[00:00:00] When you really look at the word Jesus and the verb to see in the New Testament, when
[00:00:05] he saw the crowd, he had compassion on them.
[00:00:09] My distraction in this world is first fixed on seeing.
[00:00:14] I just don't often see what's right before me.
[00:00:19] Welcome to Episode 340.
[00:00:21] Today we welcome Pastor, Leader and Author Jim Singleton to the podcast to talk about
[00:00:26] his new book, Attentive Church Leadership and why leading a healthy church has everything
[00:00:32] to do with spiritual formation.
[00:00:35] That's today on The Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:36] Well hey everyone, welcome to Episode 340 of The Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:46] I'm Jason Tucker here with Jesse Skiffington.
[00:00:48] Just two pastors who are passionate about leading change in our churches and we hit
[00:00:53] the record button and hope it helps you in your journey of leadership.
[00:00:57] It's a man, a great interview that we have on store today Jesse.
[00:01:01] So glad to be here.
[00:01:02] Yeah, good to be with you too Jason and we're talking to Jim Singleton today and Jim has
[00:01:08] become a friend through our shared connections in the Presbytery that I'm a part of here
[00:01:13] and some of the great things that he's gotten to do over the years in leadership
[00:01:16] in the church.
[00:01:17] So we're going to get to learn from his wisdom and some of the things he's
[00:01:20] working on these days and what really jumps out to me and I think what the ears
[00:01:26] that we want you to be listening with today have to do with this idea that we're in a
[00:01:31] place and at a time where we've never been before, none of us have.
[00:01:34] And we're trying to figure out how to be healthy church leaders, how to lead healthy
[00:01:39] churches, how to do the kinds of things that are going to matter for the kingdom
[00:01:44] in these times and it's a challenge to know what to do.
[00:01:48] And so we're going to be looking at Jim co-wrote a book with Kevin Ford called
[00:01:53] Attentive Church Leadership and so most of the conversation today is around the themes
[00:01:57] of the book and that but what we're hoping you'll hear in the conversation is this call
[00:02:03] to the spiritual formation or the ongoing transformation of our own lives as pastors
[00:02:08] and church leaders and being healthy in that place so that we can be attentive
[00:02:13] in our leadership.
[00:02:14] Yeah, this is so important.
[00:02:16] So last in our last episode in this series, we gave talking about some practical
[00:02:20] strategies like the one one one discipleship strategy.
[00:02:24] And by the way, those if you haven't gotten the link yet, it's reclaim leader dot com
[00:02:29] forward slash sermons and you have access to all the sermon slides that I used in
[00:02:34] the spiritual formation series that we just ended as well as links to those and
[00:02:38] you're free to use them and take them and adapt them for your context if you
[00:02:41] think that helps.
[00:02:42] But it's not just about strategic thinking.
[00:02:46] And this is why I love this conversation today.
[00:02:49] It's about how are we as pastors being spiritually formed and how is that
[00:02:55] forming our leadership?
[00:02:56] Who are we becoming as leaders?
[00:02:59] And I think this is just a critically important part of the whole conversation.
[00:03:05] This is why I'm glad we had it today.
[00:03:06] Yeah, yeah, I think you're going to enjoy getting to listen to Jim just kind
[00:03:10] of sharing from his heart about what he's seeing in the bigger picture of
[00:03:13] the church and kind of when you're involved at a larger level at the national
[00:03:18] level or other kinds of things, you kind of see with those those kinds of eyes.
[00:03:21] So we can't wait to share Jim with you and hear this encouragement from him
[00:03:26] to be attentive to our own spiritual formation as leaders in the church.
[00:03:31] All right, let's do it.
[00:03:32] Here's Jim Singleton.
[00:03:34] All right.
[00:03:35] Well, everyone, we are so excited to welcome Jim Singleton to the
[00:03:38] reclaim leader podcast and Jim, I'm going to read just a little bit about
[00:03:42] you as we get to introduce you.
[00:03:44] So Jim Singleton has a THD from Boston University School of Theology is
[00:03:49] the director, executive director of North American Mentoring Services for
[00:03:53] Layton Ford Ministries.
[00:03:55] He has both been both a longtime Presbyterian pastor, San Antonio,
[00:04:00] Austin, Spokane, Washington and Colorado Springs, Colorado and professor
[00:04:04] of pastoral leadership in evangelism at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.
[00:04:09] Singleton is one of the founders of ECO, a Covenant Order of Presbyterians,
[00:04:14] Evangelical Presbyterians, which sponsors the Flourish Institute of Theology,
[00:04:19] where Jim also teaches.
[00:04:20] He lives with his wife, Sarah, a pastor and spiritual director in Spokane,
[00:04:25] Washington.
[00:04:26] So let's welcome to the podcast Jim Singleton.
[00:04:29] So glad to have you.
[00:04:31] Thank you, Jesse.
[00:04:32] Thank you, Jason.
[00:04:33] Yeah.
[00:04:34] So, Jim, some of our listeners probably know who you are or are aware of
[00:04:39] some of the things that you've done.
