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On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses doing the right thing the right way in ministry leadership—even when the information is incomplete, the consequences are painful, and critics are loud.
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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and your host for the podcast where we talk about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Now today, I'm going to apologize once at the beginning of this podcast for any weird noises that we aren't able to edit out. I have inhaled apparently half the pollen in the state of Tennessee and it has wreaked havoc on my vocal cords and my breathing. I feel pretty good.
Jeff Iorg:I just sound horrible. So we'll do our best today to work our way through this podcast and talk about an issue that, has become perhaps more important to me as I'm nearing more the end of my ministry leadership years, that is having the discipline and the courage to do the right thing no matter the consequences. You know, as you move along in your leadership career, you'll likely look back over a mixed bag of decisions. I certainly do. I've made some really good decisions.
Jeff Iorg:I've also made some really bad decisions. Now when I was a younger leader, I thought I had to get everything right in order to continue my leadership role role and and responsibility, and I discovered along the way that no one's really expecting that. Now you do have to get most decisions right if you're going to remain in leadership, But followers understand that no leader is perfect. All leaders make mistakes, and some of our decisions are simply better than others. You'll also look back over decisions like I do and see that there were some situations where you had to choose a course a course of action when the options were muddled and the consequences were unclear.
Jeff Iorg:In many of these cases, the situation might have been traumatic, might have been very difficult, but nevertheless, someone had to make a decision about how to move forward, and that someone, because of the responsibility that you'd been given, was you. You had to make the choices, in difficult situations, sometimes with murky circumstances and hard to analyze consequences. You had to make the choices, and those choices might have all kinds of negative results, like people losing jobs, being downsized, being reorganized, organizations losing money, churches losing ministry opportunities, division resulting in ministry, or any other of a number of negative results that might have come your way. Sometimes, these decisions can even lead to people being persecuted or ministries suffering some kind of catastrophic setback. Well, we make decisions as leaders, and we have to have the discipline to do the right thing as best we can understand it in the moment, not being paralyzed by the situation and its difficulty, and not being fearful of the consequences that might come.
Jeff Iorg:Leaders make decisions that's at the core of what we do, And we often have to make those decisions in the face of turmoil or persecution or in the face of uncertainty or lack of information. Part of the essence of leadership is taking responsibility for making these kind of tough decisions in these kind of uncertain situations and then living with the consequences as they may come. You know, many years ago, a friend told me, you can't lead if you can't inflict pain. And I reacted very negatively to that statement. I'm not a pain inflictor.
Jeff Iorg:I'm a pastoral person. I want to bring solace and healing and compassion and care into people's lives,
Jeff Iorg:not difficulty and certainly not pain. But frankly, he was right. Sometimes as a leader, you have
Jeff Iorg:to make decisions that will be painful. And I used to think it meant painful primarily for others. But when that brother told me, you can't lead if you can't inflict pain, he meant not only you can't inflict pain on other people by creating difficulty or turmoil or challenge in their lives, but you also can't lead if you can't inflict pain on yourself.
Jeff Iorg:Now think about that for a moment. Leadership is not always about finding a solution that doesn't cost you. Sometimes it's about finding a solution that's painful even
Jeff Iorg:for the person making the decisions. So in the context of making these kinds of choices, how can a leader how can you maintain your emotional equilibrium knowing the potential consequences of your decisions and knowing the potential consequences not only in
Jeff Iorg:the lives of other people, but also in your life as well? What helps maintain perspective and gives
Jeff Iorg:you the strength to make the hard calls? How can you leave a legacy of perhaps controversial decisions but those having generally good outcomes? Now, one part of the bible that really helps with this is the book of first Peter. And you can pick up the reading in chapter three about verse 13 and read on through the end of chapter four to get the context for some of what I'm gonna say today on the podcast. You know, Peter wrote this part of his letter to people who were struggling, and they were struggling with having to make hard decisions and having difficult circumstances come their way because of those decisions.
