Lead On Podcast

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses the challenges of living in the ministry spotlight. He offers practical advice on managing the public scrutiny that comes with leadership, including accepting the reality of public life, resisting the urge to please everyone, finding security in Christ, and sticking to your convictions.

Creators & Guests

Host
Jeff Iorg
President, SBC Executive Committee

What is Lead On Podcast?

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.

Put these principles into practice and Lead On!

Jeff Iorg:

Welcome to the Lead On podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. We are continuing our conversation about some of the challenges of the the day to day work of ministry leaders. When I was a child, one of my favorite games was called Spotlight. It was hide and go seek with flashlights.

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On a warm summer night, we would get together the kids in our neighborhood, everybody with a flashlight, and you'd run around and try to tag each other with the beams of the flashlight. And we had all kinds of variations of this game. We had bases, safety zones, flags to capture, and whatever else we could think of to, enhance the game of hide and go seek slash with flashlights called spotlight. Well, if spotlights were always that much fun.

Jeff Iorg:

Today, I wanna talk about living in the spotlight, what it means for a leader to live his or her life out in public. You know, leaders live out loud. We live where we are noticed, and part of learning to lead is accepting that leadership is a public responsibility and a very much public role.

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You know, from a distance, novices see the spotlight and think, man, that looks so inviting. Then you get in the spotlight, and you realize the glare is often painful to experience. You know, as a ministry leader, I was in my earlier years, I was surprised at how much my personal life was considered public information. For example, if I bought a car, all kinds of commentary would be offered about the kind of car, the cost of the car, the color of the car. If I changed what I wore or got my hair cut differently, multiple comments about that.

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If I announced that we were going on vacation, when are

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you leaving? When are you coming back? Are you flying? Are you driving? Are you seeing family?

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How long will you be gone? And if you try to slip away without telling anyone, the rumor mill goes crazy that you're now looking for another job somewhere, or there's some problem, or you get the idea. And then, on a much more serious note, if you're a parent, it's amazing how many people are watching what you're doing and commenting on it. If you get an

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illness, everyone wants to know your diagnosis,

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and they wanna tell you how their uncle or their grandmother or their friend had the same problem. They wanna tell you what to do about it. They wanna give you a vitamin or a a an oil or a pill or something. You get the

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idea. And then sometimes, this public life can

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be difficult because the things you're going through are really so personal that you just really wish you could do them by yourself. Grieving the loss of a loved one is often even more difficult because it's done in public. You know, we're not different than our followers. We we experience profound loss. We have aging parents, lifelong friends, other family members who pass away, and this kind of grief inducing loss is painful enough, and having to go through it in front of everybody is even more challenging.

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And then, of course, besides all these personal things, there's the job itself. You've taken on a leadership responsibility, and you are definitely doing it in public. Everybody's watching. And in some cases, especially if you're a person that's a pastor or a ministry leader that's standing up in front of people in a worship service or in a Sunday school class or in a youth department, or if you're leading a department at a in at your office or in your work, If you're anywhere where you're up in front of people, you are literally in front in public, always the one that everyone's looking at. So today, what I wanna talk about is how to learn to manage the spotlight more effectively.

Jeff Iorg:

How do you carry on your life of leadership in the glare of public acknowledgement, or public notice, or public opinion? How do you

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do that more effectively? Let's start with this one. Accept the reality of what is is. You may

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say, well, I don't like it this way. I don't think everything should be everybody else's business. I don't think anyone should be able to comment on my clothes or my car or my vacation. I don't think anyone should be able to evaluate my parenting. Well, get over it.

Jeff Iorg:

That's all I

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can tell you. You gotta you'll have to accept what is, and that is the spotlight is bright, it's shining on you, and everybody's noticing everything you do. You just gotta get over it. Yeah.

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It may be inappropriate what some people say, and you may feel in, your privacy invaded, and you may feel like you're exposed in some ways. I I know. I know. But you've chosen to step into the spotlight, and you have

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to get used to the glare. That means you have

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to stop whining about how bright it is and how unfair it

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is and just accept the reality of what you're facing. Failing to do that, by

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the way, reveals your immaturity and your inexperience as a leader. I remember the first time that I ever stepped onto a stage that was lighted for television.