[00:04:40] But why don't you if you would just tell us a little bit about yourself
[00:04:43] and what are you up to these days?
[00:04:45] Where are you out in the world?
[00:04:47] OK, grew up in the state of Oklahoma.
[00:04:50] I was the child of a Presbyterian pastor.
[00:04:53] So I've been around this world and story for a long time.
[00:04:58] We eventually moved to Arkansas to a place named Camden, Arkansas.
[00:05:02] And my dad was a pastor there as well.
[00:05:05] Retired after that, I went to college in Memphis,
[00:05:09] was a social worker for the state of Tennessee for a while and then made my
[00:05:13] way to seminary as a candidate from Memphis Presbytery.
[00:05:17] They I went to Gordon Conwell for a year and a half.
[00:05:21] My presbytery said you can't graduate from there because we're afraid
[00:05:24] you're going to turn out about like I've turned out.
[00:05:27] And so I finished at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia.
[00:05:32] And then I pastored four churches and in after the first one,
[00:05:36] I went back to school again because I wanted to study church history
[00:05:41] and specifically Presbyterian history as it relates to evangelism.
[00:05:46] So my dissertation is a history of the enterprise of evangelism
[00:05:50] in the Southern Presbyterian Church for 100 years from 1861 until 1961.
[00:05:58] So I'm one of the weird people in the world that has read
[00:06:01] General Assembly Minutes for about 100 years.
[00:06:04] And most people that are saying, don't do that.
[00:06:08] But I did that and that was quite the tale.
[00:06:11] And now after pastoring and professoring,
[00:06:15] I am mostly spending my time coaching pastors.
[00:06:20] That's what I mostly do for late in forward ministry.
[00:06:22] We also build pastor covenant groups for pastors and train leaders for that.
[00:06:30] And the teaching piece is a big part of what I do.
[00:06:34] And then I'm part of a new congregation here in Spokane.
[00:06:37] And so just lending my aid to that one while we're getting something started,
[00:06:43] which is a whole different enterprise.
[00:06:46] And I'm just fascinated by lots of those pieces.
[00:06:50] So that's what I'm up to now.
[00:06:51] So you made your way back to the Washington State area,
[00:06:55] which means that you and I get a bump into each other at things like
[00:06:58] questions, meetings and whatnot.
[00:07:00] And I just appreciate all the joy.
[00:07:02] Yeah, it's it's good to have you with us.
[00:07:05] And we're going to be focusing all month long on discipleship,
[00:07:09] spiritual formation of the congregation, that kind of stuff.
[00:07:11] And one of the thoughts was to bring your new book
[00:07:15] that you wrote with Kevin Ford into the conversation
[00:07:18] and to help us think about sort of the spiritual life of the pastor
[00:07:22] and some of the things going on in our world that make leadership
[00:07:26] really challenging and difficult.
[00:07:27] And so you guys wrote this book called The Tented Church Leadership
[00:07:31] and a subtitle I appreciate listening and leading in a world we've never know.
[00:07:37] And boy, have we felt that the last handful of years particularly.
[00:07:41] But what's the big picture of the book?
[00:07:43] Why what made you guys want to put a resource like this out there?
[00:07:46] How did how did you get here?
[00:07:49] Well, I think our major motive was the fact that many of the leadership books
[00:07:56] that have been around and Kevin has written several
[00:08:01] are for a church that I would say was 20 years ago.
[00:08:09] We were both pretty involved in that early shift between
[00:08:15] a Christendom model of church to an attraction model of church.
[00:08:20] And in both of those cases,
[00:08:25] the model of leadership was fairly closely wed
[00:08:30] to the cultural context around it.
[00:08:32] So in Christendom, the pastor had actually a lot of power,
[00:08:36] a lot of positional power that was given
[00:08:40] because they were leading an institution that really was in a period
[00:08:44] where the change was not as rapid.
[00:08:48] By the time we got to the 60s and 70s, that change was rapid
[00:08:53] and was pretty dramatic and a lot of the cultural values were changing
[00:08:59] and the church didn't know how to address all of those.
[00:09:03] So one little blip on the screen was to try this attraction
[00:09:06] of church model, which sent us to different kind of music
[00:09:11] and different kind of dress and different kinds of relationships
[00:09:15] in some respect, but wed itself to a culture of consumerism
[00:09:22] that eventually started making every church member a consumer.
[00:09:27] And if you didn't serve what they wanted,
[00:09:31] then they would go find it somewhere else.
[00:09:34] So the sense of loyalty to something larger was weakened
[00:09:39] and the loyalty to self was increased.
[00:09:44] Around 2005, we started noticing that even that
[00:09:48] evangelical, attraction churches were plateauing or declining.
[00:09:53] And so why?
[00:09:57] You know, a nice book on the D.
[00:09:59] Churching Movement by several different authors
[00:10:02] gives us a variety of pictures about why.
[00:10:04] And so we thought, I think we need a book
[00:10:07] for a new period when the positional authority is weakened
[00:10:12] when the way we have done
[00:10:16] consumerism stirred into church
[00:10:19] has actually backfired in some respects.
