Jessie Cruickshank: Well,
welcome to the ordinary

discipleship Podcast. I'm Jesse
Cruikshank, and today we have my

friend Lance Ford. And Lance and
I were just catching up before

we started recording, and we
have been friends for a little

over 10 years now, known each
other. Lance worked with the

Foursquare denomination when I
was doing denominational work

and Lance, it's so good to have
you here with us today. Will you

share a little bit about
yourself for our audience so

they can get to know you too.

Lance Ford: It's always good to
visit with you, Jesse, whether

we're on the air or not, right?
So in all the places we run into

each other. So a little bit
about me. I am entering into the

last lap of of my run. I hope
it's a long lap. I hope it's the

longest lap I've had, but so
far, I've had 320 year segments.

So that makes me 61 years old. I
grew up in Texas. Since I was I

went into vocational, full time
vocational ministry at 19. So

two thirds of my life, it's
what's been well over 40 years

of everything from, you know,
youth pastoring to co pastoring

to planting churches and and
really the last 20 years. So I

spent 20 years doing that. In
the last 20 years now has really

been more, you know, writing and
coaching, consulting and just a

mix of all of of all that. But
it's all about, you know,

raising men and women up, you
know, in the Lord to do the

things of God for the sake of
the world. You know, a lot of

that revolves around the church.
Almost all of it revolves around

the church in one manner or
another. So that's pretty much

what my life's about. And my
wife and I were able to raise

three kids. So we've got three
kids. Got our first grandbaby

due before the end of 2025 and
so we're excited about that.

Yeah, we'll, we'll celebrate our
40th year of marriage next year.

So you

Jessie Cruickshank: have a lot
of books. What are, what are

some of the books out there that
you've written?

Lance Ford: Actually, the first
book I wrote was with Alan

Hurst. That was 15 years ago. We
wrote a book called right here,

right now, which is just a very
practical missional living

stuff, trying to land some of
Alan's brain stuff on the

ground. You know, that was what
it was. I always called it

missional for dummies. It's what
that stuff was. And then Brad

Briscoe and I wrote several
books together. We wrote a book

called missional quest. Wrote a
handbook that's been used a lot

in in groups called missional
essentials. In 2012 I mean, the

subject I know that we're going
to talk about today will goes

into this. Had a book published
called unleader that really

dealt with a lot of issues I was
seeing then, in in in the

leadership culture that we have
in the church today. And so I've

really focused more and more on
that the last few years, I feel

like that's the my ultimate
call, or my ultimate gift to the

body of Christ is, is around
leadership reform. So that's

really what I've focused on more
the last few years, where I feel

like is my ultimate calling is
to deal with that. So yeah,

Jessie Cruickshank: what I
remember about unleader is how,

like, it has a very compelling
cover, because it's got the word

crossed out, right? It's like,
um, maybe, you know, maybe,

maybe not that. And you unpack
what I, what I, what I like

about it is you, you unpack a
bit of the mythology around

leadership and and I remember
growing up well, so I went into

full time ministry when I was
also 19, and trained people in

leadership development. But we
train people in servant

leadership, which, as a guide in
an outdoor ministry, was just a

very, very different posture
then, like, I'm the head of an

organization, and I get to tell
you what to do, right? So a

guide carries the extra weight,
sets up the tent, you know, sets

up like, like, it literally is
service at the same time you're

keeping people help, you know,
alive. And so I felt like your

book kind of brought back some
of that servant leadership kind

of ethos that was kind of
missing. Now we're 1213, years

later, and you have a new book
about leadership before we talk

about, you know, and get into
that list factor. Why did you

feel compelled to write another
leadership book like, like, what

didn't happen in those in that
decade or so between unleader

and Atlas and and Atlas factor?
Yeah, you were like, man, we

gotta, we gotta go into this
further.

Lance Ford: Yeah, well, really,
because I haven't seen much

change in our systems,
especially after covid. You

know, I thought, well, maybe
there's a. Chance that pastors

will get it and will realize
that we need a new change, or we

need we need to change the way
we're leading. But it seemed

like that that didn't happen. In
fact, more than anything, most

pastors just doubled down, and
most organizations doubled down,

in fact, started trying to make
even bigger churches and more

multi site churches, and became
more corporate in their

leadership than ever before. So
I just felt like, well, maybe

there's a different metaphor.
And I just stumbled along it

really that maybe, maybe we can,
can get, get the message through

with this metaphor, actually,
that Paul used, so that that's

really why Jesse, is that I just
feel like that we're so addicted

to leadership, leadership,
leadership. Well, I felt like

this back when I wrote on
leader. But it hasn't changed.