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It was unnerving. Now I've been on stages before.

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In fact, I spoke to my to a thousand people I spoke to more than a thousand people the first time when

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I was 12 years old. So walking out on

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a stage, that's not new to me, but I walked out on this particular stage, and it was lit for television, and I had never experienced anything quite like it. It was disconcerting. I was blinded by the light. The glare was so intense. All I could see were shadows.

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Now as a speaker, you know, I've been trained to make eye contact, to carry on an interactive dialogical type presentation with people so that there's an interactivity between me and my audience. None of that was happening that day. I couldn't even see the crowd, and, frankly, it it was really troublesome. I I didn't really know what to do. I had to make a pretty quick decision.

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Am I going to ask the lighting to be adjusted and the stage to be altered? Not gonna happen.

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Or do I have to learn quickly how to adapt to this situation? Well, obviously,

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I had to make the second choice. So what I would say to you is this, you may not have expected this much scrutiny or expected your family to be subjected to it as well, You just have to accept this reality. The lights are on, and nobody's gonna turn them down. Leadership is a public responsibility, and being a leader means people are are interested in your life, not just your professional life, but your personal life as well. And, yes, I've taught another podcast that you have to set boundaries and hold those boundaries, and I believe that.

Jeff Iorg:

That doesn't always mean everyone's gonna respect those boundaries. Your followers will not always see those boundaries as clearly as you would like, so you have to accept the reality that you now live on a stage in public with many interested spectators, and rather than gripe about it, complain about it, whine about it, or argue about it, spend your time learning some essential skills to thrive in this environment so that you're not wasting energy on futile efforts, but instead, you're learning to lead in public

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in the spotlight with your words and

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your ideas and your vision, recognizing that all of that has to be communicated in a very public way. I'd say it this way. The spotlight doesn't come with the territory. It is the territory of leadership today. So the first step to learning to manage the spotlight of leadership is to accept the reality of what

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is and to get comfortable in that context. The second thing I would say is this, when you're in the spotlight, don't play to the crowd.

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There's a temptation, since now you have

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a big audience, play to

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the crowd. You want to please people, minimize the negative impressions, maximize the positive views.

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You want your audience to like you, and you want to do everything you can to gain their favor. However, you give into that temptation,

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it will have devastating long range consequences. You cannot function in public with the ultimate goal of pleasing people. Now let me balance that by saying you can't be cavalier and say, I don't care at all what people think. Well, of course

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you do, but you can't let what people think about you determine how you behave, how you act, how you lead in the spotlight. You have to resist what I call the doctrine of the crowd. Now, the doctrine of

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the crowd can be summarized this way. Crowds are fickle, they can't be trusted, and they often believe the last voice they hear. Now, you won't find the doctrine of the crowd in any technical theology books, but I think I found it in the book of Acts in chapter 14. The missionary team had had had a rough time in a place called Iconium, and then they moved on down the road to Lystra. Now, while they were in Iconia,

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the, the the work was fruitful, but, ultimately, Jews and Gentiles, everyone, unified in opposing them. Now, Paul and Barnabas, that was

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the missionary team. They actually learned of a plot to stone them, so they took off Delistra, and it ministry there was remarkable. It opened up with a with a healing, and Paul gave a command, and a person jumped up and started walking around. It was a it was a dramatic example. Now, the Bible then tells us that when this happened, here was the result.

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When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lyconian language, the gods have come down to us in the form of men. There's the doctrine of the crowd right there.

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You're not you're not men. You're gods. Wow.

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And they started to call Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul Hermes because he was the main speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the town, brought oxen and garlands to the gates. He, with the crowds, intended to offer sacrifice. They might have thought, now that's more like it. We're gods, and we should receive accolades for our miracles and the truth that we're

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preaching. Well, who wouldn't prefer that kind of reception?

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I mean, they were stoned in

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the last place. Now, they're being told they're gods. Be honest. Wouldn't you like that just once?

