5 Leadership Lessons from Prison That Will Transform Your Church Leadership

This episode reveals five unexpected lessons on church leadership drawn from experiences in prison. By embracing discomfort, prioritizing the growth of individuals over numbers, fostering accountability, enhancing communication, and recognizing motivations for leadership roles, church leaders can transform their ministry for better effectiveness.

• Comfort is the enemy of growth 
• Invest in better individuals, not just congregational size 
• Accountability as an expression of love and support 
• Importance of effective communication for trust and unity 
• Golden handcuffs signify a need for purpose-driven leadership 

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Chapters

• 0:08 Leadership Lessons From Unconventional Sources
• 8:57 Transitioning to a New Church Role

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

What if I told you that a prison gang leader and a senior pastor have more in common than you think? I'm not saying that your deacons are running a cartel or anything like that, but real leadership earned, tested, trusted is the same whether you're in a church or behind bars. Where in the world are you going with this today? Todd, stick with me and we're going to break it down here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm glad you're here on this Healthy Church Staff Podcast Today. We're going to break down five, I think, surprising lessons from prison. What From prison that can make you a stronger, more effective church leaders? And, trust me, lesson number five might just change the way that you lead.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Okay, so let's talk about this. I like to dig into things that are maybe a little bit unconventional here. Okay, so this actually comes from an article I'm going to try and post it in the notes here but from somebody that was a business leader that went to prison and he wrote after he got out of prison, paid his time, paid his dues and came out with what he learned in prison about leadership. And should we be taking I hear you, todd. Should we be taking any kind of advice from a felon? I don't know. I just found these really fascinating as I was reading the article, and so take with us what you will, because I think there are some things here that we can learn.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Okay, and the first is that comfort is the enemy of growth, and this is true. This is true. One thing about prison comfort is dangerous. If you let your guard down, you lose everything. In ministry it's no different. When your leadership gets too comfortable, your church can get stuck. So great leaders need to embrace discomfort. If your church is running on autopilot, it's probably time to shake some things up. If your sermons feel easy to preach, you probably need to dig deeper, and if your team stops challenging you, you need to invite some accountability, because real leadership requires stepping into the very uncomfortableness that leadership sometimes is, and leading your people toward growth means that you probably need to get out of your comfort zone. Do we like to do that? Nobody likes to get out of their comfort zone. Is it important? Oh yeah, it's really important. So that's idea number one is comfort is the enemy of growth. Okay, so here's idea number two that I got from reading this article.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Make better people, not just a bigger church. Okay, in prison, a leader is only as strong as the people around him. Okay, prison culture, it's different, right, but the same is true in a church, a great leader doesn't just build a bigger ministry, they build better people. Hopefully, right your job as a pastor, as a church staff person. It's not just to preach, it's not just to teach Really, it's to develop people, it's to disciple people, it's to help people take their next step with Jesus. Are you investing in your staff or are you just pushing them to hit goals and numbers? We would never do that. No, we would never do that. Are you discipling leaders or are you just managing volunteers? Cold, I'm just gonna just get it done right. True leadership means that you need to empower those around you and if you do that, your church's growth a lot of times will just take care of itself. So that's number two make better people, not just a bigger church, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Thought number three accountability is not punishment, it's actually love. Okay, so let's go back to prison for a second. You and me, we're just going to go back to prison for a second Accountability. In prison, accountability is the difference between survival and disaster. In church leadership. It can be the difference between mediocrity and excellence. Again, we're talking about accountability here. So let's be real.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Many pastors avoid confrontation. We fear of being too harsh. We let things slide to keep the peace, but when we fail to hold people accountable, we fail to lead. Accountability should not be a dirty word, all right. It's not just about punishing people. It's about believing in their potential. So if you love your staff, you need to hold them to higher standards. If you love your congregation, you need to call them to holiness. If you love your leaders, you got to challenge them to step up. So don't fear accountability. You need to embrace that as really an act of love.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Okay, next thing is communication. We talk about this all the time here on the podcast. Communication is everything. We always say communication is key. We always say communicate In prison. One wrong word can cost you your life. Right, in church leadership it probably is not going to cost you your life, but poor communication can kill trust and it can kill momentum and it can kill unity. Here's a mistake I think a lot of pastors and church leaders make. They assume people hear what they meant to say. Okay, let me say that again, one of the biggest mistakes that pastors and church leaders make is they assume we just automatically assume that people are hearing what we mean and we communicate down instead of with okay, we preach well, but we don't listen well, okay. So great leaders don't just talk, they listen.

Speaker 1: 5:47

The question is are you making space for your team's concern? Do your staff feel like they can tell you anything? We just talked last week about how to identify a toxic culture, and this is one of the things that we identified is that if you're not making space to where your staff can tell you the truth about your leadership, you're probably leading with fear, and fear is going to lead you to toxicity very quickly. So, when conflict arises, are you proactive or are you reactive? You really you got to master communication Because, just like in prison, if you don't communicate well, you're going to pay the price. Okay, and then finally and I just I think this is fun Golden handcuffs are still handcuffs.

Speaker 1: 6:36

What's one of the biggest leadership drafts? It's staying in the role because of the money or because of the status, or because of the comfort, rather than your calling. There are, and I don't think I'm exaggerating this because I talk with a lot of church staff people. There are a lot of excellent, incredibly called gifted church staff people serving the church, but there's also probably in 350,000 churches. There are thousands of leaders that are sticking around because of the money, because they're getting a paycheck. They're staying where they are because they're comfortable or they're staying where they are because there's a certain amount of status. It's just who they are. It is their identity as being the pastor or being this position at this church, and I want to tell you this is really serious. And I want to tell you this is really serious. Leadership is not about the title, it's about the mission.

Speaker 1: 7:41

So if you feel trapped in leadership, here's some questions that you can ask and a lot of times, the people that I'm talking about that are staying because they're taking the paycheck or all these different things. It's not because you want to do that, it's because you feel trapped. What in the world am I going to do? I've heard pastors say what am I going to do? I've got three theological degrees. What am I going to do? I'm going to stand at Walmart and say welcome to Walmart, or would you like fries with that? What else am I educated or gifted to do? So you might just feel trapped. If you feel trapped, here are some questions to ask. Am I leaving for passion or obligation? Have I stopped taking risks for the sake of security? Am I still growing or am I just maintaining that status quo? Because here's the hard truth and maybe somebody needs to hear. Maybe you need to hear this today.

Speaker 1: 8:27

If you're just going through the motions, you're already in prison of your own making, and what are you going to do next? I don't know. I don't know, but I know that you're probably feeling trapped and you're probably feeling, like I said, like you're in a prison of your own making. You may need to break free. You may need to lead with purpose as you move forward. If you don't know how to do that, I'd love to have a conversation with you and see if there's some way we can partner. Maybe do some coaching together or something.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Maybe you need to step out of where you are and step into a new role at a different church. I can help you with that, any way that I can help you. I'd love to help you. Reach out to me, email me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to hear from you. Every email I get is absolutely private, absolutely confidential. I read every single one of them and I try to reply back as quickly as I can. So I'd love to hear from you Chemistry Staffing podcast at chemistrystaffingcom, and if you need some additional resources, you can head over to Chemistry Staffing. You've got all kinds of free resources over there for you as well. All right, I hope this has been helpful to you. Today You've been listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks so much for listening and I will see you again right here tomorrow. You.