You know? It hasn't changed
despite the the the empirical

data that shows that the church
is continues to be in trending

decline. Regardless of whether
we have more church churches or

bigger churches than we ever
have. We've got less people, you

know, than we have per capita.
We're in a long trend that's not

going to end well, if you want,
if you want to know where we're

headed in the American church.
Go, go. Look at the stats for

the European church 60 years
ago. That's in in the trends

just can overlay, because we're
headed where, where they were,

you know. And so now it's, it's
hard to find the church in

Europe. You have to, you have to
look in the nooks and the

crannies, you know. But, but
that may be God getting his way,

right?

Jessie Cruickshank: Yeah, I
think that the stats are that

we've, like, 40,000 people have
left the church in the last five

years, and even if you want to,
you know, lean into the moves of

God that are happening on
college campuses, and the people

getting baptized and getting
saved, they're not actually

going to church, so, you know,
maybe in a few years. But

they're, they're doing para
church ministries. They're doing

these campus ministries, but
they're not necessarily getting

plugged in and finding a place
in existing church. So even,

even if the beginning, if
there's a beginning of a wave,

or at least an awakening, a move
of the Lord there, it's still

not translating into one greater
church attendance into more

churches like I think I just saw
that 15, they expect that 15,000

churches will close this year.
And just for context for the

audience, in 2019 8000 churches
were planted and 6000 churches

were closed in 2019 haven't seen
any data from 2020, or 2024.

Nobody kept records. So all the
churches that probably closed

then, which in a lot of places,
was probably like 30% but then

just in 25 15,000 churches, and
I don't really know very many

organizations that are church
planting. So we're seeing,

Lance Ford: there's around
there's around 1500 Yeah, we're

definitely seeing contraction,
and there's around 1500 to 1700

pastors leave the ministry every
month.

Jessie Cruickshank: But we've
been focused for probably about

5060, years on those leadership
development pipeline as a

process for training up
ministers and pastors in your

new book, Atlas, factor, you
kind of break down and did you

did a lot, did some research on
the history of this so, so tell

us what you discovered, because
I find this part fascinating

about the history of the
Christian leadership as a term

in Christian leadership
industry,

Lance Ford: the word leadership
is a new word relative to

linguistics or relative to our
history. It's a very new word.

And what I stumbled along this
few years ago, when I was I was

doing some research. I've got an
old Oxford universal dictionary

that I bought at a used
bookstore 30 years ago. You

know, it's four or five inches
thick. It's like a boat anchor,

right? So I went over and I
grabbed my I grabbed that

dictionary and I opened it up. I
because it's so good with

linguistics, you know, it goes
in into the history of the of

the and the evolution of a word.
So it's not uncommon to go in

there and find a word and there
to be a half a page, maybe even

a page, maybe even a page and a
half on the definition of a

particular word. That's why it's
so thick. So I had the 1955

version, and I started looking
up the word leadership, and I

couldn't find it. It was not in
the Oxford dictionary the 1955

as a definition I and to be be
honest, I did finally find it

one in one sentence as a that
was it was used in the in

defining the word leader, which
is really funny, because the.

Where the leadership was not
even defined, in the 1955 Oxford

universal dictionary, in the
1915 Noah Webster Dictionary,

it's not there. Okay, so this is
a new word now. And trust me,

I've done so many I've done tons
of interviews, you know. And and

people will go, oh, wait, the
leadership's always been around.

The Chinese were studying
leadership, you know, and sure,

absolutely, there's always been
there's leadership in the Bible

from Genesis on. I'm not saying
there's not leadership. What I'm

saying is what we call
leadership and what Jesus were

to call leadership is not the
same animal by any stretch. What

we've done is we have taken the
secular, what Jesus called the

work of the Gentiles, we've
taken that and imported it

straight into the church, and
we've sprinkled little Jesus

sprinkles on it. Now sometimes
we don't even do that. We just

do it like the world did it. So
anyway, I'm doing this research.

So this took me down this rabbit
hole. Started finding out that

even in the secular world, the
word leadership, the first time

you start seeing it in any type
of periodicals or books is in

the mid to late 1800s you just
see it a few times. There was a

conference in the 1920s that
used the word leadership, but it

just was not this common word
that we use. I mean even to 1966

when Peter Drucker wrote his
famous book, the effective

executive, he wasn't focusing on
leadership. He called it

management. So it was we. In
fact, the word management was

used much more then and then it
evolved into leadership. And we

manage people

Jessie Cruickshank: just to,
just to make sure that I'm

tracking what I've tracked is
like the movement of people and

be before the 1800s you don't
have social mobility like you

have a class system. You're born
into a trade. You're born into a

tier, a caste system, a class
system, and so you are like, a

good version of your trade, but
there's not like, the ability to

change your class, right? Yeah,
ladder. There's no pipeline.

You're just either good or bad
at your job, or you bring on or

Lance Ford: dishonor, play with
the car. You play with the cars

that were dealt you.

Jessie Cruickshank: Right? So it
makes sense to me, then that we

the late 1800s we start to have
social mobility in our world.