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Wouldn't you like just once for your followers to erupt in riotous, tumultuous applause, celebrating your spiritual power and wisdom? Wouldn't it just be great if just once they brought oxen and garlands to sacrifice them to you? Well, that might be a bit much. But what if they just offered you a bonus check or

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or a little gift or maybe a weekend away? Wouldn't that be a welcome expression of support? Hey. We're human. We

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have something deep inside

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of us which longs for the approval of others. We want the crowd to like us. We want our followers to appreciate us.

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Hey. I'll admit it. I like to be liked. Don't you?

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But Paul and Barnabas model for us something important. They had the spiritual sense and the personal discipline

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to resist the accolades of the crowd. The Bible says they tore their robes. Now commentators say that probably means a couple of things. First, tearing the garment was a first century symbol of grief, the tearing of the heart, so to speak, the tearing of the garment, but it also may have been them tearing their garments to show that they had human bodies and because they then shouted, we are men also. So tearing the robes

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was a symbolic gesture and a physical gesture saying, stop worshiping us. And then the Bible says with significant effort, they barely stopped the crowds from sacrificing to them. This

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is a great picture of the doctrine of the crowd. They came to

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town. They did a miracle. They were worshiped as gods. But then what happens next? Well, within a few days, some Jews, it says in the bible, from Iconium and and Antioch came, and when

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they had won over the crowds and stoned Paul, they dragged him out of the city thinking he was dead. You can read all of this in Acts chapter 14. Notice this. The same crowds that had worshiped Paul and Barnabas were now whipped into a destructive frenzy. They stoned Paul, dragged him out

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of the city, and left him for dead. This

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is the completion

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of the doctrine of the crowd, fickle people easily influenced to impulsive action. Paul had been praised for his preaching, given accolades for his miracles. He had been celebrated as a god, and then a few days later, same crowd, same crowd, attacked him, stoned him, dragged him out of the city, left him for dead. Listen, when you lead in public, be careful

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not to trust the opinion of the crowd,

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good or bad, positive or negative, and you cannot allow gaining favor from the crowd to control your behavior. Now, your followers will voice their opinions about everything from your wardrobe to your parenting style to your car to your vacation choices. It's easy to be influenced by what they say. It's easy to be overly discouraged by critics. It's also easy to be made overly confident by your supporters.

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Either way, you're giving in to the crowd. So now listen, resist the temptation to go along with the crowd and their opinion of you.

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You've gotta look somewhere else

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for your approval, somewhere else for your security,

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and you know where I'm going. The third thing I want to challenge you to do to live in the spotlight is to develop security as a leader in Jesus Christ, to recognize that he is with you and that he is the audience of one whose approval you really long to receive. Finding security in Jesus Christ is a foundational requirement for leading in the spotlight. Without it, you'll find yourself whipped around by the emotional frenzy of people who either praise you or criticize you. You'll find yourself emotionally whiplashed by trying to respond to all the different people who say things to you or about you.

Jeff Iorg:

You'll find yourself rocketing between anger and resentment, between gratitude and and appreciation, and somewhere in all of that, you'll lose yourself as a leader if you don't find your security in Jesus Christ. You know, I learned many years ago that the security of the believer is more than, quote, once saved, always saved. In the context where I grew up, that was how security the believer was described. It means you're once saved, always saved.

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But then one day, a pastor in

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a quieter moment said, well, Jeff, that's true, but

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it means a lot more than that. And then he said this important sentence. He said, Jeff, remember, the security of the believer means that you are as secure in Jesus Christ today as you ever will be in eternity.

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Man, that settled down in my soul, and I realized that right now, today, I'm secure in Jesus Christ. He has me.

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I belong to him. Nothing can separate me from him. He's protecting me. I'm secure in Jesus. Man, that feels good, doesn't it?

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And because of that security,

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I am able to lead without pandering to or feeling that the need for the approval

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of the crowd. So the antidote to the doctrine of the crowd is the security of the believer,

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the security you have in Jesus Christ. If you wanna really make a good study of this, John chapter 10 starting in verse 27, 20 eight, 20 nine, that area is a great place to do it. This is the passage, of course, that says that Jesus has us in his hands, and God has, everything in the father's hands. And that simple imagery is so comforting to me because I imagine myself as being covered by both the hands of Jesus clasped around me, and then outside those hands are the hands of God clasped around him. Now I know we're speaking, in ways that are just illustrative.

