Jesse is a dear friend of mine. We used to work together back when I was on the team at The Unstuck Group and we have a ton in common, including a deep love for the small and mid-size church (and hunting, of course).

This conversation with him to close out 2020 is gold. Seriously.

I’ve said it for a long time, but follow-through and accountability are two of the primary issues I see in churches.

Jesse is a Ministry Consultant for The Unstuck Group and Executive Pastor of Prairie Lakes Church in Iowa. In today’s episode, Jesse talks about operationalizing follow-through, how he has learned to lead people through ministry loss and difficult changes, and some honest insights into why church leaders need to be more honest with their people than they typically are.

(P.S. I also just want to say thank you. 2020 was a crazy year, but your support of this podcast continued. We crossed 10,000 total downloads a couple months back, and that means the world to me and my team. Here’s to more great conversations in 2021!)

 

Key Takeaways

1) The pathway to effectiveness is filled with failure. I could talk about this forever and I’m so glad Jesse brought this up. Too many of us believe any level of failure is always final.

2) Our people can handle more than we give them credit for. Jesse talks a lot about how we often look at leading change from the lens of “we’re the expert” and we withhold information or limit involvement from the people we’re leading.

3) Follow-through is ignored way too often in the Church. Great ideas don’t mean anything if we don’t execute on them. The result of a lack of follow-through affects not only our Church, but it affects those we’re trying to reach as well, and that’s a huge problem.

Links to Resources Mentioned or Related

• Read Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They’d Be There By Now
• Prairie Lakes Church

• VisionDay

• The Unstuck Group

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