Thinking Christian about Leadership

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm excited to have a friend and former colleague here, Craig Hendrickson, with me. Craig is the newly minted president of Arrow Leadership, begins officially full-time January 2nd. And so welcome, Craig. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, maybe start, you know, back when you were getting out of football. I know you were in football and getting into ministry and that kind of thing. And then we'll dive in and talk a little bit about Arrow and leadership and just cover as much as we can. Sure. Sounds good. Thanks, James. Thanks for having me on. Excited about this. Yeah, I'm excited, you know, new transition into a new role coming January 2nd. As we were talking, that transition has been ongoing, trying to juggle one foot in one at Moody in my current role, finishing up as a professor and then getting ready to really dive in. My journey with Arrow really kind of goes back to the beginning of my ministry. As you mentioned, I was playing professional football in Canada for 11 years. I was doing seminary. My MDiv while I was there at Regent College up in Canada, getting ready because I knew I was going into ministry. Like a lot of young guys, you know, I guess I wasn't young, but I was younger than now where I'm feeling kind of old. It's all relative, right? Yeah. You know, I was in my upper 20s when I started seminary there. And by the time I retired and graduated, I was 32, 33 years old. I was just finishing my career. I had been hired to go down to Long Beach, California as an assistant pastor on a staff. Excited. And like a lot of younger guys, I came in thinking, I got this, right? I'm ready. I'm a leader, right? I'm an influencer of people. I got the position. It's good to go. Absolutely, right? And so I started my journey in vocational ministry around 2000, kind of doing part-time stuff while I was playing. And that full-time role started January 2002. Came in, man, probably within eight months, I was ready to quit. All right? It was not what I expected. And everything was my senior pastor's fault, right? I mean, obviously. Obviously. Because I was a leader, and it was not my problem. It's like, if this guy could just get on board and figure out that I know what I'm doing, it'd be great. Right? So eight months in, I'm ready to quit. I'm miserable. I'm thinking, what the heck have I signed up for? This is, you know, when I got into ministry, it was all, I was just thinking, man, people are coming to Jesus every day, and I'm going to be transforming lives and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And there was some good stuff happening, you know, in the ministry. But it was not quite going the way I expected. And so it was right around that time. I'd been talking to this group on the recommendation of a friend called Arrow Leadership that as I finished seminary, this was a mentor of mine who'd actually funded my seminary education. He was key in leading me to Christ. We'd had a mentoring relationship for years. He said, hey, we're thinking of getting involved with this leadership ministry. I'm wondering if you'd like to do this. And if you want to go, I'll pay for it. We want to see what it's like. Is it effective? And I'm sitting there going like, well, I mean, yeah, why not? Right? And I'm not really thinking much of it. I'm just kind of like, can't hurt, you know, and I'm not sure what I'm going to learn. I'm already a good leader, but, you know, I'm not sure. And so when I hit that eight-month wall and I'm getting ready to get into Arrow, and I'm thinking, oh, man, I get to Arrow. And that was the beginning of the transformation of me, not just as a leader, but as a person. Right? Arrow, the process starts with 360-degree feedback. And as I got the feedback, right, I started to realize, oh, my gosh. Right? Maybe it's not my senior pastor. Maybe it's me. Maybe I need to grow. Maybe I need to improve. And so that was the beginning of a journey for me, an ongoing journey of self-development as a leader to grow as a leader, to become more aware of some of the things that I was getting in my own way, right, as I was trying to lead people. And that journey started. And that Arrow experience, which lasted over the next two years, is really what it really shaped, kept me in ministry, and shaped me moving forward into new ways. Right? Yeah. The Arrow program's adapted a little since then. It's not quite the same as it was when I went through. Still a lot of similar principles. But that journey in community with some other leaders and with mentors pouring into me really helped me to see where I needed to grow, and that shaped me. And so as I finished my role, Arrow kept me in that role, kind of helped me stay in that role for a couple more years. I stayed in that role in that church for four years. I then joined a group back then called Church Resource Ministries. Now it's called Novo. And that was another transformational experience for me. We became really leadership coach, consultant, and trainers for urban leaders in areas that I was really passionate about, multi-ethnic ministry and missional ministry. Right? How do we engage our communities intentionally with God at the center and helping them to have these transformational experiences? I spent the next six years with them really refining my approach to leadership. But it was a funded position. And right in