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God, I know, doesn't have big hands that he's holding on to me, but, man, it sure feels good to think about it that way, doesn't it? To know that he has me in his hands, that he has me captured and held, and nothing

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nothing can get to me there. You know, when when you have this kind of security, it it gives you a a a

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sense of peace and acceptance, a sense of rest because you know that you found a a your security in a in a relationship with the one and only person who will never leave you, never forsake you, never praise you, nor detract from you in ways that are harmful to you. No. You found security in the best relationship. Man, that feels good, doesn't it? And when you found that security, it gives you a great freedom to obey God and not listen to the crowd.

Jeff Iorg:

You know, in that John chapter 10 passage, it says, as Jesus was teaching about security, he said his followers, quote, listen to his voice and, quote, follow him. Jesus recognized this important reality, and that is people are often controlled by false sources of security. In other words, security is such a strong need. It's such a a compelling drive. It's such a powerful thirst.

Jeff Iorg:

It it's so strong in our lives, this need for security, that whatever or whoever satisfies that need will be obeyed. Now you think about that for a minute. If the crowd

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is what gives you a sense of security, you will obey the crowd. You'll follow the crowd. You'll pander to the crowd.

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But if deep down in your soul you have found your security in Jesus Christ, you will listen to him

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and you will obey him.

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Your relationship with Jesus, in that relationship, you will satisfy this thirst you have for security. You know, when Jesus said that he would give us living water, he was speaking about satisfying or quenching some deep thirst in our lives, and this may not be the only thing that he was speaking of, but I think it's one of the things, and that is Jesus satisfies this drive that every one of us has deep within us to find security in someone, and we find it in him. He quenches the thirst we have for security. Listen, if your followers' approval makes you feel secure, you'll fit you'll you'll please them at all costs. If accomplishments make you feel secure, you'll be driven to get things done.

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If it's physical pleasure that gives you, however fleeting, a sense of security, you'll pursue those passions. You will obey the compelling urge that feeds your need for security.

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So I wanna underscore this. Every one of us has a deep seated need for security.

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If you solve it by a relationship with Jesus Christ, you will hear him, you will follow him, you will obey him. But if your security is satisfied by any of these other sources, be it another person, be it accomplishment, be it pleasure, whatever it is, you will find yourself going back there

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repeatedly to get this security thirst quenched in your life.

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So this is why it's so important that you come to find security in Jesus Christ and be settled in that as a part of leading in the spotlight. You know, changing a core belief like your source of security, it really happens at both a point in time and as a process over time. It happens in the point in time when you receive Jesus as your savior and lord and recognize him as the only one who can satisfy, but then it becomes a process over time experience as you practice the spiritual discipline of confronting wrong thinking and destructive behavior and bad habits all built on your foundations of false security and coming back continually to find security in Jesus. You know, I still battle with this today. There are days when the crowds get my attention, when anxiety rises up inside me, when I feel like I just don't know what to do, and I feel, an urgent need to to try to please people, to to to try to satisfy others, to satisfy the critics.

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And it's in those moments I find myself on my knees and saying prayers like this, lord, remind me that you are the only person I have to please. Remind me that you're the only person who can give me real security. You remind me and show me again in your word that you're the only one who can keep me safe and preserve me from all threat. I have to go back and confront those things all over again in prayer and recenter myself on my security in Jesus Christ as I step back into the spotlight of leadership.

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So, how do you live in the spotlight? Well, first, you have to accept the reality of what it is. Second, don't play to

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the crowd. Understand the doctrine of the crowd and resist that temptation. And third, satisfy your deepest needs by security in Jesus so that all that stuff going on in the

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spotlight doesn't really touch you

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at the core of who you are or try to even falsely satisfy something deep inside.

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And then finally, you have to stick to your convictions in key areas. I'll just talk about a couple of them here today. First of all, let's talk about money. You're going to have to

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make some decisions about how you're going to live as a ministry leader and what that looks like. You have to decide how you're gonna spend your money and how you're gonna disciple it wisely and how you're gonna maintain in public what that means. No one will ever do this perfectly, and people will never all be satisfied with what you've done, But you have to make some choices about that. Some choices about how you're gonna dress and the house you're gonna live in, the car you're gonna drive, the vacations you're gonna take, the way you're gonna have the activities your children are gonna be involved in. You're gonna have to make decisions.