[00:10:23] And then we throw in a pandemic and a few racial crises
[00:10:27] and a few political crises.
[00:10:29] And suddenly we're in a world we have not known before.
[00:10:33] And I might add as a historian, it's not the first time
[00:10:38] we have been in a world we have not known before.
[00:10:40] This is not suddenly the only
[00:10:46] stranger exile kind of period we've been in,
[00:10:49] but it is the one we're in.
[00:10:51] So how do we adjust to that?
[00:10:53] And that's what the book is hoping to address.
[00:10:56] Yeah. Yeah, I know Jason's and we pretty much
[00:10:59] every week we get on here and we talk about how how do we lead
[00:11:03] in these times and what does it take to lead?
[00:11:05] And it's a lot of trying to figure out how do we move forward
[00:11:09] into a world we've never known.
[00:11:10] So I've really resonated with that thought.
[00:11:13] This is a way we've never been before as a phrase that you use often.
[00:11:16] And sort of there's a sort of a feeling our way through the dark
[00:11:20] in some respects and trying to figure it out
[00:11:22] and some pressures that come with that.
[00:11:24] And I don't know, Jason, maybe you can reflect on this too.
[00:11:27] But do you guys ever feel the pressure
[00:11:31] of that moment and sort of the attraction
[00:11:33] the pull towards an attraction mode of being as a pastor
[00:11:38] versus some of the things maybe that Lord is doing to call us in a new way.
[00:11:41] And I still feel kind of pulled back to that to that attraction mindset.
[00:11:46] And I have a hard time letting go of it.
[00:11:49] I don't know if that resonates with you guys at all, but not at all.
[00:11:52] I have no tension with that whatsoever.
[00:11:55] Yeah, no, of course. Yeah, it's
[00:11:59] I think the reality is that we're just talking about this
[00:12:03] about music, that there's something inherently performative
[00:12:10] about worship.
[00:12:12] That I don't know you can completely escape or about a worship gathering
[00:12:16] in the way that we understand worship gatherings.
[00:12:20] So for example, if I have a novice musician
[00:12:24] who's hitting the wrong chord on every chorus,
[00:12:27] that might distract somebody from being able to let go
[00:12:32] and focus on it becomes a distraction.
[00:12:34] So so there's a balance there.
[00:12:36] So I'm making sure that the musicianship is such that it is not a distraction.
[00:12:40] However, where's the line between that and oh, my gosh, it's got to be
[00:12:46] performance rather than have a performative element to it.
[00:12:50] I think it's a constant tension.
[00:12:52] But but I do think that maybe is a little different than a church
[00:12:55] that's intentionally attraction, which is sort of a beast
[00:12:59] that you have to feed every week like, you know, how are we going to go bigger and better?
[00:13:05] I don't know, Jim, if you agree with that or if that's been your sense as well.
[00:13:09] It is.
[00:13:11] And the simplicity
[00:13:16] of what we may be moving into does not mean it's off key or not played well,
[00:13:23] but somehow to reorient people that I don't have to have goosebumps every week
[00:13:31] to feel like I have actually been in worship.
[00:13:33] It may it may be through God's still small voice.
[00:13:37] It may be in periods of quiet.
[00:13:39] It may not be in the 25 minute sermon that just takes me soaring somewhere,
[00:13:45] maybe somewhere else.
[00:13:46] And so I think I think that's going to have to be a part of the mix.
[00:13:51] Yeah, it doesn't mean we're unattractive.
[00:13:55] Yeah, but it means we don't try to be attractional.
[00:13:59] Yeah, Jim, I love the beating heart of this book.
[00:14:02] I think really is all about spiritual formation in the sense of.
[00:14:06] I just love the the comparison between attentiveness.
[00:14:12] And distraction, attentive, attentiveness is a dialing into the Holy Spirit,
[00:14:18] which crazy as it sounds, pastors are not always doing
[00:14:26] because we're so busy doing the things.
[00:14:30] What have you noticed?
[00:14:32] On how distraction and attentiveness
[00:14:37] impact the spiritual lives of pastors or the spiritual leadership of pastors?
[00:14:45] Well, I think it's large.
[00:14:48] I think it's going to function different ways with different personalities.
[00:14:53] Not all of us are wired to be contemplatives,
[00:14:58] which sometimes we have come to believe we need to
[00:15:02] be to be fully attentive.
[00:15:04] But, you know, Layton Ford, father of Kevin, 10 years ago,
[00:15:09] 12 years ago wrote a book called The Attentive Life,
[00:15:13] which we have used as part of the basis for this book.
[00:15:18] And it's just a wonderful book about paying attention,
[00:15:22] about noticing that there is even
[00:15:26] fascination when you really look at the word Jesus and the verb to see
[00:15:32] in the New Testament and about how carefully
[00:15:35] he sees when he saw the crowd.
[00:15:38] He had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd.
[00:15:43] He saw the woman who touched him.
[00:15:46] He saw the woman at the well.
[00:15:48] And so
[00:15:50] my distraction in this world is first fixed on seeing.
[00:15:55] I just don't often see what's right before me.
[00:16:01] And that that's the created world.