It's a new thing, mostly driven
by I mean, you're from the west.

I live in the West, the westward
expansion, where you could now

change your class system. You
can, yeah, you know, it makes

sense then to me that you'd
start to see sprinklings of this

idea. But then even so, right?
It's management. You're not,

you're not changing your social
status necessarily, right?

Lance Ford: And what really gave
it that jump was the industrial

revolution. So in the early
1900s there was a guy named

Frederick Winslow Taylor from
Bethlehem still that he is

considered to be the father of
modern management, which is

modern leadership. So he started
creating, he wrote a little book

called The Art of scientific
management. And so he just

started using clocks and quotas
to organize and to run things

in, you know, in these steel
mills and in these big

factories. And so he started
creating a difference. This is

where you got the division of
blue collar and white collar.

And so you would have these,
these bosses up in these, in

these towers right in the middle
of these big warehouses, these

big glass you know, they could
look around all four and they're

yelling orders to people and so,
and when you read his book,

it's, it's, it's wild, because
part of what he was wanting to

do was good. He was wanting to
make these, these, you know,

these industries more
profitable, but he wanted the

men to get paid part of that
profit, the more that they

performed. So, you know, he's
weeding out the best from the he

knows how, how quick you ought
to be able to load a ton of pig

iron and move it from this side
to the to the rail carts or

whatever. And so he started
measuring everything

Jessie Cruickshank: eyes right,
as long as you're the right

height with the Right exactly.

Lance Ford: And all the you and
I mattered so excited

Jessie Cruickshank: like nobody
else knows about Taylorism and

how much it has shaped our
everything about our world,

everything, doesn't it?
Everything? Well, you know, the

way they designed those things,
he studied, the way they

designed prisons, and that's how
they designed the management

supervision. But anyway, keep
going. Keep keeping I

Lance Ford: mean Taylorism. I
mean. You and I could sit here

for the next five hours and talk
about Taylorism. And the thing

is, is people don't realize it
runs our life today. It totally

runs our life and so and you
know, if you obviously you've

read his material, the things he
says about some men are so

stupid you can't trust them.
They're stupid, they're lazy. So

that was his first that was two
of his assumptions that people

are stupid and people are lazy.
So this is why you have to stay

on them all the time. But then
you've got a few people that can

be the thinkers, right? But you
got the thinkers and the doers.

Well, what happened was his
Taylorism caught on. Of course,

Henry Ford started, started
using it, and it just, it

started moving everywhere. But
then it started moving from the

factory floor all the way up
right into the C suite. That's

where we got the C suite, that's
where we got all this. So man,

Jessie Cruickshank: the IQ test
is applying it to the military.

Lance Ford: All of that came
from that and so, but the

fundamental thought is that that
people, you can't trust people

to order their own schedule, and
you can't trust them to give a

good day's work, so you have to
manage them. And so this stuff

started going throughout, you
know, the 20s, 30s, the 40s,

then by the 1950s you started
seeing some books on leadership

start emerging. Now, and I'll
just jump forward, because we,

once again, you and I are like,
we're in a candy store on this

subject, but get think about
this Jesse, so I started, so I

get up to studying into the
1960s and I'm still not finding

any Christian book with the word
leadership in the title 1967 the

most famous Christian leadership
book from the 1960s Oswald

Sanders spiritual leadership. He
uses the term in his book 1967

but even by the 1960s and I've
done tons of research for this,

I've talked to the biggest
booksellers in the world, I can

only find 10 or 11 books,
Christian books with the word

leadership in the title from the
1960s Okay, so this is to

emphasize, this is a new thing.
This is, this is a new thing.

This focus on leadership. So by
the 1970s now the Church Growth

Movement get this. So when does
the Church Growth Movement

start? Well, it starts in the
mid 60s. Really starts getting

cooking in the late 60s. And
you've got two factors coming

here. You've obviously got
Fuller Seminary that starts the

Institute of church growth, but
you've also, you've also got

Robert Schuller, he actually
starts his own institute. In

fact, as we're recording this,
we're just days away from the

50th anniversary of Willow Creek
Community Church they started

1975 now, Willow has done a good
job. In fact, while Hybels was

there, he's done a good he did a
good job of scrubbing their

history as good as well as he
could. But he was a direct

disciple of of Robert Schuller,
and many of the tactics that he

used directly came from Schuler.
All of it goes back to Norman,

Vincent, Peale and Peter
Drucker. Okay, so these guys had

a huge shaping upon what we see
today. And the reason I say that

is because Hybels, or Schuler,
is definitely the father of the

modern day, attractional seeker
church. Hybels took it to

another level today. Somebody
could blindfold you, take you

in, into a church service, take
the blindfold off, and you

wouldn't know whether you're in
a Methodist Church, a Baptist

church, a charismatic church,
you wouldn't know why, because

everything looks the same.
They're singing the same songs.

