State of the Art

Andy Stanley is only a little larger than life. About a foot larger. On the screen in the West Auditorium of North Point Community Church, the image of Andy is a foot taller than life-size, but only a foot. He is high def and crystal clear. In the East Auditorium, where the video originates, Andy is onstage live. He is plain spoken. He connects well with his audience. The Sunday we were there, in his sermon on temptation, Andy references his own without drawing undue attention to himself.

Given his heritage as the son of Charles Stanley, eminent television preacher and pastor of the nearby First Baptist Church of Atlanta, one might expect Andy to exhibit the bearing of a great leader. And certainly, if numbers tell the story—with 20,000 attenders at the Alpharetta, Georgia, campus, plus the ten satellite locations across the South fed by his videos, and a remarkable following among younger leaders at the annual Catalyst conference—Andy is an exceptional leader.

But he comes across as, well, Andy. He is not hyper-spiritual. He avoids language that's too churchy. He seeks out counsel from a wide range of people. He refuses to make grand pronouncements in the name of the Lord. But when decisions are made, he wears them; when directions are set, he leads. Andy is in charge.

Editors Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed met with Andy to talk about what leadership looks like today.

What is distinctly spiritual about the kind of leadership you do?

Andy Stanley: There's nothing distinctly spiritual. I think a big problem in the church has been the dichotomy between spirituality and leadership. One of the criticisms I get is "Your church is so corporate." I read blogs all the time. Bloggers complain, "The pastor's like a CEO." And I say, "OK, you're right. Now, why is that a bad model?"

A principle is a principle, and God created all the principles.

So what's the principle behind the CEO model?

"Follow me." Follow we never works. Ever. It's follow me. God gives a man or woman the gift of leadership. And any organization that has a point leader with accountability and freedom to use their gift will do well. Unfortunately in the church world, we're afraid of that. Has it been abused? Of course. But to abandon the model is silly.

Churches should quit saying, that's what business does." That whole attitude is so wrong, and it hurts the church.

In terms of the shifting culture, I say thanks to guys like Bill Hybels and others who have been unafraid to say we have a corporate side of our ministry; it's going to be the best corporate institution it can possibly be, and we're not going to try to merge first century—

The church wasn't an organization in the first century. They weren't writing checks or buying property. The church has matured and developed over the years. But for some reason the last thing to change is the structure of leadership.

So why do pastors resist using business terms for leadership?

Because there are people in our congregation who have red flags go up.

If you're a preacher's kid, you see the church differently. Having seen church from the inside out, it was very easy for me to abandon all that because I did not confer spirituality on congregational decision making. To me that system was just chaotic. It works against the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in my mind, and it works against godly leadership principles.

Here's an incredibly important principle. You cannot communicate complicated information to large groups of people. As you increase the number of people, you have to decrease the complexity of the information. Congregational rule, when you're trying to make a complicated decision, works against the principle. So consequently, the guy with the microphone and the clearest message always wins. The most persuasive person in the room is going to win. Whether right or wrong.

Should we stop talking about pastors as "shepherds"?

Absolutely. That word needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture he could point to. But to bring in that imagery today and say, "Pastor, you're the shepherd of the flock," no. I've never seen a flock. I've never spent five minutes with a shepherd. It was culturally relevant in the time of Jesus, but it's not culturally relevant any more.

Nothing works in our culture with that model except this sense of the gentle, pastoral care. Obviously that is a facet of church ministry, but that's not leadership.

Isn't shepherd the biblical word for pastor?

It's the first-century Word. If Jesus were here today, would he talk about shepherds? No. He would point to something that we all know, and we'd say, yeah, I know what that is." Jesus told Peter, the fisherman, to "feed my sheep," but he didn't say to the rest of them, "Go ye therefore into all the world and be shepherds and feed my sheep." By the time of the Book of Acts, the shepherd model is gone. It's about establishing elders and deacons and their qualifications. Shepherding doesn't seem to be the emphasis. Even when it was, it was cultural, an illustration of something.

What we have to do is identify the principle, which is that the leader is responsible for the care of the people he's been given. That I am to care for and equip the people in the organization to follow Jesus. But when we take the literal illustration and bring it into our culture, then people can make it anything they want because nobody knows much about it.

OK. You are creating a culture here that is corporate, "get it done," make an impact in the Name and for the cause of Jesus.

We've created a church culture that attracts those kinds of people, especially in leadership, because they come from corporate culture where the goals are clear, the mission is clear, there's not a lot of fluff. And I think that's why the average local church can't get business guys connected. There's no place for them to connect.

In our multi-campus strategy, for example, those who are running it dwarf me in their leadership skills. They're intimidating in terms of their knowledge. They have the freedom to go do strategic ministry. The structure attracts them and connects them and empowers them.

