody else. And yet I'm real willing to admit I've got flaws. And there are things that I go, man, I'm ashamed that I even think that way, whether it's pride or selfishness and things like that. So, I don't know. Somebody said years ago, back when putting IMAG up on the screens was just getting popular, how horrific it would be if what was going on in our heads could be projected onto those screens. And so that probably would be my answer to your question. I don't know that I want everybody to know everything that goes on in my head. And so that's where I'm constantly confessing to God and saying, God, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I'm thinking this way.
- [83:10]
A
David, I did it again this morning. I mean, and you know that point about when you meet the people that you kind of idolize and your heroes? And I'm very, very fortunate to have met so many people that I've read or watched over the years or admired from afar. And some of them become friends. A lot of them I can talk to now. And probably one of my favorite things, I remember the first time, I don't want to drop names, but I got in a room with someone that I was like, oh, this guy knows everything. And I got to ask him a question, right? You get into that room. And I remember the first time he just went, yeah, I don't know. And I thought, oh, oh, you know? And then I thought, but isn't that refreshing to know that he doesn't know? Because I don't know and he doesn't know. And so, you know, when you really see that, when you meet your heroes and they don't disappoint you. And I would say everyone says, don't meet your heroes, you know? Yeah, I've met a lot in the church and in the business world, and they, for the most part, have not disappointed. They are who you think they are, as far as I can tell.
- [84:14]
D
Carrie, what I do in Pennsylvania we call the advantage. And where that comes from is in the Book of Acts, they describe Apollos. And I was reading the passage that describes Apollos, and it describes him in glowing terms. He was this great communicator, great debater of the faith. All these different descriptors. As I'm reading, I'm trying to think, man, am I anything like him? And the further I read, the more I'm nothing like him. I don't Communicate as well as I do. I wish I knew scriptures better. I mean, I've been to seminary, I've got a doctorate, but I forget so much. And debater of the faith, I tend to shrivel up when I'm challenged hard. And so I felt like I was none of those things. But there's one little descriptor of him where it just says he was a great benefit or advantage to every believer that he came in contact with. And as I read that descriptor, and I've read it hundreds of times, well, I don't know, dozens of times, times before for sure. It never caught my eye, but it caught my eye that particular time. And I just said, God, that's what I want to be the rest of my life. I want to be a benefit or advantage. And specifically I remember reading it then and saying, I just want to be that to pastors for the rest of my life. Whatever you give me, I want to be a benefit or advantage to pastors. And so that's kind of where we took the name for the advantage. And for me, that's my goal. And even with the Global Leadership Network, it's like whatever I can do to help pastors be better. And I don't have all the answers. I don't know them, but man, I can come alongside and just encourage and be an advantager of benefits. So that's kind of been my, that's, I hope, my life journey for the next number of years.
- [85:41]
A
Man, that's incredible. David, I've enjoyed this immensely. Thank you. So tell me if people want to find you online. They want to join the Advantage, they want to attend the summit, they want to attend LCBC or read your books. Where's a good place where they can find all things David Ashcraft?
- [86:01]
D
GlobalLeadership.org is where you can find out about the Global Leadership Network. You can reach me at LCBC Church as well. It's just under lcbcchurch.com so, yeah, any of those ways that way and love to talk to people and love to talk to pastors and hear their stories and what's going on. So thank you. This has been fun for me as well.
- [86:19]
A
Well, I really appreciate it. Thanks, David.
- [86:22]
D
Yeah, thank you.
- [86:23]
A
I really enjoyed that conversation with David. Hey, we got show notes for you if you're interested. You can get them at the Art of Leadership Academy. We have 15,000 leaders in the Art of Leadership Academy. You can go to theartofleadershipacademy.com or just click the link in the show notes and it will take you. Or in the episode, I should say it'll take you directly to the Academy where you can sign up for free and get the show notes. We got all the links to everything we talked about. I imagine you Pennsylvania pastors will be interested in finding out more about the Advantage as well. So next episode we got a brand new year and we're and we've got my 2026 church trends. I am so excited to bring you really seven church trends that I've identified and we're going to go through them in the podcast. We're going to do a deep dive all month on the church trends. Going to have a number of different interviews, but I'll give you the recap, the overview and then Also all things, 2026 church trends. Church trends, I should say are in the Art of Leadership Academy. We've set up a hub there. You can join. It's absolutely free. Go to 2026churchtrends.com for more. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening and I hope our time together today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing. Hey leaders, before we go today, if.
- [87:45]
C
You want to expand your thinking, grow your leadership and get some really relevant, fascinating, curious content about ministry, ministry, the future, church and other random topics I find helpful as a church leader, check out my newsletter, on the Rise. It's my once per week Friday newsletter that gets sent directly to your inbox.
- [88:04]
A
Every single week and it's totally free.
- [88:06]
C
If you want to start receiving on the Rise, along with over 100,000 other leaders every single week, visit ontherisenewsletter.com for free.
- [88:14]
A
You can sign up today.
- [88:15]
C
So when you sign up, I'll send you a sample newsletter right away. You can get an instant taste of what it's like. Like if it isn't for you, you can unsubscribe at any time. That's ontherisenewsletter.com to get curated content about ministry, culture, the future and more. One of my favorite things to do every week.
- [88:31]
A
I don't want you to miss it.