The ceilings dark, the room's
dark, the lights, depending on

their budget, are going
everywhere. If they can afford a

smoke machine they got that
they're singing the same songs.

You wouldn't have had that 3540
years ago, because we have now

what I call the Neo attractional
church. So we've just upped it

to a different level. But what
happened was, in this mid 70s,

as the Church Growth Movement
was taken off, and they started

getting bigger churches, they
had to run those things, and

they had to try to figure out,
how do they run them? And so

they had no place to turn,
because there was no Christian

leadership book, at least, like
a large

Jessie Cruickshank: group,
right? Because you had larger

discipleship or whatever was
done 100 at a time locally, yes,

neighbor, exactly, parish,
everybody multiplied instead. Of

making up right

Lance Ford: in the and they took
care of themselves, right? Which

is the way the church is
designed to do is self

management. But as the churches
got bigger and grew faster, they

started importing directly
leadership principles from the

business world. And then, of
course, we know by the by the

90s, you know, Bill Hybels has
the Willow Creek Association

cooking, and then they create
the Global Leadership

Conference. And it was game on
by that time, and it was all

about leadership, leadership,
leadership. So whereas you can,

you can't even find a dozen
Christian books on leadership in

the 1960s now they're, they're
10s of 1000s of them. It's just

everywhere. And so it's, it is
supplanted the word servant.

Completely eradicated the word
servant in the word minister. So

I've always said, if you were to
go back to, let's say 1980 and

you're in some town and and you
go to, you go to a Denny's, or

you go to some local diner for
breakfast, and you were to look

over and see four or five of the
local pastors sitting around

having breakfast. If someone was
commenting on that group, they

would say that, Oh, that's our
ministers. And inside that

group, in their conversation,
the word lead. I mean, I don't

have a time machine to prove
this empirically, but I, but I

know you would not have even
heard the word leader or

leadership in the one and a half
hour conversation those guys

having breakfast, they wouldn't
even use it. They would. They

didn't think of themselves that
way, right? Shepherds, right? It

was a shepherding. Shepherds,
pastors, ministers, right?

Servants, diakonos, right? But
today, what do you think? What

do you think, Jesse, if there
were five local pastors having

breakfast for an hour and a
half, how many times would the

word leader, leadership pop up
in their conversation? I don't

know. I think

Jessie Cruickshank: it's
probably therapy now,

Lance Ford: well, it should be.
Well, it depends on, it depends

on their cognitive dissonance,
right?

Jessie Cruickshank: The rooms
I'm in anyway, what do you Yeah,

what do you think? And this is
also to help you know you share

some about what you found and
kind of your the case you make

in that list, factor like, what
do you think the goal was, of

all that leadership development
talk and training, and you know

what was the was the telos for,
for that huge wave that you that

you're a little older than me,
so like you're on the front end

of, and I'll cut on the middle
end

Unknown: of, so gentle, yeah,
what

Jessie Cruickshank: do you what
do you think their goal was?

Well, I think multiply churches,
right? Let's it wasn't that. So

what was it?

Lance Ford: Well, I think it was
to run the churches that had

multiplied. So, I mean, you had
the Church Growth Movement was

in everybody's ear, and it was
in all the seminaries that were

all being hugely impacted by
that. So how to run these

things? They were looking for a
new way to run, to run them. And

so this is why they started
inventing, you know, even new

positions, you know, I guess 35
years ago, executive pastor, you

know. So executive pastors come
in, and now they run the staff.

And so it's not uncommon. In
fact, I'm just going to say it.

You can go to the big, the main
website for executive pastors

right now, and you can look up
the job descriptions that they

suggest, and you'll, you'll see
things that'll basically just

totally leave any theological
training or any pastoral

training as an addendum. It's
like we you should have to be an

executive pastor. You need to
have run a business of you know

that has x is brought in X
amount gross each year, has X

amount of employees, and then
way down in the bullet list,

you'll say, you know, a
theological degree or experience

in a local church is, is great.
You know, it'd be that's nice to

have too, but you got to really
have this business acumen to run

this thing. So it just comes in
and it dominates. But I think

that when getting back to your
question, I think they're trying

to figure out a way, and the
only way they could figure was

turning to you boss people.
That's what we grow up with. We

grew up with coaches that bossed
us your first job, you know, at

a McDonald's or, you know, at a
landscape company or whatever,

you're getting bossed. You're
getting told what to do. And so

we just imported that. So, you
know, I, you know, serving is in

serving within leadership. Say,
I don't even like the word

servant leadership, because I
don't think we need it. I think.