Because you value efficiency and you value Structure, order. Decisiveness.

Decisiveness. Yeah. These principles work anytime you have men and women with character. The first sentence in our church constitution says, "The system we use will never be as important as the people we choose." The real issue is the character of the people and then a system that allows the gifts of the Spirit to be used without constraint.

Many churches tend to use spiritual terminology. Seeking to know "where the Spirit is leading." How do you know if a decision was of God or not?

I always say I don't know.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist culture where everything was overly spiritualized. "Didn't you feel the Spirit here tonight?" No, I think the room was full; when the room is full and people are engaged, it feels like the Spirit' s here. I don't want to be a cynic, but raking out all the spiritual versus non-spiritual I think is healthy.

How do you deal with those who have a more mystical side or want that from their leaders?

I have a deep appreciation for it even though I don't connect to it. When we first visited this property, one of our steering committee guys said, need to join hands right now and claim this property in Jesus' name." I'm like, "Oooooh, I don't know about claiming it. That's a little presumptuous. We've only been here one time." Well, as it turned out, it was the piece of land for us, but I didn't see the need to claim it that day.

So I don't devalue the mystical. I'm just not wired that way.

You're making decisions about people's lives and God's church. Do you intentionally seek to know God's direction? Or do you assume he'll be working in whatever you decide to do?

I assume that there's wisdom in 'a multitude of counselors,' like Solomon said. I pray, but I don't pray, God, show me. I don't trust myself for that. I pray, God, show me through this group of people you have helped assemble through the process of our elder selection and our stewardship team. You made these people smart; you made them wise. We want your agenda. When we're finished, we'll trust that you've led us.

From day one, that's how all our decisions have been made. We start all our elders meetings on our knees praying. But I want to be careful: I don't trust my ability to get alone and make a decision that's going to impact other people. I tell people if a spiritual leader says, "God told me something and you need to do it," you need to run. I don't think that's New Testament spiritual leadership.

It's interesting that you said there is no team leadership per se, but you're paying close attention to group, um, discernment

Well, certainly group discussion and wisdom. On three occasions in our church's history, I was out-voted by the elders. And they were always right. I was wrong, all three times.

Have you ever had it go the other way? The elders were convinced a particular thing was right and you weren't?

Almost. We had to rewrite our constitution when we went from being a church to churches. One of the guys thought we should never make a decision without unanimity among the elders.

All of a sudden a sort of spiritual wind blew into the room, and everybody got all touchy freely about, surely the Holy Spirit would Iead us all in the same direction.

It sounds so spiritual, but I almost got sick, because I knew that would've been the worst possible thing we could do. Eventually I said, "Does the Holy Spirit lead you and your wife in the same direction all the time?" No. "Well, it's not the Holy Spirit's fault. I'm not blaming the Holy Spirit for absence of unanimity. But let's be wise.

"Here's the deal. I just want you to know if we do this, I will get real involved in who gets on this elder board. As it is, we can have a couple cowboys, a couple of independent thinkers. But if we had to have consensus, I would never nominate John, because he's kind of a contrary person." John laughed, because he is. And everyone knows it. "Whatever we want to do, he wants to do the opposite. But l get his perspective on the table that's so valuable. But if I thought every single decision here had to be unanimous, I would be a reluctant to have those guys on the edges."

Eventually we decided that we didn't have to have complete consensus.

And the thing is, I can only think of one or two decisions where there wasn't 100 percent agreement. But I'm glad we don't require it.

Ever had a time when a "wind of the Spirit" affected a decision?

When the church was a year old, and we were trying to raise $5.2 million to buy this piece of property, it just was impossible. A rock concert promoter who wanted to build an amphitheater in this area came to us and said, "Look. Why don't we work together?" They would build on the other side of the property, we would build over here, and we would co-own the parking area in between.

It looked like a miracle. The promoter said we could have his amphitheater on Easter and anytime they weren't using it. I'm thinking, Wow, 13-thousand-seats. This is obviously God.

The elders were all excited because they were feeling the stress of raising the money. Momentum was building. Then one of the elders said, "Would this be kind of like a partnership we have with them?" As soon as he said partnership, I knew where he was going. Our enthusiasm—off the chart a moment earlier—suddenly changed. This was an issue to which the Scripture clearly spoke: we could not be unequally yoked.

Of course, that was very difficult to explain to the concert promoter.

So the Spirit did move.

Through the Scripture. It was actually very objective. That's the thing. The emotion of the room was for the deal, but the text clearly spoke against it. And we allowed the text to trump our enthusiasm for the idea. And I'm so glad we didn't make that deal. Oh, I'm so glad. That would have been a shortsighted shortcut. Get there, quicker decision. As it has turned out, we needed the whole parcel of land for our facilities. That would have been a terrible decision.