Jeff Iorg:In chapter three in verse 13, Peter writes that these believers, if they should suffer for righteousness, as
Jeff Iorg:he put it, you are blessed. He also advocated being ready
Jeff Iorg:to give a defense for our hope in Christ and responding to everyone with gentleness and respect, keeping our conscience clear. Peter then goes on to say that our detractors will ultimately be put to shame, although in the short run, they may appear victorious. And then he goes on to say in verse 17 of chapter three, it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will than for doing evil. Now that bit of
Jeff Iorg:biblical overview, helps us
Jeff Iorg:to understand the theme that he's introduced. Leaders face difficult challenging situations. We have to make hard decisions, And it's better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil or for making a choice that leads to something evil. Now throughout this section, Peter interweaves the example of Jesus making the right decisions and suffering for it as a model for us. Jesus certainly did the right thing, and he did it the right way, and he suffered for it.
Jeff Iorg:And Jesus' sufferings were far more profound than any of us will ever experience. He chose to die for us, suffering for sin he didn't commit to make salvation possible. His example is the ultimate illustration of a person suffering unjustly while steadfastly refusing to compromise doing what was right. Jesus did the right thing, the right way,
Jeff Iorg:and suffered for it. By following Jesus' example, you can, as Peter wrote it, equip yourselves also with the same resolve to resist the slander and attack and sometimes even anger that comes from people who think who attack you, I should say, for making these hard decisions. Jesus is our model. He is
Jeff Iorg:our model for making hard decisions, doing the right thing the right way, and bearing up under the consequences that come our way because of that. Now we see the pattern and the challenge laid out in first Peter. We hear him giving us an example of what it means to be the kind of leader who does the right thing the right way even in controversy or difficult circumstances and has some negative lash come to him or her. But beyond that, Peter then highlights two resources that will help you as you make hard choices with difficult consequences in challenging situations. He begins, by reminding people in the end of chapter three to be serious and disciplined for prayer.
Jeff Iorg:Be serious and disciplined for prayer. He then goes on to advocate, above all, maintain an intense love for each other since love covers a multitude of sins. Peter insisted that the strength to draw on when you're making difficult decisions in difficult situations that may have some negative backlash is prayer and the loving support
Jeff Iorg:of people who really care about you. Let's talk first for a few moments about prayer.
Jeff Iorg:You know, when you're facing a really challenging time,
Jeff Iorg:you may find yourself getting down to a level of depth in prayer that is
Jeff Iorg:not normal on your day to day life, not normal in your
Jeff Iorg:day to day walk as a leader. What I mean by that is when I'm praying in the mornings,
Jeff Iorg:I typically pray and ask God to give me direction and guidance. And my prayer is, on a daily basis fairly routine and simple before the Lord.
Jeff Iorg:But there have been times, times when I have experienced a crushing weight of difficult decisions where I find myself literally laid out before the Lord,
Jeff Iorg:calling out to him in prayer. Several examples of this over the years, perhaps the most dramatic for me was when we were moving the seminary some years ago, and we came down to the ultimate decision point. It had to be it had to be decided, and a decision had to be made, and then a vote had to be taken. And all eyes were on me because I had to make the the decision of how to go forward and how to ask the board of trustees to go forward and how to ask the seminary to
Jeff Iorg:go forward. The night before I made those final decisions, I found myself on my knees and then down, laying flat on
Jeff Iorg:the ground just calling out to God in prayer, Calling out to
Jeff Iorg:him, experiencing him, drawing near to him, it was powerful.
Jeff Iorg:The next day in the board meeting where the decisions are going to
Jeff Iorg:be made, the board had the same kind of prayer experience.
Jeff Iorg:Down on our knees, calling out to God, him to intervene on our behalf, giving us wisdom to know what to do and how to
Jeff Iorg:do it. Hard prayer in difficult moments. Deep abiding, gut wrenching kind of praying. Prayer like that. Think about other circumstances over the years.