the middle of that experience, 2008 came along. And 2008, if you remember, wasn't exactly a fun year financially, especially for the next few years. Right? Yeah. And so as home-based missionaries, we lost 80% of our funding within a six-month period. And it was a rough couple of years for us. That eventually led me back into the pastorate. I became a senior pastor for a few years. At the time, I was continuing. I'd finished Arrow. I actually now was doing a THM and a PhD. And with Arrow, we have these academic partnerships with certain institutions. And so I started taking advantage of some of that. So I kept doing my education. Knew that at some point I wanted to at least teach, maybe do some things in the academy. But that for the time being, I just loved developing. And so I was doing these programs. I was pastoring. This eventually led us on our journey back to Chicago. Chicago is where I got into higher ed, first at North Park doing some things with staff, adjuncting, but doing campus ministry. And then eventually at Moody, where I became, right now, my role is associate professor of missional leadership. I oversee that program and have been here for now almost eight years, basically teaching different aspects of leadership, intercultural leadership, missional leadership, and different elements at Moody with my students in my program and a few others. And so that's kind of the little roundabout way of kind of bringing us to where we are now at this stage, where now I'm kind of going full circle, back, getting ready to just roll back into Arrow. So I'm actually really excited about it. I bet. Well, let me, I'll circle back around to a few little questions. You said you were with Arrow for two years. You know, is that the normal kind of time cycle for the leadership coaching? Yeah, so right now, the way we've adapted Arrow over the years, over the last 15 or so, as I mentioned to you before, I've stayed involved as a trainer and as a leadership coach with Arrow doing certain aspects, investing in younger leaders because I have such a, had such a value for the program, still do, obviously. It started as a mentoring cohort-based program where we would get together with 25, 24, 25 in our group, in our cohort, and we would start the journey with assessment. We would then go for six, for a one-week, we called it residential. It's called an intensive now where we're there on site, kind of like doing a doctor of ministry, right? Where you go, you'd fly up wherever location we're in, kind of a retreat center where it was a get away from the tyranny of the urgent kind of experience, connect with other leaders. And we'd be there learning different content, meeting with our mentor, meeting with our peer group that would mentor, do peer mentoring and kind of different levels of mentoring. Six months later, you go to another one. And so these one-week intensives basically happen every six months over a two-year period. So it really worked out to a little over a year and a half. We've shifted that now just with the needs of where we are, changes in the culture, just a whole lot of things where we now have three intensives instead of four for a little shorter. It lasts from start to finish between a year, year and a half when you kind of wedge in that first one, then six months and six months, right? With a little bit of pre-work, a little bit of post-work, it works out to about a year and a half. It's an intensive program that is designed really to hit three areas of how we frame our mission. And that's to help develop Jesus-centered leaders. That's the heart of what we do. And what we define as that is helping leaders to become more led by Jesus so that they can lead more like Jesus and ultimately lead more to

Right, you finish a degree or you hop into a new profession and you get thrown into a position, right? And that position has authority and responsibility, and so you think that you're in that position, so you must have authority and responsibility. Absolutely. And you know exactly how to exercise all that. And so, yeah, I went through a year's worth of executive training, executive leadership training with a lady in Chicago, Catherine Tack, who's fantastic. But she started with the 360 as well. And so do you all still, does the arrow still do 360 at the beginning of that when you say assessment, like that's what it is, it's that 360? Yep, we do. We do the 360. The 360 involves some, like we use the Berkman. We use a couple of those types of assessments, what we call our ALP leadership assessment and a couple of other things. But then we get the feedback from who you're leading, who's supervising you, who are your peers at the job. So we're getting that 360-degree feedback from your work environment to give feedback on top of the assessments to get a good sense of what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, where do you need to grow. And then you put together the heart of the air leadership development program is actually putting together what we call a leading me plan or leadership development plan where you choose two or three learning objectives in certain areas of your personal development that could be skills, character, spiritual, relational. And that's going to serve and drive you for the entire year, year and a half you're in the program, right? And so as you go those goals, they are based out of what you heard in that 360. Yeah, that's very cool. I found