People say, "You're such a good leader," and I'm going, "Yeah, but I'm propped up. I'm propped up in every direction." I just can't imagine a pastor not finding a way within their own context, according to their own personality, to figure out how to get that input. They're already being evaluated. They'll either benefit from it or they won't.
Preaching: Years ago in an interview with Bill Hybels, he told me about using an informal group to provide sermon evaluations during the services. He always tries to have a nonbeliever in that group . . .
Stanley: To see how they're processing all this. Absolutely. Again I think it can be for a pastor as easy as — and I do this all the time, when I know someone's brought someone to the service — last night in our community group a couple brought a family, so I said, "What did they think?" It gives the person who brought them an opportunity to respond, because I'm not saying what did you think — I'm saying what did they think. You know, we've got to have that information. We used to actually do a form — we would ask people in different parts of the building to evaluate everything from lights to sound to sermon to clothing to everything. We haven't done that for a long time but I think that those are very helpful tools. Again, it's already being evaluated — we might as well benefit from it.
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Preaching: Tell me about how your own interest in leadership has impacted both your pastoral work and your preaching specifically.
Stanley: I think people's gifts in leadership communicate through that gift as well as their teaching gift. I feel like when I hear a preacher or teacher I can tell if they're leaders. There's just a "follow me" thing about every message. Not "follow me" because I've got it together but "follow me" because I'm trying to get it together. I hear somebody open the Bible and preach and handle a passage and I think I want to follow that guy. Other people I may think are good communicators, don't know that I'd want to be on a team with him necessarily. So I think leaders communicate through their leadership gift as well as their preaching and teaching gift.
Preaching: Do you try to lead through your preaching?
Stanley: Definitely. In January we do two or three weeks on the vision of the church — what's coming up this year, here we go, here's what you need to get on board. Then in June we do a big strategic service Sunday where we sign up all of our new volunteers for the fall. We do it in June and train them through the summer and put them in ministry in the fall. Those are huge vision casting times for us. It's very much from the standpoint of leadership. But those are strategic; that's not every week.