We gotta, we've gotta get
stronger about this stuff. We

always think we gotta tack on to
it. Jesus didn't think he needed

to tack on to it. He said, The
Greatest is a servant. He didn't

say the greatest is a servant
leader. So in fact, he even said

in Matthew 23 when he said,
Don't call yourself Father,

don't call yourself teacher, he
said, Don't call yourself

leader. So the Catholics call
their top guy father, and we

love to call each other leader.
We just do the exact what Jesus

said don't do.

Jessie Cruickshank: So what do
you what do you think is the

instead with the you and I have
talked about how the the the

more business, like paradigm and
and I'm not anti business. I've

run, I've run business
organizations, and sure, even

took Harvard classes on
entrepreneurial leadership. So

one of the most famous HBr
articles is the difference

between a manager and a leader,
and just kind of setting up

those another postures. What do
you think? What do you think the

church should look like? How?
How do we regain maybe what

we've lost over the last 7500
years.

Lance Ford: Yeah, well, I think
it should look like a body, you

know? I think that's why you see
that Paul uses this metaphor so

often, is it's a body and it has
a head, and that that head is

named Jesus. And so I think
that, I think it's a beautiful

metaphor. And you see Paul use
it many times, you know, not the

least of which Romans 12. And
just talk about the different

giftings of the different
members. Doesn't mean that every

member has the same power, has
the same or as he uses the term

faith to use. It's the ability
to use that gift. But everyone

has the same status. And that's
the thing about it, is this is a

difference in status. And so a
one, a person that that comes in

as a servant, is a person that
looks at other people as their

equal in status, you know. So,
you know, you can have a

baseball team, and you can have
a, you know, an Aaron judge

that's like six foot eight or
however big that Goliath is, you

know, and he's just an Adonis in
the way he's built, and he's

hitting 6065, home runs a year.
But in any given game, your your

skinny second baseman may be up
to bat in a clutch time, and

he's hitting 250 but he gets it.
He hits a double, or he hits a

single. He drives in the game
winning run. You don't take the

bat out of his hand, right?
Because he's gifted in his own

way. And so there's, there's
equal status, even though there

may not be equal power, or as
far as the ability to use a

gift. And Jesus goes to great
strains to to lay this out. And

so when he gets to that ultimate
statement in John 20, or in

Matthew 2025, and 28 that we're
all familiar with, when his

disciples are jockeying for
position, and James and John

have got their mama to come up
and and ask him for, you know,

this great position in his
kingdom. And he said, and the

other disciples get ticked off
about it. And you know, he says,

Hey, sit down here. I gotta tell
you something. You all know that

the Gentiles dominate one
another. They practice the

lordship over one another. It
will not be this way among you,

the one that will be the that
that will be the least you know,

will be the servant, the one
that will be the greatest will

be last. And then what we
usually stop there, but if we

were to keep reading, we would
see all the way John 21 and John

22 is where he lays out the the
the Parable of the Vineyard

owner that goes early in the
morning and and, you know, hires

people to come and work. Hey,
I'll give you a day's wage if

you'll come. He takes them to
the vineyard. He comes back nine

o'clock in the morning. Hire
some more people. I'll pay you.

What's fair? He says, you know
the whole deal. He does it at

noon. He does it at three
o'clock. He does it towards the

end of the day. And then he
tells his servant. He says,

okay, end of the day, call all
the workers together so I can

pay them for the today, he says,
but bring the ones that we hired

last first. And he gives them
the exactly what He had promised

the other guys at eight in the
morning. Of course, the guys at

the back of the line now are
thinking, Man, this is great,

and you know the parable, so by
the time he starts working up,

he's giving them all the same
amount, and these guys are

livid, because they think
they're going to get more, not

only that, and this is what we
miss so often, not only that,

they worked all day. What
happens when you've worked all

day? At the end of the day, what
do you want to do? I want to go

home, man. I want to go home. I
want to chill. Oil. I want to

get something to drink. I worked
a hard day out here in the sun.

They get paid last they have to
stand in line longer than

anybody. These guys that just
started. The end of the day.

They got paid. They got to go
ahead and, you know, hit the

beer, hit the bar, right? And
I'm waiting. Jesus is

emphasizing this. And so he's
saying, the last will be first

and the first will be last. And
he says the word so that there

will be equality. You are equal.
Then he continues all the way

into Matthew 23 and this is when
he just keeps grinding and says,

Don't call yourself leader.
Don't call yourself this. Don't

call yourself that. Don't use
rank based titles. So that

Matthew 20 passage goes all the
way through Matthew 23 in

context, Jesus is emphasizing
equality of status. Why? Because

we're a body. And so I wrote the
book Atlas factor because it

came about from a metaphor. In
fact, ROB WEGNER And Alan Hersh

and I wrote a book called the
starfish in the Spirit, and I

had put a metaphor in there. Not
some brain I mean, things we've

all thought of before. I was
just thinking about how the

typical job description of being
a pastor is like being Atlas.