We've seen the way you connect with younger leaders. There are lots of them at North Point and at the Catalyst conferences. And we hear from established leaders who feel they are out of touch and that they need to be listening to the 25-year-olds. How do you keep up with young leaders and their culture?

I don't feel like I am a student of culture. In fact, my staff laughs at me. I don't watch television. (I watch 24 on the treadmill, but that's it. I won't allow myself to watch an episode unless I'm on the treadmill. That's my discipline. I don't go to many movies. I read mostly business books and history.

But I understand people, and I think that' s more important than understanding culture. Honestly. Because pop culture is just the flowers on top of the stems. And I think for pastors that's important , because they feel like they have to get into culture. They just have to get into people.

But you read blogs. What do you glean from blogs?

I do read blogs. I'm addicted to blogs. I read some of the guys who are anti-megachurch. I respond not primarily to change their minds but to keep poking till they can tell me; "What exactly is it you hate about what we're doing?"

I think we have to be careful about making blanket statements about the next generation. Some of them are against everything. On the other hand, there are guys the same age, same generation, who are principle oriented, who are growth oriented, progress oriented.

My hunch is that the differences are mostly non-leaders versus leaders. I think within that age group there are some who feel called to lead and are looking for systems that can help them be effective. They want to spend the best years of their lives trying to convince people to do something different.

Sandra, my wife, finally said, "You need to put your time back over here with the people who are running with you."

I keep wanting to rescue those who don't see things my way. "Hey now, look, if you'll just listen to me I can convince you." But discussing leadership with non-leaders is a bit like trying to pick up Jell-O.

What are you learning from the youngest people at your table?

This morning we were planning a new sermon series. I randomly pick staff members to help me develop content. So we five people, including a 24-year-old guy getting married next week, another guy new to our staff, and the guy that does Starting Point for us. He's like Mr. Culture, 30, our ears in emergent world. So we sit around the table and talk content.

Our question today was "If you could go into culture and just change one thing, one idea, one assumption, one presupposition in culture—what would you tweak?"

I listen, because I want to know. They give me insights on the culture and life phases I've been out of contact with.

The other thing I do is three times a year, l randomly select some younger people, and we go through a book together or we go through some kind of four to six-week discussion. We did Leadership and Self-Deception last year.

Cross-generational communication is huge. And in church world I came up in, I had the advantage of being able to call my dad and talk about things. But I have to do that intentionally; it doesn't happen automatically.

Other than blogs, what else is informing your leadership these days?

I'm learning the power of symbolic leadership. Leaders tend to think I've got to treat everybody the same. I've learned that it's far more effective to go deep with one person than to be on the surface level with everyone. There's a guy in our church who is what I call a turnaround artist. Companies bring him in to get the organization back on track. He's the first person I heard talk about symbolic leadership. I'm like, "What's that?"

He began to tell stories of leaders who learned how to drop into significant places, without feeling the need to be every place, to do something significant, and not try to hit 40 people an inch deep. I thought, Wow, I can do that.

So that's why I bring these different groups of people into these meetings to spend time with me. I'm learning from them, and hopefully that value seeps throughout the organization. Pastors think it's so important to understand culture, but I understand people. I think that is more important.

You mentioned your dad. What is his input in your life these days?

I tell Sandra and my kids all the time that I feel like I'm living my life twice—once through my 13-year-old and now as my dad.

The classic example is my dad at Christmas. Throughout the year, people would give him some trinket or gift or goodie. He would horde all these things in his office. Then one day he'd load up the car and come home with a hundred little trinket gifts. And he'd put them all under the Christmas tree. He wouldn't open them as they came in. He wanted them all under the tree.

Here's why. When he grew up, there was nothing under the tree. He got an orange one year. It was cold so he knew it came out of the refrigerator. That's how he discovered the truth about Santa Claus.

So now, what do I do? I keep all the little presents right here at the office. One day I load them up in the car. Take them home. Sandra's going, "When are you going to open these?" I go, "No, no, nooo. Wait till Christmas." So I catch myself reliving my life over as my dad. It's funny.

I have a deep and growing appreciation for my dad. He and I have a great relationship, although we approach everything so differently.

So yours is an iron-sharpening-iron relationship?

It goes one way though. (Chuckle.) He sharpens my iron. We have great conversations, but I listen a lot.

The greatest thing he says: "The most important thing in the world is your intimate relationship with Christ. Everything flows from that." Absolutely true.

You know what? That simplifies everything for me, because everything—my parenting, my leadership, my personal life—everything flows from that intimacy with Christ. If you lose that or you start to lose that, everything's affected. When we meet for breakfast, that's Dad's parting shot. Whatever the conversation's been, it comes back to that.