[00:16:04] That's the beauty of spring.
[00:16:06] That's the relational world, the checkout person at the grocery store.
[00:16:12] That's seeing a child, that's seeing an older person
[00:16:17] and how rich it is to be seen.
[00:16:19] So if I want to be an attentive person to God,
[00:16:23] I'm going to get some practice by learning to attend to the world I'm in.
[00:16:28] And it is not native to me.
[00:16:30] I am an incredibly distracted or distractible person.
[00:16:36] A cell phone did not help me a bit because I like baseball.
[00:16:40] I can check the scores at any given time.
[00:16:42] My favorite team, the Mariners is playing shortly.
[00:16:45] So I might be looking down while this podcast is going on,
[00:16:49] just to see if they've had the first pitch.
[00:16:51] So that's where I'm trying to stop.
[00:16:54] I'm trying to arrest.
[00:16:56] I'm trying to cease and then focus on the ones in front of me.
[00:17:03] And that's that's not easy for any pastor.
[00:17:06] And when you have an abundance of things to do,
[00:17:10] it's really easy to focus on institution and not on the Lord.
[00:17:16] But you know, there's this interesting phrase in Ezekiel chapter 40 verse four,
[00:17:20] where it's a son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears
[00:17:24] and set your mind on all that I shall show you for I brought you here
[00:17:30] in order that I might show it to you.
[00:17:32] Now that set your mind word in Hebrew could be translated.
[00:17:37] Attend to focus on.
[00:17:42] And so part of the attentiveness that Layton Ford was driving
[00:17:47] and that we're trying to drive in this era is that we are not selling
[00:17:55] in this book a strategic plan.
[00:17:59] We're trying to urge listen.
[00:18:02] There's an interesting verb in Galatians.
[00:18:09] I think it's five that is the word keep in step with the spirit.
[00:18:16] It's a military term that comes from marching.
[00:18:20] And I'm so old, I grew up watching Gomer Pyle and he could never get in step
[00:18:25] with the platoon and Sergeant Carter was always yelling in his ear.
[00:18:28] Well, I'm Gomer Pyle.
[00:18:30] I don't get in step with the spirit easily.
[00:18:32] And this book is urging us.
[00:18:36] We're about to go a new way.
[00:18:37] We're going to have to follow in the Old Testament, the Ark.
[00:18:39] We're going to have to follow the spirit.
[00:18:42] And that means the spirit may lead me in ways my instincts,
[00:18:46] my training, my preferences may not go.
[00:18:51] So be attentive.
[00:18:53] But I'm not going to say it is an accomplished task in me.
[00:18:58] It's an acquired taste.
[00:19:00] Be attentive.
[00:19:01] Yeah, I think it kind of that attentiveness to like,
[00:19:05] where is the spirit leading?
[00:19:06] Where are we going?
[00:19:07] Actually, when I was reading that, there was a little bit of a sense
[00:19:10] of freedom, honestly, Jim, of just I can try to figure out what the spirit
[00:19:14] is doing and go that way instead of the pressure to rely on my own
[00:19:19] competence and technical abilities to do ministry, which I've learned
[00:19:23] and acquired skills and abilities and different things over the years
[00:19:26] to do that and to lead with vision and to mobilize a group of people
[00:19:30] and to organize groups and do all that.
[00:19:32] And so we need some of that technical expertise or whatever.
[00:19:36] But if that's where all we have in this new day,
[00:19:40] where in a way we've never been before, I just feel inadequate for it.
[00:19:44] And there's a...
[00:19:45] So I just felt this relief of go in the direction of the spirit
[00:19:48] and be attentive to what the Lord is doing and trust that.
[00:19:52] And then as one of our folks here put it,
[00:19:54] build a little bit of infrastructure around that to help facilitate it.
[00:19:58] But don't lean so much on your own understanding
[00:20:01] and your strategic abilities and technical abilities.
[00:20:04] And so I found it freeing to think in terms of being attentive
[00:20:09] and refreshing just to go, okay, that's what it takes.
[00:20:12] Just listen and trust and follow.
[00:20:15] And one of the skills, Jesse, that most elderboards,
[00:20:20] most sessions have never learned is what I would call group spiritual discernment.
[00:20:27] And that's one of the things Layton is strongly emphasizing,
[00:20:31] is not just me listening to the vision, but us listening together
[00:20:37] because you get in a meeting of elders and it's kind of like,
[00:20:39] well, I think, well, I think, well, I think.
[00:20:43] That's using our reason.
[00:20:44] That's using our...
[00:20:47] Where is God taking us?
[00:20:49] Yeah.
[00:20:50] And that's a different practice that most of us have not learned how to do.
[00:20:57] And so when we're training mentors for pastor mentoring,
[00:21:01] that's one of the skills we're trying to decidedly teach
[00:21:06] is how do you help a group of people do group spiritual listening?
[00:21:13] Right.
[00:21:13] Rather than just reason, well-reasoned strategic thinking,
[00:21:17] spiritual discernment is something different.