You know, it's like, Oh, you got
to be the top theologian. You

got to be a marriage expert, you
got to be a family expert. You

got to be a fundraiser. You're
the face of it. You know, all

this stuff. That's yeah, and,
oh, by the way, we need you to

deliver about 45 to 50
phenomenal talks a year. I mean,

who can do that? Who do we think
we are? And not only who do we

think we are, it's not fair to
get that pressure from a from

from a congregation, to expect
us to deliver all that. So

you're playing Atlas. And this
is why so many you know guys and

gals burn out. I lasted. I
planted and lasted 10 years.

That's why, when I look at these
people that that are still

pastoring churches, I visited a
buddy back where I planted just

a few months ago. He planted
within months of when I did in

the mid 90s, and he's still
doing it. And I just his name's

Dave, and I'm just like, Dave, I
mean, you're amazing brother,

just, you know, the long
obedience in the same direction,

just amazing. But most of us,
you know, you know, I mean, God

was changing my trajectory
anyway. But a lot of people burn

out because you're trying to
carry the weight of the world.

So I was thinking about this
atlas metaphor, and I had

actually posted a quote from our
friend Neil Cole, and I don't

even remember I posted on
Facebook or something, and I

don't remember exactly what the
Post said, but it was something

along the lines of the he said,
something along the lines of the

wisdom of the head is
disseminated into the body, but

when it gets disrupted, it
causes a problem. Well, this, I

had another friend that reposted
my post. You know, shared it.

His chiropractor made a comment
on it, which came back to me and

his chiropractor. It practices
what they call upper cervical

care, which is a specialty
within chiropractic, and he just

focuses on the c1 and the c2
vertebra. Now, Jesse, as we're

talking you've just recently had
spinal surgery, so,

Jessie Cruickshank: yep, yep.
You may, you may have five, 3c,

seven, so the lower end of the
neck right above. So you're at

the lower. At the lower, I still
have my mobility, because I

still have the upper part,

Lance Ford: yeah, so the and
that's it. So the c1 and the c2

the c1 so this chiropractor
quotes, he goes, Oh, that's, you

know, that's, that's what I deal
with in upper cervical care. And

he says the problem is when the
c1 and the c2 when there's a

disruption and the wisdom of the
head doesn't get disseminated

into the body. And then he makes
the statement. He said, the body

has all has all the intelligence
it needs. It just needs no

interruption between itself in
the head well man. And he said

this, and he said the c1 called
the Atlas vertebra. And I was

like, holy smokes. So then you
know being, you know how we are,

Jesse. So I in so for four books
on chiropractic. Later that I

read. I'm not kidding. I'm like,
I gotta find out about this. So,

you know, I just go into this.
I'm like, Man, the metaphor is

just never ending, because the
body is this neural network. I'm

not telling you anything, okay?
I'm fact, I'm intimidated,

right? Now to even talk about
neurology around you, okay?

Anyway, the body is this neural
network, right? And so it has

everything it needs to do. But
you can walk into a room. In

fact, I've got two friends that
both of them had sons at 17 have

spinal cord injuries, one in a
football game, one in a

motorcycle wreck. And I visited
both those boys. And you can

walk into the living room and
they can be sitting on a couch,

or they could be sitting in a
chair. They look fine. You

wouldn't know anything was wrong
with them, but there's no

movement from the waist down.
They can't move. Why? Because

there was it. Got the the the
nerves from the head to the body

got disrupted, got interrupted.
And I am convinced that in the

body of Christ today, the reason
that the body of Christ in most

instances and most local
churches, there's no movement,

because we've got men, and in
some instances, women or both,

that are playing the head,
they're playing the head. And so

some people even use that term,
the head pastor, which is a real

scary thing to say, because
there's only one head pastor.

There's only one chief pastor,
Chief Shepherd, right? And Peter

pointed that out, and it's
Jesus. So I'm present through

these systems, yes, and I'm
convinced that we have lost

through our systems by playing
Atlas, that we have effectually

disconnected the head to the
body, and so we have a body that

looks great, it just isn't going
anywhere. And we all have

movement so and we have a lot of
paralysis of a lot of very

capable, effectual members
because of our management

systems. And so this creates an
issue that is system wide within

the church, and so you have to
rebuild your systems. And so I

do not believe that we just wipe
out the leadership it smells. We

need to replace it with a
different type of leadership,

which means that your policies
and your practices completely

have to have an overhaul in the
way that we deal with one

another in the church.

Jessie Cruickshank: I mean, I
think what we've tried to do

with like the leadership, what
the there's a leadership crisis

on one end that people aren't
like coming through the ranks.