Jeff Iorg:I think back to a time when my daughter was very sick and she was in high school at
Jeff Iorg:the time and it was really a dark few months for us. I remember getting down one day and praying and praying so fervently that God would heal my daughter, deliver her from her illness, that I actually prayed, God, take it out of her and put it on me if that would be satisfactory. But whatever it takes to get her released, give it to us today. You know, when you're facing really hard situations
Jeff Iorg:that require really difficult decisions, that may have a
Jeff Iorg:lot of convoluted circumstances that come with them, God bless Johnny kind of praying is not
Jeff Iorg:gonna get the job done. Instead,
Jeff Iorg:you're gonna find yourself on your knees calling out to God, maybe even flat on your stomach with your face on the ground, just praying and calling out to God in the moment. When I read about prayer in first Peter and I hear him advising that we follow the example of Jesus by drawing on these two resources where he says, be serious and disciplined for prayer. I just think it's that kind of prayer that I'm describing where we find ourselves completely before God, open, distraught.
Jeff Iorg:Our our spirits just if you wanna
Jeff Iorg:say it this way, sort of torn open trying to connect with God. Now you say, well, isn't that more of
Jeff Iorg:an emotional experience or something like that? Well, there's some emotion attached to it,
Jeff Iorg:I'll say for sure. But I'm not describing an emotional moment. I'm describing something much deeper where you find in the depth of your soul something calling out to God for his help, his guidance, and his intervention.
Jeff Iorg:I think about Jesus praying in the garden before he went to the cross and the kind of praying he was doing there and how intimate and meaningful it was for him to connect with God in that moment. That's the kind of praying I'm talking about. And then Peter says, not only do we pray serious and disciplined prayer, but he goes on to say, a second resource we have when we're making these kind of difficult decisions is above all, says maintain an intense love for each other since love covers a multitude of sins. He talks about drawing strength from people who stand with us in love and who have a loving relationship with us such that it covers the multitude of sins in our lives. This reminder of the support of others is so vital when you're in this kind of situation.
Jeff Iorg:Yes. Peter mentioned the priority of prayer, but the second resource the second resource to doing what's right, making hard decisions, standing up in the moment is the opportunity to have people who will stand with you.
Jeff Iorg:Now, so many illustrations of this. When you're in a situation where it's coming down to the moment, many people will abandon you, some will second guess you, people will step away. But there are true friends, and in my case, and I hope you are some family members, who actually step in and step toward you when these kind
Jeff Iorg:of pressure packed situations seem overwhelming.
Jeff Iorg:A few years ago, when I became a seminary president, a friend wrote me this note. It said, when times get tough, call on Jesus, then call on me. I'll be there for you. Well, the phrasing of that note dislodged in my spirit. When you get in trouble, when times get tough, call on Jesus, then call on me.
Jeff Iorg:I'll be there for you. And I wanna tell you that he followed through on that note. In the entire time that I was president of Gateway Seminary, when the pressure would really be on, when the decisions were really heavy, when I was pressed with something that was really challenging, I would let this brother know that I
Jeff Iorg:was going through a difficult time, and he would go out of his way to stand with me, to pray for me, to encourage me, and to let me know of his love and support and devotion to the mission of God expressed through our school and what we wanted to
Jeff Iorg:do together. He was a true friend in the moment. I've had a similar experience recently in coming to the executive committee. When I was going through the decision about coming here, and I've talked to
Jeff Iorg:a few about that on the podcast before and how difficult that decision really was. When I was going through the decision to step away from retirement and step into the maelstrom that is the executive committee and the Southern Baptist Convention, I called a friend and I told him what what I was considering and what needed to what what I was struggling with and and the weightiness of the difficulty. He had some awareness of all of that because of his ongoing interest in the work we do together at Southern Baptist. But when I described it for him and told him what I was thinking about doing, he said with a kind of a laugh in his voice, Well, there goes our retirement vacation trips together that we were planning. I said, Yeah, they're gone.