[00:21:19] And even after listening and reading your book,
[00:21:22] and I read the first half and then I listened to the second half at 2.0 speed on audible.
[00:21:27] So I think I have a session meeting coming up on Sunday night
[00:21:34] and I actually changed the way that we're going to approach making a really big decision.
[00:21:38] And instead of going, what are we trying to do?
[00:21:42] And what's the outcome that we're trying to reach?
[00:21:45] I just changed it to say, how is the Lord leading us when it comes to,
[00:21:48] and then I filled in the blank with what it was.
[00:21:50] And then we're going to stop and talk about it and discuss it and consider it
[00:21:55] and then spend some time in prayer and listening.
[00:21:58] And then coming back together again, what did we hear?
[00:22:01] Did it change our mind?
[00:22:02] Did God put something new on our hearts that we hadn't heard before?
[00:22:06] And then we're going to make a decision and commit to it and move forward.
[00:22:09] So it was just a reminder to me that the church is a spiritual body,
[00:22:17] not just like a corporation.
[00:22:20] And I have to be reminded of that a lot of the times.
[00:22:22] And that's part of that.
[00:22:23] Because that discernment, Jesse, takes time and we never feel like we have the time to do that.
[00:22:27] It's always like, and I think one of the things I love about this book is,
[00:22:34] when it comes to helping churches have healthy transformation and become healthier,
[00:22:41] we're not just going to best practices our way into that.
[00:22:45] It's got to happen through that discernment process.
[00:22:49] But I don't know about you guys, but I'm always feeling that pressure.
[00:22:55] We've got to figure it out yesterday.
[00:22:57] And our session, well, they're all busy too and they don't have time.
[00:23:01] And so just tell us what to do.
[00:23:03] Give us some answers.
[00:23:04] And, Jason, you're the expert.
[00:23:05] We missed it.
[00:23:06] Which way to go?
[00:23:07] And I think that's kind of the never been this way before piece of the bus.
[00:23:12] For people like pastors and those that are listening that are in church leadership
[00:23:16] or organizational leadership, truly there's this perceived pressure to have all the answers
[00:23:21] and to know what to do.
[00:23:23] And I have some ideas.
[00:23:25] I like ideas.
[00:23:26] I want to dream and think about where to go.
[00:23:28] But I don't know.
[00:23:29] I don't know anymore than the person next to me.
[00:23:31] So I think that idea never been this way before that you guys capture.
[00:23:35] That's just a helpful phrase.
[00:23:36] And I'm going to start, I'm just going to steal it and start using it with our people.
[00:23:39] Then it's Joshua three.
[00:23:41] Well, there you go.
[00:23:42] Yeah, that's right.
[00:23:43] As we're coming into stealing it from us, we're barring up from Joshua.
[00:23:47] Oh, okay.
[00:23:48] Good.
[00:23:48] Well, then I feel better.
[00:23:49] Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:50] Yeah.
[00:23:50] But think about for a minute X 15.
[00:23:54] We don't have a discussion of that in here,
[00:23:56] but X 15 starts with the council at Jerusalem.
[00:24:00] That's probably the most important decision the church has made.
[00:24:04] Yeah.
[00:24:05] Because they're basically deciding, do you have to become a Jew before you can become a Christian?
[00:24:13] And they labor long over that.
[00:24:15] And it seemed good to them and the Holy Spirit that they proceed this way.
[00:24:21] And it was a remarkable solution.
[00:24:24] The next passage is a minor decision by Paul and Barnabas
[00:24:29] about going back and the little key thrown into the issue is,
[00:24:34] I want to take young Mark with John Mark with us again.
[00:24:40] And Paul's having nothing to do with it.
[00:24:43] And the text suddenly has these two people who have just been part of this big council
[00:24:48] in sharp disagreement, which is kind of nose to nose.
[00:24:53] It's a paroxysm in English.
[00:24:55] And they divide.
[00:25:00] And the solution might be good.
[00:25:01] They got two ministry teams going out, but the way they did it,
[00:25:06] Barnabas is never mentioned again in the book of Acts.
[00:25:10] John Mark shows up again later in some of the letters,
[00:25:13] but Barnabas' exit stage right.
[00:25:16] And you go, really?
[00:25:18] Did it need to be that, but they were in a hurry.
[00:25:22] And they didn't want to take it to a body to do group spiritual discernment.
[00:25:30] They just broke apart.
[00:25:33] And you go, right there in one chapter, great method, poor method.
[00:25:39] And we're more like the end of the chapter so often.
[00:25:42] Well, we live in such an instant kind of world for sure.
[00:25:45] Jim, how would you describe an attentive pastor?
[00:25:50] I mean, how would you describe a pastor that really has the right posture, as you say,
[00:25:57] of being attentive in spiritual leadership?
[00:26:01] What does that look like?
[00:26:01] I mean, what are some ideas that you have about what that looks like as a pastor?
[00:26:08] I think if you ponder the emotional intelligence kind of picture,
[00:26:16] you're seeing somebody that is growing in self-awareness
[00:26:20] and growing in social awareness so that I'm listening to my own instincts
[00:26:27] and I'm listening to God's people.