They're not coming through the
pipeline. They're not climbing

the ladders. And more and more,
like Gen Z, Inc, Gen Z is not

going to do that, right? So
under 30, they're not going to

do the full time vocational
thing. Very, very rarely, it's

they just have a strong
conviction not to do that, which

I think is from the Lord. So you
have, on one hand, you have a

leadership development crisis.
On the other hand, you know

people think, well, you know the
reason why we have leadership

failure, or these, these pastors
with moral failure, you know,

maybe we just need to do better
in the way that we train. And so

they people look at both of
those issues, and they just want

to train better. They just want
to have better classes. They

just want to have a better
curriculum. And what, I know

about the way that the human
brain is designed is that we're

not created for one person to
be, to be the head. In fact,

when a person experiences power,
and this is done, this is

research. This comes out of
business research, when you have

a person who has like a CEO, or
someone who's the head of an

organization, and they maintain
that role for a long time, that

it starts to unwire their
mirroring mechanism, which

means, when I look at you, I
because of mirroring, I can look

at you, and if I do something or
say something, and you react a

certain way, I feel that emotion
too, right? So I feel what I the

feelings that I create in you
when we have somebody who's been

in power for a long time,
they've had to do things to

people, they've had to fire,
they've had to yell, they've had

to mean, or maybe not yell like,
like. They've they've had to

exert a power differential, and
if their mirroring mechanism

remains intact, then they feel
the impact as if they're doing

it to themselves. So if you're
in power for a while, that

starts to erode because you're
and then you start to be able to

do things to other people that
you don't feel so So mirroring

then erodes, and then that
erodes empathy. And empathy is

that feeling, I feel what I'm
doing to you. And empathy is a

social conscious when it when we
do that socially, it's called

morality. So if we disconnect
and unwire mirroring, then we

erode empathy, which then erodes
morality. And so it's not

necessarily that we're not
training people well enough. In

order to maintain position of
Head of solo leadership, but

that we're not created in our
design to be able to do that

like it's not, it's it's not
just a it's not a character

flaw. It's a system, yes, flaw.

Lance Ford: We're not We're not
powerful. We're not built for

it, and that's why, no, none of
us were ever designed to be

king. And so, you know, I have a
young man just the other day. He

was real. He was really, he's
like a son to me. He was one of

my church planting interns 20
years ago, and he was telling me

the other day he was, he was
talking with a friend of ours

that's an older guy. He's
actually older than me. Believe

it, pastors a large church and
and he was at this young man was

asking him, Hey, why do you
think all these pastoral

failures, you know, so many of
these? And he said, Do you think

it's a problem with the system?
And seriously, here's what the

guy said. He said, No, it's not
the system. He said. He said,

These guys just need to have
better hearts. And it's not, no,

the system is will make you this
way. Look what it did to David,

a man after God's own heart.
Look what it did to him. You're

not made to be king. You're not
designed to be king. And, and,

you know, but it, but I think
that our imagination is so

locked up in it, it sounds like
crazy talk. What you and I are

saying here sounds like crazy
talk. What do you mean? The buck

stops here has to stop
somewhere. So, you know, someone

has to make a final decision
there, you know, we just cut off

the notion that there could be a
different way to do it, and that

there could be a better way, you
know, to do it, and that there

could be a different form of
accountability, mutual

accountability, right? Shared
leadership, polycentric, shared

leadership, mutual submission,
you know, non vertical

accountability, but a
constellation of accountability,

these different things, and it's
which actually is more

accountability than vertical
accountability. Yeah, that's the

irony of it, right?

Jessie Cruickshank: Yep, yep.
Having served in those it's way

more intense. You're way more
accountable Absolutely, and your

heart is way more known. Yeah,
you know, the interesting thing

about the whole like, like the
Lord did set us up to be to fail

if we're a king or solo leader,
but he said it set us up to be

successful if we just have
people around us who roll their

eyes at us, if we can experience
low power moments, if we can

have friendships where they're
like, Dude, what are you doing?

And that pure accountability, we
it that shapes us well. We're

created to respond to that
through empathy and through

mirroring, so that we can be
moral together. We actually

aren't. Aren't created to do it
individually, but we are created

to do it all together. So this,
this different idea of a body

working together with the buck
stops, with the Holy Spirit,

which I think is somewhere in
Acts. I think it talks

Lance Ford: about some somewhere
in there a dozen times or more,

right?

Unknown: So, yeah, yeah, well,
but

Lance Ford: Okay, so, so, right
there. So, but let's take that

So was it is Acts 15, is Acts 15
or 16,

Jessie Cruickshank: I'm not good
with the address. That's why I

never drop them. I'm not good
with the addresses.