the 360 to be sort of enlightening. I think I don't know that I really felt like I had nothing to change, but I would have identified the way wrong things, right? Like I just wouldn't have thought ever what other people thought about me. I was like, oh, really? OK, well, that's fine. And so it was super helpful. So, I mean, I love that you guys start there. I mean, I've been teaching this class for Wheaton College, biblical foundations for leadership, which is kind of interesting. And so, you know, obviously, it's more of a traditional higher ed kind of class. There's not a lot of mentoring and that kind of stuff. But I was able to have about two full days with the students in class, which was awesome. And it's like, you know, you develop the content for a course. You kind of know how this goes, right? You develop the content, you're having to read books, you know, you're doing the normal academic stuff and then you hit the classroom and they have like all these questions. And it was actually pretty fantastic. But I guess I'm wondering, you know, when you think about that part of how do you be like Jesus, right? What sort of foundations do you all start with? Where do you where do you really begin with that? I mean, is it, you know, sort of a biblical principle sort of approach? Do you look at it from, you know, specifically in Jesus's life? Like where do you start people off with that kind of thing? Yeah, so I'd say that what we try to do is really kind of a holistic approach. Everything we do is anchored in really the leadership of Jesus, right? As our exemplar. Now we pull in other scriptures, obviously, and stories of how Jesus transformed people. And you can see Peter, how he changed, right? He grew from this sort of arrogant, brash, going to rush in, not always thinking through, right? To being transformed and, you know, forgiven, right? And then really restored and moves into a whole more effective level of leadership. So, you know, we'll pull in other scriptures, obviously, as well. But we really do believe that Jesus is the example of the greatest leader who ever lived, right? And that if we really learn from some of the ways he engaged and encountered people, that that can really serve as a foundation for all that we do, which is why we frame our mission statement around these three ideas, right? Being led more by him, lead more like him and lead more to him. And so we will have when we have our content, so to speak, when we're at the intensives, we have, let's say we, we get there Tuesday night. There's some social time, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, for example, those are gonna be three days of different types of content on different topics. We feel are important. They're around those three areas of investment. And we're going to pull in biblical narratives to reflect on. There may be days we work on where we send students out to participants actually out to do some scripture meditation on certain encounters Jesus has with people to reflect on leadership practice and on their own or other types of things that we do, right? So what we do is a mix of instruction with reflection, with biblical reflection, the feedback and all of those things. And so I think that, you know, leadership development itself is, it's essential as Christian leaders. If you believe that a Christian leader's goal is to influence or lead people toward God's preferred future or vision for those people, you know, at that time, right? If it's about moving people closer to where he envisions them to be, where he wants us to be together collectively. Right. Well, most of us would say when you, when you talk to the average person in the church or in your organization or whatever, it's like, yeah, we want to be here. Oh yeah, we value this. Right. But you know, you've spent enough time to know that with organizations and individuals, we have these things called values, right? And sometimes our preferred values, right? Who we want to be, who we think we are, who we, you know, where we say we were about don't line up with our lived values, right? We got, we have this gap that is just wide sometimes. We say we're about encouraging or loving. So for me, like I get my 360 feedback, right? And I say, oh, I'm an encourager. Right. Well, I was raised in a way where the favorite mantra was suck it up. Right. Very encouraging. You've done your job. You've done your job. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Right now, move on to the next. And so my envision of encouragement was like, boom, somebody gets their job done. It's like, okay, great. What's next? Right? Let's go. And so I think I'm an encouraging leader because I'm not a discouraging leader. Right? But I get the 360 feedback. And back then we were using, one of the assessments we used was Cousins and Posner's, you know, leadership challenge. And they have an assessment that up there, five areas. And one of them is leader as encourager. And so I get the graph that has two lines. And my graph is like here, you know, they're kind of going like this for the most part, you know, they're really close. And then we get to encouragement and it goes like this. I score myself in the 90th percentile and my, and those I'm in my feedback, they score me in the 10th percentile. And that was that moment where I just kind of went, right? What the? Yeah. God hit the floor. I'm literally shattered, right? I'm just like, oh my gosh, they