[00:26:29] But the third piece that is not in emotional intelligence
[00:26:32] is that I'm learning to listen to God.
[00:26:35] I'm not just telling information about God, which seminary helps us be ready to do.
[00:26:44] I'm not just telling you data about the Amalekites in the scripture,
[00:26:48] but I'm learning to listen to scripture in such a way
[00:26:53] that I can actually hear the Holy Spirit speak through scripture.
[00:26:56] So, you know, the three questions that Intervarsity has done for years
[00:27:00] that Greg Ogden has promoted is what does the text say?
[00:27:04] What does it mean, meaning to all Christians?
[00:27:07] And what is the Holy Spirit saying to you?
[00:27:09] Now, I've worked with that model for years.
[00:27:13] And the question that most of us have the struggle with is,
[00:27:15] I don't know what the Holy Spirit's saying to me.
[00:27:18] I can tell you what it says.
[00:27:19] I think I know what it kind of means.
[00:27:23] I'm not sure.
[00:27:24] And if they have any idea about it, it's a behavioral thing.
[00:27:27] I need to quit cussing or I need to read the Bible more or something.
[00:27:32] But what's at stake in the Holy Spirit working through us is a change of identity.
[00:27:40] And that's slow and it kind of filters through.
[00:27:44] And it's a change of values
[00:27:46] because I'm going to have to trade in my values from the world
[00:27:50] for the values of the kingdom.
[00:27:52] And it's a change of attitudes, of learning to be content in every situation.
[00:28:01] And it's becoming willing to change the behavior based on those other three categories
[00:28:08] happening first.
[00:28:10] And so it requires an imaginative reading of the text.
[00:28:15] It requires listening to the Spirit.
[00:28:17] It requires probably a pen in your hand to begin to write these things down.
[00:28:21] And it creates a time when we have to block off so I can do that
[00:28:27] and not try to do it squeezed in between lunch and the one o'clock appointment.
[00:28:33] And so I think if we can help pastors develop that kind of discipleship
[00:28:39] discipleship then it's more likely to happen.
[00:28:45] But I'm a struggle on the...
[00:28:49] So this past year I've gone through the Ignatian spiritual exercises
[00:28:53] which have been a wonderful gift to me.
[00:28:57] I just, I didn't understand Holy Indifference.
[00:29:02] I didn't understand the examine and the consolation and the desolation.
[00:29:08] When you begin to see those pieces flowing into your life then you go,
[00:29:12] okay I might be able to clear the deck so that I can at least get on the right
[00:29:17] frequency to hear the Holy Spirit.
[00:29:20] And I think that's what we want to cultivate in pastors so that we can hear.
[00:29:28] Yeah, that's great.
[00:29:30] That's really well said.
[00:29:30] Thinking, I know here I'm like, okay let's turn off the podcast.
[00:29:33] I know.
[00:29:34] Let's listen to it here for a little bit ourselves.
[00:29:36] And I think there is something of the way that my role is scheduled every week, jam packed,
[00:29:46] that there's this part of me that doesn't see that as being attentive to my work.
[00:29:52] And I think that's got a shift in my heart and my too.
[00:29:56] That that is probably the first of first importance on my list rather than the thing
[00:30:01] that hopefully I can squeeze in somewhere along the way.
[00:30:04] And there's some I think some conviction for me and that too.
[00:30:07] And I just you know, knowing the grind of ministry and all of it.
[00:30:11] And every Sunday there's another sermon coming in when you were talking about
[00:30:15] shifting from being a pastor to being in the seminary setting and not having a
[00:30:19] Christmas Eve sermon to write.
[00:30:21] And I think you said you weren't quite sure what to do with that.
[00:30:23] I was like I know exactly what I would do with that.
[00:30:26] I would just sit there and go, that feels pretty good.
[00:30:29] But there's something beautiful and amazing about getting to do those things too.
[00:30:33] But it was just so jam packed.
[00:30:36] So I don't know.
[00:30:37] Jason.
[00:30:38] And a couple of friends urge me and I had a predecessor in Colorado Springs who had
[00:30:43] established this that he just didn't do appointments until 11 o'clock.
[00:30:50] And so he would be quiet and read and write and reflect.
[00:30:57] And it was much sermon prep, Wednesday night prep.
[00:31:01] But it was also a time for him to be still before the Lord.
[00:31:05] And I had done that in a previous church.
[00:31:08] It was really nice to go into a church where that was permitted.
[00:31:11] Now again, if somebody dies at six in the morning, okay, that's a little different.
[00:31:15] But most times people can wait.
[00:31:20] And so I just didn't do breakfast meetings with people because,
[00:31:24] and I had done that in previous churches and it just kind of gets you off on the wrong foot in
[00:31:29] some ways.
[00:31:31] But they want me to be available to God.
[00:31:33] So I'm going to have to shape a life that does that.
[00:31:37] And to some people it looks like you're not working, but you are.
[00:31:41] You are.
[00:31:42] I would just call it an appointment with God.
[00:31:45] So it was on my schedule and it was well protected.
[00:31:49] And I had other people that could deal with the drop in emergencies that came through.