Lance Ford: Okay, so, you know,
so many people will point there

and say, you know, when there
was this big decision to be made

that then James said, here's why
I've decided. And everybody

point a seat right there. He was
the guy the bucks. Now you look

at it, you don't even have to go
to the Greek, go to the NIV. I

don't care. Okay. He said,
Here's my opinion, here's what I

say. And then it says, And it
seemed good to the apostles, the

elders and the church that was
gathered to send Paul and

Barnabas, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Okay. It says it,

this is the way they made a
decision, right? We just

immediately cherry pick and
make, well, this is really what

we're going to do here. But this
is what makes, you know, the

five fold and everything work.
But once again, people will take

five fold and say, well, the
apostles, boss. No, the apostle

is not boss. The the apostle has
a particular gift and a better

and more strength in that
gifting than the others do. But

there may be a time when you
need that pastor, that Shepherd,

voice to be louder, right?
Because you're going to the

Prophet's about to bring the
hammer down on somebody. And the

pastor says, let me take the
hammer out, let me step in.

Right, exactly, right. So that's
why there has to be equality, so

that there's no fear to speak,
to roll the ice, to speak up.

But in so many of these
leveraged, heavy handed

leadership systems, you know
better than to speak up. You

know better than I mean, it's
what Driscoll called the sin of

questioning. You don't question,
right or and you and so you end

up, especially when people's
livelihood depends on not

rubbing the boss or whatever,
then it just creates a culture

where all that mirroring and
everything that you're talked

about, all that starts breaking
down, man, it all. That's why we

get to it's the system, and
that's, you know, that's why

I'm, you know, nobody can see it
right now, but that's why I'm

wearing a cap right now that
says it's the system, stupid.

Jessie Cruickshank: And the good
news is that we could get into a

different system. And all of
that effort and all of that

energy and all of that time,
instead of doing leadership

development, we do discipleship,
and then people's hearts are

better, right? It answers. We
put all of that effort and

energy and sincerity because,
people are really sincere about

wanting to do the right thing,
at least that's been my

experience. Nobody's trying to
control. I mean, there are no

like

Lance Ford: for the most part,
the majority, yeah, I think the

majority of pastors, man, I love
pastors, and I think by far the

majority of them, they're doing
it for the right reasons, and,

and they have the right heart,
and, and this is not a mega or a

small thing, either a church
deal either. I mean, you and I

both know Jesse. I mean, you can
have a church of 35 people, and

there's some dude that's his
little fiefdom. I mean, he's a,

he's a dictator mania. So it's,
yeah, they end up just, they do

call those cults, right? And so
it's, it can be either it can be

either or, right? So it's, it's,
it's, it's in all these but it

does come down to discipleship
and disciple making, and, and,

and that's our job. I mean,
that's the thing, and that's

where I think that so much of
the leadership cult, the

leadership industrial complex,
that's invaded the church. I

think it gets us off of of our
calling, and so most, most

pastors today that view
themselves their identity as

leaders, they're not waking up
in the morning thinking, Man, I

can't wait to get to the office
to ask Brian and Debbie and

Stephen and Jackie what they
need from me today, how I can

resource them, how I can serve
them, how I can do what

Ephesians four says, equip them
best. No, they're thinking. As

soon as I get to the office, I'm
gonna tell Brian he needs to do

this. I'm gonna check with
Jackie make sure she took care

of what I told her to do
yesterday. You're to be an

equipper. That's your primary
job. Is to be a coach, not a

boss, and to be a quipper and
not a director. So this changes,

but it gets exciting, because
you start look, I mean, that's a

that's something more exciting,
I would think to wake up to in

the morning, to get to do than
to get to manage people.

Jessie Cruickshank: Yeah,
managing is, I mean, that's how

you get a job done, but
equipping and discipleship and

empowerment is how you is how
you live a life.

Lance Ford: So, yeah, and that's
how you get moving exciting.

Well, if people

Jessie Cruickshank: want to pick
up your book the actless factor,

where can they where can they
find that?

Lance Ford: Yeah, I mean,
Amazon's usually the best place

to go. So it's, it's there,
it's, it's there in all forms,

electric audio and old school
where you can smell paperback

and highlight it,

Jessie Cruickshank: yeah, there
you go. There you go. Well, you

and I, we can talk about this
kind of stuff for a long, long

time and nerd out. But I just
want to, I just appreciate you

coming on and and sharing. I
love to see the effort that

people put into being a disciple
actually go in the direction,

take them in the direction
breaking these false narratives

that the enemy is seated in that
get us off course so that all of

that energy and effort, we can
see the fruit of that, because

we're doing it God's way. So
Amen. Appreciate you. Thanks,

Lance.

Lance Ford: Appreciate you.
Yeah, thanks. It's always fun to

visit with you.

Jessie Cruickshank: All right.
Well, you have been with us for

the ordinary discipleship
podcast. If you want, you can

check out more
resources@hoology.co that's W,

H, O, o, l, o, G, y, dot, C, O,
and there's resources there for

shared leadership, for ordinary
disciple making, for leadership

coaching in ways that are
healthy and ways that help. You

connect and support and guide
and coach other people, so we'll

see you next time you.