think I'm all this going through. Yeah. All this going through your head is like, how do they not know what encouragement is? What's going on? I mean, oh my gosh. You know what I'm saying? So, and so that's where I realized, okay, who I think I am may not fully be lining up with who I actually am. And I need some work on this. And that formed part of my plan. Right. And I spent a bunch of time as part of that, actually meditating on passages of scripture, both in Jesus's life and in some from Paul, where it really was about him encouraging or engaging with people in life giving ways. Right. Even people that may not be living a lifestyle that he would have approved of. Right. But he's inviting them into something else. Yeah. So, yeah. So we, we try to layer everything with, with scripture, with biblical narratives, especially around Jesus, how he engages. But then we try to move that into practical outcomes and say like, okay, different context. You know, how do we, how do we actually make this real? And that's where we try to have them have our participants really reflect on connecting that text right to current context, right. Ancient text, current context. So there's a lot of that involved as well. That's great, man. I mean, I love the biblical basis of it. And

And it's pretty analytic, like you're looking at the data and you're trying to figure out, okay, you know, what's really wrong here? But at the end of the day, it's sort of like an itinerant leadership consultation every time because most of the time what you're really trying to do is help people understand what's actually wrong, not where they're feeling it, but what's actually wrong. And so for all of you out there who are listening to this and you haven't read Ronald Heifetz, number one, I'd say go grab a book. His books are great. They're really readable. But essentially what he argues, and Craig, you can correct this or add to it if I get it wrong. Essentially what he argues is that leaders, their primary job is to help the people they're leading agree on a problem, like see the problem themselves and then start moving towards solving it as opposed to defining the problem for the people and then trying to drive them to solve the problem they've defined. Is that a fair summary? Yeah, I think that's the heart of it. I think what I would add to that is that, and I still use his material with my leadership class at Moody as well, is that as that task, define the problem, if we're Heifetz, his paradigm, right, is this a technical problem or is this an adaptive challenge? Great. And it's helping, like you said, helping the people come to see. Now, as a leader, I may already see it and it's identified, but it's not going to be helpful for me to just kind of say, here's the problem. Let's fix it. Come on. Right. Because most people, they don't see it. Right. They don't. It's kind of like everything seems fine. What do you mean there's an adaptive challenge? We need to change. No, no, we're excited about where we are. Right. And so helping people see, you know, is this a really a technical problem where we just sort of make a little shift and do some things and fix it? Or is this, no, no, we actually need to change, take on new values, new practices, become somebody different. Right. So I think that's like the heart of it, kind of along the lines of with what you're saying. And when you're when you're thinking about, you know, when you told your story, you talked about these transformative experiences, you know, and I sort of in my head, just knowing you, I kind of connect that to adaptive challenge. Right. It's like those are those moments where you really have to do the renovation. Right. There's no more duct tape in the walls together. There's no more, you know, I can't put any more caulk on that to hold it together. Like we actually now have to do the renovation. So here we go. Is that a fair, you know, kind of bringing of those together? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There's there's I can never remember the name of this book, but there's another book by two authors called Keegan and Leahy that I think it's called Immunity to Change. And their book is really taking Heifetz's model and applying it to individuals. Right. And so as they apply this to individuals, that's where they come up with this sort of paradigm for coaching. And even you can't take it organizationally, but they use this language of, you know, what are your competing commitments? Right. And what they're getting at is not, oh, I don't have enough time or this or that, or I'm busy with kids. It's no, no. What are the internal things that are actually preventing you from the desired outcome that you want? So I want to be this, right? I want to be more gracious and loving. But every time I try to be more gracious and loving, I fly off the handle and like, you know, come at you with an uppercut. Right. And so what they're what they're basically says, well, here's here's who I want to be. Here's my actual reality. There's something causing and they frame that as a competing commitment. Right. It's like there's something in me. So if I think of biblically, I say the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus, right? The rich young man, he comes and our instinct is just to sort of focus on the money. Oh, we didn't want to give up his money. Right. And what what Keegan and Leahy would say is, no, no, actually, it's