[00:31:54] But part of that is becoming differentiated and not over functioning in family systems
[00:32:00] theory.
[00:32:01] Most of us pastors are prone to over functioning.
[00:32:04] So that's where our attentiveness is going to have to be boundary.
[00:32:08] Yeah.
[00:32:08] And some of the things I love what you're doing with fit, the flourished instituted theology,
[00:32:12] it's kind of has in its DNA this idea that flourishing churches are made up of flourishing
[00:32:18] leaders who themselves are flourishing disciples of Jesus Christ and so forth.
[00:32:21] Baked into the training is this sort of rule of life and way of being with God that
[00:32:26] wasn't part of the seminary training that Jason and I got and perhaps you got.
[00:32:30] And I do remember though, Gordon Graham, Jason, you might remember this.
[00:32:33] I remember.
[00:32:33] He pulled us aside and he's a I think he's come out of the Anglican.
[00:32:40] Anyway, but he pulled us aside and said, don't let this become a job.
[00:32:44] Remember your relationship with Jesus first.
[00:32:47] Not his exact words, but something like that, that be be attentive to the Lord in your life
[00:32:53] first and then what your workflow out of that.
[00:32:56] And I just always stuck with me and I think resonates kind of with what you're
[00:33:00] saying, Jim, and what you guys are working on there with fit.
[00:33:05] And it's hard for people to pause and do those practices.
[00:33:09] But once it gets into the, you know, it takes between six weeks and six months for a new habit
[00:33:16] to emerge and they emerge if they are reinforced.
[00:33:21] If I'm finding something in this that actually is satisfying.
[00:33:27] And so and that's why it often takes a mentor, a coach to say, how are you doing with that?
[00:33:33] Are you finding that rhythm?
[00:33:36] Because alone, see, that's why I like being in an order because I don't want to do this alone.
[00:33:44] I have to do it with other people.
[00:33:46] Yeah, I think that's one of the things I've appreciated about our particular
[00:33:52] part of the church in ECO having that pastor covenant group is one of our core discipline,
[00:33:58] being a part of an order where we ask each other how it's going and encourage each other
[00:34:02] and challenge each other. And those things have been helpful in my own ongoing transformation.
[00:34:06] And that's really kind of where you guys land thinking about the transform lives of individuals,
[00:34:12] of congregations for the sake of God's mission in the world and what he wants to do through us.
[00:34:16] And there's a lot there that I think is worth diving into and we don't have time on podcast
[00:34:24] to get into it. But I want to encourage people to read through that section and
[00:34:28] think about some of the things that show up there. And for me, what kind of jumped out is
[00:34:34] the gap between values and behaviors. That transformation in my own life as a follower
[00:34:40] of Jesus and our congregation is usually the gap between what I want and what I desire
[00:34:45] and what I know matters most and then what I actually do. And somehow that gap there is
[00:34:52] getting in the way of my own transformation and ongoing transformation of those around me.
[00:34:57] So I don't know, how do you guys, is that, is there a gap between our values and behaviors?
[00:35:02] How does that look? How do we overcome some of that stuff to get more towards transformation?
[00:35:06] Is it those habits and disciplines you're talking about?
[00:35:10] Most of the time it really has to be
[00:35:13] unmasked in a sense because what goes on at the, you know, if I'm thinking identity,
[00:35:19] values, attitudes, behavior. At the value level, what we're most often working with
[00:35:26] are competing values, which is the subject of adaptive change and hyphens. And both Kevin and I
[00:35:34] are very influenced by that. But it's in that it's naming the competing values.
[00:35:41] And I have a needed value to be needed. And I like the part of the pastoral life that I'm
[00:35:50] needed. But if I allow that need to be needed to dominate my life, then I will not withdraw
[00:35:57] and have the time alone. And so I have to let those two values sand each other to come to a point
[00:36:09] of convergence so that either I'm letting one decline and one emerge,
[00:36:18] because otherwise that's where my behavior is not going to match my value. Because it's not a
[00:36:23] clear value, it's a competing value. And that's usually what it takes a third party to help you
[00:36:30] see. You really want to do this, but you're also willing to do that. And so which one is going
[00:36:36] to win? You know, it was Kierkegaard who had a short little parable about the jewelry store
[00:36:42] the devil broke in at midnight and he didn't steal anything. He just changed the price
[00:36:46] tax on everything. And what Jesus is doing is helping us put the price tags back on
[00:36:52] the right things. So is being needed a kingdom value or is that a Jim Singleton value?