Jeff Iorg:Then he said, All right, what do you need me to do? That moment just almost brings tears to my eyes just telling you the story on the podcast. Mean, was exactly how that conversation went down. I called my good friend and I said, Here's what I'm thinking and here's what I'm planning and here's what
Jeff Iorg:I believe I'm gonna have to decide to do. He said, Well,
Jeff Iorg:there goes our retirement trips that we had planned to take together. I said, Yeah, I know. But before I could get another word out, said, All right then. What do you need me to do? What do you need me to do?
Jeff Iorg:No whining, no lamenting, no carrying on, just, Okay, this is the decision. Okay, this is what it cost us. Okay. What do you need me to do? You know, had a similar experience when I called both my sons.
Jeff Iorg:Both of them are good good godly men that I look to and respect, and I called both of them in the context of thinking about making this hard decision about coming to the executive committee and working through all that went with that. And both of
Jeff Iorg:them said very similar things to me. Dad, we're with you. We're with you. The family is with you. We're with you.
Jeff Iorg:The people that love
Jeff Iorg:you and care for you are with you. And that gave me strength to go ahead and know that I could make the decision and live with the consequences and go through whatever needed to
Jeff Iorg:be gone through here in this role together. Look, Peter said, turn to the people who love you.
Jeff Iorg:He said, maintain this kind of intense love for each other. Maintain the relationship that's based on love that covers, as Peter wrote it, a multitude of sins. Maintain a relationship with the people that really deeply do care about you. Yeah. They know your sins and shortcomings, but they've made the decision.
Jeff Iorg:They love you. You know, every leader needs people in their lives that, that are like this. And I've given you some examples today of a friend at the seminary, friend that I've had over my lifetime, my sons who stepped up in a critical moment. I'm thinking about some others, people who, when the pressure was really on, knew of the decisions that I was trying to make, knew of the challenges I was trying to address, knew the difficulties that were coming my way. And they didn't step into my life and say, Oh, poor baby, or, Oh, I'm so sorry for you, or, Oh, this is not fair, or, oh, you you shouldn't have to be the leader.
Jeff Iorg:They didn't step in and say any of that. That's all nonsense. They know I'm a leader. They know I have responsibility. They know I
Jeff Iorg:have organizational responsibility. No. They step into my life and say, we're with you. We're with you. We know you have to lead, but we're with you because we love you and we stand with you, and we want you to know that.
Jeff Iorg:I will tell you, not only just in these personal ways, but even in organizational ways, this can make a huge difference. I I remember, again, back to the seminary when we were making the decision to actually move the seminary, how closely knit the vice presidents became because we knew we needed each other and we had to stand together to get through that. And even the board of trustees coming together in the same similar way, coming together and saying, we stand with the president. We stand with the leadership. We're making this decision together.
Jeff Iorg:We're gonna get through it together. Look, you have two primary resources to draw on when you're having to make hard decisions in difficult situations that may have painful consequences for others and even for you. Two primary resources. The first one is prayer. Heartfelt, earnest, gut wrenching, soul searching kind of prayer where
Jeff Iorg:you find yourself before God just crying out to him. And then
Jeff Iorg:secondarily, the love and support of people who care about you. The people who love you and really will stand with you. Whether it's your spouse, your children, a close lifelong friend, whether it's your deacons or your elders or your board or the people that work most closely around you on your team, the people that you know will stand with you. Those are the people who will sustain you as you make these difficult decisions. You know, with these two resources, prayer and a supportive network of people who love you, it is easier to make the right decisions no matter the consequences, but that does not mean that it's not still difficult to get it done.
Jeff Iorg:So let's talk as we come to the end of the podcast about why this is still true. One reason these decisions remain difficult even in the context of much prayer and support from others is that some of these decisions can look like failures in the short run. Things don't always go quickly well. For example, I know a pastor who stood up to racism in his church, and he lost his job. But years later, his moral conviction was celebrated by the church that when it repented and welcomed the members of other races.