deeper. What is it that money is providing this young guy? Right. What is he actually committed to? Is it security? Is it status? Is it Jewish cosmology? Hey, like if the wealthy are blessed by God, the poor are cursed by God. If I give all this money away. Am I right? Like, what is he coming up against that? He just leaves and says, I can't do that. It's too much. Right. And that's the frame, because what they're getting at with those competing commitments is these are what are preventing you from changing, right, from adapting. And that's what you need to address. Right. Which is actually tied in their next level of faulty assumptions. Right. I've got a faulty assumption about God in that case, about life, about money and finances, whatever it is that I have to address. Right. So I think they use Heifetz's paradigm and I love it the way they do that because you're diving now into the adaptive. How do I need to actually adapt? Let go of something. Let's have something transform the way I'm even viewing the world or the situation to become who God is inviting me to be. Well, it's really interesting. I mean, you bring up that rich young ruler passage. I actually just wrote a piece on it and, you know, the narrative before it is the little children coming to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so kind of the way I see it, it's like, yeah, the rich young ruler, he's not it's not about the money. Right. It's about, you know, sort of a lack of vulnerability. Like this money is something that he has that is giving him that's allowing him to thrive in life. It's allowing him to survive. It's allowing him to you know, there is that something underlying. It didn't have to be wealth. It could have been almost anything. Right. Anything that he is unwilling to give up and to make himself so invulnerable that now accepting Jesus becomes the right move. Right. That kind of idea. And so when Jesus is saying, no, the kingdom of God belongs to such as these and he's referring to the children, I think what he's saying is they're they're coming with nothing. They're completely dependent. It's easy to shove them off. I mean, the disciples are already kind of kicking them like, no, don't bring these urchins over here. Like, get rid of these children. Right. And then the rich young rulers, they're like perfect juxtaposition to them because he's got everything. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, just even thinking through that narrative, man, you could come up with so much stuff out of the gospels that would be just fantastic for leaders. Absolutely. And really those adaptive challenges of, you know, what does it really look like? There's a great book. I don't know if you ever read it. I think it's L.A. Paul wrote a book called The Transformative Experience. And basically, so she uses this idea in the book. She's like, let's say you have friends who are vampires. Right. And you're considering being a vampire and they're explaining it to you. They're telling you how great it is. Like, oh, man, it's fantastic. Love it. You know, I would never go back. And her point is, like some experiences you're never really going to understand until you actually just do it. Right. The transformation actually has to take place. Like they can explain it to you as much as you want, but until you actually become a vampire, you're not going to know whether it was a good decision for you or not. And like you're not going to know whether you like that, whether it's better, whether it's worse, you know, how it's better or worse, those kind of things. And I just think so much of our Christian life is like that. It's like we don't really fully grasp what it what it is to follow Jesus in this moment, you know, or in this way until we just actually do it. Yeah, absolutely. So I think this is one of the key things that most of us, we don't think about because as Christians, a lot of times, especially if you if we come out of a Bible church kind of tradition or a church that's that's much more inclined towards love God with all your mind. Right. Then than the rest of that, you know, heart, soul, strength. If we come out of that tradition. The conversations I tend to have with people is if if I just get you to believe the right things, right, the right doctrine, the right views about God, etc., then then everything else will follow and you're going to be changed. And I'm like, you know, I'd love to agree with you. The problem is I've seen too many examples and even in my own life where it doesn't happen. Right. Like, here's the thing. You go back in church history. Lots of God-fearing, godly people in the church in America in the early to mid 1800s. 100%. Yep. Yet a bunch of those denominations split because so many people were convinced that slavery was biblical and others were convinced that this is absolutely not. Absolutely wasn't. Right. They all believed the same core doctrines in Scripture. That's right. Trinity. Jesus comes to set us free, save us, etc. like this. But the practice, right, that orthopraxy, it didn't translate into loving their neighbors the same way