[00:37:01] Yeah. And so I have to go, oh, I'm going to have to trade that one in, but I don't want to trade
[00:37:05] it in. I'm so habituated to it. So it's going to take a while. But that's where the body
[00:37:13] can come together and help and grow. But it's the behavior doesn't, if the behavior is not showing up,
[00:37:20] I need to trace that back and say, okay, what's competing with the value? Because I thought
[00:37:24] I valued this. Yeah. So there's a lot of work in that to get through that. And
[00:37:31] you talk about self-awareness, others' awareness and working through that growing understanding,
[00:37:35] cultivating that life with God. And all those pieces come together to this attentive leadership
[00:37:41] that is going to serve us well, going forward into this unknown future. And so I love it. I appreciate
[00:37:48] all your wisdom, Jim, and just taking the time to be with us and share with us. And for those that
[00:37:54] maybe don't have the book yet or where can they grab that? Or how can they follow you or connect
[00:37:59] with you and what you're doing with Layton Ford Ministries? Probably the quickest ways through
[00:38:04] Amazon, but Layton Ford Ministries has a website and we get messages through it. And you can
[00:38:11] certainly order a book through them as well. But Amazon's the quickest way to get it and get it
[00:38:20] into your hands. But correspond, ask questions, LaytonFordMinistriesLfm.org, you'll find us
[00:38:30] if you just type it into a search engine. That's awesome. Well, we always save a couple of minutes
[00:38:36] at the very end for folks like you that have a lot of wisdom to share, a lot of experience. Any
[00:38:42] final thoughts or challenges or encouragements for pastors or church leaders that are listening in?
[00:38:47] What do you want us to know and be thinking about?
[00:38:50] Well, number one, thankful for the two of you. I think this is a wonderful venue for you to build
[00:38:56] and encourage other leaders. So yippee for this podcast. And number two, I would just
[00:39:04] keep asking the question, who am I becoming? And what is going to be necessary for me to become
[00:39:13] the version, the restored version of who God created me to be? And when the fall has interfered,
[00:39:21] it's a process of not only redemption but restoration. And so let's keep asking,
[00:39:27] how is that going to be? And pursue it with a passion.
[00:39:33] I love it, Jim. Thank you so much for joining us today. It is such a blessing to get to have you.
[00:39:39] And man, I know that a lot of our pastors are going to be encouraged by this interview and
[00:39:45] y'all got to go get the book. Well, Jason, really fun to get to talk to Jim and just kind
[00:39:50] of hear his heart for the church, for pastors and think about some of the implications of the
[00:39:55] times we're in and this way we've never been before trying to figure out how to lead
[00:39:59] in the midst of that. So it's refreshing, kind of a breath of fresh air for me to feel like the
[00:40:04] pressure is off to know all the answers and I can learn again and lean into being attentive
[00:40:11] to where the Lord's leading. And so lots of things to kind of pull out of this and be encouraged
[00:40:18] and inspired by. I agree. And I think one of the things that I've been thinking about since
[00:40:24] we talked to him is just this idea of, again, strategy is really important, but it's not
[00:40:31] just about taking best practices and trying to apply them to our church. Really truly, the way
[00:40:38] that you help a church transform, the way that you help to lead a healthy church is to really be
[00:40:45] listening to the movement of the spirit and listening to the pulse of the culture
[00:40:53] and trying to figure out how do we bring the gospel to bear in this moment, in this particular
[00:40:59] context. I don't think there's any other way to do that. And we all want the easy fix, but it's
[00:41:05] going to take the discerning together fix. And I don't know if I like that.
[00:41:10] Yeah, but I think it's right. Well, I think where the strategic part fits is within the discerning
[00:41:17] direction. Then now what's the best way to do that? And how do we bring in some of those things
[00:41:22] that we've learned or technical solutions into that? So I don't think a park strategy and best
[00:41:27] practices off to the side says leave them there and be a mess. I just think for me,
[00:41:32] it's just this encouragement to pursue where the Lord's leading first and then build
[00:41:37] build your strategy in behind that. How are we going to move in that direction and keep in
[00:41:41] step with the spirit as Jim was saying there? And so anyway, inspiring, encouraging, challenging.
[00:41:46] I got a lot of work to do is what it comes down to my own ongoing transformation as we all do.
[00:41:53] So the book is attentive church leadership. Make sure you get a copy and maybe it's the
[00:41:58] kind of I'm actually thinking about reading this with our session. I think I had the
[00:42:04] same godly and planning to do that. It is kind of positioned towards pastoral leadership,
[00:42:11] but it's really about spiritual leadership in the life of the church, which includes
[00:42:15] in our orbit, our elders, you know, our board or a session. So I think it's useful for you
[00:42:20] as a pastor if you're listening. But if you're an elder or even just an organizational leader
[00:42:24] that needs to think about growing your attentiveness and self-awareness, others awareness,
[00:42:29] what is the Lord calling me to do in the marketplace? This is a book that
[00:42:33] is going to serve you well as well. All right. Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening.
[00:42:37] We're rounding the corner on the end of the spiritual formation content that we've had
[00:42:41] this month with our next episode. But man, any final thoughts, Jesse,
[00:42:47] as we get ready to sign off on another one? No, just we're grateful for you. We're rooting for
[00:42:51] you. You know, healthy churches, you got to be healthy as leaders and we want that for you.
[00:42:57] That's really what we want to see pastors thriving and church leaders thriving. So
[00:43:01] hopefully some of this is helpful today and we'll come back next week and kind of drill down into
[00:43:05] that a little bit more. All right. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much. And as we always say, ministry
[00:43:11] is hard. It is so much better when we do it together.