Jeff Iorg:I know an executive who made an unpopular decision to change the funding priorities and the policies of his organization, and short term pain made many people squeal for relief. But when an economic downturn came that put many other ministries out of business, his organization weathered the storm without layoffs or cutbacks, and he went from being the goat to being the hero, praised by the same people who had griped about his austerity in better times. In another situation, a leader defended a key doctrinal position, and it cost him some followers and frankly some dollars. But in this particular school where this occurred, they ultimately recovered, but not without a struggle. But in all these cases that I've just mentioned, the right decision produced short term negative consequences, but ultimately,
Jeff Iorg:term net gain. Now the rest of
Jeff Iorg:the story in these situations is more positive, but the short version of the story was negative and difficult. So when you're faced with these kind of decisions, even in the context of prayer and a supportive community that are standing with you, they still are sometimes difficult because the immediate results may not be too favorable, and it takes courage to hang together for the long haul until the true and ultimate results are realized. Now another reason that some of this is challenging is that these decisions often do produce immediate pain. While we hope that there's ultimately going to be a resolution, we're never guaranteed that. Now you already know this, but the best story in the Bible about this is the one about Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the whole thing about the statue and worshiping it, and these three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they wouldn't do it.
Jeff Iorg:So you know what happened. They were gonna be thrown into a fiery furnace if they didn't bow down and worship this 90 foot tall gold statue of Nebuchadnezzar. He said, fellas, I'm gonna give you one more chance. Bow down and worship me. They refused.
Jeff Iorg:And then, of course, they said this these famous words. If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you've set up. In short, these men were determined to do the right thing no matter what. Not only the right thing if there were some short term negative consequences, but long term things worked out.
Jeff Iorg:But they were willing to do the right thing if there were short term negative consequences that turned into long term permanent disaster.
Jeff Iorg:They were determined to do the right thing, whether deliverance happened or not. Now part of
Jeff Iorg:your leadership legacy is making hard decisions in difficult situations with partial information that may not always have clear cut options and may not always lead to advantageous results. Your legacy is how you make those decisions. You have to have the courage to do the right thing, the right way, in the right time, no matter the immediate consequences, and in fact, without even an eye on the ultimate consequences because even if they're always bad, if you did the right thing, you made the right call. You know, Peter in the Bible who wrote these instructions upon which I'm basing some of this today, He modeled this practice that I've described today with some of his decisions. He helped decide the doctrine of salvation at the Jerusalem Council.
Jeff Iorg:Man, that must have been a tough and difficult decision. He accepted the vision of, the descending sheets a little later in the book of Acts as an indication that God was including the Gentiles, that brought him all kinds of chaos and difficulty in his life. He understood what it meant to make difficult decisions that brought about some controversy, but ultimately brought about good. Now you will have this same experience. You will make a series of decisions in your lifetime, some of which will be good ones, some not so good.
Jeff Iorg:You will make a series of decisions based on partial information, based on difficult or muddled circumstances. You'll make decisions unsure of the results or the consequences that may ensue, and you'll make decisions that can be painful for you and painful for others. And only really in hindsight looking back can you see the full impact or ramification of those decisions and what exactly really did happen. So today, I want to challenge you to have the courage to do the right thing the right way and believe that God will somehow work through all of this to advance his kingdom and use you in a healthy and productive way. Started out the podcast by saying that I've looked over my lifetime and I see some good decisions, I see some bad ones.
Jeff Iorg:But I look back over my lifetime also and I see that God through prayer and the faithful support of some key people has sustained me as the decision maker in these situations. I readily admit and you should too, you will not get all these decisions right, but you will get more of them right than you might imagine if you make principled decisions based on God's word and God's spirit leading and do the right thing, the right way, at the right time. By doing these things, you will make decisions that will honor God and be sustained through the short term challenges and even the long term difficulties of life. Leaders make decisions. We make controversial decisions.
Jeff Iorg:We make difficult decisions. We make decisions based misinformation and pieces of information and partial information. We have to do it. And when we do, we can draw in prayer and the support of people who love us to give us the strength to bear up and to make those decisions. And then when we do, we can trust that God will bring about what is ultimately good for his kingdom in the long run of these decision making responsibilities he's given us.
Jeff Iorg:Think about it today. Put it into practice as you lead on.