In our ministry. And I said, realized, we have nothing. I'm trying to, I do whatever I can. I've got to borrow money from my mom, right? To get, and I'm a 40 year old man and I'm sitting there going, oh my gosh, I'm calling my mother to borrow money because I can't, I couldn't get a job. And I've got two master's degrees. I'm in a doctoral program, right? I've been doing whatever and I can't get hired. I couldn't get hired to walk the floor at Target. I mean, I was applying for everything, right? And I'm sitting here as I'm experiencing this and we are struggling, and I realized for the first time, maybe everybody who's poor isn't there because they're lazy. Because I'm not lazy, right? I'm working really hard here. And it was the experience of losing all of that, all of our funding. I've got a paycheck coming in one, one, one, one, one two week period for 73 cents. Right. Literally. That's my deposit in my bank account. I'm looking at this going, what the heck am I gonna do with that? Right. Yeah. And it's the experience. Right now I'm actually living it and I'm working hard. I'm doing everything I can to, to build more supporters, to applying for jobs. I can't get hired. Right. So, so for me, when you focus so much on learning about this and you leave out like this, right, the boom, put it into action when you, when you don't give people those experiences, when you don't create other spaces for the heart, you know, for the soul and for the kinesthetic experience, you're doing a disservice because you cannot learn unless you are that 10% who are just, oh, I got it. I got the idea and I can put it into practice. Right. The, the 90% aren't like that. Yeah. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. You know, I would even say, you know, I think over the course of my career, one of the things my wife has always said to me is she's like, you know, you're what you're good at is learning what to do and then doing it. Right. Like I'm good at putting things into practice. But what I would, when I look at it, I say, no, because there's way more that I know that I'm actually putting into practice. Like it's almost impossible, I think, for us to know less than we're actually putting into practice. Right. It's even impossible just to get it even. I think we're always going to know more than we're doing. And that's just part of it. I mean, it's I had a very similar experience to you. And I think this was definitely eye opening for me. I mean, I couldn't get a gig after I was done with two masters and, you know, most of my doctoral work. Right. Churches wouldn't touch me like too much education, too much this, too much that, you know, I couldn't get a part time ministry job. Yep. And, you know, I'm just sitting there like, this is unbelievable. Like, all of a sudden, you know, you think you're positioning yourself to do something and do something fairly well. And then all of a sudden you can't, like you said, I can't get a door or I can't get a job walking the Kmart floor. Like you just could not get a job. And it is very humbling. I think in that time it reminded me that, you know, number one, all these things that we think we do in order to sort of secure ourselves, education, right? My dad had a high school diploma and my mom had a bachelor's, you know, and there were real lean times growing up. And so education was one of those things where it's like, no, just keep going with education. If you're educated, you always have an option, right? You know, that kind of stuff. And I'm like, I'm sitting there without a job going, well, that wasn't exactly true, was it? You know? But I think those were good things for me to go through. They really did teach me more about what was going on than anything else. And I can remember Kim and I sort of reflecting on it and going like, we're so grateful that we have something of a safety net, right? Because if we didn't have parents, you know, around, like we'd be in trouble right now. We'd be either going into heavy debt. We'd be, you know, doing this, doing that. Like we knew what our options were and we were really grateful that our parents were willing to help just a little bit and kind of get us through the rough patch because I think that's, in my experience, what happens with a lot of people. They start to get into that rough patch, no safety net, and you just start digging a pretty deep hole. And it's hard to get out of it, man. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know how we teach people that. Like, I don't know, you know, outside of lived experience, right? Like, well, and this is the thing, right? This is why I think, like just that, that phrase you use, right? That's why I think mentoring is so important, right? When it comes to developing leaders, because the lived experience that a mentor has and is bringing into you. Now you may not be ready to hear it, but at least if that seed is planted, when the inevitable experience you're going to have comes, that seed is there and you can kind of be like, man, Craig told me that three years ago, right? And maybe I could reach back out to Craig and, oh my gosh, I'm calling my mother to borrow money because I can't, I couldn't get a job and I've got two master's degrees. I'm in a doctoral program, right? I've been doing whatever and I can't get hired. I couldn't get hired to walk the floor at Target. I mean, I was applying for everything, right? And I'm sitting here as I'm experiencing this and we are struggling and I realized for the first time, maybe everybody who's poor isn't there because they're lazy. Because I'm not lazy, right? Right. I'm working really hard here. Right. And it was the experience of losing all of that, all of our funding. I've got a paycheck coming in one, one, one, one, one