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You say, well, I don't have enough money to do all that. Well, you have some money to make some choices, and whatever their choices you make, people are gonna be watching, and you have to decide. This is what this is what we're gonna do convictionally, and we're just not gonna let other people's opinion sway us off the convictions that we've come to. And this can be this can be really confusing and difficult, I know. A few years ago, I owned a Ford Taurus, and I had to take it into the dealer to get some work done on it.

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And I thought, man, I'd like to trade that in and get a different car. So I walked outside and was looking around at the new ones, and there was a brand new this was back in the day. There was a brand new, retro Ford Thunderbird that had come out. I love that car. It was so beautiful.

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The one they had on the lot was painted this really beautiful shade of a light kind of a mint green. It was beautiful. And I looked at the price on it, and it was, like, you know, 30 something thousand dollars at the time, and I thought, man, that's something, but people think I'd lost my mind if I bought that. And then I walked around the lot, and there was a big SUV and and, like an Explorer. And this is in the Northwest, of course, where I was living at the time, and this thing was, like, almost $50,000.

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It was way more than the Thunderbird. But I thought, you know, if I bought this, people would say, now that's a great vehicle for Jeff to have, man. That's a great vehicle for the Northwest and great vehicle for him to be running around out here doing his work. Nobody would have cared because almost everybody in the whole Northwest had an SUV. But I thought, as I stood in that parking lot, this is a good example of what ministry leaders face all the time.

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If I bought that sports car, even though it's $15,000 less, people think I lost my mind, and I'd get all kind of criticism. I bought this SUV, even though it costs more, people would look at me and say, wow, that makes perfect sense. That's the kind of car everybody drives in the Northwest. All I'm trying to say to you is I couldn't make that decision based only on what people are gonna think of me. I had to take a step back and say, lord, what am I trying

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to accomplish here? I'm just trying

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to get good transportation, and I've got good transportation. It's in there getting worked on right now. And, Lord, I'm not trying to make a statement, nor am I trying to prove a point, nor am I trying to have a midlife crisis right here in this parking lot.

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So, Lord, I think I'll just get the one fixed I brought in and take it home today. Because I

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had to rethink what I was really there trying to accomplish, and what I was really trying to do was get good transportation for my family and for my job, not anything else beyond that. But that's the kind of internal turmoil that goes on with all of us as we think about money and making decisions that people see in public. And then I'll just finish with this. You're a parent. You also have to make some parenting choices, and you have to stand by those.

Jeff Iorg:

You know, my wife and I made some decisions about how we're gonna raise our children and what we're trying to accomplish by them, and we stuck by those things. And there were people that criticized us along the way, but we were we were confident we were making the right decisions because we knew our children the best. We knew their situation. We knew what we were trying to accomplish. We knew the long term goal that was

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in view. So we made those decisions, and we stayed by it. And I am really grateful that while

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we didn't get it perfect, we very rarely made a parenting decision based on anybody else's opinion outside our own family. My wife and I working together with a particular child involved of how we thought we needed to do what was best in the moment to get that done. So, on areas like money, parenting, other things like marriage, or other kinds of issues, you just have to make decisions and know what's best and what you believe is right, and then stick to those decisions no matter how bright the spotlight is around. Well, today we've talked about living in the spotlight. It's the reality of leadership.

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You have to accept the reality. It is what it is. You gotta make a decision that you're not going to play to the crowd. Understand the doctrine of the crowd and don't fall prey to it. Then, find your security in Jesus.

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And the brighter the light gets, the more you have to find your relationship with Him is what really satisfies. And then finally, living in the spotlight means you got to make some convictional decisions about things like money, parenting, marriage, and other major issues in your life. Come to your convictions, settle on those, and then no matter what anybody else says says about them or how bright the criticism might be, stick to what you believe is right and continue to do that, especially on these personal issues related to your family. Living in the spotlight is part of the responsibility we have as we lead on.