The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
True North (Part 2)
We unveil "True North," a modern epistle designed to encourage and guide church staff with timeless wisdom for ministry leadership. This four-chapter resource draws from hundreds of podcast conversations to address the challenges unique to those serving in church settings.
• Written in the style of a biblical epistle but addressing contemporary ministry challenges
• Chapter One focuses on the weight of leadership and the importance of guarding your inner flame
• Leadership described as a posture of humility, service and long-haul faith rather than a platform
• Emphasizes building healthy culture where truth-telling and authenticity are valued over performance
• Highlights the importance of boundaries, rest and emotional maturity in sustainable ministry
• Encourages celebrating obedience over outcomes and character over charisma
• Warns against leading alone and emphasizes surrounding yourself with honest truth-tellers
• Reminds leaders that their greatest gift to the church is their own health
Download your free copy of the complete "True North" modern epistle at chemistryStaffing.com/TrueNorth.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders of OvertChemistryStaffingcom, so glad that you're here with us today. We're starting. I actually did the intro yesterday and if you didn't get a chance to listen to yesterday's podcast, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it. I introduced what we're doing this week, which is unveiling something I call True North. It's a modern epistle for church staff and it's four chapters. It's written in the form of an epistle and to get how I came up with this or how I'm presenting this to you, you have to listen to the podcast yesterday. I can't go into all those details, but yesterday's podcast gives you a great amount of details. But it's a modern day epistle. It's not scripture. Okay, it sounds like it's written like a book of the Bible because that's the style in which it's written. But this is really just an encouragement for those of us in ministry in kind of a modern day. Take on it. Okay. So this is really different, really kind of weird. But I just want to read each day this week to kind of reset us going into summer. A chapter every day and there's 35 verses in each one of these chapters, but I hope that this speaks to you, and at the end of the podcast today, if you'll stick around, I will give you a link to where you can download this entire True North modern day epistle. Okay, all right, so here we go. I'm going to be reading this, so it's going to be a little bit different, but I think think of it like a responsive reading or something I don't know. But here we go.
Speaker 1:Chapter one To those entrusted with the care of people, the stewardship of influence, the sacred work of leadership, grace to you and strength for the road ahead. These words are not offered from a platform but from the path. Not to impress from a platform, but from the path. Not to impress but to guide, born from years of walking and stumbling, learning and leading. There's a weight in leadership that few understand. And yet, if God has called you to it, carry it anyway with open hands and a guarded heart. Guard the flame. That spark within you, placed there by God, is easily dimmed by noise, hurry and people-pleasing. Some days you'll wonder if what you're doing matters. But keep going, for faithfulness in the quiet is often more powerful than fruitfulness in the spotlight.
Speaker 1:Do not confuse growth with health, nor size with strength, growth with health, nor size with strength. What you build will stand or fall not on the talent that you gather, but on the culture that you shape. Culture begins with you, and it is more caught than taught. The tone of your team will echo the tone of your soul. So lead with wholeness. Don't bleed on the people that you're called to bless.
Speaker 1:When you feel the urge to hide your weakness, lean into grace instead. Your team doesn't need a perfect leader. They need a real one. Rest is resistance against the lie that you're only as good as your output. The enemy delights in leaders who are constantly producing but quietly perishing. Build a rhythm of Sabbath, not for performance but for presence. Let your soul catch up to your calling. There will be seasons when the outcomes don't match the effort. Do not panic. God sees faithfulness in obscurity and he honors what no spreadsheet can measure. Celebrate obedience more than outcome. Reward health more than hustle. If your identity rises and falls with attendance or applause, the foundation needs to be repoured.
Speaker 1:Leadership is not a platform. It's a posture, one of humility, of service and of long-haul faith. It's a posture, one of humility, of service and of long-haul faith. Find joy in the unseen things, the late-night prayer, the hard conversation, the note of encouragement that nobody else will ever hear about those are the moments where legacy is written.
Speaker 1:Don't lead alone. The weight was never yours to carry solo. Surround yourself with truth-tellers who care more about your soul than about your title. Listen to the ones who ask hard questions and don't need anything from you in return If no one on your team feels safe enough to push back. The culture is not healthy, no matter how many people are in the room.
Speaker 1:Protect unity, but not at the cost of honesty. Sweep nothing under the rug. Hidden things grow, and they rarely grow. Holy, healthy leadership demands emotional maturity. Prioritize character over charisma. Charisma gathers crowds, but character builds trust, and trust is the currency of any team worth keeping. You will be tempted to do everything. Don't Say no often, not out of laziness, but out of love for what matters most. If you lose your boundaries, you will lose your joy, and if you lose your joy, you will lead out of scarcity rather than abundance, and your people will feel the difference. Your greatest gift to the church is not your vision or your voice, it's your health. Guard the flame, pass the torch and do it before light grows dim. What you build with integrity may one day be carried further than you ever imagined by hands you have never met.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's chapter one of this modern-day epistle. There's a lot to unpack in there. There's a lot of wisdom. It's almost like Ben Franklin type what was his, I forget what his book of commons, something or other that he wrote. It just had a lot of really good stuff in there. And again, this is all gleaned from what we've talked about here, you and I, on this podcast. In the 360 episodes that we've done so far, this is actually episode 367.
Speaker 1:If you would like to download a free copy of this, you absolutely can do that. You can just go to chemistrystaffingcom. Slash True North. It's four chapters. I give a little bit of an introduction, but I really hope that this will help a lot of you. I hope it'll help you as you lead well and strive to lead in a healthy manner in your church. Okay, this feels somber. I don't want it to feel somber. I want this to be really encouraging. Tomorrow we're going to come back with Chapter 2. We're going to continue on. If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. Podcast at Chemistry Staffing is my email address and again, the download link is chemistrystaffingcom slash truenorth. All right, thanks so much. We will be back here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We will be back here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you have a great day.