two week period for 73 cents. Yeah. Right. Literally. That's my deposit in my bank account. I'm looking at this going, what the heck am I going to do with that? Right. Yeah. And it's the experience right now. I'm actually living it and I'm working hard. I'm doing everything I can to, to build more supporters, to applying for jobs. I can't get hired. Right. So, so for me, when you focus so much on learning about this and you leave out like this, right? The boom, put it into action. When you, when you don't give people those experiences, when you don't create other spaces for the heart, you know, for the soul and for the kinesthetic experience, you're doing a disservice because you cannot learn unless you were that 10% who are just, oh, I got it. I got the idea and I can put it into practice. Right. The 90% aren't like that. Yeah. Let me ask you a serious question. 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You know, I would even say, you know, I think over the course of my career, one of the things my wife has always said to me is she's like, you know, you're what you're good at is learning what to do and then doing it. Right. Like I'm good at putting things into practice. But what I would, when I look at it, I say no, because there's way more that I know that I'm actually putting into practice. Right. Like it's almost impossible, I think, for us to know less than we're actually putting into practice. Right. It's even impossible just to get it even. Right. I think we're always going to know more than we're doing. And

Suck it up, little peep. You know, I mean, like, what are you doing? That was my attitude, right? Like, you're not tougher. You're not strong enough, right? And so here's the other one. Wow, okay, maybe it's not about that. Maybe there's something to this kind of holistic sort of the emotional side. Okay, I guess I have one too, right? I better explore it more, right? So here's what I'm realizing. Wow, okay, maybe it's not about that. Maybe there's something to this kind of holistic sort of the emotional side. Okay, I guess I have one too, right? I better explore it more, right? So here's what I'm realizing. Wow, okay, maybe it's not about that. Maybe there's something to this kind of holistic sort of the emotional side. Okay, I guess I have one too, right? I better explore it more, right? And here's the thing, right? It's awesome because Jesus first, what does he do first? He says, my paraphrase, awesome, right? That's incredible. Way to go, right? But then he shifts and he kind of goes, but hey now, right? He says, don't celebrate in this. Rejoice that your names are written, you know, in the book of life, right? It's just like, slow your roll. But then he transitions back out of that again. He kind of corrects him, right? So yeah, he's doing this debrief, right? With these leaders in a sense with the language that we would use, where it's like, I'm gonna celebrate your success, but I'm gonna correct you a little bit. And I'm gonna pray and bless you. And he kind of, you know, thank you, Father in heaven for this and all these things, right? And so he does this debriefing experience. And so for me, kind of coming back here a little bit to the beginning of our conversation, this to me is why a program like Arrow is so important for leaders, right? Because what you do is that. Like you're doing all this stuff. But in our context of just the tyranny, the urgent, and there's always something next. And I don't take time for what Heifetz calls like get on the balcony, right? Get on the balcony, view it and see like, what's going on here is, we don't have time to do that. And so Arrow, what we do is we say, like, let's actually get you over here on the balcony, okay? Let's just take a look at what's going on in your life and your ministry and just all of the different things so you can actually see how these things are working. Because with his illustration, it's that, right? On the dance floor, you can see your partner and a few people around you. But when you get on the balcony, now I can see the whole floor and the band and everything going on, right? And so, you know, Arrow and ministries like us, what we do, it really provides that balcony experience where you can actually now get an accurate picture of what the heck is going on. Why am I burned out? Why am I frustrated? Why am I ineffective? Why am I in conflict all the time? Why, you know, whatever it is. And now I can see it and I say, now you can actually deal with it and address it, right? You've got an adaptive challenge or a technical problem or whatever it is, right? You've got a problem here. Now we can deal with it and we're gonna walk with you through that to address it so that you can actually become more effective, right? And learn how to lead like Jesus led, right? Like think of when Jesus, what does he do? Spends all night healing people at Peter's mother-in-law's house at the beginning of Mark, right? And then it says he steals away. He goes and prays by himself in the morning. All the leaders then come look for, or his disciples, they'll come, Jesus, where are you? Everybody's looking for you, right? And you know, of course his answer is like, great, let's go back and do ministry, right? No, right. Not what he does. He says, okay, well, let's go somewhere else then, right? This is why I've come, right? Jesus steals away. He spends that time he needs with his Father away from people pressing on him, all the needs, everything going on. He can now gain clarity, perspective, and also cultivate the courage to say good no's in service to his higher yeses, kind of how I picked that up somewhere. I don't even remember who I got it from, but that's what I'm saying. Like it's, he can say, no, these are good ministry opportunities, but I'm not doing it because my mission is to actually preach the gospel in all these towns. So we're gonna go do that, right? And so, so I think that's a great model of sort of Heifetz's life on the balcony, right? It's that Jesus stealing away hours with his Father, trying to just like, all right, God, right? All right, all right, Father, right? What do you have for me, right? And it's clarity, it's perspective, it's courage, it's we're finding a sense of mission, let's go. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I think, you know, you and I have talked about Arrow over the years, and so I've always kind of been a distant fan. I've never actually had the opportunity to do it, but I always feel like helping Christians develop as better leaders is a great opportunity for anybody. And so where can folks find more information about Arrow? Like where would they go to, you know, maybe sign up or explore it a little bit? Like what are we looking at? Yep, really easy. So our name is Arrow, like a like a bow and arrow, right? So Arrow Leadership, you go to www.arrowleadership.org. You go to arrowleadership.org. One, there's a free assessment on there. You get a little sort of assessment of your leadership. That's for free. But then it has all the information of our programs. We have two core programs. One we call our emerging class or emerging stream, which targets leaders between the ages of 25 and 40, right? There is a, it's a specific journey together for what we call emerging leaders who are then gonna have as they go through Arrow, another 20, 30, 40 years of ministry impact. Then we have another core program that we call the executive stream. And that's really not age-based. It's more role-based. And so if you're a leader in an executive kind of a role in a Christian organization of some kind, there's no age limits on that. They're similar. The structure is similar, but the content's a little different because we're gearing the curriculum a little more to executive leadership issues. But both of them are still framed around lead more by, lead more like, lead more to for the different contexts that you're in. So you can get the information for that. If you're interested, there's forms on there you can fill out and submit. And our director, our VP of engagement will just reach out to you and try to set up an appointment. So absolutely, if you're out there and you're really looking, say, I wanna take my leadership to the next level. Or maybe you're at, I'm really swimming right now and I'm feeling lost or you're somewhere in between. Arrow is a program that can help you. And so I would encourage you, check it out. It's been around for over 30 years for a reason. And we've been doing what we've been doing for that long because it works. Yeah, and I would just encourage people, you know, leadership coaching really did change me a lot. It changed the way I led. It changed the way I thought about organizations. And even though I'm not in a huge organization right now, I still draw on those, on that training and that executive training. And just, I think even the way it, you know, for me, it was a good entree. I'll say it like this. If you're sitting there and you're thinking, why would I do leadership? What I would say is if you have any inclination toward leadership, a program like this with Arrow that's biblically-based and transformative won't just affect your work life. It's going to affect your whole life. And so I've found that to be, I think, the most significant thing that came out of my executive leadership. I mean, yeah, professional life's important, right? But just holistically, I was just a better husband, a better father, a better everything, right? A better church goer. Like I was just better because it gave me so much of a different perspective. And so, man, thanks for doing what you do. I'm looking forward to you in the new role on January 2nd, starting up with Arrow leadership. We'll have all the information in the show notes. So folks would go to arrowleadership.org if you're interested. And Craig, thanks for being on, man. I really appreciate it. And I love sitting around talking leadership and Bible. It's, does it get better than that? I don't think it does. Hey, my pleasure. James, anytime, you know, you know, I love to talk. I love to talk. I got guests coming everywhere in here, as you can see. I got my dog walking in and out. I got my wife poking in. It was cool, man. The haunted door was just, I liked it. Everybody wants to talk about leadership, see? That's right. All right, brother. Well, thanks a lot. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I want to take just a second to thank the team

I'm John Stonge and each day I host a show called Daily Devotions with Pastor John. On the show, I spend just a few minutes taking an applicational look at one or two verses of Scripture before coming to the Lord in prayer. If you'd like to make a habit of spending more time meditating on the truth of God's Word, you can listen to Daily Devotions with Pastor John at lifeaudio.com or on your favorite podcasting app.